News – Page 436 – MMO Fallout

Zenimax Online Lays Off Staff

Zenimax Online Studios has confirmed that a number of employees have been laid off from the Elder Scrolls Online development team. The layoffs are an unfortunate but standard part of the process once major development has ended and the surplus of employees brought on to see the game to completion are no longer necessary.

“Now that we are nearly 6 months post launch, we have a thriving online community in a game that runs smoothly.”

The studio continues to invest heavily in Elder Scrolls Online with console release and expansions on their way.

(Source: Joystiq)

Wildstar Announces Server Mergers

Mega servers are the future, at least in the sense that they allow developers to merge servers without using the term and acting like there is nothing to worry about with the population. Wildstar developer Carbine Studios has revealed that the fledgling MMO will soon see its servers merged similar to DC Universe Online, with one PvE and one PvP server per cluster.

Going the Megaserver route means that we vastly increase server capacity allowing for greater critical mass of our player base, resulting in more people, more groups, more activity and more raids… more of everything that makes WildStar so fun. The Megaservers and their increased player capacity will give fans more options to group up and enjoy WildStar with friends and other players for a long time to come.

To avoid name conflicts, all players will be given a last name.

(Source: Wildstar)

Warframe Coming To Xbox One

Digital Extremes announced today that the popular free to play shooter Warframe is now available worldwide on Xbox One via Microsoft’s ID@Xbox program. Billed as mmo-lite, Warframe tasks groups of up to four players with making their way through the galaxy to defeat the evil, genocidal Grineer. On the Xbox One, players will be able to take advantage of features including the Xbox Live friends list, Game DVR to record their heroic battles, second screen functionality through Smartglass, and more.

Warframe is already available for download as of this publishing. Those of you on other platforms can continue playing on PC and PS4.

(Source: Digital Extremes Press Release)

City of Heroes: The Mask Comes Off

At this point in time, the idea that there are talks underway to get City of Heroes back up and running isn’t a secret. The previously unnamed team has been negotiating with NCSoft to acquire City of Heroes with the request that the negotiations themselves be kept secret and with the knowledge that the whole deal could fall apart at any moment, or could never have had a chance of succeeding in the first place. Today, Nathan Downes of Missing Worlds Media (who we spoke to in our most recent interview) posted an update on the negotiations.

You can read the entire post at the link below, but Downes summarizes the proposal as it stands currently.

The proposal as it stands right now (this is not a final form, just the current proposal on the table) is this:

The CoH IP would be spun to its own company, to handle licensing. This company would itself license the existing engine from NCSoft for the creation of a maintenance mode, using a binary copy of the i23 server.
The existing user database and characters are not part of this arrangement at this time, nor is the source code.
An arrangement is to be made to license the trademarks to the various Plan Z projects, CoT, Valiance and H&V, to create a family connection, and to allow each to drop the “Spiritual” portion of successor. This means they can make references to the original game if desired, and to enable the expansion of partnerships. This could be expanded for any of them, should the desire be there.
An arrangement is also to be made for the Atlas Park Revival project. As part of the informal agreement we have with them, they would be given an official stamp of approval, and the CoT game build would be licensed to them, to create a kind of “CoH 1.5” and migrate people off of the classic game engine before it finally becomes unsuitable (we expect this to happen around when Windows 9 is released, due to binary compatibility). This can be done because both APR and CoT run on Unreal Engine 4.
By being its own firm, the licensing company can also pursue other avenues which were unavailable before.

(Source: Titan Forums)

Play Star Citizen Until September 5th

I know what you’re thinking: “I want to play Star Citizen, but I don’t want to have to pay like five thousand bucks for a ship I’ll probably lose on day one.” You’re in luck, because Roberts Space Industries has announced that attendees to DragonCon are being given a free flight week-end to try out Star Citizen’s Arena Commander module. With the pass, you’ll be able to walk around the hanger module, sit in a trainer ship, and take flight in arena commander. The pass is active until September 5th.

But Connor, I hear you say, I can’t afford to go to DragonCon! Neither can I, which is why regardless of if you actually attended the convention, you can head on to the link below and use the code DRAGONFLIGHT2K14 to get in on the promotion anyway. Check it out and tell us what you think.

(Source: Star Citizen)

Korea Halts Facebook Microtransactions

Way back in 2011, I talked about the Games Rating Board in South Korea, and how the government organization was investigating certain video games to determine whether or not the virtual lotteries were in violation of the country’s strict anti-gambling laws. Fast forward to 2014, and South Korean gamers woke up to find that many of their Facebook games are currently unplayable. The Games Rating and Administration Committee has placed a blanket ban on all Facebook game payments, pending individual approvals by the board. Developers will have to submit their games and pay a fee to have them approved by a panel. Games found in violation of South Korea’s anti-gambling laws will presumably be rejected and banned in the country.

(Source: Latis Global)

Project Gorgon Makes Another Kickstarter Run

Project Gorgon is a fantasy MMO set to launch on PC, Mac, and eventually Linux. You may remember the game from its previous attempt at Kickstarter, at which developer Eric Heimburg (who worked on both Asheron’s Calls and the never-surfaced Star Trek Online by Perpetual Entertainment) missed a goal of $55 thousand. Heimburg’s wife, Sandra Powers, may be a little more identifiable as the producer of Everquest II and Asheron’s Call.

Project Gorgon is available to download a very early access version. The goal is to charge a $5 subscription, however free to play is not off the table.

(Source: Project Gorgon)

CCP's Latest Financial Report Shows Troubled Times

CCP Games has released their latest financial statement, and the results are a showcase on the company’s latest round of problems. Due to decreased revenue, CCP announced that they have shut down their San Francisco offices and laid off two key US executives: CFO Joe Gallo and CMO David Reid. The cancellation of World of Darkness, which we learned about earlier this year, reportedly brought about a substantial cost including the cost of terminating employees and writing off assets.

Revenue for the first half of 2014 amounted to $36.5 million, down slightly from $36.7 million last year, however EBITD (Earnings Before Interest, Tax, and Depreciation) was down to $4.5 million from $8.3 million last year.

(Source: Gamasutra)

RuneScape Companion App Available

Jagex has announced that the RuneScape companion app is now available on iOS and Android devices. Having the companion app gives mobile access to the game’s grand exchange auction house, notifies players when purchases/sales are complete, track in-game activity timers, and chat with their clan. Even if you don’t have a smartphone or tablet, you can still get on board with the web version of the app that has already been available for some time.

The RuneScape companion app requires a device with iOS 7 or newer, Android 4.0 or newer, and is guaranteed to run on devices as far back as iPhone 4, Galaxy S3, Nexus 4, iPad 3rd gen, and iPad mini. The web app runs on a wider range of devices, not to mention personal computers.

(Source: RuneScape)

Trion Worlds Denies Security Breach

If you’ve been following ArcheAge discussion, you’re likely aware of a surge in player claims that their accounts were being subjected to unauthorized attempts to purchase the ArcheAge founders pack. Community Manager Scapes has responded to the allegations by stating that Trion Worlds has not been breached and the purchase attempts are a symptom of the same old account theft that goes on every day.

What happened in the last few hours is sadly nothing new: Every day, bots obtain user credentials from various unprotected sites around the Internet, build lists of login and passwords, and try them on Trion’s servers (along with many other sites). If players consistently use simple or repeated passwords across different online services, these bots may get access to their accounts. Because of the current momentum around ArcheAge, hundreds of millions of such attempts were made from well over a million different IP addresses in the last few weeks, only a fraction of which ended up being successful today.

All players affected by fraudulent charges will be refunded by Trion Worlds, and the Glyph client is being boosted with additional security features.

(Source: ArcheAge forums)

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