News – Page 445 – MMO Fallout

CCP Layoffs From Publishing Team

Eve Online developer CCP Games has confirmed to Gamasutra that a recent wave of layoffs has resulted in 49 employees being cut from the company. According to the report, teams from Eve Online, Eve: Valkyrie, Project Legion, and DUST 514 have not been affected by the layoffs.

“As part of our strategy to focus on the EVE Universe, today CCP conducted a restructuring that resulted in the layoff of 49 people in our publishing organisation,”

The developer has promised severance packages and job placement assistance to those affected.

(Source: Gamesindustry.biz)

Not Massive: Sniper Elite V2 Free On Steam

Rebellion has announced that Sniper Elite is on Steam for free for the next 24 hours. The promotion lasts until Thursday June 5th at exactly 10am PST/6pm BST. To get your hands on the game, all you have to do is open the page in Steam and click download. After that, the game is free forever.

Pantheon Returns To Full Development

Visionary Realms has announced that Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen is back in full development mode. Development initially ceased following an unsuccessful Kickstarter campaign, only to be revived under a team of volunteers last month. Brad McQuaid discusses in detail what the team is focusing on presently.

The Programmer’s efforts with the new network code are essential. Within 1-2 weeks we will be able to (internally) create accounts, create characters, and then log into one of the game’s zones. This requires the client to be able to connect to the servers, and the server code to be able to talk to the database. The good news is that we had some of this working before, so we can reference that.

Read the entire announcement at the link below.

(Source: Pantheon)

Defiance Is Now Free To Play

Defiance officially becomes free to play today. Patch 2.0, dubbed the NSFW patch, allows players to experience the entire Bay Area storyline for free, at least for PC gamers. Console gamers will have to wait until around July 15th to get their free gaming on. Free players will be limited to two character slots, two loadouts, a cap of 50 ark keys, and 35 inventory slots. The move also introduces the Paradis Patron subscription, which can be bought at the in-game store and includes store discounts and bonuses to loot, scrip, experience, and more.

You can find the entire list of updates here, as well as patch notes for today’s 2.0 update.

(Source: Defiance)

Perpetuum Online Sees Growth

With Perpetuum Online now operating as a buy to play title, and the folks at Avatar Creations have posted a status report detailing just how things are getting along. Thanks to an upswing in users, five times the average player count, Perpetuum is receiving the capital investment that it so deserves. For starters, the server cluster is being upgraded and moved to a more suitable location: Amsterdam (your drug jokes here). Gamma islands are still closed down in preparation for a relaunch, along with multiple quality of life changes to the game’s UI and features.

I don’t have the freedom to tell you actual financial data, but it should be enough to say that after months (years?) of worrying about what to put on your plate tomorrow, it’s a liberating feeling to have that off of the list of things to worry about, and being able to just focus on making the game better.

Also in the works is the ability to buy and sell ingame items for Steam wallet funds. There is also a major rewrite of the engine in the works which should allow for higher resolution textures and a brand new interface. Check out the entire announcement below.

(Source: Perpetuum Online)

Wildstar Early Access Hammered By DDOS

With players piling into Wildstar’s servers for early access, what more could a developer possibly ask for? A denial of service attack, apparently. Executive Producer Jeremy Gaffney posted on the game’s Reddit to confirm that the servers were under attack and that it was being handled. Since then the servers have come back to normal.

I’ve heard from a few folks it’s a confirmed DDOS attack (real time updates, may change, fog of war, etc.). Partially handled. Servers taking in some players now, player counts rising. Ninjitsu continue.

Never underestimate the potential of anonymous basement dwellers with botnets.

(Source: Reddit)

Marvel Heroes 2015 Coming June 4th

Gazillion Entertainment has announced Marvel Heroes 2015, a culmination of a year’s worth of updates to the superhero MMO, set for launch on June 4th. Intended to highlight on how far the title has come since its launch, June’s updates also include new end-game raid content as well as alternate advancement, and a final showoff against the fire demon Surtur.

“We’ve come a very long way since our original launch a year ago, and the now imminent release of Marvel Heroes 2015 alongside our massive anniversary celebrations marks the beginning of something even better.”
-David Brevik

For more details, check out the trailer below.

(Source: Gazillion Entertainment press release)

Mythic Entertainment Closes Its Doors

Electronic Arts has announced that Dark Age of Camelot developer Mythic Entertainment has been closed down. Mythic Entertainment are the creators behind Dark Age of Camelot and were acquired by EA Games back in 2006. Mythic Entertainment’s luck ran out when Warhammer Online launched to overwhelmingly negative reception. While Warhammer Online would not shut down until 2013, Mythic made an attempt at a MOBA game based on the Warhammer fantasy lore. The Warhammer MOBA was cancelled mid-beta due to similarly poor reception.

Mythic also released Ultima Forever and Dungeon Keeper, mobile free to play titles based off of classic properties. Ultima Forever has fallen off of the rankings and Dungeon Keeper is ranked 260 in strategy games on the iPhone. Development of Dungeon Keeper will transition to a new team.

“We are closing the EA Mythic location in Fairfax, Virginia, as we concentrate mobile development in our other studio locations. We are working with all impacted employees to provide assistance in finding new opportunities, either within EA or with other companies via an upcoming job fair.”

Broadsword Online has been in charge of Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot for the past few months already, and service will be uninterrupted.

(Source: Gamasutra)

Lineage II Classic Server Coming

NCSoft is set to launch a classic server for Lineage II in Korea. The version includes legacy systems including the old inventory, pre-revamp locales, old crafting recipes, clan system, party system, xp loss, and more. All in all, it looks like the classic server will be somewhere in between the first versions of Lineage II. The beta servers are officially live on the Korean service, however NCSoft has not announced anything about the service coming to North America or Europe.

(Source: MMOcast)

Jagex Steps Back On Multi-Logging Rule

Jagex has altered their rules on multi-logging, or multiboxing as it is often known in other MMOs. Previously players have been restricted from logging into more than one account at the same time, as well as from transferring money or items between accounts. In a new announcement, Jagex has revealed that players are now allowed to log into multiple accounts over all versions of RuneScape, as well as trade wealth between them, providing that the items were not acquired via rule-breaking methods.

You are free to create as many accounts as you like and you are welcome to trade between your accounts just as you would with any other legitimate player. However, if any of your accounts obtained wealth by rule breaking activity for example macro use (botting) or real world trading (buying gold or items from 3rd parties) then all your accounts will be banned. Similarly, multi-logged accounts must not interact with each other to exploit gameplay mechanics, such as attempting to rig the result of a minigame.

Selling or sharing accounts is still against the rules.

(Source: RuneScape)

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