MMO Fallout

TERA Servers Are Paid After June 11th

TERA players will be happy to know that the restrictions on server transfers have been removed, allowing movement to the previously denied Lake of Tears and Ascension Valley. Players are advised to make use of this freedom of movement, since server transfers will no longer be free soon. Beginning June 11th at noon Pacific, server transfers will cost 2,750 EMP (1,650 for elite) with a limit of the character being at least level 20, a transfer limit of fifty thousand gold, and a five day cooldown between transfers.

For the free transfer period, everyone’s cooldown period has been wiped clean.

(Source: TERA)

Old School Servers Are Here To Stay

RuneScape’s Old School server has been up and running for a few months now, with Jagex offering continuous updates to fix bugs and add in small features voted on by the community. One of the big questions that players have had since the servers launched is how successful they would be, what Jagex would ultimately decide about the possibility of an additional membership to play, and whether or not the servers would attract enough players to keep them operational.

Today Jagex released a developer blog for Old School titled “here to stay.” Players should be happy to know that the servers will remain online for years to come and, at least for the foreseeable future, will not require any additional cash.

When Old School RuneScape launched we said access would be included as part of membership for the first 6 months, and then we’d review the pricing. We’ve made that decision now, rather than wait for September… There will be no increase in cost for the foreseeable future and we aren’t planning to review the pricing again for at least the next year, if not much longer. You will be able to access both Old School and the main game for the price you are currently paying for membership.

Jagex is continuing to work on client stability, banning bots, and more.

(Source: RuneScape)

Jagged Alliance Online Now On Steam

As previously announced, Jagged Alliance Online is now available for download and play on Steam. The free to play MMO was originally launched on browsers via Gamigo’s game portal, and is expanding its visibility to the Steam community. The game weighs in at a rather light two gigabytes of storage space and recommends a 2.4ghz processor and at least four gigabytes of ram. As with the browser version, Jagged Alliance Online is always online and naturally requires a constant internet connection.

While the original game is free, Steam is offering 10% off until June 12th on two DLC packs. Each pack costs $29.99 ($26.99 on sale) and contains 80 new contracts, extra rewards, achievements, prestige contracts, an exclusive mercenary and $150,000 in cash. Check it out at the link below.

(Source: Steam)

Grab An Iron Man Heartbreaker Suit, Free

Gazillion Entertainment has teamed up with Alienware to hand out approximately ten thousand keys for a free Heartbreaker suit for Iron Man in Marvel Heroes. All players need to do is head on down to the link below and register/login with their Alienware account. An Alienware account is free and is usable for future product code giveaways, of which Alienware tends to have quite often. The Heartbreaker suit is also known as the Mark 17 Artillery level RT suit, as seen in the recently released film Iron Man 3.

They keys are going fast, so make sure you get in and grab one as soon as possible.

(Source: Alienware)

DC Universe and Planetside 2 Coming To PS4

Sony Online Entertainment is working hard to ensure that the PlayStation 4 is that console of choice for next generation MMO gaming. With DC Universe Online already available on the PlayStation 3, it was only a matter of time before Sony announced the manner in which the game would come to the PS4. Well, your wait is over. Sony has confirmed that not only will DC Universe Online be making the move over to next gen consoles, but that Planetside 2 will be coming to the system as well.

There hasn’t been any mention in the videos as to how server structure will work, but given precedent it is likely that Sony will segregate PS4 DC Universe players or integrate them into the Playstation 3 servers, and that PS4 Planetside 2 users will be on their own segregated servers from PC gamers.

More on this as it appears, you can find the two reveal videos at the IGN link below.

(Source: IGN)

50,000 Skill Points Gifted By CCP Due To Downtime

So the issue of Eve Online’s servers being hit by a DDoS attack and brought offline for extended maintenance has been fixed, and players are once again flying through space and shooting each other to death. With the attacks behind them and security teams working on new methods to protect the servers, CCP has turned its attention to compensating players for the loss of June 2nd and 3rd. In an announcement on the official website, in lieu of granting accounts with extra days of access, CCP will be handing out fifty thousand unallocated skill points.

You can read more about the incident in this statement by our Chief Operating Officer, CCP Spielmann. A friendly reminder if you hear of someone doing or planning something bad, even if it’s your friend, we do have the PLEX for snitches program.

All active accounts are eligible, barring trial accounts, and the points have already been handed out. Check out the link below for the full announcement and guide on how to allocate said points. No word on whether DUST514 players will be compensated as they share the same server with Eve Online players.

(Source: Eve Online)

[Community] Art Style As A Deal Breaker?

Is art style a deal breaker for you when it comes to MMOs? Or gaming in general? There is a full argument to be had on both sides on the whole graphics being more important than gameplay, one that generally revolves around the idea of low vs high resolution textures which isn’t really the topic of today’s discussion. Rather, I’m referring to players who wrote to me that they will not play The Missing Ink because they don’t like how the characters are two dimensional paper cutouts. Or other comments I’ve seen about games like Salem that have characters with tiny bodies and very large heads.

Regardless of what we like to tell ourselves and others, art style does have the capacity to make or break a game’s ability to immerse its players. I saw a lot of complaints with The Old Republic from players dissatisfied with the game’s more stylized game assets, while others found it charming and preferable to more realistic-looking graphics. On the other hand, players tend to be put off if your characters look like a slightly modified version of the training models that come with the copy of a 3D model rendering program. And then you have games where the graphics are almost too good, and you fall into the uncanny valley where they look just as disturbing.

We can go back and forth all day about how graphics are more important than gameplay, however it does play an important role in whether or not a person has an immersive experience. So what games have you refused to play because the graphics put you off from the start?

Defiance Updates Continues Plague Storyline

Defiance will be updated today to continue the plague storyline. A mysterious Irathi disease is quickly spreading, and the Ark Hunters have been tasked with tracking down a cure before it spreads too far. Players will take charge of finding the cure before it reaches the television town of Defiance, where June 17th’s episode will see the area in complete panic and distress over the oncoming storm. The update brings with it 8 new emergencies, a new game mode, 2 new pursuits, a data recorder, and a mission series that will run from June 10th to the 17th.

In the latest crossover event from Trion Worlds and Syfy, beginning on June 3rd, players will be challenged to eradicate the infection that is afflicting San Francisco’s residents and work through all new content to discover a cure in order to send it to the town of Defiance before the outbreak there gets any worse.

As with Defiance’s other television tie-in updates, today’s update is free of charge.

(Source: Defiance press release)

Face of Mankind’s Successful Kickstarter

Face of Mankind is a game of player interaction, an open faction system and player-driven economy in a completely dynamic universe. Fall of the Dominion is a restructuring of Face of Mankind, transforming the MMO and bringing it into a new decade with player-created factions, improved combat capabilities, crafting, exploration, progression, and more. Nexeon Technologies launched the Kickstarter for Fall of the Dominion back in early May, and the project is hitting its final days with successful funding just out of reach. With three days to go, the team needs a little over five hundred dollars to complete the funding effort, which will likely be achieved by the time you read this.

Perhaps what is most impressive is the dedication of the community. With three hundred twelve backers donating forty nine thousand dollars, the average donation comes out to nearly one hundred sixty dollars per person, a figure swayed by the few pledges in the multiple thousands (including one six thousand dollar pledge). If you haven’t had a chance to check out Fall of the Dominion, I highly recommend checking out the Kickstarter video below.

(Source: Kickstarter)

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nexeon/face-of-mankind-fall-of-the-dominion