Tag: Frogster

TERA: No Stinking IP Blocks!


We must bring the fight against TERA.

A few months ago, we talked about area restrictions in MMOs, as a few select incidents brought up questions of legality and responsibility on the part of the publisher. Due to legal agreements, the publisher for an MMO in North America cannot allow players from Europe if another company has publishing rights in that region, otherwise they risk negating their agreement. In cases such as Aika Online, the two companies may come to an agreement allowing existing players to continue using their accounts, while more controversial incidents resulted in players being blocked with no reimbursement even after they had paid sums of money in the cash shop.

Luckily for players of TERA, the community manager Scapes has revealed that players will not be region restricted, although they will have to purchase the correct client. In short: A player from Europe will be able to purchase a North American client, and play on the servers, and vice versa.

Our goal is to give players the choice as to which server they are going to discover the world of TERA. In a time that players are becoming more connected around the world, we believe that IP blocking has no place in a world class Action MMO. Note that accounts created with one publisher will not be able to access the other publisher’s servers. Additionally, player data such as characters or progression will not be shared or transferrable between different publishers’ servers.

So there you have it. Find a server and stick with it.

More on TERA as it appears.

The Chronicles of Spellborn: What Happened?


It's Gone Somewhere...

Chronicles of Spellborn can be summarized by comparing it to a kid explaining his idea for a video game.

“It’s gonna be awesome! There’s gonna be first person targeting, a bajillion quests to go on with only three classes to choose from but they’re gonna have their own subclasses to branch things out a bit. There’ll be no grind too, and more backstory than you can shake a stick at, and we’re talking a pretty big stick too. It’ll be set in a post-apocalypse environment, and there’ll be explosions and crazy quest series that will allow the player to take control of important people and beat up some bad guys!”

So my above rendition may make Spellborn sound like a bad game, which it isn’t by any means. Chronicles of Spellborn is one of those games that shows up and has the potential to innovate the industry, or at least a small portion of it. The story was detailed and in-depth, the quests were the main staple of the series, and numerous at that, and there was plenty of activity for all varieties of players.

And then Spellborn Works went bankrupt. You can make the best game in the world, but unfortunately without cash the game will shut down. Spellborn Works went bankrupt very shortly after Chronicles of Spellborn launched in North America in 2009 (The game had been running in the UK since the prior November). The game was siphoned by then-publisher Acclaim Games, who announced that they would be performing a massive upgrade to the title, turning it into a free to play cash shop game to be re-released at some point in 2010. Until then, however, Spellborn Live would receive no attention in the form of patches or updates.

Earlier this year, Spellborn’s Asia publisher Frogster announced that they would be shutting down the title. Over in the west, things became less and less hopeful as the months went on. The client on the website stopped working, resulting in the community hosting its own client and patches in order to get new players interested in the game.

Of course, progress without money is no progress at all, and Acclaim went bust shutting down everything. Chronicles of Spellborn was sold to Playdom, who announced that the game would be shutting down.

If anything, Chronicles of Spellborn is a perfect example of a good title that was marred by bad luck with its hosting companies. Due to the bankruptcy of its original developers, Spellborn never saw the attention and maintenance it deserved, and as a result ended up spending over a year on life support being transferred from company to company before finally being shut down.

Chronicles of Spellborn Shutting Down This Month


It's Going Somewhere...

It feels like ages ago that Chronicles of Spellborn went quiet. Not only did the new developers (Acclaim) stop talking to us, but eventually the downloader and client for the game didn’t even work! Absolutely nothing came into or out of the company, and we were left with nothing more than a long-aged reminder that “we’re still working on stuff guys!” Ask anyone who does MMO news (like myself) and they’ll likely tell you the same thing: Chronicles of Spellborn was an absolutely baffling experience. It was quite a decent game, one that sat through its developers going bankrupt and the new publishers attempting (and obviously failing) to pull a free to play conversion.

So when I say Chronicles of Spellborn is shutting down, I think of it in the sense of putting a very badly hurting title out of its misery. Chronicles of Spellborn was taken over shortly after launch by its publisher, Acclaim, who was in turn acquired by Playdom, who was in turn acquired by Disney, who in turn decided to shutter the title this month.

TCoS will be online until the end of August, when the servers will come down for their final time. It is unknown, and unlikely, as to whether or not the developers are planning some kind of end-of-game event. Playing by the UK release date (November 2008), the game will still have not hit two years old by the time it shuts down.

I’ll be here with a “what happened?” when The Chronicles of Spellborn shuts down this September.

Runes of Magic: Security And Bot Busting!


Cake for Runes of Magic!

MMO companies love to keep your account safe. Not only does it keep you happy as a customer, but more importantly it lowers the amount of time and money they must spend on providing customer support to everyone who loses their account. So today’s news brings Runes of Magic into the front, once again, talking about their attempt to increase security and decrease the presence of gold farmers.

In an attempt to stop brute-forcing, accounts will be blocked if more than five unsuccessful login attempts are made over 24 hours. If a sixth unsuccessful attempt is made, players will be notified by email. In addition, IP addresses will be temporarily blocked if more than five unsuccessful logins are made from that particular IP address (presumably also within the 24 hour period).

To make things even better, customer support has been gifted better tools to help recover your stuff presuming you do become a victim of identity theft and find your bank cleared. According to the notice, Customer Service is now able to restore characters to 99% peak efficiency. The tools themselves will of course be upgraded as time goes on.

Furthermore, in the fight against gold farming, which those of you who play Runes of Magic will be well aware crippled the diamond trading market earlier this year with restrictions, you will be happy to know that the legal department has successfully placed nine injunctions against companies and individuals taking part in illicit gold trading, and the offending parties are being removed from the game as you read this. More networks are being banned from Runes of Magic, so if your town’s gold spammer isn’t gone yet, he will be eventually.

More on Runes of Magic as it appears.

Chronicles of Spellborn Spells Doom In Asia


It's Going Somewhere...

Chronicles of Spellborn is a very important lesson in the realm of MMOs: If you don’t have money to fund your project, your game is going nowhere. The game launched in April 2009 in the US, and almost immediately afterward developer Spellborn Works kicked the bucket, dissolving into the vast nothingness of space. Acclaim announced that the game would be going completely free to play, with a big relaunch in the works to be released at some point in the future.

Since then Spellborn has been running similar to many of my local state and county parks. Technically open, but nobody’s mowed the grass in a year, and no one ever stopped by to open the gates to actually allow people to get in. According to my reports, playing Spellborn is a matter of getting files off of another website, because the client Acclaim offers doesn’t work, and neither does their patcher. Since the breakdown of Spellborn last year with Acclaim and Frogster taking over for the game in their respective areas, prospects have gone from poor to worse, and in all respects Spellborn is sitting in a comatose condition waiting for the plug to be pulled.

Well Frogster is the first to throw the switch, and Chronicles of Spellborn Asia-Edition will be heading for the crematorium. So far there hasn’t been any news on what Acclaim plans to do with the title, although the standing claim still points towards a miraculous reincarnation of the game under a freemium model.

The problem with Chronicles of Spellborn, and I don’t blame them for this, is Acclaim is likely seeing a dearth of excitement for this title. It isn’t often a title goes to sleep for as long as Spellborn has so far, and wakes up to find a large number of players still waiting on it. Life goes on, and sadly it is leaving Spellborn behind.

I’ll be watching Chronicles of Spellborn as more news appears, but for the tiny handful of you who are still holding on to the hope of a relaunch and reinvention, I have a friend named Gary Whiting I need to introduce to you.

Runes of Magic: More Diamond Restrictions


If Funcom's money was gold-backed...
Won't be trading this for diamonds.

It feels like it was all the way back in January, more specifically the twelfth, that I was maliciously defending Runes of Magic (being the troll I am, apparently). Frogster implemented an update that bound all diamonds (cash shop currency) purchased to the player’s account, if said diamonds were purchased with a credit card or through Playspan. The reason for this was that gold farmers mainly were purchasing diamonds on throwaway accounts with stolen credit cards, and then transferring them to their main accounts to sell to buyers.

Well there is more news in Runes of Magic’s Diamondgate. Earlier today Runes of Magic shut down for what was supposed to be routine maintenance, only for an announcement to appear on the forums that the ability to trade diamonds for gold will be shut off for the time being. Frogster’s reasoning is due to a drastic rise in gold selling recently, and assures players that the trade will return once it is deemed “safe” to freely trade.

Current auctions will not be affected.

Runes of Magic: No, THIS Is How You Charity


I believe there's a "shut down MMO Fallout" fund you can give to.

Here at MMO Fallout, I like to spur competition between companies when the outcome can only be good things. For example, two companies fighting over who can feed the most homeless, or who can produce the most adorable puppy. Naturally, I have to settle, but who can donate the most to charity is just as well. If I get to throw in a jab at Ndoors, and their attempted scam questionably ethical Child’s Play charity run that Child’s Play rejected (due to Ndoors taking 95% of the donations and pocketing it), well the merrier.

Back in November, Runes of Magic discounted one of their mounts and gave the players an offer: If you buy this mount for $15, we will donate $4.50 to charity. The charity in question is “Save the Children,” an organization dedicated to improving the lives of children in the 50 countries it is located, with workers now located in Haiti aiding in the relief effort.

Thanks to player purchases, Frogster has donated over fifty thousand USD. I just have one question: Do I write Mao’s Charity Steed or Runes of Magic on my tax writeoff?