Marvel Heroes 2015 Coming June 4th


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Gazillion Entertainment has announced Marvel Heroes 2015, a culmination of a year’s worth of updates to the superhero MMO, set for launch on June 4th. Intended to highlight on how far the title has come since its launch, June’s updates also include new end-game raid content as well as alternate advancement, and a final showoff against the fire demon Surtur.

“We’ve come a very long way since our original launch a year ago, and the now imminent release of Marvel Heroes 2015 alongside our massive anniversary celebrations marks the beginning of something even better.”
-David Brevik

For more details, check out the trailer below.

(Source: Gazillion Entertainment press release)

Classic Servers: Another Developer “Gets It.”


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Private servers are a very stingy subject in the gaming press. Many developers don’t like to acknowledge them and, honestly, there is at least one of my contacts who will never return my emails after this article just for the act of referencing their existence. MMO Fallout does not condone private servers, nor do we allow them to be advertised in our comments section. I like to think that private servers can be an important tool for developers to gauge their audience’s expectations, however. Private servers that exist simply to cheat, to bypass a subscription, or gain accelerated experience/items will always exist, and those don’t offer much of a lesson outside of that some gamers are unwilling to invest the time or money.

As more developers are realizing, however, there is a great opportunity in classic servers. Jagex has not only maintained the original RuneScape Classic, but launched a version of 2007 RuneScape that remains updated thanks solely to the majority vote of its community. Sony Online Entertainment has, for a long time now, dabbled in classic and progression servers for Everquest. Ragnarok Online launched a classic server back in 2012, and NCSoft recently announced a classic server for Lineage II, at least the Korean version.

There are a million legitimate reasons why a developer wouldn’t want to create their own classic servers. A classic server would need some form of monetization, where a cash shop would risk driving away the target audience and a subscription would put the server in competition with those same private servers that operate for free. The developer could, however, capitalize on this very issue. A dedicated developer could offer stability and quality where many classic servers are at risk of shutting down at moment’s notice, operate on inferior server infrastructure, and are partially hand-built by the operator due to the inaccessible nature of certain MMO mechanics (server side operations).

Other developers refuse to create a classic server on the grounds that doing so would compromise their “artistic vision,” a belief that MMOs change with time and that introducing a classic server would be counter to that vision, or an admission that they made the wrong choice somewhere down the line. Further developers cite an unwillingness to risk splitting the community in half.

Happily, it appears that more developers are recognizing the potential for classic servers or those with alternate rulesets.

Classic Servers: Another Developer "Gets It."


noedits

Private servers are a very stingy subject in the gaming press. Many developers don’t like to acknowledge them and, honestly, there is at least one of my contacts who will never return my emails after this article just for the act of referencing their existence. MMO Fallout does not condone private servers, nor do we allow them to be advertised in our comments section. I like to think that private servers can be an important tool for developers to gauge their audience’s expectations, however. Private servers that exist simply to cheat, to bypass a subscription, or gain accelerated experience/items will always exist, and those don’t offer much of a lesson outside of that some gamers are unwilling to invest the time or money.

As more developers are realizing, however, there is a great opportunity in classic servers. Jagex has not only maintained the original RuneScape Classic, but launched a version of 2007 RuneScape that remains updated thanks solely to the majority vote of its community. Sony Online Entertainment has, for a long time now, dabbled in classic and progression servers for Everquest. Ragnarok Online launched a classic server back in 2012, and NCSoft recently announced a classic server for Lineage II, at least the Korean version.

There are a million legitimate reasons why a developer wouldn’t want to create their own classic servers. A classic server would need some form of monetization, where a cash shop would risk driving away the target audience and a subscription would put the server in competition with those same private servers that operate for free. The developer could, however, capitalize on this very issue. A dedicated developer could offer stability and quality where many classic servers are at risk of shutting down at moment’s notice, operate on inferior server infrastructure, and are partially hand-built by the operator due to the inaccessible nature of certain MMO mechanics (server side operations).

Other developers refuse to create a classic server on the grounds that doing so would compromise their “artistic vision,” a belief that MMOs change with time and that introducing a classic server would be counter to that vision, or an admission that they made the wrong choice somewhere down the line. Further developers cite an unwillingness to risk splitting the community in half.

Happily, it appears that more developers are recognizing the potential for classic servers or those with alternate rulesets.

Mythic Entertainment Closes Its Doors


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Electronic Arts has announced that Dark Age of Camelot developer Mythic Entertainment has been closed down. Mythic Entertainment are the creators behind Dark Age of Camelot and were acquired by EA Games back in 2006. Mythic Entertainment’s luck ran out when Warhammer Online launched to overwhelmingly negative reception. While Warhammer Online would not shut down until 2013, Mythic made an attempt at a MOBA game based on the Warhammer fantasy lore. The Warhammer MOBA was cancelled mid-beta due to similarly poor reception.

Mythic also released Ultima Forever and Dungeon Keeper, mobile free to play titles based off of classic properties. Ultima Forever has fallen off of the rankings and Dungeon Keeper is ranked 260 in strategy games on the iPhone. Development of Dungeon Keeper will transition to a new team.

“We are closing the EA Mythic location in Fairfax, Virginia, as we concentrate mobile development in our other studio locations. We are working with all impacted employees to provide assistance in finding new opportunities, either within EA or with other companies via an upcoming job fair.”

Broadsword Online has been in charge of Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot for the past few months already, and service will be uninterrupted.

(Source: Gamasutra)

Lineage II Classic Server Coming


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NCSoft is set to launch a classic server for Lineage II in Korea. The version includes legacy systems including the old inventory, pre-revamp locales, old crafting recipes, clan system, party system, xp loss, and more. All in all, it looks like the classic server will be somewhere in between the first versions of Lineage II. The beta servers are officially live on the Korean service, however NCSoft has not announced anything about the service coming to North America or Europe.

(Source: MMOcast)

Jagex Steps Back On Multi-Logging Rule


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Jagex has altered their rules on multi-logging, or multiboxing as it is often known in other MMOs. Previously players have been restricted from logging into more than one account at the same time, as well as from transferring money or items between accounts. In a new announcement, Jagex has revealed that players are now allowed to log into multiple accounts over all versions of RuneScape, as well as trade wealth between them, providing that the items were not acquired via rule-breaking methods.

You are free to create as many accounts as you like and you are welcome to trade between your accounts just as you would with any other legitimate player. However, if any of your accounts obtained wealth by rule breaking activity for example macro use (botting) or real world trading (buying gold or items from 3rd parties) then all your accounts will be banned. Similarly, multi-logged accounts must not interact with each other to exploit gameplay mechanics, such as attempting to rig the result of a minigame.

Selling or sharing accounts is still against the rules.

(Source: RuneScape)

MMOrning Shots: Try The Rye Or The Kaiser


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Today’s MMOrning Shot comes to us from Panzer General Online, currently in open beta. Head over to the official website to sign up and play, or log in with your uPlay account and get started immediately.

Witness the awesome power of MMOrning Shots every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Funcom Q1 2014 Finances


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Funcom has released their quarterly returns for the first quarter of 2014, and the results are certainly interesting to look at. Revenues have remained relatively stable, decreasing slightly to $3.8 million from $4.2 million last quarter. Funcom has seen a steady decrease in revenue since the launch of The Secret World, with revenues at nearly half of what they were in the first quarter of last year, $6.3 million. Despite the lowered revenue, Funcom’s cash position improved from $2.5 to $2.8 million over last quarter. The company also noted that 15 million shares were sold to the tune of $5.5 million which was used to pay interest bearing debt.

The upcoming Lego Minifigures video game hit all of its major milestones and is on course for a beta launch in June 2014 and a commercial launch later this year. Nothing has changed regarding last year’s investigation into Funcom by Økokrim. Funcom’s offices were raided last year by the Norway’s economic crimes unit and is currently being investigated for possible insider trading and negligence. There are no details on how long the investigation will take.

(Source: Funcom presentation)

Darkfall Exploit Results In Rollback


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Aventurine has posted a notice that the Darkfall game servers have been rolled back to last Thursday after an exploit was discovered that allowed players to duplicate items.

With the help of the community we have discovered that there was some exploiting of our Market feature at the end of last week. We immediately deactivated the Market to fix this issue and we identified those who had been actively exploiting it. We are in the process of permanently banning these players for their actions, as their behavior is inconsistent with the values we’ve set for the Darkfall Unholy Wars community.

To take every measure necessary to protect fairness in the game we decided to roll back inventories to last Thursday and keep the Market feature disabled for another day to further test it and verify that nothing similar happens in the future.

We apologize to those affected and we will add three (3) days of game time to all active accounts on Sunday, June 1st.

(Source: Facebook)

MMOrning Shots: Spooky Scary Demon Girls


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Today’s MMOrning Shot comes to us from F.E.A.R Online, which should be entering its beta phase as I am typing this out. Check it out at http://fearonline.aeriagames.com/

Get spooked every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with MMOrning Shots.