The Days of 51/50 Servers Are Over


Teddy Bears for servers?

Everquest is one of the few ongoing MMOs to dive into experimental servers, generally temporary servers featuring anything from permadeath to progression (the server starts at the base game and expansions open as players progress), and more. The 51/50 server, for those not in the EQ-Know, is where players start at level 51 with 50 levels AP, in order to get them into the meat of the game as quickly as possible. The servers, sadly, have not been very popular, and for a while now the air has been all about mergers.

Mayong, Zek, and Fioriona are the three 51/50 servers on Everquest, and after great discussion between staff and players, Sony has begun the process of merging, starting with Mayong. Currently, the 51/50 ruleset has been removed, and no new characters can be created at level 50. The Mayong server will be merged in September, although players can ship their characters off early for $10 (a discount on the normal fee).

SOE has stated that new information regarding this merge, as well as the upcoming changes to Zek and Fioriona will be coming “soon™.” As one developer put it:

“It’s not as simple to merge servers as it is to, say, merge a little rum into some cola.  We’ll be choosing the server that Mayong merges with by the usual method (dart board).”

Everquest’s next expansion, House of Thule, goes live in October this year. More on the Everquest mergers as they appear.

[Video] Chuck Norris NPC In World Of Warcraft


I don’t normally post my Youtube videos here, but I figured I’d make an exception. In Hillsbrad Foothills on WoW, I encountered this NPC. Despite my multiple attempts at killing him, he would fight me until his health hit a certain level, and the he would rubber band back to his waypoint (like an NPC usually does if they chase you out of a certain range), heal back to full health, and come after me again. You’ll notice I tried a few times in the video to figure out if I was outside of his “range.”

I did see the Chuck Norris NPC a few times several days after that and after a few server restarts. It seems this NPC in particular is bugged, rather than simply being the fault of a desync, or connection issues. All of the other NPCs in the area were fine.

So I guess you win this battle, Chuck Norris NPC…until I hit level 40 and can one-shot you.

Check it out in HD. I’ll be adding more videos as time goes on, from various games.

Warhammer Online Is Still Profitable, Says Mythic


You were thinking it...

When Warhammer Online launched in 2008, the game peaked at about eight hundred thousand subscribers, before plummeting over the course of the next two months to little over three hundred thousand. Over the course of the first year, WAR lost over three quarters of its population, as well as a grand majority of its over-one-hundred servers. So given MMODATA.com’s latest graph showing WAR heading under one hundred thousand subscribers, questioning the game’s health is not exactly out of line.

Luckily, those of you playing WAR can rest easy, at least for the moment. In an interview with Eurogamer, Bioware Mythic announced that WAR is still profitable as it comes to its second birthday this September, and that the game is still chugging forward despite the naysayers. The endless trial has had its desired effect, and “tens of thousands of players” are experiencing the game each month for the first time, according to EA.

Even if you go by mmodata.net’s figures and give WAR a mean 90,000 subscribers, Mythic is still looking at $1.3 million in income a month.

Here’s hoping the Endless Trial goes even better than expected, and Mythic has plenty in the coffers to keep the game going. More on Warhammer Online as it appears.

Play WoW While You Patch WoW!


More gold for Blizzard!

Technically, Turbine has been doing this for a while with their game clients, but given that few other developers are unwilling to take on this same method, I figured Blizzard gets some notice.  What’s the worst part of patching? If you have low bandwidth, your answer is likely the downloading portion. On large patch days, you can probably forget getting any World of Warcraft action in until sometime later in the day, assuming your connection holds up during the patching process.

Tentonhammer is reporting an addition to the WoW: Cataclysm beta, that will allow players to stream patches, allowing them to download only a small amount in order to get into the game while the rest downloads in the background. Your experience will not be ideal, according to the patch notes, but the hope is to minimize the time between patching and playing. There isn’t much information as to what “less than ideal” equates to, but in the realm of big patches and slow download speeds, it is better than nothing.

Hopefully this feature is made standard when World of Warcraft: Cataclysm goes live later this year.

More on World of Warcraft as it appears.

Looking Back, Moving Forward: July 2010


A month to remember.

I always get choked up doing the month in review. Not in the sense that my emotions are overwhelming me and I might start crying at any moment, but that my hand literally latches on to my neck and starts choking me as I gasp out “why didn’t you cover that?” and I once again become my own verbally and physically abusive relative.

What a depressing month July was, especially in the realm of NCsoft. My trust in the aforementioned Korean developer has always been on shaky grounds, but this month made me truly wonder what goes on behind those doors. The Aion server mergers amounted to little more ingenuity than a kid proclaiming “I know how to do things and I don’t need advice” before he takes his metal fork and recreates Don Quixote with an electrical outlet. Rather than take tried and tested methods, Aion used the nuclear option: When an adult has two kids fighting over a cookie, and neither wants to share said cookie, and one child had the cookie first, the parent eats it. Resolving an issue through mutual destruction doesn’t end with all parties satisfied, it ends with no parties satisfied. NCsoft is still working to fix imbalances caused by the mergers and transfers, so I’ll be following that for the next few weeks.

There is also growing rage against CCP with Eve Online, which I’ve been following for the past few months. I’m going to talk about that in the coming week or so. But until then, here’s my highlights of the month:

July kicked off with the announcement that the Playstation 3 version of Final Fantasy XIV would be delayed until March 2011 in order to fix a few issues. I’ve been very open with my distrust in console MMOs, and the delay of Final Fantasy has done nothing to alleviate those concerns. FFXIV will absolutely come out, but going into the future I think we’re going to see the same lack of hospitality from Microsoft towards MMOs on the 360. As this was BBB month on MMO Fallout, Square Enix stays strong with an A rating.

And speaking of MMOs not coming out on the 360. Cryptic jumped into the growing $25 mount fad with their own version: The $25 Galaxy-X starship. Aside from being a spaceship, this cash shop item comes with a bit more of a boost than your average $25 mount. This ship has special abilities, and is in the upper tier of ships. Cryptic’s BBB rating has been staying steady at C+.

If a kid with dynamite strapped to his chest asks where the Blizzard offices are, tell him I’m not at work. In what will likely end up being 2010’s most controversial move, Blizzard announced that your forum posts would begin using your real names, no exception. Over the course of three days, the internet went absolutely nuts, and the Blizzard forums exploded. Three days is all it took for Blizzard to say “Hey, sorry, we won’t do that,” and retract their plans. It just goes to show,  when a giant like Blizzard stirs the hive, no one is safe from the swarm. Blizzard’s BBB rating has plummeted from an A+ to a B in the BBB.

Less controversy, more individuality. How many MMOs have you played where game-time is a lootable item? I’ll be more precise: A game that is not a cash shop free-to-play. Give up? Add Eve Online to that list, and you’ll make one. CCP announced plans to make PLEX, the redeemable in-game game-time item, a normal item. What this means is players will be able to not only store it on their ship, but loot it from another player’s wreckage if they happen to be carrying it.

Back to the controversy for a moment. NCSoft is no stranger to controversy, and the community hit the fan when the plans for the Aion server mergers were announced. Rather than taking on precedent in MMOs, the Aion team went ahead and decided that rather than resolve name issues by using tried methods (activity, age of character), that they would instead rename all characters and require players to use the free name change support tickets. Needless to say, as I predicted, the servers were swamped on the day of the merge.

I mentioned last month that if All Points Bulletin wanted to have a long life, it was going to have to need less shooting and driving mechanics from All Points Bulletin, and more shooting and driving mechanics from a game someone would actually like to shoot or drive in. A few days later, I noted a new post on APB’s website, The Road Ahead, detailing plans to overhaul the driving and shooting mechanics, among other issues currently affected the game.

Sony Online Entertainment may be looking to bring people back to the old days of Star Wars Galaxies…with DC: Universe! In an interview this past month, we were given a sneak peak at the Green Lantern Corps, a powerset that will be fairly exclusive and, if the developers have any say, will only be obtained by a small portion of players, possibly following a system similar to the original Jedi unlock.

Jagex is not content with just Runescape, FunOrb, and War of Legends. Earlier this month, Jagex confirmed that the upcoming sci-fi MMO Stellar Dawn would certainly be here in 2011. That wasn’t all of Jagex’s time in the news, as CEO Mark Gerhard made headlines calling Free Realms “insipid” and that the game “didn’t resonate with anyone, didn’t have any identity.”

In an interview with Eurogamer, Gerhard confirmed that Jagex has yet another MMO in the works, a fantasy title with no other details to present other than that Jagex is building a game from learned mistakes that could not be implemented in Runescape.

If Funcom's money was gold-backed...Those who favor the free-to-play realm should be very happy with this past July. In their own respective interviews, we were teased by the prospect of Age of Conan and Star Trek Online going free to play. Granted, both Funcom and Cryptic have said not to hold our breaths, but as far as MMOs go I will hold my breath as long as it suits me.

But less speculation, more confirmation! Everquest II is the next title to take the fall with Everquest II Extended. Unlike the varying attempts we have seen already, Sony is opting to separate EQ2X from the normal Everquest II and bill it as its own game. Servers and services will be segregated, and EQ2X will feature heavy cash shop focus, with pricing tiers similar to Dungeons and Dragons Online. The “vanilla” Everquest 2 will be unaffected.

And, unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. Late this month, NCsoft announced that their free to play game Exteel would be shutting down on September 1st. In a letter to the community, NCsoft expressed their regrets that the developer found the game “no longer financially viable,” and decided to globally shut down the servers. In the coming weeks, NCsoft will announce compensation plans for players.

Speaking of NCsoft, Richard Garriot announced that he is very pleased with the court’s decision in his lawsuit against NCsoft. Garriot sued NCsoft one year ago on allegations that the company fired him, and then covered up his termination with a falsified letter claiming that he had resigned, which would forgo him many of the stock options offered to him in his contract in case of termination. NCsoft is expected to fight this decision.

Richard Garriot Wins Lawsuit Against NCsoft


If Funcom's money was gold-backed...
I hope NCSoft has plenty of it...

Oddly enough, it was exactly one year ago yesterday (shortly after MMO Fallout began) that I wrote up about Tabula Rasa, where I mentioned that Richard Garriot was suing NCSoft for $24 million for alleged fraud. In his lawsuit, Garriot claimed NCSoft forged a letter of resignation, both to themselves and the community of Tabula Rasa, and used it to get out of contract terms that would put Garriot in control of a number of stock options under the conditions of involuntary termination. In short: NCsoft fired Richard Garriot, and then lied about the conditions of his departure to get out of paying him millions of dollars in stock options.

The jury awarded Garriot $28 million, which NCsoft is of course planning to fight tooth and nail.

More on Richard Garriot as he appears.

The MMO Turing Test: Five Years


Crafting Crime...

I came upon this decision months ago, but I’ve been sitting on it until someone pointed out my hint, and they did in an email I received:

I see you updated your calendar showing MMO birthdays, but only titles that are five years old and older are displayed. Is there a reason for this? Or do you consider five years to be the point of “success” and none of the others are worth mentioning.

Borderline obsessive-compulsive grammar notations aside, what the reader pointed out is not correct at all. Those of you who have stuck with MMO Fallout since our earlier days are well aware that I refuse to stick labels on to MMOs, and have maintained that what makes up a “successful” title or a “failed” title really depends on what goals the developer set out and what they accomplished in that time frame. As no MMO will live forever, to put an arbitrary time on how long of a lifespan makes up success would be meaningless.

So what is this Turing test, you ask? My test bases itself on population, place, self-awareness, and perception. The date is five years after release. By the time an MMO passes the Turing test, the following has been in stone:

  • Population: By the time an MMO hits five years old, the stream of incoming players is more akin to a slow drip, and five years is enough to keep the veteran players entrapped with new content, as well as not wanting to leave behind their high level, high-time-invested characters. The company is well in-tune with the size and needs of their player base, and can plan accordingly.
  • Self-Awareness: The developer knows the limits of their engine, and has likely hit those limits by now. Using this knowledge, they set reasonable goals that are met in a timely fashion, due to decreased time debugging software and experimenting with previously unused techniques.
  • Place: This is where the developer knows exactly what spot they fill on the MMO spectrum. For example, Dark Age of Camelot is a Realm V Realm game and thus needs more concentrated servers for player vs player. Runescape is more solo-oriented and players spread out to maximize their resource intake. Darkfall is a niche PvP game that focuses on freedom over babying its players.
  • Perception: By the time an MMO hits five years, they know where they are going. For games like City of Heroes and Lineage, where the population is still thriving, this means regular updates, expansion packs, and major continued support into its old age. For games like Planetside, that face continuing server mergers, slow death. By the time five years comes around, any MMO that can die via short-term mass-exodus already has, such as FURY, or Tabula Rasa.

The important part of my Turing test is that although I call it a test, it is not my judgement of success. Rather, something to be viewed as closer to one’s employment in a business. After you have worked for a single company for so many years, you likely know exactly where your place is, strengths and weaknesses, relations to those around you, and whether you are seeking a promotion, to stay at your current position, or find a new job entirely.

The Turing test is also not exact. “Five years” is not some magical line, and many companies hit their pass/fail on the Turing test over a year earlier than the five-year mark. I decided upon Five years after looking at the MMOs on the market, those that are long gone, with an extra focus on those that are getting along in years. What I found was that most MMOs that are going to “crash and burn” as some put it, do so within three years of release. Asheron’s Call 2 was 3 years, Tabula Rasa was 2 years, Auto Assault was 1 year, FURY was 10 months, and the list goes on. You’ll notice that even World of Warcraft is not immune to the Turing test, as the title has peaked and is now on a downward slope. The more observant of you will note the date of stagnation at around 11.5 million subscribers: 2009, five years after launch.

So if anything, 3 years is around the “do or die” timeline, whereby 5 years the future of the game should be laid out quite plainly.

My interpretation of the Turing test for MMOs is over a year in the making, and doesn’t draw a fine line as much as it does paint a trend. There are still many MMOs that are in their testing phase, and may shape the Turing test in years to come, so expect several followups over the next couple of years.

To those of you who disagree with my perception, I would love to hear your thoughts on a more finely tuned Turing Test.

Martial Empires Monster-Police Will Murder You


File this under “pretty damn cool.” For years, MMOs have been looking for new and inventive ways to kill gold farmers and bots, and quite a few spectacles have come out of it. Aion instated the G-Unit, a team dedicated to bot busting, as well as public executions, Eve Online had Operation Unholy Rage, Runes of Magic has injunctions, and Guild Wars has had public executions in-game as well. Of course, I’m just summarizing.

I’m sure many of you won’t recognize Martial Empires, but the game does make news today for the company’s intuitive offering in bot busting: Baited NPCs. These monsters patrol the game and act as bait to bots that will attack anything. The monster itself publicly announces “do not kill me!” and those who heed the warning will go unpunished. Those who do decide to attack the monster will be immediately killed and turned into an unplayable ghost, which I’m guessing can only be fixed with an email to Gamigo.

The idea itself is pretty unique and intuitive. Chances at success? None. Considering Gamigo plays host to a large number of MMOs, I don’t understand why anyone thought this would be effective. The entire system could easily be circumvented with as simple as an If/Then statement in the bot’s programming stating that if the NPC sends a certain string of code (that will be unique to the bait-NPCs), not to attack it. It also isn’t difficult for bots to recognize and respond to chat, as even in Runescape and other MMOs there are bots designed to allow very basic conversation should another player approach them.

Martial Empires is a very new MMO, so perhaps I’m being too harsh on it.

Mark Gerhard: Third MMO Coming, Clarifies Comments


Boobscape.

With the cancellation of Mechscape, you might think Jagex would put most of their focus on their current MMO Runescape and upcoming MMO Stellar Dawn, but in an interview published today by Eurogamer, CEO Mark Gerhard thinks otherwise. When questioned on the technical aspects of Runescape and Stellar Dawn, Gerhard stated the following:

“A lot of what we’ve done to push the boundary for Stellar Dawn will benefit RuneScape and another MMO we’re working on,”

In the same interview, Gerhard was asked if Jagex would like to go back to a fantasy MMO, to which he replied;

“We do, we totally do. We’re working on it as we speak.”

Luckily for those of you playing Runescape, Gerhard stated that Jagex still sees the game as their foremost product for at least ten more years. 2020 Runescape? That is a lot of discontinued holiday items! I reported just last week on Mark Gerhard referring to Free Realms as “insipid,” to which the Eurogamer interviewer was keen enough to get a following comment:

“Having played Free Realms there’s very little I get out of it. To me it just screams design by committee: 20 different people from 20 different focus groups to say, “Let’s have a little bit of this for the girls, let’s have a little bit of that for the boys, let’s get the six-year-olds, let’s get the 16-year-olds.” If you want a game for a six year-old you’ve got it, it’s called Club Penguin.

If you take a brand that accentuates its own identity, it’s going to resonate with the target demographic really well. Free Realms tries to be all things to all men and women and ends up being nothing.”

Check out the full interview, as Gerhard gives some insight into why Mechscape was cancelled, what parts are continuing to Stellar Dawn, among other issues.

More on Stellar Dawn, Runescape, and this new MMO as it appears.

Everquest: Underfoot On Sale On Steam


Pimp My Mount.

With all the hubbub about Everquest II, you’d think that the Everquest folks are getting a little lonely. If so, I have just the answer! Steam is currently running a sale on Everquest: Underfoot that includes all 16 expansions and the original game, plus extra bonuses. If you are creating a new station account, the game also includes 30 days free game time. Otherwise, all accounts will enjoy the Mark of Brell (teleport directly to the Underfoot area), the Legends of Norrath card game, 500 free station cash, 100 bayle marks, and your own DPS mercenary.

Everquest is on sale at 63% off, at $14.99 USD from $39.99, and will not be going free to play in the foreseeable future.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/24180/