Sorry, The Old Republic Means Repetition In Media


A journalist in gaming will express a distrust in mainstream media. After all, whenever someone in Korea dies from dehydration after a week long Starcraft binge, or a sadist in Vermont murders his child because her crying interrupted his Call of Duty kill streak, the rest of us are painted equally as unsociable psychopaths just waiting for someone to press the right button to send us on a killing spree. Heading further into the niche, I as a writer for MMOs have a similar distaste for mainstream gaming media for similar reasons. The mainstream gaming media loves to paint us as strangers with too much time, too much expendable money, and not enough sunlight or social interaction.

So it stands that whenever a grandiose MMO releases, the same stories from past will be recycled. Yes, any MMO with an economy of any kind will bring in gold farmers. Yes, the most preordered MMO in recent history is having issues with server capacity and getting people a spot in line. And they are behind in the times, too. Apparently no one told the gaming press that making your game free to play has not been a death sentence since 2009, and that the transition isn’t a switch that developers hit in a last ditch hope to make money, but rather a lengthy process that costs a lot of time and money.

For the next few months, expect to hear everything you already knew. Bear with them, they get paid moderately well to run the same stories every now and then.

Triple Station Cash, December 17th Only


Sony cash days have achieved almost holiday status for some, like the return of the McRib or when your bank fires that teller who asks you for identification every time you just want to deposit a check. While Sony has performed double cash weekends in the past, this is one of the few times that triple cash has been offered, least of all allowing players to use a form of payment outside of the Station Cash cards (which are not available everywhere). For today only, until midnight pacific standard time, players can either purchase cash using a credit card or redeem Station cash cards, and receive triple the amount.

Station cash is based on $1 = 100 points. You can read more at Sony’s website. Sony is currently running a “12 Days of Christmas” promotion, with new deals in various games every day.

(Source: Station Cash)

Star Wars Galaxies: Final Address To The Community


Looking back on Star Wars Galaxies and all these years I am so thankful for being able to be a part of the Star WarsGalaxies community both as the Producer and as a fan. It would not have been the incredible experience that it was without you, the players and fans, the dedicated team of people who worked on it over the years and the fantastic Star Wars® galaxy itself, which offered us a very unique and compelling place to explore, fight, play, make friends, and build our homes.

This is a book of memories, so let me start with a few of my own.

When I was a little boy, my father brought me to the movies to see a new science fiction film that he heard was pretty good. What I remembered most was the feeling of awe I had back then, and still feel to this day. Once I had experienced Star Wars, my life would never be the same again. In May of 2004, I walked into the office at Sony Online Entertainment to start a new job working on a game based on the very same story that had amazed me in my youth. Cool! I was very excited. All I wanted to do then was learn how this thing worked, and I spent the next seven years doing just that. I can say that not a day passed in the development of Star Wars Galaxies where I didn’t learn something new. Each day presented different challenges and solving them was always a rewarding accomplishment. It is everyone’s hope to find a job that you look forward to each and every day. Being a developer onStar Wars Galaxies was just that kind of job for me.

Star Wars means something different to each of us. That’s why we played Star Wars Galaxies. On June 26th, 2003, SOE and LucasArts released Star Wars Galaxies and, for the first time, you could play online with your friends in the Star Wars universe. I was amazed at how much there was to do in the game – player housing, crafting, entertaining, combat, and more. One of the most exciting times for all of us on the team was the launch of the Jump to Lightspeed expansion, which let players fly and battle it out in space in a true 3D simulation. Now we could all truly live out our Star Wars fantasies. It was like being a kid again.

Continue reading “Star Wars Galaxies: Final Address To The Community”

Darkfall 2.0 Visual Test Video


Whenever I see flyby videos of Darkfall 2.0, I always feel as though I’m watching a version of Morrowind with improved graphics. Darkfall 2.0 launches at some point in the future.

Bioware Caves: Offers 48 Hour Grace Period


I hate to use the term “caved,” because it implies that Bioware is conceding to a less than favorable position. MMO launches are great in that when you preorder the game itself, you generally receive a preorder key which allows you access to the head start, and occasionally the beta. This key also tells the developer that you intend, or have, already purchased the game. The problem with ordering your boxed copy online, as people do, is that you can’t always be ensured that your copy will arrive in time for the game’s release. In response, many developers offer grace periods after the head start where players are able to play without requiring their final registration key.

Up until now, the official word from Electronic Arts has been no grace period, at all. Thanks in part to a very fanatical outcry from fans, Bioware announced on the forums that they have reversed their decision and will be allowing a two day grace period for players to enter their details.

While we’ve worked closely with our retailers in the launch territories to ensure copies of Star Wars: The Old Republic are available from our launch date of December 20th, we understand that for those of you who’ve pre-ordered, there may be a concern about getting your copy on time. We’ve heard you want a ‘grace period’ where you can continue to play without having to enter a final product registration code (AKA ‘game code’).

Your 30 days are not affected by this grace period, so technically you could submit your code at the last possible minute and enjoy 32 days instead of the prescribed 30. Now everyone say grace…period.

(Source: The Old Republic forums)

Testing The Old Republic: Procrastinating My Preorders


Bioware announced a long time ago that early access to The Old Republic would be staggered, your place in line would be determined by the date in which you ordered the game. So I decided to do a little test: About two minutes ago, I preordered The Old Republic on Origin. For those of you reading this on a different day, that is 1:10pm eastern on December 15th, 2011, or two days after the head start began.

The point of this experiment is to see how long it takes Bioware to catch up to the people like myself who for some reason held off of ordering the game, and how many days of early access we are granted. So I will update this article as soon as I am let in.

UPDATE: As of 2:21pm EST on December 16th, I am in. So two days missed out of the original “up to 5 days.” Not bad for the most preordered MMO of all time.

It All Ends Today: Star Wars Galaxies To Shut Down


Credit for this amazing piece of art goes to JakinIrali on the Star Wars Galaxies forums.

It’s been eight years since Star Wars Galaxies first came on to the scene and amazed us with an endless amount of content, a sprawling world to explore and allow our characters to live out their lives. Since then Galaxies has become one of the most controversial MMOs in history, and I don’t think I have to tell you why. If we learned anything from the New Game Experience, it is that MMO players are passionate and unforgiving, but mostly unforgiving. But at the same time, the most nostalgic. Not a day goes by (at least judging by my inbox) without players lamenting back to the old days of Galaxies, where they could set up camp and go hunting, to come back to the Mos Eisley bar and watch a Wookie dance to relieve their battle fatigue. Where playing doctor was a profession and not merely sexual innuendo.

Unfortunately, I’m terrible at eulogizing. Despite the absolute loathing many Galaxies fans hold (and will hold for a long time) for Sony and Lucas Arts, I think Galaxies will go down in history as one of the most determined and resilient MMOs in the industry. There is so much to learn from this game that allowing it to fade into history would be a disservice to the work the developers put into it.

And speaking of history, what better to send this game off than the original Xplay review?

Sony: So Much For A Final Warning


Cheaters have a high rate of recidivism, especially when punishment is lax and not at all intimidating. Earlier this month, Sony unveiled a final warning on their forums, for cheaters to give up and play legitimately, or pack up and go home. Today, the developer announced that 700 accounts have been suspended as a first warning.

Remember that these suspensions are merely the first wave, and further action is on the horizon. We will not rest, but will instead continue to gather data and take action as necessary on behalf of the entire player base.

An unspecified number of players were discovered to have been flagged mistakenly and had their suspension removed with a small time credit to their account (one week according to a couple of users on the forums). Hopefully the suspension will be taken seriously by those involved.

(Source: Everquest forums)

Aion Free To Play In February…For Europe.


Considering the other titles lately to make the transition, an announcement of free to play from NCSoft or Sony Online Entertainment might be welcoming, but hardly surprising. Over in Europe, NCSoft announced that Aion will be undergoing a change in publisher, to Gameforge, who will be taking care of transitioning the European service, and its community, to a new free to play model. Starting in February 2012, players will be able to enjoy everything* that Aion has to offer for no fee.

In order to combat gold farming, “starter” accounts will be limited to two characters and have limitations from certain chat channels and private trading. Former subscribers will have access to almost everything, sans the increased instance cooldown and limited fortress siege rewards. You can read everything at the F2P matrix. Otherwise, NCsoft continues what has started as a rather generous program for free players, offering everything but the kitchen sink to anyone willing to sign up an account.

This does not affect the North American servers, and there are currently no announced plans to bring such a transition to the states.

(Source: Eurogamer)

(Additional: Free to play matrix)

Square Enix Members Hacked:


[Update] Square Enix has confirmed that no member information was stolen.

 As a result of our continuing investigation, we have now confirmed that the database in which we store personal information was NOT accessed during the recent server intrusion. Therefore, your personal information was NOT compromised by an unknown third party.

Square-Enix is planning to restart the Square Enix Members service by the end of December. Details of the schedule will be announced at a later date.

We deeply regret any inconvenience this may have caused our customers and fans, and appreciate your patience.

Square Enix has taken down its Members service while it investigates a security breach, in order to assess just what may have been taken and what damage has been done. In a message posted on the website, Square confirms that while usernames and passwords may have been taken, “there is no possibility of any credit card leak from this incident, since the server in question stores no credit card information.”

We have reason to believe that unknown parties may have gained unauthorized access to a particular Square Enix server related to the free SQUARE ENIX MEMBERS service offered in North America and Japan. In response, Square Enix, Inc. has temporarily suspended operation of the SQUARE ENIX MEMBERS service starting at 10PM (PST) on December 12, 2011.

There is no information at this time that Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV players have anything to worry about, although I would still recommend changing your passwords on your respective games.