Warhammer Online: Here’s What You Wanted


Your Feedback To Good Use

In the last edition of Checking Up On Mythic, I talked about the developer’s latest spat with players, this time over how to deal with the over-encumbered and bloated scenario system. Mythic’s original idea, which consisted of removing 75% of the scenario maps, did not digest well with the community. In fact, from a PR point of view, Mythic’s platter of an announcement was infected with E.Coli. So being the official Developer That Could, Mythic went to the boards and asked the community, what would you do?

Well we have our answer, and Mythic has an idea of where they want to go with the upcoming scenario streamline: Foremost, Mythic hopes to decrease the amount of time waiting in scenario queues, based off of several factors that the company has been watching. Part of the update sees “always active” scenarios, maps that are (just that) always active, no matter what the progression of the campaign on either side. The game’s weekly event, Weekly Warfronts, will now not only contribute to the campaign, but all Warfronts will be open, rather than picking and choosing just one.

So Mythic does indeed listen. The reaction from the community has been mixed, but overall positive, and it’s good to see Mythic taking the medicinal approach rather than amputating the scenario system from the neck down.

More on Mythic and Warhammer Online as it appears. Dark Age of Camelot’s host change should be going live in just two days.

Back To The Drawing Board: See You Later This Year


Kung Foo!

Perfect World Entertainment isn’t happy with the current state of Kung Foo! their upcoming MMO that yours truly had the pleasure of closed beta testing. In fact, now that the testing is coming to a close in just a few days, they have an announcement to make: Rather than moving the game into open beta, Perfect World Entertainment will be shutting down Kung Foo! in order to optimize it with more content and improved localization for a relaunch of the closed beta later this year. The closed beta test was quite successful, and the company hopes to use this time to add in new features based off of player feedback.

I often berate Eastern MMOs for being shallow titles, but one thing that remains awfully consistent is the attitude of the developers. For companies like Perfect World Entertainment and Gpotato, they have a vested interest in keeping their customers happy, even if that means delaying their title by months at a time in order to avoid launching before it is ready.

More on Kung Foo! as it appears.

Dark Age of Camelot Europe: Great (If You Speak English)


Give me Electronic Arts, or Give Me Death!

Maybe not death. Perhaps where you accidentally clip your nails to far and you catch your skin and it hurts really bad to touch anything for a couple days.

Back in early January, I reported on news that EA/Mythic would be reclaiming the European grounds of Dark Age of Camelot from their current host, GOA. Electronic Arts, who of course now own Mythic, have decided to take over the operation of the European servers. I did originally mention that the transfer was less marred with controversy than the Archlord transfer last year, and I now have plenty of Warhammer and Dark Age of Camelot players who were very kind (in the context of sending feedback) to explain their grief with GOA and the way they have handled Dark Age and Warhammer in Europe.

Electronic Arts is set to take back the European Dark Age servers in a week’s time, on the 17th, but there are several issues to be taken up. Other than these, the merger is great for Europeans, especially if you are Americans.

  1. All current players will be given a free month of game time.
    1. This free game time is partially due to the fact that billing services will be down during the transition period, during which time it will be impossible to subscribe for new/existing customers
    2. Players may find that their form of payment is no longer accepted under the North American billing system.
    3. Your login name/password may have to change.
  2. Your player will keep all stats, friends, and levels.
    1. Although you may have to change your name, granted this is to be expected.
    2. Initially all of your housing information will be preserved, however once the merger to the North American servers takes place, you are bound to the server transfer conditions. Vaults and property will transfer, as will the value of the house deed, but you will need to buy a new house.
    3. Transfers to Ywain, the North American server, will not be available immediately, as Mythic will be upgrading all accounts to match the current North American version of Dark Age.
  3. In-game Customer Support Representatives will be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
    1. However  customer support for all servers will only be available in English
    2. The Herald will only be published in English
    3. New servers are being prepared in German and French, however players on English (UK), Italian, and Spanish language servers will have to choose between Ywain (NA) and the German/French server.
    4. The new European server will be hosted in Germany.

Those are just a consolidated bullet point list, and I will admit deciphering the FAQ was slightly confusing. You can find the entire FAQ here and make of it what you will, but it appears that the Spanish, Italian, French, and German players will all be talking to each other on the same server, and UK players will have to sit through it or transfer over to the North American server.

More on Dark Age of Camelot as it appears. This transfer goes live one week from today, and Mythic expects up to 48 hours downtime, not including the previously mentioned delays with the North American transfer. I am interested in seeing if Warhammer Online will follow suit.

WoW China Saga Comes To A Close?


Welcome to the tip of the mountain.

Good news everyone¹!

NetEase, operators of World of Warcraft China division, have officially announced just an hour or so ago that they have received approval by the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), to run World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, for publication in China. World of Warcraft has been fighting for survival in China not out of subscription numbers, but because of a war of authority between two of China’s governmental ministries, one being the GAPP.

This news will certainly delight those who have been observing WoW going through various stages of approved, banned, shut down, on hiatus, and in “demo mode” to new subscribers. Hopefully this will be the end to the World of Warcraft: China saga, although considering the fact that GAPP and its rival ministry have yet to settle their differences, I think we’ll be seeing WoW back in the news once again in due time.

¹ Everyone as in, WoW players in China.

Guild Wars: Xunlai Tournament House Dies On Operating Table


PvP Tournament Removed....

Guild Wars players are likely fairly angry at the news that, after nearly a year of operational work, the Xunlai Tournament House will not be returning. A web-accessible portion of Guild Wars, the tournament house acted as a betting spot, where players could attempt to predict the outcome of the game’s player vs player tournaments.

“After much analysis and discussion, we’ve decided to permanently retire the Xunlai Tournament House.”

Unfortunately, at one point during ArenaNet’s seven month trump through the game’s code, it was determined that the entire tournament house would need to be rebuilt from scratch, pulling resources away from Guild Wars 2 that could not be afforded.

I don’t think this news is too surprising to Guild Wars players, although the fact that the house died to support Guild Wars 2 may disappoint and anger some, but hey: Stuff happens. More on Guild Wars as it appears.

Unsurprisingly: NCsoft Record Profits


With 16,000 accounts gone, less queues!
An indicator of high sales.

If MMO Fallout were a physical entity, I’d have a lot more fun searching through its records, what with the shelves of documents and that ladder on wheels I’d get to ride around. Going back to the earlier days of Aion’s coverage, I discovered an announcement that the MMO had hit the three hundred thousand preorder mark, along with a reminder that it’s all about the retention rate.

So it comes as no surprise that NCsoft is reporting record profits over the past quarterly report. Profits are up over one thousand percent, while sales are up nearly one hundred percent. Unsurprisingly, Aion made up 48% of those sales. Surprisingly, however, Lineage and Lineage 2 are still selling very well, at twenty seven and twenty percent respectively.

NCsoft’s rebound is very welcoming to the gaming community, especially after the company’s net income plummeted 50% in quarter 3 of last year, shortly before Aion was released, and even more so as NCsoft attempts to suppress the memories of Tabula Rasa, whose failure hit the company hard this past year.

So good work NCsoft. Keep being who you are, and keep that sweet sweet cash flowing in.

Roma Victor to Shut Down: RV2 May Die


Now where do I go for crucifixion pictures?

I think I’ve directly spoken of Roma Victor once on MMO Fallout, not because of any malice towards the title, but because the only newsworthy piece I came across in regards to the title was the act of crucifying cheaters. And much like any other image I find, it was subsequently beaten and overused for lame comedic effect (my apologies to the players Cholo, Vondum, Germanikus, and any others in the image).

Roma Victor is an odd game set in 180ad, just before the fall of the Roman Empire. Players begin as slaves and eventually move on to fight for either the Roman or Barbarian side of the war (go with the Barbarians, they eventually win). Roma Victor is a levelless game, instead choosing to use a skill tree that, like Darkfall and Runescape, is raised by training that skill (Woodcutting raised by cutting wood).

Unfortunately, not unlike that family member you never visit, my next news article in relation to Roma Victor is not only a sad one, but also fairly confusing to myself. Roma Victor will be shut down in an announcement that, yes, came out last month, but has taken me a little while to decipher the stages of shutting down, which I have submitted here:

  1. On May 5th, account registration will be activated.
  2. On November 5th, No donations or payments will be accepted.
  3. May 5th 2011, Roma Victor shuts down for good.

If you play Roma Victor, at least you have over a year to say goodbye. If you haven’t had the chance to try Roma Victor, you have until May to set up your account. Roma Victor has no subscription fee, and runs solely off of voluntary donations and microtransactions.

The path Roma Victor walks down is the same one that will be traveled by the latest incarnation of Myst Online, that small video game communities run solely around donations do not make for a sustainable, let’s not even think about profitable, business. The developer team is readily admitting that Roma Victor hasn’t been profitable for a long time now, with a small community and no monthly fees. The decision is to slowly wind down Roma Victor in anticipation for Roma Victor 2, that will attempt to fix much of the company’s woes.

Current players will find all of their stuff imported into Roma Victor 2 when it hopefully releases next year, but if the announcement is anything to go off of, it is very possible that RV2 may never see the light of day. More on Roma Victor as it appears.

World of Warcraft Has Peaked: Still Has 11.5 Million Subscribers


Welcome to the tip of the mountain.

The celebration at the end of Return of the Jedi likely can’t compare to the fanfare being celebrated by practically every gamer who has ever uttered the phrase “World of Warcraft sucks.” Earlier today we learned from the big boss man himself, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime, that World of Warcraft has been stagnant for two years: Keeping stable at the 11.5 million mark. According to Morhaime, who was responding to an investor’s call, a third of new players quit before level ten I need to go back to remedial math. It was one third of players stay after level 10, not the other way around. Two thirds quit by level 10.

World of Warcraft has been stuck in a power struggle between two government agencies fighting for authority over the games market in China, where the game and half of the worldwide subscribers have been stuck in a period of limbo between online, offline, and NetEase occasionally losing the ability to sign up new customers. Earlier this week, Netease was forced to suspend registrations for a week after it was found that they are still not operating World of Warcraft with a license.

Despite issues in China, what this boils down to in many gamers is the mythical peak many have spoken of for years: The day World of Warcraft stopped growing. For those of you keeping track, this peak actually happened two years ago, December 2008, when Blizzard first reported 11.5 million subscribers.

I don’t think I need to remind the Blizzard Trolls out there that stagnant or not, Blizzard still has 11.5 million subscribers. Let’s not try and count the chickens before they’ve evolved from primordial soup, Blizzard could lose millions of their customers tonight and still have more paying customers than a great portion of the other big name MMOs in the market, combined.

Considering World of Warcraft, and each of its expansions, has dominated the PC market for five years running, it seems reasonable to chalk this up to the ratio of people who have not purchased WoW is going down to those who have purchased WoW. I myself have a copy of World of Warcraft and the Burning Crusade in my PC library (I have 68 hours clocked in on Xfire). Essentially, we’ve reached the point where the number of people coming in is matching or just barely exceeding the number of people leaving.

Blizzard is expecting a spike in returning users when Cataclysm releases, but one truth holds firm: World of Warcraft will begin the decline one day. It may not be this year, it may not even be the next two years, but it will decline. The only thing that can kill WoW is WoW itself, or another Blizzard MMO. For the moment, however, Blizzard is doing just fine for themselves, and unlike Arthas this king will not be going anywhere any time soon. So put the noise-maker away, World of Warcraft may be old enough in MMO terms to start having its midlife crisis and run around town naked, but it can still make you squeal like a pig with one hand tied behind its back.

More on Blizzard as it appears.

Cryptic Studios Listens: Expansion and CO's Future


Gustav chooses to murder his dissenters.

Cryptic wants to change. They want to stop being the company known for poor communication with its players, and they want to stop this cycle of rushing patches untested. The employees are mad as hell, and they’re not going to take it anymore!

Bill Roper and the team had a lot to say in the State of the Game today, and made a lot of promises of rehabilitation. First, Cryptic is taking the first step: Acknowledgement. In the SOTG, they talk about the recent bugs appearing due to a recent change in the game’s coding in the kitchen sink patch. Furthermore, Cryptic is readily admitting that there was not enough playtesting done in both internal QA and through the test server, in order to rush the patch out. Taking the blame is great, but what is Cryptic really doing to improve conditions?

Foremost, Cryptic is looking towards improving communications between developers and players. The communication begins with bi-weekly question and answer sessions, followed by an ongoing blog by the Game Masters, detailing plans for the game. Monthly developer chats will take place in Cryptic’s IRC channel, and the State of the Game will now be released bi-weekly. An overhaul of the Champions Online website will bring in more fan screenshots, fan art, and ways to stalk your favorite developer.

Boy do I have egg on my face, and that egg is not part of Denny’s free Grand Slam. I’ve often said that although Cryptic has communication issues on the little things (timer resets, feedback, etc), they generally get the picture when an issue becomes big enough. When Daeke announced that the next expansion, Vibora Bay, would be a paid mission pack, the community went, in all fairness, completely ape-poop.

Well Cryptic fans may rejoice, and Cryptic trolls may move on to their next talking point, because Cryptic has an announcement to make. After wading his way through the legion of hate mail, “I quit” emails, and piled on (actually constructive) feedback, Bill Roper and the team have decided to make Vibora Bay, now known as Champions online: Revelation, free to all players.

Revelation is expected mid-March, with more information on the way. All we know currently is that the expansion is a “full fledged expansion pack,” and will feature a storyline full of heroes, villains, new areas, powers, and gameplay mechanics, and maybe even a love interest for your hero (Just kidding).

If Cryptic can stick to this twelve step program, there are good things in Champions Online’s future.

Cryptic Studios Listens: Expansion and CO’s Future


Gustav chooses to murder his dissenters.

Cryptic wants to change. They want to stop being the company known for poor communication with its players, and they want to stop this cycle of rushing patches untested. The employees are mad as hell, and they’re not going to take it anymore!

Bill Roper and the team had a lot to say in the State of the Game today, and made a lot of promises of rehabilitation. First, Cryptic is taking the first step: Acknowledgement. In the SOTG, they talk about the recent bugs appearing due to a recent change in the game’s coding in the kitchen sink patch. Furthermore, Cryptic is readily admitting that there was not enough playtesting done in both internal QA and through the test server, in order to rush the patch out. Taking the blame is great, but what is Cryptic really doing to improve conditions?

Foremost, Cryptic is looking towards improving communications between developers and players. The communication begins with bi-weekly question and answer sessions, followed by an ongoing blog by the Game Masters, detailing plans for the game. Monthly developer chats will take place in Cryptic’s IRC channel, and the State of the Game will now be released bi-weekly. An overhaul of the Champions Online website will bring in more fan screenshots, fan art, and ways to stalk your favorite developer.

Boy do I have egg on my face, and that egg is not part of Denny’s free Grand Slam. I’ve often said that although Cryptic has communication issues on the little things (timer resets, feedback, etc), they generally get the picture when an issue becomes big enough. When Daeke announced that the next expansion, Vibora Bay, would be a paid mission pack, the community went, in all fairness, completely ape-poop.

Well Cryptic fans may rejoice, and Cryptic trolls may move on to their next talking point, because Cryptic has an announcement to make. After wading his way through the legion of hate mail, “I quit” emails, and piled on (actually constructive) feedback, Bill Roper and the team have decided to make Vibora Bay, now known as Champions online: Revelation, free to all players.

Revelation is expected mid-March, with more information on the way. All we know currently is that the expansion is a “full fledged expansion pack,” and will feature a storyline full of heroes, villains, new areas, powers, and gameplay mechanics, and maybe even a love interest for your hero (Just kidding).

If Cryptic can stick to this twelve step program, there are good things in Champions Online’s future.