Ubisoft Enters Auto Chess Arena With Might & Magic: Chess Royale


This is a thing.

Ubisoft today announced the next title in the Might & Magic franchise will take on not one but two gaming trends. Might & Magic: Chess Royale is an auto chess title with battle royale leanings. The core gameplay is tied into the auto chess genre, a round-based strategy game where players select from a pool of characters that automatically battle it out in waves against mobs or other players, with the ultimate goal being to level up your units and outlast the other players.

Might & Magic’s spin on the genre is to merge the auto chess with battle royale and run matches with up to 100 players as opposed to the standard 8 person matches in other similar titles. Might & Magic: Chess Royale will be available on PC and mobile devices on January 30. Pre-registration is now available. We are assuming that the game will be free to play with microtransactions.

Source: Ubisoft

Red Dead Online: Free Roam Events This Week


Red Dead Online has a whole bunch of stuff going on this week for players to take part in including xp bonuses, the latest free aim series, and free roam events for Rank 4 bounty hunters. Bounty Hunters, Traders, and Collectors of at least rank 4 will receive a 25% boost to experience gained while taking part in any rank-specific free roam event in Red Dead Online this week while players of all stripes will be able to redeem a 2,000 experience bonus for each of the specialist roles while completing role activities.

This week’s showcased competitive mode is Last Stand. Just as it sounds, Last Stand pits players against one another in a free-for-all with only one left standing, available for play in the featured showcase. In addition all rifles available via local gunsmiths or the Wheeler catalogue are 30% off. Playstation Plus members can receive a free colorway of the Leavitt Jacket while Twitch Prime members can redeem the polished copper still upgrade, collector’s bag, an extra 10% discount game-wide, and extra gold bars on purchase. Cost for the butcher table, bounty hunter license, and collector’s bag have been discounted five gold bars this week as well.

Source: Rockstar Press Release

IPE Update: ArcheAge Settlement Terms Emerge With $420k Payout


With the motion for final approval of settlement details scheduled for April 17, it will have been four and a half years since the lawsuit over ArcheAge’s launch and boy has a lot happened in that time frame including the death of Trion Worlds as a corporate entity. Back in August we talked about how the lawsuit was finally coming to a close, owing mostly to the fact that the defense was being funded by the liability pool of Trion’s insurance company which would also be handling the payout, meaning the longer the lawsuit went without agreement on a settlement the less money would actually be available for the aggrieved parties.

Trion’s insurer has set aside an amount that while high isn’t exactly great. $420 grand for parties to make claims. You have until March 13, 2020 to make a claim, do nothing, opt out of the settlement, or object to the terms. Thankfully you don’t even have to do any receipt checking, as the website will let you submit your username or email associated with the Trion Worlds account and will calculate your eligible credits directly.

Payout of course is tied to the number of people submitting claims, so the more people who claim the lesser the individual payout will be. We’ll check in when the settlement is approved and payouts start going out to see what kind of compensation people are receiving.

Source: ArcheAge Settlement via MassivelyOP

Demonstrably: Citywars Savage Is A Cute Little Demo


This week I played the demo for an upcoming MMO called Citywars Savage.

Citywars Savage is a quaint little upcoming MMORPG with a pretty cool premise. On the surface the game promises hack and slash combat coupled with crafting and resource management. Dig a little deeper and on the list of planned features you’ll find the ability to build and claim your own territory to battle against other players and their cities.

The demo itself took me roughly 45 minutes to play through, it takes you through a mostly linear pathway where you’ll learn how to make money, how to buy and equip better gear, and battle it out against the monsters dotting the small landscape. If Citywars showcases any idea well, it’s how good you can make a game look with some filters, lighting, and fog effects. It runs great, and ends with you killing the Death Knight.

Of course the big feature that’s being advertised with Citywars is the ability to hire and program your own NPCs. Looking at the store page, Citywars will have a graphical interface to streamline the process of coding your own NPCs to do stuff like gather resources and handle crafting while you’re out doing better things. I’ll be fully satisfied if I can program my NPCs to chatter while they are going about their business. It’ll be like having my own RuneScape bot farm.

I’m pretty sure I also encountered a dev while playing, as the game has voice chat and immediately zipped over to me and started chatting about how to access various interfaces. Now that’s customer service.

I can’t wait for more of Citywars to come out and I recommend checking out the short alpha that is available on Steam.

Early Access Fraudsters: Cyber Watch Is Cyber Shovelware


Cyber Watch is a shovelware title hastily cobbled together in the Unreal Engine and tossed onto Steam for a couple of bucks in the hopes that enough people will buy it and not refund it to make a little bit of profit. Tossed onto Steam by a ragtag group of seven named individuals, Cyber Watch hopes to abuse the fact that it is “under development” to avoid criticism while not making use of Steam’s Early Access label.

The first thing you see on Cyber Watch’s store page is:

*****NOTE*****
THE GAME IS STILL UNDER DEVELOPMENT AND IT DOES NOT REPRESENT THE FINAL VERSION OF THE GAME.THERE IS STILL A LOT TO IMPROVE AND ADD
SO IF YOU WANT THE FULL EXPERIENCE OF THIS GAME PLEASE WAIT FOR THE FINAL VERSION TO RELEASE.UNNECESSARY REVIEWS WOULD NOT BE APPRECIATED.

What you get is a barely functioning pre-alpha build of a game whose working components I have to assume were built into the Unreal engine or available as an asset pack on the Unreal store. From untextured, very basic maps to weapons that may function halfway or break your character (see aim-down-sights in the screenshot below), to “vehicles” being nothing more than untextured RC cars that sloppily plant your character mode behind it.

Cyber Watch also blasts Neffex songs through your speakers at about ten times the volume of the rest of the game.

To further cement the idea that Cyber Watch is a hastily cobbled together mess of a prototype, as of one week ago this game wasn’t actually called Cyber Watch. SteamDB’s history shows that Cyber Watch was previously titled The Battle Of Bellum up to January 1, 2020. It was previously listed for a January 18 release date before the team just dumped it on the store on January 12. The Battle Of Bellum it seems would have been a third person action adventure game judging from a prior description:

“This game is a third person shooter game.This game is full of acton and adventures.”

Prior Steam listings also have The Battle Of Bellum listed as a single player game with achievements, so it seems like the team threw out what they had at the last minute and opted instead to push a rushed featureless prototype of a shooter on the store in the hopes that slapping a “this is unfinished” sticker would stifle criticism and people would buy the game regardless. It might have worked if they had listed the game as early access. They didn’t.

It isn’t going to work. I personally bought the game to drop a review and received this response from the developer:

“THERE IS A BIG NOTE IN THE DESCRIPTION……MAYBE….. MAYBE YOU DIDNT SEE IT…..ITS OKAY ……EVERYTHING YOU ARE SAYING IS ALREADY MENTIONED IN THE DESCRIPTION……SO DONT WASTE YOUR TIME ON COMMENTING LIKE THIS”

Posting in all caps always makes you correct, and trust me there is no way anything associated with this game is not a huge waste of time.

Thankfully with the way Steam goes, Cyber Watch will be buried in the history books with the rest of the low-effort shovelware to come out on Steam.

Roblox Claims Tommy Tallarico Does Not Own “Oof” Sound


If you haven’t been paying attention to his Twitter account over the past while, Tommy Tallarico of the Amico Tallarico clan has been in a back and forth kerfuffle with Roblox over allegations that Tommy owns the rights to the “oof” sound effect that has become iconic to Roblox over the past decade or so, and that Roblox is continuing to use the sound effect without his permission and without compensation. Tommy has been attempting to negotiate a settlement to avoid a potential legal battle but has yet to have any luck.

Roblox has officially responded to the allegations, claiming that the oof sound was obtained from a stock sound CD-ROM that was legally purchased consisting of copyright free sounds. They further claim that Tommy has furnished no proof of ownership, although admit that they have been working to reach a fair resolution (which would be needless if Tommy didn’t own the sound).

Roblox’s founders, Erik and David, got the oof sound (along with all the original Roblox sounds) from a stock sound CD-ROM they purchased of licensed, copyright free sounds (not from an illegal website as Tommy has suggested on social media).

We deeply respect the rights of IP creators, and we have built our platform over the past 12+ years based on respecting and honoring creators.
Despite the fact that Tommy has no copyright to the “oof” sound (and in response to our requests he has presented us no proof of ownership to it) we’ve nevertheless been working in good faith to reach a fair resolution with him. As part of that, we have asked Tommy to become part of our creative community and we look forward to exploring that opportunity with him further.

The full statement can be found at the following link. Tommy alleges that he created the sound effect for the game Messiah which readers can listen to at the embedded video below. Tommy has also stated that he has possession of the original recordings of the sound.

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

 

Bad Press: Reuters Uses School Shooter To Blame Video Games Again


It wouldn’t be a day ending in Y if incompetent “journalists” and opportunistic politicians weren’t using the death of children to forward an agenda of nonsensical fear. Cue in this week where an 11 year old in Mexico entered a school and shot a teacher and six others before killing himself. The culprit? Video games of course. Just check out the opening sentence on Reuters.

“An 11-year-old boy armed with two guns entered a school in northern Mexico, shot dead a teacher and wounded at least six others before killing himself, possibly under the influence of a violent video game, local officials said on Friday.”

Under the influence of a violent video game, like the kid drank a 40oz of violent games and drunkenly stumbled into school with a gun in his hand and rage in his heart. Notice the use of the term “possibly,” an easy out for when rational minds come in to call out the underhanded fear mongering. Meanwhile Governor Miguel Riquelme, who might otherwise have to take responsibility for violence occurring in his state, pushed the blame to video games as well.

“He was well behaved, but he told some of his classmates that ‘Today was the day,'” he said. “And what we can observe is that the boy was influenced by a video game.”

How was the kid influenced by a video game? Governor Riquelme doesn’t have the time, the resources, or the actual facts to explain. Just take his word for it and remember to vote Riquelme in the next election.

The game getting blamed is Natural Selection because the kid was wearing a shirt with “natural selection” written on it and we can only assume that Governor Riquelme had one of his assistants Google “Natural Selection video game” and came up with the first result. Of course nobody from Reuters took the time to investigate what Natural Selection is because they would have found a game almost as old as the shooter and could not conceivably have inspired the incident.

Or they did research it and realized that nobody would buy their narrative, so they hid the finer details. Natural Selection is a first person shooter/real time strategy hybrid that pits marines against aliens in various sci-fi locations that are not a Mexican school. It came out in 2012 and has a population of a few hundred people still playing it. Given the game’s age and small player base, it’s probably safe to assume that the kid had never played the game or heard of it.

 

“Experts have long debated whether there is a link between violent video games and aggressive behavior.”

Experts have also pretty unanimously sided with the conclusion that there are no links between violent video games and aggressive behavior, but that doesn’t make for a good story. Experts have also agreed that mass shooters like to copycat other mass shooters, and do you know who else was obsessed with the idea of natural selection? The Columbine shooters. And numerous other violent wackadoodles who believe that they are just culling the weak so that the strong can survive. I wouldn’t expect Dave Graham over at Reuters to be familiar with the Columbine shooting, since discovering that information would require outside research that wasn’t hand-fed to him for the article in question.

Oh and the shooter’s mom died years ago. But it’s the video games for sure. He was a perfectly peaceful, just like how the Columbine shooters were just peaceful loners.

What’s incredible is that it took five credited names to shove out this low quality work only to get outmatched by one blogger in probably half the time it took them to go to print.

Diaries From King’s Row: Space Comabat Pilot Issue


Out of a Tweet and into King’s Row, it’s the ongoing copyright-infringing adventures of none other than Space Comabat! With the blindness of a bat, the strength of a bat, the constantly orbiting flock of bats, and the ability to wield two large sharp metal objects…like a bat, Space Comabat uses his echolocation abilities to seek out the fruity nectar of evil!

This week Space Comabat travels to King’s Row to visit his informant Genevieve Sanders and discover what is sending the city’s hooligans to the hospital.

“Space Comabat, it’s a good thing you showed up. The Skulls have been pushing their drug Superadine to Galaxy City refugees, and the crime rate is skyrocketing! You need to find out who is supplying The Skulls.” Space Comabat is on the job. Time to seek out some Skull Gang ne’er do wells and politely coerce some information out of them, with justice!

Looks like these ruffians haven’t been getting their daily iron. Space Comabat can fix that!

After giving his adversaries a little lesson in how crime doesn’t pay, Space Comabat finds a clue to who might be behind the Superadine. It’s a printed receipt with a business address and phone number plus Twitter account and IRS employer ID. “Who knew street drug dealers accept all major credit cards except American Express,” says Space Comabat. “Now let’s see who is running this shindig. It looks like the operator is one Toothbreaker Jones.”

“I wonder how he got the name Toothbreaker Jones,” Space Comabat asks nobody in particular.

At the Superadine dealer, Space Comabat enters to find a building full of desperate addicts. “There are a lot of crime junkies in this building,” says Space Comabat, “and thankfully I’ve got plenty of detox to go around.”

“Space Comabat? I thought yous got moidered by Joey Fatone back in Atlas Park!”

“Nobody likes a liar, and I’m going to wash your mouth out…with justice!” Space Comabat continues to deliver some much deserved retribution to The Skulls littered throughout the building until he finally comes upon Toothbreaker Jones flanked by his two henchmen.

“If we knock Space Comabat out of the picture, maybe the boss will let us in on the next shipment.” Space Comabat quickly dispatches Toothbreaker Jones’ henchmen and draws out the boss man himself.

“Space Comabat! I’m going to break your teeth!”

“The only thing that’s going to be broken here is the clavicle of evil” shouts Space Comabat as he shatters Toothbreaker Jones’ clavicle with his metal rod. Space Comabat leaves Toothbreaker Jones to lie in a puddle of regret until the police can come by and pick him up. He returns to Genevieve to report his success.

“You’ve taken down one of the suppliers, but Toothbreaker Jones mentioned something about a shipment headed for King’s Row. We’ve discovered another Superadine den, head over and find out what you can about this shipment. If we don’t stop The Skulls, this drug problem could become a full pandemic.”

“Oh there’s going to be a pandemic. A pandemic of justice!”

Will The Skulls obtain their shipment of Superadine? Can our heroes stop this dastardly drug before it turns King’s Row into a psychotic nightmare? Tune in to the next episode; same Space Comabat time, same Space Comabat place.

Drink your Ovaltine, and buy war bonds!

NM: Grand Theft Auto IV Has Disappeared From PC


Update: A Rockstar Games spokesperson responded to our request for a comment, providing the following statement;

Grand Theft Auto IV was originally created for the Games For Windows Live platform. With Microsoft no longer supporting Games For Windows Live, it is no longer possible to generate the additional keys needed to continue selling the current version of the game. We are looking at other options for distributing GTAIV for PC and will share more information as soon as we can.

Rockstar Games has pulled Grand Theft Auto IV from sale on Steam and the Rockstar Launcher for…reasons that are not entirely clear as nobody involved has made a statement. It is Friday afternoon after all. The game was delisted for sale mid-afternoon on Friday January 10 (today for those reading this as it comes out) although the two expansion collection is still available for sale as is Grand Theft Auto IV via the Playstation store and Xbox.

On Steam the page for Grand Theft Auto IV still exists but the ability to add it to your cart has been disabled. It is not accompanied by any notice from Valve that the publisher requested removal. The Rockstar website still lists Grand Theft Auto IV but any links to buy the game digitally on PC are broken and simply redirect to the front page.

MMO Fallout has reached out to Rockstar’s PR folks and will update if they haven’t gone home for the weekend.

Public Response To Magic: Legends Gameplay Reveal Is Mixed


This week marked the first gameplay reveal of Magic: Legends, shown exclusively through Game Informer, and the reaction from gamers has been mixed. Almost literally 50/50 positive and negative. While players might have been expecting something more along the lines of the Neverwinter MMO from developer Perfect World Entertainment, what they got is more akin to a Diablo game.

In other words, not much of an MMO. Reaction to the Youtube video has been split down the middle, with 848 thumbs up votes and 841 thumbs down. Game Informer has a more in-depth coverage of the game in this month’s issue and you can see more discussion on the game in the latest podcast.

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