MMO Fallout

Daybreak Game Company Branching Into Xbox One

(Update: Clarified that DC Universe is the first game to be released)

When Daybreak Game Company spun off of its Sony corporate overlords, most of us assumed and hoped that this would lead to their titles eventually being released on the Xbox. That speculation has come to fruition with the announcement that DC Universe Online will be hitting Xbox One later this spring. The console release will include the full game and all 20 currently released episodes. According to Game Informer, the release will also come with updates for all systems tying in the game with the Legends of Tomorrow television show.

A number of quality of life updates are coming as well, including account-wide unlocks for gear and styles, as well as cross-platform play between PC and Playstation with Xbox players on their own servers.

Hopefully this means more of Daybreak’s games coming to Xbox such as Planetside 2 and Everquest Next.

(Source: Game Informer)

RuneScape Classic Open To All Again

In celebration of RuneScape’s 15th birthday, Jagex has once again made the oldest iteration of the game available to the public. Starting today and running through mid-March, players can log in and secure themselves indefinite access to the classic servers with all of their old school glory. Your account from RuneScape won’t transfer over, so if you haven’t played before you’ll be starting over.

The availability of RuneScape Classic is limited to current RuneScape members. If you are a member and wish to take advantage of the open window, head over to the official page and log in with your current RuneScape account from 11 January at 12:00 UTC until 11 March at 12:00 UTC. Once you’ve made a character, you will have access to RuneScape Classic whenever you want to play it.

RuneScape Classic remains online for the remaining community that continue playing as well as players who would like to see how the game looked pre-2004. Due to the ease of cheating, the game is mostly closed off to the public with small windows of time where new players can obtain access. The last time that the servers were open to new players was 2011, at which time Jagex claimed that the game would not be opened to the public again. Whether the current event is a one-off exception is unknown.

(Source: RuneScape)

Divergence Online Graphics Settings Are, Well, Smedley

I’ve written quite a bit in the past about how indie developers are indie because they aren’t corporate, and it would be unrealistic in many respects to expect the same level of emotionless professionalism that you might find out of a business with a PR department. Case in point: Divergence Online. Creator Ethan Casner is no stranger to using colorful language in his blog posts, including last week’s ultimatum against Youtubers demanding free keys and calling out reviewers attempting to extort developers by threatening them with bad reviews and refunds.

If you download the Divergence Online client and check the graphics options, you might be surprised by your choices. As you can see in the picture above, they range from the lowest being Smedley (a bit of snark towards Sony Online Entertainment) to the highest being Beyond the Beyond (an RPG for Playstation). In between are crap, good, and retarded. Divergence Online currently holds a ‘mostly positive’ 72% rating on Steam with no mention of the graphics setting titles in the forums, possibly because “bad words” are regarded as small potatoes in a game that allows you to murder and rob each other at will.

John Smedley has so far not commented.

Red 5 Studios “Optimizing” Development Resources For Firefall

Firefall is completely fine, in case November’s significant layoffs and December’s inability to fulfill payroll didn’t make it clear enough. But you can’t expect a company to flat out admit that times are tough, at least if the public relations department wants to keep their jobs. So instead, Red 5 sent out a memo to the press stating that the company is still undergoing “optimization efforts” in preparation for the launch in Asia.

Red 5 Studios, Inc. is continuing to undergo reorganization and resource optimization efforts in order to secure our direction to meet the market needs of China and other Asian countries. The recent reorganization efforts include optimizing development resources and keeping bringing in new expertise and skill sets. Our support to Firefall and our players are continuous with content updates and customer support. As always Red 5 Studios is committed to providing the best gaming experiences to our audiences.

MMO Fallout will report further once we know how many employees have been strategically reorganized.

(Source: Massively)

[Column] As Far As Greedmonger Goes, No.

Greed Monger is back! Yes, that Greed Monger. The one that was funded on a dream and a promise, by developers that had neither the funding nor experience in order to create said vision, only to crash and go under to the tune of $100 million in backer funds. The one by Jason Appleton who threatened to sue MMORPG.com because people were saying mean things on the forum back in 2013. As far as MMO Fallout plays into this, I mostly refused to cover the game as a general rule once a developer starts throwing legal threats around.

So now the game is back up and running by James Proctor, and our official stance on it is: No. If Greed Monger runs another crowd funding campaign, we will not cover it. If anything, as I have said before, the previous incarnation of Greed Monger is likely to pop up again in our coverage should another crowdfunding campaign appear. If they post dev blogs to promise new features, we will not cover that either.

This isn’t an ultimatum. If the game can prove itself to be a real, functioning product, we may resume coverage. Yes, I realize that MMO Fallout isn’t a big website and isn’t as much of a move and shaker as the big websites are. I’m not writing this as a threat, but to be forward and honest with our readers.

Neverwinter Removing Dyes, Fashions From Store

Perfect World Entertainment has announced with today’s update that multiple items have been removed from the Zen store in Neverwinter. We were first informed of this update back in October, with the publisher revealing that cosmetic fashions and dyes would be removed in an effort to make trade bars more useful. As part of a rolling set of updates, mounts from previous lockboxes will be added to the trade bar store, and epic versions will be added to the store.

Trade bars are obtained from lockboxes.

(Source: Neverwinter)

Old School RuneScape Launches New Continent

With RuneScape celebrating its fifteenth birthday this year, Old School players have a lot to look forward to in terms of new content. With today’s update, players will be able to explore the first region of Zeah, a whole new continent set to launch over the course of 2016. The first area available is the city of Great Kourend, with five families fighting for control. Players can help any of the five families in return for access to new weapons, armor, and other resources and skill training areas.

“Our dedicated development team has been beavering away on Zeah for quite some time, so it’s fantastic that we can finally unlock the doors to Great Kourend,” said Mathew Kemp, product manager, Old School RuneScape. “The launch of an entire landmass exclusive to Old School RuneScape over the course of 2016, and the new content it will bring to our excellent community, is really exciting. Zeah also underlines the success Old School has experienced since its launch in 2013.”

The rest of Zeah is set to release over the course of the year. You can read more about today’s update at the link below.

(Source: Old School)

Divergence Online Ultimatum: No More Free Keys

Divergence Online is an upcoming hardcore sandbox MMO by developer Stained Glass Llama, dubbed a spiritual successor to pre-CU Galaxies and set to hit Steam as soon as Valve hits the launch button. SGL hopes to bring Divergence back to the glory days of sandbox games, one that predates Youtubers and streamers using their alleged popularity in order to bully developers into giving them free stuff.

In a recent blog post, Ethan Casner makes an ultimatum against what he calls ‘Gaming Yelp Reviewers:’ No game keys will be given to people offering good reviews in exchange. Furthermore, any requests of the like will go into a list to be dispensed at a time of their own choosing. The number of people making such requests is high enough that, in Casner’s own words, “if everyone who has asked for a free key in the last two weeks had contributed to our IndieGoGo, not only would it have not failed but the game would be substantially more complete right now.”

Therefore, and furthermore, any requests made to Stained Glass Llama for the intention of getting free keys will be summarily ignored. Any “repeat” requests, threats, or offers from so-called “reputable” reviewers, streamers, whoemever, offering a favorable review in exchange for free stuff will go on a nice little list that I’m building up of “sources you trust for reviews which offered to give me a blanket good one in exchange for free stuff,” to be dispensed to your own community if and when I feel like it, assholes.

You can read the rest of the blog post at the link below, in which Casner doesn’t hold much back when referring to said Youtubers.

(Source: Divergence Blog)

[Less Massive] Interplay’s Latest Legal Trouble

Fallout developer Interplay has gotten itself into more legal trouble. Those of you who have been keeping score will remember that our saga began in 2009 when Bethesda sued Interplay over the company’s not-so-honest claims that Fallout Online was in full production, meaning 30 million in funding minimum. Interplay, in its multiple attempts to fight off bankruptcy, sold most of the rights to Bethesda in 2009 with the rest following for an additional $2 million in 2012. Prior to this, Interplay had already been sued for using the Dark Alliance Engine in their games without paying for the license.

Just a few days ago, Good Old Games pulled down the Descent titles without notice from their online store, however they are still available and running a sale on Steam (although they shouldn’t be). In a post on the GOG forums, Matt Toschlog & Mike Kulas revealed that Parallax Software is behind the takedown, and that Interplay hasn’t been paying royalties since 2007. Even after being served with legal notice, Interplay did not pay royalties, resulting in further action.

Parallax Software still exists and still owns the copyrights to the Descent games. Under our 21-year-old agreement, Interplay has the exclusive rights to sell Descent and Descent II, and they have been doing so on Good Old Games and Steam. The problem is that Interplay has not paid to Parallax any royalties since 2007. We’ve talked to them about this numerous times over the years, and finally took action this fall. We served Interplay official notice that they were in breach of the contract, and when they still failed to pay we terminated the agreement.

While Parallax owns the rights to the first two games, Interplay currently owns the trademark and rights to both develop and license new games in the franchise including the early access title Descent: Underground.

(Source: GOG.com)

Soldier Front 2: Highly Reviewed, On Steam, Also Defunct

Soldier Front 2 is one of many free to play first person shooters on Steam and, if you’re anything like me, you may have stumbled upon it while browsing your recommended queue during the holiday sale. It may have even caught your eye, being a free to play shooter with a “very positive” community rating, and you may have downloaded it only to find that the game doesn’t launch. Instead, you get an error mentioning issues connecting to the server.

You see, Soldier Front 2 shut down months ago, yet the game is still available to download from Steam. The store page for SF2 no longer lists extra DLC packs, however they are still available for purchase for anyone unlucky enough to stumble upon and ignorant enough to buy without attempting to launch the game first. And should anyone get that far down the rabbit hole, the booster-nature of the DLC packs means that they are all ineligible for a refund.

(Source: Steam)

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