Funcom Q2 2012 Highlights


Funcom’s second quarter finances are out, and the results are rather predictable. Since we already know from previous reports that The Secret World failed to meet up to Funcom’s expectations, and greatly so, it comes as little surprise that the recently launched MMO has pulled in less than half of Funcom’s previous “Conan-like” scenario. The second quarter also has the bad luck of taking in all of The Secret World’s development costs with little of its income, due to head start not beginning until the end of July.

The Company still considers it likely that sales for the 12 months period following launch of the game will be less than half of what was presented in the Conan-like scenario in 1Q presentation.

Revenue was down once again compared to the previous quarter, due to Funcom’s main source of revenue (Age of Conan) taking yet another hit in sales. That being said, all of Funcom’s currently launched MMOs are rated as “cash flow positive.” The Secret World has sold more than 200,000 copies since launch, as noted in the filing, with what Funcom says is a strong and positive reaction from its user base. Funcom recently launched a number of titles, including The Secret World, the MOBA Bloodline Champions, and a couple of free to play social games.

For the future, Funcom has a few titles under its belt. Revealed earlier this year, Funcom has partnered with Lego to create an MMO based on the mini-figures. Additionally, the report mentions a large-scale MMO titled “Project A.” No doubt we will be hearing more about that in the future.

(Source: Funcom Investor)

Guild Wars 2 Impressions Part 2: Crafting, WvWvW


First off, I would like to apologize to the servers currently fighting Blackgate. Sorry we are completely dominating the board, that is. I kid, but seriously my server is whooping some major ass in the world vs world scene. Anyway, in the previous hands on I had a chance at discussing the questing of Guild Wars 2 and the overflow servers. For today’s hands on I looked at the World Vs World Vs World and crafting.

1. Crafting Myself A Better Headline

Guild Wars 2 allows you to take on two crafts at a time, but with a catch: Apparently you can swap them at any time and still retain the levels (don’t quote me on this). Additionally, it doesn’t matter what your professions are, you are able to collect resources from any skill as long as you have the requisite tool. Each tool has a certain number of uses before it breaks and needs to be replaced, and each tool has certain tiers that must be purchased in order to gather higher level items.

Crafting should be familiar to anyone who has played an MMO. You find materials by salvaging items (which, like Guild Wars, is done with a kit and is not its own profession), gathering resource nodes, and gutting mobs for their delicious flesh and skins. Unlike its fellow games, however, Guild Wars 2 has a fancy ability to deposit your crafting goods remotely. So if you are running around and suddenly find yourself filled up with ingots, fibers, pelts, and more, you can hit a simple button and deposit them in your collections bank. Later on when you are at a crafting station, you can just as easily withdraw said items.

Naturally some of the materials you won’t be able to get at all from the wild, forcing your hand to purchase from the many in-game NPCs. Certain resources also can only be purchased with karma points, which are obtained by completing live events. Additionally, crafting is quite a bit more involved than your average MMO. Most crafting skills have raw materials that are crafted into components, but also require another step before they can be turned into armor/weapons. For instance, in order to make a leather vest, one must first create a couple of vest parts which are then crafted into the vest.

The monetary restrictions of crafting prevent you from out-leveling your character in skills.

2. World Vs World Vs World: My Word

There is a word for Guild Wars 2’s world vs world vs world mode, but I’m too busy beating down the hordes of the other servers to think about it. World Vs World allows players to represent their server against select opponents in rounds that last two weeks. At the end of the two week period, the scores are tallied and the servers with the best scores win. This takes place on four massive maps where players fight for control over various territories. The zones act as any normal Guild Wars 2 area, so there are also mobs (both passive and aggressive) and resource nodes to be mined for goods, as well as merchants, trainers, and profession zones.

The number of options to help your team in World Vs World is truly astounding. You can fortify keeps, protect caravans, attack enemy keeps, defend your own keeps, operate siege weaponry, and rebuild after a devastating defense. Handy markers on the map let you know where battle is taking place, and keep assaults quickly turn into massive sieges with well over a hundred players present. The experience of being in one of these sieges, both as attacker and defender, is quite difficult to express without experiencing it for yourself. The guilds already in place are doing their best to make the experience as epic as possible.

It is also possible to gain drops off of your enemies. You aren’t stealing any of their loot, but the game treats it as a mob kill and will spawn loot bags with random materials, weapons, equipment, etc. You won’t gain much experience or loot from PvP in this fashion, but it does provide an incentive for players who might otherwise not bother.

3. Daily/Monthly Achievements

I can only assume my monthly achievements will be reset at the end of August, a pity considering the game only launched the 25th. Guild Wars 2 offers daily and monthly achievements, with rewards for completing sets of achievements as well as the whole list. Daily achievements are rather easy, from number of kills, variety of kills, gathering, etc. Monthly quests are a bit more involved, including salvaging items in mass, experience without death, number of invaders killed, and completing events.

The rewards for completing these events is well worth the effort required, however.

4. Next Time…

Next time I hope to talk to you all a bit more about the auction house. As I said yesterday, it is still offline.

Guild Wars 2 Headstart First Impressions


We interrupt your Saturday broadcast for a piece about Guild Wars 2. The early beta weekends are a long distant past, so much so that I can’t honestly remember anything that I did in them.

1. Saving Features For Next Time…

I can’t get to everything in this hands-on. As no doubt a few hundred thousand players all attempt to force their way through the teeny tiny door that is the login server, not all of the features are presently working. Foremost, I was unable to get into any of the World Vs World or player vs player instances. Secondly, I was also unable to access the gold transfer service and auction house due to connection outages.

Despite these setbacks, the actual servers themselves held up rather well. My server is the second most populated in the North America region, and rubber banding was almost nonexistent. I can also count the number of times I was disconnected from the server on one finger, although I don’t presume that my experience is universal.

2. World Quests Beat Warhammer Out Of The Water

I catch a lot of flak whenever I refer to Warhammer Online, but the quests in Guild Wars 2 do bear a strong resemblance to the public quest system. Unlike Warhammer Online however, where public quests didn’t serve much purpose other than a repetitive distraction from the normal quest grind, Guild Wars 2 revolves around public quests.

And to separate the two even more, the great majority of quests have numerous ways to complete them. For instance, a farmer may ask you to help him, which you can accomplish by feeding his livestock, killing pests, putting out fires, or watering seeds. While you are doing this, you may find yourself in the middle of a live event where bandits raid the farm. So you put down your tools and finish the spur of the moment quest, and then go back to what you were doing.

Live events are spontaneous and not marked on the map. Unlike Warhammer Online, if you fail at one of these events, the timer doesn’t just reset. Instead the event moves down a completely different path. Say, for instance, that you fail to push back zombies rising in a swamp. They populate and the next event has you defending a town that they attack. Fail that and the town is destroyed.

In theory, anyway. Failing events is rather difficult this weekend when people outnumber the event mobs by an easy 10:1 margin.

3. Overflow Is Obnoxious

I understand the need for Overflow in a game with as massive of a community as Guild Wars, and I would prefer to have overflow servers instead of having to sit in a queue line. But as usual, the concept in practice is not the same as in theory. Overflow is based on zone, not server, so in the time since the Guild Wars servers went live, I have experienced the following:

  1. Enter game, immediately put in overflow.
  2. Finally travel to home server.
  3. Enter city, instance, or new zone. Immediately put back in overflow.
  4. Enter regular server.
  5. Return to city, leave instance, or new zone. Immediately put back in overflow.

You don’t spend a lot of time in areas like the city, so to have the game constantly put you back in overflow just because you changed zones becomes incredibly annoying after a while. Again: Better than the alternative, but in need of improvement.

Blizzard: Will Not Up WoW’s Free Trial


World of Warcraft may still be at the top of the game, but if the past few years are any indication, it is a title that may be lost in the foreseeable future. Since it hit its peak just a couple of years ago, World of Warcraft has seen a substantial loss of players, down to the current level of approximately nine million. Still, this figure doesn’t appear to have frightened the top brass at Blizzard Entertainment.

In an interview with Gamasutra, Blizzard stated that the developer has no plans to increase the current free to play limit. Producer John Lagrave commented that there are special parts of the game that he would rather reserve for paying customers.

“We looked at whether Level 20 would give you a good sense of what our game is, and we think it does. We’ve definitely slid some of the pay-for features into the first 20 Levels,”

Sorry, gamers who for one reason or another are still holding out.

Blizzard: Will Not Up WoW's Free Trial


World of Warcraft may still be at the top of the game, but if the past few years are any indication, it is a title that may be lost in the foreseeable future. Since it hit its peak just a couple of years ago, World of Warcraft has seen a substantial loss of players, down to the current level of approximately nine million. Still, this figure doesn’t appear to have frightened the top brass at Blizzard Entertainment.

In an interview with Gamasutra, Blizzard stated that the developer has no plans to increase the current free to play limit. Producer John Lagrave commented that there are special parts of the game that he would rather reserve for paying customers.

“We looked at whether Level 20 would give you a good sense of what our game is, and we think it does. We’ve definitely slid some of the pay-for features into the first 20 Levels,”

Sorry, gamers who for one reason or another are still holding out.

International Sanctions Shut Down World of Warcraft in Iran


Iranian gamers may be waking up to find that access to a number of games will be going away in the coming weeks. According to the BBC, while the Iran government would like you to believe that the games are being banned as “western propaganda” used to “poison the minds of the youth population in Iran,” the real culprit appears to be international sanctions against the country. While many publishers already have no intention of releasing their games in Iran, this does mean that gamers in Iran will find their IP addresses blocked from accessing previously available services.

Blizzard responded to recent comments of Battle.net being blocked in Iran with the following:

We can’t speak to reports surrounding the Iranian government restricting games from its citizens. What we do know is that United States trade restrictions and economic sanction laws prohibit Blizzard from doing business with residents of certain nations, including Iran. We’ve recently tightened up our procedures to ensure compliance with those laws, which means we must restrict access to our games by players in those nations.

Iranian youth may want to consider a proxy if they intend on continuing to poison their minds with western propaganda.

(Source: BBC)

And the Golden Joysticks Nominees Are…


Another year, another Golden Joystick award. Every year I bring up the nominees, and since MMO Fallout is all about MMOs (and gratuitous food analogies), I tend to focus on just the one category. Last year the Best MMO category housed six titles. This year, the list has been expanded to a whopping nine. Luckily for the contestants, the winning won’t entirely be a one-sided race, with titles like World of Warcraft and Guild Wars 2 absent thanks to release timing. Nominated this year are: Eve Online, League of Legends, Lord of the Rings Online, Rift, RuneScape, Star Wars: The Old Republic, TERA, The Secret World, and World of Tanks. 

Our house favorite Tribes: Ascend has been nominated for Best Shooter, with Age of Empires Online vying for the position as Best Strategy. Diablo III (as if it needs any help) is looking for the trophy of Best RPG, while The Elder Scrolls Online is up for One to Watch. Finally, Diablo III and Star Wars: The Old Republic are up for Ultimate Game of the Year.

Best of luck to the nominees and I will see you when the winners are chosen.

(Source: Golden Joystick)

Everquest II’s Goblin Games Seems Inspired By Squeal of Fortune


I have to imagine that somewhere out there, at least one person has stopped playing RuneScape because of Squeal of Fortune, and wound up playing Everquest II instead. The odds are low, incredibly so, but with time my mind seems to think that such a person must be, and gee, will this news stink. For the uninformed, Squeal of Fortune is a cash shop game on RuneScape where players receive spins either through in-game activities, purchased through the store, or daily as an allowance. The mini-game is hosted by a goblin and has the chance of winning gold, resources, and equipment.

Today, Everquest II revealed the latest update: The goblin games. In this mini-game, players are issued tickets on a monthly basis, depending on their membership status, with the option to purchase more on the cash shop. Those tickets can be used to play one of several mini-games, each of which ultimately ends up in the player receiving a loot box that offers a random item from the list.

So what are the differences? In RuneScape, spin tickets are given on a daily basis while in Everquest II free tickets are offered monthly. Both games offer one ticket to free players and three to members (in RuneScape it is normally two, three for the summer event). In RuneScape, spins cost approximately $5 per ten tickets ($.50 per ticket) with bonuses for higher quantities, while in Everquest they cost $1 per ticket with no option to purchase in bulk.

Maybe I’m just reading too far into this.

Everquest II's Goblin Games Seems Inspired By Squeal of Fortune


I have to imagine that somewhere out there, at least one person has stopped playing RuneScape because of Squeal of Fortune, and wound up playing Everquest II instead. The odds are low, incredibly so, but with time my mind seems to think that such a person must be, and gee, will this news stink. For the uninformed, Squeal of Fortune is a cash shop game on RuneScape where players receive spins either through in-game activities, purchased through the store, or daily as an allowance. The mini-game is hosted by a goblin and has the chance of winning gold, resources, and equipment.

Today, Everquest II revealed the latest update: The goblin games. In this mini-game, players are issued tickets on a monthly basis, depending on their membership status, with the option to purchase more on the cash shop. Those tickets can be used to play one of several mini-games, each of which ultimately ends up in the player receiving a loot box that offers a random item from the list.

So what are the differences? In RuneScape, spin tickets are given on a daily basis while in Everquest II free tickets are offered monthly. Both games offer one ticket to free players and three to members (in RuneScape it is normally two, three for the summer event). In RuneScape, spins cost approximately $5 per ten tickets ($.50 per ticket) with bonuses for higher quantities, while in Everquest they cost $1 per ticket with no option to purchase in bulk.

Maybe I’m just reading too far into this.

Ultima Online Producer: Support Ultima For Ultima 2


It’s easy to forget sometimes that Ultima Online is still with us. After all, the game enjoys a healthy but quiet community, and the idea that Ultima Online 2 could be a reality was mostly given up on some time ago. Still, the reveal of Ultima Forever, the remake of Ultima 4 as a free to play game, has some fans worried about the future of the ancient MMO they love. In order to quell these thoughts, Jeff Skalski has posted a Letter From The Producer on the Ultima Herald. In the letter, he assures players that Ultima Online will remain stead in its tracks, and that neither Ultima Online or Ultima Forever have had an affect on the development of each other.

Finally, Skalski made a point of Ultima Online 2:

Lastly, for those interested in seeing a UO2.  No surprise announcements on that today, but what I will say by everyone continuing to support UO and Ultima Forever this is the kind of ammunition I need to convince the high level execs that the market is ready for more Ultima.

So fans of the much anticipated and oft-cancelled sequel can take solace in knowing that they aren’t they only ones who would like to see the franchise continue. If you want to see an Ultima Online 2, I suggest making your desires known to the executives at Electronic Arts.

(Source: Ultima Online)