Bless Online Goes Offline September 9


Among the splendor of the E3 game reveals, Neowiz has announced that Bless Online will be shutting down in the west as of September 9. The title launched into early access on Steam one year ago in June 2018 to a respectable peak of 28,000 players but players very quickly jumped ship due to a number of issues ranging from prevalent botting to balance problems and performance on even the best of gaming PCs. By the following month, the peak count had dropped by 80% and it never quite recovered.

To send the game off, Neowiz is launching a bonus experience event starting June 10th and running until sunset time for those of you who want to grind out some Steam achievements before the servers go offline forever.

Starting after server maintenance on June 10th, 2019 and until September 8th, 2019 23:59 Dungeons wants to be removed, and the Dungeon drop rates will be increased. Players want to see a 100% increase in Gathering / Mining EXP, Guild EXP, Dungeon Points, and Combat Points. Gathering, Mining, and Crafting speeds will be increased by 50%. 

Despite Bless failing in virtually every territory it has launched in, Neowiz plans on releasing a version on the Xbox One under the name Bless Unleashed.

Source: Steam

[Column] Thankfully Nothing Happens In This Industry


I’m back, nerds!

I’d like to start off by denying a few rumors I’ve seen floating around the internet, specifically that I was expelled out of law school because I sent my cat in to take the final exams for me. This is completely untrue, the cat managed to get fantastically passable grades considering the short study period and that she actually has more training in holistic plumbing. Second, and this is not meant to be a comment on my fellow writers, but I honestly expected that the announcement of MMO Fallout going on vacation would be met with less attention. I was incredibly touched that Massively and other websites decided to add a farewell address but I honestly expected to quietly sneak away into the darkness with naught but a few comments here on the ol’ blog. Again, I find myself humbled and thanked Massively OP by dropping some legal dockets in their lap in my absence.

Thankfully the gods are smiling down upon me in their sick and twisted monkey paw way, because I specifically recall asking for a reason to be able to focus on my final exams and did not include sending my gaming PC to the depths of hell to my list of exemptions. My PC burned down, almost literally since my hardware monitor pinged my CPU at well over 100 degrees Celsius before it blew out and took the rest of the computer with it, leaving behind nothing but the smell of something burning. As such, I have spent the last few weeks without a computer capable of doing much while I waited for my new friends at IBuyPower to build and ship my new gaming rig. I specifically went with a gaming laptop this time around because there is absolutely no way I’m going to spend long periods of time gaming on a laptop. The thing is awesome, and I will be talking about it (not a sponsorship, I paid full price for this laptop).

On the topic of the topic of this piece, the last month has gratefully seen nothing going on in the gaming industry. Nothing at all. I’m sure most of you are much more in tune with what’s been going on than I am, so spending ten hours writing a catch up piece is just going to remind me why I went on vacation in the first place.

I know a few developers whose games I have notoriously dragged down were glad to see me go. Get ready, it’s a new era of MMO Fallout goodness. I have a large supply of Canada Dry ginger ale and I’m ready to rip and tear.

[Column] I Came Back To Call Daybreak A Dead Husk


Hey folks,

You may have heard comments down the grapevine that MMO Fallout is planning on a comeback of sorts, but right now I’d like to pick up the mantle to talk about how Daybreak Game Company is a dead company with a bare bones, barely functioning development team. They just don’t care anymore folks. How do I know they don’t care? Whoever wrote the patch notes couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to the spell check and left numerous obvious errors in the final publication.

So what brings me back briefly from my vacation early to talk about a game that I specifically said that I would never talk about again? The launch of Season 4, or the last season that I expect Daybreak will launch for H1Z1. Let’s talk about the elephant in the room to really get you excited for what Daybreak has to offer this season: The company has gone and slashed the price of the season pass by 50% over last season. That’s right, for around the cost of a two cheeseburger value meal (#9) at your local McDonald’s, you can feel disappointed and ripped off.

That’s a joke, folks, McDonald’s value meals are far less disappointing.

And what do you get for your money? Jack-freaking-squat. Season 3 annoyed me into quitting H1Z1 because the challenges were stupid and mostly broken, as was free for all, but ultimately I stuck around to complete the season pass because it didn’t take long and there were a hell of a lot of cosmetics to be unlocked. By comparison, Season 4 offers one outfit split up over the course of the season as well as accompanying AK-47, M17, and crossbow skins to match. Eleven items total. The rest of the pass are coins (2,600 total) and experience boosts. Enough coins to buy one and a half rare skins.

  • Scrub M17 (Level 1)
  • Scrub Jacket (Level 1)
  • Scrub Skirt (Level 18)
  • Scrub Pants (Level 40)
  • Scrub Backpack (Level 55)
  • Scrub Offroader (Level 60)
  • Scrub Shoes (Level 65)
  • Scrub Armor (Level 80)
  • Scrub Crossbow (Level 90)
  • Scrub AK-47 (Level 100)
  • Scrub Watch (Level 100)

Eleven bleeding items total. Stamp missions have been completely removed from the game, as have daily login rewards. You do now have the privilege of occasionally finding locked chests that you can pay a discount in order to unlock (ala Team Fortress 2) and you’re in luck because there are now six rotating arcade modes.

Six rotating arcade modes for a game that can barely get people into its standard modes. I played a few rounds of arcade mode on launch day and found that Daybreak can just about break 40/100 players at peak hours on a week night. The arcade modes are all based around ideas that probably took a good half hour to program into the game, such as headshot damage only, faster run speed, ATVs only, and pistols/explosives only. And this update was delayed by a week! And the season only runs for 36 days this time around for reasons I can’t honestly comprehend.

As far as game updates go, H1Z1 Season 4 is the That 70’s Show Season 8 of video games. Topher Grace is gone and so is Ashton Kutcher. Instead we get Randy, a guy so hated by the audience that he doesn’t even show up on the cover of the season DVD set. At this point, I can only assume that Daybreak is in need of a big success like say DC Universe Online becoming a smash hit on the Switch, and by smash hit I of course mean the game releasing and making a lot of money as opposed to just getting a lot of people to download, notice that the game has major performance problems, and uninstalling before investing anything in the title.

Now it’s time to go back into my hole and read legal documents. Otherwise I have no opinion on the matter.

Black Desert Hits Xbox Game Pass This Month


April showers bring May video games, and May is looking to haul in quite the bag of goodies.

Microsoft has announced the games coming to Xbox Game Pass in May, and Black Desert is among the list. Black Desert joins Wolfenstein II, Wargroove, Lego Batman 3, The Surge, Tacoma, For the King, and Surviving Mars. The title will be available on May 9 and presumably offers what is available in the standard edition. Game pass users will be able to upgrade for a 20% discount on the standard, deluxe, or ultimate edition bundles as well as 10% on all consumables.

Source: Xbox

[Giveaway] MU Legend Item Pack


MMO Fallout has partnered up with Webzen to give away item codes for MU Legend in anticipation of the long-awaited Gates of Glory update this month. The event runs until June 4 at midnight, however the codes can be redeemed until June 11 at midnight (UTC). These coupons are working right now and can be redeemed right away. Coupon codes can only be used once per account, so we ask that you please not deprive others by trying to collect multiples.

(Editor’s note: We’d also like to remind viewers that MMO Fallout is hosted on a stale ham sandwich and as key giveaways require us to turn off the caching program, the website may experience intermittent difficulties. We thank you for your patience, and suggest that you slam that refresh button at a reasonable rate.)

The following items are included in each code:

  • Guardian of Balance (Blue) Chest (7 Days) x1
  • Wings of Balance (Blue) (7 Days) x1
  • 7-Day Platinum Service Ticket x1
  • Time Traveling Pet Box x1
  • Talisman Lucky Box x3
  • Growth Potion x3

How to redeem your code:

  1. Go to http://www.webzen.com/Coupon.
  2. Log in with your account.
  3. Select your server and character and enter the coupon code (without hyphens).
  4. Click “redeem coupon code”.

If you are new to WEBZEN, please see the following:

  1. Create a webzen.com account.
  2. Go to http://www.webzen.com/ to download your game client and install it.
  3. Choose a server.
  4. Create a new character.

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Marvel Future Fight Celebrates 4 Years, 100 Million Downloads


Today’s infographic comes to us from Marvel Future Fight, currently celebrating 100 million downloads worldwide. Future Fight is celebrating its fourth anniversary with a slew of events including an 8 week login event, comics cards, character voting events, and other miscellaneous activities. Check out the infographic below and check out Marvel’s Future Fight on iOS and Android.

Lods of Emone: Jagex Posts Record Financial Success


RuneScape is doing just fine, thank you.

This week Jagex released their 2018 financials and boasted a 9.3% increase in revenue to £92.8 million. 2018 saw RuneScape reaching its highest membership total ever with Old School RuneScape launching on mobile and seeing over five million downloads.

CEO Phil Mansell noted:

“This lets us accelerate Jagex’s transformation; we have strengthened our leadership team and will continue to build on the company’s talent base, we are funding new game development, building out our third-party live game publishing, investing in massive publishing platform upgrades, whilst continuing to expand our live RuneScape games.”

The last year has seen Jagex increase its team by more than 100 people with investments in research and development boosted by 69%. 2018 also marked the launch of the Jagex Partners Initiative which aims to deliver operational services tailored toward third party studios.

Source: Jagex Press Release

In Plain English: Epic Takes On Counterfeiters


Here’s a quick tip on counterfeiting merchandise from one of the most litigious companies in the gaming industry: Don’t.

Epic Games is back in court, because the company refuses to let its lawyers have an easy week. This time around, the company isn’t going after Fortnite cheat distributors. On April 25, 2019, Epic filed suit in the Northern District of Illinois for the sale of products in connection with the registered trademark of Fortnite. The lawsuit contends that the defendants are going to great lengths to hide the extent of their operations and are selling inferior quality products designed to look like authorized merchandise.

Who are the defendants? Good question. Epic lists them as individuals and businesses residing in China and other foreign jurisdictions.

Epic seeks relief on charges of counterfeiting and trademark infringement, false designation of origin, violation of the Illinois Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act, and has demanded an enjoinment from using the Fortnite brand, passing off counterfeit products as genuine, that all profits gained through the counterfeiting operation be handed to Epic or that statutory damages of $2 million USD for each use of the Fortnite trademark be awarded. They also seek reasonable attorney fees and any further damages the court might award.

Epic’s attorneys are meeting with the court today (April 30) to discuss a motion for temporary transfer of defendant’s domain names, temporary asset restraint (freezing assets), expedited discovery, service of process by email, among other motions.

MMO Fallout could not ascertain the identities of the defendants, as those documents have been sealed by the court, possibly to prevent potential defendants from transferring assets in anticipation of a restraint. Similarly, there are no exhibits of such merchandise available at this time for potentially the same reason.

As always, the court dockets have been provided at our expense to you, the reader, at the Google Drive linked below.

Source: Google Drive

IPE Update: Epic Games v. Sperry Ends


Another Epic Games lawsuit has come to a close.

Plaintiff Epic Games and defendant Joseph Sperry, a.k.a “Spoezy” in a lawsuit related to the creation and distribution of cheat software for the video game Fortnite. According to the lawsuit filed by Epic, Sperry promoted, marketed, and sold the cheats to third parties for financial gain, and engaged in acts of contributory copyright infringement as well as contributing substantially to infringement by others through the sale of his software.

Sperry was hit with a DMCA violation, and has been permanently enjoined and restrained from infringement of any Epic product, current or future, as well as having any relation to infringing software of any of Epic’s copyrights, cheating at any Epic’s games, interfering with their contracts or contractual relations, unfairly competing with Epic, or assisting in any way another party in infringing on Epic’s copyrights.

Both parties have accepted the terms of the judgment and neither party may appeal this ruling. If Sperry violates the terms of the ruling, the court holds the right to award Epic liquidated damages of five thousand dollars without regard to proof of actual damages, as well as possibly other relief including attorneys’ fees, costs, as determined by the court.

Epic filed suit in the North Carolina Eastern District Court, Western Division. Epic Games has filed ten lawsuits since October 10, 2017 against cheat creators/distributors for Fortnite with most of the cases ending in simple court-ordered injunctions. All but one of those lawsuits has since been closed.

As always, MMO Fallout has provided the documents on our Google Drive. The file is listed as “Sperry-Judgment”.

Source: Google Drive

MapleStory 2 Sums Up Project New Leaf


Who needs the old leaf? This week Nexon America announced the conclusion of improvement updates to MapleStory 2’s Project New Leaf. As stated by CEO Jungsoo Lee, Project New Leaf is just the beginning and will lead the way to further improvement for the game. The update precedes an upcoming major expansion set to launch in the summer, and the team at Nexon hopes that the updates can revive the game and make it feel as packed as it was on day one.

The massive list of updates includes:

  • Removed Fairfight from all Adventure Dungeons
  • Reduced World Boss HP by ~60%
  • Added Trader’s Ribbons to allow you to trade top-tier equipment that you don’t need to those that could use it
  • Added the Fragment inventory tab to help you reduce the clutter of the Misc tab
  • Improved Notifications to better protect Legendary Gear with Epic Bonus Stats
  • Improved the Available Quest Window
  • Increased penalties for illegally buying mesos
  • Added the Meso Market to improve the mobility of mesos
  • Made Epic Pets much more likely to drop
  • Greatly reduced the meso cost for changing Legendary Gear attributes
  • Greatly reduced the meso cost of fusing Accessory Fragments
  • Made Accessory Socket openings guaranteed and cheaper on average
  • Made Upgrading Gemstones guaranteed and much cheaper on average
  • Made Extracting Gemstones trivially inexpensive
  • Greatly reduced the cost of enchanting via Peachy, creating a competitive guaranteed path towards +15 equipment
  • Replaced Daily Missions with a Weekly Prestige Rank system that encourages you to play MapleStory 2 however you want
  • And more!

Source: Nexon