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Tag: EA Games
NCSoft Invests 37 Million Smackers In Swedish Studio
Steam: Rocket Arena Is D.O.A.
EA Denies Origin Breach, Change Your Password Anyway
Electronic Arts has denied that the Origin service was the victim of a security breach, in a statement to PC Gamer. The statement comes in response to an article published earlier from a surge in users reporting unauthorized games being purchased on their accounts.
“We found no indication at this point of a breach of our Origin account database.”
Account thieves appear to be mostly using compromised accounts to purchase Fifa 2015 and using the accounts to farm coins. Users have reported little trouble in getting EA to reverse the charges, and are encouraged to not have credit card details stored on the account, and to implement the client’s two factor authentication.
Derp Trolling, a hacker group, claimed to have 1.7 million Origin accounts. Whether or not this apparent surge in compromised accounts is related is unknown.
(Source: PC Gamer)
Mythic Entertainment Closes Its Doors
Electronic Arts has announced that Dark Age of Camelot developer Mythic Entertainment has been closed down. Mythic Entertainment are the creators behind Dark Age of Camelot and were acquired by EA Games back in 2006. Mythic Entertainment’s luck ran out when Warhammer Online launched to overwhelmingly negative reception. While Warhammer Online would not shut down until 2013, Mythic made an attempt at a MOBA game based on the Warhammer fantasy lore. The Warhammer MOBA was cancelled mid-beta due to similarly poor reception.
Mythic also released Ultima Forever and Dungeon Keeper, mobile free to play titles based off of classic properties. Ultima Forever has fallen off of the rankings and Dungeon Keeper is ranked 260 in strategy games on the iPhone. Development of Dungeon Keeper will transition to a new team.
“We are closing the EA Mythic location in Fairfax, Virginia, as we concentrate mobile development in our other studio locations. We are working with all impacted employees to provide assistance in finding new opportunities, either within EA or with other companies via an upcoming job fair.”
Broadsword Online has been in charge of Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot for the past few months already, and service will be uninterrupted.
(Source: Gamasutra)
Lord of Ultima Shutting Down
No, not that Ultima. Lord of Ultima is the browser-based kingdom building game that loosely shared the Ultima franchise name and if you’ve never heard of it, well you can understand why it is shutting down. EA Games announced today that the Lord of Ultima servers will shut down May 12th at 0700 UTC. Until then, registration of new accounts will be closed and the ability to purchase play4free funds for the game will also be suspended.
It is always hard when we are met with such choices and the decision to retire older games is never an easy one. We cannot thank those who have supported us enough, and throughout the years of Lord of Ultima’s existence it has been the pleasure of both past and present developers to have been on this journey with you.
Lord of Ultima went into open beta in mid 2011.
(Source: Lord of Ultima)
Less Than Massive: Simcity Does The Impossible!
SimCity turns ten months old soon, and what better way to celebrate the occasion than with more backpedaling? In an announcement detailing the upcoming Update 10, Maxis has revealed that SimCity will receive the heavily demanded offline mode allowing users to play without requiring a constant internet connection. The revelation is even more incredible if you remember that Maxis had previously made every excuse in the book to explain why SimCity did not have offline mode, with claims ranging from how online regions were integral to the game’s vision, to how the servers simulated too much for the game to work offline. Last October, the developer finally caved in and agreed to look into offline mode.
General Manager Patrick Buechner wrote the announcement blog post.
Yes, Offline is coming as a free download with Update 10 to all SimCity players. When we launch it, all of your previously downloaded content will be available to you anytime, anywhere, without the need for an internet connection. We are in the late phases of wrapping up its development and while we want to get it into your hands as soon as possible, our priority is to make sure that it’s as polished as possible before we release it.
Whether or not this announcement will be enough to bring back EA’s disgruntled fans will have to be seen. On the other hand, EA can now focus on more pressing issues, including investigations and multiple lawsuits from customers and investors regarding the botched launch of Battlefield 4.
(Source: Maxis Blog)
The Old Republic Accidentally Breaks Client, It's Fixed Now
The good news is that Star Wars: The Old Republic is now safe to launch. Players who logged in earlier today were surprised to see that their clients had already begun downloading patch 2.4, which isn’t supposed to go live until tomorrow. I say surprised because upon the client restarting, they found out that the game had to completely redownload, all twenty gigabytes. The response to players affected? Bioware suggested maybe not playing until tomorrow’s maintenance, unless you’re alright with sitting through the download.
As some of you have already noticed, we unintentionally released the patch data for Game Update 2.4 this afternoon at 2:46 pm CDT before its scheduled deployment. If you have already begun patching or completed patching, we recommend that you do not run the Launcher until after tomorrow’s maintenance. If you do not run the Launcher until tomorrow, you will only have to patch Game Update 2.4. If you do (or already have) run the Launcher again prior to tomorrow morning’s update, you will need to re-download the entire game client.
The update has been fixed, although people who began patching will still have to download the client, just not as much.
The previous patch data has now been restored. If you are just now logging in, you are fine to play normally. Those of you affected by the patch this afternoon should exit the game and either repatch immediately or wait until after tomorrow morning’s update. Please note that if you repatch today, it will be a larger patch – around 12 gigs, rather than a more normal sized patch tomorrow.
Is it working or is it broken? Only sith deal in absolutes.
(Source: The Old Republic)
The Old Republic Accidentally Breaks Client, It’s Fixed Now
The good news is that Star Wars: The Old Republic is now safe to launch. Players who logged in earlier today were surprised to see that their clients had already begun downloading patch 2.4, which isn’t supposed to go live until tomorrow. I say surprised because upon the client restarting, they found out that the game had to completely redownload, all twenty gigabytes. The response to players affected? Bioware suggested maybe not playing until tomorrow’s maintenance, unless you’re alright with sitting through the download.
As some of you have already noticed, we unintentionally released the patch data for Game Update 2.4 this afternoon at 2:46 pm CDT before its scheduled deployment. If you have already begun patching or completed patching, we recommend that you do not run the Launcher until after tomorrow’s maintenance. If you do not run the Launcher until tomorrow, you will only have to patch Game Update 2.4. If you do (or already have) run the Launcher again prior to tomorrow morning’s update, you will need to re-download the entire game client.
The update has been fixed, although people who began patching will still have to download the client, just not as much.
The previous patch data has now been restored. If you are just now logging in, you are fine to play normally. Those of you affected by the patch this afternoon should exit the game and either repatch immediately or wait until after tomorrow morning’s update. Please note that if you repatch today, it will be a larger patch – around 12 gigs, rather than a more normal sized patch tomorrow.
Is it working or is it broken? Only sith deal in absolutes.
(Source: The Old Republic)
Monday Night Cap: EA Uses The Force
After hearing that Electronic Arts has scored an exclusive license to develop and publish Star Wars games, I’m guessing at least some of you had an expression comparable to the one above.
“This agreement demonstrates our commitment to creating quality game experiences that drive the popularity of the Star Wars franchise for years to come,” said Disney co-president John Pleasants in a statement. “Collaborating with one of the world’s premier game developers will allow us to bring an amazing portfolio of new Star Wars titles to our fans around the world.”
On one hand, I would love to see Battlefront 3 be made on the Frostbite engine. The thought of upgrading the Battlefront model to include environmental destruction is one that makes me very happy. We know that Bioware can make great single player RPGs, and I trust the company if they’re going to continue the work that had been started on Star Wars 1313.
And yes, there have been plenty of controversies coming out of EA in the past couple of years, so all I’m saying is look at this with about mid-level expectations. Not so much the next coming of Half Life, but more the next coming of Poker Night at the Inventory: Something not a whole lot of people asked for but will probably be enjoyable regardless.
MMO Fallout 