Stephen Calender Talks:


By now, you may be slightly familiar with the name Stephen Calender, ex-programmer for NetDevil. A few weeks ago, I brought up his blog post in a Week in Review, that went into detail starting at the acquisition of Lego Universe by Lego (and subsequent layoffs) to the relationship between Gazillion and NetDevil and even advice on how to get hired in the industry. In his post, he also expressed his “frustration with fellow co-workers who primed the rumor machine,” dealing with how the media (including myself) managed to come across the news of the NetDevil layoffs before some of the people actually affected by the layoffs, thanks partially to the quick dissemination of details by laid off staff.

The next day I found an email from who else? Stephen Calender, with the hopes of explaining that his intention was not to “take a jab” (as I described it) at the media. So after a short back and forth, I saw this as an excellent opportunity for both of us, and requested an interview.

The interview is huge, so I’ve taken the liberty of hiding it behind the break.

Continue reading “Stephen Calender Talks:”

Rift Proposal


Thanks to Trion, there are now two very happily married nerds in the lands of Telara. If you think that’s impressive, just wait until my marriage hits The Old Republic with a bang, and what says I love you more than massacring Jar Jar Binks’ ancestors before the annoying little cretin is born?

Rift Sending Free Copies To Founders


If you are a founder of Rift (bought the game very early or signed up for the founder’s multi-month package), you should be receiving a free copy of Rift to gift someone you know. Each copy comes with the standard edition plus five days of free game time.

RIFT is always more fun when friends can share in the glory of battle. To thank you for your continuing support as one of RIFT’s multi-month subscription founders, here is a free copy of RIFT you can gift to a friend. Spread the excitement and raise another ally in the fight against the dragons! Make sure your friend signs up through the Ascend-a-Friend program to enjoy linked accounts and bring you one step closer to your Ember Steed. Forward this email to your soon-to-be Ascended friend today, because this code is only good until July 31, 2011.
Regards,
The RIFT Team

The code is only good until July 31st, offering plenty of time to decide upon, or go hunting for, a friend to give the code to.

MMO Fallout: End of Year 2 Statistics


This article is entirely original, any similarities between this and [redacted]’s Fishery financial presentation are completely coincidental.

MMO Fallout Year 2 statistics:

It’s been a great second year here at MMO Fallout. We wrote a lot of articles, caught a lot of crab, and despite the obvious workplace issues with some trolls, some threats, a few damaged boats, we made it through to see year three.

  • Over 148 thousand viewers caught, most along the coast of California
    • Busiest catch: February 15th, 2011
    • MMO Fallout looks to break an annual viewership of 100,000 in 2011, with a minimum amount of loss to damaged equipment (lines, nets, harpoons), and will beat last year’s traffic by the end of August.
  • 800+ articles posted (That is one article caught every day with change)
    • These posts spread out over 90 categories.
    • Those posts further break down into over 1,400 tags.
    • The most popular tag is “Sony Online Entertainment” with 74 articles linked.
  • More than 325 comments posted.
    • Akismet caught 13,794 spam comments, a 900% increase in spam attempts.
  • MMO Fallout currently tracks over 70 MMOs
    • The most popular game was Champions Online for a second year running.
  • The following MMOs launched since last year, among others:
    • Clone Wars Adventures
    • DC Universe
    • Earthrise
    • Free Realms (PS3)
    • Final Fantasy XIV
    • Gods & Heroes
    • Hello Kitty Online
    • Lego Universe
    • Perpetuum
    • Rift
    • Vindictus
    • Xsyon 2012
    • World of Tanks
  • The following titles shut down since last year, among others:
    • All Points Bulletin
    • Chronicles of Spellborn
    • Earth Eternal
    • Exteel
    • Fantasy Earth Zero
    • Lineage
    • The Agency (pre-release)
  • The following titles transitioned to free to play in the past year:
    • Age of Conan
    • Alganon
    • APB: Reloaded
    • Champions Online
    • Everquest 2
    • Global Agenda
    • Hellgate Global
    • Pirates of the Burning Sea

The second year of MMO Fallout brought a crap load of controversy in ways I had never imagined. Looking back through the old articles, the first big name to pop up is, of course, All Points Bulletin, and Realtime World’s promises that the game was their focus, the company wasn’t going anywhere, all the while working on this side project MyWorld. I think when the MyWorld team was canned in August, that was the first indication that Realtime Worlds wasn’t going to make it financially. Then we learned the company was in administration (Chapter 11 bankruptcy), and about a month later the game just shut down.

This was also the year that Jagex started reminding us that their products were not just Runescape and the failed FunOrb project. Between Stellar Dawn (which is hopefully starting beta this year), a third unnamed MMO, Transformers Online, and 8realms, Jagex’s name now sits on War of Legends, Undercroft, Polarium, and a few other titles. Speaking of Runescape, however, the game has reintroduced free trade after three years and has once again filled with bots, despite Jagex’s claims to the contrary.

I don’t think this list would be complete without a mention of Final Fantasy XIV. Between the game’s launch with next to no content, there was no dearth of bad things to say about the company in the first few months, not least of which being the wholesale firing of the FFXIV development team. You have to hand it to the Square Enix team, however, the work they’ve put into the game since launch is impressive. I don’t know when FFXIV will get to the point of having a subscription and releasing on PS3, but I’ll be looking forward to it when it does.

Mortal Online has had an…odd history with its patches. As Henrik pointed out recently, it’s pretty much a matter of did their best, and the best wasn’t good enough. Since launch, Star Vault has been consistently in the red financially with Mortal Online, putting the game on rather shaky grounds with regards to how long the company will be able to maintain it. Gathering subscribers isn’t easy when your game suffers issues like patches removing cities, breaking entire features of the game, or servers going down for entire weekends at a time. This really shook up recently when I found that not only had Star Vault double billed some players, but they were taking a stance of non-aggression in the billing, rather Henrik Nystrom treated it as a simple matter of business. The company pretty easily revealed to me that they were taking a stance of “players have to contact us to get their money back. Otherwise, we’re going to keep it.”

Here’s a topic I haven’t talked about in a long time: Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, and rightly so. Looking back at those articles gave me a migraine, and words can’t explain how relieved I was when MGM finally refused to renew Cheyenne’s contract on Stargate.

Oh and there was that small incident with Sony with the PS3 and Station games, most of you probably didn’t hear much about it so I’ll just move on.

I’m going to have to apologize to Eve Online and CCP: In regards to your promise to never implement non-vanity items to Eve Online’s cash shop, I’m going to have to take your own advice and watch your actions over your words. Your attitude towards players during this whole debacle has been fairly poor, and your opinions towards cash shop items in the leaked newsletter lead myself and others to believe that the current set of vanity items was a toe dip in the water to test a future update. With talks of $10,000 gold paint jobs, I don’t think this is the last we’ll see of Eve’s cash shop.

Here at MMO Fallout, it’s been a great year. Back last year I finished my work on the Where To Buy page, which has received a massive amount of work into it since then. What started out as my covering Steam/Direct2Drive sales spiraled into a growing database. I’ve had the interview with Derek Smart and I have more on the way (keep tuned), with plenty of other projects I’m working on for the year to come.

It’s going to be a good 2012, at least until we all die and burn in hellfire, in which case I will be maintaining MMO Fallout from the oddly-cooled depths of oblivion.

Marvel Appoints Bill Roper As Vice President


At one point working on MMO Fallout excavated a tiny part of my brain, and replaced it with a long list of industry names and their associations. So any time I hear the name Bill Roper, David Bravik, or Max Schaefer, the “Flagship Studios” red alert goes off and won’t stop buzzing until I finish writing the article.

I received a few emails after I wrote the previous article as to why I picked Bill Roper’s name first in the list of people who incite arguments, if I knew something I couldn’t talk about or if there was some connection between Bill Roper and Marvel. Anyway, my point is that my readers are fairly prone to conspiracy theories, knowing my past history of jokes and mild hints coming true.

Anyway, Marvel announced today that Bill Roper has been appointed as Vice President. The ex-Blizzard, Ex-Cryptic Studios developer joins the team and will undoubtedly have his eyes set on the gaming portion of Marvel. It’s worth specifying that this is Marvel that Roper is VP of, not Gazillion Entertainment, makers of Marvel Super Hero Squad Online and Marvel Universe.

 “We are pleased to have Bill join our team. With 17 years of experience in the worldwide gaming industry, we are confident that Bill has the creative vision necessary to help guide the next wave of development and product for DIMG’s Marvel Games.“

You can all just leave your wallets at the door.

Source: Massively

The Old Republic: Now With Limited Quantities


Good news, fans of Star Wars, The Old Republic, and Bioware: Starting today, you may preorder EA’s upcoming MMO through selected retailers. While supplies last. Yes, if you want to preorder through Origin.com, you will have to go through the arduous “I’m not worthy” process of submitting a request to pre-order, waiting for your confirmation, and hopefully getting a spot. Oh and there’s a $5 “fee” to preorder, and a $20 fee to pre-order the collector’s edition (which is now out of stock).

Don’t worry, the limited supply is not because of something technically related, Bioware is artificially limiting supply:

BioWare has always had a history of delivering high quality experiences for our customers and we are dedicated to making sure that track record continues with Star Wars: The Old Republic. Our focus is on not only delivering a high quality game, but also in developing a thriving online environment. In order to ensure a great user experience we have decided to limit initial launch supply. Further supplies will be released post-launch.

It should also be noted that Origin is not accepting orders from Australian or South American users. But still, The Old Republic must be a great game if players are being billed a “fee” for the privilege of getting in line to possibly preorder a game, right? This is how EA plans to beat Steam in the digital distribution market? It is unknown how this is affecting stores outside of Origin, if at all.

Quick Look: Alganon, Fall of the Ourobani Comic

I review Alganon’s comic book: Fall of the Ourobani.


Alganon lore is a topic I am not fully versed in. The game spans two factions divided by race (Humans and Talrok), in an endless battle over territory, power, and resources. Through past updates, Quest Online has expanded the lore through the library and via in-game updates. This winter sees the release of the next Alganon expansion, introducing the Ourobani race. To prepare for the expansion, Quest Online is releasing a comic book titled Fall of the Ourobani, the plot leading into the events that occur when the expansion launches later this year.

The first issue sets the stage for the expansion, introducing some key players to the Ourobani race. Bana’Serit, the future queen of the Ourobani, Tasa’harr, a member of the Ourobi Order, seeking a powerful weapon called the Worldhammer hidden in an ancient temple. The god of the Ourobani, the appropriately named Ouroban, is said to be so powerful (by his followers) that the Asharr and Kujix temporarily set their differences aside to destroy the faction.

Graphically, Fall of the Ourobani fits in with the art style of Alganon itself, and the desperate action of the Ourobani to get through the portal and escape the impending Asharr and Kujix armies almost gives the player a sense of sympathy toward the race. Every character is uniquely detailed, with pulsing muscles and flowing robes, each easily distinguishable from those around them. For instance, Tasa’harr is instantly recognizable as a Magus, even before the narration describes him as such. The dialogue, however, is one of the weakest links of the chain, with a lot of exposition, presumably to compensate for the fact that the story, from start to finish, is only 18 pages.

Overall the comic reveals a good chunk of lore, giving a proper introduction to the barbarian-styled race of the Ourobani as well as setting the stage for why the race is suddenly making its way back into Alganon, what they want, and why players should feel compelled to slaughter them by the thousands. It’s worth a read, even if you’re just slightly interested in the lore surrounding Alganon.

The digital comic will be available in about three weeks, although sadly the print copy will only be available at the two Comic Cons. Fall of the Ourobani was created by DC Comics and hopefully will not be the only issue in the series. If anything, the comic is excellent hype material for the upcoming expansion, and advertisement for Quest Online’s upcoming MMO Line of Defense.

This quick look was completed using the full release copy of Fall of the Ourobani, supplied to MMO Fallout by Quest Online. The images used are from the preview pages available at Alganon’s website.

Earth Eternal Coming Back, Open Beta in North America Soon


Earth Eternal has been in the pipeline for a long time, since it shut down rather unsurprisingly last August, and it was revealed that the game was indeed sold at an auction but to an unknown buyer. Since then we’ve been speculating on who the buyer is, ultimately turning out to be a rather unknown Japanese developer Sankando. Just recently, Sankando rebooted Eartheternal.com:

Welcome back to the Earth Eternal universe! It’s been a long time since we last explored the exciting world of Earth Eternal but we are proud to announce the return of the US Earth Eternal service this Summer! Currently we are putting the finishing touches on the US server and we plan to open the game into Open Beta very soon. Please visit our forums and meet the fantastic community and dev team and check back often for the latest Earth Eternal updates.

Some information has been revealed already pertaining to the relaunch. Unlike the previous version, the new Earth Eternal will not play through the browser but rather its own client. The open beta is expected to start “very quickly,” so keep tuning in to find more.

How About An Authenticator In The Standard Edition?


Dear developers,

You cannot say that you are in tune with player security and then only include one of the best security options available (authenticator) as an exclusive item with the collector’s edition. When Final Fantasy XIV was released, Square only allowed players to obtain the authenticator through the $79.99 collector’s edition. With the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic, the details of which were just confirmed today, the authenticator will only be released with the $150 collector’s edition.

Now, games like World of Warcraft allow you to buy the dongle separately, while games like Rift opt for digital versions (iOS and android devices). That isn’t to say Bioware won’t have the authenticator on sale at their store after the game launches, but given the standard edition already carries the premium-console price ($60), adding an authenticator could help justify that extra $10.

When Star Wars: The Old Republic launches, it will be one of the biggest launches since Aion, and that means every gold farmer and their brother is going to be phishing, hacking fan sites, and launching every attack they can to steal accounts. We see this in World of Warcraft, Aion, Lineage, and all of the big name MMOs: Where player activity is high, so is rampant account theft (the goal, for the unfamiliar, is to wipe the account clean and sell items for cash before the player can recover it). If Bioware wants to be known as the company that entered the MMO market swinging, they need to get serious about account security, as in starting yesterday. Otherwise they’ll be spending a lot of resources beefing up customer service to deal with all the incoming requests.

I say the same for Square Enix with Final Fantasy XIV, although the price of the game has dropped so dramatically, picking up the collector’s edition is a $25 investment at my local stores, so obtaining the authenticator is hardly out of one’s grasp like the $150 TOR edition.

Alganon Comic Book Coming This Year


I know what you’re thinking, and put your calendars away because we’re talking serious brass tacks here. Not too long ago, Derek Smart announced that Alganon would be receiving a comic book, with the first issue taking place before the upcoming expansion, revealing more about the third race coming to Alganon: The Ourobani. In a press release today, Quest Online revealed that the comic will make its premiere at San Diego Comic-Con at the DC Comics booth.

“Alganon – Fall of the Ourobani”, tells the story of Bana’serit, a young leader of the Ourobani. Under assault from rival factions, Bana’serit seeks out a mythical weapon in a desperate attempt to secure the safety of her people. This limited edition comic reveals the series of events that lead into the upcoming Alganon expansion pack, Rise of the Ourobani.

The comic will only be available at San Diego Comic Con and at New York Comic Con, and will be available in a few weeks as a digital comic via PC, iPad, and iPhone on Comixology and the DC comics store.

Until then, you can read the preview pages here.