News – Page 426 – MMO Fallout

Only 50 Teams Completed Coil of Bahamut

Naoki Yoshida took some time out of the day to publish a new Letter from the Producer, discussing the upcoming fan festival in Tokyo, Japan, and last month’s implementation of patch 2.4. Released on October 28th, patch 2.4 introduced the Coil of Bahamut, finally bringing its related storyline to a conclusion. Less than a week later, on November 2nd, the first team successfully defeated Bahamut. Defeating Bahamut has proven to be a difficult task, however, as only fifty teams across all servers can say that they’ve succeeded.

While there’s more to FFXIV than just end-game raiding, to those players who practice vigorously every day, aspiring to be the world’s top players?as a gamer you have my utmost respect. I know how painstaking such an undertaking can be, and I thank you for taking such great interest in these challenging encounters. For those of you still making your way through, or preparing to step foot into the Final Coil?only about 50 teams have cleared the entirety of the Final Coil across all servers, so there’s no need to rush.

Final Fantasy’s fan festival in Tokyo will show off yet another glimpse at the MMO’s first expansion, Heavansward.

(Source: FFXIV)

Less Massive: Ubisoft Offers Unity Compensation

Assassin’s Creed Unity launched on November 11th, and since then has proven itself to be quite problematic for Ubisoft. The seventh major installment in the series of the same name launched with heavy technical issues, from performance problems to humorous graphical glitches (as seen above). Since the game launched, Ubisoft has launched at least two major patches with the third coming this week, and has been busy cleaning up the public relations end of dealing with dissatisfied customers.

As compensation, Ubisoft has discontinued the season pass, making the upcoming Dead Kings DLC free for everyone. Owners of the season pass or gold edition are eligible for one free Ubisoft game, including very recent releases like Far Cry 4 and The Crew. You can find more details at the link below.

(Source: Developer blog)

RuneScape Subscription Price Increase in 2015

Jagex has announced today that 2015 will see an increase in the price of RuneScape’s subscription. While the new price and date have not been finalized, current subscribers can rest easily knowing that your rate will be grandfathered in at the usual rule: As long as it doesn’t lapse for more than 14 days. Additionally, Premiere Club will reopen on December 1st, allowing players to lock in their rate by buying a full year in advance with extra rewards.

If you’re a member when the price rise happens, you’ll see no change. You’ll stay at your price as long as your active membership started before the date of the price rise. This applies for all previous grandfather rates, for those of you who’ve been subscribed for a long time.

We will update with more information when it becomes available. Check out Jagex’s Runefest presentation on 2015’s upcoming updates here.

(Source: RuneScape)

Valve Changes Trade Policy To Reduce Fraud

Valve has updated their policy on game trading in Steam, requiring a one month wait period before giftable games can be traded.

All new games purchased as a gift and placed in the purchaser’s inventory will be untradable for 30 days. The gift may still be gifted at any time. The only change is to trading.

The move is part of an ongoing effort to clamp down on steam key resellers using fraudulent credit cards to buy and quickly distribute keys. Games can still be gifted normally.

(Source: Steam)

Old School RuneScape Polls Integrity Issues

How do you tackle issues of player integrity in a game where everything is voted on? You poll it, of course! The latest poll to hit Old School RuneScape deals with the issue of player activity and whether or not Jagex should deal with some less scrupulous, even if not exactly evil, behavior.

Players are asked to vote on dealing with AFK-training, players trading wealth between games, trust staking, and untradeable items being retrieved for free when lost to PvP. Options available are to do nothing, to implement a fix based on further polling, or to fix without a poll. Currently the majority opinion (based on 21,000 votes) is that none of the issues need to be dealt with at all.

As for the previous poll, the new continent was approved with a whopping 90% yes. 86% of players approved ten new achievement diaries, with 80% voting for elite diaries. The rest of the polls did not pass the 75% threshold, including repeatable tasks, another attempt to lower the voting threshold from 75% to 70%, an abstain option from voting, the option to change your vote, and changing the minimum requirements to vote (but just barely).

(Source: Old School RuneScape)

Elite: Dangerous Refunding More Orders

Elite: Dangerous backers angered at the recent announcement that offline mode is being cut may be able to get a refund after all. Initially Frontier Developments announced that they would offer a refund providing the customer had not played the game at all. Now, judging by a post by David Braben, the scope may be opening up.

We initially declined some people’s request for refund as our records showed they have already played Elite: Dangerous online. After listening to many of the comments I received after my AMA here, we have since re-opened these requests and informed those people that we will be contacting them so that we can fully understand their individual situation before making a more informed decision.

(Source: Elite: Dangerous)

Star Vault Q3 Report Shows Revenue Growth

Star Vault has released their Q3 2014 finances, and the results are slightly positive. The first quarter brought a dramatic shift in both sales and profit, and while operations have returned to normal the current quarter showed a small increase in profits over the previous. Net sales for the third quarter amounted to $72 thousand over $70 thousand last quarter, with net profit rising nearly $10 thousand to $143 thousand down.

The number of subscribers, according to the report, has remained stable.

(Full disclosure: Henrik Nystrom’s statement this quarter had to be slightly edited to polish the grammar, due to a particularly low quality translation. We didn’t alter much. Star Vault’s finances are published on the Aktie Torget stock exchange in Swedish, linked below, and translated using Google’s automatic tools. Figures shown above are based off of the SEK to USD conversion rates as of the day of their publishing.)

We a pleased to announce in September that Territory Control system is in place, giving players the opportunity to design and choose the laws of the cities. Players can now wage war on land and make peace with neighbors – an aspect that for a long time desired by users. As I have in previous communications have mentioned, we have worked to develop the Territory control for a long time and we look forward to following the development of the game now that the system is in place.

Territory Control will be developed with new features afterwards as there are needs. The system is a big part of our unique play area, where all types of players can participate. There are a lot of hidden and secret elements for players to explore, and this part will be exciting to follow and take note of feedback from players on.

We came in first as the most hyped game on the Gold Chipset and will attend DreamHack 2014 Saturday 29th November. There we will introduce the game to visitors and distribute Mortal Online steel boxes with the game code.

We await the new owners plan to launch the Oculus Rift for us to be able to handle further support for Mortal Online and Oculus Rift.

The technical implementation for network support for the new continent is completed and now we have full
focus on improving the AI (Artificial Intelligence / computer opponents) and very new content on the new continent. An improvement of our AI is an important part of our game that will achieve a higher standard when this part is over. This is to provide an exciting new challenge in the new continent. Myrland who was the first continent has no extremes of creatures or climate which now gets introduced with the next continent.

In memory of Ulf Nystrom, we have created a painting that is now available in the game Mortal Online.

Henrik Nystrom
CEO, Star Vault AB

(Source: Star Vault)

Funcom Q3 2014 Financials

Funcom has released their third quarter finances for 2014 and the results are decidedly negative. Revenues for the quarter decreased from $3.1 million last quarter to $2.6 million this quarter. Funcom’s main source of revenue last quarter derived from the cash-positive operations of Age of Conan and The Secret World, while revenue overall fell due to weak in-game sales from $3.1 million to $2.6 million.

This past quarter saw the release of two mission packs in The Secret World, as well as updated versions of high-end raids in Age of Conan. Issue #10 of The Secret World is expected to go live later this holiday season. Lego Minifigures Online left open beta on October 1st and has since failed to meet expectations of player numbers and revenue. The game will be released on Mac as well as iOS and Android operating systems in 2015.

And finally, the release notes that Funcom has the has the ability to fund its operations for the next twelve months, continuing to support its games and work on the development of a new title in 2015.

(Source: Funcom)

Elite: Dangerous Limited Refunds For Offline Removal

Following the news that offline mode would be nixed from Elite: Dangerous, Frontier Developments has begun offering limited refunds to customers. In order to be eligible for a refund, however, you can not have participated in any of the alpha or beta phases.

Those who have already been playing the game online in the Alpha and/or Beta phases, regardless of whether they backed the project via Kickstarter or purchased access to Alpha and/or Beta through our online store, are not eligible for a refund.

When it launches, Elite: Dangerous will still feature an online mode, however it will need to be connected to the game’s main server. Offline mode is still a possibility, however Frontier Developments has stated that it will be a large undertaking.

(Source: Frontier Developments Newsletter)

World of Warcraft is Dead: Subscriptions Top 10 Million

World of Warcraft is dead, and it seems like the only people unaware of this are Blizzard and the ten million people currently subscribed. In their latest announcement, Blizzard revealed that Warlords of Draenor has pushed 3.3 million copies and that the game’s subscriber number has breached 10 million.

Blizzard Entertainment today announced that as of the first 24 hours of the expansion’s availability, more than 3.3 million copies had sold-through^† and the game’s global subscriber base had passed 10 million, with growth across all major regions.

Unnamed internet commentators expressed hope that Blizzard would eventually recognize the difference between an increase in subscriptions and having more subscribers.

(Source: Blizzard)

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