News – Page 394 – MMO Fallout

Guild Wars 2 Is Now Free To Play

With Heart of Thorns right around the corner, Arenanet has announced a major change in the Guild Wars 2 business model. Starting yesterday (the 29th), anyone can now access the core game for no down payment. In the announcement, Arenanet discusses the move being partially in response to other games where the heavy list of expansions made getting into the game as a new player confusing.

We’ve seen examples in the industry where that kind of thing has gotten out of control. It doesn’t seem right, and we want to do better. As we get ready to ship our first expansion forGuild Wars 2, we want to ensure that we keep the business model friendly and simple. So let’s be clear that when we say Guild Wars 2 is buy-to-play, we’re only asking you to buy one thing: the current release, Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns.

What does “access the core game” mean? Well in this context, free players are limited in character and bag slots, cannot use map chat, and can only buy/sell common goods on the market. They also cannot mail items/gold, trade gold for gems, or access guild vaults. Free accounts are also limited from leaving the starting zone until level 10, from using the LFG tool until 30, and to level 60 until they can compete in world v world, to prevent players from disrupting the game.

Arenanet also promises that this change will not usher in heavy microtransaction marketing.

(Source: Guild Wars 2)

Funcom Q2 Release Points Toward “Experimental” Games

Funcom has released their second quarter earnings for 2015 and it doesn’t take a genius to know that the results are not good, because the geniuses have already been telling us for the past month. Revenues at the company are down, from $3.19 million over the same period last year to $2.65 million this quarter. While we knew that Lego Minifigures Online was not a financial success, Funcom notes in its report that the company was forced to write off $2.9 million in the second quarter on “impairment charges,” a fancier term for worthless assets.

In response to its dwindling sales, equity, and cash in the bank, Funcom has announced a new development strategy focused on developing small, experimental, low risk titles that can be released at a rate of at least one per year with one larger game in production at all times. The new plan also includes upgrading the Dreamworld engine to integrate it with third parties (licensing), as well as making further use of in-house properties.

The first product of this new experiment is “The Park,” an experimental single player game set in the horror theme park from The Secret World and set for release in October. Check out the trailer below.

(Source: Funcom)

Derek Smart Enlists Law Firm, Threatens Lawsuit

If you haven’t been keeping up with the kerfuffle between Derek Smart and Chris Roberts, it goes as follows: Derek Smart has been a very vocal critic of Star Citizen and Chris Roberts, over the fact that the game’s funding has grown to a massive level and over Smart’s belief that the growing scope of the game cannot be realized and will not be released. Cloud Imperium Games responded to Smart’s blog posts by unilaterally refunding his Kickstarter pledge and banning his game account, despite Smart not actually posting his criticism on the Star Citizen website. CIG then accused Smart of using Star Citizen to promote his own game, Line of Defense.

Since then, Derek Smart has been amassing what appears to be a small encyclopedia of evidence against Cloud Imperium Gaming, building up to what may become a class action lawsuit on behalf of backers regretting their purchase who are unable to get a refund through the official channels. This, presumably, in addition to a defamation lawsuit hinted at by Smart regarding public statements made by CIG against Smart when refunding his pledge.

Smart is encouraging people to get in contact not just with the Federal Trade Commission over unrefunded pledges, but to contact him as well. You can read the entirety of Derek Smart’s latest blog post here, but be warned: It’s massive and contains a lot of reference links. Clear out some time in your schedule before you sit down for a look.

(Source: Dereksmart.org)

Star Vault’s Q2 Report: Sales Down, Profit Up

Star Vault has released their financial results for the second quarter of 2015 and the news isn’t all bad.

Net sales for the quarter dropped ten thousand dollars over last quarter, from sixty eight thousand down to fifty eight thousand. While net profit is still in the red, it has been steadily climbing for the past five quarters straight. In the second quarter, net profit increased from a loss of sixty one thousand to a loss of forty one thousand.

While profits increased and sales decreased, the report notes that the number of subscribers remains unchanged for the second quarter. In his note, CEO Henrik Nystrom expects Mortal Online to launch on Steam this month.

In order to be as ready as possible for the Steam launch, we built another starting position players – a queuing system. This and the start position is now completed. Moreover, we want to use Steam Achievements, which is different gaming sites where players can receive an award by doing different things in the game. In this way, players can show what they managed to achieve, which is also visible to other players on Steam. It’s a great way for others to see what you can do in Mortal Online, as well as the players can see that you play Mortal Online on Steam. We estimate that we will have these elements in place and to launch Mortal Online on Steam in August 2015. We have now compiled Steam Achievements, and the final polish on the level of detail.

(Source: Aktie Torget)

John Smedley Has Left Daybreak Game Company

John Smedley has fully resigned from Daybreak Game Company to pursue other interests. Announced via Facebook, Smedley has left the former Sony Online Entertainment studio and is currently working at an unnamed company. When contacted by Game Informer, Smedley stated that he had no more information to give at this time.

Last month, Smedley resigned from his post as President of Daybreak Game Company following a heated argument with several members of hacker group Lizard Squad. The argument and threats by Smedley to go after the parents of one of the Lizard Squad members, allegedly, resulted in a sustained denial of service attack against Daybreak’s game servers. Services remained unstable for a week or so after.

We will no doubt have more information in the weeks to come.

(Source: Game Informer)

Dark Age of Camelot Hits Cheaters With One Day Bans

Broadsword Online Games has handed out one day suspensions to hundreds of accounts found using a radar cheat in Dark Age of Camelot. The suspensions come with a warning that further infractions will result in longer punishments as well as permanent removal from the game.

Today we have issued 1-day suspensions to several hundred accounts found to be using radar. Going forward, any accounts confirmed as violating the Rules of Conduct in this way will be subject to long-term suspension and permanent account termination. All accounts actioned today have been sent an email to the address on file.

(Source: Dark Age of Camelot)

Marvel Heroes: Stock Up On Cheap Crafting Tabs

The Marvel Heroes Mystic Mayhem event has arrived, ushering in the new Infernal Limbo zone not to mention tons of possibilities for loot. Head into Limbo and get your hands on eternity splinters, legendary scrolls, hero tokens, and more. Check out the detailed forum post for more information on exactly what the event entails.

Those of you who don’t mind throwing a little dosh into the game should be aware of an upcoming update dubbed Stash 2.0. As part of the update, crafting tabs will be going away as part of a series of updates that will streamline crafting and make the tabs less useful over time. As a result, Gazillion is getting in on the action early and will be converting crafting tabs to general tabs as part of an upcoming update.

What does this mean for you? If you were looking at buying stash tabs, now is the perfect time to do so. Crafting tabs cost 300g compared to 500g for general tabs, saving nearly 50%. Buy all six for 1800g and save approximately $12.

(Source: Marvel Heroes)

Today’s Neverwinter Patch Balances Experience/Monsters

Neverwinter version NW.50.20150722a.15 will go live at around 9am Pacific today, with the servers going down at six to implement the update, but it brings with it a whole slate of balances to the post-60 experience. In regards to the Elemental Evil module which has seen a fair amount of criticism, the experience rewarded by Vigilance tasks will be greatly improved. Additionally, enemies from level 61 to 70 will have their health reduced substantially and damage reduced slightly.

In addition to these updates, Domination PVP will once again be reenabled thanks to fixes that will hopefully ensure that the game fills both teams before beginning. VIP features will be available to characters right out of the gate rather than after level 5.

Perfect World Entertainment is still in the process of patching in balances to Neverwinter following the launch of the Elemental Evil module. The update received heavy criticism over the length to level from 60 to 70, difficulty of monsters, and heavily altering or outright removing content including dungeons while re-using content for new areas. Today’s patch is part of an ongoing process in response to player complaints.

(Source: Patch Notes)

Daybreak Offers Cheaters A World of Their Own

Daybreak Game Company will be opening up a new server later this week, Drunder, with a bit of a twist on the normal server rules. You can’t join Drunder in the normal fashion, at least not without petitioning customer service and signing your life away. Drunder is a prison server, the likes of which house Everquest 2’s greatest cheaters from gold farmer #52982523 to that guy who scammed your friend for his platinum and then shouted racial epithets in regional chat.

Drunder will act as a Hotel California for disruptive players, you can check out but you can never leave. Once determined as a suitable candidate, players will have all of their characters moved over to Drunder and will no longer receive customer support.

Drunder will get no customer service support and it will require a maintained membership to access and play. Rather than disrupt live servers in an attempt to join the “prison server,” players can use our /petition system and ask to join Drunder. To be clear: You won’t be able to move individual characters to this server, while maintaining characters from the same account on another server. This is a ONE-WAY trip for an entire account forever.

According to Holly Longdale, the Drunder server comes in response to repeated requests from Daybreak customer service representatives, who will also be making the decision on who gets a free, non-refundable, compulsory, one way pass.

(Source: Everquest II)

Blade & Soul Is Coming: Founder’s Packs Ready For Purchase

Blade & Soul’s western release is right around the corner, we know this to be true because NCSoft has officially announced that founder’s packs are available for purchase. Made ready to pickup in the form of $24, $75, and $125 packages, anyone who grabs a founder’s pack will have access to all closed betas later this fall, not to mention three days early access, scaling character titles, and increasing premium points. Higher tier packages give access to premium membership, name reservations, booster packs, NCoins, and more.

The good news is that should you have second thoughts about your pre-order, you can always get a refund anytime before the character name reservation becomes available. You’ll also need to make use of this function if you decide to upgrade to a higher tier, because right now that is impossible and may or may not be implemented at some point in the future.

Premium points increase your membership tier along the lines of a loyalty program, increasing the benefits of membership with each cash shop purchase.

(Source: NCSoft)

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