ArcheAge – Page 7 – MMO Fallout

ArcheAge Details 2015 Updates

Merv Lee Kwai over at Trion Worlds today posted a producer’s letter detailing ArcheAge’s plans for 2015. Foremost, Kwai promises to be more transparent with the community in the months to come, providing more insight on what is to come.

The letter also discusses changes to certain aspects of the game, such as tweaking siege mechanics and altering drops to react to the economy.

A main focus for the future of the product is improving the daily quality of life for ArcheAge players. We are shifting priorities to deliver game mechanics that some of the veteran players will recognize like the PvP Arena and Fishing Tournaments. We have a challenge here to ensure that the rewards for these systems are congruent with the way the game has evolved, but that obstacle should be solved in the near term and we will deliver these events as soon as they’re finalized.

You can find the entire producer’s letter at the link below.

(Source: ArcheAge)

10% Discount Was Never Advertised, Says Trion Worlds

The ongoing saga of ArcheAge, Trion Worlds, and the fabled 10% discount has reached another bend, as Trion Worlds is now flat out denying that the discount was ever a part of the game’s advertising. A user on the ArcheAge forums submitted a complaint to the San Francisco Bay Area Better Business Bureau, to have his complaint addressed by Trion Worlds. Trion Worlds first pulled out the EULA and pointed to the “we can change whatever we want” clause, before denying that the 10% discount was ever officially promoted.

Trion sincerely regrets any inconvenience experienced by the customer. The 10% Marketplace discount was not officially promoted as a benefit as it was never advertised in the ArcheAge purchase flow.

For the record, here is a screenshot of the 10% discount being advertised on Trion World’s own website. Update 12/16/14: This page has since been deleted. See its archive here.

(Source: BBB)

Top 5: Most Disappointing Moments of the Year

With the year coming to an end, it’s time to start taking stories and sticking them into categories. Since I’m a well known optimist, I decided to start this month’s lists off with a look at the year’s greatest disappointments. Since a lot of what constitutes a “disappointment” is subjective, I ignored specific news pieces and tried to stick with general events.

This article is in no particular order.

1. ArcheAge… Just ArcheAge.

Where do you even start with a story like this? The rampant gold farming, exploits, dupes, and hacks that make it more newsworthy to simply report on when something isn’t going wrong in ArcheAge? How about Trion Worlds misleading their customers with false promises of discounts that would later be recanted because they apparently couldn’t be bothered waiting? Or the server instability? Or the economic turmoil caused by Trion’s greedy obsession with lock boxes?

Or the problem with housing being overrun by exploits? Or the unexplained downtime recently of nearly seventy two hours that still hasn’t been properly discussed by Trion Worlds? Or the fact that you had to have been a patron to receive the full compensation package? How about the forums being so poorly moderated that gold spam, thread spam, and pornography can be found appearing for hours at a time?

It would be a lot harder to lay the blame on Trion as mere publisher were this not the same strategy that caused the Defiance community to leave in droves, with Trion ignoring major game problems to focus on subtly altering core game mechanics to nerf in-game progress and hopefully divert players to cash shop lock boxes. The end result in Defiance was that the game could be found at the bottom of the bargain bin long before it ever went free to play, and ArcheAge would be sitting right next to it if the game had ever seen a box release.

2. That Unlicensed Harry Potter MMO

The string of high profile disasters has lowered my opinion of licensed MMOs considerably, but my disappointment in the unlicensed Harry Potter MMO from earlier this year wasn’t the fact that it was canned barely a week after it was announced, but the idea that the developer thought they could get away with it.

Here’s the story: At the beginning of the year, this group called Bio-Hazard Entertainment popped up and claimed that Warner Bros had given them permission to create a Harry Potter MMO, at least up until beta, and then would decide whether or not to fully greenlight the project. This claim, as it turned out, wasn’t so true. The website went down less than a week later and Bio-Hazard announced that they would be working on a different wizard MMO, one not related to Harry Potter, but encouraged gamers to contact Warner Bros and demand a Harry Potter MMO.

You have to admire the confidence of some no-name team thinking that they could just start working on a Harry Potter MMO and that Warner Bros. would be so impressed that they’d happily license the property. Forgetting of course, or ignoring, the numerous developers Warner Bros. had no doubt turned away, with larger budgets, bigger teams, and the experience to guarantee that such a large project could be seen through to the end.

3.DDOS Attacks

As I said back in 2013:

If I had a nickel for every time some individual or group launched a denial of service attack against a website or service that they didn’t like, I would put those nickels in a sock and use it to beat them unconscious.

Distributed Denial of Service attacks have only gotten worse in 2014, and it looks like 2015 is going to be just as bad. We’ve hit a point where the act has become as casual as racists commenting on the news. RuneScape players DDoS the servers for advantages in PvP, Minecraft players DDoS “competing” servers, almost every MMO to launch or release a major update/expansion has been DDoS’d this year, the console servers were attacked, Xbox Live is under attack currently, and so on and so forth.

I suppose the only upside to this is that eventually these kids tend to get caught because their ego gets the best of them and they do something stupid like trying to hack the CIA, or sending a bomb threat to an airline, and it is pretty fun to read about them crying in court before they’re sentenced to a few years in prison.

4. PMB Kills From Beyond The Grave

Pando Media Booster is so toxic of a piece of malware that it can’t even be dead and buried without poisoning the land around it. After a life spent sapping bandwidth, slowing computers, crashing programs, and being a general nuisance that plagued MMOs and frustrated gamers, we were happy to see the service finally die in August 2013. Like any good plague, however, it didn’t stay dead for long. Pando Media Booster was revived by some digital necromancer back in February to continue spreading its bile, this time distributing viruses and browser hijacks.

The program sent out update notices to users who had forgotten to uninstall it, or were unaware that it was still on their system, infecting computers with the Sweet Page browser hijacker. Can I get one last joke in about Pando Media Booster? When PMB turned into a distribution platform for malware, how did anyone notice?

5. Long Term Cancellations

While the MMO industry is no stranger to sudden cancellations, the long development cycle and a practice of announcing titles long before they are even considered viable to launch, it’s possible to spend a lot of time waiting for a game that just never comes out. World of Darkness was announced eight years ago only to be confirmed as cancelled earlier this year. Blizzard first hinted at Project Titan back in 2007 when they started hiring for a next-gen MMO, only to come out and say that the game has been scrapped seven years later.

Gamers don’t like being strung along, especially when it later becomes obvious that the developer’s outward enthusiasm was a veil covering their real sentiment, that the game wasn’t fun, wasn’t being competently developed or wasn’t coming close to development roadmaps, didn’t have a snowball’s chance of being funded to completion, or would be the first thing to thrown under the bus should profits dip even a little on the developer’s live services. At the very least, and this is more than we can say about certain other games, developers like Blizzard, CCP, and Jagex never asked their community to donate to fund these lost causes, which they likely could have done and recuperated quite a bit.

Trion Worlds Details ArcheAge Downtime Compensation

Trion Worlds has posted a news piece detailing upcoming compensation for ArcheAge players following recent extended periods of downtime and instability with the game’s service. All players who have “ever been a patron” will receive a Patron pack including five days of patron time, 15 Superior Worker’s Compensation potions, 30 loyalty tokens, three Greedy Goblin Gummies (+10% loot drop rate), three Frankenflavor Jawbreakers (+10% exp), and three Marshmallow Sugar Pumpkins (+3% move speed).

We never take your loyalty for granted and any time we don’t meet the high standards we set for ourselves, it’s important to us to make it up to you as generously as possible. We’re currently applying compensation packs to everyone’s account. This does take a while, and it’ll be running through the rest of today.

Non-patrons will receive a package including 10 Superior Worker’s Compensation potions, 15 loyalty tokens, as well as three of the other items listed above. These packages are being distributed via the Glyph account page, with emails being sent out once players can redeem them.

(Source: Trion Worlds)

MMO Rant: Vote of No Confidence In Trion Worlds

I’ve been sitting at my computer trying to come up with a word to describe Trion Worlds, and so far the best that I’ve come up with is “impressed.” Not impressed in a good way, if you’ve noticed that this is a rant, but more impressed in the sense that you’ve walked into your home to find a man with a flashlight and your finest jewelry, and he impressively tries to convince you that he’s actually a jewelry cleaner who does house calls. Actually, the word would probably be audacity. As in, I can’t believe the audacity that Trion Worlds would, once again, lie and assume that nobody would notice or care.

So what am I sitting here fuming about, you’re probably asking. This week saw the release of ArcheAge’s new continent Auroria, and the launch went about as well as you’d expect. Hackers, gold farmers, and big guilds scooped up most of the new land, server problems meant that many players couldn’t even log in until after the land was already taken, and the response from both the developer and publisher on land hoarding has been nothing. Really, there’s too much to talk about with the expansion, dealing with things I don’t fully understand like item consolidation and the usual Trion tactic of nerfing drops and expanding the cash shop, so I will forward you instead to Massively’s “It’s Getting Harder To Like ArcheAge” article to better explain those aspects.

Instead, I am going to focus on the bold faced lie that has been the ever-delayed 10% discount on marketplace purchases for founders and patrons. During its alpha/beta stage, Trion Worlds listed a 10% marketplace (cash shop) discount as a bonus to purchasing patron status. When it was obvious that the feature wouldn’t be ready for launch, due to relying on XL Games to code it in, Trion Worlds quietly slipped an “after launch” into the advertising and, in the first wrong move of this ballad, played it off as the post-launch implementation having been the plan all along. I didn’t cover this discrepancy because, while questionable, the discount was still on its way and we were assured that it would be applied retroactively.

At this point, Trion starting talking about an “equitable” alternative, one that was never mentioned in the game’s advertising. With this week’s update, the company revealed that the 10% discount has been replaced with a 10% bonus to credits purchased in credit packs. And oh, it gets better. Just read the forum post by Scapes:

A few months ago when we first discussed the ArcheAge Patron Program, a 10% discount on Marketplace purchases was mentioned as a perk of being a Patron. While an “after launch” caveat was included in this perk, both XLGAMES and Trion Worlds have determined that the time to develop this perk would be significant, delaying the benefit to our Patrons longer than we’re comfortable with. Instead, we will be implementing an equitable solution that Trion Worlds can execute on its own.

Today, all Patrons who purchased Credit Packs after Head Start began (September 12) will get a 10% bonus of those sums granted to their accounts. This bonus will only apply to accounts that purchased Credit Packs after their Patron Time was purchased, are in good standing (not banned, no chargebacks), and have not had their Patron Time or Credit Pack purchase refunded. It does not apply to the Credits from the Founder’s Pack and Starter Pack packages. The 10% bonus Credits will apply on future Credit Pack purchases by Patrons.

Just so we are crystal clear, let’s go over just who has been stranded out in the wilderness. The 10% bonus applies retroactively to credit packs made after patron time was purchased, after the head start. Those of you who purchased founders to use the 10% discount in conjunction with your credit stipend get nothing. If you spent money on credit packs during alpha and beta, you also get nothing. APEX buyers also receive absolutely nothing. The only way to receive the altered terms of the deal is to have purchased credits, after head start began (September 12th), with active patron.

It’s also hard not to laugh at how this is being spun as pro-consumer, when the new deal just so happens to benefit Trion Worlds most of all while giving founders and those who bought their credits early the middle finger. It also doesn’t acknowledge the fact that if you buy credits from Trion Worlds, you already get at least a 10% bonus regardless of your patron status.

I’ll wrap up by saying this: In one of my previous jobs, a co worker was fired after their cash register came up $150 short for the second time. In his infinite wisdom, the manager declared that this worker was either stealing or dangerously incompetent, but either way he couldn’t be trusted with money and had to be let go. I feel the same can be said about Trion. Whether they meticulously lie and justify it with the idea that by the time customers figure out that they’ve been duped, Trion already has their money, or whether the team is honestly this out of touch that they don’t see the problems with their decisions, it is evident that Trion Worlds cannot be trusted to stick to their word.

Just remember that the next time Trion Worlds is advertising a new game, anything mentioned in the perks is subject to unannounced caveats. Otherwise I have no opinion on the matter.

Diaries From ArcheAge: Why I've Left

I love ArcheAge, really. When Bioware announced a massive experience boost for The Old Republic in preparation for the launch of the next expansion, I had to make a choice: Continue subscribing to and writing Diaries From ArcheAge articles, or allow my subscription to lapse that very day and move over to The Old Republic and see how far I could catch up before the expansion launched. I chose The Old Republic. Since this is the last editorial I’ll be writing on ArcheAge for a while, I decided to offer up a few of the reasons that brought me to this decision.

As always with editorials, these opinions are my own and do not speak for anyone other than myself. If you agree or disagree, feel free to leave a comment on why.

1. Hackers

If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. First it was gold farmers using hacks to teleport around the world at whim to finish trade runs, and then they were using exploits to win at arenas. Land is virtually impossible to get your hands on thanks to teleport hacks being used to snag every piece of open space as soon as it becomes available, and accounts are able to maintain the land they accumulate thanks to the prospect for profit far outweighing the cost of taxes that was supposed to make such land seizure impossible.

The opposite side of this is that as gold prices on farming sites plummet, money becomes more worthless and prices for auction house goods go up. In addition, I’d just like to know that the fact that I can’t find anything bigger than my 8×8 farm is because of legitimate player competition, not because Chinese gold farmers are teleporting around and buying up lots on Aranzeb. Hack Shield, as with any other game it’s been implemented in, is completely worthless. Aion is in the process of dumping it for something better, ArcheAge should as well.

2. Unopposed Griefing

The great thing about games like ArcheAge is that, generally, griefing has some sort of revenge mechanic. Someone is attacking innocent players? Report his crimes and, if possible, murder him so he can spend a good long time in jail. Someone going around uprooting plants on public land? Report the footprints and waste his time and money by either buying a potion or going to court. When it comes to ganking or competing for resources, I am of the mind that you either get big or go home. If you want a 100% safe game, consider playing something else.

That being said, in order for this mechanic to work right there needs to be a way for people to fight back. When players in Ultima Online started blocking areas with furniture, Origins made it possible to torch their creations. Eve Online allows corporations to go to war with one another. If someone decides to park their cart on your land and prevent you from planting on it, there is one thing you can do: Nothing, and hope that they get bored and leave soon. The fix to this is a simple one: I should be able to claim/destroy anything that is on my property. Another idea is to implement an ArcheAge version of the Castle Doctrine, where I can shoot anything violating the sanctity of my property.

I’ve been told that in the Korean version of ArcheAge, you can actually push other player’s carts out of the way, in which case that should be implemented in the western version. The problem in ArcheAge isn’t the potential for griefing, it’s the inability in most cases to even retaliate.

3. The Community Sucks

Even well before MMO Fallout started in 2009, I played a lot of MMOs. I won’t say that ArcheAge is the most trolled game I’ve ever played, that award goes out to World of Warcraft Barrens chat circa 2005-2009. What it is, however, is definitely the most racist. I’ve seen racist comments and names in other MMOs, but nowhere near the extent that it exists in ArcheAge, to the point where most of the screenshots I took for my previous articles had to be scrapped or heavily edited to not show chat.

At first I thought it was because of the PvP sandbox nature of ArcheAge, but in the time that I played games like Mortal Online, Darkfall, and even League of Legends, I’ve never seen the level of vitriol come close to a casual day on ArcheAge. I don’t even believe that ArcheAge is full of racists, most of the people you see in chat are part of that edgy demographic of twelve year olds and people who never grew up once they turned twelve, feeding their desperate need for attention by flailing their arms and making noise. The other half are a force of nitwits who simply aim to offend as many people as possible because “my first amendment rights.”

I have to put the blame on Trion Worlds for this, partially for the poor filter and also for fostering an environment where people believe that they do not care and will not take action.

Diaries From ArcheAge: Why I’ve Left

As always with editorials, these opinions are my own and do not speak for anyone other than myself. If you agree or disagree, feel free to leave a comment on why.

1. Hackers

2. Unopposed Griefing

3. The Community Sucks

I have to put the blame on Trion Worlds for this, partially for the poor filter and also for fostering an environment where people believe that they do not care and will not take action.

Diaries From ArcheAge #2: Shipping Overseas

As part of the ArcheAge experience, I decided to dedicate some time to delivering a trade pack overseas to the Solzreed Peninsula. I can already tell this is going to end in my death.

As you can see, my only means of transportation across the sea is in the basic rowboat obtained through an early quest. Travel speed: 4.5 meters per second. Likelihood of success: none.

No stowaways! Thankfully ArcheAge has aggro limits and the Seabug got bored a couple minutes later. Maybe it’s not too late to enlist one of those teleporting hackers.

This guy wasn’t interested in what I was selling: A full load of being defenseless.

An hour later and I’m almost there! I can see the port in the distance.

The port is being blockaded by pirates. I’m dead, and the trade pack will probably be destroyed. Finished the quest.

ArcheAge Hackers Strike Back: Arena

Hackers are playing a large role in ArcheAge, like it or not. Presently, and until XL Games figures out a way to fix the numerous glaring holes in their system, they are taking over many aspects of the game. Armies of bots make their way around the game’s world, farming gathering locations and mobs for drops and gold. Other bots teleport around the map, running trade routes instantly to farm large quantities of gold and picking up plots of land as soon as they become available in order to sell to players for gold to sell to other players for cash.

The exploit that is our topic today is being used by regular players. User Sorcerer posted the above screenshot from an arena game which lasted just ten seconds before one team managed to destroy the other team’s crystal. The exploiter in question, Shylo according to the poster, destroyed the crystal in a single shot. The incident took place on the Kyrios server. Scott Hartsman responded earlier today to a Reddit post, noting that while Trion Worlds is limited in their detection tools, the company is working on tools to weed out exploits.

Unlike in the case where its our own game, where we can (and do) add new instrumentation/logging/detection daily until problems get stomped with prejudice, we’re limited here in only being able to act on what the game throws off as outputs to us. We can’t add new ones. That said, this one is the next biggest priority. New theory being worked on right now, will holler if it pans out and we can act on it with confidence.

(Source: ArcheAge)

MMOrning Shots: Because Face

Today’s MMOrning Shot comes to us from ArcheAge, and answers the question asked by every single one of the six people who asked me, what does my ArcheAge character look like under that helmet in my Twitter profile? Now you know.

Check out MMOrning Shots every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

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