News – Page 454 – MMO Fallout

End of Nations Is Dead: Stripped From Trion's Website

If you’ve been following the development of End of Nations, the announcement that development on the title has stopped will be of no surprise. It is almost hard to believe that at one point, nearly a year and a half ago, End of Nations almost reached open beta status. Following a round of layoffs at Petroglyph Entertainment, however, Trion announced that development of the title would be moving in-house and that further beta tests would be on hold “until further notice.” Trion later confirmed that the game would be revamped from an MMO real time strategy game into a MOBA.

A company changing focus that late in development is never a good sign, and End of Nations’ death was essentially guaranteed when “open beta soon” became “on hold until further notice,” and then “join our alpha test” a couple of months later. It looks likely that this may be the last time we hear about End of Nations, as Trion has pulled down the official website and the Trion’s own website makes no mention of the game any more. Trion’s statement to the press confirmed that the game has indeed been halted.

As we informed EON’s community last fall, internal development on End of Nations was put on hold in late 2013 while we evaluated potential paths forward for the title. We’re currently focusing the company’s energy and creativity on Rift, Defiance, Trove, ArcheAge and some new projects that we will be revealing soon.

End of Nations seeing release at this point would be a miracle the likes of which the world has never seen. The impossible kind.

(Source: Polygon)

City of Steam Hits Steam Today

Today’s the day the teddy bears have their picnic. Following the launch of City of Steam: Arkadia last year on web browsers, through Kongregate, and via an available micro-client, Mechanist Games will be launching their MMO on Steam today at approximately noon EST. Arkadia was voted on to Steam through the powers invested in Greenlight, Valve’s crowd-voting platform of approval. In an announcement on the official website, Mechanist noted that certain features had either become obsolete or were deemed unsuitable for the Steam environment, such as the mobile-inspired power limitations. The team admits that 2013 was a “downright rotten year” and, having recovered somewhat, continues to make amends.

For Mechanist, 2014 is all about making the best game, doing what we originally intended, keeping our promises no matter how long ago they were. The two most important ones we have to fix as soon as possible are paragon supporter promises and steam greenlight promises. We’re doing both right now, actually started immediately after new year.

The City of Steam Steam launch coincides with the release of update 2.4 and the launch of a brand new server, and will also introduce a bevvy of content originally anticipated for the previous version’s Steam launch. New pets, new vehicles, Steam achievements, hats, dungeons, jetpacks, and character customizations, with Valve-inspired pets and vehicles among the lot.

Both updates go live at 9am Pacific.

(Source: City of Steam)

Harry Potter MMO Is Go…Until Beta, At Least

How many times have you found yourself wondering why no one stepped up to create a Harry Potter MMO? If you’re anything like us, the answer is a lot. Even though it has been nearly six years since the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, the franchise is still going strong with loyal followers based all over the world and in just about every language. With much of the world still left to discover, Harry Potter seems a perfect candidate for an MMO.

Ask and you shall receive, well sort of. The website for Harry Potter Online has launched and, while the game is technically announced, there is a bit of an important “but” to the equation. You see, the Harry Potter MMO is not yet fully approved for full development, and Warner Bros. wants to see a working beta before they decide to fully fund the project. Once the game reaches beta, Warner Bros will decide if the game is worth completing.

Check out the website at the link below.

(Source: Harry Potter Online)

Path of Exile's First Expansion Coming

Path of Exile is getting ready to launch its first mini-expansion Sacrifice of Vaal next week. The mini-expansion will include a bevy of content, including a high level encounter with Atziri, Queen of the Vaal. Much of the content is layered across the game world rather than focused on the end-game with new secret areas dotting the map, each containing their own special bosses guarding Vaal gems and fragments. New Vaal gemstones gain energy while equipped and can be unleashed for massive attacks, while exiles may corrupt their equipment for a number of benefits at the cost of being unable to mod the item any further.

Two new leagues also find their way in with this update. Ambush leagues feature strongboxes guarded by ambushes, while the hardcore Invasion league dramatically increases the variety of monsters one can encounter, including those from later levels rather early on. Check out the link below for more information on what is coming, and check out the trailer below that to hear a voiceover about sacrifice.

(Source: Path of Exile)

Another Strong IP Bites The Dust

If we have learned anything here at MMO Fallout over the past five years, it is that a strong property means absolutely nothing when it comes to the success of an MMO, or any video game for that matter. In case you didn’t notice this idea in place with the launch of Warhammer Online or the plan that The Old Republic would sustain itself on subscriptions alone, you can take a look at the latest casualty: Doctor Who.

Doctor Who: Worlds in Time is an MMO-lite launched in March 2012, that will have already shut down by the time you read this. Worlds in Time was a decent puzzle game, but ultimately became repetitive and unsustainable over a prolonged service. The developer, Three Rings, is responsible for a few titles you may be familiar with: Spiral Knights and Puzzle Pirates.

The moral of the story is that not every IP needs an MMO. I’m looking at you, Fifty Shades of Grey Online.

Marvel Heroes Mac Beta Signups

Gazillion Entertainment has announced that users are now welcome to sign up to beta test the Mac client for Marvel Heroes. Launch for the Mac client is set for later on this Spring, but users can sign up now to beta test. Check out the link below for more information on how to sign up.

(Source: Marvel Heroes)

Trion Bans May Now Revoke Game Access

In case you haven’t seen, Trion Worlds has announced the introduction of a new “forum toxicity” policy. In short, the developer has issued an ultimatum that trolling, threats, and abuse will no longer be tolerated, and swift action will be taken to ensure that the forums remain a squeaky clean place for squeaky clean boys and girls. One issue that seems to have been tossed into the spotlight is the idea that Trion is now suspending and revoking game access for behavior on the forums. That is half true.

As explained on the forums, revoking game access is apparently reserved for players who repeatedly return on alternate accounts to continue trolling.

Users who have previously had their forum access revoked, and create second, third, fourth, fifth…and so on, troll accounts, may now see penalties on their game accounts. (Yes, people really do this.) Those penalties range from suspensions to revocation of game access.

With the proper execution, Rift may actually wind up having one of the few official MMO forums worth visiting.

MMOrning Shots: Aion Infographic

Today’s MMOrning Shot comes to us from Aion, where Gameforge and NCSoft have tossed together an infographic detailing the two year anniversary of the game’s transition to free to play. With over seven million characters created with a combined play time of sixty six thousand years, Aion’s most popular class is the Gladiator and Sorcerer. Since its transition to free to play, Aion has seen massive updates to the core game experience including the addition of housing and mounts, not to mention two new classes. Players are also capable of playing in Spanish, Italian, Polish, Turkish, alongside English, French, and German.

Aion’s 4.5 update will introduce the second Engineer specialization, not to mention a number of other content additions. Check it out when it hits Europe on April 9th.

(Source: Gameforge press release)

Uninstall Pando Media Booster.

Hindsight is twenty twenty, and no doubt gamers of days to come will one day look back at Pando Media Booster and remember it for what it was: One of the worst program to plague PC users since the Bonzai Buddy. As advertised, Pando Media Booster became rather widely used by a number of MMOs as a peer to peer sharing system to mitigate bandwidth and hopefully provide faster download times.

It also had the side effect of slowing the internet speeds of many down to a crawl, and was generally seen as bloatware carefully toeing the line between legitimate software and malicious malware. Last August, to the relief of gamers everywhere, Pando closed its business down and shut down the Pando Media Booster servers.

So Pando may be dead, but as decades of Friday the 13th movies have shown us, the dead often do not rest in peace. Pando Media Booster has been hijacked and users are receiving notices that the program requires an update despite the service having shut down last year. The supposed update is actually the Sweet Page browser hijacker virus, which redirects browsers to the Sweet Page search engine.

A number of MMO clients are still being distributed with Pando Media Booster.

(Source: CSTM)

Jagex Raises Money Through SpecialEffect Charity

Jagex has revealed the results of their 24 hour gaming marathon for SpecialEffect’s Gameblast weekend. The event, which saw staff and members of the community playing RuneScape and Ace of Spades for a full day, resulted in a total of nearly eighty thousand dollars raised for charity. In addition, RuneScape once again opened its Well of Goodwill, where players can donate in-game bonds and goods that are converted into real money to be donated. To top off the event, Jagex also donated 50% of the profits from Ace of Spades sales to SpecialEffect.

Jane Ryan, Head of RuneScape Community Management, expressed the company’s delight in the good will of its community.

“It’s been a crazy 24 hours; we’ve seen staff rise to the occasion and take on all kinds of challenges in the name of charity. The generosity of our players is both touching and gratifying and we can’t wait to do it all again next year!”

SpecialEffect is a charity dedicated to helping people with disabilities. Find out more about the charity at http://www.specialeffect.org.uk/

(Source: Jagex Press Release)

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