MMO Fallout

Jagex Steps Back On Multi-Logging Rule

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

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

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

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

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.

MMOments: Marvel Heroes

Marvel Heroes is a great game, in fact it always was. What launched as a superhero themed Diablo clone, it brought together mindless action, barrels of loot, and Marvel’s signature hero and villain roster. Since then, Marvel Heroes has grown to include more than 30 heroes and has even added in new missions and areas to coincide with the release of Marvel films. The problem, at launch, however was that Gazillion had clearly spent far too much time focusing on promoting the market rather than the actual game. The atmosphere wasn’t so much “play me” as it was “give me more money.”

Marvel Heroes was technically free, my favorite kind of free, in the sense that you chose one hero from a small list and could either purchase more or unlock them via random, extremely rare drops. Since then, Gazillion has made it much easier to obtain heroes and costumes through gameplay. Eternity Splinters drop at a small but steady pace throughout normal leveling and can be used to purchase heroes. I managed to get my hands on 175 splinters in the time it took me to level Hawkeye from 1 to 30 (current level cap 60). You can spend anywhere between 200 and 400 splinters to unlock specific heroes, or you can spend 175 and unlock one at random with the possibility of receiving a hero you already own.

You will still receive two or three random heroes as you progress through the game’s story mode and, by the time of this review, I had gotten my hands on Hawkeye, Captain America, Storm, Scarlet Witch, and then Cyclops via the eternity splinters. Five heroes and I’m not even close to hitting the level cap with the first. Not too shabby for not having spent any money.

If you played Marvel Heroes at launch and found yourself severely underwhelmed as I did, you are in for a surprise. Thanks to community response and countless patches, Gazillion Entertainment has managed to polish and refine Marvel Heroes into the masterpiece that it is today. Every hero is viable in solo play, even those who draw their powers from up close and personal attacks like the Hulk. There are no longer the “glass cannon” heroes who can push out large amounts of damage but can be killed in one or two hits by most villains and bosses. Content galore has been added to satiate players once they finish the very short campaign.

The story mode in Marvel Heroes is very short, with heroes finishing the latest addition (Asgard) before level 30 with a level cap of 60. Thanks to the new difficulty modes, however, you can go back and play through the campaign over and with higher level foes. Midtown Madness plays out as something of a boss rush, a giant city with just about every event and foe present in Marvel Heroes, with regular appearances by the game’s villain bosses and plenty of loot and experience to go around. Not only are heroes being added at a regular rate, Gazillion is going back to the early roster and tuning them down the the base level to make sure that none become obsolete.

If you have played Marvel Heroes in the past and got fed up with the cash shop or hero system, now is the best time to come back. If you haven’t given Marvel Heroes a try, what are you waiting for? You now have an increased pool of heroes to choose from on new accounts.

MMOrning Shots: Black Gold

Today’s MMOrning Shot comes to us from Black Gold Online, currently in closed beta. I am currently working on a Beta Perspective article for this title.

Check out MMOrning Shots every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Star Vault Sees Q1 Bump In 2014

Star Vault has released their Q1 2014 finances and the results are actually looking good. Net sales broke one hundred thousand for the quarter, up heavily from the previous quarter’s report of eighty one thousand. Net profit remains in the red but increased severely over the previous two quarters, from one hundred fifty thousand in the red down to eighty three thousand. If Star Vault can keep this momentum going, the company will be in the black by the end of the third quarter.

As usual, Henrik Nystrom made his quarterly address.

During the first quarter of 2014 marked by a continued positive trend in increased player activity in Mortal Online. Meanwhile, we have the beginning of 2014, working with a major focus for the planned release on STEAM, the world’s largest online distributor of PC games. Mortal Online will then be posted on a global playlist daily visited by between 4-6 million players worldwide. In February, the game engine Unreal Engine updated, resulting in a large number of improvements in place. Briefly, the above, including both graphical quality and performance improved, which facilitates the creation of a new continent in the game, so we can handle a larger number of players.

With the new continent will face in Mortal Online will be doubled and the new Territory Control will enable us to offer unique features. These features will be released in stages before release. In our industry it is known that all releases are unpredictable and I think it’s important to be clear that although we will encounter problems in the same way as the major players, but we’re doing what we can to be prepared. One of the major challenges in the industry is of course to bring in new players, but also to maintain the existing players by offering a consistently high quality. The competition is tough and you have to deliver. We will just as before to continue to be very honest with our player and also allow them to participate and judge when we have what it takes for a successful release on STEAM.

As previously announced, of course, both the content and quality priority, which means that we update the plan we had from the beginning, to gain more time for testing and bug fixing before release. In this overall development plan to release the work has been divided into six blocks; Engine update (completed and is live), development of the Territory control, test and release of Territory Control continent’s development, test and release of the continents, and the testing and release of Steam API (Application Programming Interface). Each block has a lead time of about one month, while parts of the work of the various blocks is done in parallel.

We have since the beginning of the year even able to announce a new functionality in the form of that Mortal Online has built-in support for Oculus Rift. Oculus Rift can be described as the next generation of virtual reality headsets and developed by the company Oculus VR. In March 2014 it was announced that Facebook, Inc. decided to buy the project for about two billion dollars. By playing Mortal Online with Oculus Rift given increased playing experience then, so to speak “comes into play.” Turn the head of the unit really does play the character in the game too. One sees also the depth and 3D by Oculus, which can provide some benefits in Mortal Online because you always play the game in first person view. When Oculus Rift released, we think players will be interested to try the dedicated first-person games such as Mortal Online, which is the first mmo game that is exclusively dedicated first person only, and therefore lends itself very well to play with Oculus rift.

Henrik Nystrom
CEO, Star Vault AB

Editor’s note: Figures are provided by the Aktietorget stock exchange. All figures are presented in US Dollars using conversions provided by Citibank NA and reflect trading values on the day of reporting. Henrik Nystrom’s statements are automatically translated by Google and may contain various spelling or grammatical errors.

Amazon Mayhem Sale Goes Into Effect

Amazon’s Digital Games Mayhem has begun. Running from May 22nd to May 31st, save up to 80% on select titles and bundles.

Transformers Universe Q&A with David Nicholson

Jagex has released a new question and answer session on Transformers Universe with Vice President David Nicholson. Check it out in its entirety below.

• How have you found the fan response to the Transformers you’ve created for the game?

(Laughs) Well, being able to design and implement our own TRANSFORMERS could have been a double edged sword, especially when it comes to the fans and their respect and love for the TRANSFORMERS brand. We’re really pleased, the fan response has been overwhelmingly positive. It’s obviously a huge honor, privilege and responsibility to introduce new characters into the TRANSFORMERS universe. Throughout development we’ve worked very closely with Hasbro, sharing our initial thoughts and ideas, taking on board their feedback and working within the existing Transformers canon.

• Can you talk about the process of creating new Transformers, and why you felt it was important to generate new ones for the game?

The actual task of introducing new characters starts with research. Hundreds of Transformers already exist across movies, TV shows and books, so we want to make sure we’re not overlapping with something that’s already in place. After that, it becomes a collaborative process between the creative team and the concept team as they start working up concepts, and develop initial thoughts on names biographies and backstories for the characters. It’s an exhilarating process! We’re really excited about the characters that we’ve created, and can’t wait for players to get their hands on them.

• Where did you take inspiration for the type of game Transformers Universe is?

MMOs have been a growing genre for many years now and it’s been interesting to watch the transition from traditional MMORPGs through to MOBAs and on to war games like World of Tanks. We don’t like being pigeon-holed and feel that Transformers Universe, as a blend of strategic, tactical and collaborative game play is best described as a multiplayer online tactical action (MOTA) game. There’s huge competition out there for people’s attention, from games, films, TV, books and more, and we think Transformers Universe can really stand out because not only is it Transformers, and millions of people around the world have grown up with this brand for 30 years, but we’ve got a game that, irrelevant of the brand attached to it, stands on its own merits. The game plays to many strengths. It offers players the chance to collect these great Transformers warriors and lead them into battle; it lets you go head to head against players from around the world; and it features game modes that suit your style of play. Ultimately, who doesn’t like huge robot warriors that can kick ass and who also have fantastic and growing back stories. It’s the perfect mechanical storm!

• Can you talk a bit about the background of the story and how that was created?

We’ve been able to build on established lore and really take Transformers Universe off in a unique direction. Narrative will be an important part of Transformers Universe and the way gamers play it will impact on how the story develops. We’ve worked very hard with Hasbro on building out the storyline for Transformers Universe, and as part of that we’ve added award-winning music video and feature film director, Alex De Rakoff, to the team to help establish tone and narrative for the game too.

• What are your future plans for rolling out content?

Obviously our current focus is on delivering a great product for launch. We are using the beta period to get feedback from real players and understand what’s working for people and what isn’t. After that we’ll be more open about our future plans. We’ve got plans for content updates, significant narrative events that are really going to steer the story and a pipeline of numerous bots that players are going to meet post-launch. But, at the moment, the focus is all about the here and the now, and that means releasing a product that is worthy of the TRANSFORMERS brand as well as being worthy of the fans loyalty and patience.

• How does the pricing structure work for the game?

Transformers Universe will be free-to-play and content will not be gated by a subscription. If you’ve got the time then you’ll be able to get everything you want without spending a penny. We want players to experience the best of what we’re offering, while allowing those that are a little more time constrained the option of getting into the experience a little quicker.

• Are you hoping to pick up fans of the movies with the release coming this summer?

Firstly, and I say this from the perspective of being a TRANSFOMERS fan, it’s going to be a bumper summer for people like me! It’s completely serendipitous that the film and Transformers Universe are released within the same time frame. There is very little content or story overlap between the film and the game. That said, the fact that there is another movie hitting the screens at a similar time as Transformers Universe is being played, can only bode well for both the hardcore fans and the more casual observers. You can enjoy the movie experience and then come home, log on and continue the adventure in the comfort of your own home

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