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Mortal Online: Link Facebook, Get Discount(?)…

As someone who works in brick’n’mortar store customer service, I’m often presented with the question; “is it seriously a sale when a $10.99 item is put in sale for $10.50?” and the answer is, in a certain sense, yes. The sale may not be particularly good, but given the new price is smaller than the last, it is indeed a sale.

About a week ago, I wrote on the upcoming expansion to Mortal Online, titled “Dawn,” and that the Star Vault team was also working to implement a feature to connect your Mortal Online account to your Facebook. As an extra incentive, the team decided that players would be given a discount to their subscription price if they linked accounts.

Well, Star Vault has unveiled the Facebook connect feature and the discount is, to say the least, negligible. Starting at five friends on your friends list (well that disqualifies me immediately), the savings amount to .25 Euro, or thirty six cents USD. The sales progress up to 750 friends, where the discount reaches 1.25 Euro, or $1.80.

As for wall spam, Star Vault promises the messages to be minimal:

In return for providing you with a discount, Mortal Online will sometimes make small posts to your Facebook wall when major events occur for you as a player; however, these are quite rare as we know nobody wants what could be considered spam!

Mortal Online: Facebook Discount, Expansion Coming

We have been silent for some time now while working very hard on our first expansion titled Dawn, and we now feel ready to reveal its contents. The expansion will be released in April, and it will not cost anything, all you need is an active subscription.

Mortal Online has gone through some…troubles in its short less-than-a-year on the market. Since its launch last June, the team over at Star Vault have had to deal with ongoing lag and server stability issues, the accidental deletion of an entire city, the realization that their combat system may be unfeasible, a few publicized exaggerations regarding patches, not to mention that the game is still not profiting, and Star Vault is selling stock for five cents a share. Given this, any progress is worth publishing for the fledgling developer, and Star Vault wants nothing more than to make the upcoming expansion go smoothly.

To start, finally a followup on the mount update I wrote about last month. With the new mount system, each horse will carry its own unique stats, as well as the slots to equip with new saddles, armor, headpieces, and horseshoes. By customizing the horse, players will increase their speed, defense, and storage capacity. There are a lot more updates to be seen in the upcoming expansion, which can be read here.

More importantly, however, is the announcement in this month’s newsletter that players will be able to link their Facebook profile with their Mortal Online account, and have updates sent to their wall based on what they do in-game. Why link? Star Vault is offering a discount to your subscription if you do. I do not have any information currently regarding how much the discount is, however I will post more information in the coming month.

In addition, Star Vault is looking to release a system reminiscent of World of Warcraft’s Armory, allowing players to view real-time status updates on the guild territory, wars, and characters. Of course, being a PvP-centric game, displaying your information will be completely optional.

Finally, it appears that Star Vault is making progress on the server stability end of things, recording a 50 hour uptime before the servers were brought down for maintenance. This will surely be a delight to players.

Warhammer: All We Need Is Five Thousand Fans…

The folks at Warhammer Online have a simple task for their fans. Get five thousand “likes” on Facebook, and the company will reduce the RvR Booster Double Pack down to $9.99 from its original $14.99 price. To my knowledge, there is no time limit on this promotion, although I have to express my doubts that Mythic will just sit around waiting for the Facebook page to someday hit five thousand likes.

This is very simple, like us and $ave. Help us get to 5,000 likes on Facebook, and we will drop the price of the RvR booster double pack from $14.99 to $9.99. Just click here http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Official-Warhammer-Online-Age-of-Reckoning/320074732226 and like us. Don’t forget to tell your friends!

As it stands, the push behind this advertising jingle goes to question how many people are still playing Warhammer Online, and whether or not Mythic is running this promotion because they know the votes are going to be there, or because five thousand people hitting “like” on Facebook would be considered a challenge compared to how many play the game.

Still, five thousand likes seems a little low. By comparison, Crimecraft has 6,000 likes.

Frogster: Misleading, Possibly Fraudulent Facebook Ads

RunesofMagic_Artwork_ChapterIII_05_frameless — The Blokes At ROM

I was going about my daily Facebook activities (posting creepy Woody pictures), and lo and behold, I came across the following ad:

You’ll notice that this ad links to “secure.jagex.com,” and I quite honestly expected that this was either A.) a scam ad that managed to get through, or B.) Jagex was advertising on Facebook, which I don’t believe that they do (with my activities, I’ve seen almost every MMO developer that advertises on Facebook). So naturally I clicked on the ad, and was taken here

Really? Runes of Magic? Take one more look at the URL in the Facebook ad. “secure.jagex.com.” The screenshot in the ad appears to be from Runes of Magic, but someone who has never played either game wouldn’t know that. The ad does do a good job of tip-toeing around, but outright claims to be Jagex by inserting a false link to Jagex.com. This isn’t parody like Global Agenda’s ads or Rift’s “We’re not in Azeroth anymore.” This ad is explicitly misleading people into believing they are viewing an ad for a Jagex product, when really they are being directed to Runes of Magic.

Facebook is already aware of the fraudulent ad, and information has been forwarded to Jagex’s legal department. If this is a third party ad agency, Frogster needs to drop them before they wind up on the receiving end of a false advertising (and likely fraud) lawsuit. If this is Frogster’s doing, someone in the advertising office should be getting his pink slip, yesterday.

Earth Eternal Buyer Likely Time Warner

“I’m pretty happy this company won the bidding, as I think they have the resources and the pre-existing audience to help make EE a success.”

One of our last messages from Sparkplay CEO Matt Mihaly before the Earth Eternal servers and website shut down in what feels like a year ago. Speculation has been high since Earth Eternal shut its doors and announced that, although they did find a buyer at auction, the buyer could not be named and there was absolutely no inkling to when the game would be coming back.

The Earth Eternal fans have been diligent, admittedly more diligent than myself, in sleuthing and unearthing just who purchased Earth Eternal, and the answer is? Time Warner, which most of you figured out from the title. Of course, this isn’t a concrete announcement, but Earth Eternal’s silent Facebook page has a fourth administrator, Jac Ky. Jac Ky’s profile lists his likes as Cartoon Network India, Cartoon Network Australia, and his few wall posts include the Ben10 Omniverse game.

Again, this isn’t concrete, but it does coincide with the fact that Earth Eternal was recently moved to a new host, on the same servers as Cartoon Network’s website. Undoubtedly Time Warner has some deep pockets, and if the speculation is true may be putting some major upgrades into Earth Eternal to get it ready for relaunch.

Of course, we may see Duke Nukem Forever before we see Earth Eternal relaunch, so whoever purchased it is moot at this point. Big thanks to Rhinok over in the MMORPG.com forums for finding this information.

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