Naoki Yoshida gave a talk at the Game Developers Conference to talk about Final Fantasy XIV’s 1.0 launch, its failure, and how it was reborn. The talk lasts a little more than an hour and covers a wide range of topics including free to play vs subscription and how the landscape has changed in the past few years. Final Fantasy XIV’s relaunch, dubbed A Realm Reborn, has been met with great success.
(Source: Gamasutra)
Today’s MMOrning Shot comes to us from Perfect World Entertainment, showing off the latest class to hit Neverwinter: The Scourge Warlock. Module 4 releases on August 14th.
Check out MMOrning Shots every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Gamers in Southeast Asia have been waiting patiently to get their hands on the superhero MMO known only as DC Universe Online, and their wait is finally over. Sony Online Entertainment partnered with Asiasoft to bring the MMO brawler to Southeast Asia, where players were able to take part in a closed beta period from the 26th to the 30th of June this year. Following the closed beta, servers will open for the full launch today, in just a couple of hours from this writing.
Players participating in the closed beta were able to keep their characters for the full launch. To sweeten the deal, Asiasoft has revealed that players who level at least two characters to 30 during the launch period will be entered into a contest to win a pair of round trip tickets and accommodation to attend SOE Live in August.
(Source: Sony Online Entertainment press release)
Cris Velasco is likely best known for his work on the Mass Effect 3 and God of War soundtracks, not to mention a pretty impressive list of other titles. Velasco was brought in to work on the soundtrack for Archlord 2, and Webzen is so proud of his work that they want everyone to have a chance at hearing it. As of earlier this week, the Archlord 2 soundtrack is freely available to download from Soundcloud.
Today, it’s time to introduce you to Cris’ work. You might have heard some of those themes already in game, while exploring Green Hills peacefully or fighting for your life in Locan’s Lab… But the world of Chantra is limitless, and it would be a shame for your ears to miss out on some of this great work.
Furthermore, players have been asked to come up with names for each individual track. Submissions can be made on the Webzen forums at the link below.
(Source: Webzen)
Today’s MMOrning Shots is a callback to a classic, which is what we writers use as code word for using old content to mask a lack of new content to show. Remember back when Final Fantasy XIV was under reconstruction and how one of the big reveals was that Square Enix had tested their new user interface to hit a goal of “tolerable?”
MMOrning Shots remembers every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
You may have seen some news over the past few days that Guild Wars 2 has sold 3.8 million copies in China, which would be excellent were it true. As it so often turns out, the information was spread via a fansite and is inaccurate, according to an Arenanet Twitter post:
We’d like to clarify recent news of GW2 China sales: it’s inaccurate, from a Chinese fansite, and they could be estimating characters.
The moral of the story is: Always wait for an official source.
(Source: Twitter)
Richard Bartle is the creator of the first ever virtual world: MUD1. Bartle also believes that the free to play model has a half life, and will eventually fall out of favor with gamers. At a Develop conference in Brighton, Bartle stated that inherent qualities undermine the free to play model, despite it being a great revenue model right now.
“It will tail off because there is a fixed amount of people willing to spend enormous amounts of money, and there’s too much competition for those people.”
There is a heated debate on whether or not the bubble on free to play has burst. Check out more information at the link below.
(Source: Gamesindustry.biz)
Hunted Cow Studios has released the latest patch for Eldevin, bringing with it a multitude of updates including a downloadable desktop client. Dubbed Patch 1.16, Eldevin branches out of its browser-based roots and is now available in downloadable form. The client is compatible with Windows (32 and 64 bit), MacOSX, and Linux.
While the downloadable client does not currently support an announced hardware rendering engine, the goal is to have the feature implemented within the next few weeks. The hardware rendering engine will allow Eldevin to run with better graphics, at a higher framerate, and also more optimized. Check out Eldevin at the official website.
(Source: Eldevin press release)
Jagex has announced today that RuneScape’s Legacy Mode will go live on Monday, July 14th. Legacy mode, as voted on by players, reverts RuneScape back to the combat system that existed prior to the introduction of Evolution of Combat. Abilities are removed, the old interface has been reintroduced, several systems have been reverted back, and more.
Legacy mode is optional with Evolution of Combat still available for those who prefer it. There are several changes coming that will affect all players, including the recalculating of player combat levels back to the old maximum of 138 (currently 200), as well as the reintroduction of weapon-specific special attacks and a change to how strength stats affect combat.
(Source: RuneScape)
Today’s MMOrning Shot comes to us from The World II, showing off just about the coolest boss I have seen in an MMO. I present you with Mecha-Rex.
Mecha-Rex seems like your typical Tyrannosaurus-Rex that you probably have seen in other games. We however upped the ante by including a large sharp spiked tail on Mecha-Rex and a large photon gun in his mouth! He’s already ready for action and sure to make his enemies extinct.
The World II reminds me a bit of an MMO version of Monster Hunter, a game that ditches mini-monsters in favor of 80 giant creatures. You’ll be able to choose from 30 heroes at launch. Check out more at the group’s IndieDB page.
And blast your way through MMOrning Shots every Mecha-Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
MMO Fallout 