Taco Tuesday: Four MMO Revival Pitches


Welcome to Tuesday, there are trays at the front of the line and plenty of tacos to go around. Due to the past few weeks sucking up most, if not all, of the Greenlight and Kickstarter MMOs, you may be glad to hear we are shifting paradigm to having a real discussion. So on to today’s top 5:

Aventurine today announced Darkfall: Unholy Wars, a total revamp to just about every aspect of Darkfall, from the graphics to gameplay, user interface and beyond. So for today’s topic, let’s take a look at some MMos that could use a fresh facelift, new coat of paint, and perhaps a less rusty engine.

4. City of Heroes 2

Did anyone see that pander bear just walk by? There is a pretty unified consensus among players and the press, as well as hinted from Paragon Studios, that City of Heroes was still quite profitable, and fell victim to corporate restructuring. And since the game isn’t quite buried in the ground yet, let’s discuss digging up its corpose and reviving it via electricity.

The show of support for City of Heroes should be enough for a small (or large?) developer to either pick up the City of Heroes IP or create their own roster of notable villains and heroes, and set to work creating a new super hero MMO with a focus on slower combat and deeper strategy, alongside a deep character creation system. Think Champions Online but not as arcadey.

So what are you waiting for, indie developers? Get off of your generic, WoW-ish fantasy MMOs and listen to the pleas of the internet.

3. Warhammer Online 2

I know what you’re saying, “Omali, EA wouldn’t give Mythic the funding to buy a Snickers, let alone fund a new MMO based on Warhammer Online.” You are correct, and that’s why part one of this plan hinges on someone tearing the Warhammer MMO license from Mythic, not unlike Lucas and Star Wars Galaxies. Nothing personal, and Mythic could even keep Wrath of Heroes.

How do you create a new Warhammer Online? First, by not programming it on the gamebryo engine. This is an important factor, because it will prevent the mass exodus of your players over the engine not being capable of handling basic systems, and you won’t have to worry about disabling certain portions of the game or cutting mass swaths of content.

Who wouldn’t like to see a new Warhammer Online? Perhaps with three faction PvP, open world combat, and territory control perhaps?

2. Earthrise

Tell me you didn’t fall in love with Earthrise…on paper. Of course I’m talking about the version we were advertised, where thousands of players would battle in an epic science fiction sandbox MMO, dictated by one’s skill on the battlefield. Not the one where perhaps a dozen or so players battled the forces of lag, game breaking bugs, and unfinished features in a game that provided little more than quest grinding without a community to provide it purpose.

Imagine, if you will, if Earthrise was more like Darkfall but in a science fiction setting. So instead of swords, spells, and archery, you would have guns, nanotechnology, and big heavy stuff to hit other things with. On the other hand, I’d settle for an Earthrise that just wasn’t

1. Ultima Online 2

That pander bear just won’t go away. I must say that out of the items on this list, Ultima Online 2 is likely the only game with even a wink of likelihood. For that matter, it’s the only one that has officially been mentioned, by Jeff Slaski telling players to show EA that they want a sequel. So I’m being optimistic with this list, but I’m not dense. I know that the odds of most of these games even making it past the drawing board are slim.

I love Ultima Online as it is, but I will admit that the code that the game is built on is likely ancient and very obsolete and likely difficult to work with. If the folks at EA were able to upgrade Ultima’s underlying engine, they would likely be able to push the MMO to do far more than it is currently capable of, without sacrificing much if any of the features that the loyal community has come to love.

So it wouldn’t be as much of a sequel as it is a reboot. Like Funcom upgrading Anarchy Online to the Dreamworld Engine.

City of Heroes Details Reimbursement


Sorry, City Of Heroes players. NCSoft has finally broken their silence over the incoming shut down of City Of Heroes, and it wasn’t to announce that the talks with Paragon Studios and player support had moved them to change their minds. Rather, the publisher announced the expected round of compensation and reimbursement.

Players who were VIP as of September 1st will remain so for the rest of the MMO’s life. Outstanding balances as of September 1st will be reimbursed, as well as Paragon Points purchased after August 24th. If your outstanding balance was purchased with a game card, you will be required to submit a support ticket and have NCSoft call you to reimburse via wire transfer. If that is not possible, players will receive a check by mail.

There are several events planned to take City of Heroes to its sunset with a bang.

(source: NCSoft)

Darkfall: Unholy Wars Screenshots


Aventurine has dumped a bunch of screenshots for Unholy War, the upcoming relaunch of the hardcore sandbox MMO. You can check them out in the gallery above.

Unholy War launches November 20th.

Darkfall: Unholy Wars Announced


Tasos Flambouras has gone to Youtube to announce Darkfall: Unholy Wars. In the video, Flambouras talks about how the job of fixing the current Darkfall was too great, and as a result Aventurine has decided to relaunch as a separate game entirely. In the video, Flambouras praises the community for its extensive feedback, and notes that Unholy Wars is in internal testing and is gearing up to roll out.

Unholy Wars features a massive art change, as well as an entirely new map, new races, new environments, a new GUI, and more.

Quite exciting news. Check out the video trailer below.

Guild Wars 2: Now On Mac!


Blah blah blah, no gamers on Mac, etc etc. With that out of the way, Arenanet has good news everyone! As of right now, Mac players will be able to download and play Guild Wars 2 on a native client. Currently in beta, the client supports all of the features that Guild Wars players enjoy on Windows. In order to download the client, players need an active Guild Wars 2 account, and the game can be downloaded through the account management section of the Guild Wars website.

The Mac Beta client is available immediately for all Guild Wars 2 players. It shares the same features and connects to the same live game servers as the PC client. Anyone who purchases Guild Wars 2 can now play it on both PC and Mac.

Check it out. Keep in mind that this is a beta client, and may have bugs that are not present in the Windows client. Guild Wars 2 on the Mac requires OSX 10.7 or later, Intel Core i5 or later, at least 4GB of ram, 25GB of hard drive space, and runs well on a variety of Mac computers from iMacs, Macbook Pros, and Mac Mini.

(Source: Guild Wars 2)

Bots Are Choking To Death In RuneScape


It must be Christmas. No, my calendar says September. This week (hopefully) marks the reveal of Botany Bay, and on Sunday Jagex announced that they would begin silently banning bots starting Monday. Well the bans aren’t exactly silent, as players are spotting (and video taping) bots spamming gold farming websites in key areas. The bots have been recorded spamming for several minutes, before inexplicably choking and dying, presumably being banned thereafter.

This month, Jagex announced a new method of detecting and banning bots, both collection and advertising, as well as a way for players to take part in the process and sentence bots to death in a Salem-esque trial. Why the flashy, and rather unnecessary, showmanship? When you spend most of your time banning bots, sometimes you want to have fun doing it, according to a recent Q&A. The alternative goal is to give the players instant feedback that the developer is indeed taking action against bots and gold farmers.

Big Darkfall Announcement Coming…Maybe, At Some Point.


Darkfall. The game hasn’t been featured here at MMO Fallout much lately, in fact not since June when Aventurine announced that the client price would be suspended in favor of simply subscribing after the trial runs out. Meanwhile, Aventurine is still plugging away at Darkfall 2.0 (or Darkfall 2010 as many of you know it), and Community Liason Unuldur appeared on the forums last Friday to announce an upcoming announcement:

Hello Darkfallers!

Apologies for the delay. We have an important announcement to make this Monday and we needed to turn our attention there.

And yes, I realize that it is already Tuesday. So what was the announcement? It wasn’t made. Granted, Aventurine is only off by a day, so we’ll have to wait and see what the important announcement is.

(Source: Darkfall Forums)

KTERA Free To Play Server A Success, Permanently Added


While we’re on the subject of TERA, let’s take a look back at its Korean counterpart. Earlier this year, I mentioned that the folks over at KTera were testing a free to play server. The server was originally set to remain active until August 9th, when the project would be pulled and Bluehole Studios would determine how viable TERA would be in the free to play market. Well, August 9th has come and gone (over a month ago) and I’ve received a few emails asking me to follow up on the previous article.

First of all, the server run was extended until August 30th, and according to mmosite.com, has been extended permanently. The free to play server, in addition, carries a permanent 2x experience buff as well as extra loot from quest rewards. Players are able to transfer their characters from the free to play servers to the subscription servers, although the article does not specify if the opposite is also true. It also notes that there is no cash shop on this server.

No word on free to play TERA in the western hemisphere, but given the apparent success of the server in Korea, an announcement seems just over the horizon.

(Source: mmosite)

TERA: Buy 1 Get 1 Free, Amazon


What is better than one copy of TERA? Endless shrimp at Red Lobster is not a valid response. The answer is TWO copies of TERA for the price of one. Moving along from the shellfish, Amazon is currently running a deal on the digital version of TERA:

Until September 22nd, you can pick up TERA for $9.99 USD (an 80% discount). With it, you will receive a promotional credit for $9.99 which can only be redeemed on TERA. The credit is good until October 15th, but you will have to actually buy TERA before September 22nd. An unusual, and rather unnecessarily complicated method of delivering the key, but what can you do?

The moves comes on the forefront of TERA’s server merger in North America, bringing the number of servers from eleven to three. En Masse is also introducing a new protection on accounts: deleting characters now requires a seven day wait if that character is above level five. The cool down timer for joining guilds is also being increased to two weeks.

(Source: TERA Website

Monday Night Cap: Daily Questing


Welcome to your night cap, for Monday September seventeenth, star date two zero one two. Daily activities are a great way for MMOs to keep their communities interested and playing. From a design stand, it directs the more casual crowd to a list of chores that can be completed even if the person doesn’t have much time to play. They can also introduce players to certain features that they might not have found or tried on their own.

Take Guild Wars 2, for a recent example. Every day players are tasked with killing x number of mobs, x type of mobs, collecting x number of materials and completing events. With fast teleportation, the entire daily list can be completed in a half hour or less, and offers a nice reward for completion. By spacing out the events, players are essentially pushed into exploring the world.

Daily quests are especially nice in sandbox games, where the player might be overwhelmed by the vast number of choices of activities, but don’t have much in the way of guidance. RuneScape is introducing its own list of daily activities, to give the player a set of tasks to get them going, offering bonus experience for participating.

And yes, daily quest timers are also used to herd players and place artificial limits on content. Certain MMOs place timers on when you can raid dungeons, or how much experience you can obtain in one day (Final Fantasy). Some titles limit how many times you can pull a reward from a boss. This is a controversial, and well disputed issue among various communities.

A developer would tell you that the reason is wealth difference, and that they don’t want a player who can only raid once or twice a week to feel at a disadvantage to someone who has the time to raid ten times a night. The player’s side is that they pay the subscription (or whatever the model is) and therefore should be able to raid as much as they want. Another argument by the community is that MMOs are a time investment, therefore the players with more time should naturally have an advantage over those with less.

So dailies aren’t perfect, but they do aid people like myself who often quit MMOs not out of bad quality, but simply because they lose our attention. On the other hand, having dailies linked to multi-day events can result in an alienated player if for some reason they miss a day and have to start over.

How do you feel about dailies?