Blizzard Lays Off 600: But From Where?


Blizzard is a special case. If any other company were to lay off 600 people, I might put on my tinfoil hat and start predicting the incoming Chapter 11 apocalypse. Meanwhile, while the usual people are screaming of the impending death of Blizzard, it is worth noting that 90% of the layoffs are from the non-development side of the company without impact on the World of Warcraft development.

But there is one factor I wanted to talk about with regard to World of Warcraft, and that is how Blizzard has managed to do a complete reversal of expectations on income versus subscription numbers. In the past year or two since Blizzard’s figures peaked at twelve million, subscription numbers have dropped by nearly two million. Against what you might expect, Blizzard continues to post higher revenue from World of Warcraft thanks to the increasing sale of cash shop vanity pets and mounts.

So while a good few are referring to the layoffs as the death slide of Blizzard, I’m going to need more persuasion before I dust off the old tin foil hat.

Everquest Online Adventures Shutting Down


Talk about disappointingly bad timing. Just as I started writing about Everquest Online Adventures, Sony has announced the impending shuttering of the title. On March 29th, Sony will be shutting down Everquest Online Adventures, Cosmic Rift, Infantry, and Star Chamber. Everquest Online Adventures launched in 2003 as a Playstation 2 exclusive.

As a reward to the players of EverQuest® Online Adventures, we will be giving you 3 months of Gold Membership in both EverQuest® and EverQuest® II. We greatly appreciate all of you and hope that you choose to join us in another version of the Norrath that we all love. These gold memberships will be available starting on Friday, March 16, 2012.

Everquest Online Adventures has survived a long time despite all odds, being a subscription MMO on an obsolete console. While EQOA is playable on the Playstation 3, doing so requires not only a model that has backwards compatibility, but the physical disk itself. A new copy of EQOA Frontiers has become extremely rare and expensive, while the original version, still playable, can experience issues when Frontiers content is displaying on screen.

(Source: SOE Website)

Black Prophecy’s Future In Question


Black Prophecy exploded on to Gamigo’s library of titles as one of the best looking MMOs on the market, even more surprising when you look at the free to play model. The game has been praised for its high production quality and customization, but rather criticized for lack of variety in quests and poor server stability. Unfortunately, as Games Industry is now reporting, the future of Black Prophecy may rely on an outside provider.

Developer Reakktor Media is insolvent, and is seeking contract work to stay afloat.

“We are in a position to accomplish basically anything what is played right now, even if we were focused in the recent times on multiplayer mobile gaming. However, the MMO area is historically our organically grown core competence.”

If there is any hope for Black Prophecy, Gamigo owns 19% of Reakktor Media and may be a prime candidate to buy it up in case the play for contract work doesn’t generate enough income to keep Reakktor afloat.

(Source: Gamesindustry.biz)

Black Prophecy's Future In Question


Black Prophecy exploded on to Gamigo’s library of titles as one of the best looking MMOs on the market, even more surprising when you look at the free to play model. The game has been praised for its high production quality and customization, but rather criticized for lack of variety in quests and poor server stability. Unfortunately, as Games Industry is now reporting, the future of Black Prophecy may rely on an outside provider.

Developer Reakktor Media is insolvent, and is seeking contract work to stay afloat.

“We are in a position to accomplish basically anything what is played right now, even if we were focused in the recent times on multiplayer mobile gaming. However, the MMO area is historically our organically grown core competence.”

If there is any hope for Black Prophecy, Gamigo owns 19% of Reakktor Media and may be a prime candidate to buy it up in case the play for contract work doesn’t generate enough income to keep Reakktor afloat.

(Source: Gamesindustry.biz)

Jagex: Balancing Amazing Prizes With…Well, Amazing Prizes


In order to balance the circulation of powerful items, many MMOs use what is known as either Bind on Equip or Bind On Pickup. The former allows you to trade the equipment, provided you haven’t used it yet. The latter renders the item unable to be traded once you pick it up, making the item vendor trash if you don’t meet the class restrictions or already have better gear.

For a game like RuneScape, bind on pickup is mostly nonexistent outside of quest-related items, as well as certain sets of items that decay over time. In today’s update, Jagex implemented a daily spinner game that can be played for gold, resources, and even powerful weapons/armor. Squeal of Fortune costs nothing to play and can be played once (twice for members) each day.

So how does a company balance the idea of potentially injecting a mass of free high level gear into the game? Simple, my dear Watson. High level equipment obtained through this mini-game is branded “lucky,” and cannot be traded to other players, or even dropped through the standard death mechanics. If you die with it, however (skulled, losing everything on death) it will be destroyed and irretrievable.

Granted, there is the issue of Jagex’s big traded prize: 10 million gold. I have faith that Jagex is ensuring that the ten million gold isn’t achieved too much.

Funcom Q4 Finances: Project A Unveiled


In their third quarter finances, Funcom predicted a lower revenue for quarter four on account of the initial fervor over Age of Conan’s free to play ending. In the presentation, released today, Funcom reaffirmed this by posting a revenue loss of 11% quarter over quarter.

While Age of Conan remains Funcom’s primary source of income, revenue for the title was down compared to the previous quarter when Funcom launched free to play. Bloodline Champions, Funcom’s MOBA, saw an increase in profits thanks in part to the launch in Russia.

Quarter 1 2012 revenues are expected to be even lower due to a further decreased revenue from Age of Conan. Age of Conan, Anarchy Online, and Bloodline Champions continue to generate a positive cash flow for Funcom, brought down by the costs of developing several titles.

The finances also make reference to “Project A,” an MMO in the conceptual stage.

(Source: Funcom)

TERA Beta Preview #2: Electric Boogaloo


This past weekend marked the second closed beta for The Exiled Realm of Arborea, and my second full weekend of ignoring everything in the Area chat channel for the sake of my ignore button. My last preview was mostly done through Twitter, during which I managed to level up to 9 before admittedly logging out.

I know a lot of people say this, and I will happily join the bandwagon in praising how gorgeous TERA looks. TERA is heavily stylized in an eastern setting, and not just because there is a race dedicated to looking like fat, adorable dogs, cats, foxes, raccoon, gerbils, etc.

Continue reading “TERA Beta Preview #2: Electric Boogaloo”

Developing: John Smedley Discussing Region Restrictions


[Update] From SOE’s Facebook page.

ProSieben and SOE Continue to Work Toward a Solution –

SOE and ProSieben worked throughout the weekend to develop a plan that will allow our players to access and play on any server regardless of where they are in the world. Our community is our top priority and rest assured, all of your concerns have been heard.

We continue to work together with ProSieben and appreciate your patience as we work around the clock to work out critical technical details. We will share more information as soon as possible. [Brasse]

[Original Story]There is relief coming for Sony Online Entertainment fans, both present and estranged. A little earlier today, SOE’s John Smedley tweeted:

“@j_smedley: We’ve come up with a plan to allow ALL players to play on any servers they want. More details to follow.”

Sony has been in hot water this past week over an announcement that European publishing would be handed over to German ProSiebenSat.1, a side effect of which being that while existing European customers would still have access to their characters on US servers, new accounts would be restricted by region.

I will update this as more information appears.

Stream Of Thoughts: Everquest Online Adventures


I’ve never had an opportunity to play Everquest Online Adventures on the Playstation 2. Released in 2003, Everquest Online Adventures was one of the first MMOs to hit the consoles, and reportedly still has a rather healthy community to this day. For the fact that the game hasn’t been sold in brick and mortar stores for years, it still manages to get by with a subscription and minimal updates.

[This article is ongoing, and will be updated as I play]

4:30: That’s enough for today, I have to get to an evening class.

4:25: I prefer to play with the controller over the keyboard. It keeps me from talking to other people, or at least it would if there were any other people.

4:16: Everquest Allakhazam says I need to be level 10 for the next quest.

4:15: Did I say level 13? I meant level 8.

4:13: I am level 8.

4:06: False alarm. Adessa is sending me to Logger Kripps to convince him that the monster is dead.

4:05: Guess I don’t have to go to Logger Kripps after the quest, I have to go to Adessa.

3:57: I have a thousand monies, my wallet has outleveled my ability to equip anything that the vendors have to offer.

3:52: Only in Everquest can the same NPC that killed me with three quarters of its health left be completely demolished the next.

3:50: I killed the rat and I’m heading back to the Logger to turn in the quest. How many other MMOs can boast 40 minutes for a quest that runs down to killing a single rat? None, that’s how many.

3:25: The usual ritual while I wait for half of my health bar to recover. Laundry, quick trip to Greece, etc.

3:20: The rat despawned. Turns out he respawned in an area filled with other monsters I can kill even less.

3:05: I never get tired of the old Everquest model of placing aggressive over-leveled mobs right next to the ones I need to kill.

3:04: Still working on grinding up to kill that giant rat.

2:45: Turns out I should look before I laugh. Guard screams about monster, turns out it’s just a rat. It killed me anyway.

3/6: 2:44: I’m playing again. Still level 7 warrior, working on a quest to find a guard.

Continue reading “Stream Of Thoughts: Everquest Online Adventures”

Let’s Talk: MMOs For Your Kids


If Lego Universe has a legacy to leave behind, it is a page in history soaked with the sorrow of children and parents who simply want to give them a game that they can have fun with and perhaps learn something from. Since I wrote the bit on Lego Universe and children with autism, the stories of the parents have made their way all over the Internet and I’ve received more requests for alternatives and suggestions of said alternatives than I can count.

Lego Universe is a game that won’t be replaced any time soon, the combination of freedom to build and the outstanding community are unmatched by anything else on the market. When suggesting games for kids, I wanted to miss a few caveats that others have a habit of falling into. So here are some games, both online and offline, that can somewhat substitute Lego Universe.

Continue reading “Let’s Talk: MMOs For Your Kids”