Darkfall Goes Offline


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Darkfall has gone offline, and Aventurine doesn’t know when, or if, it will be returning. Unholy Wars, the official version, went offline with a post on the official forums explaining to players that economic conditions in Greece have made the game unsustainable. While they hope that the disruption is only temporary, for now it should be considered indefinite.

We have been involved with Darkfall for over 13 years now and it is our hope that we will be able to continue well into the future with your support. Unfortunately, and against our best efforts, the conditions in Greece have caught up with us and do not allow us to continue operating the game as we have been so far. We hope that the disruption of Darkfall Unholy Wars service is temporary and that we will be back soon in a more sustainable format. We apologize for the inconvenience to all that are affected.

Rumors of Aventurine being in a bad situation have been rampant ever since the developer decided to license the original Darkfall out to two separate developers at the same time.

(Source: Darkfall)

Funcom Funding Fun: $6.3 Million Investment


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Funcom’s staff may not be popping the (reasonably priced) champagne, but the developer can breath a sigh of relief over its financial situation. In a press release sent out today, Funcom CEO Rui Casais has revealed a $6.3 million private investment in the Norwegian game developer.

In addition, Funcom has announced that it has reduced its debt by $7.7 million thanks to a debt conversion process.

“This investment is a major turning point for the company,” said Funcom CEO Rui Casais. “Funcom has been making great games for more than twenty-three years, but it is no secret that the company has had a strained financial situation in recent years that made it challenging to fully realize our new strategy and get back on the right track. This investment allows us to finally do that.”

Funcom has shifted strategy in recent months to developing multiple small to medium sized experimental projects. The Park, a horror game set in The Secret World, launched last year on PC and this year on PS4 and Xbox One. Funcom’s second experimental title, Conan Exiles, hits early access later this summer.

With offices in Oslo and North Carolina, Funcom holds one of the longest running portfolio of MMOs in the industry. The investment should come as good news to their player base and investors alike.

(Source: Funcom)

Chronicle: RuneScape Legends Hits Steam


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Free to play card game Chronicle: RuneScape Legends is now available on Steam. From the makers of RuneScape, Chronicle is a card game in which players build decks to create adventures for their characters to embark on, powering up their heroes over several chapters before finally taking on their enemy in one on one combat.

Initial reviews seem positive, with about an 87% approval rating.

Having spent the last six months in beta, Chronicle’s full launch on Steam brings with it new ranked sessions (the first of which is now live until 31st June) more than 400 cards, support for seven languages, over 40 Steam Achievements, Steam Trading Cards, and dozens of additional enhancements and improvements for the game’s full launch.

Interested gamers can check out Chronicle on Steam free.

(Source: Jagex Press Release)

[NM] Stellaris, Racism, And The Mod Community


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The latest internet controversy, as numerous as those are, surrounds Paradox and the recent removal and reinstatement of a mod to the Steam Workshop called “European Phenotypes and Names Only.” The mod is pretty simple, it allows the user to play as a race of only European (white) characters. There are additional mods on the Steam Workshop that split the phenotypes into separate races that were not removed.

So why was the mod removed? Paradox has issued a statement that the mod was not removed for the content itself, but due to a combination of the description, the mod creator, and the community being fostered in the comments section. The mod creator has been accused of being a white nationalist and using the mod to push a political agenda.

Originally, the mod was tagged with the line “no multiculturalism here,” cited as being part of why the mod was removed.

The mod creator, who goes by the name Lord Xel, hosts a Youtube channel called Progeny of Europe. The page hosts a number of videos on topics including “an argument for the continued existence of Europeans,” complains numerous times about “blacks and leftists,” with the creator making comments like:

“you have this unholy union of dissatisfied black people who are angry and rampaging and rioting, and you have these weak, pathetic lefitsts who come out and support them and they sit there with their gay little signs saying ‘oh Trump is Hitler, Trump is racist. Well right next to them is a black person who wants to shut someone down because they’re white.”

The mod page, upon its return, has seen a number of racist posts attacking Paradox, “blacks,” and Swedes, with all of them being deleted so as to not incur the same punishment that befell the mod the last time around. Despite the creator’s determination, one or two have fallen through the cracks.

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As of this publishing, the mod has returned under the agreement that the creator does not link to his Youtube channel. There are other mods that perform a similar function that were not punished by Paradox.

Wild Terra Beta Key Giveaway


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MMO Fallout has partnered with Wild Terra to hand out beta keys to 30 lucky (or fast acting) gamers. Wild Terra bills itself as an MMO life simulator in a fully developed player-driven medieval world. The game is currently on Steam Greenlight seeking approval and Juvty Worlds would like to get you in as soon as possible.

Check out the trailer and grab a key for yourself. Players will also receive a Steam key once the game goes live on said platform. Don’t forget to vote for Wild Terra on Steam Greenlight (link above).

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That player gets after the activation key:
– Early access to the game
– 5 premium days
 
Instructions on how to activate the key:
1. go to the website http://www.playwildterra.com/
2. Download and install the game client http://www.playwildterra.com/files/
3. Launch the game, sign up and enter the key.

[Not Massive] Osu! Admits Past Use of Intrusive Anti-Cheat


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When does anti-cheat go too far?

A recent source code leak for the rhythm game Osu! has unveiled some rather damning evidence on how the program used to monitor for cheating. According to details revealed in the leak, and shown in the photo above, administrators are able to snapshot a user suspected of running cheat programs. The snapshot, as you can see above, contains not just the game but a shot of the user’s entire desktop.

Osu! developer (Reddit username Pepppppy) confirmed that while the code is outdated and as such the program is no longer present, that intrusive anti-cheat tools were at one point in use.

it has already been removed since the last time this discussion came up, actually. the code that was leaked is verydated (pulled from the master branch, which is not our active development branch). things are in a very different state currently, and we haven’t relied on any intrusive anti-cheat for a while now.

(Source: Reddit)

Tree of Savior Temporarily Blocks New Players To Sort Things Out


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Citing “serious internal debate,” Tree of Savior developer IMC Games revealed that they have requested that Valve temporarily shut off the ability to access the game. The decision comes in response to server stability, lag, and major issues regarding gold farming and in-game chat spam.

These restrictions will be put in place as soon as they are implemented by Valve and will be lifted as soon as the issues have been resolved. There will be another announcement as soon as the restrictions are implemented.

Tree of Savior previously had issues with fraud regarding Steam refunds, where certain malicious people were purchasing founder packs and then refunding them via the Steam store to keep the items.

(Source: Tree of Savior)

Denis Dyack Blames Unethical Press For Kickstarter Failure


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Shadow of the Eternals was meant to be the successor to Eternal Darkness, the latter having been developed by defunct game studio Silicon Knights and the former by Precursor Games, a new company molded out of the core team of Silicon Knights. The first Kickstarter campaign was a failure, gathering $128,000 of the $1.35 million requested. Lowering their target to $750,000, the second campaign also failed.

You can’t find Silicon Knights games on store shelves anymore, unless you find stores selling them pre-owned, and there’s a very good reason for that. A court ordered them to be destroyed. Back in 2007, Silicon Knights decided to sue Epic Games under the allegation that the company wasn’t developing the Unreal Engine up to the standards that they agreed upon, forcing them to develop their own engine. Epic counter-sued and revealed that Silicon Knights had stolen the Unreal Engine code.

Evidence shown in court proved that the Silicon Knights engine was using 20% of the Unreal Engine. Embarrassingly, SK not only copy and pasted the code but included all of the developer notes with associated typographical errors. They did, however, make sure to remove any notes of Epic’s copyright and fill in their own. In the end, Silicon Knights was convicted on all counts, given a hefty $4.45 million judgement, and ordered to recall and destroy all copies of their games using the engine.

Since then, Precursor Games has pretty much gone dark.

Until now. Denis Dyack has reappeared on Youtube on a channel called The Quantum Tunnel. Yesterday the channel uploaded a trailer for Shadow of the Eternals, noting involvement from two companies: Quantum Entanglement Entertainment and Fast Motion Studios.

Dyack posted a podcast a couple of days ago where he calls out unethical press over what he perceived to be unfair coverage of the earlier Kickstarter. Dyack refers to his company as the “karmic revenants that are going to continue to be here and not go away.”

“We are coming back from the dead,” he exclaims.

ASTA Marks End of Open Beta


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Webzen has marked the end of open beta for ASTA and official commercial release of the MMO. ASTA is built on CRYENGINE 3 and boasts a broad crafting system, dungeons that change their difficulty based on player skill, a player-driven economy, and more.

Set to launch on May 31st is ASTA’s first expansion, Myth I: Wrath of the Berserkers. The expansion introduces a new race, the Raksa, as well as their race-specific class the Berserker. The berserker is a DPS class that uses dual-wielded weapons and is capable of buffing its own stats to make for a formidable foe.

Berserkers inflict damage by swinging their double weapons, such as swords or axes, with great power and speed. They exploit any gap left by a defeated enemy to mount their next attack. Using continuous attacks such as “Bloodstain”, rather than powerful single blows, Berserkers are well capable of turning a situation in their favour. Berserkers can also use Combat Art Skills to enhance their own strength, and Soul Skills to improve the strength of the summoned creature “Cursed Doll”.

Wrath of the Berserkers also introduces new quests, new rewards, a new dungeon, and raises the level cap to 55.

More details can be found at the official website.

Blade & Soul Is Getting More Expensive


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Blade & Soul is about to get more expensive for European users, as NCSoft has announced price hikes coming to those who pay via Euro and British Pound. Beginning June 1st, prices for premium membership will increase for parity with the in-game Hongmoon store, according to NCSoft.

New prices will start out at €11.99 and £9.59 for 30 days of premium. Roughly translated to USD, this means European players will be paying $13.43 and $13.87 for the same service that Americans currently pay $11.99 for. Any subscription prior to June 1st will be locked in at the current price.

(Source: NCSoft)