Darkfall is about to become one year older, and Aventurine hopes that everyone will come to the party. From May 1st to May 5th, gamers are invited to give Darkfall a try whether they are returning customers or new players entirely. In addition, players will enjoy double prowess for the duration of the event, as well as a series of dynamic events including a treasure hunt.
Check out more Darkfall Unholy Wars at the link below.
(Source: Darkfall)
It’s hard to speak negatively about private server operators sometimes. After all, for every guy who runs a World of Warcraft server because he think it’ll be a good way to make some money, there’s another guy who simply wants to play his favorite MMO again. It’s rather depressing when a company chooses not only to shut down their servers, but actively shuts down operators willing to pick up the slack. No one wins in those cases, not the players who want to continue playing a game that the publisher deemed no longer viable, nor the company that puts its ex-customers in an adversarial position.
As I’ve mentioned in the past, advertising private servers is not allowed here at MMO Fallout, unless the servers come with the express permission of the publisher. In this case, Pirates of the Caribbean Online fans have apparently been given the blessing of Disney to recreate the MMO. The game is strictly non-profit, 100% free to play, otherwise Disney will sue.
(Source: Alpha Beta Gamer)
Today’s video comes to us from City of Titans, showing off a few set pieces and concept models.
The Old Republic officially never happened. According to a surprise announcement by Lucasfilm, only the six films and Clone Wars show are considered canon going forward. All of the comic books, video games, and stories are now considered “legends” in the Star Wars lore, and will still be available for purchase despite no longer being part of the official canon.
“Lucas always made it clear that he was not beholden to the EU. He set the films he created as the canon. This includes the six Star Wars episodes, and the many hours of content he developed and produced in Star Wars: The Clone Wars”
You can find the entire blog post here. The upcoming Rebels is the first new piece of official canon to come out.
(Source: Eurogamer)
Arenanet has announced that the Megaserver technology has been fully implemented in all PvE maps and Heart of the Mists.
Although we’re excited that you have more players than ever to explore the open world of Guild Wars 2 with, our work is not yet complete. Our megaserver team will continue to monitor the performance of the technology on live and evaluate your feedback. We will continue to tweak and update the way the system works until it is providing even better megaservice!
(Source: Guild Wars 2)
With its big show on Steam just over the horizon, Star Vault has laid out how the hardcore sandbox MMO will make its way to gamers worldwide. Before Mortal Online is allowed to release, however, Star Vault is implementing a number of updates and fixes. In the latest press release, Star Vault has laid down just how the Steam rollout will happen.
Each block, according to the release, has a lead time of about one month, noting that multiple blocks may run in parallel.
? Block 0 – Unreal Engine update
? Block 1 – Territory Control
? Block 2 – Territory Control Testing and release
? Block 3 – Continent Support
? Block 4 – Continent support testing and release
? Block 5 – STEAM API release on STEAM
Henrik Nystrom, Star Vault’s CEO, made the following comment (translated):
We continue our focus on working towards STEAM, it looks we all look forward to the team, but I also believe that our current players see the value in this. We will increase communication about the development work currently involves about 40 resources in our global development team. For transparency to our shareholders, we have teamed up with Axier, specialists in communication to the stock market. They have produced an analysis of Star Vault. I hope you find it interesting
(Source: Star Vault Press Release)
With all of the hubbub about H1Z1 and the prospects of free to play and pay to win, John Smedley took to the game’s official subreddit to explain just how the game’s cash shop will work. Players will be able to buy wearables which can be looted by others upon death, in a manner of speaking.
We’ve also come up with a pretty awesome idea to let players who kill other players loot stuff. So if a player has a black ski mask and gets killed by another player, that player can wear the ski mask for a few deaths (we have durability in the game. Station Cash wearables won’t degrade at all but when you loot something.. it will degrade. Please note the original player always keeps their SC purchased wearables.
Smedley also confirmed that the shop will not sell guns, ammo, food, water, “etc,” nor will they sell boosts. Emote packs will be available for sale as well as character slots and crates ala Valve’s monetization system.
(Source: Reddit)
This year at PAX East, Carbine Studios has announced a special donation to Child’s Play. In addition to a comically sized check for ten thousand dollars, Carbine Studios has partnered with LEGO artist Mariann Asanuma to recreate the Wildstar rocket house in all of its blocky glory. The structure stands three feet high and four feet long and is the result of fifty thousand LEGO blocks.
The rocket ship will be auctioned off later this year at the annual Child’s Play Dinner and Auction. Mona Hamilton, Vice President of Brands at Carbine Studios, weighed in on the contribution.
Child’s Play is a wonderful charity doing really great things with the gaming industry and we’re looking forward to seeing the result of the auction later this year. It was also important for us to say thanks by giving back to the Boston community; they’ve been great to us over the years at PAX East.
Child’s Play’s goal is to improve the lives of children in hospitals and welfare facilities through the positive impact of video games.
(Source: Carbine Studios Press Release)
It looks like Zenimax is ramping up their efforts against gold farmers in The Elder Scrolls Online. Intrepid explorer Necropsie over at the MMORPG.com forums snapped a screenshot in-game of a game master announcing to the area to step away from the boss or be slain. Presumably those slain by the GM would have their accounts flagged for review, if not banned outright.
This isn’t the first time an MMO has employed lethal force against bot. Back in the day, Aion GM’s could be seen executing accounts used to spam gold selling websites.
There is some discussion going around the internet about how ArcheAge has performed and whether or not the game has “failed,” which is most assuredly has by one person’s standards or another. While I don’t know for sure how Archeage is performing following the game’s launch in Japan and Russia, I can tell you that last September we learned that XLGames was laying off staff. We also know that the layoffs and transition to free to play was due to the game’s poor performance as a subscription title and subsequent quickly declining revenue.
A few people are under the impression, and I am paraphrasing here, that ArcheAge can’t possibly be doing poorly. After all, according to their logic, a game that has won so many awards has to be raking in the money. The fact that ArcheAge won a number of awards at last year’s Korea Game Awards means nothing in terms of how many people are playing and, furthermore, investing money. Warhammer Online won nearly twenty awards in 2008, including several “best of 2008,” none of which mattered much when both the servers and staff were gutted shortly thereafter.
The best way to gauge an MMO’s success is to follow its ability to retain players.
MMO Fallout 