MMO Fallout

[Less Massive] Slitherine Among The Best Mobile Devs, Says Slitherine

Pockettactics.com recently named Slitherine Software as runner up to their Creator of the Year award, putting the company in a position that, in their own words, “no other publisher came close” to matching.

That makes Slitherine responsible for four games that garnered votes for GotY in our behind-the-scenes polling. No other publisher came close.

So what’s the problem? Well, as they only announced yesterday, pockettactics.com has been owned by Slitherine Software since August. Even more so, it appears that editor Owen Faraday lied about how the acquisition took place, stating back in August:

I acquired the site from Slitherine/Matrix who still retain some financial interest in the site. But every buck stops with me. I have complete and utter editorial independence and none of my writers will ever interface with a human at Slitherine. I view the current arrangement as similar to General Electric owning a stake in NBC — doesn’t mean NBC won’t do tough reporting on GE.

In the announcement, David Neumann reveals that Owen’s statement was untrue, in fact the exact opposite of what happened.

Well, Slitherine didn’t sell the Wargamer to Owen, in fact the opposite happened and the site you’re reading now, as well as the upcoming Strategy Gamer, became part of the aforementioned Wargamer Limited, a subsidiary of wargame publisher Slitherine.

So Pocket Tactics reveals months after the fact that they are now owned by the company that they are heavily favoring for Game of the Year and Creator of the Year, while claiming that the company has no editorial influence over the website. Did Slitherine have such a great year that they deserve this much recognition? That I can’t say, I don’t cover the mobile gaming scene. It is an important reminder on why game creators/publishers should not have a financial stake in the people who are supposed to be covering their titles objectively. It is for the same reason that, say, presidential candidates cannot have reality tv shows on the networks covering their campaigns.

Albion Online Will Be Buy To Play, At Least At The Start

The latest Road to Release from Albion Online has given us a look at what launch has in store for the MMO, and that includes quite a hefty and elongated beta period. According to a post on the main forums, the closed beta has been extended to at least August 2016, with the launch hopefully following close behind. In addition, the team has decided to bench the idea of launching as a free to play title, and instead Albion Online will be buy to play.

For this reason, we are putting the free to play plans on hold as well. Making the game ready for a free to play model would take up significant development time which we would much rather use to make a better game. Free to play would also create a lot of risks for the game – spamming, botting, world too small, etc – which we do not want to take if it can be avoided.

Update plans include a significantly expanded world with diverse biomes, more unique cities and dungeons, and a reputation and crime system similar to that found in Ultima Online.

(Source: Albion Online)

[Column] Time To Warm Up Your Resumes, Red5

This past Christmas week brought sales, denial of service attacks, and the arrest of everyone’s favorite affluenza victim, but for the employees at Red5 Studios the holidays brought with it a check that many found they just couldn’t cash. Rumors surfaced over the past weekend that the Firefall developer was unable to pay its employees, which were later verified by numerous news sources, and now it’s been confirmed that none of the eighty employees who still call the company home were paid over the past weekend.

There are three important factors we should look at with this news: First, the idea that the company was reliant on investors enough that it can’t pay its 80 employees using the revenue from Firefall, even after significant layoffs going back to November. The management has confirmed that the main culprit points to potential investments that fell through, but from whom? Are these new investors? Why isn’t The9, Red5’s parent company, swooping in to protect its investments?

The second, that Red5 allegedly didn’t bother to inform the majority of employees that they weren’t getting paid, instead allowing them to watch as their direct deposit was sent and then subsequently cancelled. According to staff, only a handful of employees received a notice days in advance of payday that they wouldn’t be receiving a check, with the rest left to discover it once it leaked onto the net. In addition, it’s been noted that on the previous payday, employees were handed paper checks rather than direct deposit in what management claimed to be a bank error.

And finally, the meeting to discuss keeping Red5 afloat involves transitioning the pay period to once per month rather than every other week. A month is a long time to gather the funds to pay your employees, or rather it gives a lot of time to wind things down from a management perspective while still assuring that employees will be paid before the company declares itself insolvent. As someone who has worked for businesses as they go through the process of insolvency, Red5 is essentially following in all steps. In the last few months, you see paychecks start bouncing or not being distributed at all, payday is pushed further back and with larger gaps, and employees are mostly left out of the loop.

Red5 is, naturally, denying that they are in a bad financial situation, as well as claiming that several facts presented in the coverage of this are inaccurate, however they are presently not explaining what is wrong or how they can be in good finances while not having the money to pay their employees. By comparison, Real Time Worlds was assuring the press that they were still focused on All Points Bulletin 100% and despite layoffs and restructuring, the game was still going strong with 100,000 active players. That was August 16th, by September 10th the next month the game was shutting down, Realtime Worlds was bankrupt, and the people who assured us everything was fine were unemployed.

As far as Red5 goes, I think it’s a bit early to call certain doom, but unless they have an ace hidden up their sleeve the situation isn’t as bright and cheery as they’d like us to think.

Daybreak Servers Slammed by DDOS Attack

We are aware of current connectivity issues and are working to resolve them. Thanks for your patience.

— Daybreak Games (@DaybreakGames) December 30, 2015

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If you’re looking to play any of Daybreak’s games, you might want to take the night off. At the moment, Daybreaks game servers and their websites are experiencing major connection issues which appear to be stemming from a coordinated denial of service attack. The official Daybreak Twitter account has acknowledged the problem and notes that staff are working to fix issues.

According to the Norse attack map, however, there is a massive sustained DDoS attack originating from Mersin in Turkey aimed at the western coast of the United States. Whether or not this attack is related to the server downtime is unknown.

(Source: Daybreak Twitter)

[Warning] Steam Page Caching Goes Rogue

[Update: Valve has shut down the Steam store.]

MMO Fallout can confirm that Steam has experienced a major client bug, causing players to be able to access other accounts at complete random. Speculation is running rampant on the cause, which some are pointing toward a simple caching error, however it is possible to view random users Steam details, including their wallet, owned games, purchase history, and the last digits of their credit card on file.

We tested it on our own systems and managed to log into multiple accounts, although the service is presently barely functioning and crashing pretty regularly.

The good news is that users cannot do anything with the account, be it make purchases, change passwords, etc. It is also possible to access accounts that are protected by Steam Guard.

Triad Wars Is Shutting Down

Triad Wars developer United Front Games has announced that the Hong Kong MMO will be going offline on January 20th. The closure announcement comes just a few days after the departure of community manager Iain, also telling players to look forward to big announcements in the new year. While items in the cash shop will be freely available, players who made gold purchases during December will be able to get a refund by emailing customer support.

We’ve loved seeing how you’ve played Triad Wars but we know it wasn’t right for many of you so we’re letting you know today that we are going to close the beta and service on January 20th 2016 at 12 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. That’s 4 weeks from today and over this time we’re going to leave the game up and running for you to continue to enjoy but we will not be accepting any more purchases.

Triad Wars was a spinoff of the Sleeping Dogs series.

(Source: Triad Wars)

Xsyon Converts To Buy To Play

Xsyon developer Notorious Games has announced that the indie MMO has dropped its optional subscription and converted entirely to buy to play. Keen gamers will now be able to access everything that the title has to offer with a single payment.

Past paid players are welcome to return for free to the world of Xsyon to rejoin and rebuild tribes or simply enjoy the latest features! All players are also welcome to join in testing upcoming improvements. Currently development is focused on creatures, including combat revisions, taming, mounts and pets.

An optional subscription has not been ruled out, pending player requests, and would likely cost $4.99 a month.

(Source: Xsyon)

Marvel Heroes Offers 14 Days Of Festive Favors

Gazillion Entertainment has begun the first day of festive events in Marvel Heroes, inviting players to log in each day for the next two weeks for a new present each day. The game has been pretty generous in the past with holiday presents, and this year looks to be the same with plenty of free eternity splinters, team ups, pets, costumes, and a random hero box. You can also use the code H2-B2 for a free Herbie pet.

(Source: Marvel Heroes)

Funcom Now A Preferred Partner Of Conan

Funcom has announced today that the game developer has entered a partnership with Conan Properties. As a preferred partner, Funcom will be the go-to developer for all video games on PC and console that feature the Conan brand or take place in Hyboria. The first game to be developed under this new relationship will not be announced until January, and marks one of three games set to launch in 2016.

“We are tremendously excited to be strengthening our relationship with Conan Properties,” said Funcom CEO Rui Casais. “‘Conan the Barbarian‘ is undoubtedly one of the world’s greatest and most recognizable fantasy heroes, and as game developers, working with such a character and being able to draw from the fantastically detailed world of Hyboria is nothing short of a dream come true.”

(Source: Funcom press release)

MMOments: Nosgoth’s The Nest Map

I recently had the opportunity to play Nosgoth’s upcoming map, The Nest. If you haven’t played the game, Nosgoth is a team-based multiplayer game developed by Psyonix and set in the world of the Legacy of Kain games. It is the first in the series to be released in over ten years, with Legacy of Kain Defiance having launched in 2003 on the Playstation 2. Psyonix are best known for their recent smash hit, Rocket League, as well as its predecessor Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars.

My favorite aspect of Nosgoth is the fact that the two teams are not the same mirrored opposites that you find in many other games. There are drastic differences in how both teams work, and knowing how to play to those strengths and avoid their weaknesses is key if you want any chance at victory. The humans rely on more primitive means of offense, in the form of weapons like crossbows and potions that create fire and light. They fight best when able to keep their target at a length, peppering them with bolts and arrows. The humans rely on nodes across the map to replenish health and ammunition.

The vampires, on the other hand, are more up close and personal. They can scale the sides of buildings, pounce on victims or knock them to the ground, and even pick them up and carry them into the sky in order to inflict damage. Vampires perform best in the middle of chaos, splitting up the human team and picking them off one by one, or slamming into the group and scattering them around.

And the variety of characters is easily the greatest strength of Nosgoth. No matter which side you play, or which character, every class has their own unique play style to love or hate, and each character must be dealt with as an individual threat. The fact that the game is five vs five means that your contribution, or lack thereof, are all the more important to your team.

So the map we played on is called The Nest, it is a large map with about as many open spaces as closed. The layout is covered in medium to tall buildings, giving the vampire team plenty of places to climb up and escape danger or plot their next ambush. For the players, however, there were also plenty of open areas and buildings to enter, mitigating the threat from above. It’s also easy for the human team to get too close, putting the whole group at risk of area of effect attacks and ground slams from the larger vampires.

The most disappointing part of our play session was the, ultimately, it came to an end. Nosgoth looks great, handles well, and is fun enough that the time melts away. Unfortunately, the game’s matchmaking in my experience and as pointed out in the community, is a painful slog that often takes longer to find a game than most people are willing to wait. Much longer.

If you have some time to spare, I highly recommend giving Nosgoth a chance. Check out one of the rounds I played on The Nest below

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