News – Page 402 – MMO Fallout

Arenanet Responds To Expansion Criticism

In response to recent criticism over the handling of Heart of Thorns, Arenanet has posted a comprehensive compensation and refund policy. For veteran players, Arenanet is offering a free character slot to anyone who owns the base game and pre-orders the Heart of Thorns expansion and registers it prior to launch.

The announcement that Heart of Thorns would come packaged with the base Guild Wars 2 game drew heavy fire from gamers who purchased the game following Arenanet’s warning that the expansion would not be a standalone as was the case with Guild Wars 1.

Anyone who purchased Guild Wars 2 from the official website between January 23rd and June 16th will be eligible for a full refund should they purchase Heart of Thorns also from the official website before July 31st. If you purchased the core game during that same time and no longer want to play it, Arenanet will offer a full refund.

For Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, we didn’t want the core game’s price to be a factor in a new player’s decision to begin playing Guild Wars 2. In the future, if we release further Guild Wars 2 expansions, we plan to offer all of the prior expansions, the core game, and the latest expansion for one single purchase price.

Copies purchased from third party vendors during the above period will be upgraded with the extra character slot if the expansion is pre-ordered and registered to the account prior to launch.

(Source: Arenanet)

World of Warcraft Reclaiming Inactive Character Names

Given that World of Warcraft passed one hundred million accounts last year, it isn’t a huge reach to assume that character names are getting hard to come by. Actual character names, ones without a following of numbers or flanked by xXx. In response to this issue, Blizzard has announced that with patch 6.2, and with each subsequent expansion following, that inactive character names will be freed up for active players.

With the upcoming Warlords of Draenor patch (6.2), we will be releasing sidelined characters’ names back into the wild. Any characters that have not logged into the game since December 7, 2010 will have their names freed up, making them available to anyone creating a new character or using the paid Character Name Change service.

Blizzard occasionally hands out free seven day trials to inactive accounts, so if you intend on keeping your names but don’t want to subscribe at the moment you can always check your account to see if it is eligible.

(Source: Blizzard)

Direct 2 Netflix Episode 3: Bad Asses on the Bayou

For those of you who don’t follow this website regularly, Direct 2 Netflix is a podcast project I’m working on with a few of my friends where we watch and talk about movies that came out this year and bypassed the theater (or at least were not widely released). As you know, I’ve talked about adding more media content and likely branching outside of the realm of MMOs. The movies we talk about aren’t inherently bad, although most didn’t miss the theaters because they were just that good.

Each new episode is expected to come out on Saturday.

This week we looked at the third movie in the Bad Ass series, Bad Asses on the Bayou starring Danny Trejo, Danny Glover, and John Amos.

Salem Enters Full Release

Mortal Moments Inc has announced the launch of Salem, the perma-death historical sandbox. In 2013, Paradox Interactive announced that it was relinquishing its position as publisher for the sandbox MMO, leaving Seatribe to go at it alone. Last year, Mortal Moments took over management of Salem, merging the servers into one and resetting characters.

Yesterday’s relaunch also marked the introduction of a new expedition.

In honor of Salem’s release on June 19th, a new Expedition is launching! Expeditions are separate, fresh servers where players find new content to bring back to the home server of Providence. A lot has changed in the last year, and the path to greatness has never been more treacherous, exciting, or fun!

Check out the official website for more details.

Return To Eorzea This Month: Get High Level Gear

Square Enix is gearing up for the launch of Heavensward, the first expansion to Final Fantasy XIV, out June 23rd, and now so can you. For players who left FFXIV but plan to come back for the launch of Heavensward, Square Enix is offering ten silver chocobo feathers that can be swapped for iLevel 120 equipment. The offer only applies to those who haven’t been active since before April 1st.

Players who have subscribed to FINAL FANTASY XIV prior to March 31, 2015 and have not logged into the game between Wednesday, April 1, 2015 and Sunday, June 7, 2015.

(Source: FFXIV)

Weekend Events: Find The Loot Edition

The weekend is here, and that means events aplenty. Is your game hosting an event this weekend?

Marvel Heroes: 2nd Anniversary Continues

Marvel Heroes is in the third week of its second anniversary celebrations. Log in this weekend to receive a free baby Groot pet, defeat enemies to pick up birthday cake slices, and take part in the Cowpocalypse event. Daily cow portal drops, bonus exp, special items, and more available for this weekend.

Defiance Bonus EXP Weekend (June 19-21)

Trion Worlds is hosting 50% bonus reputation this weekend in Defiance.

Attention, ark hunters: Double XP plus 50% Bonus Faction Reputation is available now through June 21! If you’re new to Defiance, you’ll definitely want to double down on XP with this limited-time bonus.

Heroes & Generals Operation Bagration

Heroes & Generals players can use coupon code BAGRATION2015 to receive four experience booster ribbons, offering 50% in physical training, tactical, recon, and battle levels for four hours.

The date was chosen to be the same calendar day as when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa in 1941, which in effect makes this is a double anniversary. We want to commemorate Operation Bagration by giving you a present this weekend!

Neverwinter Anniversary Event

In addition to the Protector’s Jubilee event currently ongoing, Perfect World Entertainment has been giving away daily items on the Zen store. Log in today (Saturday) and receive a free bag of holding. Log in Sunday and receive an Ashen Brindle Horse Mount.

RuneScape Tuska Event

RuneScape’s Tuska event is still ongoing. Raid Tuska every day for points, use the enlightenment aura once per week for an hour of double experience, and use the points to buy event-exclusive abilities and gear.

ESO Players Can Craft XP Potions

Zenimax Online Studios recently introduced experience boosters to The Elder Scrolls Online in the form of Crown Experience Scrolls. The scrolls cost 1000 crowns for a pack of five, provide 50% bonus to ALL experience gains, do not stack, and last two hours apiece. To appease critics, Zenimax also introduced a new brewing recipe: Psijic Ambrosia. In order to create Psijic Ambrosia, one must first find all seven parts of the recipe, through writs or trading other players.

The recipe calls for three ingredients and can be crafted with rank 4 Recipe Quality as well as rank 6 Recipe Improvement. Each potion lasts 30 minutes and provides the same bonus as the cash shop item, however master crafters can use the recipe to craft four potions each lasting 50 minutes.

(Source: MMORPG.com)

Everquest 2 To Merge Servers

Daybreak Game Company has announced that servers for Everquest II will be merged at some point in the near future. In the latest producer letter, Holly Longdale announced that servers will be merged ahead of upcoming cross-server dungeon tech, with more details to follow in the coming months.

We’ll give you specific dates as we get closer. This is very challenging work that will branch off from our Cross-Server Dungeon work. Luckily, what we plan to do for true Cross-Server Dungeons & Battlegrounds logically helps us merge characters to new servers. We’ve already had our incredible coders working on the foundation of cross-server processes for a few months already. Our database changes earlier this year were the first step.

Everquest 2 players can also look forward to time-locked progression servers.

(Source: Everquest 2)

Nab Wildstar For $1 On The Humble Bundle

Wildstar won’t be going free to play until later this year, but you have the opportunity to get your hands on a digital copy of the game for just $1. As part of the Humble Bundle, all you need to do is meet the $1 minimum to receive the Wildstar standard edition plus a ton of other games. Pay more than the minimum and get more.

If you need a reason to pick the game up now, consider this: Those who “own” the game before it goes free to play will have preferred status, giving a number of bonuses over other non-subscribed players.

(Source: Humble Bundle)

RuneScape Members Can Pick Up Free Bank Boosters

If you’ve had a hard time dealing with a lack of bank space, your prayers have been answered. As part of today’s update, Jagex has placed two bank boosters on the RuneScape cash shop for free to active subscribers. Members can currently get their hands on three bank boosters for free, a total of 150 extra bank slots. Also available for free to members is a golden chinchompa pet, thrifty title, zen resting emote, and water dance emote.

The bank slots can be picked up via the Solomon’s General Store page on the official website.

(Source: RuneScape)

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Marvel Heroes: 2nd Anniversary Continues

Defiance Bonus EXP Weekend (June 19-21)

Heroes & Generals Operation Bagration

Neverwinter Anniversary Event

RuneScape Tuska Event

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