Call him what you want, King Garriot, General Garriot, crazy, Richard Garriot is the big daddy of the MMORPG world, and has a special place in the hearts of many MMOers, whether you’ve played his version of Ultima Online (the old one) or Tabula Rasa. Ever since Tabula Rasa flew the coop and fell ten stories to its death, there’s been a lot of skepticism in the MMO world as to whether or not gaming genius Richard Garriot would make it back. He seemed busy with his new life flying the cosmos, and didn’t seem all that interested in the MMO landscape anymore.
Boy were we wrong, as Garriot himself is back with Portalarium!
“The Portalarium mission is exactly what I want to be doing next in games. This really takes me back to my roots in the game business – small development teams, low barriers to entry, affordable budgets for quality projects, and unlimited new interactive frontiers to explore together with our customers.”
-Richard Garriot
Interactive frontiers? Unlimited? Back to his roots? Excuse me if I glee. From my understanding, Portalarium will be starting out with a “portalarium player” that will act as a plugin to allow other gaming engines to work inside of social websites: Facebook, Myspace, etc. Where will Richard Garriot go from there?
Well that, my friends, will yet to be seen.
Unfortunately there is still no news on the $24 million lawsuit against NCsoft.
There isn’t much more of a vestigial appendage on the server list for your favorite MMO than seeing “RP” as the label. Back when I first started playing World of Warcraft, the role playing servers were populated with a number of hardcore guilds, granted guilds that would quickly try to get you booted off of the server if you didn’t chat using the correct out-of-context code, but hardcore guilds nonetheless. Over time, it became apparent that those guilds were moving out, and players who really had no interest in role playing were coming in, to occasionally add a ‘th to the end of their words, and doth speak’th like yon medieval men, prithee, despite World of Warcraft not being set in Earth’s Middle Ages.
As a hardcore role player sans rear-implanted-stick, I had to come to the sad reality that my kind is scarce, despite half of the MMO name being Role Playing Game, the in-character role playing was something I would have to search wide and far in order to find an active guild that actually actively participated in role playing (rather than “You role play a tank, I’ll role play support, we’ll pretend…that dragon killed your family and we’re gonna take its loot.”). That’s why I’m drawn to sandbox games like Mortal Online. Considering the title is still in beta, there is a lot more to do in the spiritual sense of thinking, rather than physically quantifying. Yesterday I played cleanup, making sure that the loot from dead criminals was safely tucked away in my bank. Today, on the other hand, I actively hunted down miners who had left their keyboards with a macro set up to play for them (Don’t worry, I check for activity before I attack). More often than not, I play a crafter of some sort.
The latest information from Everquest II was just what I needed to remind me that it wasn’t just writing with my left-handed that made me a minority of sorts, with the finding that only 5% of the game’s population are hardcore role players. Among the 40 page report was other information, including that role players play less hours, are slightly younger, and have a higher percentage of female players.
I am the player who uses the biography section of the character creator, even though it has no physical impact on gameplay. I’ve spent quite a bit of time creating a backstory for not just my superhero, but my nemesis in Champions Online, as well as any other MMO I’ve played in recent years. I don’t consider myself better than those who don’t roleplay, and I am certainly not under the understanding that I am enjoying more of the game than they are. In fact, there are several cases I can mention where I end up limiting myself:
In the case of Champions Online, I ended up passing over several powers that, while powerful, did not conceivably fit my character. My hero is a telekinesis power set, so giving him guns or robot minions wouldn’t fit. Equally with Mortal Online, where my end goal is to be a well known armor-crafter, I will have to give up my combat skills to specialize in the various crafting techniques.
Or maybe I’m just being pessimistic. Are there any other role players out there that are in the same boat?
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.
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.
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.
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.
All current players will be given a free month of game time.
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
Players may find that their form of payment is no longer accepted under the North American billing system.
Your login name/password may have to change.
Your player will keep all stats, friends, and levels.
Although you may have to change your name, granted this is to be expected.
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.
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.
In-game Customer Support Representatives will be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
However customer support for all servers will only be available in English
The Herald will only be published in English
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
On May 5th, account registration will be activated.
On November 5th, No donations or payments will be accepted.
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.
MMO Fallout 