Runescape: Voting The Wilderness Part 2


Don't you wish your dev team was...

The announcement that free trade is coming back to Runescape has sent players into a frenzy, more so asking the question of what will remain in the game when this update goes live. There have been quite a few updates over the past three years that conflict with there being a dangerous wilderness, that Jagex is going to have to look at them on a case by case basis.

Luckily, on the new Runescape page, where Jagex has taken the liberty of actually requiring players to sign in to vote, which oddly enough only as 300,000 votes a couple days later (as opposed to the 1.2 million votes within 24 hours that the first poll achieved through no botting whatsoever).

  • There will be no limits on trade, both player to player, through the Grand Exchange, and via the party room.
  • Unlimited staking will return.
  • The item lending, assist, and lootshare/coinshare will remain.
  • The wilderness will be once again open to Player Vs Player combat.
  • Quests and activities in the wilderness will be moved to other areas.
  • There will be new ways to achieve PvP Gear.
  • Revenants will be relocated.
  • Gravestones will remain, but only outside of the wilderness.
  • PVP/Bounty Hunter worlds will be removed.
  • Wilderness content is being reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

It will be interesting to see what Jagex does with PvP gear, as gear like Corrupted Dragon (the highest tier armor for free players), brawling gloves, and ancient warrior equipment is only obtainable through random drops from other players.

More on Runescape as it appears.

New Runescape Trailer


Now if only Runescape looked like this. The above trailer was released on Jagex’s Youtube account today, and paints an interesting picture of events to come.

Electronic Arts: No Money In In-Game Advertisement


Comments.

A good man once said “there is no such thing as a free lunch.” A greater man then followed him with “luckily it’s past 3pm, so to me this is dinner,” right before tucking into his now-complimentary meal. Those of you who play Anarchy Online’s free to play offering, or really anyone who played an EA Games…game several years ago will be aware, if slightly, about the use of in-game advertising. Mostly you might see this in Madden games, street racing titles, and other names. With the way EA was utilizing in-game advertising, one might think it a lucrative business.

Turns out, it isn’t. Electronic Arts Ben Cousins said in an interview to Edge:

“We actually aren’t getting much from ad revenue at all”, the in-game advertising business hasn’t grown as fast as people expected it to.”

Cousins reminded us that the advertising system isn’t completely dead, but does need to go deeper than simple in-game billboards. Cousins suggested soda deals as part of the system.

“We did a deal with Dr Pepper for Battlefield Heroes, where if you buy a bottle and scan in the code you get an exclusive outfit. That kind of deep integration will work, I think, but I’m not convinced that we’ll have billboards in games and things like that. Maybe those days are over.”

So if in-game billboards are dead, does that mean I’ll be able to walk around in Anarchy Online without seeing the latest Lil Wayne CD? Does Lil Wayne still make CDs? Guess there’s only one way to find out.

Runescape: Clever Publicity Stunt To Bring Back The Wilderness


Vote or die...but not from PvP

Back in 2007, in an attempt to combat rampant real world trading that threatened to knock Runescape out of existence, Jagex implemented a drastic series of updates that resulted in a dramatic change for the way Runescape functioned. Items were assigned numerical values, and trade restricted based on those values. Players no longer dropped items for others to see upon death, and gravestones were implemented to safe-guard their belongings for a temporary period of time. Player vs Player combat in the “wilderness” was removed completely, replaced by PvP mini-games.

Since then, Jagex has restructured the rules slightly. The bounty hunter mini-game was removed completely, and replaced with special worlds where player vs player combat can take place anywhere, as well as other special PvP worlds. The trade restrictions have been lessened in some circumstances, and between players who have been friends for a long time, as well as a membership perk. Still, many players long for a time when it was possible to loot someone upon death, or for the ability to gank someone in the wilderness.

Jagex launched a new page asking players if they would like the Wilderness back, as well as free trade, and the “yes” answers are flooding in, literally, at a rate of about a hundred fifty per second (I took the screenshot as I was writing the first sentence. At this point the vote is now up to 407 thousand). If enough [citation needed] players vote yes, Jagex will apparently return to the old practices. No idea on how many votes will be required. (409,000 votes)

If you hadn’t noticed by the manner in which the voting is taking place, this is essentially a publicity stunt and the decision has already been made as to whether or not the updates will be reversed. There is no method of preventing flooding, you need a valid username but you don’t have to login or provide any real account details, and there is no option to press “no,” other than to not vote. (415,000 votes)

Still, this is a fun publicity stunt. The voting ends on the 14th of January, which at this rate will result in probably around every one of Runescape’s 130 million registered usernames being thrown into the pot, whether or not that person actually wants the update. (423,000 votes)

More on Runescape as it appears (424,000 votes). Head here to vote:

http://www.runescape.com/wilderness

Steam Sales: Day #2 Up And Running


Help Me Gabe Newell!

First off, I have to give my apologies to those of you who partook in yesterday’s sale on Aion, and will no doubt be at my door ready to slit my throat over the price reductions that are coming not 24 hours later. A few of the existing titles are now on sale at an even more drastically reduced price, although previous restrictions still stand (IE: Sony’s restrictions on free time to existing accounts), and prices are still in USD.

Only a few changes today.

Sales that have not been altered are in standard colors.
Prices that have been reduced are in green.
New sales are in red.
Items no longer on sale are now removed.

Steam

  • Was $39.99, now $26.79 (33% off)
  • Includes Guild Wars, Factions, and Nightfall.
  • No subscription required.
  • Guild Wars: Eye of the North
    • Was $29.99, now $20 (33% off)
    • No subscription required.
  • Lineage
    • Was $9.99, now $6.69 (33% off)
    • Includes 7 days free game time.
  • Lineage 2: Gracia Final
    • Was $19.99, now $13.39 (33% off)
    • Includes 30 days free game time.
    • Includes all expansions.
  • Star Wars Galaxies: The Complete Adventure
    • Was $19.99, now $9.99
    • Includes all expansion packs.
    • Includes 30 days free game time (new accounts only)
  • Vanguard Saga of Heroes
    • Was $9.99, now $4.99
    • Includes 30 days free game time (new accounts only)

      • Celebrate 10 Years of Runescape With 10 Grand


      Large breasted barmaid not included...

      Runescape turns ten in 2011, and Jagex wants to roll in the first decade with, and this is just a guess, an overabundance of the number ten. Throughout 2011, Jagex will be rolling the dice and picking lucky winners out of a hat in order to win fabulous cash prizes (real cash, not Jagex bucks). The competition runs through each month in 2011, with a winner drawn the following month.

      For ten months in 2011, ten players will win one of ten one/tenth of ten thousand dollar prizes. So, ten players will win a thousand dollars every month for ten months. For every day you are a member, you will receive one entry into the competition. Remain a member the whole month and you’ll receive an entire month’s worth of entries. The competition runs January through October presumably, offering a one in approximately one million odds each month to win.

      Best of luck, Runescapers. You can read more details on the competition here: http://www.runescape.com/competition_details.ws. But seriously, how much would a date with a real life version of that barmaid cost?

      MMORPG.com: Slander With Human Shields


      You have been issued a warning by one of our moderators.

      Warning Category: Trolling
      Reason: Posting excessive negative comments or baiting others to respond in a negative manner is considered trolling on the MMORPG.com forums.

      I have this problem over on the MMORPG.com forums, and that is whenever I make a positive post about Mortal Online, a moderator comes along and issues me a warning and deletes it. This phenomena doesn’t just follow me when I’m in the Mortal Online forums, but also on the other boards where trolling is frequent and positive voices are low. What does yank my chain, however, is that when I am replying to posts, be it the original poster or someone else in the thread, the actual inflammatory posts are very rarely removed. Someone makes a comment that Star Vault is likely collecting credit card numbers to use for identity theft when Mortal Online goes down? Fine. Calling them a troll? You’ve been issued a warning. In fact, just using the term “troll” in reference to someone else can net you a warning, regardless of the rest of your message.

      So, I thought, perhaps the moderators are just misguided. Maybe the career trolls that roam the boards are friends with moderators. However, the answer hit me like a sack of bricks: United States Safe Harbor laws remove the liability of hosts from the actions of their users, so MMORPG.com can’t be sued for slander because someone on the forums, for example, wrote a thread claiming that a company was going bankrupt, using forged “insider” documents, and where the retaliatory posts displaying the true story were conveniently deleted. Meanwhile the website itself moves onward with their faux-passive aggressive writing, not outright trashing but just leaving the door open enough so that the point gets out.

      Of course, like any enterprise, the real intent occasionally leaks out in a graphic and clear-cut manner, such as (and I’m just spitballing here), having one of your writers summarize his “I got hacked” rant by claiming that Blizzard is scamming its users by staging account theft in order to scare their users into buying authenticators.

      I think Blizzard just staged the whole thing to squeeze some extra money out of me! Damn you Blizzard you slippery snake, I’m on to you. Everyone who is reading this is now wise to your scheme. Oh, I’ll buy your precious little “authenticator” just so you keep your grubby little mitts off my account you cheeky monkeys.

      If there’s one thing MMORPG.com is, however, it is efficient. I don’t think I’ve ever managed to call someone out on a lie and have my post stand for more than a half hour after. If there is another thing MMORPG.com is, it is polluted. The community is disgustingly polluted by users who have no other agenda than to sit at their keyboards and make a few thousand posts calling this company a “scam artist,” or gloating about how they managed to perform a fraudulent charge-back and turned around, bought the game again, and performed yet another fraudulent charge-back.

      MMORPG.com is a joke, and one that isn’t particularly funny.

      GamersGate Sales


      Money money money.

      I am always looking to expand MMO Fallout’s horizons in what websites we cover for sales, so today I’d like to bring in Gamersgate.

      The Risar Are Coming! The Risar Are Coming! [Mortal Online]


      “Help! Anyone, everyone, we need help! The Risar are attacking!”

      GM Events are nature’s way of saying “we’re willing to break from the normal monotony of every day gaming.” In most cases, these events are pretty simple in nature, and result in little change to the game’s landscape, if any at all. The event starts, players do things, and eventually the event ends. We all have fun, and might obtain a cool item to take home with us, but the next day is as if nothing ever happened. Other events, like in The Matrix Online and Tabula Rasa, such GM events can result in the death of major NPCs, entire bases being blown up, or even prelude to bigger expansions.

      The above GM event took place just a couple days ago in Cave Camp, players being notified by word of mouth, and by an NPC running around the wilderness frantically screaming of the attack. Players were tasked with fighting off the Risar horde (Risar are Mortal Online’s version of Orcs, for those of you who have not played the game).

      Eventually the Risar made way for their leader, the Risar Lord, to step in and finish the job. Although a number of players managed to cut the Risar Lord to size, an alliance of players from the Ascension clan (and others) bolted in, in a coordinated attack, and drove the players off to kill the Risar Lord themselves and no doubt feast upon his sweet, sweet loot.

      The event wasn’t full GM-driven, it was a scripted event that was activated and allowed to run its course. Of course, Star Vault has promised to expand upon this in the future, with more GM-driven events, surprise events to come. Players will also recall such “epic bosses,” single-time monsters that only appear once, are gone when they are killed, and are controlled by GMs.

      And now, for your viewing pleasure, the Risar Lord slaying (IE: People circling a mob and curb stomping it repeatedly).

      The Steam Holiday Sale is Here!


      It's been a long time.

      It’s around Christmas time, and you know what that means: 24 hours of A Christmas Story! Given that Ralphie Fallout is all about A Christmas Story, how to say fudge without saying fudge, tips on not shooting your eye out, and how packages labeled “fragile” are likely not from Italy, I figured we’d do something special and talk about a few video game sales that Ralphie wouldn’t have been able to play, what with living in an era where sleds were still wooden, and people still named their children Scut.

      You know the rules. Prices are in USD, items may not be available in all regions, and please for the love of God, read the page before you purchase, especially if you live outside of North America.

      Steam

        [1] Activation and download may take up to 48 hours after purchase. PayPal, PaySafeCard, and iDEAL are not accepted for purchases of this game in Pound Sterling or Euros.