An upcoming Turbine MMO is inconspicuously referenced by contractor Twisted Pixel Games.
I thought you said Twisted Pixel...
Dear Twisted Pixel,
Saying that you are working on a secret MMO for Turbine, on your list of games no less, qualifies it as “no longer a secret.” Over on their website, Twisted Pixel Games has listed that they have just finished a contract with Turbine over a console-based MMO of no specific genre or IP. I’ve talked before about Turbine’s stated interest in a console MMO, despite a lack of information whatsoever other than Turbine’s interest in a console MMO.
Well at least we know that the Turbine Console MMO is official. Only thing to wait for now is a name, a theme, a genre, a payment model, a release date, cash shop, control scheme, which consoles, and a few other minor details. My only question is: I wonder what part TPG had in the development, and how far it is from release?
Looking forward to more news on the Turbine Console MMO.
Mythic wants its babies back, especially in Europe where hosting has been handled by GOA. Earlier this year, the MMO developer took back Dark Age of Camelot, that GOA had been hosting for the game’s European life-span. Now, in a move that I’m sure will surprise anyone playing WAR Europe Edition, Mythic is taking back Warhammer Online…in Europe!
Servers will transition over the next few weeks, and Mythic has promised that all of your information will transfer over to the new servers. More information is coming soon.
You heard it poorly translated here first, MMO Fallouters! It’s good to see that the word has finally reached Astrum Nival, even with all the Western Allod’ers whose “Russian friends” claim that the Russian version is now “a barren wasteland” and are not trolling at all I swear. There are a number of people angry over the replacement for fear of death: armor curses that can only be removed by cash shop items, but that is another story for another day.
You heard it here first…well, second. It almost feels like back in April that I last talked about Astrum Nival, Gala-Net, and Allods Online, and quite frankly I am disappointed at my seeming lack of ability to play on this cesspool of bad public relations. In fact, I would go as far as saying only Cryptic Studios can rile up their base in a fit of rage to match what follows an announcement from Gala-Net.
To those of you who have slipped out of the loop, Allods Online is a recently released free to play Russian MMO that has garnered quite a bit of controversy this year, all of it surrounding the title’s cash shop. The game itself is of top quality, especially compared to the over-saturated free to play cash shop market, but ever since the cash shop opened in February developer Astrum Nival seems to be digging themselves deeper and deeper into a growing pit of flames.
In February, the controversy began with the price of items in the cash shop, with a focus on the fact that there was a 1,000% increase across the board for cash shop items compared to the Russian version, that I specifically held back on writing about until I could confirm that the prices were indeed intentional. Not only were the prices intentional, but were followed by a patch that made Perfumes much more useful. Perfume is a cash shop item that is used to remove Fear of Death, a debuff that stacks and adds 25% drop in stats per stack, up to four times, and at end-game can take hours of waiting or a nice sum of gold. With the patch, not only did leveling become slower, but monsters became tougher and resurrection by another player now incurred Fear of Death. As I put it:
I’d like to take a closer look at number 2, because this is something a lot of Allods Online’ers have pointed out to me: What this means is that Heroic Instances, which cannot be exited, now have a requirement for perfume. As perfume lasts for 30 minutes, and costs approximately 75 cents per bottle, the Allods Online forums were kind enough to do my math for me and figure out that raiding at end-game will cost an easy minimum of $50 per month
It took less than a week for gPotato to announce that the prices would be coming down on cash shop items, which I had pointed out was moot as now the focus had turned on the Fear of Death and perfume mechanics. March brought restructuring to the cash shop. In April, while gPotato was busy pinning all of this on Astrum Nival, I noted that the Russian patch notes indicated the removal of Fear of Death, following a player-driven poll asking which feature players would most like to see removed. I also noted at the end this item cursing feature that was set to replace Fear of Death, but that I didn’t have much in terms of details on it at the time.
Fast forward to June and here we are. In the July 7th patch, Fear of Death is going to be removed and replaced with item curses. When a player dies now, there is the chance that a curse will land on a slot in their inventory. If the item is rare (Rare, epic, or legendary only) the curse will invert the stats of the item. More importantly, bosses now have a chance of dropping rare items in an already cursed form.
The only method of removing the curse is through a cash shop item that must be either bought on the cash shop or through the auction house (from those who purchased it on the cash shop) for a hefty sum. So, as one Allod Online’er put it, Astrum Nival essentially took a temporary grievance that can be waited out, and turned it into a permanent grievance that must, without exception, be fixed with a cash shop item or heavy gold in the auction house.
Before I go into the news story, I’d just like to make one of my opinions public: I have a very big hunch that the era of B-list MMOs keeping the $15 a month fee is moving towards its end. Obviously I can’t predict where the market will wind up, but I earnestly believe that we are in the beginning of a shift where we will see a number of MMOs lower their subscription price, go freemium, or entirely free to play. Developers are seeing how many more players they can grab at a lower price, with the influx of new people paying far outweighing the group who was willing to pay the full price. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and despite complaints by a very vocal minority, the benefits can far overshadow the negatives if done correctly.
Global Agenda, being a part-MMO title that launched this February, became so successful that Hi-Rez had to add a new server to accommodate overseas players. I do get the hunch that, much like a certain Cities XL game that came out in 2009 and shut down in March, Global Agenda’s paid MMO side is not doing as well as the company had hoped. Oddly enough, this seems to be a trend with games that release with one half free, one half paid content, unless the game’s name is Guild Wars of course.
Hi-Rez Studios announced today that Global Agenda is going free to play (well, the subscription portion was), and speaking of Guild Wars, Global Agenda will be channeling Arenanet’s policy of having the game itself be free to play, with option paid expansion packs. Expansion packs are expected to release only once or twice per year, at rates similar to non-subscription game expansions (I haven’t purchased a non-subscription expansion since the Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons. Twenty to thirty dollars sounds about right). Token awards for pre-subscribers will end on the 25th of June, and Hi-Rez has assured us that if the level cap expands, players will not need to buy an expansion pack to access the higher level cap.
Global Agenda is one of the few MMOs I don’t follow too closely, and I’m quite certain that the community will fill in the blanks behind this change, but look at it this way: At least Hi-Rez didn’t take the path of Cities XL and simply close up shop because not enough people were subscribing.
By the way: Global Agenda is 33% off on Steam until July 5th. What great timing.
↓ – “Activation and download may take up to 48 hours after purchase.”
♣ – Paypal is not accepted if paid in pounds or Euros.
♥ – 30 days only applies to new Station accounts.
Gentlemen, start your pitchforks. A detail savvy player on the All Points Bulletin forums has discovered that, in addition to requiring players to pay a subscription (be it in hourly increments or in monthly flat fees), Realtime Worlds has also decided to place advertisements in the game’s VOIP feature. And what could be better than getting advertisements in a paid game? Paying an addition fee to not hear them. RTW is offering 30, 90, and 180 day specials to not hear advertisements.
According to Community Officer Toxico, who was quick to respond, the advertisements only play every three hours, while loading a district. The prices are pretty cheap, starting at about one dollar for 30 days (40 rtw points). People naturally don’t like advertisements, but if one ad every three hours is enough to ensure RTW won’t be charging for VOIP, I think the APB players will survive. You always have that mute button when entering a district.
To expect an MMO to launch with no down time is ridiculously out of line. Despite the utilization of closed beta, open beta, and finally head start, the servers that run an MMO are usually ground down to the core in the opening month. Lag, random crashes, and more plague the game and launch issues are so common that the rule of thumb with MMOs is that those who are not patient should not become early adopters.
Now, I may come off as being a little more brute than necessary. Server crashes are often fixed in the first few days of launch, and lag disperses as players move out from more crowded areas. Occasionally, however, the server hits hurdles that bring the game down on a regular basis. As a recent example, Darkfall last year had a several month period where it was virtually impossible to buy the game. Those of you who remember World of Warcraft’s launch are probably in the fetal position underneath your desks right now. In many of these cases, the developers ask for the hand of forgiveness by compensating players for lost game-time.
Mortal Online’s servers have not been doing well since launch, and saying that is an understatement. Maerlyn, of Star Vault, announced that there is compensation coming for players, that is being decided by management. While they are still working on fixing the server stability issues, for now the servers will be staffed all day long in order to allow for a manual reboot in the case of a crash, which will cut down on the duration the servers are offline following a crash.
More on Mortal Online’s compensation model when it appears.
When Aion launched last year, a last minute decision was made post-launch to add a few servers to alleviate load. Of course, as is the usual case with MMOs, the population has gone down since release and the extra servers are no longer necessary, as the queues and server load of old are just that, a thing of the past. As pointed out in the NCsoft financial report, although Aion numbers have gone down since last September’s launch, NC believes that the numbers will maintain their current position, especially with the 1.9 and 2.0 patches.
When Aion’s servers merge, they want to give players free reign to move from server to server to find themselves a suitable new home. As a result, players will be given free, unlimited transfers between July 8th and August 18th.
Server mergers will begin July 7th (The same day as the Vanguard server merges.) and the following servers will be merged:
North America New Siel (West Coast) Siel & Ariel New Vaizel Server (West Coast) Vaizel, Kaisinel, Yustiel & Fregion New Israphel Server (East Coast) Israphel, Lumiel & Marchutan New Zikel Server (East Coast) Zikel, Triniel, Azphel & Meslamtada New Nezekan Server (Oceanic) No Change
Europe New Spatalos Server (ENG) Spatalos & Gorgos New Telemachus Server (ENG) Telemachus & Castor New Perento Server (ENG) Perento, Kahrun & Kalil New Kromede Server (GER) Kromede & Votan New Thor Server (GER) Thor & Nerthus New Balder Server (GER) Balder& Lephar New Urtem Server (FRA) Urtem & Vidar New Suthran Server (FRA) Suthran, Arbolu & Deltras
Your items, equipment, kinah, legions, warehouse items, broker items, and AP. Name change coupons will be provided if you were not able to keep your name through the merger. Fortress ownership will be reset.
Nine years is a long time for any project. By the time an MMO’s ninth birthday comes around, their community has been long-ago set on what they want out of the game, the developers have found their strong points, and although the game likely stopped growing years ago, those who have stuck with it often form quite a tight community.
Dark Age of Camelot launched in 2001, and since then the earlier areas of the game have been feeling quite neglected. With the upcoming 1.104 patch, Mythic hopes to revisit the old dungeons and revitalize drops with new bonuses and higher quality items that past expansions have introduced into the game. Albion, Midgard, and Hibernian gear will be updated as well with various bonuses.
Mythic isn’t the only developer going back and revisiting old areas to give them a touch of shine and polish. More on Dark Age of Camelot as it appears.
In regards to freemium titles, MMOs that offer a small portion of the game for free with the rest at a subscription rate, that the existing free portion of the game technically serves as a trial. It may not be limited by time, but it is limited in content available. With Runescape, Jagex would prefer that the free portion was not referred to as a limited trial, as their goal is to create a fully realized game that free players can indulge themselves in without paying a dime, ever. Other than that, there is no way for players to gain access to the members worlds without actually paying a membership fee.
With the above image leaked from the player moderator forums on Runescape, June 23rd will bring us the first ever limited time trial in Runescape, for Runescape memberships. And that is where the niceties end. Oddly enough, in order to partake in the 7 day trial, you have to provide a credit card that can only be used on one account, and there is a several dollar fee that is taken out as a deposit and returned at the end of the process. In addition to all of that, the player must manually disable their subscription before the seven days are up, otherwise they will be automatically put into the billing system for the full game.
The credit card reason is obvious: To stop real money traders from ravaging members with countless throwaway accounts. The fee, on the other hand, makes little sense. The cost is small enough as it is, but if you have a credit card and those few dollars, why not spend the tiny amount more and experience members for the full 30 days rather than just a week? You don’t get the money back, but if you have the credit card and the few dollars to plop down as a deposit, would you really miss it?
In order to combat abuse, you will only be allowed one account to a credit card, not that the real money traders have ever had much of an issue stealing credit cards before (Hint: The 2007 Runescape anti-rwt updates were in response to rampant credit card theft being used to pay for membership on bot accounts).
New Siel (West Coast)
Siel & Ariel
MMO Fallout 