Exteel was something of an experimental move by NCsoft into the free to play cash shop market, and launched back in December 2007 to the fanfare of…something. As far as fanfare goes, Exteel was one of the games I never actually bothered looking up, considering it was developed and published by NCsoft. Not unlike Dungeon Runners, the game hasn’t made much news since its launch, and the announcement of it shutting down just begged the question: Exteel was still running?
That being said, on September 1st, Exteel will shut down because, as it turns out, the robot fighting cash shop MMO is not “financially viable.” In August, players should expect more information as to planned compensation for players, although if past history is anything to look at, players will likely receive keys to City of Heroes, Guild Wars, and Lineage, along with game time for each respective title (I know that is what I received when Tabula Rasa and Auto Assault shut down).
MMO companies love to keep your account safe. Not only does it keep you happy as a customer, but more importantly it lowers the amount of time and money they must spend on providing customer support to everyone who loses their account. So today’s news brings Runes of Magic into the front, once again, talking about their attempt to increase security and decrease the presence of gold farmers.
In an attempt to stop brute-forcing, accounts will be blocked if more than five unsuccessful login attempts are made over 24 hours. If a sixth unsuccessful attempt is made, players will be notified by email. In addition, IP addresses will be temporarily blocked if more than five unsuccessful logins are made from that particular IP address (presumably also within the 24 hour period).
To make things even better, customer support has been gifted better tools to help recover your stuff presuming you do become a victim of identity theft and find your bank cleared. According to the notice, Customer Service is now able to restore characters to 99% peak efficiency. The tools themselves will of course be upgraded as time goes on.
Furthermore, in the fight against gold farming, which those of you who play Runes of Magic will be well aware crippled the diamond trading market earlier this year with restrictions, you will be happy to know that the legal department has successfully placed nine injunctions against companies and individuals taking part in illicit gold trading, and the offending parties are being removed from the game as you read this. More networks are being banned from Runes of Magic, so if your town’s gold spammer isn’t gone yet, he will be eventually.
A big thank you to Valerie, who tipped me off on this before the official announcement.
I know what you’re saying, “Omali! You lying sack of crap! Dave Georgeson just said last month that Everquest 2 was not going free to play!” You would be correct, partially. Today’s news brings the announcement that Sony Online Entertainment will be launching “Everquest II Extended” or EQ2X for short. The 14 day trial is, of course, being thrown out the window, however the 14-day recruit-a-friend will still be in effect.
There are, of course, restrictions, but you knew that was coming. Players will find themselves barred from accessing the latest expansion pack, as well as having various classes, races, a smaller coin purse, etc, not to mention the more in-your-face cash shop. Of course, you can always subscribe to the “gold member” service which, oddly enough, is $15 a month. If you’d rather not take the leap and go full-fledged subscription, you can always use the Turbine-style cash shop to buy the locked races, classes, and areas separately.
Levels of membership will be free (self explanatory), silver (from a one time purchase), gold ($15/month), and platinum ($200/year), and each level will grant varying bonuses.
Now for the bad side: If you want customer service as a free player, you’re out of luck as such a service is reserved for those who have made purchases. Free players will also not be able to send (although they can receive) mail, not to mention free and silver members will be locked out of the broker system. If you have items in the broker and downgrade, the broker will not release the coins/items. I should also point out that although members will be able to bleed their characters to Extended servers, the same will not be possible the other way around.
And now for those who hate cash shops: The cash shop being implemented on to the extended servers will sell, as the FAQ put it:
“Healing potions, powerful weapons and armor, attack wands, buff runes, self-rez items, basic mounts, and a lot more. None of these items are required for a great gaming experience.”
P.S: Those of you playing with the subscription (gold member) will find only four races available to you. The rest must be purchased on the cash shop, according to the FAQ and tier-list. Gold members will also have access to only seven character slots.
I have a feeling the opponents of cash shops are going to have a field day with this, especially with the announcement that subscribers will receive perks in the form of bonus weapons/armor/mounts/etc, and the fact that subscribers will still have to pay for addition races. The highest tiers of weapons/armor will not be available on the cash shop, SOE has promised. Also, according to the FAQ, free/platinum members will also be inundated with “frequent reminders to upgrade.”
Hopefully (and I do mean a big “hopefully”) Sony will implement this in a way more similar to Turbine’s free to play approach with Dungeons and Dragons Online, rather than say bringing people in with the promise of a free breakfast, and then locking the doors and refusing to let them leave (or have breakfast) until they buy into your time share.
Isn’t double-talk neat? It’s not a change in service, it’s a completely new service!
So where do we end this? Technically speaking, Everquest II will be competing against itself as the 100% separated Live and Extended servers fight for new players. John Smedley has stated that the reason behind making this a completely new service was due to player feedback against having the two services combined. So, as we saw in Trammel on Ultima Online, we’ll see just how many current Everquest II players hold out on the live servers, and how many merge in with the Extended service. As a free/silver member, upgrading to gold on the Extended servers holds much more incentive than switching over to the Live servers, as your characters will be stuck on Extended.
Either way, I wish luck to Sony Online Entertainment and Everquest II. Hopefully Sony can enjoy the same success Turbine does with DDO and (perhaps) Lord of the Rings Online when the latter goes free to play this year. MMO Fallout will continue to bring you news on Everquest 2 Extended as it appears, and if you follow the full announcement, Sony staff are sticking their head into the forums every now and then to answer questions.
Dear everyone who quit Aion (and those who left after the server merge debacle),
If the latest information from MMODATA.net is to be believed, Aion’s subscription numbers may be down but the worldwide subscription count is still estimated at slightly below three and a half million (making it indeed second to World of Warcraft). Regardless, the folks at Aion would love to see your smiling faces again, grinding your way to the end game, where you might do some PvP and punch a few gold farmers in the face for good measure. So this Friday, July 30th, NCsoft is activating all of the old accounts for the weekend, so that they may partake in the delight of double experience. Just pay no attention to your mangled username.
As startled as some of you may be, I will remind you that whatever issues I take with a company, I always continue to promote new ways to get into MMOs for as little as possible (if anything).
Those of you who are acquainted with Sony Online Entertainment are likely aware of Live Gamer, the “legit” real money trading website where players can buy and sell characters, gold, and more between each other without fear of getting scammed by some guy sitting in China watching ten WoW bots do their work. Currently, the Live Gamer Exchange only covers Everquest II, Vanguard (Vanguard had 54 characters up for sale, with only one bid between them), and Free Realms.
No matter how you feel about Live Gamer, the company has announced a partnership with Electronic Arts to cooperate on their MMOs. There is no word as of yet as to which of EA’s MMOs this will include (The Old Republic, Warhammer Online, Dark Age of Camelot, and Ultima Online), or exactly what services Live Gamer will bring to these titles, but speculation is abound. Considering Live Gamer currently allows players to trade currency, characters, and items for cash (and vice versa) in the MMOs it does support, it isn’t too far of a reach to assume that whatever MMO EA decides to lend will offer similar features.
Good news all around for fans of the upcoming DC: Universe Online! Now that we have a concrete date for release on November 2nd (subject to change), those of you looking to purchase the PS3 version will be equally happy to learn that you will not be required to pay for Playstation Plus.
More importantly: Those of you who played the original Star Wars Galaxies will be aware of the Jedi system, where the Jedi class was locked until players completed a non-specific set of random tasks given to them. The amount of time invested and skill required to attain the Jedi class made it so only a minority of players actually managed to unlock a Jedi, and play it in the duration before it became available as a starting class.
In DC:U, it appears as if the Green Lantern Corp will be getting the same treatment. Director Chris Cao has stated that the Green Lantern Corp will be something “very special” and that they do not want thousands of green lanterns running around.
Ultimately, I give the Green Lantern concept two years before it becomes available to everyone, ala the Jedi class.
Back before Mortal Online launched, I believe it was Henrik who said Star Vault could easily find a publisher, but they would be forced to alter a lot of the game’s content in order to please them, and allow the game to ship. Since then, I’ve been thinking about the relationship many developers have with their publishers, and I can only describe it one way: Battered person syndrome. How many times have you heard of major parts removed from a game, not because the developer decided upon it, but because the publisher demanded it? Electronic Arts (most memorably with Spore) is guilty of it, as are most other big name publishers. In fact, with many MMOs it feels as if the publisher does all the talking, while the developer sits in the back and hopes it’s not doing anything that will result in a beating after the press conference. This is, of course, no different than your local television station choosing not to air certain stories because an advertiser doesn’t like them, or the firing of a Gamespot employee because of his Kane and Lynch review, but the standard seems to be that the publisher wears the pants in the relationship.
So why is it that whenever I think of gPotato (or Gala-Net), I think of Jerry Lewis? A bumbling, fumbling figure who is always apologizing but never really taking control of what goes on around him. You can’t help but feel this way every time a major issue comes up in the game, be it the cash shop prices, the fear of death mechanic, and now the curse mechanic, among others, where Gala-Net comes back and says “Sorry, we can’t do anything. All we can do is forward your suggestions to Astrum Nival, and hope they implement updates.” This has become the token response and offers up plenty of reason as to why I declared Allods Online as potentially the biggest PR disaster of 2010.
Is Astrum Nival really in such a position where they can dictate the terms to their publisher, in a direct opposite to what is generally an “industry standard,” as disturbing as that terminology sounds? Does the potential for Gala-Net to say “either you start listening to us or you’ll have no publisher,” instill such little fear, that AN could turn around and say “that’s okay, we have X other publishers lined up to put our game out, under our terms.” Or is Astrum Nival really just the Duke Nukem of developers, where when poor old gPotato sends their fifth courier of the week with humble requests, they are met with a short and concise “blow it out your ass,” followed by a round of buckshot to the chest, with gPotato only receiving a response a week later when the messenger’s disembodied head appears in the mail, accompanied by a single-word letter: “no.”
I have always noted here on MMO Fallout that, as far as cash shop grinders go, Gala-Net publishes some of the better quality titles. Not that my word holds much sway, but Allods Online and Aika Online were the only two cash shop grinders to make much of an appearance here on MMO Fallout, and really many other MMO news websites. The difference between Aika and Allods, however, is that when Aika Online had its own cash shop issues (region issues) they managed to fix it in a way that satisfied almost everyone involved.
Watching gPotato deal with Astrum Nival is akin to a friend in a bad relationship who refuses to acknowledge the stagnant environment, despite their consistent somber appearance, and the little fact that they break out sobbing whenever the conversation turns to the estranged partner. So you continue to watch as the explanations become more desperate; doing it for the kid, there’s still hope, doesn’t want all the time to be wasted, it will resolve itself, think about the good times, etc.
But speaking of the child, where is Allods Online in all of this feud? Not neglected, but I have a feeling he wouldn’t be very appreciative of the treatment he is receiving. He certainly would be a lot more popular in school if his parent (Astrum Nival) would stop embarrassing him and losing him friends by showing pictures of the time he wet the bed (last week), and had to wear mom’s underwear for the day because all of his was in the wash. And where will we find Astrum Nival and Gala-Net when they enter his bedroom to find a note on the table, and an empty bottle of sleeping pills on the desk? They will find that it’s too late to settle their differences, have the two teams actually listen to what the other has to say, and perhaps treat each other like they took a small interest in what the other was saying.
And at the end of the day, when Astrum Nival is standing over its only creation, wondering how those years of development could have gone down the drain, the president of Gala-Net will look on with a massive grin on his face, as he announces, “I’m sorry to hear about your loss, but I have good news. Aika Online just launched its next expansion, and we have two upcoming MMOs we’ll be publishing in addition to our current list of seven. Hey listen, if you have a new MMO coming up, you know where to contact us, but I can’t promise much: Very busy with publishing offers.”
Perhaps I’m just personalizing this on a level too far.
I reported yesterday that the character transfer system, which was to follow the server mergers in Aion, was delayed due to an unseen issue that did not arise until literally the day of. In the post, NCsoft promised that they would provide 24 hour notice before the transfers went into motion again, and that players should be prepared for notice at any given time. There was no indication on how long the fix would take, and luckily it was barely a day, as the following post on Aion’s website states:
We have managed to correct the problem that was causing the transfers to fail and are ready to bring the servers down again to transfer all those that had queued prior to yesterday’s maintenance. If you queued prior to the 14th July your transfer will go through, there is no need to queue again, please make sure that your character meets the transfer requirements before the maintenance.
The servers will be taken down at 4am CEST for approximately three hours, after which the queue for character transfers will be reopened. Normal restrictions on transfers are still in effect, and players are required to read the restrictions if they would like to minimize item loss in the transition.
Has it really been [#] years? If not, please disregard this message and contact your local HR representative for further instructions. If so, please enjoy the following details of your accomplishment:
Mark Gerhard, current CEO of Jagex, isn’t a bad guy by any means. Hell, he was featured here on MMO Fallout specifically this past March for his help in toppling the court case of Evony Vs a blogger. Runescape players may be at a divide on his positive or negative impact on the game, but it seems as though his presence has brought Runescape far more into the news than in previous years.
It isn’t exactly private knowledge that Sony once had plans to invest in Jagex back in 2005, that were scrapped for a simple reason, as noted by Gerhard;
“John Smedley said, ‘I can do this myself.'”
You will of course be aware that Sony Online Entertainment moved to create their own rendition of a browser based MMO, Free Realms, that launched last year and quickly shot up in registered users. Mark Gerhard, in a recent interview with Eurogamer (the full interview is yet to be posted at the time of this writing), is not impressed.
“The thing that saved us was that Free Realms was perfectly designed by committee. It was 100 per cent micro-transactions, 100 per cent subscriptions, 100 per cent male, 100 per cent female. As a result, it was neither fish nor fowl; it didn’t resonate with anyone, didn’t have any identity. It was, I guess, largely insipid, gorgeous graphics and everything else, but it didn’t have have the joie de vivre.”
Harsh words, and unfortunately for John Smedley and Free Realms, Gerhard has the Guinness Book record to back it up. Hopefully there will be more information when the full interview goes live.
MMO Fallout 