Destiny 2 Suffers Rollback After Major Bug Wipes Inventories


Destiny 2’s update 2.7.1 was the source of a whole lot of problems yesterday after players logged in to find that some of their inventories and achievements had just been straight up wiped. The servers were quickly shut down so Bungie could investigate the cause and roll out a fix, however the extent and reach of the glitch meant that accounts would have to be rolled back to where they were at 8:30 a.m. PST.

The good news is that players will lost at most nearly two hours of progress assuming that they played from the moment the server came up through the moment it went offline. Not a huge loss for the grand majority.

Today, Update 2.7.1 introduced an issue that affected currencies and pursuits. We immediately brought the game offline to mitigate any loss of materials while we investigated. We have identified the issue and the good news is that we were able to deploy an update to the server and will not have to update the game client.

We have rolled all character data back to our most recent backup at 8:30 a.m. Pacific before the issue was introduced. This will restore any lost materials caused by the issue, but players will lose any progress they made if they played between 8:30 a.m and 10:20 a.m. when we brought the game down for maintenance. Any purchases made using Silver or Bright Dust during this window will need to be repurchased. Any Silver spent or purchased will be restored.

The server update is complete and we are beginning to bring the game back online now. Stay tuned to @Bungiehelp for updates.

Source: Bungie

Police 10-13 Matt Norman Departs Due To Illness


Wingman Games President Matt Norman has announced his departure from the company and the gaming industry following the return of a brain tumor. Norman posted an official announcement to the official Facebook group stating that he will be leaving the game to a team of developers.

On the 12th of December 2019, I was given the news that a new Brain Tumour was found during an MRI. Obviously, most of you know that I had a brain tumor removed in 2018 that took a lot more time than expected to recover from. This Tumour is new. In a new place and a lot more serious. For the past 5 years, I have devoted my life to Police 1013 through a lot of hard times with my family. Unfortunately, this latest news has left me physically and mentally drained to a point that I can’t continue. This is the hardest thing I’ve had to do, letting go of my baby with all the hard work I’ve done over the years. It’s now become more important that I step back from any further responsibilities in the game and hand everything to the 5 developers that have been on the project since August. I am also stepping away from the games industry completely to concentrate on new endeavors to help support my family, which in all honesty I have not done due to my commitment to the game.

The new team posted that all social media regarding Police 10-13 will be shut down for the time being until they are reopened and managed by a PR company.

MMO Fallout wishes to extend our deepest sympathies to Matt in these difficult times.

Source: Facebook

Steam Cleaned: Valve Gives More Shady Devs The Boot


About a week ago I published an editorial talking about the existence of games on Steam that cost a lot of money and don’t exactly justify their price. Titles that look like mobile ports or Unity shovelware that nobody seems to play and not only are being sold for money but a lot of money at that. My hunch at the time was that some of these games may be falling into a less than legal realm, being used as a form of money laundering which certainly wouldn’t be surprising or the first time such a title has shown up on Steam. This isn’t an accusation, just a speculation.

Well it appears I’m not the only one looking into these games as Valve has seen fit to give several of them the boot this week. Let’s dive in.

#1: Lab3D

Lab3D was developed and published by Tantal back in August 2019 and you may need Lasik surgery if you take a look at this screenshot and don’t immediately say “paying $200 is basically robbing the developer, make it $400.” Two hundred smackers, and the developer sounds completely legitimate when responding to a question about the price with:

“No, not trolling. Consider this a kind of experiment, only shhhh. And I can change the base price at any time.”

Lab3D had one review and 51 followers. Was it a money laundering scheme? A troll game? Only the developer knows.

#2: Fantasy Smith VR

Fantasy Smith VR was a $90 product by developer Okamoto 3 Nori, and in addition to the $90 base price it also featured several pieces of DLC all priced out at $40 a pop. Fantasy Smith VR is a little odd because it started out as a $12.99 product before the price suddenly and without explanation hiked up to $89.99 where it sat until Valve banned the game this week. Out of everything on this list, Fantasy Smith VR actually seems like a real game. If you head over to the community hub you’ll find people talking about it playing it and not being happy that the developer hasn’t spoken to anyone.

One of these things is not like the other.

#3: Hunting In Ancient Asia

Hunting in Ancient Asia is another $200 game, this time by Thoth Technology Ltd. everyone’s favorite game developer. Hunting In Ancient Asia had nobody playing it, roughly four instances of one person logged in since it launched in September despite 125 followers. Thoth Technology’s ban could be linked to some questionable reviews that may or may not have been at the behest of the developer. We will never know.

Unlike the other developers on this list, Thoth Technology Ltd. actually had other games on Steam and at more of a reasonable price. In an effort to become the Digital Homicide of virtual reality, Thoth not so much released as it did spam Steam with a bunch of shoddy looking VR titles over the span of the last eleven months, one of which was being sold for $100. I have to assume that the titles sound more elegant in their original Simplified Chinese and were at some level created with education or therapy based clients in mind.

Check em out.

#4: The Ones That Remain

There is a laundry list of games that in my frank opinion warrant Valve’s second look despite the fact that if any of these titles are involved in less than legal operations those activities are probably long over and done with and the cash paid out. These are games that cost $200 (or $100), have zero customers or close to it as far as I can tell, and have no public activity by the developer.

  1. Crisis Action VR; Pixel Wonder
  2. Strike Mole/Physical Ball; Lize
  3. Mouse Run; ATM Game
  4. NUMBER; rongyao0577
  5. LLK; Chenyun0577
  6. Hiscores Gold; Alexander in Uganda
  7. Lgnorant girl doll; wandwand
  8. Adventure Trip; Sunsmaybe Games
  9. Luna and Cynthia; wandwand
  10. Shoot Pump Shoot; Aurora Borealis
  11. Blast Em!; Xiotex Studios Ltd

Rockstar Celebrates Record Breaking Holiday Season


It’s no secret that Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2 have been insane successes, and Rockstar is giving something back in return for a popular holiday season. The Diamond Casino Heist set new player numbers in Grand Theft Auto Online that haven’t been seen since the Casino itself released last July. GTA V also enjoyed record engagement on Youtube while Red Dead Online experienced the highest peak numbers in December following the launch of Moonshiners with even higher numbers in January.

To thank their players, Rockstar is giving GTA Online players $2 million in GTA bucks, with Red Dead Online players receiving free access to frontier pursuit roles, role item giveaways, and more.

Source: Press Release

Continent of the Ninth Seal Drops New Content Update


Webzen this week announced the latest update to Continent of the Ninth Seal which introduces the seventh continent and a swath of new content.

The main highlight of the update is the new continent Hernad where adventurers can find the dungeons Camp of Durahan, Forest of Blasted Spirits, and Faded Temple filled with Nefer’s forest just waiting to be killed for sweet loot. Along with the new dungeons comes new armor and weapons as well as rewards for those who pre-registered. Players will also find a mystery box which can be opened for gears every 24-48 hours.

An in-game event is being held to celebrate the update that gives away a weapon enhancement package with additional events offering bonus exp, dungeon rewards, and more.

For more details, check out the official website.

Steam Cleaned: Undead Vs. Plants Is Terrifying


Undead Vs. Plants might be the most horrifying game I’ve seen on Steam, and as of this week you can’t buy it anymore as the developer has pulled it from sale. On a functional level it’s a ricochet game and might provide for a challenging puzzle game. On the other hand the characters in this game look like the last things I will see when I die and am dragged to hell by the demons of my past.

You play as zombie Arnold using your bullet ricochet powers to kill plants. The plants in the game are just the right combination of detail and awful to fall into the category where their very visage is discomforting. Haunting my dreams for eternity.

The developer Peaksel D.O.O. Nis has a math game still on Steam titled Zeus vs Monsters which is a math game for children and features art that while not great won’t give those children a nightmare just for wanting to learn addition and subtraction. Peaksel has a lot of creepy games on its website, including one about a pregnant talking cat named Emma. If you really want to play Undead vs. Plants you can do so on Android or Google Play. The game is still free there.

Torchlight Frontiers Changes Name: Is Now Torchlight 3


Max Schaefer has announced via Youtube today that Torchlight Frontiers will now be called Torchlight 3. Is that all? Nope.

Torchlight 3 will be ditching the free to play model and will no longer be an MMO. The good news is that the game will be available offline. Even better for you Steam enthusiasts, the game will be shifting its publishing platform from Arc to Steam with current testers to receive a key for further testing.

“Along with this name change comes a major shift in our design approach to Torchlight III. Torchlight III will be released as a premium title. For one box-price, you will own the game and be able to play the way that you want, online or off. Over the past year, we have gathered massive amounts of feedback from our Alpha testers. After reviewing this feedback, discussing with our internal teams, and receiving guidance from our publisher, we determined that this was the best course for the game. This shift helps bring Torchlight back to its roots and makes it the true sequel to Torchlight I & II that it was always meant to be.”

And among the larger updates, horizontal progression is being removed completely; all Frontier-specific levels, gear stats, and scaling has been removed as well. The real money cash shop is gone and players can choose online or offline characters at the creation stage.

Source: Torchlight

Bethesda Gives Proper Compensation To Fallout 76 Robbery Victims


It’s a new year and that means new second chances. Back over the winter holidays, Fallout 76 suffered a rather embarrassing exploit which allowed players to steal items from another person’s inventory effectively initiating a forced trade. It appears that Bethesda is finally making good on its promise of compensation.

This time around players are reporting that their inventories of lost items have been replaced along with a promised stipend of atoms. Bethesda’s remedy appears to be to clone a version of the player’s character from before the theft with the offer of a free service to transfer items from the cloned character to the non-cloned, presumably further progressed original character.

Source: Polygon via MassivelyOP

Temtem Early Access Impressions: Several Hours On A Broken Game


Temtem is in early access and unless you have a lot of patience for a busted game in alpha, I highly advise not spending the $35 (or your equivalent) at this stage. I also recommend not going into the toxic cesspit also known as the Temtem Discord server. It’s a hive of scum and villainy.

So Temtem has been in early access for roughly a week during which it has spent a fair bit of that time completely unplayable for many buyers. It’s understandable, the game is in early access and in the alpha stage. Unlike some people, the developers are very clear about this. Temtem also has a lot of people wanting to play it, unlike a certain shovelware shooter game, but I digress.

Let’s talk about my five hours in Temtem.

Temtem is Pokemon. You are a child starting out the game in your small town (which is laid out a lot like Pallet Town) leaving home to go out on an adventure, and you go meet a Professor of Pokemon Temtem studies who has you choose one of three Pokemon Temtem in his lab to start your journey of becoming a Pokemon Temtem master. You’ll meet your rival Max and journey through a winding series of tall grass encounters, and there are gyms dojos and Pokemon Centers Temporiams and items that teach moves, and a Team Rocket-style villainous gang.

I picked Houchic for my first Temtem since I have always wanted a psychic monster as my starter. I’m going to make a lot of Pokemon references in my coverage because while Pokemon didn’t create the genre, it’s very obvious that many of Temtem’s systems are taken directly from Pokemon. Not copying a whole lot from DigiMon. Now personally I have played the first two generations of Pokemon games and know literally nothing from any further game in the series, so all of my references are going to be from the red&blue/gold&silver era. Thank you.

Sin #1: The Forced Loss

I hate when RPGs make me lose to prove a point that could have been proven a million other ways. Alright, not a million. Half a million. When you have a pre-scripted loss in a game that’s all about strategy, it makes the player doubt how much they are really in control of the game. Temtem has your rival Max beat you down in your first fight just so the game can send the message that some Temtem are just unfairly better than others. It feels out of character for a game that otherwise starts out essentially with a Dora The Explorer “come on let’s get to it, I know that we can do it” vibe of positivity and confidence.

Considering anyone who plays Temtem is doing so because they are/were a fan of Pokemon, it’s safe to say that a majority of the population playing this game is aware of the weakness mechanic. It also strikes me as lazy because your rival Max always chooses Oree which is a digital type and has an inherent advantage over two of the three starters. It is also the only digital type Temtem at this point, making it seem like the whole class was created just so the developer didn’t have to work Max around potentially having three separate Temtem.

Sin #2: The Broken Evolution

The evolution mechanic is terrible and bound to be confusing for the average person who doesn’t ask in Discord/read the wiki since there is no chat right now. The evolution system in Pokemon has your Pokemon evolve at specific levels. Bulbasaur will always become a Venusaur at 16. In Temtem however, the evolution of a monster is based on the level that you caught them at and it is functionally broken. For example, Ganki’s evolution is 27+. If you catch a Ganki at level 1, it will evolve at level 28. If you catch a Ganki at level 10, it will evolve at level 38. If you catch a Ganki at level 22 then you can make like Willie Wonka and go fudge yourself since the soft cap for Temtem right now is 48, meaning that Ganki is not going to evolve period.

The evolution issue effectively punishes players for catching high level Temtem, as the higher level you catch a Temtem at the exponentially more grinding you’re going to have to do before that Temtem can evolve. In Pokemon you were rewarded for catching higher level Pokemon by requiring less time to level them before they could evolve. Temtem does the opposite and punishes you for it.

The goal is to push people into Temtem’s convoluted and stupidly expensive breeding system.

Sin #3: Boy This Game Is A Slog

Temtem is an MMO, so you do find a small number of simple side quests tossed into the mix. The main game? I started feeling my enthusiasm wane long before I got to the first gym, and I haven’t even gained access to the first gym.

Temtem pads its zones like a teenager’s bra, and it makes the process of entering a new area dreadful. I had to go look at the old Pokemon guides to make sure I wasn’t misremembering, but if you look at the zones in Red/Blue you’ll find that they tend to contain roughly 5-10 trainers, often on the lower end, with the added caveat that some of those trainers can be skipped and a lot of them have one or two Pokemon total. Temtem meanwhile has so. many. trainers that each zone takes a ridiculous amount of time to travel through, and very few of those trainers can be skipped.

I also had an issue with the first “gym” in Temtem. In Pokemon you come across the first gym battle pretty early on. Brock’s two Pokemon are level 12 and 14 if my memory serves me correctly, and you fight him roughly an hour into the game depending on how fast you are. To get to Brock you go through Route 1, Veridian City, Veridian Forest, and Route 2, with the option of hitting your rival in Route 22. In Red/Blue you’ll fight six trainers including the one in Brock’s gym. Temtem meanwhile has you travel through Prasine Coast (9 unskippable trainers, 3 skippable) to Briçal de Mar (town, no fights), through Thalassian Cliffs (13 unskippable trainers, 3 skippable) to Arissola, the town where Sophia’s dojo is. Sophia isn’t in town, so you need to find her by going to Gifted Bridges (12 unskippable trainers, 2 skippable) to the Windward Fort, a six floor building (15 unskippable trainers, 4 skippable), before you FINALLY unlock Sophia’s dojo (6 trainers).

So to wrap things up: Pokemon puts you up against six trainers before you fight Brock who has two Pokemon upwards of level 14. Just to get to Sophia, you need to fight a minimum of 55 trainers (64 if you fight everyone) to get to the first dojo master who has six Temtem up to level 22. Jesus Christ.

And yes, I’m aware that Temtem isn’t Pokemon. But having the literal first dojo be such an tremendous slog to reach has resulted in my experiencing burnout which should not happen this early in such a game’s story. It’s shoddy pacing and it doesn’t make me enthusiastic about reaching further dojos if this is the experience that I can expect to have going forward, by which I mean stopping every ten feet for trainer battles. I’m more inclined to give MMOs a break when it comes to increased grind, but Temtem isn’t really an MMO in the functional sense. You’re just sharing space with other people.

Otherwise I have no opinion on the matter. Actually I have a lot of opinions on the matter.

Operation Breakout: 10k Online, But Nobody’s Playing


I bought Operation Breakout because I’m willing to throw down nearly $10 on a hunch.

Operation Breakout is catching some attention over its sudden appearance on Steam’s trending games list and since this is Steam it’s probably for all the wrong reasons. If you look on the store page you’ll find 28 reviews, 8% of which are positive, and roughly one review being posted in 2019. The game itself has evidently been a massive failure in terms of users and sales.

So it came as a surprise that the game suddenly started showing over ten thousand concurrent players this week, yet nobody seems to be talking about the game. MMO Fallout Eyewitness News crew picked up a copy of the game to see what we would find within. The results were not so surprising.

As you can see in the screenshot above, there are no servers for this game. Seven thousand people logged in at the time of this writing, and yet literally not a single person is actually playing the game.

The answer? Operation Breakout has trading cards, and the most likely explanation is that a lot of game keys have been dumped on a grey market website for cheap and bought up by card farmers.

This isn’t the only suspicious title from publisher Phanom Games. Another title Fireflies has several periods in 2017-2018 where the game inexplicably spikes to over over a thousand concurrent users despite the fact that the game looks and plays terrible and a relatively small number of reviews.

 

Thanks, SirViolentDeath for bringing attention to Operation Breakout.