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.

Blizzcon 2012 Cancelled, Blizzard Too Busy


Since 2005, Blizzcon has been a place of reveals, a chance to check out new Blizzard games early, and an opportunity to see just how scantily clad a Blood Elf can get. However, in a nod to Blizzard’s current heavy work load, Blizzcon has been canned until 2013. Currently, of course, Blizzard is on full production of the next World of Warcraft expansion, the next Starcraft 2 game, Diablo 3, and the mysterious Project Titan, among other projects.

It’s easy to forget just how much work and money goes into a convention, that could be better spent on development and marketing. Still, no doubt players will be disappointed if they had a costume set up to show off this year.

Until next year, friends.

Final Fantasy XI On PS3: Extra 9 Gigabytes of Space


Bad news, Playstation 3 users: You’re going to have to make more space on that hard drive for Final Fantasy XI. Square Enix has announced that in February, a patch will be added to Final Fantasy XI that will require more hard drive space on the Playstation 3, but only on specific models. The models are the 60gigabyte and 20gigabyte which are backward compatible with Playstation 2 games (otherwise this doesn’t apply to you, because you can’t play it anyway). Unfortunately, for users with 20 gigabyte hard drives, this means you won’t be able to play Final Fantasy anymore until you upgrade.

The new space will be 21 gigabytes, reportedly for the purpose of preventing fragmentation on the hard drive. The actual game itself takes up around 12 gigabytes. Playstation 2 and PC users will not be affected by this at all.

(Source: Gamer Escape)

RuneScape Raising Prices: Grandfathering In Current Subscribers


RuneScape is one of the cheapest subscription MMOs currently on the market. Due to increased costs of production and maintenance, in 2008 Jagex increased the price of RuneScape’s membership from $5 USD to $5.95 USD. Just today, the developer announced another price hike, and it is a rather notable increase (based on the previous price). Monthly subscriptions will be increasing from $5.95 to $7.95 monthly starting February 1st.

In appreciation of our existing members, there will be no change whatsoever to anyone who is a member before the 1st February. The price you pay now will be locked in for as long as you stay a loyal member and we will even allow a seven day grace period should you forget to renew.

Jagex notes this increase in price as due to increased investment into RuneScape over 2011 and planned in 2012. This could be related to the facelift talked about by Kotaku for this year.

Kingdom of Amalur Preview


Why preview Kingdom of Amalur? It’s the first game by 38 Studios, who you may know are working on an MMO to come out at some point in the future. I wanted to get an idea what to expect in terms of quality and aside from some technical issues, I was rather impressed.

Check out my other videos on Youtube at the video link above.