News – Page 463 – MMO Fallout

Blizzard Gives Parents More Control

Blizzard has announced that accounts with parental controls turned on will soon have the ability to make in-game purchases turned off by default. The decision likely comes from last year’s list of companies dealing with children racking up massive bills on their parent’s card using cash shops and mobile app stores, including Apple paying out $100 million for unauthorized purchases. With the threat of class action lawsuits and suggestions of litigation to deal with a lack of self-regulation, Blizzard is joining a group of companies implementing their own policies.

(Source: Blizzard)

Sony Online All Access Changing In February

Sony Online Entertainment has announced upcoming changes to gold membership in Everquest, and not all players will be happy. Instead of the monthly stipend of 500 station cash, members will be able to purchase one item up to two thousand station cash, sans bundles, studio items, etc.

The week of February 3rd, 2014 we will be making a very important change to the Gold Membership level in EverQuest The current benefit of receiving 500 Station Cash (SC) monthly will be replaced with a new program that allows you to select one single item valued up to 2000 SC each month. Nearly all items within the games’ Marketplace will be available for this selection. Players Studio, bundles and additional exclusions may apply. This new benefit must be claimed each month that you are a member as it will not carry over to subsequent months.

The new plan benefits those who save up their station cash for large single purchases, while those who use their stipend to buy multiple cheap items may feel the value of their subscription lessen.

(Source: Eqwire)

Photo of the Now: Brad McQuaid's Throne

Brad McQuaid is working on an MMO, the secret kind of MMO. The Kickstarter for McQuaid Online is on its way, but for now the man himself has posted a teaser picture on Twitter.

(Source: Brad McQuaid)

Neverwinter Permanently Drops Prices

Over at Neverwinter, prices are falling faster than snowflakes on something that repels snowflakes, I am not very good with analogies. What I can tell you is that companions are currently on sale for 60% off until December 30th, after which the deal will be almost as sweet. When the sale does end on Monday, prices will be permanently reduced by up to 47%. Reductions depend on the rarity level of the companion, but range from 29% off to 47% off for the rarest and most common respectively.

Companions will be priced between 800 and 2500 zen, which can still be obtained in-game by trading astral diamonds, following the update on December 30th.

(Source: Neverwinter)

Is Relic Localizing Phantasy Star Online 2?

Earlier this year, gamers were dismayed to hear that Phantasy Star Online 2 would likely not be making it to the west, despite the game being fully translated into English for certain Asian regions. The news wasn’t a definite no, but allegedly Sega doubts the game’s ability to gain traction in Europe and the Americas. Luckily, that may not be the case. At the beginning of the year, Relic Entertainment was sold to Sega as part of THQ’s bankruptcy. A job listing has popped up on Relic’s website for a programmer/engineer to work on a live MMO from Japan.

Among the list of duties and requirements are:

Ramp up and perform due diligence on an existing live MMO project in development in Japan, embedded with the live team
5+ years’ engineering experience from PC client/server based MMO development

It could be Phantasy Star Online 2, or it could be some other property.

(Source: Relic Careers)

RuneScape: 2014 Power To The Players

Jagex has declared 2014 to be the year of player-developer collaboration, not unlike every other year that the developer has promised to listen to its community better. How do you accomplish this? Through things. Foremost, Jagex plans on implementing an in-game poll system to allow better opportunity for players to vote on upcoming content.

In mid-January, we’re going to launch a new in-game poll system, which will give members at least one new content poll to vote on each week. In total, there will be up to seven guaranteed content polls each month, covering a range of topics including quests, minigames, combat updates, skills, bosses, reworks, core gameplay changes and much more besides.

How else? More polls! The announcement does detail plans to add in more quests, high level content, and a continued effort to remove RuneScape’s niggling problems. The first poll launches January 13th.

(Source: RuneScape)

TERA Receiving New Class In 2014

I feel bad for not noticing this sooner, but in my defense neither did any of the other major MMO news websites. On November 25th, Tera Today published an interview with Bluehole Studios on some upcoming updates in 2014 to the Korean service. Alongside a rookie server where players will be able to ease into the game as well as level up a bit faster, TERA will also be enjoying the release of a new class. The class is specific to the Elin race, a powerful mid-range damage dealer, although Bluehole is not saying that the class will never be available to othe races. According to the interview, developing new animations for each race takes approximately eight months.

You can check out the entire interview at the link below to read more about additional updates coming to KTera, and hopefully followed by other regions.

(Source: Tera Today)

Neverwinter Reflects On 2013

The end of the year is upon us, and what better time to look back at events that have transpired? Over at Perfect World Entertainment, Lead Producer Andy Velasquez took some time to talk about Neverwinter’s first year, or half year to be more specific. The note thanks players for providing extensive feedback regarding Shadowmantle, and notes the team charged with creating the game’s multiple events.

Shadowmantle has been our largest update thus far, and I am extremely proud of my team for being able to get it done so quickly while maintaining a high quality product. As always, there are things that we learned from this expansion that we will look to improve upon in our development process.

Velasquez also notes the release of a separate Russian shard, and how there are (naturally) more updates on the way. Neverwinter was, of course, not without mishaps its first year, including astral diamond dupes, auction house exploits, and the release of the banhammer on foundry exploits.

(Source: Neverwinter)

Ex-Warhammer Dev Asks For Singleplayer Client

Warhammer Online may be offline forever, but its world may not be lost to us forever. Andrew Meggs, tech guy at City State Entertainment and ex-engineer at Mythic Entertainment, took to his blog to explain that while players may not be able to enjoy Warhammer Online as it was, it is within Mythic’s capabilities to at least let them roam around the world. As it turns out, most MMOs have the capability of running in singleplayer mode. There are no quests, no NPCs, no other players, but the point is that players could see the world that Mythic put so much effort into creating.

This won’t compete with any current or future game, because it’s not a game anymore. But it’s a place for the die-hard fans to visit by themselves, to reminisce and remember the times they had there with others. It’s something the hundreds of developers who worked on it will still be able to run for their kids someday. It’s a piece of history for Professors of Game Studies in 2113 to better understand what MMORPGs looked like before the neural implants.

Would you like to see a Warhammer Online virtual museum?

(Source: Shinytoys)

Zynga Farms $1 Million For Charity

Holiday Lights is an expansion farm for FarmVille introduced a few weeks ago by Zynga. Unlike other expansion farms, Holiday Lights is unique in that 100% of the Zynga’s share on in-game items is directed straight to charity. In a post on the Zynga blog, the company congratulated its players for raising one million dollars collectively for Feeding America, enough to deliver nine million meals to those in need. According to the post, sixty percent of the FarmVille population donated in some capacity.

To date, Zynga has raised $17 million for charities including Toys for Tots, children’s hospital, building schools in Haiti, and more. Thanks a million. Seventeen million, that is.

(Source: Zynga)

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