MMO Fallout

I’m Quoting You On This, Zenimax

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Zenimax has come out and revealed the big news behind The Elder Scrolls Online: The game will be subscription based. And just like many developers before them, Zenimax has opened up to this model in the only way that developers know how, by discussing how inferior or incompatible free to play is. So on the off chance that Zenimax does make Elder Scrolls free to play, I thought I would put their opinion on the model right front and center.

F2P, B2P, etc. are valid, proven business models – but subscription is the one that fits ESO the best, given our commitment to freedom of gameplay, quality and long-term content delivery. Plus, players will appreciate not having to worry about being “monetized” in the middle of playing the game, which is definitely a problem that is cropping up more and more in online gaming these days.

One down payment and a flat monthly fee gets you 100% of the content? Sounds great, I will have three. I’m holding you to this, Zenimax. If you make The Elder Scrolls Online free to play, you will have to live forever knowing that your actions caused mild disappointment in an editorial writer you have never met.

(Source: PC Gamer)

I'm Quoting You On This, Zenimax

F2P, B2P, etc. are valid, proven business models – but subscription is the one that fits ESO the best, given our commitment to freedom of gameplay, quality and long-term content delivery. Plus, players will appreciate not having to worry about being “monetized” in the middle of playing the game, which is definitely a problem that is cropping up more and more in online gaming these days.

(Source: PC Gamer)

Disney Shutting Down Its Less Popular MMOs

Disney appears to be cleaning house with some of their less popular MMOs. The company announced today that both Toontown and Pirates of the Caribbean Online will be shutting down on September 19th, just a month away. Both games have already stopped accepting payments and have opened their doors to be played for free until the servers shut down. There wasn’t much of a reason given other than the usual shifting development focus, although the obvious answer is that few people still play Toontown or Pirates Online.

“The Walt Disney Company is committed to offering high-quality, entertaining play experiences in both online virtual worlds and mobile apps. At this time, we are shifting our development focus towards other online and mobile play experiences, such as Club Penguin and a growing selection of Disney mobile apps.”

(Source: Toontown, Pirates)

EA Introduces Origin Guarantee

Who ever heard of being able to return a digital download? The rare case on Steam, maybe, but otherwise you’re pretty much out of luck when it comes to digital purchases. Electronic Arts has unveiled the Great Game Guarantee, a new system that allows customers to return products that they don’t like, for a full refund.

The new Origin Great Game Guarantee works like this: You may return EA full game downloads (PC or Mac) purchased on Origin for a full refund–within 24 hours after you first launch the game, within seven days from when you purchased it, or within the first seven days after the game’s release date if you pre-ordered it (whichever of these conditions happens first).

Your reason for returning the game doesn’t even have to be technical. EA will accept returns even if you just didn’t like the game.

(Source: Origin)

The Matrix Online Had Less Than 500 Players

It’s been four years since The Matrix Online was shut down, it is time to move on Omali! That’s what you think. Gamescom is up and running, and that means commentary by Sony Online Entertainment on past games. Linda “Brasse” Carlson, Director of Global Community Relations at Sony Online Entertainment commented on the old and mostly forgotten MMO at Gamescom, noting that the game had fewer than five hundred players at the time it was shut down. The cost to maintain the game, Colson says, became too great and the servers had to be shut down regardless of the “close and tight knit” community that still played.

Now tell us how many players Star Wars Galaxies had when it shut down.

(Source: Polygon)

Wildstar Announces PLEX System

Carbine Studios has finally announced the monetization system for their upcoming game Wildstar, and it’s looking a whole lot like Eve Online. Wildstar will institute a system called C.R.E.D.D, which stands for Certification of Research, Exploration, Destruction, and Development. C.R.E.D.D will sell for $19.99 in real life money and can be sold to other players and redeemed for one month of subscription time. The idea is to allow one group of players to play without paying a subscription fee, as the money they make in-game will essentially pay for the subscription itself. The other group of players are those who would otherwise buy gold from gold farmers.

The Commodities Exchange, where players will be trading their goods, will operate much like RuneScape’s Grand Exchange: Anonymously.

“The CX is unique in that when a player wants to buy a particular commodity, they will only be able to buy that commodity at the lowest currently offered price, with no awareness of who’s actually selling it. Once the stock of that commodity at that price is gone, players will then be able to buy from the available stock at the next lowest price.”

Wildstar is set for a 2014 release. You can read more about it at MMORPG.com’s coverage below.

(Source: MMORPG.com)

Tips For Fans #476: Obnoxious Advertising

Developers are in no way responsible for the actions of their users, unless said developer is actively encouraging said behavior. With that in mind, this tip is specifically for the fans. Spamming forums (as pictured below) doesn’t make your game more appealing. As far as viral advertising goes, it is likely the least effective and most destructive to the product, to the point where it is better suited as a method to actively sabotage another company’s product with fake, and obnoxious, praise.

Note: This is not a commentary on Divergence, the developers, or its community as a whole.

0x10c Cancelled By Mojang

The Minecraft fans among you may recall that Notch had been working on a sandbox space game titled Ox10c (pronounced “Ten to the C”). The idea was that players could create a ship piece by piece and that each section (life support, oxygen, missiles) would take away from a limited amount of power. The ship itself would be controlled by a fully functioning 16 bit computer providing the capability for more programming-savvy players to really deck out their ship.

Unfortunately, the idea has been canned. According to Kotaku, Notch announced via livestream that he had no plans for Ox10c, although he had no problems with another developer taking up the project.

(Source: Kotaku)

Forge Surviving Through Free To Play

Forge is an arena based combat game brought to us by indie developer Dark Vale, and it hasn’t been performing so well on the revenue side of things. In order to keep the servers online and roll out more content, Dark Vale has announced that the game will be heading free to play.

As you all know, we’re an Indie developer and are able to continue to support the game with new features from the sales of Forge every month. In order to continue to do this we must change our business plan in order to get more players playing Forge so it’s fun for everyone and to continue funding development. This is why Forge must go F2P.

The good news is that the Dark Vale will be avoiding pay to win at all costs, offering initially just cosmetic armor sets and experience boosters, with items that would normally take a long time to unlock costing more than others. Future cash shop offerings may include equipment customization among other items.

Check out the entire announcement at the link below.

(Source: Forge)

Cryptic Makes Neverwinter Gateway More Useful

If you haven’t played Neverwinter, the crafting system is similar to Fallen Earth: You click a few buttons and then wait for the cooldown timer to stop. Gathering iron ore? That’s ten minutes. Researching new potions? That’s fifteen minutes. You unlock more research “slots” by leveling up your characters and leveling your crafting skills. Needless to say, the system is higher maintenance than your average MMO and can lead to the frustrating system of having to log in just to keep your professions going.

The good news is that you don’t have to log in to work your professions. Neverwinter’s Gateway allows players to log into a character and make use of some game functions when not logged in. Gamers have access to the auction house to buy and sell items and manage their bids. They can also work on professions, starting research and collecting results, and checking your mail and character stats.

The good news is that Neverwinter’s Fury of the Feywild update will bring much more functionality to the Gateway system. Players will be able to sort their inventory, discard items, open chests, and sell junk for gold. Professions will now allow for buying required materials straight from the market right through your browser, and the Zen market will be open through the browser to making purchases.

Those of you with Neverwinter accounts can check out the test page for the new Gateway here.

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