Category: News

The Secret World Second Anniversary Kicks Off


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The Secret World has kicked off its second anniversary with golems once again invading the world, as well as new world bosses in Tokyo. Yes, I said Tokyo.

Many hours of new content is also introduced with a new mission pack for the Tokyo game zone called Side Stories: Love & Loathing. Here players get to fight off the demonic invasion of Tokyo or try their hand at complex Origami in a deep Investigation Mission, among many other challenges.

All players will enjoy double experience, extra tokens, and free membership for recruiting.

(Source: Funcom press release)

Less Massive: Dungeon Keeper Ad Deemed Misleading


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A rather notable blow has been struck against the free to play industry, with the removal of a Dungeon Keeper ad on the grounds that it was misleading. The Advertising Standards Agency in the UK looked into a consumer complaint that Electronic Arts was misleadingly advertising Dungeon Keeper as a free to play game while omitting important information about the game’s cash shop. The ASA upheld the complaint, based on what it regards to be excessive, frequent, and unreasonable time-gates on content.

As posted on the ASA website:

While we understood that the average consumer would appreciate that free-to-play games were likely to contain monetisation functions, we considered that they would also expect the play experience of a game described as ‘free’ to not be excessively restricted. Similarly, although we acknowledged that a timer mechanism could be a legitimate part of gameplay experience, the nature of the timer frequency and length in Dungeon Keeper, in combination with the way it was monetised, was likely to create a game experience for non-spenders that did not reflect their reasonable expectations from the content of the ad. Because the game had the potential to restrict gameplay beyond that which would be expected by consumers and the ad did not make this aspect of the role of in-app purchasing clear, we concluded that it was misleading.

EA’s CEO recently called Dungeon Keeper a “shame,” after the game was met with overwhelming backlash and quickly dropped off of the app charts, followed by the closure of Mythic Entertainment.

(Source: Pocket Gamer)

Age Of Empires Online Shuts Down Today


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Age of Empires Online takes its last breaths today. The pseudo-MMO adaptation of Microsoft’s popular series never fully caught on thanks to its limited content and rather expensive cost of purchases, as well as the cheaper, more readily available alternative titles in the series. We learned last year in January that content development had ceased, and finally in October that the servers would come down in July due to the closure of Games for Windows Live services.

With full Age of Empires titles on sale for cheap, players found little reason to throw down $20 to unlock a single civilization. Following an unsuccessful Kickstarter campaign for an RTS called Wildman, Gas Powered Games laid off a number of staff and sold off to Wargaming.net.

State of Darkfall: Upcoming Updates


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Aventurine has released a list of upcoming updates to Darkfall: Unholy Wars, to be released in the month of July and beyond. The first, expected for launch in the first week of July, focuses on fixing and balancing issues that have arisen since the custom roles patch last month. The second patch is the first step in creating a more customizable user interface, allowing players to tailor the UI to their preferences. Also in the works are economy rebalances, seige engines in August, and the first quest lines in September.

Further down the line, Aventurine plans to overhaul the inventory system into one that is grid-based and more easily managed, as well as an alignment system that will severely reduce the size of the safe zones, as well as the ability to enchant equipment. There is plenty more in development, including fluff items for the in-game store, and Aventurine has promised to keep us up to date on future development.

(Source: Aventurine press release)

Carbine Staff Knocks Down Cheater On Forums


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Wildstar staff Cougar took to the forums to publicly respond to a player asking why his account ban hadn’t been dealt with ten days later.

I’m assuming that with your posting here that you don’t mind us talking about your account status in public. I have a spare moment before my next meeting and am doing this on a lark. I understand this opens me up to “oh oh oh my ticket” which I don’t intend to keep up with. I am a fickle beast. You, and your alts, were reported a number of time by players for AFK Botting. We found you afk botting in a PvP Match (which as you know, was a really big issue for us – which is now better thanks to AddOns no longer being able to join matches automatically, among other things). We did our secret stuff … okay afk bot confirmation doesn’t take much clandestine stuff once we are on top of you. We sent you tells over time and you never reacted and continued doing the same thing over and over.

We closed your account. You opened up a ticket in question, asking for us to give you your account back. In that opening salvo of asking us for getting your account back, you admited that you were afk botting while doing homework. You then added 5 replies in two days to the ticket with various stages of pleading/begging. Including internet meme pictures. (http://i2.kym-cdn.co…392/289/116.gif). A few agents have investigated it internally and found your account to be worthy of permanent closure. You are exactly the problem case players have been pleading for us to remove from our game. We agree with them.

Now, why we’ve taken some time to tell you that your ban will not be overturned I’m not sure. So thank you for bringing that to my attention, however you’ll forgive me if we don’t prioritize deserved-to-be-banned-customers over paying ones right now.

(Source: Wildstar)

Why Does ArcheAge Have Sixteen Thousand Spammers?


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ArcheAge is currently in alpha stage getting ready for its launch under Trion Worlds. Players are in-game thanks to a $150 package, where they are bug testing, balance testing, and apparently gold farming and spamming in massive quantities. How massive? Trion Worlds banned sixteen thousand accounts for spamming chat and botting gold. In an alpha.

We’re pleased to report that over 16,000 nasty, evil, foul, and most importantly misbehaving accounts have been reactively and proactively removed from Alpha. These accounts were purchased using ill-gotten funds and have been used to farm gold with bots and to spam chat channels, neither of which is allowed in ArcheAge.

Patch 1.2 arrives next week and gives Trion more power to rid the game of evil spammers and farmers.

(Source: ArcheAge)

Xsyon Terrain Update


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Xsyon has released a massive update to the game’s terrain system. The goal of the update is to provide plenty of room to settle for new players, while facilitating travel for current players and allow them room to expand.

The Xsyon landscape is shaped and molded by players. Over the years many unsightly mounds and ruins of abandoned sites have built up across the land. The terrain reversion update gradually restores this neglected land to its original state. Felled tree stumps and logs that have littered the landscape also decay over time.

You can check out Xsyon for free at the official website.

(Source: Notorious Games Press Release)

Less Massive: GFWL Not Shutting Down


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So, it turns out Games For Windows Live isn’t shutting down next week. According to a statement by Microsoft, you will still be able to download titles from the Games for Windows Live client as usual, however customers will not be able to purchase games or receive title updates.

“As previously announced, as part of the retirement of Microsoft Points the Xbox.com PC marketplace was closed. Although customers are unable to purchase new games from the marketplace or receive title updates, they can continue to enjoy previously purchased content by downloading them through the Games for Windows Live client as usual. We remain committed to investing in PC gaming in the years ahead, and look forward to sharing more in the future.”

Presumably features like achievements will continue to function as well, online play may be dependent on the game.

(Source: Eurogamer)

Ridge Racer Driftopia Cancelled Mid-Beta


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Bandai Namco has announced that Ridge Racer Driftopia will shut down its servers on August 15th. The free to play racing game launched September 9th on the Steam Early Access with the hopes of launching on the Playstation 3 down the line. Players are able to purchase vehicles, experience, and other items via the in-game cash shop, and the game is still available on Steam for the time being.

“The leading developer and publisher wanted to take this opportunity to thank all its players for their permanent support and dedication! All the feedbacks will be taken into account for the upcoming projects.”

Bugbear Entertainment’s next car game, appropriately titled Next Car Game, is also on Steam Early Access albeit at a price of $30 for admission.

(Source: Gamespot)

Steam Sale MMO Discounts


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The time has come again. Hide your wallets, folks, because this battle is going to get brutal. The Steam Summer Sale is already underway, and only the intervention of some deity from above can save us now from the avalanche of cheap games. In order to facilitate your buying experience, MMO Fallout has compiled a list of sales in the MMO department. As usual, sales are listed as they are shown for US customers, your milage may vary, and definitely do not browse the Steam Summer Sale while intoxicated. The Steam Summer Sale runs until June 30th, MMO Fallout does not guarantee that games will be on sale for the whole duration.