For several days now, Steam has been running a weekend sale on a slew of video games, so I decided to run the MMO sales here on MMO Fallout. Two days ago, Fallen Earth and Champions Online were on sale, however those sales have ended and today’s have just begun.
The only MMO on sale today is City of Heroes: Architect Edition. This version includes both City of Heroes and City of Villains, and allows players to take part in the Architect (creating your own missions). Players will also enjoy the 14 major updates to the game since launch, as well as several bonus items for free.
With all the hubbub going around on Thanksgiving in the United States, and more importantly World of Warcraft hitting five years old alongside a slew of giveaways from Wow.com, it is understandable if you missed Stardock’s nod last week to Steam holding 70% of the PC sales market. Unsurprising, as many PC gamers you ask today will tell you that they make much of their purchases through the digital distribution system.
That share is set to go even higher, as Steam announced a sales extravaganza with Thanksgiving on its way. Each day brings new sales to the table, and what better to focus on for MMO Fallout than, say, MMOs on sale?
Day 1 of sales brings in 50% off of Champions Online and Fallen Earth. Champions Online is now $19.99, while Fallen Earth has been reduced to $24.99. Other non-MMO titles such as Arkham Asylum, Dragon Age, and Grid are also on sale today. Remember: Each sale lasts only 24 hours, and then it is gone. Think of it as a Black Friday sale, but it’s Wednesday and there’s no risk of being trampled by a mob of angry shoppers.
If you have not picked up either Fallen Earth or Champions Online, both are certainly worth a look.
I normally start out every Warhammer Online article with a now famous quote by Vice President of Mythic Mark Jacobs, but at this point perhaps we can manage with just a bite,
“If you’ve seen a game consolidate servers, you know it’s in deep, deep trouble.”
-Mark Jacobs
Following the huge layoffs at Mythic, and the hints of desperation summoned by the endless trial system, it comes as a surprise to absolutely nobody that Mythic has announced that more servers will be shutting down in the near future.
On the American side, Dark Crag and Phoenix Throne are shutting down, where Europe has at least one server shutting down in the near future. Transfers are set to begin soon, if they haven’t already, and players will be given 20% experience bonuses on their new servers to ease the pain. After this shutdown, Warhammer Online will have five servers in North America, and Europe with eleven servers.
Segueing to our next topic, look it’s Aion again! Barely a day after announcing the introduction of G-Unit (Not the rappers, as I discovered) to fight bots in Aion, NCsoft has announced a mass ban following the maintenance reboot earlier this morning. Nearly sixteen thousand accounts, too. The bans are anything from gold farming, botting, buying gold, to spamming and advertising.
So is there any recourse for players who feel they were wrongly banned? Unlikely, as NCsoft feels quite sure of themselves, using multiple instances as evidence rather than just one. If you do feel that you were banned improperly, you can always create a support ticket to have it looked at.
I wrote this knowing that I’m going to get a lot of emails asking “Why are you pushing NCsoft’s propaganda?” Two years ago, I would have picked Jagex for the most dramatic mass bans with the trade restrictions and other massive game mechanic changes. This year, however, the prize definitely goes to NCsoft and Aion for the most dramatic showmanship. The sixteen thousand on paper sounds great, until you go in-game on the same day to realize that the bots are back in full force.
I don’t know about you, but when I think of botters and gold farmers, just the mere thought of “U buy g0ld n0W, cheep pricz, accounts, wWwDoTChInaGolDdotCoM” makes me want to pop a cap. Luckily for me, and any Aion players out there, NCsoft has just the answer: The MMO developer has hired G-Unit to come in and bust bots, and possibly flip a few lines our way…Oddly enough, I was not aware Scott Jennings was part of G-Unit, nor that he could rap. I’m getting a word from my producer…The group is GSU? What would the Georgian Steel Union know about busting bots?
I see! Rationality of typed articles and nonexistent producers aside, disregard that last paragraph. If you’ve played Aion over the past months, you are no doubt aware of the major issues the game has with those pesky gold farmers, bots, and spammers. NCsoft has made quite a number of steps at beating back the mob of unattended shells, with mixed reviews of their efforts. The next step in the fight comes in the form of a Games Surveillance Unit, also known as GSU (or G-Unit as my recently fired producer referred to it). NCsoft is hiring this team for its NCWest Houston office, and is bringing Scott Jennings aboard for the fight. As of this posting, the job is no longer available.
NCsoft West, the U.S. branch of NCsoft, the world’s largest independent developer and publisher of online computer games is seeking talented candidates for Game Surveillance Unit Agents to work in our North Austin office.
Game Surveillance Unit Agents are responsible for monitoring our services to identify individuals that are violating our User Agreements and causing harm to our game services. They are responsible for executing various processes for monitoring the in–game and out-of-game environment for Bots, Farming, RMT, Private Servers, Account Theft, and other ‘cheating’ type behaviors. This position requires the ability to navigate a computerized data entry system and other relevant applications.
This reminds me of Eve Online’s Operation Unholy Rage, which you may remember was a complete success:
This rage is anything but holy.
Not much else to say other than good on NCsoft. Let’s hope this G-Unit will have less collateral damage than the previous.
I like to take some time every now and then to detail certain parts of MMO Fallout, usually terms and expressions I use, that generates the most feedback from fans. More recently, I’ve had a few questions about my consistently ending certain product articles (Star Wars Galaxies, Age of Conan, Planetside, and several others) with “More on ____’s downward spiral as it appears.” Some of the readers appear to be under the impression that I’m calling the deaths of these MMOs, lovingly pointing out that I have said from day one that I will never predict the death of an MMO.
Well they are right, at least on the last point. When I say downward spiral, I always have facts to back myself up, and I am not always referring to subscriber numbers. Take Funcom for example, who not only cut off 20% of their staff, delayed a non-dated MMO, announced a massive revenue drop, and somehow is still finding the time to develop a free to play kid MMO. When I say Funcom is in a downward spiral, I mean financially that company is in a downward spiral, that changes direction depending on your hemisphere and leads right into the septic tank.
I don’t call death because, to be honest, it’s redundant. Dwindling subscriber numbers? Yes. Financial ruin? Yes. Ponzi Scheme? Stargate Worlds. Calling death on an MMO is akin to calling yourself a soothsayer and predicting that someone would die, but they would have financial gain at some point before they do. Not when they’ll die or what the financial gain is, and all that can be chalked up as everyone dies and, generally, everyone has an income at some point in their lives. Blamo, you’re the most generalized soothsayer in all the land.
I often try to keep people informed of various sales for MMOs they may be on the edge of purchasing, as I did with Direct 2 Drive’s small selection of MMOs during their 5th year anniversary sale (You will remember Age of Conan, Planetside, and Eve Online were five dollars for approximately a week).
Star Wars Galaxies is on sale for $10 on Steam this week, and includes every expansion pack for the game: Empire Divided, Jump to Lightspeed, Rage of the Wookies, and Trials of Obiwan. Even so, you will receive the Star Wars Trading Card Game, a digital trading card game, some of which can be redeemed in game for free items. Players in good standing will also receive a free booster pack each month with their Star Wars Galaxies subscription.
Desperate cry for help? Perhaps. I can’t say no to ten dollars.
The sale can be found here, and is available until November 26th. The free month is only for new accounts, and is not a cheap method to obtain play time.
I’ve played every Call of Duty game since Call of Duty 1, and I have to say the most recent iterations (Modern Warfare 1/2 and World at War) take a lot of elements from MMORPGs. You have a persistent character who levels up as you kill enemies and complete objectives. You rank up, offering you new challenges to complete and new weapons and items to use, and you can customize your gear to optimum efficiency. There is also an end-game.
In fact, the only things missing are loot (if you don’t count unlocked items), a persistent world operated on main servers. If Call of Duty were to be labeled as an MMO, it would be more akin to Huxley, Crimecraft, or even Guild Wars, where the action takes place on a private instance, even though Call of Duty doesn’t have the public “hubs” for players to hang out, and there is no trading whatsoever.
But the LA Times recently posted about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’s successful sales, and left this nugget at the end:
One person close to the company said it also was considering adapting Call of Duty as a massively multi-player online world.
I’ve been trying to find a video version of this for a little while now, and for some odd reason it never occurred to me to search Youtube. So without further ado, one of the best MMO banner ads of 2009, from Dungeons and Dragons Online: Broccoli Vs The Beholder.
It has certainly not been a good few months for Funcom, and according to the company, the situation is expected to get worse. After September’s notice of layoffs of 20% of the company’s workforce, we received further news that the upcoming MMO, The Secret World, would also be delayed by at least several months. Age of Conan and Anarchy Online are allegedly unaffected by the downsizing.
Age of Conan, alongside several other titles, is in the middle of a furious campaign to gain long term subscribers to their title (Because, as I say time and time again, it’s all about retention rate), bringing in heavy discounts for multi-month packages, veteran rewards, and more. Age of Conan has an expansion pack in the works, while Anarchy Online has its major graphics upgrade.
MMO Fallout 