MMO Fallout

MMOrning Shots:

In hindsight, The Agency probably would have done better than Sony Online Entertainment expected had they allowed development to continue and perhaps even complete. For those who don’t remember this title, The Agency was Sony’s take on an unlicensed James Bond MMO. Players would take on instanced missions that would allow them to go in guns blazing or to choose the more stealthy route and drop some poison in their target’s drink.

Unfortunately The Agency was simply a casualty of downsizing, although hopefully Sony will keep the property in mind for when Everquest Next makes them a boatload of dosh.

Neverwinter’s Founder Pack Valued $25 Million Yearly

It all makes sense.

Neverwinter's Founder Pack Valued $25 Million Yearly

It all makes sense.

Xsyon Unveils Economy Patch

Xsyon has announced its first major update for 2013. The update that deployed today focuses on tribal totems, tribe upkeep, and crafting revisions. Players will be happy to see that it is now possible to set up a trading post with their tribe, selling items that they crafted in return for local tribal currencies. In addition, this update marks a transition to new servers and Xsyon should see more frequent patching in the future. You can find the patch notes below the features below.

New features include:

·         Trade Totems where players can sell their found and crafted good for local tribal currencies.

·         Tribal upkeep system providing bonuses to tribes that keep their reserves stocked.

·         Crafting improved allowing searching through recipes and crafting of multiple items in one command.

·         Improved armor system including Artisan and Master armor sets.

·         Balanced and raised stat bonuses from armor sets.

·         New resources and material types.

·         Tribal alliances.

·         Much much more!

(Source: Patch Notes)

Namco Bandai Loves Free To Play Now

Back when Namco Bandai’s Olivier Comte said that free to play games “couldn’t be high quality” and were “whittling away at AAA development,” I made the poor comparison to a child throwing a tantrum in the Walmart parking lot. Fortunately, in this day and age, money talks and so does the threat of unemployment, so like every other entity which diametrically opposes change on a moral level right up until that point where the threat of market irrelevance suddenly overcomes the desire to stand strong and wrong and stop denying that the house is slowly burning down around you when the wallpaper melted six months ago, Namco Bandai now loves free to play.

“Free-to-play is playing an increasingly important role so it’s very exciting to be bringing one of our most successful franchises to the free-to-play space for everyone to enjoy.”

Namco Bandai has unveiled Ridge Racer Driftopia, an upcoming free to play racer for PS3 and PC.

MMOrning Shots: HTML5 Demands

RuneScape’s HTML5 beta is well under way, and considering how different the game looks from its current implementation, I keep getting these nagging feelings that the screenshots I’m seeing are fake, even though I’m the one who took them!

Shadowrun Online’s Story System Is…Interesting?

Shadowrun Online passed its Kickstarter Goal of half a million dollars way back in August 2012, and while the game won’t be hitting its original May 2013 anticipated launch, the team over at Cliffhanger Productions is working hard and keeping the community informed. In an update released today, the team is blogging about how the story will work in Shadowrun Online.

The way the story will play out in Shadowrun Online is in phases, rather than the normal RPG storytelling mechanic of main quest and branching side-quests. Each player has their own story which forward the meta-plot for everyone. The example that they give is that players are tasked with taking down psychotic gangsters who are using a new drug. Once you personally take down enough of their hideouts, your personal plot advances and you move on to the next stage. Once enough players have raided these hideouts, the meta-plot will advance for all players and the global mission will be striking against the drug distributors. As players assist a group, that organization sees their influence rise, eventually leading to more missions given to other organizations to try and take them down.

Cliffhanger hopes that the dynamic systems in place will work fluidly and be fun to play for the community. One side effect of this process is that players need to be locked down to certain areas of the city that Shadowrun Online takes place in for the meta plot to make sense and work. So Cliffhanger is doing just that, even going as far as giving Shadowrun Online the subtitle: “Lockdown.”

(Source: Cliffhanger Productions)

Shadowrun Online's Story System Is…Interesting?

(Source: Cliffhanger Productions)

City of Steam Successfully Greenlit on Steam

Congratulations are in order for the team at Mechanist Games for the successful Greenlighting of City of Steam on Steam Greenlight. City of Steam joins as one of the twenty titles approved in the sixth batch of games to be given the go ahead by Valve to release on the mega-platform. City of Steam is an upcoming browser game built for the UNITY web player and set in an industrial fantasy world with Steampunk elements. Players are able to take control of eleven races of creatures with four classes to choose from.

City of Steam is currently in between beta stages and is set for release sometime before Tupac finishes releasing new albums.

Reloaded Productions Overhauls APB Threat System

You have to stand in awe at how much Reloaded Productions has done with All Points Bulletin since they took over the property just a few short years ago. With the release of version 1.11.0 today, players in APB will find that the manner in which they gain or lose threat will be much different than it was before. The previous system works pretty simply: If you win a match, your threat level goes up. If you lose a match, your threat level goes down. The system makes sense in theory, but once you put it into practice it tends to fall apart at the seams. What if a player performs exceptionally but loses at the last second because of one reason or another? What if a player dominates the match but loses anyway because his team is terrible? What if a player AFK’s through the match and his team wins without his help?

With 1.11.0, APB: Reloaded’s threat system is moving toward a more participation focused scoring system. Everything you do in a mission counts toward your score, which in turn counts toward your threat. Kill enemies, complete objectives, provide cover for your teammates, everything is counted. At the end of the mission, the system tallies the scores and counts players against each other as if it were a free to play match (ie: you don’t get the #1 player’s bonus because you were on his team). Players below a certain participation threshold (AFK) will have their rewards nullified.

You can read the blog post at the link below.

(Source: APB Reloaded)

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