News – Page 439 – MMO Fallout

Darkfall Quests Coming In Autumn

Aventurine has announced today that quests are coming to Darkfall Unholy Wars this Autumn. The first batch of quests will cater to new and old players, with availability varying from right in your face to obscure and more difficult to find. Quests are designed to be open-ended journeys that integrate players with recent and ancient history of the world of Agon. Quests suggested by players will also be introduced in this and future batches.

One quest example that Aventurine sent over is the Suspicious Altar, where players will stumble upon ancient altars and devices connected to some nefarious plot that must be unraveled. We will have more information on Darkfall’s quest system as it becomes available.

(Source: Aventurine Press Release)

RuneScape Releases First Expansion

Jaex has released the first part of the first expansion for RuneScape. Lost City of the Elves is set to release in three content chunks, the first being the quest Plague’s End, the largest quest to be added into the game and the conclusion of a quest series that began in 2002. The second and third chunks of the expansion will be released in September and October respectively, with each part introducing a new section of the Elven city of Iowerth. The expansion promises “hundreds of hours of new content,” introducing new mini-games, dozens of new training methods, new equipment, new items, and and more.

“This has been a year of resurgence for RuneScape, from the introduction of the Legacy combat mode and Twitch integration to the launch of our debut expansion pack, voted for by players as part of our Player Power initiative,” said Phil Mansell, vice president of RuneScape. “In addition to the remarkable environments, challenges, and gameplay that the Lost City of the Elves brings, it also underlines the collaborative efforts between the RuneScape development team and our passionately loyal players as we work to bring the game they want to experience to life.”

When the original quest released in 2002, RuneScape looked like this.

(Source: Jagex Press Release)

Zynga Reports Massive Losses YoY

Zynga has posted their second quarter figures for 2014 and the results are less than stellar, depressing even. The creator of Farmville posted a 34 percent drop in revenue compared to last year, with net income dropping down to $2.8 million from $6.1 million. The company continued its ongoing losses with a dramatic rise from $15.8 million last year to $62.5 million.

Last year was not good for Zynga, as the developer/publisher faced a revolving door of top executives resigning as well as the continued diminishing popularity of their games. Last year at this time, Zynga boasted 39 million daily active users, 187 million monthly active users, and 123 million monthly unique users. Those numbers plummeted to 29 million, 130 million, and 89 million respectively. Farmville 2 and Zynga Poker make up the bulk of Zynga’s revenue, 32% and 24% respectively.

Despite these losses, Zynga is looking to expand into two new mobile categories: Sports and endless runners. Zynga has formed a multi-year partnership with the NFL to create games for mobile devices. The company is projecting lower losses next quarter and increased revenue.

(Source: CNN Money)

Ironman Mode Considered For RuneScape

The RPG community is one that is constantly challenging itself to complete games in new and unconventional ways. We’ve talked about this before on Dungeons & Dragons Online, where some communities institute perma-death, deleting their characters if they die. As unofficial challenges, of course, participation is completely based on the honor code. There is no way to know for sure if a player has kept up their end of the deal, which can often lead to distrust and fighting within said communities.

Jagex has noticed the popularity of an Ironman Mode, a game type where players level up completely self-sufficiently. The company is planning on implementing an official version of this mode, where players will be completely restricted from interacting with others. While the fine details are still being worked out, players will be unable to trade with others in any way, either by direct trade, picking up drops, picking up other players’ loot, using the auction house, buy items sold by other players to shops, or accepting aid. Players will also not be allowed to group up, join multiplayer minigames, receive buffs, use housing services by other players, or group up in Dungeoneering.

There is also a hardcore version being thought of which will delete the player’s character when they die, leaving only their highscore behind. The mode has support in both versions of RuneScape.

(Source: RuneScape)

Pathfinder Online Early Access Coming Soon

Goblinworks has announced that open enrollment for Pathfinder Online will begin on September 15th. The open enrollment area is suited for at least twenty thousand active players, and to ensure that the game reaches those numbers, Goblinworks has accelerated all open enrollment packages to have access beginning the first month.

In addition, all early enrollment package owners will be invited to play in the alpha stage. The timing for alpha early enrollment will be announced soon. If you want access to early enrollment and haven’t purchased a package yet, however, you will need to buy in at the $50 level for access starting month 2 (October) or $100 in month 1 (September).

There are a few other announcements including premium items, base camps, and more. Check out the entire announcement at the link below.

(Source: Goblinworks)

Respec For One Gold In Elder Scrolls Online

Personally, my favorite cost reduction is dollar drafts. In preparation for patch 1.3.4, Zenimax Studios has lowered the price of respec to one single gold piece. You may not be aware of this if you haven’t checked in game or found this buried in the latest patch notes:

The cost to respec has been reduced to 1 gold per skill point or stat point. Note that this is a temporary change and in approximately one week, respec costs will return to a normal (but reduced) cost in patch v1.3.4.

(Source: Elder Scrolls Online)

Blizzard Announces Warlords of Draenor Launch Date Announcement Date

You are too kind, Blizzard. World of Warcraft’s next expansion Warlords of Draenor is ready to bust through your door and kick your productivity to the curb. In an announcement put out, Blizzard has revealed that on August 15th we will…find out when Warlord of Draenor will be released. Yes, the hype train goes so deep that we now have announcements to tell us when something will be announced.

Next up on MMO Fallout: Trion Worlds announces upcoming press event to discuss the details of a viral marketing campaign that will hint towards when we can expect a full announcement on the release date of ArcheAge. Maybe.

Rusty Hearts Shutting Down

Perfect World Entertainment has announced that Rusty Hearts will be closing down on September 15th. Starting today, August 4th, it will no longer be possible to download Rusty Hearts and players will be unable to transfer Zen to their characters. Players who have been active during the past thirty days will find any Zen they purchased in the last six months credited to their wallet, which can then be transferred to other Perfect World Entertainment titles.

Rusty Hearts launched three years ago.

(Source: Arc Games)

Darkfall Introduces PLEX-like D.U.E.L

Aventurine is the latest company to jump on board the PLEX train. In a recent update post, the company revealed D.U.E.L, an item that can be purchased from the in-game shop that extends a player’s subscription by 30 days. The patch notes don’t offer much in terms of details, so we reached out to Aventurine to answer a couple of questions. The D.U.E.L is a physical item that is placed in the player’s inventory. It can be used to add 30 days to an account (extending any existing subscription time), or it can be traded to other players for in-game currency. The D.U.E.L does not drop on death cannot be looted by other players.

Thank you to Tasos Flambouras from Aventurine for providing additional information.

(Source: Darkfall)

FFXIV: Trial Characters Eventually Expire

Free trials have finally come to Final Fantasy XIV, which means more people running around the world of Eorzea. One question that always pops up is how to deal with the army of dead characters that will be created and then never returned to. Square Enix has apparently thought of this problem and come up with a solution. Accounts must be upgraded to the full version within 90 days, or else it appears that the character may be lost.

In order to keep playing with the same in-game and character data in the full version, players must upgrade to the full version of the game within 90 days after the Free Trial expires.

There are similar setbacks which appear to be aimed at slowing down gil farmers. Free accounts cannot trade, nor can they use the market board, retainers, free companies, moogle delivery service, nor can they use /tell, /yell, and /shout chat commands, and are restricted from creating parties or linkshells. Additionally, it looks like accounts are tied to the client, which will not install if there is a copy of FFXIV or the trial version on the computer. A gil spammer would, theoretically, be forced to uninstall and reinstall the game every time they were banned.

(Source: FFXIV)

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It: