News – Page 386 – MMO Fallout

Daybreak Reneges On Free To Play, Splits H1Z1 In Half

Free to play your way is going away as Daybreak Game Company announced today that the zombie game will be split into two separate titles, with both requiring a down payment in order to get into. Since its announcement, Daybreak has billed the title as early access with an eventual launch into free to play, as shown by the following description on the game’s Steam page.

“Initially available as a Steam Early Access title with optional in-game RMT marketplace purchases, H1Z1 will later launch as a Free to Play. Your Way™ title with optional in-game RMT marketplace purchases.”

According to a blog post on the official website, the decision comes down to both games getting to the point where they would require their own dedicated development teams in order to progress efficiently. The two versions effectively split the battle royale and survival modes into their own separate clients with separate teams and separate characters. H1Z1: King of the Hill will launch on PC, Xbox One, and Playstation 4 later this summer with a console version of H1Z1: Just Survive coming down the road.

The more we developed this game with you, our community, the more we realized that in order to fully support both aspects of H1Z1, and their respective players, we needed to make them their own stand-alone games supported by their own dedicated development teams.

Anyone who has already purchased H1Z1, or purchases it before February 17th, will be granted both copies. For everyone else, the game will cost $19.99 each.

(Source: H1Z1)

Lineage Eternal Hits Beta This Year, Probably

NCSoft Korea is planning on launching Lineage Eternal’s closed beta test in April, at least that’s what the current plans are. The news comes to us from Steparu, reporting on another source from Korean website GameFocus. Steparu reminds viewers that this anticipated closed beta date comes after multiple other scheduled, and subsequently missed, beta dates for the upcoming MMO over the past year or so.

Lineage Eternal was originally announced in 2011 with an accompanying quarter hour of gameplay footage. The game has seen numerous delays, with beta schedules going as far back as 2013 for Korean audiences, and it is currently unknown when NCSoft plans on launching the title.

(Source: Steparu)

Mac Gamers Are Seeing More Titles Cancelled

Perfect World Entertainment has joined a list of companies that are pulling out of the Mac gaming scene, with the announcement that Star Trek Online’s Mac client is being discontinued. The client has had numerous issues in the past, and while many of those problems have been fixed, the ongoing support requirements have ultimately lead to the decision to pull support altogether.

Following these issues, we looked at our Mac support overall and determined that we cannot promise to deliver an experience on Mac that meets our expectations of quality. After heavy consideration, we have decided to end support for the Mac version of Star Trek Online on February 5th. No other version of Star Trek Online is impacted.

In order to reimburse players, any purchases made from October 1st onward (including lifetime subscriptions) will be refunded. Perfect World Entertainment isn’t the only company to drop support on Mac. Recently Warner Bros. announced that the Mac and Linux version of Batman: Arkham Knight would be cancelled entirely. Last November, Blizzard announced that it would break trend and not publish Overwatch on Mac. Last June, Square Enix released Final Fantasy XIV’s Mac client and quickly pulled it from sale due to major technical problems.

(Source: Star Trek Online)

RuneMetrics: What You Need To Know

Last month marked the announcement of RuneMetrics, an upcoming stat-tracking tool for RuneScape developed by Jagex. At the time, all we knew is that the tracker would allow players to see certain statistics like experience per hour and logged drops, and that there would be a free and a paid version.

There’s advanced XP tracking including an ETA to your next level up. There is also an amazing drop log that tracks everything you’ve gained through combat, as well as damage calculators giving you your total damage EVER and your average damage per minute, and plenty more on top!

In a developer Q&A posted today, the team answered a number of questions regarding how RuneMetrics will work and why it costs money. You can find the entire 20 minute video below but for brevity we have posted the highlights below.

Check out below for the full Q&A as well as some screenshots from the livestream.

There is an in-game tracker and a website tracker.
The in-game tracker follows xp per hour, time to next level, exp gained.
Real time graphs follow the past few minutes.
The web application goes further back in time and will replace the Adventurer’s Log.
Everything that is available in the Adventurer’s log will be free in RuneMetrics.
Everything is tracked and can be viewed (kills, drops, worlds changed, deaths, etc).
The feature will not “cheat” for you (ie: clue scroll answers, farming patch status, etc).
The free version covers counting based functions while RuneMetrics Pro (paid) will be required for calculation-based functions.
RuneMetrics requires a subscription due to the immense storage and maintenance costs.
There are no plans for a permanent buy.
If your subscription lapses, after a while the data will be deleted.
Premiere Club members get two weeks free plus half off on the cost.

The web portion will look similar to how it is below. The top portion is available for free with the bottom half requiring a monthly subscription.

DUST 514 Will Shut Down In May

CCP Games has announced that their console shooter DUST 514 will be shutting down later this year. Initially launched on the Playstation 3 in 2013, DUST never really caught on with either the Eve Online community or the console community. The idea was pretty unique, players in DUST would form corporations that would fight over territory control on planets in the Eve universe, contracted by players in the MMO. Unfortunately the game failed to catch on with shooter fans, who had numerous other well-established console shooters, and Eve players who heavily criticized the game only being available on consoles.

We are very proud of what we’ve learned and accomplished with DUST 514 on PlayStation 3 over the past three years and it is an honor to be a part of such a dedicated community. We consider DUST 514 one of the best free-to-play offerings on the platform, but the years have caught up with us. It is with a heavy heart that we inform you that DUST 514 will be shutting down on May 30th, 2016.

The forum post announcing the sunsetting also mentions a new PC shooter set in the Eve universe, to be given more detail at Eve Fanfest in April. The most loyal DUST players can expect some sort of recognition when this game comes around.

(Source: DUST 514)

Neverwinter AMA Answers

Neverwinter’s latest Reddit AMA was last night, and for the sake of brevity we have compiled a list of the more important/informational answers. For those of you willing to dive deep and read the full answers, you can check out the complete Reddit thread here. The overall AMA is pretty short and easily finished in under a half hour, but these are the questions that were not answered with a flat out “no,” or “I’ll make a note and send this off to the team.”

Kobolds may become a playable race in the future.
No DDOS comments for the time being.
Addressing class balance on a wide scale is one of the big plans for this year.
Changes to the Stronghold system with regards to how large/small guilds interact.
There are plans to make Neverwinter more alt-friendly.
Siege won’t return until some changes are made to it.
Older content is getting an itemization refresh with The Maze Engine.
No plans for foundry additions this year outside of bug fixes.
Mounts will be customizable with a stable of sorts providing buffs for players with multiple mounts.
Mounts will be moved to their own bag.
Queue improvements include large groups (24 players, for example) and private queues for PvE.

Join Neverwinter’s Reddit AMA Today

With The Maze Engine on the horizon, Perfect World Entertainment will be holding an Ask Me Anything event on Reddit. Users are already asking questions and the answering session is supposed to begin at approximately 7:30pm Pacific, or about 45 minutes after this post gets published. You can join in and ask your own questions, all you need is a Reddit account and an inquisitive mind.

MMO Fallout will be publishing the more interesting questions tomorrow.

(Source: Reddit)

PWE Announces Next Neverwinter Module, The Maze Engine

Perfect World Entertainment has announced The Maze Engine, the next big update for Neverwinter, will be hitting home computers this Spring with Xbox to follow. The Maze Engine is set to introduce a number of much anticipated updates, including the long awaited return of dungeons. Four fan favorites are set to return with new graphics, a new design, with Castle Never returning as a high level dungeon.

Also available for level 60 players is a new single player campaign set after the events of Underdark.

Neverwinter: The Maze Engine continues the story of demons escaping from the Abyss that was started in Neverwinter: Underdark. I don’t want to give anything away just yet, so be sure to look for an upcoming blog where we’ll go over the story-thus-far, and give you a peak into what you can look forward to as overwhelming madness permeates the… /sigh right… no spoiling. I’ll just say for now that a lot of your favorite characters are making return appearances and ready for adventure!

The announcement details upcoming blogs covering a new mount system, queue improvements, famous faces, and more.

(Source: Neverwinter)

Funcom Earnings Slow Over Last Year

Funcom’s final quarterly report of 2015 has released, and the results are not so pretty. Revenues dropped to $2.5 million from $2.9 million over the same period last year, due to Funcom’s major sources of revenue (their MMOs) declining with age. In addition to a loss in equity and earnings, the total cash position of Funcom dropped from $1.1 million in the third quarter to 616 thousand in the fourth. The company’s cash flow for 2016 and beyond is set to be secured via sale of stocks as well as a convertible bond.

On the games front, Funcom’s primary revenue drivers continue to be Age of Conan, Anarchy Online, and The Secret World. The Park met all non-revenue related goals while selling in line with internal expectations. For those who have forgotten, in a previous financial report Funcom did not expect The Park to generate any significant source of revenue. For the first quarter, Funcom expects to launch The Park on Xbox One and Playstation 4, increasing revenues as well as expanding the company into the console market.

And while Funcom’s revenue did increase over the third quarter, this kind of result is to be expected. I’ve brought this up in previous articles but fourth quarter earnings being higher than third quarter are normal, due to the holidays and in this case a new game release. The fourth quarter is normally followed by a drop in sales in the first, which means that any growth is out of the ordinary and therefore better than expected.

As mentioned in previous releases, Funcom’s strategy going forward is to work on small budget, experimental projects working existing IPs into new technologies and platforms. The fruits of this labor will hopefully bear, at minimum, one small game per year and one larger title in development at all times. The Park is the first small game to be released under this plan with Conan: Exiles the first large title.

(Source: Funcom)

[Not Massive] Ant Simulator Funds Blown On Strippers And Booze

Backers of the Ant Simulator crowdfunding campaign have every right to be furious today, as we learned that the game has been cancelled due to a lack of funds. While it isn’t uncommon for such games to run out of funding during development, the outward explanation and reason for why the developer has no money is probably the first of its kind, and you might want to take down the names just in case they pop up in future business ventures.

The explanation comes from founder Eric Tereshinski, who resigned from the company over the alleged antics of his coworkers. Tereshinski alleges in his video that his ex-business partners secretly stole funds from the company and used that money on booze, restaurants, and strippers. The names of the two gentlemen are Tyler Monce and Devon Staley. Tereshinski has resigned from the company and will no longer be working on Ant Simulator, due to contractual restrictions preventing him from working on the game or anything like it outside of the company. According to Tereshinski, his business partners have threatened to sue him if he works on Ant Simulator elsewhere.

While Tereshinski cannot sue due to contract agreements, there is a possibility of charges being brought by the Federal Trade Commission, should backers submit complaints. The FTC as well as state Attorney Generals have begun prosecuting crowdfunding campaigns over misappropriated funds.

(Source: Softpedia)

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