Derek Smart Talks: Alganon, Free To Play


I know what you’re thinking: “Omali, you clearly don’t have a punchline ready for this segment,” and you would be one hundred percent correct, but I have good news. In my continuing efforts to branch MMO Fallout from the normalcy of sarcastic comments, random videos, rants, sales, and “I told you so” moments, I’ve decided to start trying to get interviews with various developers, starting with my first phase: “How Free Can You Be?” I’ll be trying to get interviews with various free to play developers, about their outlook and particular take on the business model.

So with fresh taser burns from my daily trash looting at the Bioware offices, I chatted with Derek Smart about Quest Online and Alganon.

First off, I want to thank you for taking time out of your busy day to talk about Alganon and Quest Online. For those reading this who might not play Alganon, tell us a bit about Alganon and Quest Online and yourself.

I have been a game developer for over twenty years mostly focusing on hardcore space games developed at a company which I founded and own, 3000AD, Inc.

Quest Online was founded and seed funded in 2006 by Greg Wexler and some other dude who used to work for him at one of his other companies, Mortgage Coach. The company developed the Alganon MMO game which was released back in 2009 prematurely by that very dude (later terminated) and to well publicized disastrous results. So I was brought in by the majority investors to head the company, rescue and finish Alganon etc. I’ve been heading the company and leading the team since then.

The holy grail of free to play developers is to strike a center where the player is not so encumbered by the cash shop that he feels forced to spend, but at the same time has an incentive to throw money down on items/equipment. What is Quest Online’s aim for the cash shop’s presence in-game?

To be perfectly honest, we were lucky in some regard. You see, the game was not developed to be a F2P game supported by a cash shop. So when we literally cobbled that in, the game’s original design gave players all this content for free because there was only so far that we could go in order to monetize the game without doing a major amount of work. So the end result is that when we made the switch from a subscription model, we didn’t get much push back from the gamers because they could play the game without having to buy a single thing.

In the past year we have added numerous items to the cash shop, some essential and some vanity and we’re continuing to do that periodically. For example when we started implementing PvP we took the opportunity to added more cash shop items without making it so that the player with the most money wins. Though that can in fact happen at some point; but that’s the nature of the beast. 🙂

The level boost (about $10 total for the last twenty levels) is really the only “essential” buy to experience all the content available in Alganon. Can you give us an idea about what the big nonessential sellers are? Vanity pets, dyes, potions, boons, gear, temporary/permanent mounts?

That is correct. I don’t have the metrics on hand, so I really don’t know what the big sellers are.

Do you believe in the 85-10-5 rule for cash shop games (85% pay nothing, 10% pay a small amount, 5% pay substantially)?

Absolutely because that is pretty much the sort of metrics that I am seeing in our weekly reports. For Alganon, since you can play for such a long time without having to spend a single dime, our metrics – while improving in leaps and bounds – tend to be all over the map. That comes with the territory.

Alganon offers scaling PvP armor (the armor stats level with the player) on the tribute market. How is the tribute armor balanced so Alganon doesn’t become a buy to win game?

I don’t really have the answer to that because I don’t know. What I do know is that the guys try to make sure that the game doesn’t end up being “pay to win” like so many other F2P games out there.

The manner in which Quest Online has set up the tribute market is rather non-intrusive (barring perhaps the last twenty levels). How do you go about attracting a player’s attention to the tribute market’s existence, or is that a secondary function of the level cap?

We try to be as discreet as possible because as I mentioned earlier we don’t want to give gamers the wrong impression. While we do want to make money, we want to ensure that gamers stick around long enough to like the game and thus spend money on it so that we can continue to improve on it. We periodically have promos and such but we don’t go out of our way to make them intrusive.

How did Alganon’s advertising campaign in PC Gamer perform? From my personal experience playing, there seems to be a small but noticeable increase in concurrent users on Alganon compared to just six months ago.

It quite well actually. But it wasn’t just PC Gamer; we had campaigns on various online sites as well as other print media such as Beckett’s MMOG and others. All that in addition to our on-going Google and Facebook promos. I tend to spend money wisely, so I don’t believe in just throwing money at a marketing wall. For me, timing is everything and it has to make sense.The game’s population is growing, which is precisely why I am expanding the game as well as branching the IP out to other games.

What do you think the largest barrier is to more people picking up Alganon? Quite a few free to play games have noted a significant (30% in Dungeon Runners) percentage of players never fully download the client after they register an account.

I think it boils down to the MMO version of a perfect storm. We had the disastrous 2009 launch by my predecessor followed by the well publicized drama of his inevitable exit. And to make things worse, the game wasn’t even finished, it was buggy, had missing features etc. As if that wasn’t bad enough, it was a game you had to buy and pay a monthly subscription to play. Yeah, crazy stuff indeed. So there’s all that.

With so many choices out there, getting gamers to come back and take a second look, takes a tremendous amount of work, resources and marketing. So we have been taking it one step at a time. So our biggest barrier is getting gamers to come back; in addition to those who didn’t even bother to even check it out.

Launching off of the previous question, are there any plans for similar promotions in the future? Would Quest Online consider bringing back referral bonuses?

Yes we are considering that and several other promotions which will be announced in the coming weeks. In fact we have a promotion going on this weekend.

Alganon’s saving grace from its launch has been Quest Online’s dedication to fixing up the title, whereas a lot of other companies might have cut their losses, given the figurative finger to the early adopters, and moved on to another project. I think this is why the active Alganon community, although relatively small, are very adamant defenders of the game. Since your arrival, you seemed to have really rallied the development team, improving the game a lot since its relaunch back in 2010. Your thoughts?

Well my first course of action was to see the game completed. Then we had to address the bugs, performance issues, touted but either missing or incomplete features etc. We had to get all that out of the way first in order to assess whether or not Alganon was worth saving in the long term. Of course the business model was rubbish to begin with and simply could not be sustained, so I got rid of that as well and took the game F2P. In the end, it came down to my deciding whether or not there was anything worth saving. So once all those obstacles were out of the way, I made that determination and so I rallied the troops who then hunkered down and just got on with it. It really boils down to focus. We came up with a plan and executed that plan in various steps and phases leading to where we are now: the expansion of Alganon.

On a completely unrelated note, I heard through a very reliable source that you will be present at E3. Will there be any news on Line of Defense?

Yes, we are unveiling the first Alganon expansion, along with a bunch of other good stuff. The PR which should be out on June 7th, contains all the information.

There really isn’t anything new on the Line Of Defense front, other than it is coming along nicely and is looking awesome. We are going to be releasing some new shots once the E3 noise dies down next week. In the mean time, this is the art for the posters and postcards available at the show. http://www.3000ad.com/lod/media/shots/lod_poster.jpg

I want to thank Derek Smart again for taking time away before heading off to E3 to talk to me.

Star Vault Partners With Lekool: Mortal Online In Asia


Mortal Online is heading to Asia. In a press announcement, developer Star Vault announced that the company is partnering with Lekool to publish Mortal Online in China and other Asian countries. You may be familiar with Lekool from their publishing ventures in the United States: Caesary, Business Tycoon Online, and more.

“We are very happy to enter into this long term partnership with Star Vault. Star Vault has very unique products that are rarely seen in Asia, we have got several publishers interested in Mortal Online from Asia, especially from China. We think there is a huge market for Star Vault’s games and we would like to play a role to make it happen.”

More on Mortal Online as it appears.

Trying On Trion: Happiness And (Almost) A Million Sales


So much for the forum users claiming Rift had sold over a million copies since launch. According to Trion in an interview with Gamasutra, Rift is nearing its 1 millionth sale. Interestingly enough, VP of publishing David Reid also revealed that the 1 millionth customer, and whoever they refer, will get something special from Trion.

“We are on the verge of selling our 1 millionth unit of Rift,”

For some members of the community, Rift’s health has been in question since Trion announced the introduction of weekly allowed server transfers for no fee. With this announcement, Trion hopes to alleviate those concerns, while planting the idea that the free transfers are simply intended to be a convenience for players.

 “The subscription market is not dying, we’re clearly seeing that. The MMORPG market is not declining. We believe a quality product is going to continue to be something that gamers are willing to pay for as long as we continue to run the service as we should,”

In an interview with Gamefront, Scott Hartsman made a great point on the evolution of the community:

Back in the day, WAY back in the day, in the Everquest, Ultima Online days, nobody had real life friends that played online games, so you made all your friends online. These days, you have friends all over the place, and you probably do have real life friends playing the game. The world has changed a little bit. For us, we want to make sure that when you suddenly discover that your buddy from college or from the old job is playing on another server, you can click a button and go play with him. Chances are, you’re going to be happy, you’re going to stick around longer, and then everybody wins.

More on Rift as it appears.

Alganon Expansion Coming


Those of you on Alganon’s mailing list will be well aware by now of the announcement of Rise of the Ourobani. The expansion, releasing at some point between now and the next rapture, features a new race (the Ourobani) as well as a new class (The Warden), new quests, flying mounts, and player/guild housing. For those of you who don’t play Alganon, the races represent the factions you’d find in any other MMO, meaning the Ourobani are likely a third faction.

Next on the list of updates comes the Realm v Realm style updates I talked about last year. Keeps will be introduced across the land, protected by three towers that must be taken in order to take down the keep. Players will use siege weapons to take down the keeps, and will be able to transfer control of the area over to their faction. Taking down all of the keeps in succession opens the ability to sack the enemy city, bringing with it pvp rewards.

More importantly, however, comes the talks of servers. In June the Europeans will have a much easier time playing Alganon with the introduction of Aeon. Existing players will be able to transfer over to the new server. Speaking of servers…

In order to concentrate our U.S. player base and provide our players the best playing experience we’re pleased to announce that on Wednesday, June 8th 2011 we’ll be merging the populations of the Adrios and Hokk servers into a brand new realm named Matma’el.

HEY!

Luckily, everything is being transferred with your characters, but Quest Online suggests that you log in to make sure you don’t have to change your name when the merge comes tomorrow.

Check out Alganon here: http://www.myalganon.com/

Hush Now: Sony Is About To Speak


I know Sony likes to use the Sony Fan Faire in August to promote their MMOs, but the Sony press conference for E3 is about to start, and hopefully the company will shed some light on their current status. I’m looking forward to news about Everquest Next, Planetside Next, and a few of Sony’s other most recently announced titles.

CCP is on, the guy’s making jokes about Iceland being famous for messing up intercontinental flights. There is going to be NGP integration as well? Full release Spring 2012.

Let's Revisit The Turing Test: Five Years For Longevity


It’s been almost a year since I wrote the MMO Turing test and, looking back, perhaps I didn’t make the best choice of words. My goal at the time was to distinguish games with a real future from those that couldn’t cut it in the market, owing in part to the fact I don’t like throwing around terms like success and failure, because I believe the situation is much deeper than either of those two terms could ever describe. That being said, I have adjusted my views over the year to accommodate the two blanket terms, but my criteria of success and failure is based on how the game is remembered, rather than the presence (or lack thereof) of an update that personally chafes me.

So I wanted to revise my test, with the reminder that this is not a test of success, rather a test of longevity.

  • Profitability: This section used to be for population, but given a second look population directly translates to profitability. After five years, your given MMO will have significantly cut back on servers, development staff, and support since launch. Also by this point, the population is mostly made up of veterans and returning players, the game is likely no longer sold on store shelves, and the game is probably well known enough that advertising is no longer a necessity.
  • Community Awareness: This was titled “self-awareness,” but I think community awareness sums up the focus. I have a theory that the grand majority of players will quit an MMO driven by apathy related to a collection of small gripes with a title. What this comes down to from a developer’s perspective is a balance the release of enough content that every flavor of player can enjoy, coupled with knowing what your community wants (even when they don’t) in order to alienate as few people as possible. To invoke the NGE, Sony’s biggest mistake was implementing the update years after the game’s launch, and essentially telling the community what it should like. If Star Wars Galaxies had launched with the post NGE/CU systems in place from the start, there would not have been such a backlash. So you have to ask: How active in the community are the developers? Are they constantly making bad promises, content that never arrives, or expectations that are consistently tuned down?
  • Place: This remains mostly unchanged from its original incarnation, with some additions in specificity. Place refers to the specific niche that an MMO fills, because pretty much any MMO is likely a niche title. If you like superhero MMOs, you will go to Champions Online or City of Heroes. Action online super hero players have DC Universe. Large scale PvP’ers have Darkfall, Dark Age of Camelot, and more. Fantasy role players have World of Warcraft, Alganon, etc, and players who cyber with staff have Age of Conan (fun fact: This entire article revolves around this one joke). A game that can’t nail down its target audience is doomed to a long walk down a short plank, and generally is something that must be secured at launch. You can see my examples in All Points Bulletin, Earth Eternal, and a few other titles.
  • Future Outlook: Take a look at old games and see what their activity is. Are they still receiving content updates? How is the player base? Is the game being actively supported or are glitches going months without being fixed, customer support queries unanswered, and the game itself generally on life support? Have the developers been moved to a new project, or have they all been fired? This is an incredibly important factor because it depends solely on the company running the game. NCsoft, for example, is more likely to shut down a game that is under-performing while Sony Online Entertainment is more akin to keeping the game on life support via Station Pass subscribers, before pulling the plug. Just because a game is still running does not mean that it is alive.

I noted this in my previous article, but I want to completely remove the five year benchmark. Setting a point means creating a measure of success and failure, which not only goes against the point of the factors above, but is entirely unfair to certain titles. This isn’t exact science, and what works for one company may not work for another. A financial success for one game might spell certain doom for the next. I do agree with my previous conclusion, that three years is more acceptable line of “do or die,” if a line must be drawn, and five years would be the final benchmark.

As a player, I hate the idea of setting points of success and failure, and would rather a game be judged on how its players remember it post-mortem. On the other hand, MMO Fallout is also based in business, so I have to entertain both sides of the card. There is little doubt I will revisit this article once again in a year or two and adjust my terms, but such is the evolving market. A lot has changed even in the two years since MMO Fallout formed.

Let’s Revisit The Turing Test: Five Years For Longevity


It’s been almost a year since I wrote the MMO Turing test and, looking back, perhaps I didn’t make the best choice of words. My goal at the time was to distinguish games with a real future from those that couldn’t cut it in the market, owing in part to the fact I don’t like throwing around terms like success and failure, because I believe the situation is much deeper than either of those two terms could ever describe. That being said, I have adjusted my views over the year to accommodate the two blanket terms, but my criteria of success and failure is based on how the game is remembered, rather than the presence (or lack thereof) of an update that personally chafes me.

So I wanted to revise my test, with the reminder that this is not a test of success, rather a test of longevity.

  • Profitability: This section used to be for population, but given a second look population directly translates to profitability. After five years, your given MMO will have significantly cut back on servers, development staff, and support since launch. Also by this point, the population is mostly made up of veterans and returning players, the game is likely no longer sold on store shelves, and the game is probably well known enough that advertising is no longer a necessity.
  • Community Awareness: This was titled “self-awareness,” but I think community awareness sums up the focus. I have a theory that the grand majority of players will quit an MMO driven by apathy related to a collection of small gripes with a title. What this comes down to from a developer’s perspective is a balance the release of enough content that every flavor of player can enjoy, coupled with knowing what your community wants (even when they don’t) in order to alienate as few people as possible. To invoke the NGE, Sony’s biggest mistake was implementing the update years after the game’s launch, and essentially telling the community what it should like. If Star Wars Galaxies had launched with the post NGE/CU systems in place from the start, there would not have been such a backlash. So you have to ask: How active in the community are the developers? Are they constantly making bad promises, content that never arrives, or expectations that are consistently tuned down?
  • Place: This remains mostly unchanged from its original incarnation, with some additions in specificity. Place refers to the specific niche that an MMO fills, because pretty much any MMO is likely a niche title. If you like superhero MMOs, you will go to Champions Online or City of Heroes. Action online super hero players have DC Universe. Large scale PvP’ers have Darkfall, Dark Age of Camelot, and more. Fantasy role players have World of Warcraft, Alganon, etc, and players who cyber with staff have Age of Conan (fun fact: This entire article revolves around this one joke). A game that can’t nail down its target audience is doomed to a long walk down a short plank, and generally is something that must be secured at launch. You can see my examples in All Points Bulletin, Earth Eternal, and a few other titles.
  • Future Outlook: Take a look at old games and see what their activity is. Are they still receiving content updates? How is the player base? Is the game being actively supported or are glitches going months without being fixed, customer support queries unanswered, and the game itself generally on life support? Have the developers been moved to a new project, or have they all been fired? This is an incredibly important factor because it depends solely on the company running the game. NCsoft, for example, is more likely to shut down a game that is under-performing while Sony Online Entertainment is more akin to keeping the game on life support via Station Pass subscribers, before pulling the plug. Just because a game is still running does not mean that it is alive.

I noted this in my previous article, but I want to completely remove the five year benchmark. Setting a point means creating a measure of success and failure, which not only goes against the point of the factors above, but is entirely unfair to certain titles. This isn’t exact science, and what works for one company may not work for another. A financial success for one game might spell certain doom for the next. I do agree with my previous conclusion, that three years is more acceptable line of “do or die,” if a line must be drawn, and five years would be the final benchmark.

As a player, I hate the idea of setting points of success and failure, and would rather a game be judged on how its players remember it post-mortem. On the other hand, MMO Fallout is also based in business, so I have to entertain both sides of the card. There is little doubt I will revisit this article once again in a year or two and adjust my terms, but such is the evolving market. A lot has changed even in the two years since MMO Fallout formed.

What Happened This Week: That's Not Linguine Edition


Here’s a question for this week: If you could sit down and talk to anyone in the gaming industry, who would you talk to and what would you ask them? Over here at MMO Fallout, I came upon that decision rather easily. The Who: Free to play/cash shop developers. The What: Their business model. Thanks to the saturation by games in the East, the cash shop model was tainted long ago with the idea that any game bearing such a tag would be free to download, pay to win, and buy to compete. With the crowding of the market, the games that do wind up being buy to win are quickly shunned in the west (although they are still great money makers in Korea, China, etc) and have a habit of shutting down only a year or two outside of launch.

I’ll have more details in the weeks to come on that note, but let’s talk about what happened this week.

1. Go To Hell-Gate In a Handbasket

The Hellgate closed beta launched late Friday, and the resulting server implosion was exactly what you would expect with a 50-50 chance of being approved along with major giveaways from 3rd party websites. In fact, I’m not entirely sure that you could call the beta “limited,” given how many keys were being thrown around. Once again, however, a closed beta has gone up and every other video game must have closed doors, because the Hellgate forums are filled with whining about the servers being down, and an apparent lack of anything else to do with your time.

I’ll remind you: The servers for a free beta test for a free game are down, and people are already calling the game a “failure.” Well if the game is a failure, no sense sitting on the forums flailing your arms like toddlers in a WalMart parking lot, right? I’m sure it’s not worth noting, but I’m continually amazed by the amount of people who will (allegedly) call in sick, take the day off, skip school, to get opening day at a video game. Forgetting the obvious lack of priorities, you are guaranteed to be disappointed when the game’s servers are down due to the amount of other people who did the exact same thing.

I rarely suggest people preorder MMOs, because almost none of them have the mentality that accepts the inevitably broken/delayed features, laggy servers, and game breaking bugs. Forgoing income for the sake of playing a video game is just ridiculous in and of itself.

2. Perpetuum Online Mass Ban

Nothing says loving like a mass ban in the oveng. The guys over at Avatar want you to know that cheaters are being dealt with by the mighty banhammer. In a blog post, the team threw up this graph and briefly talked about a game mechanic being exploited in a way no one could mistake for legitimate gameplay, allowing for a massive amount of resource collection.

Good for Perpetuum. A smaller game with a smaller community has to work extra hard to get rid of cheaters.

3. You Remind Me Of Another MMO

Dear MMO,

I’ve had this odd feeling about you over the past year or so, and it wasn’t until just recently that I figured out why. That strange feeling not that I’ve played you before, but that I covered your company, despite being the first game your company has developed. You don’t share any names with this other game, but in spirit you are almost one in the same.

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks, sweeping me back into a series of waking nightmares I hadn’t experienced for around six years: Mourning. The name, its company…Colton Burgess’ cronies sending me harassing emails and private messages. Sending beta versions of the game on unlabeled Memorex CD’s. Refusing refunds, possible fraud, wiping the forums, administrators telling me to run away as fast as I can! Virtually the only MMO de-listed from MMORPG for harassment from the company-MOMMY!

Happy thoughts. Luckily I managed to close my notes before my brain was Shish Kebab’d by my wine opener. For those of you who weren’t around when Mourning was up (2005), do some Google research on Mourning, Throne of Chaos, Colton Burgess, and Loud Ant Software. Just in case you need a good laugh, or a horrifying night of no sleep.

4. Does Jagex Need Two Evony-Style MMOs?

Jagex are most known for their MMO Runescape, but did you know that the company has several products live right at this moment? Only two of which they developed in-house. Currently live, Jagex has Runescape (the Fantasy MMO) and FunOrb (mini-game collection) developed in house, while the company publishes War of Legends (Cash shop flash city builder). Upcoming, Jagex is developing Stellar Dawn, a sci-fi MMO, an unnamed fantasy MMO (not a sequel to Runescape), Transformers Online (a Transformers MMO, go figure) and 8Realms, an HTML based city builder.

I’m not saying Jagex can’t maintain two MMORTS games, given all they do with War of Legends is publish it, but you’d think much like the Pizza Hut having a problem with my local Target opening a Pizza Hut in-store and being just down the street, that the War of Legends guys would have an issue with Jagex opening up a direct competitor to their game. Of course, that may just be my speculation.

5. More Stellar Dawn, Less Transformers Online

While we’re on the subject of Jagex, let’s talk Transformers Online. Jagex had the character creator on display at Botcon 11, with some information on the upcoming MMO. The game is set in the Prime continuity, but the team is working with Hasbro to integrate as many characters as possible. The game will feature hundreds of customization options for each part of your bot, and you will indeed create your own transformers robot, on the side you choose. Further down the line, players will be able to create and upload their own parts, decals, and art to make their bots truly unique (or to just upload crudely drawn penis/swastika decals, I’m sure).

Only question remaining is: Why can’t Stellar Dawn get this kind of love? For a game that is reportedly going into beta this year, Jagex has been rather hush on the game. Why the lack of love, Jagex?

And on that note, I’m heading back into the Hellgate Global beta. Sure my character is going to be deleted, but listening to Russians spamming chat is just too good to pass up.

What Happened This Week: That’s Not Linguine Edition


Here’s a question for this week: If you could sit down and talk to anyone in the gaming industry, who would you talk to and what would you ask them? Over here at MMO Fallout, I came upon that decision rather easily. The Who: Free to play/cash shop developers. The What: Their business model. Thanks to the saturation by games in the East, the cash shop model was tainted long ago with the idea that any game bearing such a tag would be free to download, pay to win, and buy to compete. With the crowding of the market, the games that do wind up being buy to win are quickly shunned in the west (although they are still great money makers in Korea, China, etc) and have a habit of shutting down only a year or two outside of launch.

I’ll have more details in the weeks to come on that note, but let’s talk about what happened this week.

1. Go To Hell-Gate In a Handbasket

The Hellgate closed beta launched late Friday, and the resulting server implosion was exactly what you would expect with a 50-50 chance of being approved along with major giveaways from 3rd party websites. In fact, I’m not entirely sure that you could call the beta “limited,” given how many keys were being thrown around. Once again, however, a closed beta has gone up and every other video game must have closed doors, because the Hellgate forums are filled with whining about the servers being down, and an apparent lack of anything else to do with your time.

I’ll remind you: The servers for a free beta test for a free game are down, and people are already calling the game a “failure.” Well if the game is a failure, no sense sitting on the forums flailing your arms like toddlers in a WalMart parking lot, right? I’m sure it’s not worth noting, but I’m continually amazed by the amount of people who will (allegedly) call in sick, take the day off, skip school, to get opening day at a video game. Forgetting the obvious lack of priorities, you are guaranteed to be disappointed when the game’s servers are down due to the amount of other people who did the exact same thing.

I rarely suggest people preorder MMOs, because almost none of them have the mentality that accepts the inevitably broken/delayed features, laggy servers, and game breaking bugs. Forgoing income for the sake of playing a video game is just ridiculous in and of itself.

2. Perpetuum Online Mass Ban

Nothing says loving like a mass ban in the oveng. The guys over at Avatar want you to know that cheaters are being dealt with by the mighty banhammer. In a blog post, the team threw up this graph and briefly talked about a game mechanic being exploited in a way no one could mistake for legitimate gameplay, allowing for a massive amount of resource collection.

Good for Perpetuum. A smaller game with a smaller community has to work extra hard to get rid of cheaters.

3. You Remind Me Of Another MMO

Dear MMO,

I’ve had this odd feeling about you over the past year or so, and it wasn’t until just recently that I figured out why. That strange feeling not that I’ve played you before, but that I covered your company, despite being the first game your company has developed. You don’t share any names with this other game, but in spirit you are almost one in the same.

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks, sweeping me back into a series of waking nightmares I hadn’t experienced for around six years: Mourning. The name, its company…Colton Burgess’ cronies sending me harassing emails and private messages. Sending beta versions of the game on unlabeled Memorex CD’s. Refusing refunds, possible fraud, wiping the forums, administrators telling me to run away as fast as I can! Virtually the only MMO de-listed from MMORPG for harassment from the company-MOMMY!

Happy thoughts. Luckily I managed to close my notes before my brain was Shish Kebab’d by my wine opener. For those of you who weren’t around when Mourning was up (2005), do some Google research on Mourning, Throne of Chaos, Colton Burgess, and Loud Ant Software. Just in case you need a good laugh, or a horrifying night of no sleep.

4. Does Jagex Need Two Evony-Style MMOs?

Jagex are most known for their MMO Runescape, but did you know that the company has several products live right at this moment? Only two of which they developed in-house. Currently live, Jagex has Runescape (the Fantasy MMO) and FunOrb (mini-game collection) developed in house, while the company publishes War of Legends (Cash shop flash city builder). Upcoming, Jagex is developing Stellar Dawn, a sci-fi MMO, an unnamed fantasy MMO (not a sequel to Runescape), Transformers Online (a Transformers MMO, go figure) and 8Realms, an HTML based city builder.

I’m not saying Jagex can’t maintain two MMORTS games, given all they do with War of Legends is publish it, but you’d think much like the Pizza Hut having a problem with my local Target opening a Pizza Hut in-store and being just down the street, that the War of Legends guys would have an issue with Jagex opening up a direct competitor to their game. Of course, that may just be my speculation.

5. More Stellar Dawn, Less Transformers Online

While we’re on the subject of Jagex, let’s talk Transformers Online. Jagex had the character creator on display at Botcon 11, with some information on the upcoming MMO. The game is set in the Prime continuity, but the team is working with Hasbro to integrate as many characters as possible. The game will feature hundreds of customization options for each part of your bot, and you will indeed create your own transformers robot, on the side you choose. Further down the line, players will be able to create and upload their own parts, decals, and art to make their bots truly unique (or to just upload crudely drawn penis/swastika decals, I’m sure).

Only question remaining is: Why can’t Stellar Dawn get this kind of love? For a game that is reportedly going into beta this year, Jagex has been rather hush on the game. Why the lack of love, Jagex?

And on that note, I’m heading back into the Hellgate Global beta. Sure my character is going to be deleted, but listening to Russians spamming chat is just too good to pass up.

Mortal Online's Billing Servers Explode: Players Double Billed


If you have a Mortal Online subscription, you will want to check your bank account and email (where your payment confirmations are sent). According to several players on the Mortal Online forums, and confirmed by Star Vault, a recent billing issue has resulted in an unknown number of players being double, and reportedly triple, billed for their subscription fees.

Any double charge will of course be solved, we have recently moved parts of our shop system that I expect causes some of these issues. It should be solved asap.

I’ve contacted Star Vault to confirm whether or not the company is actively seeking out the extra charges, or if players will be required to submit a billing dispute with customer service on a case by case basis. I have not yet heard back, more than likely given today is Sunday. Those of you playing Mortal Online should check to make sure you weren’t charged twice. As for those who have expired accounts, you should be safe. Checking your bank won’t hurt, however.

I will update this when I receive a response from Star Vault.