February is upon us, and for RuneScape that means another month of new content.
Demon mobs are being updated this month with new drop tables, titles, materials, and various other tweaks to make the activity more inviting. Following is the reintroduction of the Wildywyrm, a rarely appearing creature that can only be found in the open-pvp land of the wilderness. Later on in the month, players will be able to take part in a new quest to pull off the greatest heist in RuneScape.
Other events this month include a double experience weekend and Game Blast event from February 20th through the 23rd. There will also be changes coming to combat to make the game more responsive and fluid.
RuneScape is one of the cheapest subscription MMOs currently on the market. Due to increased costs of production and maintenance, in 2008 Jagex increased the price of RuneScape’s membership from $5 USD to $5.95 USD. Just today, the developer announced another price hike, and it is a rather notable increase (based on the previous price). Monthly subscriptions will be increasing from $5.95 to $7.95 monthly starting February 1st.
In appreciation of our existing members, there will be no change whatsoever to anyone who is a member before the 1st February. The price you pay now will be locked in for as long as you stay a loyal member and we will even allow a seven day grace period should you forget to renew.
Jagex notes this increase in price as due to increased investment into RuneScape over 2011 and planned in 2012. This could be related to the facelift talked about by Kotaku for this year.
Today is the day we look at January and say “See you next year!” Yes it can only be February, and February can only mean another Everquest expansion is releasing.
February starts off with two titles releasing: Global Agenda and Star Trek Online, on the first and second respectively. An important thing to remember about Global Agenda is that the game does have a single player and multiplayer free component, and that the persistent world AvA is the only portion that requires a subscription. Whether this subscription will maintain or go the way of Cities XL and Crimecraft is yet to be seen.
Star Trek Online, on the other hand, will be seeking the approval of Trekkies and non-Trekkies alike. Considering its place at the top of Steam’s sales list for the past few weeks, if Cryptic can keep the retention rate high, they will have a highly successful title on their hands. As for the myriad of preorder exclusives, we can only hope they will be available at some point on the Cryptic store.
This month also brings us some interesting news from Star Vault and the oft-delayed and much trolled Mortal Online. This month, today in fact, Mortal Online will be going into an open beta phase, where everyone can join! Although relegated to their own open beta server, that may or may not be capped, alongside a 5 euro discount in the box copy, anyone can join in for free and start playing. And by playing, of course, I mean jumping on the forums to textually assault those who paid for beta access by preorder. Mortal Online will stay in open beta until the game goes gold, when it will start charging the monthly fee and you will be required to own the game.
There’s no time for that, Omali, you say! Everquest 2 has a new expansion coming out this month! Sentinel’s Fate brings with it your normal expansion goody bag. New zones, new dungeons, a higher level cap (90), new loot, new weapons and armor, and new quests. Four hundred quests to be exact, and thousands of new items.
As for MMO Fallout, I decided to prune a couple of categories from the Live list due to clutter and inconsistency of updates. The Anarchy Online, Tibia, and Ragnarok Online categories have been deleted. Hopefully the Live category will be that much less cluttered.
Surely this can’t be all that is happening in February, you say. Of course not, but if I told you everything now, what reason would you have to keep coming back until next month? I see your trickery, internet, and I will not fall for it. Not after all of those lost buffs.
MMO Fallout 