The wait for Anarchy Online’s new engine dates back to MMO Fallout’s infancy, literally. We’ve been around since July 2009, and the new engine was uncovered that December. Players who have stuck around have a good reason to rejoice, as Funcom has announced that the new engine is finally available on the live server. The new engine comes at the cost of a 5gb installer and a 23gb installation.
(Source: Funcom)
Bungie is in the middle of dealing with a PR fallout this week, first from customer backlash over how Bungie handled the collector’s edition of the Taken King DLC, to an interview with Eurogamer in which the company has been accused of disrespecting its longtime customers. Luke Smith, creative director at Bungie, has apologized for his tone in the interview:
Reading my interview with Eurogamer and imagining it came from some random developer of a game I love – that random developer looks like an Asshat. But that Asshat was me – and those words rightfully anger you. I’m sorry. My words made it sound as if Bungie doesn’t care about their most loyal fans. We do care. We are listening. And we will make it right.
To compensate, customers who pick up the Taken King DLC will be able to grab the collector’s edition limited content for $20, which includes the 3 emotes, 3 armor shaders, and 3 exotic class items with xp boosts. Players who already have a light level 30 guardian, or if you’ve played through the Dark Below and House of Wolves packs, you’ll receive a Year One VIP shader, emblem, and sparrow.
Another blog post is coming today that should answer more questions.
(Source: Bungie)
Wildstar is heading free to play this year and eyeing a Chinese launch, but before that happens Carbine Studios wants to detail a few changes that are coming.
“WildStar going free-to-play is so much more than a new business model”, said Mike Donatelli, product director at Carbine Studios. “We’re also introducing a massive game update full of new features and quality of life improvements. It’s going to be a fun environment for new players to join and we’re also going to do right by the players who have been with us since the beginning”.
A new rewards system will allow players to obtain points for making NCoin purchases, buying subscriptions, and redeeming CREDD. The reward system is retroactive, providing points to anyone who had previously invested in Wildstar. New players will be greeted by a revamped tutorial and new game experience, with options based on the player’s prior knowledge of MMOs. The way equipment works will change, with certain stats (brutality, finesse) being removed and replaced by other new primary stats (assault, support, health, armor).
Also accompanying the updates are changes to dungeons, splitting them into separate level tiers, and new content areas for PvE and PvP.
Look for these updates, and more, later this year.
(Source: NCSoft press release)
Playstation 4 users have reason to rejoice, as Planetside 2 is now out of beta and officially launched in North America and Europe. The game is available for free in the Playstation Store, and players can access the full game without an active subscription to Playstation Plus.
“The original PlanetSide was the first MMOFPS, PlanetSide 2 set a new standard for shooters when it launched on the PC in 2012, and now the massive battles are unmatched on the console. The game is synonymous with large-scale warfare and there’s just no comparison,” said Andy Sites, PlanetSide 2 director of development. “PlanetSide 2 fosters a unique kind of unwavering camaraderie among players, so we’re excited to see how our community grows on the PlayStation 4.”
Planetside 2’s launch on Playstation 4 comes alongside the announcement that the title will be shutting down in Korea. Publisher Daum Games announced the closure citing low population, lack of interest, “incompatible cash shop,” and problems with updating the game.
En Masse Entertainment has announced a name purge on all characters that have been inactive since June 25, 2014. All affected characters will have a “_1” added to their handles so that new players have more choice when creating characters.
If you have characters whose names you want to keep, but haven’t logged into TERA with those characters since June 25 of last year, log in to TERA and enter the game with each of those characters today, before it’s too late.
Anyone looking to keep their names on an inactive account should do so by logging in today.
(Source: TERA)
Destiny’s upcoming Taken King DLC is quickly becoming a PR disaster for Bungie who, considering their recent interview with Eurogamer, aren’t doing a whole lot to fix the situation. If you haven’t been following the situation, the Destiny community is up in arms over how Bungie plans to monetize the upcoming expansion. Taken King will cost $40 at its base price, twice as much as the previous two dlc packs, with higher tiers available with extra bonuses. Bungie has defended this by saying that the amount of content in Taken King surpasses all of it.
What has players angry is a perception of tone deafness in the various tiers of the Taken King packages. The $60 pack acts as something of a Game of the Year edition, including the base game, expansions, and Taken King. For $80, you can get a collectors edition with all of the above plus a handful of physical and digital goodies. The digital collectors edition costs the same as the physical version, despite containing much less content. There is no way to get the bonus goodies in Taken King without being forced to buy the base game and two expansions again.
Eurogamer recently conducted an interview with Bungie creative director Luke Smith, and rather than do a disservice to his responses, I highly recommend that you read it.
NCSoft has announced that Blade & Soul will launch in North America and Europe under the publisher’s free to play system. When the game goes into closed beta this fall, players will be able to access all content without spending a dime.
NCoin, the currency used in other NCSoft titles, will be available to purchase convenience items, cosmetics, and quality of life improvements. Costumes, potions, and character/inventory slots will be available for purchase with real money. An optional membership subscription will provide experience and currency drop boosts.
(Source: NCSoft Press Release)
In response to recent criticism over the handling of Heart of Thorns, Arenanet has posted a comprehensive compensation and refund policy. For veteran players, Arenanet is offering a free character slot to anyone who owns the base game and pre-orders the Heart of Thorns expansion and registers it prior to launch.
The announcement that Heart of Thorns would come packaged with the base Guild Wars 2 game drew heavy fire from gamers who purchased the game following Arenanet’s warning that the expansion would not be a standalone as was the case with Guild Wars 1.
Anyone who purchased Guild Wars 2 from the official website between January 23rd and June 16th will be eligible for a full refund should they purchase Heart of Thorns also from the official website before July 31st. If you purchased the core game during that same time and no longer want to play it, Arenanet will offer a full refund.
For Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, we didn’t want the core game’s price to be a factor in a new player’s decision to begin playing Guild Wars 2. In the future, if we release further Guild Wars 2 expansions, we plan to offer all of the prior expansions, the core game, and the latest expansion for one single purchase price.
Copies purchased from third party vendors during the above period will be upgraded with the extra character slot if the expansion is pre-ordered and registered to the account prior to launch.
(Source: Arenanet)
Developer Q&A’s are a great representation of why you should never allow an interview subject to cherry pick their own questions. With the exception of an exceptionally newsworthy answer, I’ve stopped covering developer Q&A’s here at MMO Fallout for a few reasons, not least of which being that they have a habit of wasting everyone’s time and in many cases don’t actually answer any of the questions they are asked.
I harped on this back when Jagex would do Q&A sessions with their community, because they would ignore hard questions in favor of filling up the transcript with things that they knowingly couldn’t answer, with at least half of the answers being “I can’t answer this,” “this isn’t my department,” or “this isn’t what we’re talking about today.” The thinly veiled attempt at dodging questions under the guise of transparency is obvious to anyone paying the slightest amount of attention, and in the end it wastes time and likely causes more PR damage than actually answering the questions to begin with.
Trion Worlds recently put out a Q&A for Defiance, and in a fashion that I have heavily criticized in the past, managed to not answer just about any of their hand picked questions. Out of eleven questions in the latest Q&A, two fall into the “we are looking into it,” seven into the “we might in the future, maybe,” with one definitive no and one definitive yes. Eleven questions, all hand picked by a Trion employee, and only two answers provide concrete information.
There are two parts to a Question & Answer, the questions and the answers.
Given that World of Warcraft passed one hundred million accounts last year, it isn’t a huge reach to assume that character names are getting hard to come by. Actual character names, ones without a following of numbers or flanked by xXx. In response to this issue, Blizzard has announced that with patch 6.2, and with each subsequent expansion following, that inactive character names will be freed up for active players.
With the upcoming Warlords of Draenor patch (6.2), we will be releasing sidelined characters’ names back into the wild. Any characters that have not logged into the game since December 7, 2010 will have their names freed up, making them available to anyone creating a new character or using the paid Character Name Change service.
Blizzard occasionally hands out free seven day trials to inactive accounts, so if you intend on keeping your names but don’t want to subscribe at the moment you can always check your account to see if it is eligible.
(Source: Blizzard)
MMO Fallout 