MMO Fallout

Black Gold’s Chinese Model Makes Me Appreciate Pay To Win

Black Gold Online is innovative, like that time I rigged a pair of secateurs so I could use them to eat cereal and accidentally knocked out both of my front teeth. The game is being developed as something similar to, but not really, Guild Wars 2 with more point and click gameplay, and is being created by Snail Games who many of you will recognize from the equally unorthodox Age of Wushu. Where Black Gold Online hopes to innovate is in the lacking presence of both a cash shop and a subscription. Where does the income come from? I guess you could call it “pay to loot.”

According to a post on MMO Culture, a system called Black Gold Time will automatically lock loot received in a given time frame. After a few hours, some items will be locked and others will be put into the player’s inventory. For the sake of not being completely over the top, basic items will be immediately placed in the inventory. Players then have to pay for gold with cash which they can use to unlock and claim items that remain locked. You also have a chance of rolling the dice and receiving a discount or even free items.

I have something else to say about this, but I’ve decided to innovate MMO Fallout and lock it behind a paywall. Send $1 in unmarked bills to MMO Fallout (no address, the postman will know where to take it) for a key to unlock my opinion.

(Source: MMO Culture)

Black Gold's Chinese Model Makes Me Appreciate Pay To Win

(Source: MMO Culture)

New Rule: Having It Both Ways

New Rule: If it is unfair for me as a writer to discuss your game because it is mid-beta and is therefore an unfinished product, you are not allowed as a developer to add that beta time to your final score when you are defending your company’s will to support their products. I don’t care if your game was in beta for eighteen months, if the game shuts down six months after launch then it will be considered having run for six months, not two years. The statement is bad PR all around because what you are essentially saying is that there was a period of time where you consider the game ripe for compliments but completely immune from criticism. It is like claiming you were in the lead for the first three hours in the Tour De France when really you just showed up early and the race hadn’t even started yet.

Now if you don’t mind, I have to head over to explain to my boss why the fact that not being scheduled or working shouldn’t stop those hours from being added to my payroll.

Gameforge Shutting Down RaiderZ Europe

As the MMO market continues its march towards heavy saturation, it is our duty at MMO Fallout to inform you whenever another title sees its services come to an end. Gameforge has announced that they will be shutting down all support for the action MMO RaiderZ in its hosted territories. As Gameforge is merely the European publisher for the MMO, the game will remain operational in North America and South Korea where the game is published by Perfect World Entertainment and Neowiz Games respectively.

The FAQ published by Gameforge notes that RaiderZ did not meet financial expectations:

The success of RaiderZ did not meet our expectations and as we saw no other potential alternatives to the discontinuation of the services, unfortunately we were left with no other alternative than to take this step.

Servers will remain online until August 30th after which players who still want a fix will have to move over to Perfect World or Neowiz.

(Source: Shutdown FAQ)

MMOrning Shots: RuneScape Three

Today’s MMOrning Shot is very timely, coinciding with the release of RuneScape 3. The screenshot above is technically from the HTML5 version which will not go live for another couple of months. In addition to a new music system and interface releasing today, players will also be taking part in the Battle For Lumbridge, a series of weekly events that promise to change the landscape of RuneScape forever. The update is scheduled to go live in approximately ten minutes from this writing, so grab your knapsack and a sword of destiny, and set forth.

Old School RuneScape: Nightmare Zone

The strangest part of talking about Old School RuneScape is the understanding that while this is technically RuneScape as it was back in September 2007, that the game is slowly moving in a direction away from both its original design and the actual progression of the main game. Features like the Nightmare Zone are particularly interested because the idea of fighting boss monsters from quests is something that has been requested in RuneScape for years, at least as long as I’ve been playing, so this will be one of the first additional pieces of content that will go into Old School RuneScape while still being completely ignored on the live game.

So Nightmare Zone is closer to completion and Jagex have been working out details on how to deal with creatures that require special items to creatures that almost require special items, NPCs that really only function properly in their own environments, etc. As a compromise, the game provides various items that are required but would not otherwise even be obtainable by the player, while other items are simply removed from the equation. Rewards are still being worked on, since the community shot down every single pitch in the related content poll.

(Source: Dev Blog)

When Aggressive Becomes Offensive

I want to discuss something that’s been on my mind for a while, and it revolves around MMOrning Shots: aggressive developers. As many of you already know, MMOrning Shots is a screenshot column primarily sourced from press releases sent over to us by various developers, publishers, and their PR firms. When I started the column, I did so knowing that I would probably get some flak over the idea that the column isn’t all that deep, it’s shallow, it’s a photo gallery, pointless, the game I showed sucks, etc. I receive very little of this feedback, in fact most of the emails I get are in support of the column.

On the other hand, MMOrning Shots has tested my patience with a handful of independent developers, which I will admit that I did not see coming at all. It’s one thing when a player criticizes you because they want to see their favorite MMO put up or they hate the game that you posted, and another when I receive an official notice from the creator’s PR division demanding attention and complaining about fairness. For example: A couple of months ago I ran an MMOrning Shot for a particular spiritual successor to City of Heroes, in which I referred to the game as a spiritual successor to City of Heroes. That same day, my inbox was hit by several competing indie projects berating me about everything from how unfair it was that I focused on one game, how I had a hand in the game, that I was a fanboy to that project, insinuating that I’d been paid off, that I hate indie developers, I’m a corporate sponsor, a troll, the article implied there was only one project, that I should edit the article to include theirs, that I should delete it and run all of them at once or none at all, etc. These emails were from the creators themselves or their “pr folk,” not the community.

I love our indie MMO friends and I will continue to show support and devote page space and even occasionally my own money to games like Side Quest, The Phoenix Project, Face of Mankind, Cliffhanger Productions, etc. This whole ordeal with the personal attacks implying ulterior motives or a lack of integrity from certain indie-groups because I didn’t give them special attention is going to stop. MMO Fallout isn’t a huge website with a lot of clout with gamers, but that doesn’t make this place a doormat for developers to wipe their feet over and expect to get away with it.

And for my readers, I apologize for the diversion. I promise that this is the only time I will devote an article to this topic (Tumblr aside), but I feel that our readers should know some of the things that go one behind the scenes here at MMO Fallout.

Now back to your regularly scheduled insanity.

MMOrning Shots: Wildstar Edition

Today’s MMOrning Shot comes from Wildstar, in development by Carbine Studios and published by NCSoft. The Chua, pictured above, are a hamster-like race with an “uncanny grasp of science and mechanical engineering.” In the world of Wildstar, the Chua were given the means to forward their industrial exercises and promptly destroyed the environment in their psychotic need for advancement. With their own world now devoid of resources, the Chua look toward the Nexus as a haven of exploitable land, ripe for the picking.

Wildstar is set for release later this year.

Aion Is Still Adding Classes

Holy cow, NCSoft, have you considered taking a vacation? Most MMOs are content with adding a new class in once every few years, assuming they do so at all, but Aion clearly isn’t most MMOs. Aion 4.0 brought with it two new classes, the gunslinger and songweaver, the first new classes introduced in four years. The upcoming 4.5 launch for Aion will introduce yet another class, the aethertech. Not debuting on the Korean test servers until July 29th, the Aethertech uses his fists to form a number of different weapons, and is a giant hulking mech.

What’s next for NCSoft and Aion? I’m thinking a Sharknado class.

(Source: Aion)

MMOrning Shots: Champions Tronline

Today’s MMOrning Shot comes to us from Perfect World Entertainment, and shows a piece of the new story arc hitting Champions Online, FATAL ERROR. Players are tasked with saving the world’s supercomputer from being hacked, I can only assume by a subsection of comic-book rendered neckbeards living in their mother’s basement. Episode 1: Intranet Deployment, has launched on the live servers allowing players to dive in and grab some exclusive gear and even a vanity action figure, as well as Questionite ore.

Intranet Deployment acts as a daily instance/mission. You can check out the announcement page at the link below.

(Goto: Champions Online)

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