MapleStory 14th Anniversary Event Goes Live: Play As The Pink Bean


As we noted previously, MapleStory’s 14 Anniversary event has gone live, and will run from April 24 through June 12. Events named after past seasonal updates will be available under the 14th Street event. Players will receive the 14th Street Fairgoer title at the start of the event and increase their reputation and stats as they complete missions to receive the 14th Street Celeb medal.

You’ll also be able to create a Pink Bean character through June 12 by talking to Pink Bean outside the Chaos Pink Bean Theatre. The character is temporary, so get as much use out of it as you can. For more on MapleStory, check out the official website.

Source: Nexon Press Release

Nepal Supreme Court Demands Justification On PUBG Ban


You may have read the news that PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds had been banned in Nepal and thought “this makes no sense,” and you would have the backing of the Nepal Supreme Court on your side. The South Asian country took the banhammer to the popular battle royale shooter just two weeks ago and directed all internet service providers and mobile data centers to block access to the game.

Justice Ishwar Prasad Khatiwada demanded an explanation for the ban and asked the government to provide justification beyond the vague excuse that the game was distracting children from schoolwork and chores, as well as unsubstantiated claim of violent behavior coming from addicted gamers.

Unlike India where more than a dozen people were arrested for violating its own ban, it doesn’t appear that anyone has actually been punished in the two weeks that the law was in effect. As of right now, PUBG is once again playable. Whether the government will be able to come up with a convincing excuse to put access back on the kibosh will have to be seen.

Source: Gamasutra

Titan Network In Talks To Revive City of Heroes With NCSoft Blessing


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City of Heroes is back! Or it was. In case you fell off the face of the planet over the past few days like yours truly did, you may have missed all of the hubbub surrounding City of Heroes, a game that’s getting a lot of widespread attention for a title that is dead six years running. The mishegas all began last week as we learned that City of Heroes doesn’t just have a functioning emulator, but it has been running in secret for the past six years now. Even worse, a fair few members of the press knew about it all along (Side note: The people operating the server are probably the same that do not like me and as such I was never cued in on the secret private server).

Fast forward a few days and the code for the private server was released online, leading to the launch of SCORE, a publicly playable server that went live over the weekend. Fast forward a couple more days, and the server went down due to what later turned out to be a fake legal threat. It remains offline. For more information on all of this, you can check out Massively OP’s Bree Royce who has meticulously covered all of the events.

Today, Tony V of the Titan Network announced via Twitter that there are negotiations going on with City of Heroes. Granted, there have been ongoing talks since the game shut down so make what you will of these “positive” developments.

Z1 Battle Royale Will Shut Down South American Servers


Z1 Battle Royale, the PC shooter by Daybreak Game Company, is coming to an end on season 3 and bringing big changes with it. Chief among today’s announcements includes the reveal that Daybreak is shutting down Z1’s South America servers on April 30 to coincide with the end of season 3. This move will consolidate American players into the North American servers, hopefully speeding up queue times and ensuring the servers are populated going into season 4.

Z1’s traffic has been on a steady decline over the past couple of years, with Daybreak making changes in response to the smaller population.

Source: Steam

[Bad Press] Kotaku Lies About Smash, Doubles Down


Kotaku UK, a website that bills itself as “Kotaku, but without the integrity of Jason Schreier.” When Kotaku UK isn’t pumping out plain old clickbait compost for articles, they’re pumping out slanderous clickbait compost.

Last night marked the launch of Smash Bros Ultimate 3.0, and also the release of Nintendo’s first DLC fighter Joker from Persona 5. As is standard for Smash character releases, Joker comes with his own stage, a number of costumes, and a number of songs. In other words, it’s the perfect time for tabloid e-zine Kotaku to rev up the faux outrage and find something you should be offended by.

Enter Laura K. Dale penning an article that posted today, “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s Persona 5 DLC Includes a Disability Slur.” Dale listened to the track “Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There” and decided that not only does the song use the term “retarded,” but apparently justifies its use by saying “I can say it” right after. Here is Dale’s personal transcript of the lyrics.

Oh Ah Hi
Are you ready?
Ready to pick up the pieces
Let’s go, let’s play, retarded
I can say it
Are you ready?
Uh Huh

The article got the attention of Erika Harlacher, voice actress for Ann in Persona 5, who confirmed that of course the song doesn’t use the word “retarded.”

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The article has been slammed even in Kotaku’s community as racist, as a large number of commenters are calling out Dale for essentially accusing an Asian singer of using a slur because of her accent. Folks in the comment section are calling out the article for shaming someone for not speaking English good enough for Dale to understand it, when English is very likely not her first language.

You’ll also notice that the title of the article doesn’t leave anything to theory and just straight claims that the slur is absolutely included. Dale goes on to wag her finger and wax poetic about how inappropriate this is for Nintendo’s “family friendly image.” It’s hard to imagine Nintendo would allow the word “retard” to get into a song. It’s easier to imagine that Kotaku UK knows exactly what it is doing and is deliberately pushing out a bit of defamatory content and outrage-bait to jump on the coattails of a big video game update.

Laura, for her part, has posted multiple apologies via Twitter and acknowledged that her conclusion to the song’s lyrics was wrong. Kotaku UK has refused to pull the article, has not posted a genuine correction, and has simply updated the article to essentially say “some people say it’s different, but we disagree.”

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It’s disappointing to see this level of reckless behavior from Laura K. Dale, who MMO Fallout generally holds in higher regard.

MapleStory Kicks Off 14th Anniversary Event


MapleStory is turning 14 and wants you to join in on the celebrations.

From April 24 through June 12, events named after past seasonal updates will be available under the 14th Street event. Players will receive a 14th Street Fairgoer title increase their reputation and stats as they complete missions. Once all missions are complete, Maplers will receive the 14th Street Celeb medal.

In addition to the event, players will also be able to create a Pink Bean character. Players will also be able to complete the Pink Bean’s Movie Script, a set of 30 missions that award the Holy Pink Beanity Title. And finally the Big Bang Store will offer rewards for the 14th Street Coins such as new mounts, chairs, and rings. More information can be found at the official website.

Source: Nexon Press Release

[Video] Emiko Shibamura “Akindo Fighter”


Today’s video has nothing to do with video games, in fact I wouldn’t even be posting it were it not to show up in the MMO Fallout inbox.

In case you decided to read this before watching the video, Emiko Shibamura is a 65 year old Japanese fashion icon, best-selling author, and self-help guru who is breaking into the American music industry with a rap video debut. It is possibly the greatest thing I have ever seen.

Surgeon General’s Warning: The above video contains more than your daily recommended dose of beefcake.

[NM] Ubisoft Donates Money To Notre-Dame, Gives Unity For Free


Ubisoft has joined the list of companies donating to rebuild the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris following a fire that destroyed much of the church. The French developer has pledged $564 thousand USD to help with its restoration, joining the hundreds of millions of dollars donated by the combined efforts of numerous other French and international businesses.

In addition, Ubisoft is offering a free copy of Assassin’s Creed Unity for PC to honor the landmark. Assassin’s Creed Unity recreated the Notre Dame cathedral to such a level of accuracy and detail that Engadget is reporting that the game may be of use in its reconstruction.

The free copy of Unity runs until April 25. All you have to do is add the game to your account and it will be there forever.

Source: Assassin’s Creed

[Video] Torchlight Frontiers Shows Off Railmaster Class


All around the world join in, it’s called Torchlight: Frontiers.

The latest Torchlight class on show might be the strangest thing we’ve seen here at MMO Fallout. The Railmaster is a hammer wielding class that adventures with a train companion. The blog post goes into more detail about how the Railmaster came to be, and what it is now. Long story short, you’ll be laying down rails and equipping your little engine with specialty cars to provide an extra whoopin. This is one game that doesn’t look like it’s going to end up a trainwreck.

Entropia Universe Celebrates Easter Mayhem 2019


With Easter on the way, that can only mean one thing. Robot attacks.

At least that’s what it means in Entropia Universe, where Easter Mayhem is running until April 29 with the results of the event to be posted on May 6. Players will assist the Calypso Defense Force in fighting back against waves of evicerators, spider bombers, defenders, warlocks, and warrior robots to protect data interceptors. Rewards include mayhem tokens which can be exchanged at the event token trader.

For more information, check out the Entropia Universe website.