Darkfall: Unholy Wars Reveals Gameplay In New Trailer


Since Aventurine announced Darkfall: Unholy Wars, I’ve seen a bit of criticism from the community over the lack of video demonstrating the new gameplay. In a recently released trailer, Aventurine shows off the Baresark, one of the classes in the warrior school of training. The Baresark is a melee class with the ability to do area of effect damage as well as stomp the ground, throwing his enemies away and (in the video) over a cliff. The new UI is also shown in the video, and you can see that it is incredibly minimalistic.

More videos showcasing the new class-based system in Darkfall: Unholy Wars is sure to come. Darkfall shuts down November 15th and is currently free for all current and past subscribers, Unholy Wars launches as a separate game on November 20th.

Sony Joins The PLEX Trade, Reveals Krono


PLEX is an item in Eve Online which allows pilots to purchase subscription time without spending a dime. In essence, one player purchases a PLEX for the cost of one month’s subscription. The PLEX is a real item that exists in the game world, and can be sold to other players for ISK, thus creating a sanctioned form of real money trading, without the negative effects of having gold farmers rolling over the server. Since then, the system has been adopted in other games, from the gems in Guild Wars 2 to a vanity pet in World of Warcraft. TERA introduced Chronoscrolls, and several other MMOs are coming along with their own special items as well. So it comes as little surprise that Sony Online Entertainment would eventually add this tactic to their arsenal.

At SOE Live 2012, John Smedley revealed that the Krono would soon be hitting Everquest II, on October 29th. The Krono can be traded between players, and offers one month of premium game access in whatever game it is redeemed in. Initially the Krono will only be available in Everquest II, however Sony hopes to implement the item in the rest of its library as time goes on. With Everquest at least, this should put a stop to one of the game’s black markets. On Everquest, currently, players regularly trade platinum (in-game currency) for game card codes, a similar but unregulated version of the Krono. As is common with such a market, scammers are always about with fake or used codes.

SOE Reveals Dragon’s Prophet, Dragon MMO


Sony Online Entertainment’s library of games just seems to get bigger and bigger this year. With nine titles currently in operation and at least two coming in the near future (Wizardry and Planetside 2 with Everquest Next sometime away), one might be wondering: Can Sony pack any more titles into their arsenal? The answer is an obvious yes. At SOE Live 2012, Sony has revealed Dragon’s Prophet, an MMO from the creators of Runes of Magic. Dragon’s Prophet takes place in a fantasy world where dragons roam free, and you of course must capture, train, and ride them.

Dragon’s Prophet will sport SOE’s trademark “Free To Play, Your Way” payment model, and offer up a slice of action-based combat, extensive player housing, and allows guilds to build an extensive kingdom to their tastes. You can sign up for the beta at the website below, and check out the trailer.

(Source: Dragon’s Prophet)

SOE Reveals Dragon's Prophet, Dragon MMO


Sony Online Entertainment’s library of games just seems to get bigger and bigger this year. With nine titles currently in operation and at least two coming in the near future (Wizardry and Planetside 2 with Everquest Next sometime away), one might be wondering: Can Sony pack any more titles into their arsenal? The answer is an obvious yes. At SOE Live 2012, Sony has revealed Dragon’s Prophet, an MMO from the creators of Runes of Magic. Dragon’s Prophet takes place in a fantasy world where dragons roam free, and you of course must capture, train, and ride them.

Dragon’s Prophet will sport SOE’s trademark “Free To Play, Your Way” payment model, and offer up a slice of action-based combat, extensive player housing, and allows guilds to build an extensive kingdom to their tastes. You can sign up for the beta at the website below, and check out the trailer.

(Source: Dragon’s Prophet)

Everquest Next Will Be The Largest Sandbox MMO Ever


It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything substantial about Everquest Next, and Sony’s reasons are pretty solid: They’ve blown up the game. At Sony Live 2012, John Smedley took to the stage and talked about how the industry needs to end the current system of launch and decline, and follow strategies laid out by games like League of Legends, who launch and continue to grow. This, Smedley explains, can only be done by adding more emergent gameplay, something the company hopes to do with its current and future MMO titles. As a result of this thinking, Everquest Next has been redesigned as a sandbox MMO:

What we are building is something that we will be very proud to call EverQuest. It will be the largest sandbox-style MMO ever designed. The same exciting content delivered in a new way. Something you’ve never seen before. The MMO world has never seen before. We didn’t want more kill 10 rats quests. We didn’t want more of the same. If you look at the MMOs out there, they’re delivering the same content over and over again. So are we. We need to change that. When we released EverQuest, we changed the world. We want to do that again with a different type of game.

Expect plenty more to come in the future on Everquest Next.

(Source: EQ2 Wire)

Five More Glitch Invites


It is Glitch beta giveaway time! With the new changes to the comment system, your comments should be authenticated immediately. Hopefully we all know the rules, but for the uninitiated, let’s go over them one more time:

  1. Leave a comment with a valid email in the email box. Really, that’s it.
  2. The first five to comment are guaranteed an invite.
  3. You will need to respond to a confirmation email.
  4. Comment anyway. I get invites on a regular occasion and will simply go down the line.

Your email address will not be retained or used for any purpose except to confirm its validity before sending the invite.

Xsyon Trial Server Now Open


Hey folks, remember Xsyon? Yes, it is still up and running and doing just fine. Up until now if you wanted to try Xsyon you had to buy the game and pay the subscription fee. The rules are simple: You can play as long as you want, and do pretty much whatever you want. The limitation is that the server will be reset every Monday, so if you want your progress to be saved, you’ll have to buy the game.

All players old and new that are signed up on our forums now have access to the Trial Server. Instructions on Trial Server access are available on your account page after signing up.

(Source: Xsyon)

NCSoft Opens Account Migration


As announced earlier this year, NCSoft has rolled out account migration for players of Aion and Lineage II, beginning today. The move will bring both games under one account, consolidating how the player handles their login, NCoin, and security. As mentioned in the release:

NC Accounts allow players to manage their Aion and L2 game accounts with a single email, which you will be able to change for added security–no more static account name! NC Accounts also share a wallet for NCoin, meaning that any NCoin you purchase can be used between your Aion and L2 accounts!

The migration is currently voluntary, but only temporarily. Following a grace period, users will be required to migrate their Aion and Lineage II accounts to NCsoft accounts in order to log in at all. Any unapplied items will not transfer over, so NCSoft recommends you apply them before making the move.

A small update, but an important one nonetheless.

(Source: NCSoft press release)

Past/Present Players Invited To Return To Darkfall


Good news, Darkfall players! On November 15th, Darkfall will shut down for good. What’s so good about that? Starting on October 17th, Aventurine is inviting all players, past and present, to play the current iteration of Darkfall completely free of charge until the servers shut down in November. Players will simply be able to log into the servers starting the 17th (not necessarily right at midnight), and send the original version off in style. Following, Darkfall Unholy Wars is set for release five days later, November 20th.

Although the two games share the same brand name, Aventurine has stressed that Darkfall: Unholy Wars is a different game. While some aspects remain the same, the world has been completely rebuilt from the ground up, and just about every aspect of the game from the UI to the skill system, combat, and more have been completely revamped. While players characters are not making the transition, accounts that already owned Darkfall will not be forced to purchase Unholy Wars.

As a result, the Darkfall as we know it is considered defunct as of November 15th, and Darkfall: Unholy Wars will launch as something of a direct sequel shortly after.

(Source: Press Release)

[Website] Update On Comment System


Good news everyone!

Normally I don’t report on website updates, but I feel that this is large enough to warrant a note. Generally MMO Fallout doesn’t get a lot of comments, and I think I’ve figured out why. As the folks from the Save City of Heroes group have pointed out, the Bad Behavior plugin I had installed when I transitioned MMO Fallout from a wordpress.com host to its own server (back in February), had been flagging real people as spam bots and not allowing them to post at all, and in some cases not even access the website. After some careful deliberation, I decided that Bad Behavior wasn’t doing its job, and the role of spam-detection has been handed over to Akismet full time.

I’ve been able to tweak the comment system to a much finer point than it was before, and have removed some limitations, and the experiment appears to be a success. Spam is still getting caught, but all comments should now be immediately approved by the system instead of requiring me to go through them by hand. As always, I try to keep the comment system as open as possible. There is no requirement to register, you don’t even have to fill out the username/email box.

This update actually went into effect last week before I left for Comic Con. I wanted to leave the comment system to itself for a few days to make sure everything was running smoothly before announcing anything.