News – Page 407 – MMO Fallout

Mortal Online Releasing Sarducca Continent Sunday

Star Vault has announced the release of Sarducca, Mortal Online’s next continent, for this Sunday May 17th. The update goes live during maintenance in the morning (Swedish time) and will be monitored throughout the day for any unexpected bugs.

CEO Henrik Nystrom revealed that more content for Sarducca is already on the way.

I want to express once again that the development of further polished areas, improvement in AI, new content, etc, will NOT stop with the release of Sarducaa. The geography of the continent is finished, and as you can read in the patch notes there have been tons of polish and new content put into to game with Sarducaa, but we will continue working on even more content and polish after the release.

(Source: Mortal Online)

Side Quest Is Back, But No Active Development

It’s been a long time since we last heard from Side Quest, last September when we noticed that the servers had gone dark with no notice from Fractal Entertainment. If you’ve been jonesing for your side-scrolling fix since then, you’ll be happy to know that the servers are up and running and the game is available in its full glory.

With one caveat. While Fractal Entertainment has been able to find cheap hosting, there won’t be any development on the game for the time being. In addition to expected random downtimes, the item mall has been disabled. Regardless, the game is available to play for those interested.

(Source: Side Quest)

NCSoft Shuts Down Project HON

NCSoft Korea has shut down development of Project HON, allegedly due to a perceived lack of interest in giant mech games in the local market. Project HON is being shelved to allow NCSoft to focus on its other titles, including the upcoming launch of Lineage Eternal and further growth of Blade & Soul in foreign markets.

Project HON came up earlier this year when three employees were fired for embezzling funds.

(Source: Steparu)

Blizzard: Bot Bans And Court Loss

As many as 100,000 bot accounts, possibly more, have been removed from World of Warcraft in a recent mass ban.

We’ve recently taken action against a large number of World of Warcraft accounts that were found to be using third-party programs that automate gameplay, known as “bots.” We’re committed to providing an equal and fair playing field for everyone in World of Warcraft, and will continue to take action against those found in violation of our Terms of Use. Cheating of any form will not be tolerated.

In unrelated news, Blizzard recently lost a case attempting to place an injunction on a gold seller in Diablo. As reported by the Kaesler & Kollegen law firm representing the client, the Civil Division of the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court overturned a previous injunction on a Diablo gold selling website. The judge has reportedly ordered Blizzard to cover the costs of the proceedings.

(Source: Blizzard)

Lego Minifigures Online Relaunching As Buy To Play

Lego Minifigures Online will be relaunching as a buy to play game, after a reveal by Funcom that the free to play aspect had a “detrimental effect on gameplay and kids’ enjoyment of the game.” The news comes alongside the announcement that Lego will see a launch on PC, iOS, Android, Mac, and Linux.

During an initial run as a free-to-play game on the PC, Funcom has been gathering valuable player feedback and have been able to review in detail how various components of the game’s content, gameplay and business model have played out.

Anyone who has previously purchased something in Lego Minifigures Online will be upgraded to the full version once it goes buy to play, with refunds offered where requested. Players who haven’t spent anything will need to buy the game to continue playing.

(Source: Lego Minifigures)

Neverwinter Welcomes 1.6 Million On Xbox One

Perfect World Entertainment has revealed that more than 1.6 million people have played Neverwinter on the Xbox One. Since its launch over a month ago, more than 1.6 million players have created 2.3 million avatars of which 92 thousand have reached the level cap. You can see the important figures in a handy infographic released alongside the announcement.

In order to celebrate further, we’ve granted the first 60 players to reach level 60 and the nine players to reach level 60 in the Beta a unique Volcanic Galeb Duhr companion to commend their status as a Neverwinter Champion. Check your Xbox messages for one from NW Community, which will congratulate you on your success.

Players can retrieve their special companions by talking to rewards claim agent in Protector’s Enclave.

(Source: Arc Games)

Wildstar 17 Hour Extended Maintenance And Something Extra

Wildstar will be undergoing a 17 hour maintenance today (5/13), during which time game authorization, account management, forums, and customer support will be unavailable. The game will still be available, however authorization will be offline.

Thank you for your patience during this downtime and we’re very sorry for the inconvenience. We will work very hard to bring the game up as soon as possible. There may be even a little something extra to follow!

What extra something? Stay tuned to find out. Maintenance begins in one hour from this publishing (3am EST).

(Source: Wildstar)

Discussing Business Models Now Banned on Wildstar Subreddit

With NCSoft’s latest quarterly report coming up, speculation is rising once again on the possibility of Wildstar either going free to play or buy to play. The Wildstar subreddit, which we should point out is run by fans and not NCSoft, is getting ahead of the game by banning any discussion of f2p/b2p until hard evidence or an official announcement can be procured.

Unless a Carbine Employee, or Moderator here announces any business model changes to WildStar, there is no longer a reason to continue trying to post such discussions, as they are creating a lot of unrest in the community.

NCSoft’s next quarterly release should be coming out this week, hopefully alongside some news on Wildstar’s future. Wildstar’s earnings in the last quarter of 2014 were about $5 million, a sharp 65% drop quarter over quarter.

(Source: Reddit)

Australia To See 10% Price Hike On Steam

A 10% price hike on Steam games sold in Australia is all but confirmed, as reported by PC Gamer. As some outlets have been covering, the 2015 Australian budget will include a tax on intangible imported goods, the goal being to apply the GST (Goods and Services Tax) that had not been collected due to the law being written before such goods had become a major market.

When the new prices go into effect is presently unknown.

(Source: PC Gamer)

Zynga Recovering With Higher Than Expected Earnings

Zynga’s stock has recovered most of its value following the announcement that CEO Don Mattrick would step down with Mark Pincus taking his place. Zynga’s stock fell heavily with Pincus’ return, down to a low of $2.38 from its $2.90.

Investors are responding well to Zynga’s latest quarterly results, in which the company announced severe downsizing. As part of proposed cuts, Zynga will shut down its $100 million dollar data centers and switch over to Amazon. In addition, the company will lay off 364 employees, nearly 20% of its workforce,

We need to be more resourceful in how we manage our costs in order to fund our investments in new games, people and data and analytics. We’ve overburdened our game teams with complexity and centralized expenditure.

The cuts are expected to save $100 million annually.

For the first quarter of 2015, Zynga’s daily active users remained flat (25 million) while monthly active users fell (100 from 108 million) and monthly unique users grew (73 million from 71 million). Revenue fell further, however earnings were higher than expected.

(Source: Zynga)

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