There are five months left until Star Wars Galaxies passes on, is no more, ceases to be, expires and goes to meet its maker, rests in peace, and all of that. Until then, however, Sony Online Entertainment is getting a jump on the usual funeral procession and enabling bonus everything starting today. The servers went down at 7am EST
Everyone logged in will earn Double XP, Double GCW Points, Double Heroic Tokens, Double GCW Tokens from Battlefields and City Invasions, Double Pet XP and Loyalty, Double Duty Mission Tokens, Double Chronicles XP, Double Chronicles Silver Tokens, increased chance to earn Gold Chronicles Tokens, increased RLS chance, increased chance to catch real fish (instead of junk loot and collection fish) and bonus Restuss Commendations!
Bonuses will stay on until the end (December 15th), meaning I might actually have a chance at hitting end-game with the Star Wars Galaxies articles.
Gods & Heroes launched by Heatwave Interactive to a surprisingly small audience, despite the game’s performance on the Steam sales charts. Heatwave, being a small company, came forth over a week ago with some surprisingly blunt admissions:
“We don’t need 500k users to be successful. However, our current growth rate isn’t good enough.”
An article today on Massively boasts an over 50% conversion rate (players who continue to subscribe), noting that although free-to-play is not on the books right now, the model is coming to Gods & Heroes at some point in the future.
“Again, obviously we want as many players playing the game as possible but, from our perspective, we need to get the game where it needs to be and have the right sized audience to go with that.”
The price of Gods & Heroes is seeing a reduction, down to $29.99. I’ll have more on the game as it appears.
I hate limited edition goods, because they always leave me feeling like I need to hoard them before some indeterminate time where they go away to possibly never return. In this case, I’m referring to the awfully tasty caramel iced instant coffee by Starbucks, which they’ve described as “limited time.” What a tease, to bring out a new flavor only to say “enjoy it while it lasts.”
But I suppose I should make this topic relevant to MMOs. Whenever I unsubscribe from an MMO, reading about missing live events ultimately makes me less likely to resubscribe. Like a good number of my fellow gamers, I have a psychological addiction to vanity pets, and the knowledge that one is locked away because I didn’t play during the precise week makes my brain throw its arms up and say “well alright I’ll stop bugging you to resubscribe now.” This is why I made a big stink about Cryptic offering separate pre-order bonuses but then offering them on the cash shop. I distinctly remember Cryptic stating that, in order to obtain all of the sets of ships, uniforms, etc, players would need to buy multiple copies.
1. Couldn’t Have Said It Better Myself, Darkfall.
Darkfall is one of MMO Fallout’s big names right now, likely because of the whole Darkfall 2.0 relaunch and the related hubbub over the possibility of a character wipe. If I may say so, this whole issue might have ended at article #1 and simply continued in August with more information, if it weren’t for Aventurine’s response, which was a complete disregard for why players might be upset at the news and a refusal to offer more information. The announcement was made far too soon, and now Aventurine is stuck between a very well updated rock and a hard place to auto-run against.
I think that Kimoshu on the Darkfall forums gives a very good explanation:
I think one of the biggest concerns players have is having to replay the same game with a few tweaks to it and fresh characters grinding out a lot of the same shit with the same powergap issues not addressed. AV often oversells their updates/expansions(Not that they are the only company to do this mind you…) and also with the rampant afk macroing on players and bugged out mobs as well as free afk stat gaining(swimming) that the majority of the community took part in(Guilty myself for several days of afk swimming in 2 years) I worry that AV will not enforce their ToS and we’ll be back to square one.
Casual players who refuse to break the ToS to gain skills/stats AFK get fucked in DF massively. I hope in 2.0 this gets addressed so that either casual players can still compete without having to set up afk macros or find their spot at the public watering hole for the night.
If AV enforces their ToS this time around finally with real punishments for AFK macroing and DF 1.0 accounts get compensation of free game time and maybe some meditation points then I have no issue doing a full wipe and would accept it gladly. If they wipe, give no compensation AND don’t enforce their ToS I honestly don’t know if I’ll stick around. I probably will because I love the game but it’s going to seriously be a huge pain in the ass to spend 6-12 months leveling again to get a competitive high-end character while others spend a month to get there with programs playing the game for them when they aren’t even there.
2. Crimecraft Bleedout Comic Ships This Week?
You’ll remember last December marked the start of Crimecraft’s episodic single player campaign and effort to dramatically improve the storyline of the game. Since then, the first season of Bleedout has long since finished and Vogster announced that the art seen in each opening/closing cinematic would make its way into a comic book. Initially on sale on Amazon for a release back in April, the comic has been pushed back more and more, and finally is set to ship this week (July 15-19 according to Amazon).
Hopefully the comic will ship.
3. I Don’t Live In The UK, And NCSoft Wouldn’t Award Me A Turd
First off I want to thank those who offered their support when I wrote the article about NCsoft having journalist awards, but I don’t live in the UK and thus do not qualify. That being said, I hardly think I am a blip on NCSoft’s radar large enough to be considered even if the awards did include the United States.
4. Prime Invokes Thoughts of Star Wars Galaxies
5. Please Stop Asking Me To Report Every MMO Shut Down
Over one thousand MMOs launched last year in Asia. I’ll say that again: One thousand. Do you know how many titles worldwide shut down? I have no idea, but I know for certain that I only report on those that release in the west, first of all, and secondly those that have an actual presence. You may notice titles that gather a respectable following but still do not appear here on MMO Fallout because of a lack of what I call news-worthiness. That being said, I get saturated with requests to do similar articles to the “What Happened” series every time some random Korean-launched MMO with little to no presence in the west shuts down, or when a small group goes bankrupt because their only source of revenue is localizing Asian cash shop titles and maintaining the servers, yet the can’t manage to do that.
One of the most common tips sent to the MMO Fallout email address (mmofallout at gmail) relates to Terms of Service and End User License Agreements, and people (understandably) have a tendency to take the wording of said documents as an open door for the company to abuse its customers down the road, rather than its real intention: Covering the company’s collective asses.
The reason I’m writing this article today is because of a recent discovery in EA’s Origin download manager that states your account may be deleted for inactivity after two years of no action by the user. After many contacts to EA’s customer service, by myself and others, I can conclude that EA has no intent of following through and deactivating accounts for anyone with games. Doing so would cause irreparable harm to the company’s reputation among gamers.
Steam, EA, and virtually every company have clauses where your license can be terminated for any reason whatsoever, and in some agreements for no reason whatsoever. This doesn’t mean Valve or John Smedley are going to one day say “hey let’s ban ten thousand people and see how many buy their games back,” rather I can say from someone who has worked customer service in the gaming industry, that it’s an end-all beat-all for people who try to circumvent the wording of the Terms of Service to evade a ban. It’s similar to when you would try to get around your parents by saying “well you didn’t specifically say I couldn’t do this,” and they would respond with “well I’m the adult and what I say goes in this house.”
For the record, such a clause is indeed legal. It’s similar to how EA can shut down online services for various games each year but retailers can keep the games on shelf with their original box art, or how an MMO can shut down without legal repercussion (they do have to take the boxes down in that case, however). The biggest drawback to terms of service and EULA’s is that they always favor the company, no exceptions, and will always grant full control over the game to the company. In the case of MMOs, this translates to you own nothing regarding your account, your characters, your items, etc. What you, as a consumer, must take into consideration is how much trust you put in that company.
But as I have always maintained here at MMO Fallout: Vote with your wallet. If you still don’t trust Origin and want to buy The Old Republic or a similar game, buy the boxed copy. Or don’t buy it at all. It might also be productive to email EA to express your discontent for the service.
Daniel Clough is the Vice President of Runescape, probably having just recently been promoted to the position because it is once again time for a public announcement by Jagex that they will be doing everything in their power to trounce the issue of bots and gold farmers that have not only come back in full effect since free trade was returned earlier this year, but have managed to infiltrate and saturate all manner of training spots.
We are constantly looking into ways of making the game experience the very best possible for all of our players and as part of our on-going programme to rid the game of bots, Jagex is actively pursuing companies that support the macroing market as well as those who bot. As such we are currently pursuing various bot developers through multiple legal channels, although sadly we cannot yet disclose the full details of our actions for legal reasons. Separately, as part of normal legal process and procedure, we have also taken steps to acquire the details of all players who have purchased bots.
Once we have the information regarding the players involved we will take action specifically to ensure that these players are not compromising the game’s integrity through the use of a third party programs. We are committed to undertaking various initiatives to identify players and companies who are using and distributing bots within RuneScape and will endeavour to inform you all of these efforts as we can.
In the meantime, be safe, don’t fall to the dark side and we look forward to the positive outcomes of our actions ultimately making the game experience a better one for everyone.
If Jagex wants to give the impression that they are fighting bots, the first step is probably to put a damper to the legion currently inhabiting Runescape. Jagex should be improving their detection software, make it much more difficult to create throwaway accounts, the kind of inhibitory processes that stop a vast amount of accounts being created.
As I’ve stated before, Jagex’s main cause of concern with bots is and always has been the payment of membership via stolen credit cards, which cause Jagex a large sum in reversals and fees and harm the company directly. While bots are paying with legitimate forms of payment, you will not see the bot population drop significantly.
The guys over at Perpetuum Online were hoping to get a big patch out soon, but according to the latest dev blog much of the past few weeks has been spent dealing with a major increase in players, more specifically refugees from Eve Online.
The influx of players brought light to a lot of glitches, imbalances and dysfunctional mechanisms in the game, so instead of rushing forward and pushing out new features in the next weeks, we are taking a step back and making everything that is available in the game better. All of these features are subject to change, but their purpose and outlines are quite clear.
The connection to Eve Online isn’t just speculation, however, as Perpetuum has been noting the surge of players relating directly with the controversy over at CCP over the cash shop and the long list of players committing to quit and find another game. With Perpetuum being the closest alternative on the market, it only makes sense that the disgruntled players would end up there.
Again the long term success remains on whether or not those who pledged to never send CCP another dollar/buy another PLEX will actually go through and cancel or turn around and start mailing their subscription in via anonymous money orders, while playing Eve in a secluded room with Xfire turned off. Don’t fret though, the Perpetuum crew has a lot of plans for the game now that the server issues are taken care of. Click on the link above to read the entirety of the dev blog.
The guys over at Perpetuum Online were hoping to get a big patch out soon, but according to the latest dev blog much of the past few weeks has been spent dealing with a major increase in players, more specifically refugees from Eve Online.
The influx of players brought light to a lot of glitches, imbalances and dysfunctional mechanisms in the game, so instead of rushing forward and pushing out new features in the next weeks, we are taking a step back and making everything that is available in the game better. All of these features are subject to change, but their purpose and outlines are quite clear.
The connection to Eve Online isn’t just speculation, however, as Perpetuum has been noting the surge of players relating directly with the controversy over at CCP over the cash shop and the long list of players committing to quit and find another game. With Perpetuum being the closest alternative on the market, it only makes sense that the disgruntled players would end up there.
Again the long term success remains on whether or not those who pledged to never send CCP another dollar/buy another PLEX will actually go through and cancel or turn around and start mailing their subscription in via anonymous money orders, while playing Eve in a secluded room with Xfire turned off. Don’t fret though, the Perpetuum crew has a lot of plans for the game now that the server issues are taken care of. Click on the link above to read the entirety of the dev blog.
With all the talks from Sony Online Entertainment regarding Star Wars Galaxies shutting down, LucasArts has been silent on the issue. Not anymore. In a letter from LucasArts, Gamepro has published the following:
The decision to shut down the game has not been an easy one. SOE and LucasArts investigated every option to keep the game open, including taking it to a free to pay model. However, that model just isn’t financially viable. Changing the business model for an experience like Star Wars Galaxies takes a major investment and overhauling of the existing infrastructure of the game. We’re unfortunately at a point in our life cycle where a change of this magnitude is just not possible. The harsh reality is that we’ve reached a point where the game is no longer a sustainable business. None of us wanted to see this point, but we’re extremely proud of the last eight years of the game and the community that has supported it.
We have a lot planned between now and December and we want to make sure that from now until then, we send off Star Wars Galaxies in a style befitting such a great game. We’ll be right there in the game with everyone else, counting down until the end, making sure we connect with all the friends we’ve made over the past eight years. It may be bittersweet, it may feel like it’s happening before it should, but we have approximately five months remaining where we can all enjoy the game together. We sincerely hope the community will join us.
Well it’s certainly a response, and it does show that a free to play model was at least considered.
NCsoft wants to poke fun at traditional awards ceremonies with the Golden Chippies award for the best and brightest of MMO journalists. Set to be handed out at Brighton’s Developers Conference, the Golden Chippies will cover a wide array of categories:
GM Award for Appearing to Know More than the Developers
Tank Award for Impenetrable Resolve and Integrity
Emote Award for Most Eminently Cheery Journalist
AFK Award for Hardest MMO Journalist to Track Down
Twink Award for the Strongest Introduction to MMO Journalism
MMO Journalist of the Year
NCsoft EU PR Director Cat Channon had this to say:
“MMO journalism is a labour of love for those involved. A niche but growing subset of traditional gaming media, these guys really are doing it through devotion to the genre. The Golden Chippies allow us to sing their praises over some classic seaside fare and raise some cash for a good cause in the process.”
Now all I have to do is wait until the Golden Chippies come to America, and for NCsoft to acknowledge my existence.
A rather humorous poster once said “My rule on wiping in-game is the same as in real life. If someone else does it for me, I feel violated.” The month of August starts in 16 days, and in that month we are expected to receive more information regarding Darkfall 2.0, aka Darkfall 2010. To those of you keeping tabs, what started as a promotion for an update so altering it had to be considered a relaunch has devolved into Aventurine’s initial mention, and refusal to confirm or deny, the possibility of a full character wipe. In the latest Epic Blog, Tasos Flambouras states the following:
Wipe speculation: We addressed this, to the extent of our knowledge of the topic, during our last activity report when it was brought up by some members of the community in relation to Darkfall’s relaunch. This is not an issue for the present, but you wouldn’t know it looking at our forums. Furthermore the speculation and discussion about the possibility of a wipe is based on the current Darkfall status and facts. We haven’t wiped the server andwe wouldn’t do it as things are now, so discussing this is pointless.
We’ll ask you to be patient a little longer until we give you all the facts on “Darkfall 2.0″ and we can have a discussion on a great number of topics, including this one.
Apparently Tasos has taken his PR spin lessons at the same school as Dave Georgeson, who you’ll remember stated that he wasn’t lying when he said Everquest II players wouldn’t be subject to free to play, by launching Everquest II Extended and calling it a completely separate product. Take a look at the comment in bold in the above statement. Thrown into the PR machine with the lever switched to reverse, you come out with “Darkfall 1.0 (the current version) has not and will not be wiped.”
Tasos, the community isn’t asking if Darkfall 1.0 will be wiped. They are asking if Darkfall 2.0 will bring a character wipe, a topic you brought up and have been juggling since. If Aventurine hadn’t mentioned a character wipe in the first place, we wouldn’t be having this discussion right now. It’s like serving someone a sandwich and making an off-hand remark about hoping the turkey didn’t land in the toilet, then wondering why the person is so concerned all of a sudden and asking questions related to your comment.
Aventurine’s position so far can be summed up as “we’re not saying there will be a wipe with Darkfall 2.0, but if there is the process of getting back to where you were has been hastened to the point where it isn’t a big deal anyway.” Don’t expect any more details on this topic soon, as forum moderator Teucrus has reminded us:
Well until you have been given all the info on DF 2.0 there will be nothing new on the topic. You knew this since last week.
Those concerned will vote yes on a wipe, because if Aventurine had already set their minds on no, they could easily quell the theories by just coming out and saying no. Two letters, very simple. So it’s reasonable to conclude that Aventurine either has not come to a conclusion, or they have and are simply holding out on saying “yes” until the last minute. Not giving an answer has a potentially toxic effect on the community and can cost them in disgruntled subscribers. Saying yes now is certainly a toxic move that guaranteed will not only cost them in disgruntled subscribers, but potential customers.
“This is a topic we’ll open up for discussion after we’ve given you more information on the new version of the game, so you can understand all the parameters involved.”
On the other hand, you can all line up for your $20. Tasos has confirmed that Darkfall is NOT going Free To Play.
We also read around the Internet about Darkfall going free-to-play: Rumor has it that if you start a sentence with “rumor has it…” you can say pretty much anything you want. Not true.
MMO Fallout 