Today’s MMOrning Shot comes to us from Final Fantasy XIV, showcasing the upcoming expansion Heavensward. Set for release in Spring 2015, Heavensward introduces a new race, new classes, a new level cap, and more.
Check out MMOrning Shots every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Square Enix has announced the first expansion pack for Final Fantasy XIV, set for release in 2015. Dubbed Heavensward, and good luck pronouncing that, the expansion focuses on the city-state of Ishgard, and introduces a new race, new classes, new primals, and new high level content. Players will also have plenty to grind for, with an increased level cap of 60.
(Source: Square Enix Press Release)
While other gaming websites are busy declaring the death of the gamer, they’ve managed to ignore Gaming For Good, a charity platform that brings gamers togethers and rewards donations with video games. The way the system works is that you donate to get points, and those points can be spent on game keys. Gaming for Good doesn’t see a single cent of the donations, and neither do the game developers: the keys are all donated, and there are some triple-a titles on that list.
At the time that this article is published, Gaming for Good has raised $19.8 million of the $20 million goal, and that is in less than three days. The charity event ends on the 19th, so if you have some extra clams, it’d be nice if you could throw some their way. Even if you don’t want any games.
Save the Children is working to reduce the number of malnutrition-related deaths among children under five and women in Ethiopia. ENGINE is the main preventive integrated nutrition project that contributes to this Save the Children impact on the life of Ethiopian Children.
(Source: Gaming For Good)
If you follow MMO Fallout on Twitter, or even if you don’t and simply catch my tweets on the sidebar of this website, you might have followed a link yesterday to redeem a free copy of Afterfall Insanity. Well, after putting about six hours into the game, I can honestly say that I got out of this exactly what I paid in: Absolutely nothing. The simple fact that I knew what the twist ending was going to be not even five minutes into the story should have been the first sign, and probably the only one I needed.
Afterfall Insanity is a third person game from Intoxicate Studios. The game takes place in a fictional timeline where nuclear war breaks out and most of the world is destroyed. Thankfully, a small portion of humanity managed to survive by living in underground Fallout© shelters. You play as Albert Tokaj, a psychiatrist specializing in confinement syndrome who notices that the mental and physical status of those in his shelter is growing increasingly unstable. Is everyone going insane around Tokaj, or is he the one who is truly crazy? Spoiler: It’s him.
In the world of “survival horror” games, Afterfall Insanity is on the level of Syfy original movie. Like many other low-budget horror flicks before it, Afterfall Insanity sets out to tell a serious story and, in the process, unintentionally creates something so schlocky that the horror element is replaced by bad comedy. Tokaj flips from “I’m a doctor, I have to help these people” to beating insane people to death so fast, the player is bound to get whiplash from the experience. There is less than a minute between Tokaj punching his guard for abusing an insane person and him wielding a fire axe and chopping off limbs.
It’s hard to get motivated for the horror aspect of Afterfall when the voice actor playing Albert has the emotional range of stale roadkill. Just about all of the voice actors provide the kind of enthusiasm you’d expect from a high school student being picked to read a passage from Shakespeare. It’s the kind of voice acting that makes you suddenly appreciate the works of Tommy Wiseau, or the dramatic chops of Nicolas Cage. Throw that voice acting in with copious amounts of broken cutscenes that clip through actors and the environment, and shake in some mediocre animation, and you have a recipe for gaming’s Asylum Film company with none of the self-awareness.
I have to assume that Intoxicate Games developed Afterfall by looking at popular survival and horror games and plucking concepts to use, albeit half-cocked and unfinished. The melee combat system, by which you’ll find all sorts of pipes and axes lying around, is clearly taken from Condemned, minus the unique feel of each weapon that set Condemned apart. Melee combat in Afterfall is clunky, Albert will often take another swing or two after you’ve stopped clicking. Enemies get in cheap shots often, hit detection is poor at best, and blocking seems mostly useless since it doesn’t do much to mitigate damage.
Afterfall grabs fear aspects from various other titles, and implements them in a manner that is just as woody and inauthentic as the acting. Albert will get spooked when scary things happen around him, leading to the picture going fuzzy and aiming a gun becomes difficult, effectively meaningless if you’re using the melee weapons. There are puzzles in the game, most of which consist of repeatedly hitting the same button, or hitting the directional arrows in a random order based on trial and error.
Which isn’t to say that the game falls completely flat. Afterfall is at its best when the developers aren’t trying as much. During the first half of the game, when your biggest adversary is the darkness and your limited flashlight, the game genuinely gets creepy. It is blatantly obvious from the beginning how the game is going to end, anyone who has played Spec Ops: The Line knows this tale back to front, but in that time where Albert loses his two bodyguards and must travel through the dark and creepy passageways alone, that is where the game hits its high points. Parts like silhouette children dancing in a circle are not scary.
There are so many better horror games on the market, and a lot of them come from indie developers like the Penumbra games and Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Instead of going for a game that picks random elements from other games, why not just play those games directly? Amnesia, Dead Space, Eternal Darkness, etc.
Jagex has declared this year’s Runefest, a convention for RuneScape fans, the most successful to date. At the festival held at London’s Tobacco Dock, Jagex revealed Chronicle, a collectible card game due to release next year. The convention played host to numerous presentations, Q&A sessions with developers, cosplay events, and other distractions.
At the center of the event, of course, was Jagex’s flagship title RuneScape. In addition to congratulating the game for its continued growth, a 20% bump in subscribers in July alone, design director Mark Oglive took to the stage to announce RuneLabs, an upcoming platform where players will be able to formally suggest ideas to be implemented, giving the community the chance to vote on said updates. RuneScape’s 2015 content schedule was partially revealed, with major updates including world events and a brand new client on their way.
Perhaps most impressive is the notation that 40% of Runefest attendees did not pay a dime of real money for their tickets, buying them using in-game wealth through RuneScape’s PLEX-esque Bond items.
The event also bore witness to an unprecedented broadening of RuneScape bonds usage. The digital currency allowed 40% of RuneFest attendees to obtain event tickets through their in-game wealth. Furthermore, a number of players used bonds to ‘pay’ for their accommodation and flights to the event, allowing them to attend RuneFest without spending a penny of real world money.
More details on Runefest revelations will be made available in the coming months.
(Source: Jagex press release)
Xsyon is a free to play sandbox MMO which features an extensive terraforming and construction system, but up until now you had to be a paying subscriber to truly make an impact on the world. In the latest update, Notorious Games has opened up homesteads to free players, allowing them to build and shape to their heart’s content. Free players will now be able to form tribes of their own and tinker with the game’s architecture system.
Starting this week, new players can join the Xsyon community and start their own tribe for free. Creating their own homesteads, new free players can shape the land explore the game’s extensive architecture system on their own, without the aid of other game citizens!
Judging by a forum post, the ability to create tribes and terraform is set to a seven day trial.
(Source: Notorious Games press release)
I love ArcheAge, really. When Bioware announced a massive experience boost for The Old Republic in preparation for the launch of the next expansion, I had to make a choice: Continue subscribing to and writing Diaries From ArcheAge articles, or allow my subscription to lapse that very day and move over to The Old Republic and see how far I could catch up before the expansion launched. I chose The Old Republic. Since this is the last editorial I’ll be writing on ArcheAge for a while, I decided to offer up a few of the reasons that brought me to this decision.
As always with editorials, these opinions are my own and do not speak for anyone other than myself. If you agree or disagree, feel free to leave a comment on why.
1. Hackers
If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. First it was gold farmers using hacks to teleport around the world at whim to finish trade runs, and then they were using exploits to win at arenas. Land is virtually impossible to get your hands on thanks to teleport hacks being used to snag every piece of open space as soon as it becomes available, and accounts are able to maintain the land they accumulate thanks to the prospect for profit far outweighing the cost of taxes that was supposed to make such land seizure impossible.
The opposite side of this is that as gold prices on farming sites plummet, money becomes more worthless and prices for auction house goods go up. In addition, I’d just like to know that the fact that I can’t find anything bigger than my 8×8 farm is because of legitimate player competition, not because Chinese gold farmers are teleporting around and buying up lots on Aranzeb. Hack Shield, as with any other game it’s been implemented in, is completely worthless. Aion is in the process of dumping it for something better, ArcheAge should as well.
2. Unopposed Griefing
The great thing about games like ArcheAge is that, generally, griefing has some sort of revenge mechanic. Someone is attacking innocent players? Report his crimes and, if possible, murder him so he can spend a good long time in jail. Someone going around uprooting plants on public land? Report the footprints and waste his time and money by either buying a potion or going to court. When it comes to ganking or competing for resources, I am of the mind that you either get big or go home. If you want a 100% safe game, consider playing something else.
That being said, in order for this mechanic to work right there needs to be a way for people to fight back. When players in Ultima Online started blocking areas with furniture, Origins made it possible to torch their creations. Eve Online allows corporations to go to war with one another. If someone decides to park their cart on your land and prevent you from planting on it, there is one thing you can do: Nothing, and hope that they get bored and leave soon. The fix to this is a simple one: I should be able to claim/destroy anything that is on my property. Another idea is to implement an ArcheAge version of the Castle Doctrine, where I can shoot anything violating the sanctity of my property.
I’ve been told that in the Korean version of ArcheAge, you can actually push other player’s carts out of the way, in which case that should be implemented in the western version. The problem in ArcheAge isn’t the potential for griefing, it’s the inability in most cases to even retaliate.
3. The Community Sucks
Even well before MMO Fallout started in 2009, I played a lot of MMOs. I won’t say that ArcheAge is the most trolled game I’ve ever played, that award goes out to World of Warcraft Barrens chat circa 2005-2009. What it is, however, is definitely the most racist. I’ve seen racist comments and names in other MMOs, but nowhere near the extent that it exists in ArcheAge, to the point where most of the screenshots I took for my previous articles had to be scrapped or heavily edited to not show chat.
At first I thought it was because of the PvP sandbox nature of ArcheAge, but in the time that I played games like Mortal Online, Darkfall, and even League of Legends, I’ve never seen the level of vitriol come close to a casual day on ArcheAge. I don’t even believe that ArcheAge is full of racists, most of the people you see in chat are part of that edgy demographic of twelve year olds and people who never grew up once they turned twelve, feeding their desperate need for attention by flailing their arms and making noise. The other half are a force of nitwits who simply aim to offend as many people as possible because “my first amendment rights.”
I have to put the blame on Trion Worlds for this, partially for the poor filter and also for fostering an environment where people believe that they do not care and will not take action.
I love ArcheAge, really. When Bioware announced a massive experience boost for The Old Republic in preparation for the launch of the next expansion, I had to make a choice: Continue subscribing to and writing Diaries From ArcheAge articles, or allow my subscription to lapse that very day and move over to The Old Republic and see how far I could catch up before the expansion launched. I chose The Old Republic. Since this is the last editorial I’ll be writing on ArcheAge for a while, I decided to offer up a few of the reasons that brought me to this decision.
As always with editorials, these opinions are my own and do not speak for anyone other than myself. If you agree or disagree, feel free to leave a comment on why.
1. Hackers
If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. First it was gold farmers using hacks to teleport around the world at whim to finish trade runs, and then they were using exploits to win at arenas. Land is virtually impossible to get your hands on thanks to teleport hacks being used to snag every piece of open space as soon as it becomes available, and accounts are able to maintain the land they accumulate thanks to the prospect for profit far outweighing the cost of taxes that was supposed to make such land seizure impossible.
The opposite side of this is that as gold prices on farming sites plummet, money becomes more worthless and prices for auction house goods go up. In addition, I’d just like to know that the fact that I can’t find anything bigger than my 8×8 farm is because of legitimate player competition, not because Chinese gold farmers are teleporting around and buying up lots on Aranzeb. Hack Shield, as with any other game it’s been implemented in, is completely worthless. Aion is in the process of dumping it for something better, ArcheAge should as well.
2. Unopposed Griefing
The great thing about games like ArcheAge is that, generally, griefing has some sort of revenge mechanic. Someone is attacking innocent players? Report his crimes and, if possible, murder him so he can spend a good long time in jail. Someone going around uprooting plants on public land? Report the footprints and waste his time and money by either buying a potion or going to court. When it comes to ganking or competing for resources, I am of the mind that you either get big or go home. If you want a 100% safe game, consider playing something else.
That being said, in order for this mechanic to work right there needs to be a way for people to fight back. When players in Ultima Online started blocking areas with furniture, Origins made it possible to torch their creations. Eve Online allows corporations to go to war with one another. If someone decides to park their cart on your land and prevent you from planting on it, there is one thing you can do: Nothing, and hope that they get bored and leave soon. The fix to this is a simple one: I should be able to claim/destroy anything that is on my property. Another idea is to implement an ArcheAge version of the Castle Doctrine, where I can shoot anything violating the sanctity of my property.
I’ve been told that in the Korean version of ArcheAge, you can actually push other player’s carts out of the way, in which case that should be implemented in the western version. The problem in ArcheAge isn’t the potential for griefing, it’s the inability in most cases to even retaliate.
3. The Community Sucks
Even well before MMO Fallout started in 2009, I played a lot of MMOs. I won’t say that ArcheAge is the most trolled game I’ve ever played, that award goes out to World of Warcraft Barrens chat circa 2005-2009. What it is, however, is definitely the most racist. I’ve seen racist comments and names in other MMOs, but nowhere near the extent that it exists in ArcheAge, to the point where most of the screenshots I took for my previous articles had to be scrapped or heavily edited to not show chat.
At first I thought it was because of the PvP sandbox nature of ArcheAge, but in the time that I played games like Mortal Online, Darkfall, and even League of Legends, I’ve never seen the level of vitriol come close to a casual day on ArcheAge. I don’t even believe that ArcheAge is full of racists, most of the people you see in chat are part of that edgy demographic of twelve year olds and people who never grew up once they turned twelve, feeding their desperate need for attention by flailing their arms and making noise. The other half are a force of nitwits who simply aim to offend as many people as possible because “my first amendment rights.”
I have to put the blame on Trion Worlds for this, partially for the poor filter and also for fostering an environment where people believe that they do not care and will not take action.
City of Steam developer Mechanist Games has announced that the three US servers will be merged into one, bringing gamers together and dealing with waning populations. The merger is set to take place on October 21st and is expected to require four to five hours of downtime. Players from servers 2 and 3 will receive compensation in the form of subscription time and resources to compensate for the head start that players on server 1 received by launching several months ahead of the other two.
European players can fire an email off to Mechanist Games to receive a similar compensation.
(Source: City of Steam)
Sony Online Entertainment is currently planning on implementing automated turrets into Planetside 2, and is soliciting feedback via the forums and through an update set to hit the public test server in the next few weeks. Turrets will be stationary objects, likely only available to the engineer class, and the hope is to release them in November/December.
“The current plan is to have a stress test on the Public Test Server with prototype turrets in late October/early November to evaluate server performance. We’ll need a sizable population on PTS to get useful data so we’ll organize a time, date and testing instructions when we’re ready. If our tests go well, we are aiming for auto-turrets to go live late November/early December.”
How should automated turrets be implemented in Planetside 2?
(Source: PCGamesN)
MMO Fallout 