Sony Shuttering Everquest On Mac


Everquest on Mac is interesting, to say the least. Almost like Everquest Online Adventures, Everquest Macintosh is a rather different game than Everquest on Windows. Released in 2003, EQMac lost pace with Everquest’s development a long time ago, leaving it very far behind in terms of development. But even without the same level of support as standard Everquest, the servers have gathered a rather close community of players, not to mention regular events with Sony staff. So, naturally, more than a few hearts will be broken with the announcement that Everquest Mac will be shutting down in March.

On Thursday, March 29, 2012, the Al’Kabor server and the EverQuest: Macintosh Edition will be closing. EverQuest: Macintosh Edition has had a wonderful run, seeing an incredible tightly-knit community band together to accomplish feats of heroism that remain unsurpassed in the annals of MMORPGs. Overcoming the challenges of the Planes of Power in their near original form is not a task for those who are not dedicated to victory, and we here at SOE are in awe of your dedication and commitment.

As far as compensation goes, Sony is going as far as sending a check by mail if you paid far in advance via SOE game cards or other retail cards.

We will stop all billing for EverQuest: Macintosh Edition on January 31, 2012. For players who have purchased prepaid time via a membership/subscription plan, SOE Game Card or other retail game card that extends the subscription period past January 30, 2012, SOE will provide a pro-rated refund for the time left on the subscription after that date. If a valid credit card is active on your account, any refund will be applied to such credit card. If your account is paid via an SOE Game Card or other retail game card, we will send a check in the refund amount to your current billing address within 90 days after the game ends. Please be sure to update your email and mailing address in your Station Account as this may be critical to the refund process.

It’s always disappointing to see a game shut down, especially in cases like this where only a specific section of the community is being cut off.

(Source: Everquest Forums)

TERA Can't Escape Licencing, IP Blocks Coming


Back when Bluehole announced that TERA would have no region restrictions whatsoever, I was admittedly skeptical. An MMO without regional restrictions generally spawns from one of a few circumstances: The same company is publishing it in all regions ala City of Heroes, or there is only one worldwide server ala Eve Online and Mortal Online. In the case of TERA, back in 2010 Bluehole announced that while the clients are region specific, there was nothing stopping someone in Europe from purchasing a North American client and playing on those servers.

Not the case. If Bluehole truly wanted cross-oceanic play, this idea was met with a dead “negative” by the game’s publishers. Bluehole did make this statement to Massively:

We had to change our stance on IP restrictions due to licensing and security issues. While we can’t go into the reasons in detail, we would like to say that although these restrictions are not a panacea for preventing hacking, they are highly effective, and produce more positive results than might be expected.

So licencing reasons. Restricting IP addresses will not accomplish much in preventing gold farmers in Russia or China from accessing North American and European services or stolen accounts, considering ease of use in a proxy. Unfortunately, these IP restrictions also mean that certain regions aren’t able to play the game until a publisher picks up the title in that region. In many cases, the game just never releases in those regions.

Still, this is another example of what happens when you let the developers make announcements about decisions that should be handled by corporate. If TERA had announced from the start that there would be region restrictions (or had they not waited a year and change to go back on that statement) than this wouldn’t even be an issue (save for the regions that can’t play at all).

TERA launches in May for North America and Europe and is being published by En Masse Entertainment (North America) and Frogster Interactive (Europe). Read up on Bluehole Studios’ lawsuit with NCSoft here.

TERA Can’t Escape Licencing, IP Blocks Coming


Back when Bluehole announced that TERA would have no region restrictions whatsoever, I was admittedly skeptical. An MMO without regional restrictions generally spawns from one of a few circumstances: The same company is publishing it in all regions ala City of Heroes, or there is only one worldwide server ala Eve Online and Mortal Online. In the case of TERA, back in 2010 Bluehole announced that while the clients are region specific, there was nothing stopping someone in Europe from purchasing a North American client and playing on those servers.

Not the case. If Bluehole truly wanted cross-oceanic play, this idea was met with a dead “negative” by the game’s publishers. Bluehole did make this statement to Massively:

We had to change our stance on IP restrictions due to licensing and security issues. While we can’t go into the reasons in detail, we would like to say that although these restrictions are not a panacea for preventing hacking, they are highly effective, and produce more positive results than might be expected.

So licencing reasons. Restricting IP addresses will not accomplish much in preventing gold farmers in Russia or China from accessing North American and European services or stolen accounts, considering ease of use in a proxy. Unfortunately, these IP restrictions also mean that certain regions aren’t able to play the game until a publisher picks up the title in that region. In many cases, the game just never releases in those regions.

Still, this is another example of what happens when you let the developers make announcements about decisions that should be handled by corporate. If TERA had announced from the start that there would be region restrictions (or had they not waited a year and change to go back on that statement) than this wouldn’t even be an issue (save for the regions that can’t play at all).

TERA launches in May for North America and Europe and is being published by En Masse Entertainment (North America) and Frogster Interactive (Europe). Read up on Bluehole Studios’ lawsuit with NCSoft here.

Everquest Officially Free to Play in March


Someone call my doctor, nutritionist, and accountant, and find me enough provisions to last until I die. With Sony’s multitude of announcements over free to play, the titles have been falling like dominos. Everquest 2, Planetside 2, DC Universe, Pirates of the Burning Sea, and the possibility of Vanguard at some point, the idea that Everquest might go free to play is both exciting and unsurprising at the same time. So, behold! Everquest is moving free to play in March.

So what can I expect for free, you ask patiently. Everything, well mostly. Everquest is following a similar tier of payment to its predecessors. Tiers are divided between free, silver (past subscribers and gold subscribers. Free players have access to all content up to the seventeenth expansion (House of Thule) with Veil of Alaris purchasable. Free players are restricted to Human, Erudite, Barbarian, and Gnome races, as well as warrior, cleric, wizard, and rogue classes, with the rest purchasable. Free and silver members are also restricted to rank 1 spells, among a few other restrictions you might expect. Bag slots, mail and chat, guild, coin purse, quest limit, etc.

you can find the whole matrix here, there is really too much to discuss here.

More on the transition as it appears.

Jagex Unveils 'Optimus' Anti-Bot Technology


I don’t think I’ve used that screenshot in almost two years. Last October, Jagex accomplished what many of us had thought to be impossible: busted a grand majority of the bots in RuneScape in one single move known today as Bot Nuke Day, or Project Clusterfutterer. The update demolished reflection and injection bots, or 98% of the bot community according to Jagex’s estimations, and has proven to be successful enough that 40% of the player base was banned within the following month.

On the main RuneScape website, Jagex is enjoying their recent major victory over a major bot writer in a recently settled case, and they announced plans for even more bot eradication, this time focusing on the more basic bots that auto-click or search the screen for specific colors.

We remain committed to our ongoing work to ensure that the successes of Bot Nuke Day are never undone by staying a few steps ahead in the arms race with the remaining bot developers and gold farmers. We’re already well underway with our next generation of anti-botting software called Optimus, which is going to be released shortly, and we’re also currently developing ways to remove the remaining screen-scraper bots from the game. We’ll also be continuing to fight gold-farmers on every front.

Jagex has done quite a bit over the past months to completely rid their game of cheaters and scam artists, from the bot nuke back in October to the removal of popular gambling tools. With the upcoming Stellar Dawn and Transformers Online, Jagex losing their reputation as saturated with cheaters can only boost the game’s receptions.

Jagex Unveils ‘Optimus’ Anti-Bot Technology


I don’t think I’ve used that screenshot in almost two years. Last October, Jagex accomplished what many of us had thought to be impossible: busted a grand majority of the bots in RuneScape in one single move known today as Bot Nuke Day, or Project Clusterfutterer. The update demolished reflection and injection bots, or 98% of the bot community according to Jagex’s estimations, and has proven to be successful enough that 40% of the player base was banned within the following month.

On the main RuneScape website, Jagex is enjoying their recent major victory over a major bot writer in a recently settled case, and they announced plans for even more bot eradication, this time focusing on the more basic bots that auto-click or search the screen for specific colors.

We remain committed to our ongoing work to ensure that the successes of Bot Nuke Day are never undone by staying a few steps ahead in the arms race with the remaining bot developers and gold farmers. We’re already well underway with our next generation of anti-botting software called Optimus, which is going to be released shortly, and we’re also currently developing ways to remove the remaining screen-scraper bots from the game. We’ll also be continuing to fight gold-farmers on every front.

Jagex has done quite a bit over the past months to completely rid their game of cheaters and scam artists, from the bot nuke back in October to the removal of popular gambling tools. With the upcoming Stellar Dawn and Transformers Online, Jagex losing their reputation as saturated with cheaters can only boost the game’s receptions.

NCSoft Is Suing TERA Again


It’s been two years since I last talked about the lawsuit between NCSoft and TERA developer Bluehole Studio, so I think a recap is necessary. Many years ago, before Lineage III was known as Lineage Eternal and when NCSoft still had plans to develop the MMO on the Unreal 3 engine, several members of the Lineage III staff left to form their own developer, Bluehole Studio, developer of the MMO The Exiled Realm of Arborea. NCSoft sued Bluehole in Korea in 2006, claiming that the developer had stolen software and hardware, as well as art, to make TERA. Bluehole was convicted in Korea and convictions were upheld (for the most part). A civil complaint was filed in 2010 and overturned by the courts. However, as you are well aware, TERA continued its development and launched in Korea with a western release early this year.

As it turns out, NCSoft isn’t taking this US release sitting down. The publisher launched a lawsuit in New York today, with essentially the same charges of theft of physical and intellectual property.

“Their business plan was simple and audacious: create a competing product using the very work they had done while at NCsoft, launch it themselves to great fanfare and acclaim, and, in the process, deal a crippling blow to their former employer,”

NCSoft seeks an injunction barring TERA from releasing in the United States, as well as enhanced damages for Bluehole’s misconduct. Appeals of the criminal and civil cases in Korea are still ongoing.

Falling Out #9: Quiz Time


Because you were all concerned that this might be late.

New episodes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Star Vault Interim 2011 Report


I apologize for the poor translation. Finances have been translated to USD using rates provided by Google and accurate as of January 25, 2012. All of this information was sourced via official financial documents translated through Google translator. You can view the original document here.

Star Vault has released its combination Q4 and 2011 Interim Report, showing a decrease in subscriptions and a continued drop in profit. In addition, the company has announced an unspecified number of layoffs.

Q4 2011 Points of Interest:
Net Sales: $82,661 (from $103,515 in Q3)
Profit after Finances: $-123,119 (from $-105,623 in Q3)

Subscriber numbers were down in Q4 compared to Q3 (which saw a jump in sales but lull in subscribers). Star Vault attributes this to the game being difficult to new players. The number of forum members increased by about 600.

Interim 2011:
Net Sales: $408812 USD
Profit after financial items: $-505,751

Earlier in 2011, Star Vault voted for the sale of 9.9 million shares, bringing in $528,000 (before transaction fees) to repay a loan. In June, Star Vault announced partnership with LeKool for publishing Mortal Online in China.

In order to reduce costs, Star Vault has reduced its number of employees.

Star Vault has over the past year undergone some changes and we have among other things, forced to revise the previous target to achieve breakeven in 2011. One reason for this was to Mortal Online has not adhered to the players’ high expectations and that Star Vaults cost base has been too great. We have learned lessons from what happened during the journey and is working hard to develop the game in the right direction. One change we have implemented to reduce the above cost base is above all that we have reduced the number of employees and instead will make use of consultants as necessary.

With the release of Dawn and Territory Control expansions, Star Vault hopes to make Mortal Online the most challenging PvP game.

And the moment that we were all waiting for, Henrik’s statement on the state of the game.

With our current cost structure of the Board believes that we are very close to achieving break-even, a goal we hope to achieve during the second quarter of 2012. We have a strong belief in Mortal Online, and still see great opportunities in the market we are.