Respec For One Gold In Elder Scrolls Online


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Personally, my favorite cost reduction is dollar drafts. In preparation for patch 1.3.4, Zenimax Studios has lowered the price of respec to one single gold piece. You may not be aware of this if you haven’t checked in game or found this buried in the latest patch notes:

  • The cost to respec has been reduced to 1 gold per skill point or stat point. Note that this is a temporary change and in approximately one week, respec costs will return to a normal (but reduced) cost in patch v1.3.4.

(Source: Elder Scrolls Online)

Blizzard Announces Warlords of Draenor Launch Date Announcement Date


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You are too kind, Blizzard. World of Warcraft’s next expansion Warlords of Draenor is ready to bust through your door and kick your productivity to the curb. In an announcement put out, Blizzard has revealed that on August 15th we will…find out when Warlord of Draenor will be released. Yes, the hype train goes so deep that we now have announcements to tell us when something will be announced.

Next up on MMO Fallout: Trion Worlds announces upcoming press event to discuss the details of a viral marketing campaign that will hint towards when we can expect a full announcement on the release date of ArcheAge. Maybe.

Rusty Hearts Shutting Down


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Perfect World Entertainment has announced that Rusty Hearts will be closing down on September 15th. Starting today, August 4th, it will no longer be possible to download Rusty Hearts and players will be unable to transfer Zen to their characters. Players who have been active during the past thirty days will find any Zen they purchased in the last six months credited to their wallet, which can then be transferred to other Perfect World Entertainment titles.

Rusty Hearts launched three years ago.

(Source: Arc Games)

MMOrning Shots: Bioshock Nostalgia


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Today’s MMOrning Shot comes to us from 2K Games. Bioshock released in 2007 on PC and Xbox 360, but the screenshot above was sent out more than a year prior. Later this summer, you’ll be able to get your hands on Bioshock on your iPhone or iPad.

Nostalgia it up with MMOrning Shots every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Darkfall Introduces PLEX-like D.U.E.L


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Aventurine is the latest company to jump on board the PLEX train. In a recent update post, the company revealed D.U.E.L, an item that can be purchased from the in-game shop that extends a player’s subscription by 30 days. The patch notes don’t offer much in terms of details, so we reached out to Aventurine to answer a couple of questions. The D.U.E.L is a physical item that is placed in the player’s inventory. It can be used to add 30 days to an account (extending any existing subscription time), or it can be traded to other players for in-game currency. The D.U.E.L does not drop on death cannot be looted by other players.

Thank you to Tasos Flambouras from Aventurine for providing additional information.

(Source: Darkfall)

FFXIV: Trial Characters Eventually Expire


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Free trials have finally come to Final Fantasy XIV, which means more people running around the world of Eorzea. One question that always pops up is how to deal with the army of dead characters that will be created and then never returned to. Square Enix has apparently thought of this problem and come up with a solution. Accounts must be upgraded to the full version within 90 days, or else it appears that the character may be lost.

 In order to keep playing with the same in-game and character data in the full version, players must upgrade to the full version of the game within 90 days after the Free Trial expires.

There are similar setbacks which appear to be aimed at slowing down gil farmers. Free accounts cannot trade, nor can they use the market board, retainers, free companies, moogle delivery service, nor can they use /tell, /yell, and /shout chat commands, and are restricted from creating parties or linkshells. Additionally, it looks like accounts are tied to the client, which will not install if there is a copy of FFXIV or the trial version on the computer. A gil spammer would, theoretically, be forced to uninstall and reinstall the game every time they were banned.

(Source: FFXIV)

Week In Review: Sony Offline Entertainment


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I’ve discovered a newfound love for Ultima Forever. Once you carve out the ridiculous cash shop mechanics, get rid of gear degradation, and drop gold keys like they’re candy, the game is a lot of fun to play. It’s almost disappointing that Electronic Arts will be shutting down Ultima Forever on August 29th, but it’s hard to say that it wasn’t deserved. Mythic Entertainment will best be known for Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer Online, the latter being much beloved by its fans despite its commercial failings, its other recent ventures (Wrath of Heroes, Ultima Forever, Dungeon Keeper Mobile) will likely fade into obscurity.

Naturally, when it rains it pours. This week also marked the sunsetting of two more Sony Online Entertainment titles. I can’t say I was entirely surprised when SOE revealed that Vanguard couldn’t be fixed due to issues deep within the game’s engine. Vanguard was a collection of great ideas implemented rather shoddily on a foundation made of crepe paper. The idea that the game wasn’t runing a profit is hardly surprising when you factor in that the game spent so long in a dormant state that, in 2011, it was a massive surprise just to see the game getting patched. Vanguard did go free to play, but the response was meek at best.

Wizardry Online, on the other hand, will continue to live on in its native Japan. Depending on how they view the market, Gamepot may either decide to open up a global server or bring on a different publisher to host Wizardry Online in North America and Europe. Given the game’s tepid response under Sony Online Entertainment, however, I wouldn’t hold my breath. Finally, this week also saw the announcement that DUST 514 would be shutting down its Oceanic servers due to players taking advantage of the low population to boost their accounts.

Firefall launched this week, a sentence I never honestly saw myself getting the chance to say. NCSoft continues to add more races and classes to Lineage II with the latest expansion, despite the game’s age and waning profit. And finally pigs have officially grown wings and made me breakfast using their own bacon, because Square Enix has opened up 14-day trials for Final Fantasy XIV.

I plan to wrap up every Week in Review with a piece from MMO Fallout history.

This Week in 2009: On The Brink: Planetside

Planetside, touted as the first true MMOFPS, takes yet another turn towards its ultimate demise, with the announcement that the game’s two servers will finally merge into one, to deal with lacking population. The original five servers have gradually closed and merged, and currently the game houses two servers; One North American and one European.

As far as MMO’s go, server closure is one of the first lines of defense in keeping a game alive. When empty servers spread players thinly, forcing them into a smaller space will give an illusion of player count, and may inspire ex-players to jump back into the renewed action, creating a snowball effect that brings more and more players to the game.

Sadly, if history has taught us anything, it is that this mantra will more than likely fail for Planetside, a game that has been on a downward slope for years now. Planetside’s status as pioneer in MMOFPS action, massive scale battles, and focus on skills above levels, will not help it in its fall from grace.

The merge will go ahead on August 25th. Once Planetside is consolidated on to one server, it is anyone’s guess as to how long it has to live afterwards.

MMOrning Shots: Silicon Valley


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Today’s MMOrning Shot comes to us from Defiance, where Trion Worlds is set to release the Silicon Valley expansion on August 5th. Free for all players, Silicon Valley finally expands the zone of the game. Players will come across Grid as well as the Pilgrims of the Guiding Light, a strange new cult. Currently free to play on PC, Defiance is still set to go free to play on PS3 and Xbox 360 sometime this year.

MMOrning Shots expands every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.