MMO Fallout

Weekend Wrapper:

It’s time for another Weekend Wrapper, where we look at some gaming news that didn’t quite make it to MMO Fallout’s floor.

News/Updates:

RuneScape’s Road Trip is in full gear, although players might find their quality of life improved via ninja patches.
Old School RuneScape patches in slayer partners, new teleport animations, and more.
Marvel Heroes is running a Buy One Get One sale on heroes and costumes. Buy one from the in-game store, get a token for a random hero/costume.
Warhammer 40k: Eternal Crusade devs discuss melee mode, pistols, and more.
Gazillion Entertainment discusses Marvel Heroes post-Ultron updates.
Everquest’s Ragefire progression server is now in beta.
The Division is being developed by four different studios.
Zynga cutting jobs, games, and studios.

Release Spotlight:

Black Mesa (Early Access): Currently in early access, Black Mesa is an approved remake of Half Life on the Source engine.
Warhammer 40k: Regicide (Early Access): Regicide is a turn based strategy game with very positive reviews.
ARMA 3 (Released): Not a new release, but those of you who haven’t picked this game up can play for free on Steam all weekend.
Wolfenstein: The Old Blood: $20 gets you a great single player campaign.

John Smedley Discusses The Future Of Planetside 2

While consumer confidence is still pretty shaky for Daybreak Game Studio, John Smedley has once again taken to Reddit to assure fans that, no, this is not the end. For Planetside 2, the team intends on working on the meta-game, the “why are we fighting” question that so far hasn’t had much of an answer aside from the experience of a massive team deathmatch.

We will be moving towards a system where resources are actually going to be a fun part of the game, and you’ll be able to harvest resources directly (in fact, that’s how you’re going to get them). and you’ll be able to use them to finally get to some of the end-game things we’ve been wanting to do – Outfit bases on new continents (and potentially on existing ones). We’re also going to be spending a lot of time to make sure capturing a facility actually matters, as well as looking at the overly-complicated capture system which can be pretty obtuse at times.

Next week will see the launch of a new game mode for Planetside 2, one that has an actual win condition.

In the months between now and September we’re going to be putting all kinds of new things into the game on a regular schedule. We’re also going to be committing to doing a better job on the Roadmap. The criticism that we do a poor job updating it is something that I think is both fair and accurate and it’s simply going to be done right.

Smedley remarks that he sees Planetside 2 being here in ten years and continuing to grow in player size.

(Source: Reddit)

[Not Massive] Review: Wolfenstein The Old Blood

Wolfenstein: The New Order completely blew me away when it launched last May, quickly become my game of the year and one of the few times I had no regrets in purchasing a full priced $60 title. It rebooted a series close to my heart with a story that presented an alternate future full of strong characters led by an even stronger lead (BJ Blazkowicz). When the game ended, I wanted more. I hoped that this wasn’t going to be just a one-off event, left alone to not see a edition for another five years.

The Old Blood is a prequel to The New Order that isn’t so much a piece of DLC as it is a standalone expansion pack. For fans of the original game, it is a welcome return to the adventures of BJ Blazkowicz. For those who haven’t dived into the game yet, it provides a solid $20 experience that is heavy on content and light on price.

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood takes place in 1946, directly before the events of The New Order and after the events of Wolfenstein 2009 and Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Fresh from his victory over Deathshead and destruction of the Nazi Black Sun project, Blazkowicz is back on a new mission: Find the key intelligence needed for the assault on Deathshead’s compound (in New Order).

Compared to The New Order, Old Blood is an expansion and wears that fact on its sleeve. It was developed in the span of a year and that’s painfully obvious by how certain scenes are dragged out past their welcome. The first level is a patience grinding stealth section that has you sneaking by bots on a physical track to open a door and…do it again, five or six times.

The shortened development cycle is also apparent in the level design, much of which is either completely linear or makes it impossible to complete with 100% stealth.

Where The Old Blood excels is in its Wolfenstein-y nature. Getting a headshot with a silenced pistol and hearing the soft pop as another Nazi dies is just as satisfying as ever, as is the option to run around with shotguns akimbo, blowing off limbs and causing as much mayhem as possible. Guns feel like they have real weight behind each shot.

Also back are the collection and progression systems that made us want to use all of the weapons in The New Order. Gone are the enigma codes, but the letters, gold, and other collectibles still remain. Instead of forcing the player to collect enigma codes in order to unlock new mini-games, each level unlocks its own challenge mode, reliving one of that chapter’s battles with an emphasis on stacking kill combos.

Characters also suffer from the shortened experience, never getting enough airtime to build a relationship with the player before they are unceremoniously killed off. There are some interesting, if hamfisted, callbacks like the primary antagonist being the daughter of Doctor Schabbs from Wolfenstein 3D, but I didn’t have the same love/hatred of my allies and enemies as I did in The New Order.

If Machine Games had tried to peddle this off for a full $60, I’d probably tell you to stay far away. For a $20 expansion that bridges the gap with Wolfenstein 2009, I can’t say I regret the purchase. If it helps ensure that Machine Games can justify the budget to make a full sequel to The New Order, I’m willing to oblige.

SWTOR Knocks Out Massive Credit Selling Ring

The Old Republic crew has busted up a credit selling ring spanning hundreds of accounts, taking billions of credits out of the economy and ensuring that Han Solo will never be able to pay back Jabba.

Last week, we took action against an entire selling ring. Over multiple weeks, we investigated and compiled evidence about a large Credit selling ring which spanned across hundreds of accounts and a variety of servers. To help thwart any possible reactions from this group, we simultaneously actioned every account in this Credit selling ring. In total, we banned hundreds of accounts and removed over nine billion credits from those accounts.

(Source: SWTOR)

Post-Expansion WoW Drops 3 Million Subscribers

For those of you who follow MMOs to a T, this news will not be that surprising. World of Warcraft is now seven months out of the launch of Warlords of Draenor and hitting a peak of ten million players, and the numbers are beginning to fall. Activision Blizzard announced in its first quarter filings that subscription figures dropped from 10 million to 7.1 million, bringing the number down to just above its trough before the launch of the Draenor expansion.

(Source: Activision Blizzard Q1 reports)

Neverwinter Announces New Module: Underdark

Perfect World Entertainment has announced the next module for Neverwinter, dubbed Underdark, will be hitting PC and Xbox later this year. Players will travel to Menzoberranzan to fight alongside Drizzt Do’Urden in a quest line written by R.A. Salvatore. Before Underdark, Neverwinter will also see the launch of Strongholds which will bring several new features including Guild housing.

In addition to Underdark and Strongholds, the team is still making good on its promise to fix issues with Neverwinter’s latest update, Elemental Evil.

(Source: Neverwinter)

Beta Perspective: RuneScape Death Mechanics

Now that Jagex has joined the rest of the MMO industry with the launch of a test server for major updates, I figured I’d use the opportunity to take a quick look at the upcoming new death mechanic as it currently stands. RuneScape’s death system has been a hot topic for years, as it started out with the player dropping everything except for their three most valuable items before moving on to a gravestone system that would eventually expire and make the player’s loot available for everyone.

It strikes of casual-izing, but it has more to do with the player base itself. Those who play RuneScape likely are aware that death for most has become a trivial affair, it’s rare to actually lose something when you have a half hour to get your stuff. Jagex realized that the only people who are losing things are people dying unfairly, whether it be from bugs, shoddy servers, or if someone hits your car backing out of the apartment parking lot while you’re fighting a boss and you have to go take down the license plate number before they drive off. But I digress.

RuneScape’s death changes have been a long time coming, and I say this as someone who never dies in the game.

For the purpose of seeing the new death interface, I made an exception.

I immediately grabbed my better gear and threw myself at the fires of one of RuneScape’s bosses. Death now teleports you to Death himself, who keeps hold of your items for 24 hours or until you can pay him off. My set of Bandos armor (the three cheapest pieces) plus an amulet of fury wound up costing me just over a hundred grand to replace, with my food and grand potions cutting a rather small fraction of the cost.

You can sacrifice some of the stuff you don’t want to cut a bit of the cost off, but by my figures it won’t do much. The addition of the 24 hour timer gives you the chance to hit the bank in case you don’t have any cash on you, or to go farm some stuff to sell if you don’t have the cash at all. The timer also allows players ample time to get their goods back, god forbid either your internet go down or the servers are unstable for multiple hours at a time.

The actual economic impact will have to be seen when the update goes live, but the goal is to introduce an item and gold sink through the cost of retaining items and the loss of those sacrificed or unable to retain. As someone who rarely dies, I don’t expect to see much of an impact from this update, but the knowledge that server disconnections are easier to deal with goes a long way to changing attitude while playing.

Guild Wars 2 Kills, Deletes, Then Bans Cheater

What could be worse than having your account publicly banned on an MMO? When the developer films themself logging into your account and manually deleting your characters. Chris Cleary, game security lead over at Arenanet, did just this against a rather notable cheater, first committing suicide and then logging out and deleting his characters, all uploaded to Youtube.

Cleary posted later in the same thread that the cheater’s other accounts were banned as well. You can see the video at the link below.

(Source: Guild Wars 2)

Law Firm Investigating PWE Privatization

The recent announcement that Perfect World Co. is going private has sparked an investigation by the Levi & Korsinsky law firm. In a shareholder alert sent out alongside the announcement last week, the firm confirmed that it is looking into the fairness of the sale.

Perfect World Co. is set to go private in the second half of this year, in a $900 million acquisition that will see ownership transfer over to Mr. Michael Yufeng Chi. Shareholders are expected to receive $4.04 in compensation for standard shares, a 28% increase over the price as of December 31, 2014.

Persons or entities that purchased Perfect World stock before April 26, 2015, can get in contact by phone or email at no cost to themselves.

(Source: Shareholder Alert)

League of Angels Using Assets Lifted From Final Fantasy XIV

League of Angels developer Youzu Interactive Co. Ltd (or whoever is responsible for their advertising) is directly stealing video and audio assets from Final Fantasy XIV for use in promotional materials. This revelation isn’t particularly new, it’s in a footnote on the game’s Wikipedia article. Follow the link in League of Angel’s advertising and it takes you to a Start Game page that will show either a direct rip of Final Fantasy XIV’s Heavensward trailer or the End of an Era trailer alongside the Answers song.

I reached out to both GT Arcade, whose website hosts the videos, and Square Enix, and haven’t received a response from either. I’m going to assume, given Square’s protective nature of its assets, that the usage has not been approved.

Youzu Interactive and GT Arcade are both headquartered in China.