It was bound to happen eventually, but it looks like NCsoft’s recent rise in account theft has bled over to Turbine and Lord of the Rings Online. Just a couple days ago, Turbine placed the above notice on the game launcher, reminding players to change their password regularly. Granted, if you have a password that isn’t easy to guess and keep your computer secure, such an act wouldn’t be necessary (I haven’t changed my passwords in years, and I use the same three passwords on everything), but to each his own.
Of course, increasing security is always a good thing. For every player like myself, who does not share a computer, there are those with siblings/parents who have the technical know-how of-hey check out this cool new Windows Theme, by the way your anti-virus wouldn’t stop blocking the website so I shut it off.
A man once said, “Those who can’t do, teach. Those who can’t teach, teach Gym.” I have a similar phrase for companies that make MMOs:
“Those who can’t develop, develop for China.”
-Omali, MMO Fallout, on the Asian MMO Market
Now, if you’re going to accuse me of implying that the Asian MMO market is saturated with hundreds of titles that are nothing more than cookie cutter item mall clones with enough grind to turn a pepper plant into microscopic sized specks, developed by small companies that rake in huge profits of the item mall selling faster leveling and insanely rare items for cash, and then use that money to not support the product by not getting rid of the endless amount of gold farmers that will populate the server and sell to a market in the millions whose standards barely break the point of “I don’t care about lore, immersion, or anything else as long as I can kill this one NPC several thousand times over,” well I would have no idea what you are talking about. I contest your assumption that I am comparing the quality aspect of developing for the Asian market, to the literature aspect of writing a book for toddlers.
Red 5 Studios was founded by World of Warcraft veterans, including Mark Kern, Team Lead over at Blizzard, which could lead one to believe that the company would be marginally as successful as Blizzard. Thanks to some trouble hiring, despite Red 5 going as far as bribing the hopefuls with Ipod Shuffles, development at the new studio never took off the ground. A company that fits the profile of “Never was, is not, and never will be,” Red 5’s initial staff of 100 was butchered down to 65 in 2008, after the company closed its Shanghai office.
Red 5 has confirmed that they have had another round of layoffs, leaving the company with a skeleton crew of just over 30 employees. Webzen, who you will remember took control of Archlord in the Western markets, invested in Red 5 back in 2008, over an MMOFPS that the developer was working on. It now appears that the title may never be released, and Red 5 has plans for another game.
This time, rather than a worldwide release, Red 5 will be “restructuring” and focusing on releasing an MMO in the Chinese market, although they are still claiming that the MMOFPS is not down and out yet, simply shelved until a further date. Haven’t heard that before.
I believe there's a "shut down MMO Fallout" fund you can give to.
Here at MMO Fallout, I like to spur competition between companies when the outcome can only be good things. For example, two companies fighting over who can feed the most homeless, or who can produce the most adorable puppy. Naturally, I have to settle, but who can donate the most to charity is just as well. If I get to throw in a jab at Ndoors, and their attempted scam questionably ethical Child’s Play charity run that Child’s Play rejected (due to Ndoors taking 95% of the donations and pocketing it), well the merrier.
Back in November, Runes of Magic discounted one of their mounts and gave the players an offer: If you buy this mount for $15, we will donate $4.50 to charity. The charity in question is “Save the Children,” an organization dedicated to improving the lives of children in the 50 countries it is located, with workers now located in Haiti aiding in the relief effort.
Thanks to player purchases, Frogster has donated over fifty thousand USD. I just have one question: Do I write Mao’s Charity Steed or Runes of Magic on my tax writeoff?
With all the commotion(?) over Phantasy Star Universe biting the dust this March, one might think three MMOs shutting down would be enough for the first half of 2010. Odds are none of those people play Cities XL. In an open letter to the community, Monte Crisco emailed all current subscribers to let them know that Cities’ MMO part, “Planet Offer,” will be shutting down early this year. March, more precisely the 8th.
As for why, well allow me to sum it up in just a few words:
“Not enough players decided to subscribe.”
Monte Crisco
Low subscriber numbers is generally the deciding factor in shutting down an MMO, when the game no longer becomes profitable. Luckily, players will have full access to the single player game even after the online part shuts down.
Monte Crisco’s letter to the community after the break.
Technically, The Chronicles of Spellborn never went anywhere. Back in MMO Fallout’s infancy, I wrote about Acclaim taking over the MMO, with the intentions of reviving the game and relaunching it the next year with a free to play, microtransaction model. Until then, of course, Chronicles of Spellborn would be completely free to play.
Well, 2010 has come around, and that means it’s about time for an announcement from Acclaim as to the status of this reboot. On the Spellborn forums, we were treated to not just any customer service rep’s explanation, but the CEO himself Howard Marks. Marks had this to say,
“The rumors are true! Spellborn Version Two is on the way. The developer has released the new version in Japan, and based on the success of that launch and the fine tuning of the game, we will keep you informed as to when we shall launch the English version of the game. When we do, we will be inviting registered players of the old version, who have valid email addresses on file, to become our beta players. In the meantime, why not check out some of our other great free games at www.acclaim.com? Hope to see you ingame! ”
— Howard Marks, CEO of Acclaim Games, Inc.
Thank you How-did he just say that this has already been released in Japan? The Japanese market must be a better litmus test for Chronicles of Spellborn if you are willing to base the relaunch of the title in a completely separate market based off of the results.
For the record, I still recommend trying out Chronicles of Spellborn, or Acclaim’s two other free to play MMOs. There hasn’t been much more information about the tweaks that will be coming, but MMO Fallout will be here to cover the relaunch of Chronicles of Spellborn.
Good news, Phantasy Star Universe! The long-awaited MAG+ update will be going live January 29th and will be running through March 12th. This event brings players together to compete for prizes, medals, and more, offering current subscribers on the Xbox360 to enjoy the rewards for plenty of time to come. MAG+, or MAXIMUM ATTACK G+ as Sega calls it, introduces new levels of difficulty and new rewards. The event will also feature live leaderboards, reward information, with the best prizes going to the gold, silver, and bronze.
Oh and Phantasy Star Universe will be shut down on the Ps2 and PC, while 360 servers will remain online for the time being. The shut down is expected to take place on March 31st. The move is, of course, due to low subscriber numbers.
But do not fret, PSUsers!
“this server / service closure is helping to pave the way for bigger and better things for the Phantasy Star franchise in the very near future!”
Yes, the Phantasy Star Online line of MMOs may have a life expectancy of two to three years, and have had every title crash and burn due to low sales and even lower subscriber numbers, but rest assured Sega will be there to make another Phantasy Star Online that will also have a lower life span than your average bottle of water.
More on Phantasy Star seven through thirty as it appears.
The Atari of old was a great company that brought gaming to the home platform, with Pong and later consoles. Between the Pong box, the Atari 2600, Atari defined the industry, and was responsible for the classic games before the games we now consider classic, not to mention a console that spawned thousands of shovelware titles.
When the discussion comes to the new Atari, there is a different story. I believe I referred to Atari on a website that is not MMO Fallout, as an empty shell of a company that not only couldn’t keep itself on the NASDAQ stock listing, had a failed European branch, and has undergone more cosmetic surgery to change face than any other company in the business. Despite being relegated to the position of publisher for any notable title over the past decade, Atari has been downsized to the elderly man who keeps talking about his youth, and he buys up the younger crowd so he can live through them, even though his limbs are falling off from years of mistreatment.
I usually don’t talk about publishers, but since Cryptic Studios is obligated to use Atari as their publisher (being a subsidiary and all), I’ll make an exception. If you are considering buying a title that was published by Atari, it is in your best interest not to buy them directly from Atari’s store, especially if you may need to use any factor of their customer service.
Granted...
As a rule of thumb, I always do research to confirm a story before I write up about it. In this case, several players informed me that Atari has “purposely” broken their customer service in order to stop any cancellations of Star Trek Online before the game is released. Naturally, I went directly to Atari’s customer support page to investigate. What I found was that, when not busy formulating plots against Turbine (allegedly), Atari is busy not fixing their customer support contact page.
When attempting to contact customer support, one must first include a purchase number or email address, and choose from the drop boxes which category they are looking for. I filled out the first drop box with no issue, but then the problem hit me: The second drop box does not load, making it impossible to fill out the form. Having tried this with every major browser, on several computers through multiple networks, I can now say it is impossible to contact Atari’s customer support for their online store. Not only is it impossible to get refunds, but it is impossible to cancel orders, get support of any kind, or even contact the company to let them know that their support is broken.
If Atari is unaware of this problem, they must be feeling very proud of themselves that they must be making such great products that not a single person is emailing in with a problem. If they are aware of the issue, and if what the players are telling me is true about how long it has been broken, then this is just a drop in the bucket of Atari’s long history over the past decade of increasingly poor customer support.
I can’t say how Atari’s support is for download games, but if at all possible consider buying from another digital download service. Just remember that if something goes wrong, your only avenue will be dealing with your bank in the form of a charge back, because Atari (for all intent and purpose) is sitting in the corner with its fingers in its ears shouting “la la la la, I can’t hear you!”
The Atari of old was a great company that brought gaming to the home platform, with Pong and later consoles. Between the Pong box, the Atari 2600, Atari defined the industry, and was responsible for the classic games before the games we now consider classic, not to mention a console that spawned thousands of shovelware titles.
When the discussion comes to the new Atari, there is a different story. I believe I referred to Atari on a website that is not MMO Fallout, as an empty shell of a company that not only couldn’t keep itself on the NASDAQ stock listing, had a failed European branch, and has undergone more cosmetic surgery to change face than any other company in the business. Despite being relegated to the position of publisher for any notable title over the past decade, Atari has been downsized to the elderly man who keeps talking about his youth, and he buys up the younger crowd so he can live through them, even though his limbs are falling off from years of mistreatment.
I usually don’t talk about publishers, but since Cryptic Studios is obligated to use Atari as their publisher (being a subsidiary and all), I’ll make an exception. If you are considering buying a title that was published by Atari, it is in your best interest not to buy them directly from Atari’s store, especially if you may need to use any factor of their customer service.
Granted...
As a rule of thumb, I always do research to confirm a story before I write up about it. In this case, several players informed me that Atari has “purposely” broken their customer service in order to stop any cancellations of Star Trek Online before the game is released. Naturally, I went directly to Atari’s customer support page to investigate. What I found was that, when not busy formulating plots against Turbine (allegedly), Atari is busy not fixing their customer support contact page.
When attempting to contact customer support, one must first include a purchase number or email address, and choose from the drop boxes which category they are looking for. I filled out the first drop box with no issue, but then the problem hit me: The second drop box does not load, making it impossible to fill out the form. Having tried this with every major browser, on several computers through multiple networks, I can now say it is impossible to contact Atari’s customer support for their online store. Not only is it impossible to get refunds, but it is impossible to cancel orders, get support of any kind, or even contact the company to let them know that their support is broken.
If Atari is unaware of this problem, they must be feeling very proud of themselves that they must be making such great products that not a single person is emailing in with a problem. If they are aware of the issue, and if what the players are telling me is true about how long it has been broken, then this is just a drop in the bucket of Atari’s long history over the past decade of increasingly poor customer support.
I can’t say how Atari’s support is for download games, but if at all possible consider buying from another digital download service. Just remember that if something goes wrong, your only avenue will be dealing with your bank in the form of a charge back, because Atari (for all intent and purpose) is sitting in the corner with its fingers in its ears shouting “la la la la, I can’t hear you!”
I have good news and bad news. The good news is that Project V13, the fabled Fallout MMO and namesake for this blog, is trucking along and will be hitting beta soon. The bad news is that by soon, I mean soon in Valve Time, and it may be likely that the beta will trigger the end of the world as we know it.
In a recent posting over at Interplay’s website, the company has announced that they have been working with Masthead Studios to bring their vision of Fallout to life, with all of the vaults, irradiated beverages, and super mutants that you know and love. Even more descriptively was the note that Project V13 will be using the same proprietary tools as Earthrise.
“Masthead joined the project in early 2009 and development continues under Interplay’s direction and control. Project: V13 will utilize the proprietary tools and MMOG technology Masthead developed for its “Earthrise” project.”
How soon is this beta, you say, Omali? Not soon enough that you shouldn’t put off buying anything. We’re looking at mid to late 2012.
“This MMOG will have many unique features that we will disclose before launch of the public Beta in 2012.”
But it isn’t all bad. Tell me, Interplay, will Project V13 be innovative, or will it be just a sad re-skinning of functions and mechanics we have already seen before?
“Project: V13 incorporates many creative and technological innovations. We believe it will be a unique experience. Our technology will continue to evolve in order to realize all the extraordinary content and features Interplay has designed.”
Good enough for me. More on Project V13 when we get closer to the beta in two years.
Lord of the Rings Online uses this room as well...
Hey there ex-Fallen Earth and Lord of the Rings Online players! I know what you’ve been thinking, “I’d like to get back into [insert game here], but I just don’t have the cash right now to foot the fee for a game I don’t even know I will still enjoy!” Boy do I have a surprise for you. Both Fallen Earth and Lord of the Rings Online are running welcome back campaigns!
Fallen Earth players should have received an invitation through email by now. The offer is for ten free days to check out all the new updates, from graphics enhancements to the new construction skill, optimizations, and more! All you have to do is log into your Fallen Earth account on Fallen Earth’s website and follow the instructions to activate your free ten days.
Lord of the Rings Online, on the other hand, is giving you a free weekend. Second to Valve for free weekends, Turbine is offering the game from today until Monday for absolutely free, plus benefits! Players who partake in this offering will find that stable-masters have lowered their price to absolutely free, not to mention a 5% experience buff that will stack on top of your rest experience.
I’m mentioning both Fallen Earth and Lord of the Rings Online not just because both happen to be running this offer concurrently, but because both companies are well known for treating their customers well. Fallen Earth continues to grow in subscribers, and Lord of the Rings Online is one of the sleepy giants of the MMO World. Anyone looking to get some free time with the updated version of either game should dive into it.
Unless you’re in Europe, in which case you can’t partake in the LOTRO free weekend. Sorry! Consider complaining to Codemasters, assuming you aren’t already.
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MMO Fallout 