MMO Fallout

Another Strong IP Bites The Dust

If we have learned anything here at MMO Fallout over the past five years, it is that a strong property means absolutely nothing when it comes to the success of an MMO, or any video game for that matter. In case you didn’t notice this idea in place with the launch of Warhammer Online or the plan that The Old Republic would sustain itself on subscriptions alone, you can take a look at the latest casualty: Doctor Who.

Doctor Who: Worlds in Time is an MMO-lite launched in March 2012, that will have already shut down by the time you read this. Worlds in Time was a decent puzzle game, but ultimately became repetitive and unsustainable over a prolonged service. The developer, Three Rings, is responsible for a few titles you may be familiar with: Spiral Knights and Puzzle Pirates.

The moral of the story is that not every IP needs an MMO. I’m looking at you, Fifty Shades of Grey Online.

Marvel Heroes Mac Beta Signups

Gazillion Entertainment has announced that users are now welcome to sign up to beta test the Mac client for Marvel Heroes. Launch for the Mac client is set for later on this Spring, but users can sign up now to beta test. Check out the link below for more information on how to sign up.

(Source: Marvel Heroes)

Trion Bans May Now Revoke Game Access

In case you haven’t seen, Trion Worlds has announced the introduction of a new “forum toxicity” policy. In short, the developer has issued an ultimatum that trolling, threats, and abuse will no longer be tolerated, and swift action will be taken to ensure that the forums remain a squeaky clean place for squeaky clean boys and girls. One issue that seems to have been tossed into the spotlight is the idea that Trion is now suspending and revoking game access for behavior on the forums. That is half true.

As explained on the forums, revoking game access is apparently reserved for players who repeatedly return on alternate accounts to continue trolling.

Users who have previously had their forum access revoked, and create second, third, fourth, fifth…and so on, troll accounts, may now see penalties on their game accounts. (Yes, people really do this.) Those penalties range from suspensions to revocation of game access.

With the proper execution, Rift may actually wind up having one of the few official MMO forums worth visiting.

MMOrning Shots: Aion Infographic

Today’s MMOrning Shot comes to us from Aion, where Gameforge and NCSoft have tossed together an infographic detailing the two year anniversary of the game’s transition to free to play. With over seven million characters created with a combined play time of sixty six thousand years, Aion’s most popular class is the Gladiator and Sorcerer. Since its transition to free to play, Aion has seen massive updates to the core game experience including the addition of housing and mounts, not to mention two new classes. Players are also capable of playing in Spanish, Italian, Polish, Turkish, alongside English, French, and German.

Aion’s 4.5 update will introduce the second Engineer specialization, not to mention a number of other content additions. Check it out when it hits Europe on April 9th.

(Source: Gameforge press release)

Uninstall Pando Media Booster.

Hindsight is twenty twenty, and no doubt gamers of days to come will one day look back at Pando Media Booster and remember it for what it was: One of the worst program to plague PC users since the Bonzai Buddy. As advertised, Pando Media Booster became rather widely used by a number of MMOs as a peer to peer sharing system to mitigate bandwidth and hopefully provide faster download times.

It also had the side effect of slowing the internet speeds of many down to a crawl, and was generally seen as bloatware carefully toeing the line between legitimate software and malicious malware. Last August, to the relief of gamers everywhere, Pando closed its business down and shut down the Pando Media Booster servers.

So Pando may be dead, but as decades of Friday the 13th movies have shown us, the dead often do not rest in peace. Pando Media Booster has been hijacked and users are receiving notices that the program requires an update despite the service having shut down last year. The supposed update is actually the Sweet Page browser hijacker virus, which redirects browsers to the Sweet Page search engine.

A number of MMO clients are still being distributed with Pando Media Booster.

(Source: CSTM)

Jagex Raises Money Through SpecialEffect Charity

Jagex has revealed the results of their 24 hour gaming marathon for SpecialEffect’s Gameblast weekend. The event, which saw staff and members of the community playing RuneScape and Ace of Spades for a full day, resulted in a total of nearly eighty thousand dollars raised for charity. In addition, RuneScape once again opened its Well of Goodwill, where players can donate in-game bonds and goods that are converted into real money to be donated. To top off the event, Jagex also donated 50% of the profits from Ace of Spades sales to SpecialEffect.

Jane Ryan, Head of RuneScape Community Management, expressed the company’s delight in the good will of its community.

“It’s been a crazy 24 hours; we’ve seen staff rise to the occasion and take on all kinds of challenges in the name of charity. The generosity of our players is both touching and gratifying and we can’t wait to do it all again next year!”

SpecialEffect is a charity dedicated to helping people with disabilities. Find out more about the charity at http://www.specialeffect.org.uk/

(Source: Jagex Press Release)

Mighty Quest For Epic Loot In Open Beta

The drawbridge has been lowered and the hoards are rolling in. Ubisoft has opened up the Mighty Quest for Epic Loot, dropping the NDA and bringing the game into open beta. The game of building up your own base while raiding those of your neighbors is now freely available to anyone without the need for an invitation. Choose from three available heroes (with a fourth available through a cash pack) and hire minions to defend your loot. Raid your friend’s castles and bring their defenses down and steal from their coffers.

Check it out at the link below. Keep in mind that, given this is open beta, a wipe is always possible if called for, although none are planned at this time.

(Source: Mighty Quest)

Asheron's Call Free To Play, Maintenance Mode

Turbine Entertainment has announced that Asheron’s Call will be heading free to play as of March 4th, although the game will be heading into maintenance mode at the same time. While there are no plans to shut down Asheron’s Call at any point in the near future, there will also no longer be any updates apart from maintenance, bug fixes, and a few tweaks here and there. There are also plans to allow players to run their own servers, as mentioned in the announcement:

In addition, we have been working within the company to start an initiative sometime near the end of the year to allow players to run their own Asheron’s Call servers. We intend to put the call out to tech savvy enthusiasts that love Asheron’s Call to create a community for players who want to run their own Asheron’s Call servers.

Both Asheron’s Call and Asheron’s Call 2 will be made available to play for free. Given the emphasis on player-operated servers and that the move will shut off what cash flow Asheron’s Call has left, all signs seem to point toward the sunsetting of b0th games in the next year or so, the official servers at the very least. At the very least, Turbine clearly recognizes the passion of their community and is one of an extremely small number of developers willing to hand their game over to the community when it is no longer financially viable for them to keep going.

We will have more details as they approach. Turbine has not commented on whether or not private servers will be possible for Asheron’s Call 2.

(Source: Asheron’s Call)

Whatever Happened: The Missing Ink

Here at MMO Fallout, we occasionally like to ask and answer a straightforward question: Whatever happened to that one game we heard about a while back? While looking through the game list, I realized that we haven’t heard from The Missing Ink in nearly a year. Experimental MMOs and indie games built by small studios tend to go for long periods of time with no press coverage and then, out of the blue, we find out that they had already shut down well over a month ago. Sorry Fusionfall!

The Missing Ink is the latest project by RedBedlam, the UK developer responsible for the now defunct MMO Roma Victor. What set The Missing Ink apart from the rest was its unique art style, with characters all crafted out of two dimensional drawings on paper. It didn’t break any new ground, but the presentation was charming enough to warrant some off-again on-again gaming. Part of the fun was simply logging in every now and then to see how the early alpha client was progressing.

As you may have figured, The Missing Ink has shut down without any kind of mention by the game media. The servers went down at the end of January alongside an announcement that the game will receive a full overhaul and release later this year.

“As a result of the feedback from this community and our internal test team, we’re started work on a brand new game design for The Missing Ink. We’ll obviously be keeping our lovable 2D characters whilst expanding the explorable 3D worlds and much, much more.”

The good news is that The Missing Ink will hopefully find its way back into our hearts later this year. The bad news is that it will have to share that space with Sonic drive-ins that will be opened up in my neighborhood soon. Until then, follow The Missing Ink on Twitter.

MMOrning Shots: Bridge To Nowhere

Today’s MMOrning Shot comes to us from Neverwinter, where traveling across a bridge built from what appears to be a giant pillar has left me with some second thoughts. In fact, I’ll wait here until the engineers in Protector’s Enclave develop a flying machine, or sturdy handrailing, or both.

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

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