News – Page 424 – MMO Fallout

Steam Holiday Auction Exploited, Temporarily Suspended

The Steam Holiday Auction is a temporary event encouraging players to recycle their unused items for gems, which can then be used to bid on games and other Steam goodies. As it turns out, players almost immediately figured out a way to farm gems at no cost to themselves, vastly deflating the value of the gems and causing hyperinflation on the price of even the cheapest games. As a result, Valve has shut down the auction for the time being.

Sorry, but there have been some issues with Gems and the Steam Holiday Auction has been temporarily closed. The elves are working franctically to get the issues sorted out, and the auction will start again as soon as they’re done.

More information will follow as it becomes available.

(Source: Steam)

Take-Two CEO: If You Don’t Like It, Don’t Buy It

Take-Two CEO and Chairman Karl Slatoff has something to say to the people who want Grand Theft Auto V removed from store shelves: If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. Speaking at the BMO Capital Markets 2014 Technology & Digital Media Conference, Slatoff responded to the news that Target and Kmart have pulled the shooter from stores in Australia, stating that while the decision has not impacted consumer habits, the company is “deeply disappointed.”

“We have 34 million people who bought Grand Theft Auto, and if these folks had their way, none of those people would be able to buy Grand Theft Auto. And that really just flies in the face of everything that free society is based on. It’s the freedom of expression, and to try to squelch that is a dangerous and slippery slope to go down.”

Target and Kmart of Australia pulled the game after an online petition of over 40,000 signatures called for its removal over heavily criticised claims that the game incentivizes players to commit sexual violence against women. Target has come under fire by critics for perceived hypocrisy, as the company has stated that it will continue selling media including Game of Thrones and Fifty Shades of Grey, both of which contain explicit sexual violence.

(Source: Gamesindustry.biz)

Take-Two CEO: If You Don't Like It, Don't Buy It

“We have 34 million people who bought Grand Theft Auto, and if these folks had their way, none of those people would be able to buy Grand Theft Auto. And that really just flies in the face of everything that free society is based on. It’s the freedom of expression, and to try to squelch that is a dangerous and slippery slope to go down.”

(Source: Gamesindustry.biz)

Eve Online Unfurls Rhea Expansion

CCP is set on ending 2014 with the release of the latest update Rhea being declared both the last and the largest update of 2014. Rhea adds dozens of new features, new ships, and more to the space MMO, with a reminder that the next big update is just five or six weeks away.

Rhea introduces 100 new wormhole systems, the massive new system called Thera, as well as new exploration sites to be discovered. Several under the hood enhancements have been made to make Eve Online look and handle better, from the modernized UI and WASD keyboard controls, a new physical based rendering system, and upgrades to the Eve star map.

On the potentially more controversial side, Rhea also brings with it the removal of skill point loss and the clone upgrade system upon death, in the name of forcing veterans to risk more while punishing new players less severely. Two new ships and several redesigned spacecraft offer a new way to blast your way through space, or just die and lose all of your minerals.

(Source: CCP Press Release)

ArcheAge PLEX Available Again… Again

Trion Worlds has announced the ArcheAge APEX are officially back up and available for purchase.The item, providing a method for players to extend their subscription without paying real money, has been the subject of numerous exploits, resulting in it being pulled from the cash shop for small periods of time.

The following announcement was posted on Twitter yesterday.

Adventurers, APEX is now available again for use and purchase. Thanks for your patience! #ArcheAge

(Source: Twitter)

Update: Microsoft To Blame For Warface Shuttering

Following up on the announcement that Warface would be shutting down its Xbox 360 services, Crytek has come forward to finger Microsoft as the culprit. A representative of Crytek told Game Informer in a statement that the decision to shut the servers down was made by Microsoft, acting publisher of Warface on the Xbox.

“With Microsoft acting as publisher for Warface on Xbox 360, we are bound by their decision to phase out the game on their console.”

The Warface server officially shuts down in February. The PC service remains unaffected.

(Source: Game Informer)

The Old Republic Nixes Training Costs

Bioware has announced that next week training costs will be a thing of the past. Community manager Eric Musco posted the announcement on the Bioware forums today, revealing that next week’s update will completely remove the cost of training abilities, allowing players to train their characters completely free of charge. The announcement comes after the latest major update forced players to rebuy many of their abilities to a fairly expensive tune. Players took to the forums to air their grievances on the update, leading to this announcement.

It is a situation where every level you will see your hard earned credits go to a holographic Hutt doctor in order to make yourself a bit stronger. We have been talking about this topic internally for quite some time and when you add player feedback to the mix one thing becomes clear… We should make training costs a thing of the past.

Players who already dumped large amounts of credits on retraining their skills are out of luck, as Musco confirmed later in the thread that Bioware is not offering any compensation to players.

(Source: The Old Republic)

Black Desert Coming West In 2015

It isn’t so often that you hear about a release date being pushed up, but here it is. Black Desert, a rather anticipated MMO, will be hitting digital shelves in North America and Europe beginning in 2015. The western publisher will be Daum, generally a Korean publisher, who cited an inability to find a suitable western publisher as their reason for changing course.

The reason why Daum is bringing the game to Europe and North America prematurely is probably because of the increased hype and positive feedback from the western community. Daum is actually a Korean publisher, but they decided to expand to the west because they couldn’t find a suitable publisher in EU/NA for Black Desert.

Check back in 2015 for more information.

(Source: Black Desert)

Trion Worlds Details ArcheAge Downtime Compensation

Trion Worlds has posted a news piece detailing upcoming compensation for ArcheAge players following recent extended periods of downtime and instability with the game’s service. All players who have “ever been a patron” will receive a Patron pack including five days of patron time, 15 Superior Worker’s Compensation potions, 30 loyalty tokens, three Greedy Goblin Gummies (+10% loot drop rate), three Frankenflavor Jawbreakers (+10% exp), and three Marshmallow Sugar Pumpkins (+3% move speed).

We never take your loyalty for granted and any time we don’t meet the high standards we set for ourselves, it’s important to us to make it up to you as generously as possible. We’re currently applying compensation packs to everyone’s account. This does take a while, and it’ll be running through the rest of today.

Non-patrons will receive a package including 10 Superior Worker’s Compensation potions, 15 loyalty tokens, as well as three of the other items listed above. These packages are being distributed via the Glyph account page, with emails being sent out once players can redeem them.

(Source: Trion Worlds)

Elder Scrolls Online: The Road Ahead

Zenimax’s game director Matt Firor has posted a Road Ahead dev blog detailing the past, present, and future of The Elder Scrolls Online. In the post, Firor expresses his confidence that the ESO experience today is much better than that of six months ago, thanks to updates fighting black market activity, new content, quality of life updates, tweaking existing content, and many many bug fixes.

With everything we’ve done, we firmly believe that ESO is a much better, more stable, and more fun game than it was six months ago. This is the way online games like this work: the game you launch is a starting point that inevitably evolves over time—and of course, community feedback is one of the most important parts of that process. I am very happy with the evolution of ESO up to this point, and I hope you all agree.

The game’s next big update, dubbed Update 6, is coming to the test realm in January and introduces the Champion system, justice system, and more. The Xbox One and Playstation 4 versions of ESO are still in the works, in a playable state, but there is still a fair amount of time before a release date can be cemented.

(Source: Elder Scrolls Online)

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