News – Page 465 – MMO Fallout

Dynasty Warriors Online Shutting Down

Dynasty Warriors Online is the MMO adaptation of the long running hack and slash, and if you didn’t know it existed, well you understand why it is shutting down. Aeria Games posted a notice that the servers will close on January 10th, at around 8pm eastern. Any AP spent from today onward will be rebated back to the player’s account.

We know and understand this is both sad and frustrating. The closure of a game is always hardest for us at Aeria as we recognize the community’s dedication towards the game but regrettably games can’t last forever. We know it’s the community that matters most and we genuinely hope everyone gets to spend some quality time playing the game together with friends before it’s time to say goodbye.

Is it too late to ask for a Gundam Dynasty Warriors MMO?

(Source: Dynasty Warriors Online)

World of Warcraft's Cash Shop Launches

World of Warcraft’s in-game store has arrived in the form of the Battle.net shop. Right now the cash shop is rather limited, offering access to the standard fluff players have come to know and either love or hate from Blizzard’s web client. Vanity pets run about $10, with mounts at $25, although most items from both sets are 50% off for the time being to celebrate the launch. Grab them before they go back to regular price on January 1st.

(Source: Joystiq)

Major Updates Coming To Eldevin

Eldevin only just launched a few days ago, but the folks at Hunted Cow are already looking toward the future. In a post on the forums, lead programmer Glenn Murphy discussed a few pieces of content that the team is working on. Foremost, Hunted Cow hopes to address the very restrictive camera, a byproduct of the game’s rendering. Eventually players will have better control of the camera, offering a wider range of movement and better visibility of their surroundings. Additionally, since Eldevin is running on an engine built in Java around ten years ago, the game is rendered on a software level. By performing some upgrades, the team hopes to bring the tech forward and allow for hardware rendering.

Also on the bucket list are guilds, an auction house, mail system, housing, pets, and WASD movement.

(Source: Eldevin Forums)

Archlord Shutting Down In January

Archlord is one of those games whose history I have found difficult to track. This MMO began under Codemasters way back in 2005, launching to pretty low reviews before it went free to play and ultimately shut down in 2009. Webzen, who published Archlord in other territories, took on the role of global publisher. At one point, Webzen started talking about something called Archlord X, which according to this rather poorly translated Facebook notice from September 2012, has ceased development.

Thank you for waiting for release of Archlord X. We notice that all Archlord X contents containing various quest, enhanced battle system and efficient user interface will be applied to Archlord’s major expansion on September. We believe that qualified contents from Archlord X, which was used to enhance Archlord contents, will offer you exciting game environment. Please come to Archlord to enjoy Archlord X contents.

Sadly, Archlord itself will be shutting down January 1st, likely in preparation for the launch of Archlord 2. Compensation packages have not been finalized, and Webzen has promised more details in the coming weeks.

On August of 2009, Webzen.com was thrilled to release Archlord globally. Since official launch, we have been working hard to build a strong community and gaming environment through new content updates and various events. Unfortunately, we have come to a difficult decision to end this long journey we have enjoyed and cherished together. We understand that this will disappoint many of our players.

(Source: Archlord)

Path of Exile Enjoys Successful First Month

The folks at Grinding Gear Games are enjoying a successful first month. One month after launch, Path of Exile has enjoyed a rather sumptuous four million registered users with a quarter of a million logging in every day. Development and release was funded primarily due to founders packs, ranging from fifty to nine hundred dollars in price. Last Wednesday, Path of Exile launched version 1.0.2, bringing with it a host of new features.

Version 1.0.2 includes several new Unique items, vendor recipes, achievements, and microtransactions, as well as final touches on the rapid-fire PvP Tournaments, various bug fixes, and some balancing changes to the game’s damage over time mechanics.

(Source: Path of Exile press release)

Jagex Reveals Premiere Club 2014

Last year, Jagex rolled out the Premiere Club. Players were able to buy limited packages of 3, 6, and 12 months of membership for a reduced price and receive added bonuses for doing so. In a post on the official website, Jagex has laid down the plans for 2013 Premiere Club. The packages are only available until “early 2014,” and the deal last year expired on February 4th. At the highest, gold tier full year package, players receive bonus loyalty points, exclusive pets, extra daily spins, access to VIP exclusive worlds, exclusive Q&A’s, chat and forum badges, and cosmetic promotional items that generally can only be obtained through special game cards.

This year’s deal is more expensive than last year, by a margin of about $12. It will be possible to redeem bonds for premiere membership, so dedicated players can get it all for free. You apparently need six, twelve, and twenty four bonds for each package respectively.

(Source: Jagex)

XLGames: Goldfarming By Any Other Name

MMORPG.com recently conducted an interview with Yinzi Cheng of XLGames, creators of the MMO ArcheAge. The interview is based entirely around the game’s monetization format, which Cheng believes makes the game impervious to gold farmers. There are three currencies in ArcheAge: Gold, Arcs, and Crystals. Gold is the usual in-game gold, crystals are the real money currency, and Arcs are used to purchase many of the game’s premium goods. Gold and crystals are not tradeable, but arcs are. As Cheng says:

Gold that is earned from game contents is untradeable. Arcs could be earned by purchasing Crystals, by enjoying some contents such as catching boss monsters, or by trading with other users. So ‘gold farmers’ cannot produce gold illegally. Therefore, the ‘gold farmers’ easiest way to earn gold, which is auto playing, will no longer bring them profit.

I don’t think XLGames fully understands how gold farmers work. Don’t believe me? When Jagex introduced trade restrictions to RuneScape, players simply converted to a currency based in junk items, allowing them to bypass the system completely. Materials can be traded between players, so what’s to stop a gold farmer from botting millions of gold worth of materials and trading those materials to the buyer who then sells them to an NPC for gold? Arcs are open season for gold farmers to generate in-game, as they can be mined from bosses.

ArcheAge’s non-tradeable gold idea isn’t new, and XLGames should be aware that the process hasn’t done much to impede gold farming in the other titles, like ArcheAge, where despite a strong insistence that the process isn’t feasible, there is quite a variety of gold farming services with varying methods of delivery. The lesson here is that so long as there is a trade system, people will find a way to farm gold.

(Source: MMORPG.com)

XLGames Prosecuting Staff Leaks

Video games are serious business, serious enough that every once in a while here at MMO Fallout we hear about employees leaking update information to players. Generally this insider information is related to upcoming updates that will cause a rise or drop in the price of certain goods. As for the employees themselves, assuming they are caught, punishment ranges from company to company. Usually they are fired.

In a post on MMO Culture, however, XLGames has promised a very serious reaction. Recently a leak was discovered when several high ranking guilds began hoarding very specific items, with the community taking to the forums to demand action. In response, XLGames has revealed that an internal investigation is going on, with the possibility of criminal prosecution against those held responsible. I assume that the charges would fall under revealing trade secrets. Was it worth it?

(Source: MMO Culture)

Lineage's 1.8 Billion Dollar, uh, Lineage

Lineage is NCSoft’s most successful title to date, launching in 1998 and still going strong fifteen years later in Korea and not in North America or Europe where the game was decidedly less popular. Still, Lineage has quite a following in Korea, Japan, China, and several other territories. With the game’s fifteen year anniversary a couple months behind it, NCSoft has revealed that Lineage has raked in $1.8 billion in sales. On second thought, that doesn’t sound impressive enough. Think of it as two trillion won, or ?2,000,000,000,000.

If South Korea celebrated Thanksgiving, I imagine the folks at NCSoft would be stuffing their turkey with money today.

(Source: Destructoid)

SMITE Launches March 25th

Hi-Rez today announced that their upcoming MOBA, SMITE, will finally be launching on March 25th, 2014. Since the game entered open beta, over 2.5 million people have signed up for the free to play game. The opening also coincides with a $100,000 tournament to be held on March 29-30 in Atlanta, Georgia between the top American and European teams.

All player progress in SMITE’s Open Beta will carry over to the game’s general release. Also, all Beta players who reach level 30 before the launch date will unlock the Cacodemon skin for the playable god Ymir.

(Source: SMITE)

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