Old School RuneScape Launches Twisted League


Get those peppercorns out, because it’s time to grind.

Jagex today has released the latest game mode for Old School RuneScape in the form of the Twisted League. Twisted League is a temporary game mode that throws players on an ironman character and locks them to the land of Kourend and Kebos (main world not accessible). Ironman of course means no trading, no picking up others drops, and no auction house. To assist players in this temporary league, base experience is increased by 5x and shops will carry more items and restock at an accelerated rate.

So what is the point of the League? As you complete tasks you gain points that can be used to unlock powerful buffs from a relic such as infinite run energy. Cosmetic items can be unlocked in the main game based on your performance in the league, and future leagues will have exclusive worlds that can be visited based on your performance in prior leagues. Otherwise, it’s all about the prestige.

For more information on Twisted League, check out the official website.

[Video] Pearl Abyss Drops Four Trailers For Four Games


Pearl Abyss today dropped four trailers for four upcoming titles.

The first trailer is for Plan 8 which is billed as an exosuit MMO shooter.

Next up is DokeV, a rather crazy looking creature-collecting MMORPG.

Third is Crimson Desert which by contrast looks to be a very dark and gritty MMORPG

And last but not least is Shadow Arena, which is actually a standalone version of the cancelled Black Desert Online battle royale mode.

Icebrood Saga Comes To Guild Wars 2 Next Week


Guild Wars 2 is set to release the first episode in the Icebrood Saga on November 19. The episode is titled Whisper in the Dark and introduces new gameplay systems and activities for players to cut their teeth on.

  • A new map, the Bjora Marches
  • Four new multi-tier Mastery tracks fueled by norn spirit magic: Essence Manipulation and Raven Attunement
  • Three new Strike Mission bosses, including the grim and sinister Boneskinner, that rotate weekly and provide unique rewards for players who defeat them
  • A new two-tier upgradable Ancient Boreal weapon set
  • A new Raven-inspired exotic scepter skin
  • A campfire s’mores roasting kit

Check out the trailer below.

2019 Developer Report Cards: Bethesda Softworks


There should be no surprises in this report card.

Bethesda’s performance in 2019 indicates a company that has become wholly incompetent and is either incapable of or unwilling to fix its flaws, but instead has chosen time and time again to double down on everything that it does wrong and throw consequence into the wind. Let’s look at Bethesda’s 2019 release record:

  1. Fallout 76 – I could spend hours writing about how Fallout 76 continued its uncontrolled blaze in 2019. Of the numerous screw ups in 2019, perhaps the most insulting comes in the form of Bethesda delaying the Wastelanders update, that big content dump that was supposed to add in the human NPCs and do…something. Instead Bethesda shat out a paid service for which the services people paid for straight up didn’t work. I have long since given up on the people still spending money on Fallout 76. If you get fleeced by Bethesda, you have no one to blame but yourself.
  2. The Elder Scrolls: Blades – It doesn’t surprise me at all that Elder Scrolls Blades is a commercial success considering in the mobile sphere you could feed people the video game equivalent of asbestos and they will happily throw tons of money at you and ask for more. At the end of the day it is still a low quality, low effort facsimile of an Elder Scrolls game that punishes you for playing it and always has its hands out for another tenner.
  3. Rage 2 – Does anyone even remember that Rage 2 released in 2019? Rage 2 peaked at 13 thousand players on Steam and in one month more than 85% of those people dropped off and went to play something else. Reviews point to Rage 2 being boring, repetitive, and short. Rage 2 also implements a ridiculously convoluted system to buy DLC expansion. You can’t buy the expansion outright, you have to buy bundles of Rage Coins and use those. The first expansion costs 1,500 Rage Coins ($15) but you can’t buy 1500 Rage Coins, you have to buy the 500 RC pack and 1,100 RC pack which is $15 anyway and leaves you with 100 RC left over.
  4. Wolfenstein Youngblood – On the subject of things nobody asked for, Wolfenstein Youngblood comes hot on the heels of The New Colossus dividing Wolfenstein fans. Youngblood released at half the cost of Rage 2, which doesn’t quite explain how the game managed to hit less than half the peak number of players. Youngblood was a smattering of bad ideas; Obnoxious protagonists? Check. Forced coop with awful AI? Check. Obtuse RPG mechanics in a shooter? Check. Microtransactions? Of course.
  5. Wolfenstein Cyberpilot – And speaking of things nobody asked for, how about a game that nobody purchased? Cyberpilot is a VR spinoff that peaked on Steam at 24 users. That’s not a mistake, twenty four user peak at launch for a game that costs $20 and so far could only convince 92 people to leave a review. And this was a collaboration between Machine Games and Arkane Studios! Not enough players at peak to fill up a Battlefield server and only 36% approval.
  6. Commander Keen – As of this writing (November 13), there has not been hide nor hair of the mobile Commander Keen game since it was unveiled at E3, but I am going to talk about it because it is germaine to the conversation. Nobody wants Commander Keen on mobile, and Bethesda’s embarrassing announcement trailer was unlisted because of the dislike ratio. None of the Keen social media accounts have been updated at all since the announcement. If Commander Keen the mobile game was silently killed off, it would do less damage to the franchise than releasing it.

Bethesda (and its subsidiaries) shoveled out more unwanted garbage in 2019 than any company with its size, franchises, and experience ever should. The Fallout 76 team has shown nothing but incompetence over the entire year, not to mention a complete lack of caring for systematic and repeated lies made to the public. Their releases in many cases not only floundered, but may have done long term damage to their associated brands. In the case of Rage 2, you have the most disappointing awaited sequel since Dambuster messed up Homefront. For Cyberpilot, a low-effort attempt at cashing in on a trend. In Commander Keen? The shameless skinning of a beloved old IP.

With all of that considered, I have to give Bethesda in 2019 the grade of:

Funcom Quarterly Report Notes 10 Active Projects


Funcom has released their third quarter financial performance and the results are up and down. Revenue is down from $7.5 million last year to $5.4 million this year which can be blamed on Conan Exiles having a strong launch in Q2 and Q3 of 2018. Funcom did not launch a title in Q3 2019, however they did admit that Conan Unconquered has underperformed to Funcom’s expectations.

Funcom’s MMO library has been relegated to a tiny corner of their report, simply mentioning “community events” for activities encompassing Age of Conan, Secret Worlds Legends, and Anarchy Online (The Secret World isn’t referenced at all). The financial report also notes that Tencent recent acquired a 29% stake in Funcom over the quarter, offering no cash infusion to Funcom itself as the stocks were purchased from KGJ Capital AS.

“We are very pleased to see Tencent come in as the largest shareholder of Funcom. Tencent has a reputation for being a responsible long-term investor, and for its renowned operational capabilities in online games. The insight, experience, and knowledge that Tencent will bring is of great value to us and we look forward to working closely with them as we continue to develop great games and build a successful future for Funcom.“ Rui Casais

After quarter activities so far have included the launch of 2015’s The Park on Nintendo Switch, as well as the release of Moons of Madness on Steam. The report does not discuss sales figures, however Steamspy estimates 20,000 to 50,000 total sales and Steam charts show the game peaking at 519.

Funcom’s upcoming titles include a Dune open world title that is currently in pre-production, a cooperative shooter set in the Mutant: World Zero IP, Conan Chop Chop set for launch in Q1 2020, Moons of Madness releasing on consoles in January, and two unnamed titles in development by Games Farm and The Outsiders, a studio created by former Battlefield developers.

Source: Funcom

Google Finally Announces Stadia Launch Titles, There Are Twelve


No need to hold your breaths any longer, as Google has finally unveiled the launch titles for Google Stadia and a whole week before the service launches.

Google Stadia goes live on November 19, but you can feast your eyes on the games that will be available on launch day right now. All twelve of them in fact. The launch slate is a pretty recent list of games with a bunch of titles from 2019 and a lot of Tomb Raider in case you’ve been really slow on keeping up with that trilogy.

  • Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (2018)
  • Destiny 2: The Collection (2017)
  • Gylt (2019)
  • Just Dance 2020 (2019)
  • Kine (2019)
  • Mortal Kombat 11 (2019)
  • Red Dead Redemption 2 (2019)
  • Rise of the Tomb Raider (2015)
  • Samurai Shodown (2019)
  • Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition (2018)
  • Thumper (2016)
  • Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition (2013)

Also releasing before the end of 2019:

  • Attack on Titan 2: Final Battle
  • Borderlands 3
  • Darksiders Genesis
  • Dragonball Xenoverse 2
  • Farming Simulator 19
  • Final Fantasy 15
  • Football Manager 2020
  • Ghost Recon Breakpoint
  • Grid
  • Metro Exodus
  • NBA 2K20
  • Rage 2
  • Trials Rising
  • Wolfenstein Youngblood

All of this is of course meaningless if you do not live in Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United States, or the United Kingdom, because those are the only countries that Stadia is launching in this month. Sorry! Also, you might want to hold off on pre-ordering if you were going to wait until the last minute since Google has announced that late orders likely won’t get their unit on day one.

Also you will need to buy the games on top of the founder’s pre-order and subscription.

2019 Developer Report Cards: Ubisoft Edition


Oh Ubisoft! What can I say about Ubisoft that hasn’t already been said about Flint’s water supply?

Ubisoft confuses me as a gamer and as a guy who writes about games. On one hand, they are constantly pulling maneuvers that make you wonder what chucklehead is driving the vehicle. On the other hand, they’re competent enough to put out some actually good games and fix what they screw up. Let’s look at Ubisoft’s 2019 releases.

  1. Trials Rising: It came out, it sold copies. Honestly don’t have much to say about this one.
  2. Far Cry: New Dawn – If you enjoyed Far Cry 5, New Dawn was basically an expansion pack’s worth of content at an expansion pack’s price of $40. If you enjoyed Far Cry 5 and wanted to see what happened following the rather crazy ending, well you pretty much got what you wanted. As far as Far Cry plots go, the story was fine. Just fine. It allegedly sold worse than Far Cry’s prior spinoffs including Primal so perhaps it would have been better off as a cheaper DLC release for Far Cry 5 instead of a standalone title.
  3. Anno 1800: Anno 1800 marks the first of Ubisoft’s titles this year to go to the Epic Store for exclusivity on PC. It sparked quite a controversy since the title had already been available for pre-order on Steam before Ubisoft summarily yanked it. Not willing to let that controversy hold it back, Anno 1800 evidently went on to become the fastest selling Anno game. It also seems to be very well received by those who bought it, looking at Steam reviews.
  4. The Division 2: And here is where Ubisoft first pooped the bed. By all means The Division 2 was exactly what a game sequel should be. It implemented a lot of lessons from its predecessor and actually fixed them instead of ignoring/exacerbating them. It wasn’t perfect, The Division 2 launched with some issues surrounding loot and the first raid was kinda crap because console players literally couldn’t handle it. And Ubisoft fixed most of those problems and has been supporting the game with some good content. Unfortunately for them the appetite of the general consumer base just wasn’t looking for another open world sequel and The Division 2 hasn’t quite lived up to expectations in terms of sales.
  5. Ghost Recon: Breakpoint – If there is one positive thing that can be said about Breakpoint, it’s that it beat the sense back into Ubisoft (hopefully). Breakpoint is a dumpster fire that should have never been acceptable within Ubisoft and its failure not only snapped their stock price over its knee, it led to a restructuring of how Ubisoft approves games. Riddled with major game-breaking bugs, obviously half-assed systems, and drowning in microtransactions, Breakpoint shouldn’t have been this broken given how close it is to Wildlands. It serves as a reminder that Ubisoft’s titles are quickly hitting the singularity, becoming so blandly similar that they are hard to tell apart.
  6. Just Dance 2020: I’m sure it will do just fine.

2019 also brought us changes in Ubisoft’s business plan, primarily the announcement and launch of Uplay+. This may come as a surprise, but I honestly don’t have much of a problem with Uplay+ from a consumer standpoint. As with any service, it’s a value proposition. If you want to keep buying your games and “own” them, whatever that means in a world where games as a service ties your playability to servers remaining online, you can still buy the game. If you want to spend $15 to binge some Ubisoft games for a month and then cancel, you can do that too. If you think that long term subscriptions in exchange for having the best versions of Ubisoft’s titles is worth it, go ahead. It’s as valuable as you think it is, and obviously Ubisoft knows this because it’s not mandatory in any sense.

I’d like to give Ubisoft a higher score for having their come to Jesus moment during the last gasp of 2019. Unfortunately their moment of lucidity was not due to personal reflection but due to the potential for financial ruin brought upon by the insane failure of Ghost Recon and the potential that their upcoming titles could perform worse, a game that they were all too happy to release in its state and with all of its microtransactions. At the same time, the company is not completely incompetent and has shown that it is somewhat capable of learning from mistakes. Ghost Recon has received a couple of patches since launch and they have promised more coming.

At the same time, this is a company that supports its products. Ultimately I have to give Ubisoft a B- for 2019. Let’s hope the failure of Ghost Recon: Breakpoint teaches them a lesson. Let’s also hope that I get around to making more of these report cards.

Pre-Reg For Black Desert Mobile, Get Free Copy On PC/Console


Following a successful pre-registration campaign, Black Desert Mobile is set to launch globally on December 11. Currently soft launched in seven countries, Black Desert Mobile is hitting iOS and Android at the end of the year and bringing with it new gameplay features in nine languages.

To celebrate the campaign, all pre-registrations through the official website will come with an added bonus: Black Desert not-mobile. You’ll be able to redeem a coupon upon registering for the mobile game for a copy of the PC, Xbox, or PS4 version. You technically don’t even have to play the mobile game when it comes out. Supplies are apparently limited, so grab your copy before they run out.

Black Desert Mobile will launch with support for English, German, French, Spanish, Russian, Thai, Indonesian, Chinese and Chinese Traditional languages. For more information, check out the link above.

Source: Black Desert press release

Community Concerns: The Importance of Reading Comprehension


Yea, we’re still talking about Blizzcon.

It’s been a while since I talked about the whole nontroversy surrounding Blizzard and the prize pool for World of Warcraft’s Blizzcon tournaments, so I will sum up for those who don’t feel like clicking the link in this paragraph. Blizzard sold digital toys with 25% proceeds going toward a prize pool with a guaranteed minimum of $500k, and some people interpreted this as Blizzard footing $500k and then the toy sale portion being on top of that. In fact, a lot of people with direct financial incentives to the prize pool being bigger happened to think that. Crazy.

One of those people is Shanna Roberts, general manager of the esports team Method. Roberts released a statement yesterday (November 10) to talk about a breakdown in trust between Blizzard and the community because a number of people didn’t correctly read the plain English of the promotion. Roberts claims that Blizzard announced that the $500k minimum would be supplemented by 25% sales from the toys (they didn’t). I’ll put up the plain language of the promotion for your perusal:

“For a limited time, every purchase of the Transmorpher Beacon or Lion’s Pride and Horde’s Might Fireworks, 25% of the proceeds will contribute toward the year’s finals LAN event prize pool for the Arena World Championship (AWC) and the Mythic Dungeon International (MDI) with a guaranteed minimum prize pool of $500,000 USD ($250,000 USD for each event.) Your support will help take the WoW esports prize pool to the next level.”

25% of proceeds contributed toward the year’s finals with a guaranteed minimum of $500k. The misinterpretation is then followed up by conspiracy-level speculation that Blizzard deliberately backtracked on something they never said they would do to ensure that Warcraft’s prize pool wasn’t bigger than any of the other big tournaments which has no logical conclusion and would have absolutely no benefit for Blizzard.

“It is my personal hypothesis that this is exactly what caused the backtracking: Blizzard couldn’t allow AWC or MDI to have bigger individual prize pools than Hearthstone Grandmasters, OW World Cup, or SC2.”

Roberts goes on to complain about how the practice facility was only open for one day and didn’t provide adequate snacks or comfortable chairs, and how the opening rounds were held offline thus preventing players from using the streams to make money because it turns out being a WoW pro player doesn’t pay like a full time job. Who would have thought?

I’m not going to fault Shanna Roberts for doing her job which is to get her team more money.

If she had hired MMO Fallout’s Master Gaming Consultancy since I read the announcement when it came out and could have fully explained it to her and any other esports folks who were confused, this matter might have been resolved pretty quickly and we wouldn’t be here today. I have eleven years experience writing about video games and my flat fee is two grand per month which is frankly a deal since I’m not going to torpedo your business like what happened with that Sunset game.

Otherwise I think I’m done talking about Blizzcon 2019.

PSA: Need For Speed: Heat Will Be (Almost) 50% Off This Month


Need For Speed: Heat is the latest title in the popular Need for Speed franchise, and those of you who went out of your way to buy it on day one are set to be rewarded by paying a $30 premium for a couple of weeks head start. Need for Speed is going on heavy discount this Black Friday.

Target this past week released their Black Friday ad which runs from November 28-30 and Need For Speed is about to get a substantial discount. $35 in fact, down from its current asking price of $59.99. The $35 sale includes “over 10 games” and also contains recent releases like Borderlands 3, NHL 20, and Monster Hunter with Iceborne. We do not know what the other titles are that are included in the sale.

Need For Speed: Heat launched on November 8 and notably released with no microtransactions.