Video of the ___: Runescape, Cheater’s Paradise


I care little for the inner-drama in MMOs, so the fact that the person who posted this was a player moderator, and had his status revoked afterward, plays no part in this video being posted here. With the overwhelming quantity of gold farmers that have infested Runescape since its reinstatement of free trade, Jagex has taken to issuing the usual “don’t look over there, look over here,” developer blog, promising that they’re doing something to stop the bots.

And more importantly: What is Jagex doing to keep the game from being swamped with bots and gold farmers like it was pre-trade? They seem to be very sure of themselves that their secret weapon can combat this.

I’m still waiting to see this secret weapon.

NCsoft Q2 Release: Profits Up, Aion/Lineage 2 Down


The first thing you’ll notice about NCsoft’s quarterly report for the second quarter of 2011 is a massive spike in sales from Lineage. NCsoft attributes this to strong item sales promotions. As of now, Lineage is the company’s best source of income, despite the game’s removal from its Western presence just a couple of months ago. Lineage’s item sales have propelled a 67% year over year increase in income, despite a 1% decline in overall sales over the same period. City of Heroes and Guild Wars continued a slow decline, although City of Heroes will undoubtedly hit an increase in sales once the game goes free to play later this year.

Lineage’s success, however, comes on the heels of both Lineage II and Aion dropping a hefty amount, attributed to “slow seasonality” in the report. I talked last year about NCsoft’s regional breakdown in sales, as a response to why some western gamers described feeling like NCsoft doesn’t pay the hemisphere as much attention. As of Q2 2010, the regional breakdown is as such:

  1. Korea: 64%
  2. Japan: 10%
  3. Royalties: 7%
  4. N. America: 9%
  5. Europe: 5%
  6. Taiwan: 3%

Those figures in Q2 2011:

  1. Korea: 71%
  2. Japan: 10%
  3. Royalties: 9%
  4. N. America: 4%
  5. Europe: 3%
  6. Taiwan: 3%

You Need A Better Source Than A Guy Who Knows A Guy


I simultaneously love and hate Massively. On one hand, they have a habit of being right when they offer credence to a layoff rumor, no matter how obscure the source. On the other hand, it’s still a rumor, and I don’t humor rumors unless they have a solid backing. Over at the Faxion Online forums, a couple of players are channeling ex-staffers laying claim that the entire Faxion development team has been laid off.

The question that remains is quite simply: What happens to Faxion next? Does UTV simply ride the game out until it is no longer making money? Will they sell it to another company? Will a new team be hired? Am I looking far too deep into this?

Then again, it might just be my 1:30am cynicism settling in.

The Minority Rules: Bioware Blocks Cross-Faction Chat


Cross-faction chat is a rather controversial topic. On one hand, the supporters prefer it as it allows for smack-talk, for role playing purposes, and general immersion and social interaction. On the other hand, the opposition believes that removing cross-faction chat keeps the less mature crowd from having a larger audience to talk to, with hypothetical situations such as “it’s bad enough that a group of players will stand around ganking the same guy, now he has to read their racist, homophobic slurs.”

In World of Warcraft, Blizzard has always justified this by racial-barriers. Looking at it from a lore point of view, it doesn’t make sense that the Orc and Human factions could communicate without translators, as why would the Orc teach their children to speak Common, or vice versa? (Don’t mention the Forsaken suddenly forgetting Common and being fluent in Gutterspeak. It’s magic) Bioware talked to TenTonHammer that the plans have changed and cross-faction chat is gone from The Old Republic. Why? Because when Darth Vader announced that he was Luke’s father, the emotional scarring was far worse than having his hand cut off.

We had the big argument that this isn’t like Horde and Alliance, we all speak Galactic Standard so we should just allow it. So we actually did allow it for a little while. The argument against it was that, what happens is people start saying inappropriate things to the other side. That’s just the way it is when you’re on a different side and you gank each other, people tend to say inappropriate things.

I agree. While we’re at it, let’s cut in-faction chat for that same reason. When I was playing The Old Republic, the other players on the test server were unapologetically racist, homophobic, and vulgar. So are some of the people in trade chat in World of Warcraft, and in chat in general on Runescape. In fact, block cross-faction chat won’t stop my random LFG group from telling me I’m a shitty hunter, and that I should hang myself in my living room because I can’t build a proper DPS outfit.

Essentially, if you’re going to block chat: Come up with a real reason. There is a purpose for the ignore function, and that is removing unwanted players from your chat window. Your customer service team should also be inviting active reports for offensive language, and banning offenders. I hate to play the slippery slope card, but what else is Bioware going to remove because a few immature players might utilize it to say bad words?

Rift Has Over 1 Million Customers, Is #2 In West


Alright everyone, pitchforks and torches are in the barrels to your right, lighter fluid and booze to be handed out liberally and excessively. In an article on Gamasutra, Trion’s own David Reid made a few statements on premium MMOs and the subscription model. He mentions how companies need to adapt and evolve in order to survive an increasing demanding market with more and more cheap alternatives sprouting every day. Trion is currently running Rift, with upcoming free to play RTS End of Nations and upcoming shooter Defiance that will run hand-in-hand with the Syfy show of the same name.

“It’s a lot harder to make your money back in the premium games space than it used to be,”

More importantly, David Reid mentioned that Rift carries over one million customers, and is the second most subscribed game in the west. Once again, pitchforks and torches to your left, booze on the right. Help yourselves.

Warhammer MOBA Announced, WAR Going Nowhere


Mythic Entertainment today announced Warhammer: Wrath of Heroes, a lobby-based arena PvP game. As part of the Electronic Arts Play4Free program (you may recognize this from Battlefield Play4Free), Wrath of Heroes will be free to play with a notable cash shop. Judging by the trailer, the game appears to control similar to Warhammer Online, with the exception of trading in a persistent character for an array of heroes. The game will run on 6v6v6 (that’s right, three faction matches) battles centered around destruction and territory control.

Warhammer Online fans may be a little miffed at this announcement, and Mythic rather quickly dropped a new Herald letter on the main website today to calm fears. Kai Schober wants you to know that this is not a death strike for Warhammer, but rather a positive notch. In addition to new armors, Schober also talks the return of fortresses and perks for Warhammer Online subscribers that will cross over to Wrath of Heroes.

We brought in people to develop the new title and actually increased our pool of resources. This means that we can leverage things done for one game into the other. A small example is that the new Mourkain Temple layout was a result of some work done for Wrath of Heroes. There are others and a few we want to share with you as soon as possible. New looks perchance?

It will be interesting to see if these two brothers can coexist, or if Wrath of Heroes being free to play will have any detriment on Warhammer Online’s population.

"Where To Buy" Now Becomes "Game List"


I’ve been working almost all day on improving the Where To Buy section of MMO Fallout, and I have some bits to point out:

  1. The Where To Buy page is now called “Game List.” This is because the page is taking on a more general focus than a simple buyers guide.
  2. The guide now displays developer, publisher, payment model, official website (in plain text), trial option, and where it can be bought.
  3. I no longer update prices. Sorry, but this started turning into a two hour endeavor each week, and I don’t have the time to invest in tracking down prices.
  4. I also no longer post subscription prices. I got so many complaints that I didn’t offer extra information for everything from VAT to exchange rates that it’s not worth maintaining.
  5. I will be adding upcoming MMOs, including many more current MMOs that do not require a purchase. I will talk more about my standards for listing at some point in the near future.
  6. I will add a description for each game with hash-tags for various taglines. For instance, Darkfall would be tagged #p2p, #pvp, #hardcore, while Runescape would be #f2p, #freetoplay, etc.
  7. I finally fixed the broken lists. Aren’t I a great guy?

“Where To Buy” Now Becomes “Game List”


I’ve been working almost all day on improving the Where To Buy section of MMO Fallout, and I have some bits to point out:

  1. The Where To Buy page is now called “Game List.” This is because the page is taking on a more general focus than a simple buyers guide.
  2. The guide now displays developer, publisher, payment model, official website (in plain text), trial option, and where it can be bought.
  3. I no longer update prices. Sorry, but this started turning into a two hour endeavor each week, and I don’t have the time to invest in tracking down prices.
  4. I also no longer post subscription prices. I got so many complaints that I didn’t offer extra information for everything from VAT to exchange rates that it’s not worth maintaining.
  5. I will be adding upcoming MMOs, including many more current MMOs that do not require a purchase. I will talk more about my standards for listing at some point in the near future.
  6. I will add a description for each game with hash-tags for various taglines. For instance, Darkfall would be tagged #p2p, #pvp, #hardcore, while Runescape would be #f2p, #freetoplay, etc.
  7. I finally fixed the broken lists. Aren’t I a great guy?

Neverwinter Delayed, Atari Loses Rights To D&D

So many questions answered. The Atari Vs Hasbro lawsuit, who is developing Neverwinter, and what does this mean for Cryptic Studios?


A very long-awaited news line comes to a close today: Atari and Hasbro have settled their lawsuit and Atari has come out the loser in the deal. As announced on Gamespot today, Hasbro is regaining full rights to the digital licensing from Atari, meaning Atari will no longer be able to license Dungeons and Dragons games. As part of the settlement, Atari will still be able to sell and develop a selection of D&D games, from Daggerdale to an upcoming Facebook game.

Neverwinter is the other half of the lawsuit, especially considering the sale of Cryptic Studios to Perfect World Entertainment left a lot of questions unanswered. Did the game transfer with Cryptic? If not, who would develop it? Neverwinter now carries a “late 2012” release date, attributed to Perfect World Entertainment’s desire to invest in a more immersive experience.

The year delay hopefully signals that Perfect World Entertainment won’t be tolerating Cryptic’s habit of game development: Short development cycles that produced products that ultimately lack content and polish. With legal issues out of the way, hopefully development of Neverwinter can resume to its full extent.

Planetside 2 Will Have A Cash Shop

Planetside 2 will have a cash shop, but without offering exclusive weapons/armor.


I’ve downplayed cash shops quite a bit here on MMO Fallout, but I understand the people who do not like them, and why, and the factions of supporters and opposers continues to widen as new ideas are implemented. On the extreme sides you have players who won’t play a game now unless it has a cash shop, and players who will not play any game with a cash shop. There are issues over items in the cash shop being attainable through natural gameplay, or only selling vanity items or variations of existing weapons (for instance a different color/design but with the same stats).

So for some, the SyndCon experience of Planetside 2 was less about destructible buildings, space gameplay, and skill-based system, and more about the inevitable presence of a cash shop.

If a weapon can be bought in the cash store, he was quick to assure us that it would be attainable in the game as well. Definitely though, one of the things that will be sold would be customization.

In a game like Planetside 2, the cash shop ultimately comes down to a matter of skill over stats. Unlike a traditional MMORPG, will it matter that your store-bought rifle does 20% more damage if you can’t aim it properly? Or how a tuned sniper rifle won’t change the fact that the player still has to draw a bead on your head from across the valley. Watching the impact of the cash shop will be interesting, to say the least.

More on Planetside 2 as it appears.