Excellent job to the Aion team and Rooster Teeth for putting this video together.
Warner Brothers Owns Turbine Now
Warner Brothers has been on a spending spree this week, and their latest acquisition? Turbine Inc, in case you didn’t read the title. I won’t say much about Warner Brothers, considering they own virtually my entire childhood, but my favorite part of acquisitions always comes from the press releases, where both the purchaser and the purchased have a chance to perform the introductory sniffing.
“Turbine is a leader in online entertainment and a strong strategic fit for Warner Bros. as we continue to broaden our games portfolio and development capabilities,” said Kevin Tsujihara, president, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group. “Turbine’s renowned online game development and publishing expertise will help us develop additional online product offerings, while also providing us with new and innovative ways to market and communicate with our consumers.”
And…Turbine?
“We have been looking to expand access to our online worlds to more players and more markets,” said Jim Crowley, president and CEO, Turbine, Inc. “This acquisition is very exciting because it allows us to expand globally while continuing to focus on creating spectacular online games that our loyal fans and players have come to expect.”
The technically-no-longer-independent studio has a point! According to the press release, Warner Bros hopes to utilize Turbine’s experience in a pay-wall free cash shop to introduce new features to give people incentives to hold on to their games, such as charging people for upgrades to movie-themed games to update the title to correspond with the movie. Yes, what they are proposing is essentially a new name on DLC, but it is the thought that counts.
“The Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons & Dragons Online have both been an enormous success for Turbine and we look forward to working with their talented development team to continue creating award-winning online games.”
Yes, thank you Warner Bros! By the way, how much did Warner Bros pay for Turbine? You guessed it, $160 million, including sums to be paid to shareholders if they meet financial requirements over the next few years.
Runes of Magic: More Diamond Restrictions
It feels like it was all the way back in January, more specifically the twelfth, that I was maliciously defending Runes of Magic (being the troll I am, apparently). Frogster implemented an update that bound all diamonds (cash shop currency) purchased to the player’s account, if said diamonds were purchased with a credit card or through Playspan. The reason for this was that gold farmers mainly were purchasing diamonds on throwaway accounts with stolen credit cards, and then transferring them to their main accounts to sell to buyers.
Well there is more news in Runes of Magic’s Diamondgate. Earlier today Runes of Magic shut down for what was supposed to be routine maintenance, only for an announcement to appear on the forums that the ability to trade diamonds for gold will be shut off for the time being. Frogster’s reasoning is due to a drastic rise in gold selling recently, and assures players that the trade will return once it is deemed “safe” to freely trade.
Current auctions will not be affected.
Virtual Island: For Women, By Not Women
I’ve been floating around the internet since the days of AOL and Prodigy, and the main theme I’ve noticed in game communities is that the players (read: 12 year old boys be it in body or mind) are sexist enough with their “no girls on the internet” and the sudden change in attitude should a member of the female gender be present, God forbid use a microphone.
More importantly, I know what you’re thinking ladies: Why don’t we have a shopping MMO? Or a fashion MMO? I want every stereotype of women to come together as one title, so when my boyfriend (who is the man in the relationship) tells me to get off of his World of Warcraft account, which I am too feminine to understand, he has a title to direct me to where I belong. Well enVie (get it?) has exactly what you’re looking for! Virtual Worlds of Entertainment hopes to bring the MMO spectrum with an extra boost of estrogen. A social MMO (read: Second Life) with a slant, caters to women who want an “engaging online world that speaks to them.”
And what will you be doing in this engaging online world that speaks to you? All kinds of things women do all the time in real life. Enjoy unique shopping experiences, dabble in high fashion, make-up, and intimate encounters. It’s like a shopping mall and a romance novel all in one!
enVie was kind enough to send me their research material, unfortunately in my busy schedule I don’t have time to view all combined twelve seasons of Sex In The City and Desperate Housewives, although it is the thought the counts.
Before you check your calendars for what will undoubtedly be the fifth time, no this is not a belated April Fool’s joke. Hopefully enVie will use this time sparingly to produce a much more detailed explanation as to what this game entails, before people simply chalk it off as a Second Life with sex (read: Second Life)
A Cinematic Runescape Trailer?
Virus Alert: Update Java NOW
Check your Java version: Do you have Java 6 Update 20? If not, download it now! Yesterday Sun released Java 6 Update 20, an out-of-cycle patch that fixes a gaping security hole in all current versions of Java, that allows an infected or booby-trapped website to pass on a drive-by download and install malware on the viewer’s computer. Security watchdog sites are reporting multiple websites that are running these drive-by download attacks, and warn everyone to update to the latest version immediately, or you put your computer’s security in a great deal of risk.
Download the update here: http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp (I have this set so you have to copy and paste it, just to alleviate concerns of fake link)
New WoW Mount Generates Cash: $500,000 Per Hour
I am Blizzard, and this is my new mount. She weighs one hundred and fifty kilograms, and fires custom tooled cartridges at three hundred thirty three rounds per minute. This gun generates five hundred thousand dollars, to run for one hour.
Out of date references aside, Blizzard’s new mount was the subject of a bit of speculation I was planning for yesterday, wondering how many people (aside from a lot) would be willing to pay for a $25 mount that, aside from looking gorgeous, didn’t have any extra flair. Of course, that article went right out the window when I saw the queue just to purchase the mount: one hundred forty three thousand people.
WoW.com has done some number crunching, and estimated that the flying horse mount has generated approximately half a million dollars per hour in the first hours after its release. So good on you Blizzard. Some companies get blasted for much cheaper items being too expensive, but Blizzard proves once again to be the exception to the social rule.
Why We Love Turbine
Here at MMO Fallout, it’s essentially my job to cover the the good and the bad side of corporate PR, and I have to say that ultimately the two traits that can make or break a company following an “incident” are communication and timing of response. On one hand, you’ll find that a lot of the negative attention towards Cryptic Studios here has to do with announcements that are originally poorly worded and full of holes, that not only allow but generate their own wild speculation that causes an uproar by the community, only for Cryptic to post a slightly more articulate explanation days later after the forums have drowned in its own rage.
Since this is a direct followup to the Turbine Offer Wall seen below this, I won’t be redundant and pack the whole article into one sentence: In a posting on Turbine’s forums the day of the “incident” with the offer wall, Turbine’s own Marketroid posted to clarify that, aside from username and email, nothing was being transmitted to offerers, and ensuring players that neither Super Rewards nor Playspan were selling that information to outside companies. You can take this with however much salt you want, but the post goes on to mention Super Rewards has also deleted the email addresses from their databases.
Meanwhile, what is the status of the offer wall? For now: Defunct.
“Based on your feedback, we’re stepping away from the ‘Offer’ category for now. We’ll keep exploring alternate ways for players who want points to get them. We’ll also continue to innovate in pricing and accessibility because that’s who we are. As of today, the Offer Wall is coming down. We’ll collect all the feedback we’ve received over the last few days and will use it to guide future decisions.”
-Marketroid, Turbine, on DDO offer wall.
For a company to clean up a mess like this in less than 48 hours is pretty impressive. I’ve always said that, say what you want about Dungeons and Dragons Online or Lord of the Rings Online (both of which are quality games), but Turbine has a long history of righting what they genuinely screw up on, and in a quick and efficient manner that doesn’t condescend to their players, or even get into flame wars with their players.
This unsolicited testimonial to Turbine is brought to you by: Turbine Points! The-I’m just kidding.
More news on Turbine and Dungeons and Dragons Online as it appears.
Turbine: Sorry We Directed You To Scams/Phishing
As some players point out to me in the numerous emails I receive each week, I apparently look like an idiot/hypocrite/uninformed child when I praise a company one day, and then crush them like a bug the next (literally) for doing something insanely inane. What these emails forget is that here at MMO Fallout, we shy away from sticking labels on a company, as long as that company is not Mythic entertainment and that label is not Mark Jacobs. But I digress: I feel that events should be taken as they come, and that there really isn’t some kind of point system you can keep to tell how good an MMO is in your graces. Oh well, Turbine gave us some free stuff so that gives them…five points? And the pay wall…You see my point.
Yesterday Turbine introduced the Dungeons and Dragons Online pay wall, where players could opt to complete offers to gain Turbine Points, not unlike MyPoints. The community, for lack of better words, exploded in response to this news. What originated as a shady new way to gain Turbine Points by taking an IQ test by some company in Malaysia quickly turned into controversy:
- Players discovered that the user’s username and email address were being transmitted, unencrypted, just by looking at the wall, to the survey providers.
- Forum users confirmed that one of the offerers, SuperRewards (or one of its affiliates) was harvesting emails for use in World of Warcraft phishing emails. A number of users, some of whom who have never played World of Warcraft, received similar looking phishing emails shortly after viewing the offer wall.
- Offers that require users to download software that secretly harvests information, cookies, and potentially passwords, credit cards, and social security numbers.
- Cell phone scams that require you to send a text to complete the offer.
- Offers that require you to partake in long surveys that then disqualify you.
Turbine has since completely removed the offer wall, temporarily, to address these issues, but the fact remains: For a few hours yesterday, Turbine was literally walking their players directly into a developer-backed trap. Players who were offered an alternate method to paying for Turbine Points were herded into a trap where they could have had their accounts compromised, or possibly even becoming victims of identity theft, depending on what some of the advertisers were sticking on player’s computers.
Players are, understandably, livid about this and Turbine has released a list of rules that offerers must adhere to. Hopefully this will calm down an inflamed situation.
Offer Wall Rules
Any offer to be published on the Offer Wall must meet the following criteria:
- 1No unapproved required downloads – ever. This includes toolbars, helper applications, plug-ins, and ActiveX Controls. Player security is our top priority.
- All offers must be certified spyware-clean and confirmed in internal testing against a cleanroom environment.
- Surveys must be legit. No lengthy prequalification surveys followed by a disqualification and no points. If the pre-qualification is more than 20 questions for our test cases, we won’t host the survey.
- Surveys must not ask for game account information or information which could be used to discover a player’s credentials.
- No deceptive offers – i.e. take this IQ test and get the results via SMS (free IQ test, SMS costs $).
- Partners must display a privacy policy in a public location that can be checked.
- Offers must pay out as expected. All offers must deliver the points promised in a clear and straightforward fashion.
More on Dungeons and Dragons as it appears, and no there is no news on the lawsuit.
Gala-Net + Astrum Nival: Clarification and Fear Of Death
And I shall whisper, no. Being the publisher of an MMO is hard work; your tasks are relegated to bug reporting, polishing upcoming versions, localization, and running events. You don’t fix bugs and you can’t add in any features, and you serve essentially as a franchise for the MMO in question. A lot of people don’t know this little gem, and the end result is that the publisher usually ends up taking flak for what the developer is doing (or not doing).
Gala-Net has seen your criticisms and feedback and wants you to know…It’s really not their fault. Gala-Net, or as you know them better, gPotato, is the publisher of both upcoming titles featured on MMO Fallout, Allods Online and Aika Online. In a development diary, Gala’s own Darren Allarde wants to let you know exactly what Gala-Net does in regards to Allods, mainly so you can be sure to direct your rage against Astrum Nival next time.
“We don’t fix bugs, we report them. We don’t program and work on new in-game features, we hear what you have to say, tally it up, and communicate to Astrum Nival the feedback that makes sense for the game in our region.”
-Darren Allarde, Gala-Net, on Allods Online
But you aren’t here to hear Gala-Net direct your complaints to the correct source, we’re here to talk about Astrum Nival who undoubtedly wants some of that old time loving back. You know, back when Allods Online wasn’t just that punching bag for punkish sarcastic twits who run MMO bl-diverting attention! and was still an MMO to give paid MMOs a run for their money in the form of seven thousand dollar runes.
Astrum’s been running a poll on what the players would like to see removed, and topping out the list on both English and Russian localizations was easily the removal of Fear of Death, the debuff upon death that can only be fixed by waiting, paying out the wazoo with gold, or buying expensive cash shop perfumes.
Well seeing as how Russia has at least 8 hours on the rest of us, the patch notes for the Russian Allods have already been released, with the following line poorly translated in Google:
- According to the summarization of voting canceled “The fear of death.”
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.
More on Allods Online and its return to grace after these messages from our sponsors (grab a sandwich, this might take a while…actually grab me one too).
MMO Fallout 
