Maplestory M Launches Dragon Master Class


Maplestory M today has launched its latest update, introducing the new Dragon Master class Evan as well as minigames and seasonal events. In addition to the new quest, Maplestory M is also introducing the minigame station along with four new minigames. Players will be able to gain coins through the minigame station and use those coins for rewards from the in-game shop.

Events following today’s update are as follows:

  • Evan Burning Event  – Through January 17, Evan characters between levels 3 – 75 will be given 2 bonus levels each time they level up 1 level
  • Evan update celebration– Through January 2, all players will receive special rewards including Buff Pets to help playing the game
  • Evan Growth Support Event– Through January 24, Special Growth Support Boxes, which include 3 stages of “Dragon Mount,” Evan exclusive chair and medal are given as players level up the new Evan class
  • Christmas Tree Decoration Event– Between December 24 to January 5, players can decorate Christmas trees with ornaments to earn Tree EXP for rewards
  • New Year’s Attendance Event– Between January 1 to January 24, players who log-in for 14 days anytime during the event period will receive Unique Accessory Draw Ticket, Equipment Support Box, pets and various rewards
  • Golden Pig Dice Event– Between January 10 to January 24, players can celebrate Golden Pig Year by obtaining special rewards from the board by rolling dice

Maplestory M has reached 10 million downloads in its first 100 days following launch. More information can be found at the official website.

Sony Accidentally Leaks Game Stats For Top PS4 Titles


Like most digital storefronts, Sony likes to keep its actual sales numbers hidden from the general public. That task became a bit harder this week when a promotion meant to celebrate player achievements in their games accidentally made public more data than was intended.

Sony’s My PS4 Life is a fun way of showing off your achievements on Playstation, it tells you how many hours you’ve invested, your top games, and even your rarest achievement and how many other players have it, among other details. What it also made public, however, was the number of players who had earned certain achievements. Coupled with the factor that Playstation displays the percentage of players who have earned said achievement, and it’s pretty easy to get a rough estimate on the number of people who have purchased/played said game.

The website Gamstat has set up to turn those stats into general figures, and the results aren’t all that surprising. Top played games on the PS4 include Grand Theft Auto V along with the last four iterations of Fifa, Minecraft, Call of Duty, Rocket League, and Fortnite. Fallout 76 has pulled about 407,000 players on the console.

The data isn’t exact science, as PS4 trophy figures around up to the .1%, but it does give a good idea as to how each game sold.

(Source: Reddit)

Jeremy Soule More Than Five Years Late On Album, Starts Patreon Asking For More Money


Fraudster:
2a:  a person who is not what he or she pretends to be :impostor;

When it comes to fraudsters showcased here on MMO Fallout, Jeremy Soule may be the worst. The composer of famous soundtracks for numerous games including Skyrim, Guild Wars, and Baldur’s Gate, Jeremy Soule’s talent in composing music haven’t exactly translated into successful businesses.

In 2005, Soule founded the company DirectSong with the purpose of selling albums from his various creations. At best, the service was a wholly incompetent mess that delayed orders by months into years on end and couldn’t figure out digital distribution of simple MP3 files. At worse, it was a running scam and never had any intention of providing the products that Soule was selling at a premium cost. I brought this up in my initial Crowdfunding Fraudsters piece, but check out reviews of the service and you’ll see people who waited 3+ years for their soundtracks to be delivered, and others who had to wait upwards of a year for a response from DirectSong’s customer service about refunds.

The Northerner: Soule Symphony #1 was crowdfunded on Kickstarter back in 2013 with an estimated shipping date of September 2013. Five years later, it has still not released and all signs point towards the songs not even being fully written. But Jeremy needs money, so he’s started a Patreon account in order to solicit additional funding for his works. For $5 per month you’ll gain access to old and new music from Soule and for $10 per month you’ll have the rare opportunity where Soule will actually talk to you, about music product and business techniques. $10 for advice on business, you really get what you pay for.

Meanwhile if you check over at Kickstarter, you’ll see hundreds of comments from people discussing their horrible customer experience of dealing with Soule and the Max Steiner Agency, with refund requests taking close to a year, others not being responded to at all, emails bouncing from the company’s refund address, and more. Soule is more than five years late putting out an album that should have been out in September 2013, and he doesn’t seem to be anywhere near completion.

The Northerner Diaries, a sketch album released by Soule in lieu of the album that backers paid for, is available to listen to for free on Youtube.

Discord To Allow Self-Publishing AND 90/10 Revenue Split


If you thought Epic Games offering an 88/12 split along with a curated store was the pinnacle of digital distribution, think again. Discord today announced that as of 2019, not only will their service serve as a self-publishing platform where any developer can place their game, but that developers will enjoy a 90% revenue share to sweeten the deal.

So, starting in 2019, we are going to extend access to the Discord store and our extremely efficient game patcher by releasing a self-serve game publishing platform. No matter what size, from AAA to single person teams, developers will be able to self publish on the Discord store with 90% revenue share going to the developer. The remaining 10% covers our operating costs, and we’ll explore lowering it by optimizing our tech and making things more efficient.

Epic Games recently announced that its store would offer an 88/12 revenue split compared to Valve’s standard 70/30. Valve comparatively announced that it will offer better rates in an attempt to bring big name publishers back to the platform.

Source: Discord

Maplestory Begins Final Chapter in War Against Black Mage


Maplestory has launched the final chapter of the war with the game’s current big baddy, the Black Mage. Players level 200 or higher who have completed the 5th job advancement can access the Labyrinth of Suffering, Tenebris’ second area. At the end of the quest, players will find Verus Hilla, one of the Black Mage’s leading Commanders, ready to fight. Limina,  Tenebris’ final area, is also available as players must help the Tenebris expedition escape dangerous situations inside to complete the Journey of Destiny.

In addition, every class will receive a new 5th job skill to fight the Black Mage and once the Maple Alliance gathers enough Determination to power up the Spark of Determination, all out war breaks loose as the highly anticipated Black Mage Boss Battle will become available. With the Black Mage’s HP being shared across all worlds, MapleStory players across the world must work together in this epic battle to finally defeat the Black Mage.

More information can be found on the official website.

Daybreak Game Company Announces Planetside Arena


Daybreak Game Company today finally unveiled their next title: Planetside Arena. Set to launch in early 2019, Planetside Arena is a massive-scale sci-fi arena FPS set in the Planetside universe. Arena will launch with three battle royale modes in season one: A 250 vs 250 player experience titled Massive Clash with solo and team modes. Later seasons are expected to introduce more traditional game modes including capture the flag, team deathmatch, search and destroy, and global conquest. Daybreak expects the battle royale mode to eventually support up to 1,000 players per match.

“There’s simply no other multiplayer shooter that can replicate the depth of play and massive scale of PlanetSide,” said Andy Sites, Executive Producer. “PlanetSide Arena will expand and evolve the franchise with new modes, new technology and new content, delivered on a scale that only PlanetSide can offer.”

Three initial classes will be available including the Engineer, Assault, and Medic, each with a personal vehicle, jetpack, and unique abilities that can be upgraded throughout the match.

Planetside Arena is currently available for pre-order on Steam, with launch on January 29, 2019.

Indiegogo: Gamers Raise $130,000 For Politics-Free Gaming Website


Are gamers sick of politics in gaming? If you look at the success of a recent Indiegogo campaign, the answer looks like a pretty confident yes. Exclusively Games is an upcoming website that promises to be “[a] place for fans of gaming who are sick of politics forcing [its] way inside. All games, no politics.” The campaign started with the goal of raising $5,000 and if you haven’t seen the photo above, has accrued well over two thousand times that amount.

Started by Youtuber Jeremy Hambly, host of the channel The Quartering, the goal of Exclusively Games will be to offer a website where gamers can talk about games with no political strings attached. Hambly does not plan to run ads on the website and will support Exclusively Games solely through merch, patrons, and fundraising drives.

“My only goal is to create a place for fans of escapism. This website will provide a forum, videos and articles covering topics related to just about everything gaming with just one rule, NO POLITICS! We’ll cover video games, coin-op, retro, card games, tabletop games & everything in between.”

The campaign ends approximately 30 minutes from when this article is published.

Source: Indiegogo

(Disclaimer: I contributed a small amount ($30) to this Indiegogo campaign)

[NM] How Counter Strike: GO Keeps Its Battle Royale Poppin’ Fresh


Counter Strike: Global Offensive recently went free to play, adding in its own Battle Royale mode in the form of The Danger Zone. Danger Zone is a bit different from your normal battle royale jazz, chiefly being that it’s a faster game with up to 16 participants in each fight on a smaller map (18 in teams). The mode initially leaked more than two and a half years ago when files referring to a survival game mode were discovered in the base game.

That said, I wanted to discuss some of the features that separate CS: GO from the crowd.

1. The PDA

The PDA is your best friend in Danger Zone, it’s an upgradeable device that tells you where you are, where you should probably be going, and generally where other players are located. The map is divided into hexagonal slices which at the start of each round serve as locations you’ll pick a spot to land in. You can order weapons with money found throughout the map and have it delivered to you by drone. Fun tip: You can drop your PDA on the ground and the drone will drop whatever you purchased on top of it rather than you. If you think someone might follow your drone, you can set up an ambush.

Which brings me to upgrades: You can buy upgrades that allow you to track other player’s drones, as well as an upgrade to see which zones are about to become unsafe as well as an upgrade that makes enemy positions more specific. These upgrades can rarely be found in the wild.

2. Buying Weapons

Danger Zone just wouldn’t be a proper Counter Strike mode without the ability to buy equipment and thankfully Valve haven’t overlooked that feature. You can buy some pretty rudimentary weapons from the shop with your hard-stored dollars, including weapons, armor, ammo, grenades, and upgrades for your PDA. Money is found strewn about the level and if you manage to kill someone you get to watch as their body explodes into a pile of cash.

Weapons and equipment can be found throughout the level, however guns tend to be far less available and with very low ammunition sources than finding cash and hunkering down and ordering through express Amazon Prime delivery. You can also choose to be even more of a jerk and shoot down someone else’s drone to grab whatever they are delivering, or just keep your eye on the sky and follow them to their destination, pop the guy in the head once they come out to claim the delivery.

3. The Explosives

One item you’re bound to come across while playing Danger Zone are grenades, and plenty of them. Other battle royale games have grenades as well, but those who play Counter Strike will be familiar with how grenades in this game can save your life when properly used in a pinch. Among the items available to you is the distraction grenade, an explosive that simulates gunfire wherever it is tossed. The molotov cocktail is great for creating a buffer between you and someone else, or for flooding a room if you know someone is hiding inside of it.

But here’s where CS: Go gets even fancier. While PUBG and its many clones might also have grenades, molotov cocktails, and smoke grenades, CS: GO has breaching charges, remote activated bombs that can be used to cover your ass or more likely to catch someone by surprise as they walk into a room.

4. HVT and Hostages

High Value Targets, or HVTs, are a great addition to The Danger Zone. The gist of the feature is that a random player becomes your target and if you manage to kill them the game will give you an additional $500. One benefit of this system is that you are constantly aware of where that person is on the map, letting you set up an ambush or avoid them if you aren’t properly armed up yet.

Hostages meanwhile are a holdover from the standard Counter Strike game types, and don’t really need any explanation as to why they’re there or who is holding them hostage. Picking up a hostage will slow your movements and obscure part of your screen, but if you manage to safely get them over to one of two extraction points on either side of the map, you’ll net a cool $500. Given the length of time this will take compared to the relatively short length of each round, you’re going to have to dedicate most of your time to this activity.

5. In Conclusion

Given how overloaded the battle royale scene is becoming with cheap knockoffs, it’s good to see not just Valve putting out a big update but also leaving an interesting spin on the genre that makes The Danger Zone worth playing.

Everquest: The Burning Lands Expansion Is Now Live


The only constant in life is death and a new Everquest expansion.

The Burning Lands is Everquest’s twenty fifth expansion in the long running MMORPG. Available now, Burning Lands introduces the new luck stat that randomly affects gold found in loot drops, the amount of critical damage you do, your success at a trade-skill combine, and more. There are six expansion zones available in The Burning Lands as well as new raids, new quests, new spells, and new skills.

“The longstanding peace between the jann is over, and war has broken out between the djinn from the Plane of Air and the efreeti from the Plane of Fire! What has sparked this dispute and who will emerge victorious? Will you survive the Trials of Smoke and help end this conflict? It is finally time to head back to the Planes and unravel the mysteries that await you there! “

Chinese Government Reviews 20 Games, Passes None of Them


This month marks the establishment of the Chinese Online Ethics Review Committee, a government organization tasked with reviewing online games and determining if they are fit for sale in China in guidance with the country’s ethical rules. Confirmed by Tencent in August, China instituted an approval freeze around March of this year for games being sold within the country until the government can establish newer guidelines on approving or banning certain titles.

Of 20 popular titles to be reviewed, none of them passed muster. Judging from the list of games and the reasons for their refusal, most of the problem stem from blood and gore, vulgar content, overly revealing female characters, and ‘inharmonious chat.’ Incidentally, titles like Diablo and Chu Liu Xiang were also refused for “missions including fraud.” Of the twenty titles, eleven were held for corrective action while nine were prohibited outright and are presumably banned. PUBG, Fortnite, H1Z1, and Paladins are in the list of titles prohibited under these new guidelines.

These guidelines are hardly new, as in 2017 PUBG faced a ban over deviating from socialist core values. Tencent has seen a hit to its net worth as China due to the crackdown, and Ubisoft took a lot of heat last month after it attempted to globally censor and remove content from Rainbow Six: Siege in preparation for a Chinese launch.