Progressing Through Everquest On Fippy Darkpaw


Fippy Darkpaw

Everquest doesn’t have what you would call “sexy” graphics, so to speak, although throughout the past twelve years the game has always had a certain kind of charm to it that keeps us going back every year or so. When you take a game as old as Everquest, undoubtedly there are players who missed the first two, four, six, eight, or even ten years of development, leaving them with numerous questions. What were corpse runs like? A dangerous world.

Fippy Darkpaw is something of a running joke in Everquest, literally. He spawns outside of North Qeynos, where he shouted his threat of death, and charged headlong into a group of guards much, much higher level than him. Later on in the game, players can take part in a raid at level 85 that involves killing Fippy Darkpaw, who is much higher level and more dangerous than his Qeynos counterpart.

Why bring up Fippy? Because that is the name of the Everquest Timed Progression Server that will be launching this month. Fippy Darkpaw, the new server, will be going up February 15th, and refreshes everything in Everquest back to how it was at launch. No expansions, no updates, nothing. After certain achievements are performed, Sony will open up voting in-game for the next expansion. If the majority vote yes, the next expansion will launch with its appropriate content. If they vote no, the server will remain on that expansion for another week or so, and the voting will commence again.

In the past, progression servers on Everquest have been quite successful. If you don’t own Everquest, or are missing out on some expansions, you can check out the Where To Buy page (located at the top) and find it on sale on Steam or Direct2Drive. See you in the server on the 15th!

Look At That: Warhammer Merging Servers…


That's Mr. Merger to you...

Less than a week ago, I told players to expect more Warhammer servers to be merged and shut down this year, and although I was right on the mark, I honestly expected Mythic to spend more time “discussing” what to do about the server population issue than this. In the latest Herald news article, Mythic’s own James Nichols announced that next week will begin the free transfer off of select servers.

On the North American side, Iron Rock and Volkmar will allow players to transfer to Gorfang for free. On the European side, players on Carroburg will have the opportunity to transfer to Drakenwald. These transfers will begin on the 9th, when the affected servers (Iron Rock, Volkmar, and Drakenwald) will become “legacy” servers, disabling new characters from being created on them. After a period of three weeks, the servers will be retired, forcing characters to transfer to the chosen destination server for free, or to a server of their choice for a fee.

Each server will feature a multi-realm ability, meaning players will be able to have both factions on one server. This will leave Warhammer with two North American servers (Gorfang and Badlands) and three European servers.

Warhammer Online is a game that thrives on PvP, and therefore requires decent server population in order to keep those that are in the game, still with the game. There has been numerous signs of impending server mergers in the past, with player testimony to MMO Fallout such as Xianthe who posted on last year’s article about the Auction House:

To put it frankly, WAR’s AH is so unused at this point having too many features actually hinders use and makes selling things a pain. I know it seems unintuitive to take away features, but let’s face it — WAR is trucking along but with an unhealthy population in many respects. Making search work well, and a simple buy sell feature is really all that is needed here.

Anyone up for a rousing game of Hellgate: London?

Runescape Bot Website Steals Accounts: Surprise!


Final Fantasy XIV bots.

Security is a priority here at MMO Fallout, among our many priorities that have no static value and tend to change depending on what is making headlines. Botting, being a completely legitimate community that breaks no rules and in no way creates a seedy underbelly to a community, at no way puts the account or computer of the owner at risk. So imagine my surprise when I get people asking me to warn the Runescape community about a popular bot.

According to my sources, this very popular bot program (designed to play the game for the player) has been harvesting information including usernames and passwords, and upon the return of free trade, many players are finding themselves with their banks cleared, their passwords changed, etc. For the simple desire to sit back and watch the world burn, I won’t mention the cheat program that was compromised, although if you use it you are likely seeing its effects by now.

Moral of the story: Expect shady business from shady people. Oh, and don’t come complaining to me that I should be warning cheaters about a security breach for a game they are technically not playing.

Fantasy Earth Zero Shutting Down In West


Final Fantasy?

Fantasy Earth Zero is what you might call Square Enix’s first failed MMO, seeing as they shut the game down in Japan only months after launch, before the game even had a chance to launch worldwide. The game was boring, confusing, and didn’t have much to go on in terms of content or long term viability. After the game shut down, in a measure we all know well, another company picked up the title to relaunch.

Gamepot launched Fantasy Earth Zero back in 2006 in Japan, whereas the North American version did not hit until just last year, May 2010. While the game has enjoyed some form of success over in the east, the same could not be said for its much delayed North American counterpart. In an announcement today, Gamepot announced that Fantasy Earth Zero will be shutting down in North America on March 21st, less than a year after launch.

http://fez.gamepotusa.com/announcements/index.aspx?id=224

Square Enix: Revenue Falls, Profits Plummet


In before irony.

Final Fantasy XIV may not have struck the chord that Square Enix was looking for, and a quick discussion with beta players is a good indicator that the game’s lackluster launch and subsequently indefinitely delayed PS3 release and subscription halt are on no one’s heads but Square. Following the restructuring of the Final Fantasy XIV team, Square has been on the case since launch bringing in much needed content, fixing up players issues including the UI, battle system, and other functions.

Square Enix is soon to release their 2010 fiscal year financial report, and the company is expecting profits to be down up to 89%, with a revenue 28% lower than the previous year. Square believes that a new staff and strong console lineup will bring the company back from its current state in the 2011 fiscal year.

Hopefully the lessons have been learned and Square can quickly pick their teeth up off the floor before the blood stains can no longer be removed. Final Fantasy XIV is coming along quite well, and Square has an opportunity to bolster their sales through their console and handheld titles. Final Fantasy XI is still trucking along healthily with upcoming updates to make leveling easier for newer players who may have been overwhelmed by all that the game has to offer.

As the banner says, cautious optimism. As my mama always said, if you go in too headstrong, you’ll get knocked on your ass so fast your head will be spinning. Hopefully Square can get off their feet and put what they’ve learned to good use.

Banned? Jagex Will Sell You Your Account Back


Ban him until he pays us!

Don’t you just hate when this happens? You spend half of your time in Runescape either cursing at other players, or trying to scam new players by selling them rare black lobsters for a few hundred thousand, and suddenly you find yourself with so many warnings you cannot appeal that you are permanently banned from the game. What’s a guy to do, when he’s already wasted his appeals by reminding Jagex that they suck and that you don’t care if you’re banned forever because you’d spend more time with your girlfriend if you were? Simple, buy your account back!

As posted on the Runescape official website,

If Jagex bans any account as a result of your breach of the Rules of RuneScape and you have exhausted the Offence Appeals Process, Jagex may, in its absolute discretion, give you an opportunity to make a fixed payment to reinstate the account.

The question that remains is how much does it cost to get your account unbanned, and for what offenses is Jagex willing to unban the account?

From the outside looking in, it almost seems as if Jagex is on a campaign to stop banning players who break the rules. Not too long ago, the company removed its no-tolerance policy on using third party software to automate actions, instead opting to reset levels rather than outright ban. Undoubtedly this will help Jagex’s subscriber base, but do they really want to reintroduce the players who were removed for being a detriment to the community?

I’m going to seek out more information on how much getting unbanned costs, and will follow up this story with new information as it arises.

THQ Aborts Company of Heroes Online


Zip this one up in a body bag.

Company of Heroes Online went into beta last September, so when THQ announced that the beta would end in March, with the following:

“We are excited to reveal the next evolution of the series in the near future.”

I think we can forgive anyone who didn’t expect the entire development to be shut down. Today, THQ announced that Company of Heroes Online will cease development, during an earnings call. In the call, THQ announced that they will be reevaluating their “strategy of adapting certain Western content for free-to-play online games in Asian markets.” Company of Heroes Online was to be an adaptation of the 2006 title, republished as a free to play MMO primarily for Asian markets.

Also of note, THQ has cancelled their WWE MMO.

Such is the case of MMOs. Many live, many others die, some don’t even make it past the Alpha or beta stages. Hopefully this will allow THQ to divert more resources into Vigil’s Warhammer 40k MMO.

The Old Republic: Did We Say 1 Million? Sorry…


Kapow!

Back in March 2010, I wrote about my concerns with Star Wars: The Old Republic, primarily built around the expectation by EA Games that the game would require one million subscribers in order to “break even.” In fact, in the very-pre-release hype, EA went as far as saying that they could not only see one million subscribers, but that the number could go as high as two million. Naturally, I expressed my concern that The Old Republic could wind up like Tabula Rasa (I would have made a comparison to All Points Bulletin, but the game had neither launched or crashed at that point), shutting down after about a year.

Perhaps in response to the news that investors are lacking faith in EA Games’ ability to maintain its MMOs (Warhammer and All Points Bulletin being two examples), EA responded this week by reeling back on their one million subscriber comment. In fact, they went as far as rolling down numbers to claim that The Old Republic could be profitable off of only five hundred thousand subscribers, although EA would prefer to see the insanely profitable number of one million and beyond.

So is EA CFO Scott Brown doing damage control? Very likely, as both comments came up during conference calls attended by Gamasutra. Claiming one million to “break even” is a recipe for disaster, and in a world where EA can’t risk losing any more investors to their MMOs, the fate of The Old Republic may sit on Scott Brown not exaggerating in conference calls from now on.

[Humor] Planetside Next Trailer


Alright, so this isn’t the “official” trailer, so to speak, but it just about sums up our reaction when the real trailer comes out.

Derek Smart's New MMO: Line of Defense


Derek Smart Online

It’s easy to forget that Derek Smart still has a vested interest in his 3000A.D series, although a quick look at his twitter profile will reveal that his non-Alganon games are still being patched. Looking at the above screenshot, if your first impression is the gameplay of Earthrise combined with the graphics of our favorite super hero MMOs, you might be closer than you think. According to Line of Defense’s website (which at the time is rather sparse with direct details), LoD will be “twitch-based” and the gameplay surrounding two factions fighting over bases:

In the game, you can play as either a GALCOM military marine or an Insurgent soldier. The primary objective is to gain control of each of the four bases. You do this by waging war as an infantry marine (first or third person), on land or naval vehicles and aircrafts (fighter, gunships etc). You will take over bases by either destroying or hacking into and disabling their defense systems, thus making them vulnerable. You will do this 24-7 and 365 days a year on the Lyrius planet or in the space region above it – and all within a 100% persistent universe.

Sounds like the mass scale ground combat over territory in Planetside, in a freemium system.

Hybrid business model which caters to both F2P and premium models; both with access to in-game monetization.

More information on Line of Defense as it appears. Hopefully the combat will be engaging, because there won’t be any crafting.

No pointless grind. No boring crafting. No inconsequential resource collection. Just pure war on a very large scale.