Blizzard’s Silence Mechanic Exposed As Automated


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Blizzard recently introduced a new moderation system to World of Warcraft, one that promised to implement account-wide punishment for abusive chat once a player was reported by a sufficient number of people. The description of silencing, as shown below, states that punishment is inflicted “after investigation,” presumably by a live customer support staffer.

“Following the Legion pre-expansion, any player who is reported multiple times under the Spam or Abusive Chat categories will, after investigation, receive an account-wide silence penalty. While this penalty is active, the silenced player will find that their ability to chat with others is greatly limited.”

Twitch streamer Zach “Asmongold” recently decided to test Blizzard’s new silence system in World of Warcraft by typing one (emphasis on one) innocuous chat message (I love World of Warcraft) and having his raid group mass-report the comment as abusive. The account is muted within a minute. The accompanying email notes that the punishment will only be overturned if there is evidence that the account was compromised or for “other extenuating circumstances.”

A system where players can be muted (with each subsequent punishment lasting twice as long as the last) due to reports sounds ripe for brigading against unpopular opinions or merely mass trolling, leading to concern that the tool could wind up with players becoming victims of mob rule. Blizzard, in response, has assured that game masters will review each case:

This isn’t just an automated system, our Game Masters will review under the same rules they always have.

Only it is very clear that silences, at least in this case, are not being reviewed by a human. Asmongold’s email explicitly states that he has been punished with a full 24 hour silence. The account was not, as some people are stating, “squelched,” as the mute for squelching only lasts a few hours and Asmongold was silenced for the full 24 hours.

Blizzard has yet to make a statement either on their forums or otherwise.

https://www.twitch.tv/asmongold/v/79013153?t=19m00s

Neverwinter’s Next Expansion Announced For August


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Perfect World Entertainment has formally announced the release of Neverwinter’s next expansion: Storm King’s Thunder. Set for launch next month, Storm King’s Thunder introduces a new end-game campaign as well as a new dungeon tier and new stories based on the upcoming adventure from Wizards of the Coast.

Similar to the Storm King’s Thunder adventure coming to Dungeons & Dragons later this year, Neverwinter’s new expansion sees giants invade Neverwinter. Adventurers will travel north to Bryn Shander – the heart of the Ten Towns – to investigate the sudden presence of Frost Giants in the region. In order to fight off these colossal invaders, players must team up with popular characters from Dungeons & Dragons lore, including Catti-brie, Wulfgar and Harshnag.

In addition to the new Frost Giants story content, Storm King’s Thunder also introduces a brand new end-game campaign and new adventure zones for high-level players, including Bryn Shander, Cold Run and The Lonelywood. The expansion also marks the debut of a new dungeon tier with the addition of the new Tier 3 dungeon, Fangbreaker Island. With the release of Storm King’s Thunder,adventurers will also be able to score new high-level equipment to equip their characters with the latest gear.

Storm King’s Thunder hits PC on August 16 with console release coming at a later date.

(Source: Press release)

Ubisoft Q1 Sales: Money Stuff And Things Like That


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(Editor’s note: Ubisoft’s Q1 fiscal year runs from April through June. Q2 begins July and ends at the end of September.)

Ubisoft has revealed record high player engagement during the first quarter of 2016, following the launch of The Division and Rainbow Six Siege. Sales for the period amounted to approximately $153 million USD, exceeding expectations by a fair margin (expected: $125 mil).

Sales show a trend toward consumers ditching physical media, as digital sales amounted to 75% of the overall take. This, compared to last year’s share of 56%, marks a major shift in consumer spending habits.

“Our solid figures for the first quarter of 2016-17 have confirmed the excellent digital trends and demonstrate we are successfully executing our strategic plan. Player engagement levels reached record highs during the period, fueled by the success of The Division, Rainbow Six Siege and Hungry Shark World.”

The French developer/publisher is gearing up for a busy release schedule including but not limited to South Park: The Fractured But Whole, Just Dance 2017, Ghost Recon Wildlands, Steep, and Watch Dogs 2. Ubisoft expects lower sales in the second quarter, likely due to a sparse release schedule (Grow Up and Champions of Anteria).

Neverwinter Launches On Playstation 4


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Today, Perfect World Entertainment Inc., a leading publisher of free-to-play MMORPGs, and Cryptic Studios announced that Neverwinter – the Dungeons & Dragons-based, free-to-play MMORPG – is now available for PlayStation®4. Along the Sword Coast of the Forgotten Realms, Neverwinter players will experience a fully realized roleplaying-game based on Wizards of the Coast’s storied franchise with a living world and immersive fantasy storylines.

Neverwinter turns players into adventurers. Create a character with its own rich backstory from eight playable classes and several races. Begin questing through enchanting settings to save the city of Neverwinter and surrounding lands, engaging in fast-paced, action-packed against evil threats including dragons, cultists, demons, and more.

Adventurers will have access to the base game and nine expansions of content including the latest, The Maze Engine, allowing players to experience the latest Dungeons & Dragons adventures with their friends. PlayStation®4 adventurers can download all of this content for free starting today without a PlayStation®Plus subscription. More details and features can be found below.

  • D&D Experience – From tabletop to novels, Neverwinter is a fantastic digital recreation of the Dungeons & Dragons experience. Select from eight classes, fight alongside iconic heroes against classic monsters throughout the Forgotten Realms.
  • PlayStation®4 Features – Neverwinter will be free-to-play for all on PlayStation®4 owners (PlayStation®Plus not required) and feature controls optimized to incorporate the DualShock 4’s touchpad and Party Chat integration.
  • Solo & Co-op Content – Adventurers can experience a majority ofNeverwinter’s content solo or join up with their friends and large groups to conquer challenges from dungeons, the Demogorgon battle, Tiamat and more.
  • Endgame Content – Complete the main story content and reach the level cap of 70 to unlock campaigns centered on expansions, earning the best weapons and armor Neverwinter has to offer.

“Delivering the Neverwinter experience to the PlayStation 4 has been a major goal of ours for the last year, and we’re happy to be able to do so,” said Rob Overmeyer, Neverwinter’s executive producer. “Bringing full-fledged MMOs likeNeverwinter or Star Trek Online to consoles was a big challenge with many unknowns, but what we’ve found is simply: gamers like games. We can’t wait to see how the PlayStation Nation takes to the game and look forward to supporting it for years to come.”

Our Thoughts: You can check out MMO Fallout’s preview of Neverwinter here.

Final Fantasy XIV Teases Deep Dungeon


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Final Fantasy XIV is gearing up for the release of patch 3.35, which introduces the Deep Dungeon. The Palace of the Dead is a (to start) fifty floor, randomly generated dungeon that can be explored in groups of up to four players. Your progression in the dungeon is separated from that of your normal adventurer, starting everyone over at level one and granting experience and equipment as you fight.

Rewards from the dungeon include experience, cosmetics, tomestones, and gil. Rewards useful outside of the dungeon are based on what level your various jobs are going in.

Players who do not own the Heavensward expansion are limited to the first forty levels. Given the messaging behind the patch notes, it is safe to presume that more stages will be added to the initially fifty in the future.

(Source: Final Fantasy XIV)

Beta Perspective: A Third Go On The Neverwinter Express


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How much do I like Neverwinter? Three systems in and I’m still playing it, that’s how much.

Neverwinter is an action-based MMORPG set in the Dungeons and Dragons Forgotten Realms campaign. It initially released on PC back in 2013, Xbox last year, and now the game has come to Playstation. Unlike its Microsoft counterpart, Neverwinter on Playstation 4 does not require a subscription to the system’s online service in order to play. There is an extensive cash shop and an optional VIP subscription system that I will get into further on.

If my time in Neverwinter in PS4 has taught me one thing, it is just how massive in scope the game has become since it launched just three years ago. I started Neverwinter on PC during its beta phase and haven’t taken much time off since. As such, I’ve experienced the content in small doses as it became available.

Beginning again on PS4, all I can say is…wow. Seventy levels, six massive campaigns, the daily quests, etc. It’s a bit like deciding you’re going to start getting into Game of Thrones after numerous books and six seasons. Despite this, Perfect World is constantly doing work to make the leveling process as smooth and clear as possible.

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Having already played the game for its Xbox release, Neverwinter’s ability to pull off a controller setup is pretty well cemented. Your analog sticks are used to move, the right triggers pull off your primary and secondary attacks, and other attacks are mapped to the face buttons. I expect a lot of people to have momentary trouble with jumping, which requires a pull of L1 + square. Unfortunately, I’ve committed this key combination to memory so well that I’ve started using it in other games.

Combat is a ballet of cooldowns and potions as you maneuver the field and dodge attacks. Each class has plenty of abilities to use as you level up, and you only have a few equipped at a time, making room for experimentation. Combat is satisfying, hitting enemies carries a heavy oomph to it and your character (regardless of class) is pretty capable of handing out some serious punishment.

One thing I have to point out about Neverwinter is that the game seriously panders to pack rats (of which I am one). Every zone has its trinket to collect and turn in for random gear packs, you collect seals of the lion, the unicorn, the drake, manticore, pegasus, adventurer, elements, and protector by completing tasks and dungeons. There are ardent coins, zen, astral diamonds, celestial coins, black ice, guild marks, and more.

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The big currency in Neverwinter are Astral Diamonds and Zen. Players will recognize Zen as the real money currency that is common among Perfect World titles, with Astral Diamonds being the complementary currency obtainable in-game. You can trade Astral Diamonds for Zen in-game, allowing players to buy AD with real money and vice versa. This makes it technically possible to buy all of the cash shop items without paying any real money.

Astral Diamonds are obtained via multiple daily blessings, as well as daily skirmishes, dungeons, and pvp. They are required to buy items on the auction house, also making it possible to buy cash shop items if you manage to find expensive drops in late-game dungeons. Foundry creators can receive tips from players who complete their levels.

The community that has been built up so far is awesome. Since players can use keyboards, there tends to be quite a few people in chat. Since Neverwinter has open world bosses for the dragon campaign, there are always people in chat looking for groups, willing to invite to full zones, and calling out respawn timers. As far as console MMOs go (that are not cross-platform with PC), this is the first I’ve seen with an active chat community.

The Playstation version definitely has less technical issues than on Xbox One, particularly in FPS loss at the main hub Protector’s Enclave. Barring the influx of new players on launch day, there isn’t much to note in the bug department outside of some issues with players not being able to redeem their extra character awarded in the head start package.

More to come on Neverwinter PS4.

Overwatch: Square Enix And Sony To Face Off


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Square Enix CEO Yosuke Matsuda and president of Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan Asia Atsushi Morita will be squaring off in the battlefield later this week. As reported by our friends over at MMO Culture, the heads of both developers will be putting together their own teams of six to fight it out in Overwatch (presumably not on Xbox), with the event to be streamed live online.

This is not the first time that the two companies have met on the digital battlefield, playing a match on Call of Duty: Black Ops III on PS4 which ended in a major win for Square Enix. You can watch the highlights, it is quite the sight.

The announcement video is linked below, but you won’t understand any of it unless you speak Japanese.

(Source: MMO Culture)

[Community] The Rebel Developer: “I Just Want To Get Rid of This Sh**y Game”


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For this week’s Community Monday, I want to dive into the latest indie developer meltdown currently in progress. The subject for the latest incident is The Rebel, a Unity asset flip that currently has a 75% positive (of four reviews) rating on Steam. There is one person online at the time of this writing.

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The Rebel is developed and published by an independent developer Novukomp EEOD, an individual who refers to his game as “total s*** and [an] asset flip,” as shown here on the Unity forums.

An year ago I put my game on Greenlight steam. It was total S*** at the time and asset flip. You probably think the game did poorly and never got approved? Wrong! It was approved via greenlight and actually reached top 5th place in greenlight out of 1400+ games.

The thread, posted last Friday, complains about an inability to get the game on Steam despite Valve’s seeming approval. They were kind enough to leak the admin dashboard, as shown above. Justbrosingthanks, the creator’s username, is seemingly fed up with trying to submit a game he apparently didn’t care much for.

I just want to get rid off this sh**y game, don’t want to turn this into a never ending slavery to a project I don’t even enjoy working on. I want it to end.

The creator ends up butting heads with others pointing out over the game’s poor graphics, the low framerate trailer, etc.

Stop being salty about negative comments, your game looks bad and you decided to put it in Steam anyway so better get ready to get a lot of vitriol. The worst offense of your game is the framerate, if you can’t get at least 30fps in your damn trailer you should know that you have serious problems.

Naturally Jim Sterling gets brought up, although Justbrosing seems to think that James Romine is living in a Beverly Hills mansion rather than a house in Arizona.

^ Sterling is the reason The Slaughtering Grounds developers are now living in Beverly Hills mansion and have all the time in the world to develop better game. I am actually hoping to reach to the British far-right fatty who will call this “shait”.

 

As with every other shady independent developer on Steam, The Rebel has taken to intensely policing its forums and banning any criticism. The developer has actually gone as far as attempting to stifle criticism by having only two forums open: The first for requesting keys and the second for trading (only open to owners).

There is literally no venue for discussing the game at all, and the developer is actively banning anyone and everyone who posts otherwise.

Please only post here if your question is related to free keys and videos. Everything else will be considered off topic and the thread banned/locked.

I attempted to contact the developer to point out that Valve has penalized developers for similar conduct in the past. He responded by permanently banning me from the game’s forums. He was kind enough to offer me a free key, though.

Again and again: please abide by the rules off the forum. If you think the game sucks: well thank you for the opinion! Just please don’t spam. If you want opinion/key: info@novucomp.com

To end this, I’ll point out that the creator is friends with none other than Steam’s most notorious shovelware developer, James Romine from Digital Homicide. Make of that what you will.

Disaster Report: Umbrella Corp Is Essentially Buried


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If there is any sympathy for Capcom over Umbrella Corps, you’d have to look long and hard in order to find it. Umbrella Corps, the game that was met with severe skepticism and ultimately negative reviews, appears to be dead in the waters just a few weeks after launch.

According to Steam Charts, the game averages less concurrent players than your average Battlefield server. Just 20 as of this writing and an overall peak of 45 over the last day or so. Steam Spy’s figures paint an even more dismal picture. The tracking service estimates that the PC version has only sold around eight thousand copies, with only about 35% of those playing over the past two weeks.

Perhaps Umbrella Corps should take a page out of Evolve’s playbook and make a sharp turn toward free to play territory. There is no guarantee of success, but at this point there isn’t much left to risk.