News – Page 423 – MMO Fallout

Heavensward Details Now Available

Square Enix held its latest fan fest in Tokyo just last week, wasting no time in revealing new dribble of information regarding Final Fantasy XIV’s first expansion Heavensward. The expansion will be paid, and introduces a wide variety of new content including a new race and new jobs (classes).

The new race is called the Au Ra, a dragonkin race with horns and scales from the eastern continent of Othard. Among the three classes is the Dark Knight, a magic-based tank who wields a greatsword and utilizes dark magic. The second class is the Astrologian, a healer class that uses a divining deck to cast spells.

Finally, the last class is the machinist, a dps class that uses firearms and machines to attack its foe.

Heavensward will also increase the level cap to 60 and introduce new dungeons and missions. Check out further coverage and screenshots at the link below. Heavensward launches Spring 2015.

(Source: MMO Culture)

Final Fantasy XIV PS4 Trial Available

Playstation 4 gamers interested in trying out Final Fantasy XIV will be able to do just that, as Square Enix today announced a 14 day trial will be available. The trial gives players the opportunity to level up to 20, with certain other limitations, as well as the ability to transfer trial characters over to the full game. As of this publishing, the trial does not appear to be available on the North America Playstation Network.

Those looking to save a few bucks should look into buying the Playstation 3 version (which is generally available at a cheaper cost) and taking advantage of the free upgrade program, currently available until March 31st.

(Source: Square Enix press release)

Economic Trouble Leads To Steam Trade Restrictions

As the Ruble continues to plummet in value, tech giants are taking notice. In a notice released to the public by Steam Database, Valve has region locked all new purchases made by Steam accounts made by Russian players. While the games may be gifted or traded to players in the same region, they will not be able to transfer the games to those outside of Russia. The region locking is a common response by Valve to prevent people from taking advantage of economic turmoil to buy games at a lower price, and currently includes Russia, the Commonwealth of Independent States, South America, Turkey, and Southeast Asia.

Apple recently announced that they will be halting online sales in Russia.

(Source: SteamDB)

Raptr’s Top Games For November

Raptr has released their top games for November 2014. Thanks to the launch of Warlords of Draenor, World of Warcraft saw an increase of 71% over October. In contrast, many of the top played games were not as lucky, with most of them seeing double digit drops in playtime. ArcheAge, in the midst of multiple controversies, saw a 40% drop in playtime while Final Fantasy XIV jumped nearly 21% over the same period.

You can find the entire list at the link below. Naturally the list only applies to people with Raptr accounts.

(Source: Raptr)

Raptr's Top Games For November

You can find the entire list at the link below. Naturally the list only applies to people with Raptr accounts.

(Source: Raptr)

Transformers Universe Shutting Down January 2015

Jagex has announced that the servers for MOBA Transformers Universe will shut down on January 31st, 2015. The decision was made mutually between the UK developer and Hasbro, and comes on the hilt of both companies realigning their focus for the year ahead.

The shutdown period will begin from today. As part of the winding down we will be refunding all those that have purchased a Founders Pack, as well as anyone that has purchased relic bundles and starter packs. These refunds should be all processed in the next 30 days. In addition we will be closing the ability for new players to make accounts, those of you that already have accounts will continue to be able to use them until the closure date.

Players who do not receive refunds after January 16th should email customer support.

(Source: Transformers Universe)

Archlord Launches Latest Expansion

Archlord 2 players have plenty to be happy about, as Webzen has launched the second expansion to the game: Eternal Strife. The expansion comes alongside the release of a new server, a Christmas event, and a slew of server bonuses. As described in the release:

Eternal Strife introduces two new races, joining the ranks of the game’s factions. The Dragonscion join the Humans to support the Azuni’s cause, whereas the Moonelves rally under the banners of the Crunn. Specialized in magic, these new races offer unique starting zones, new archetypes and weapons, thus extending the range of choices for the Archlord 2 players.

Check it out on the official website.

(Source: Webzen press release)

Path of Exile PVP Manifesto

The latest Path of Exile patch introduced two new game modes, but the focus of the update was on player vs player combat. In a development manifesto released on forums today, Grinding Gear Games has detailed recent changes to the combat system introduced in patch 1.3.0.

With 1.3.0, damage scaling has changed. It has been split into two algorithms — one for physical damage and chaos damage, and one for elemental. In low-level play, damage is reduced by about 20% for physical skills, but is increased for elemental damage to compensate for assumed resistances. In high-level play, the damage reduction is much sharper.

You can read the entire manifesto at the link below, but unless you’re an avid player of Path of Exile you probably won’t understand many of the changes.

(Source: Path of Exile)

10% Discount Was Never Advertised, Says Trion Worlds

The ongoing saga of ArcheAge, Trion Worlds, and the fabled 10% discount has reached another bend, as Trion Worlds is now flat out denying that the discount was ever a part of the game’s advertising. A user on the ArcheAge forums submitted a complaint to the San Francisco Bay Area Better Business Bureau, to have his complaint addressed by Trion Worlds. Trion Worlds first pulled out the EULA and pointed to the “we can change whatever we want” clause, before denying that the 10% discount was ever officially promoted.

Trion sincerely regrets any inconvenience experienced by the customer. The 10% Marketplace discount was not officially promoted as a benefit as it was never advertised in the ArcheAge purchase flow.

For the record, here is a screenshot of the 10% discount being advertised on Trion World’s own website. Update 12/16/14: This page has since been deleted. See its archive here.

(Source: BBB)

Areal Is Back: Stalker Apocalypse Funding Part 2

S.T.A.L.K.E.R is back! Well, actually STALKER is back, and that is an important distinction to make. Earlier this year we saw a Kickstarter pop up for a spiritual sequel to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R franchise called Areal, by a company made up of former developers of said franchise. It didn’t take long for internet sleuths to figure out that the trailer for the game was shot in Unity, using nearly 100% stock assets from the Unity store, and that several screenshots and pieces of concept art were taken directly from Shadows of Chernobyl.

The whole controversy just got strange from then on. Rather than address the claims, West Games began blaming their criticism on everything from western bias, the information war between Ukraine and Russia, and Forbes being sold to the Chinese. They attacked news websites covering the game, and even attempted to dox trolls. Then someone at West Games thought it would be a good idea to post a letter of congratulations and support from Vladimir Putin, and not as a joke. The campaign was suspended by Kickstarter for suspicious activities, and West Games has since disappeared off the radar.

Now the game is back as STALKER Apocalypse on World Wide Funder, a crowdfunding website that seemingly popped up out of nowhere and is currently home to a library of funding efforts, all but a small handful of which are currently sitting at 0% funding. The funding website was just registered in September of this year, and incidentally has been registered anonymously through domainsbyproxy.com.

While the funding campaign goes to great lengths to differentiate between STALKER and S.T.A.L.K.E.R, likely for legal reasons, there are repeated uses of STALKER with objects that conveniently look like periods to make the logo look like an acronym.

(Source: WWF)

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