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Tag: Anniversary
RuneScape Celebrates All-Time High Membership In 2019
Everything’s coming up Glouphrie in RuneScape for 2019.
As RuneScape enters its twentieth year of existence, Jagex is celebrating a successful 2019. RuneScape as a franchise enjoyed the highest membership count of all time with well over a million subscribers while Old School RuneScape achieved its highest daily active players thanks in part to a launch on mobile that has drawn in over 8 million installs, and was also awarded a BAFTA for mobile game of the year and best mobile game at the Develop Star Awards.
In 2019 Jagex hired over 100 new employees as part of a big hiring drive including former EA Development Director Melissa Bachman-Wood joining as VP of Studios, Product Director at Blizzard Entertainment Ryan Ward joining as Executive Producer of RuneScape, and Rob Hendry, previously Head of Studio London at Natural Motion, joining as Executive Producer of Old School RuneScape.
CEO Phil Mansell, aka Mod Pips, stated:
“This level of success only comes with the passion of huge player communities, who engage with our games because of the amazing craft and care from our talented teams. It is thanks to these efforts that we’ve been able to greatly increase our investment in our existing games, new product development and the broader business with more than 100 new hires coming onboard in the last 12 months. This includes senior leaders joining from EA, Blizzard, Activision, Ubisoft, Riot and more, adding more than 250 years of cumulative games industry experience to the Jagex team.”
RuneScape raised over £250 grand in charity with Jagex being voted the Best Places To Work award by Gamesindustry.biz.
More details on RuneScape’s future will be released in the coming months.
Entropia Universe Celebrates 16 Years Old
Entropia Universe is officially old enough to get its learners permit, and that can only mean one thing: New aim controls.
The free update launching this week allows players to lock onto targets and cycle through new ones, allowing for much better control and for easier mass destruction. In addition, the team at MindArk has announced the death of right clicking. No more working through menus to enter vehicles or pick up items as players can now interact with the environment with just one button.
“Much has changed in the last 16 years, but Entropia Universe continues to grow and evolve, and the MindArk team remains committed to keeping the gameplay experience familiar yet fresh,” said Dennis Antonsson, project lead, MindArk. “Long-time players will notice an immediate difference as they switch camera views, toggle their aim and more efficiently interact with the world of Entropia Universe.”
More can be found at the official website.
Star Trek Online Resurrects Captain Killy
Perfect World Entertainment this week announced that Mirror of Discovery, the latest expansion, is now available on PC with Xbox and Playstation 4 coming later this year. Star Trek fans will have the opportunity to meet Captain Killy of the Terran Empire, voiced by Mary Wiseman. Leader of the I.S.S. Discovery, Killy is never shown on screen in Star Trek: Discovery, however her reputation as a ruthless leader is often mentioned.
Mirror of Discovery picks up on the story left off by the prior expansion, Age of Discovery. The update in full contains the following new features:
- Two New Featured Episodes – Captains hailing from all of the game’s various factions can experience two new playable episodes featuring Captain Sylvia Tilly of the Terran Empire.
- “Para Pacem” – Players will witness the I.S.S. Discovery’s fated confrontation with Klingon forces, in the middle of an ion storm above Pahvo.
- “Illusion of Communication” – Captains must stop Captain Killy from using Terran Empire technology to manipulate Pahvo’s peaceful biosphere.
- Anniversary Events – This month, Star Trek Online celebrates nine years of exploring the Star Trek universe from within. To kick off this milestone, the game is bringing back the popular Omega Molecule Stabilization event. Players who stabilize Q’s scattered Omega particles can earn free Omega Particle Tech Upgrades and prize vouchers, redeemable for the new T6 Vulcan Scout Ship featured in Star Trek: Discovery.
- Personal Endeavor System – Players who enjoy the game’s Endeavor System can now complete unique daily challenges to earn account-wide performance boosts in a wide variety of combat mechanics.
- Battle at the Binary Stars – By popular demand, the Battle at the Binary Stars Event is now available as a Task Force Operation, with the debut of Advanced and Elite modes that will challenge even the most experienced players.
Source: Perfect World Press Release
[Video] Funcom Reminisces On 25 Years
Funcom turns the big twenty five this year, and that means it’s about time for a montage. It’s hard to believe that Funcom got its start way back in 1993, but the developer that we all know from Anarchy Online actually got its start developing licensed and original titles for the Sega Mega Drive (Genesis for you Americans) with games like A Dinosaur’s Tale and Pocahontas.
Old School RuneScape Celebrates Five Years
Time flies when you’re grinding for that 99 skillcape, and nobody knows that more than the players of Old School RuneScape which this month reaches its five year anniversary. It’s hard to believe that five years ago we were talking about Old School RuneScape (which MMO Fallout for some reason consistently referred to as ‘OldScape’) as this small project that we had no idea if it would be popular enough to be sustainable, with the high end of the hopes being that Jagex could commit just enough personnel to make very small content updates and ban some bots. But just as luck would have it, the game exploded in popularity over the next year and drew in enough people that it receives regular content updates and rather massive, exclusive additions.
In 2015, MMO Fallout managed to snag an interview with Matthew Kemp, product manager for Old School RuneScape not long after Deadman Mode, the game’s hardcore spinoff, originally launched. Deadman mode, where players can kill each other virtually anywhere and can lose large amounts of their belongings on death, in turn spawned its own massively successful eSports spinoff in the form of seasonal Deadman tournaments, with winners taking home $10 grand in cold hard cash.
Senior Product Manager Matthew Kemp (the very same) had the following to say on Old School RuneScape’s coming year:
“2018 is a huge year for Old School, and not only because of these anniversary celebrations and the launch of the game’s own dedicated Twitch channel. We are currently in the middle of a pipeline of closed beta tests for Old School RuneScape on mobile, and already are getting some excellent feedback from those lucky enough to receive an invitation. In fact, the feedback so far has more than validated our decision to make the full game available on mobile platforms for new, returning and current players later in the year.”
Both Old School RuneScape and RuneScape 3 are in the process of being ported to mobile devices.
(Source: Jagex Press Release)
[NM] Catching Up With Duke Nukem: 20th Anniversary
Duke Nukem 20th Anniversary Edition is the latest re-release of the popular 1996 first person shooter, released by Gearbox Software with a new episode, audio commentary, and a new weapon. If you consider that the game peaked at a whole 320 users on Steam (estimated 15,000 owners total) and immediately plummeted down to just a few dozen in the following month, plus the estimated 140,000 copies sold between the Xbox and Playstation, it’s hard to imagine that Gearbox saw much of a return on their work.
But in considering that the 20th Anniversary Edition replaced the Megaton Edition, making it impossible to buy, and how just about every Duke Nukem related product since Gearbox took over the license (Forever, removing Megaton, pre-order DLC on Bulletstorm) seems to be met with disappointment, I had to have an answer to the question that has plagued me since the game’s launch: Would Gearbox put in the most basic of support and fix the game’s end boss?
The answer is no: They haven’t.
The 20th Anniversary edition of Duke Nukem 3D has numerous issues, but the one that stood out from the rest during my play time was the boss encounter in the new episode. The final boss of the game is the Cycloid Incinerator, who makes use of flamethrowers, spawns firefly troopers, and can shoot napalm that remains on the floor and causes environmental hazards. He’s also completely broken, as the boss is not just only capable of very close to low-distance combat, but he stands still and fires his weapon every time the player shoots him with something.
For all but the least competent or most daring of gamers, you are guaranteed to win the fight without ever taking a single hit. The game also doesn’t play to the boss’ strengths by placing you in a small confined space, but rather gives an open field to fight on, a reminder that this fight is equally poor game design as it is substandard programming. You can run a whole lot faster than the Cycloid boss can, and since he’ll willingly stand still from a hundred feet away and uselessly fire his flamethrower at you, there isn’t any danger at all in the fight. In fact, he’s more of a danger to the flying pig cops who fly into his line of fire and are, in turn, more of an actual threat to the player.
But don’t take my word for it, check out the clip below.
Gearbox has had the Duke Nukem license for seven years, during which they’ve managed to release Duke Nukem Forever, the work on which was mostly completed by 3D Realms, and Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary Edition, a re-release of a game with most of the work done by 3D Realms. The company confirmed in 2015 that a new Duke Nukem title was in development, noting that it was in early concept and may not ever see release.
The Cycloid Incinerator is a direct model rip of the Cycloid Emperor, a color-swapped, lazily programmed, barely functioning recreation of an entity that was mostly the work of 3D Realms, that appears to have been rushed to market with no intent on fixing down the line. In a way, he nearly perfectly represents Gearbox’s handling of the Duke Nukem IP. Perhaps Gearbox should hire this guy, who evidently managed to code a better functioning boss than Duke’s own veteran programmers.
Old School RuneScape Celebrates Four Year Anniversary
It’s been four years since Jagex unveiled Old School RuneScape, the retro spinoff of the popular MMORPG that brought gamers back to the days of 2007, complete with graphics, combat system, and all. Since then, the game has seen countless updates, all dictated and voted on by a majority of the community. The mode itself has spun off into the hardcore Deadman Mode which plowed head first into the eSports scene with successful tournaments, rewarding thousands of dollars in real cash to its winners.
“This year is a double anniversary for Old School RuneScape; not only does the game celebrate its fourth birthday, but it’s also the 10th anniversary of the ‘snapshot’ server we used to bring Old School to life,” said Mathew Kemp, producer, Old School RuneScape. “Old School’s growing player base and its impact in the competitive sector is an impressive testament to the remarkable appeal of the game and shows it’s come a long way in the last decade. But however far Old School has come, it’ll always be rooted in 2007 for us.”
To celebrate, Jagex is rolling out presents in the form of new servers and a birthday bash with exclusive items. Other updates rolled out with the festivities include 12 new servers and several quality of life improvements (see link below).
(Source: RuneScape)
DC Universe Celebrates Sixth Anniversary
As incredible as it may sound, DC Universe Online has been around for six years, and is planning on kicking off a new year with plenty of anniversary celebrations. As part of the event, players travel to a new version of Metropolis in order to fight off a Qwaridian invasion from another universe. The event is currently available and will run until January 31st. The list of events currently running is below.
- New Open World Missions: Metropolis Antimatter Invasion Zone
- New 8-Player Raid: Centennial Collapse
- New Gear, Collections, Feats, and More
- New Anti-Monitor-inspired gear
- New auto-leveling gear set
- New base items and consumables
DC Universe Online is currently available on PC, Xbox One, and Playstation 4.
(Source: Daybreak Game Company Press Release)
MMO Fallout’s Seventh Anniversary Bonanza
It is July 22nd, and that means it is the anniversary of MMO Fallout’s establishment back in 2009. Yes, this website has been running for seven years. The first article didn’t go up for nearly a week later, as I was still figuring out how to run down my other website, but July 22nd was the day that I established the MMO Fallout name.
It’s time for stats.
- Views in 2009: 9,000
- Views in 2015: 100,000
- Views so far in 2016: 120,000
- All time views: 587,000
- Spam blocked: 1,140,000 comments
- Malicious logins blocked: 73,000
- Articles: 3,741
- Most frequent commenter: Wilhelm Arcturus
- Most popular search term: Guild Wars 2
- Biggest referrer: Search engines
In case you haven’t been able to tell, the past few months have been the result of an effort of mine to focus on improving the level of content available on this website. Remember those videos I promised way back in 2009? They’re becoming more regular. I won’t promise anything, but that podcast I talked about in 2010 might be in the works as well.
Here’s to another year.
MMO Fallout 