Plan 8 is one of several games recently revealed by Pearl Abyss. It is an exosuit MMO shooter built on a new proprietary engine being developed for PC and console Minh Le, co-creator of Counter-Strike. A key feature surrounds finding and equipping different gears to the suit which Pearl Abyss promises to create a unique shooter with MMO gameplay elements.
A number of new screenshots have been released for Plan 8, which we have shared below. For more details, check out the official website.
Mortal Online 2 is happening, Star Vault this week released a teaser trailer and a heap of information.
Coming soon, Mortal Online 2 continues the level-less skill system of the original title, introducing an open-ended skill system where players become better at abilities just by simply using them. The company aims to make player characters more versatile and move away from the Mortal Online system that tended to push players toward specific roles.
The world of Myrland is built on the Unreal Engine 4 technology and features a massive four hundred square kilometer landscape to play around in. A closed combat alpha will be held in Q2 2020 for those interested in testing out the new game.
Daybreak Game Company looks like it’s getting closer to announcing a reverse Voltron move, splitting the business into multiple parts for one reason or another.
We’ve been following this for quite some time. Earlier this year, Daybreak began registering trademarks for new studio names that appear to be centered around its major IPs: Golden Age Studios, Darkpaw Games, Rogue Planet Games, Bronze Age Studios. Just this month, Daybreak filed for another trademark: Dimensional Ink Games. The purpose? Your guess is as good as ours, the filing just occurred three days ago.
Daybreak’s statement about the latest round of layoffs is even more telling:
“We are taking steps to improve our business and to support our long-term vision for the existing franchises and development of new games. This will include a realignment of the company into separate franchise teams, which will allow us to highlight their expertise, better showcase the games they work on, and ultimately provide tailored experiences for our players.”
The running theory with the trademarked studio names was that Daybreak would basically be splitting off their games into separate shell companies for some purpose (maybe to sell them). Daybreak’s latest comments seem to confirm that theory. Dimensional Ink has a Twitter account that was set up this month and has yet to post anything.
We will have to wait to see what this week’s news brings.
Astellia Online is launching with a subscription, by which I mean it’s launching with a trial subscription, and it’s a bunch of tat.
When Astellia launches it will cost $40 for the introductory kit, with no word on how quickly the game will go free to play once the market wholly rejects paying up front for what is otherwise a rather generic import MMO that feels like it came out roughly ten years ago. If you’re not interested in the $40 up front fee, you can penalize yourself by spending $10 per month to check out a “trial” version that is otherwise the exact same thing and contains no restrictions. Astellia is not a subscription title otherwise.
Here’s the fun part: Your $10 per month doesn’t contribute to your purchase price, so if you are going to “play it safe” your penalty is that you’ll be paying a 25% premium for the privilege of doing so. If you sub for two or more months, and I can’t imagine why anyone would outside of forgetting to cancel their auto-renewal, well you might as well just call it a day. BarunsOn Studio calls it a “risk vs reward” system, whereas I’ll just call it a “contempt for the customer” system, one where the publisher knows that they have a steep uphill battle convincing a large number of people to buy into a $40 game that looks a lot like the dime-a-dozen Korean MMOs that launch for free by the thousands every year, but there’s no way management is going to open the door to thousands of gold farmer accounts without getting at least a little bit of dosh in return.
Astellia’s business model runs the risk of death by a thousand cuts of apathy, and the whole thing is worse considering it’s been done before. Other games have introduced starter editions that get you into the game at a lower cost, and then allow you to upgrade to the full game if you like what you’re playing. Many of those games (Rainbow Six: Siege, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, etc) are insanely successful, more than Astellia Online is likely capable of conceiving. They don’t begrudgingly punish people for their skepticism.
Astellia asking players to throw away ten dollars risks immediately creating a relationship of animosity. There is no reason outside of contempt or greed (or some combination of the two) to immediately start your outreach to potential customers on such a hostile note, and no reason that the $10 first month can’t go toward the cost of the game. That would foster a more welcoming image. The number of sales you get from people who pay the $10 and then eat the cost and upgrade to the full version won’t be zero. I’m also willing to bet it won’t be a large number either. Ten bucks isn’t a lot of money, but Astellia isn’t a particularly high quality game. In the grand scheme of things gamers have a lot of other options either through the games that they already bought or through the multitude of free to play MMOs that are of much higher quality, far more content, and already have an established user base.
I’ve seen posts in the forums with people boasting about the idea that this acts as a gatekeeper and that it “weeds out people like you” toward critics. I’ve been writing about MMOs for fifteen years, these are the same people who will be wondering why nobody was willing to give the game a try in 2020 when the announcement comes that the game just didn’t get a good enough return to remain solvent.
All this for yet another game coming out of Korea that promises it will totally never include those crazy pay to win schemes that the Korean version has. Developers have never broken their promise in that scenario, right? At the very least, we can hope that the gold farmers (whom I suspect are at least tangentially related to this lower price version) who bulk-buy accounts to spam chat with advertising aren’t using stolen credit cards. Don’t forget, every dollar lost to a chargeback costs roughly $2.40.
This is where my free consultation of Astellia Online comes to a close. You can have your people call my people for more details.
Astellia is an MMO in 2019 that makes me feel like I’m back in 2009. It’s another game in the long line of titles that come westward and while I don’t have much faith in the game being a runaway success, I decided to jump into the beta to see just how dated it felt. Boy does it feel dated. Before I go into this I’d like to state that neither MMO Fallout as an entity no myself have any inherent problem with sexy characters in games and you can safely read on without the fear of having this random internet commenter make assumptions about your personality based on the games you play.
Now let’s continue.
Astellia Online seemed dead set on making me angry within the first twenty seconds of playing the beta because like much of its ilk, the game handholds you through the tutorial like you are a moron. I generally don’t have an issue with tutorials in games, but the point where I lose my patience is when the game starts treating you like a moron and locks the UI and refuses to let you do anything until you complete some menial task like adding a potion to your hotbar. I also thought I had skipped the tutorial, but then the game still overloads me with ridiculous nonsense that shouldn’t be new to anyone who has ever played a video game.
Unfortunately Astellia takes this even further in its tutorial by just throwing in enemy NPCs that you can’t attack for absolutely no reason. You almost think that the game is broken because there is no indication or response to your keypresses, and the game does let you target these mobs, but your character just doesn’t follow through on your commands. These sound like minor complaints, but it’s a starter to the game’s more asinine ideas like filling the world with invisible walls that are often out in the middle of the level, don’t block anything, and are just shoddy level design. Nothing says wasting my time like making me walk the long way around an area because the game won’t let me jump down an ankle-high embankment.
Eventually at the end of the tutorial you meet Sella, who is an angelic character of good.
Also her jugs are enormous.
It’s at this point I made this possibly bad decision of boosting my character to level 50, which the devs have enabled so people can check out the end-game dungeons during the beta. It also gave me the opportunity to check out the game’s Astels; companions that you level up, each one being a temporary summon that grants various buffs based on the character. There are defensive Astels, offensive Astels, healing Astels, all kinds! And they come in various flavors of cute anime girl, cute anime boy, cute animals, and the strange.
There’s even Scorpio who is his own deal.
Eventually I got bored of being level 50 and thus being horribly overleveled compared to the story content. So I ditched my mage character and decided to go with my old favorite: The ranger. The ranger is my go-to class in MMOs because they reflect my real life personality. Striking from afar because I’m a no-skill scrub who can’t take a punch.
Also her jugs are enormous.
In case you’re wondering, your character staring deadpan into the camera when you flip it around to view yourself from the front is just as unsettling as it looks in the screenshot. At this point, I’d like to state a few things that I have actually found enjoyable in Astellia. I like the story so far. There is a lot of generic “the world is being invaded by demons” storytelling, but there is also an interesting plot about the valiant white knights of the world and how they’re basically moronic, corrupt, and incompetent, led by an enormous jagoff named Meruf who utterly hates you and your Astels for no good reason, and rewards you after you’ve just saved his people by telling you to go fudge yourself.
You come back at one point to find a dude berating Meruf to his face about how much the knights suck and how they’re incapable of protecting civilization under his worthless leadership, and you follow him to save him from a demon named Voltra, who is also dressed like a BDSM queen.
Also her package is enormous.
Another little feature I came to enjoy is the simple fact that Astellia lets you have a spell queued up. It’s a simple function, but astoundingly rare in the MMO sphere. Thankfully the game doesn’t run like unoptimized trash, unlike Bless Online. I’m not going to make any comments about the validity of the cash shop since God only knows how much that could change before launch.
It looks like a big part of Astellia’s income is going to be from subscriptions which offer experience boosts, and selling skins which change the look of your Astel as well as equipment overrides. Astellia isn’t a horrible game by any means, but it’s been done so many times that I can’t see many people flocking to it with great excitement. It’s more of a filler MMO, something to play until the game you’re really looking forward to comes out.
If you need Legends of Aria to release on Steam and preferably before August 7, then you have hit a stroke of very specific luck.
Citadel Studios announced today that the global launch of the hit MMO Legends of Aria is coming sooner than you think: August 6. Legends of Aria bills itself as a modern take on classic MMORPGs such as Ultima Online and Eve Online, and is a living breathing world shaped by its players. While much of the game world is safe from the harsh life of open world PvP, lawless regions still exist inhabited by those looking to make your day that much worse.
“Not only have we added a new playable skillset in the Bard and a whole new armor and weapon enchanting system to make the crafters in our community even more important, but we’re making the world of Aria a much friendlier place to live,” said Derek Brinkmann, CEO. “We’re ecstatic to finally be launching Legends of Aria on Steam after so much hard work and love were poured into the game. We cannot wait for MMO players of all sorts to join us on our journey.”
Legends of Aria will launch into Early Access on Steam on August 6. New features include the bard class as well as equipment enhancement, rulesets, a fresh start server, an optional premium subscription, quality of life improvements, and much more. Check out the official website for more information.
Maplestory M is celebrating its one year anniversary with style as Nexon has announced the latest class to be added in: The Phantom. Set for release on July 17, players can pre-register for the Phantom today to receive a pack of items including a Unique Weapon Whetstone, Unique Armor Whetstone, Auto-Battle Charge Ticket and more.
“Featuring a cane as his main weapon, the Phantom is a master thief who steals the abilities of characters in the Explorer class. Skills including Phantom Shroud, Return of Phantom and Steal help players plan more strategic strikes, while the Phantom’s most special skill – Judgment – comes into play when delivering critical damage to mobs, triggering randomly stacked cards that give players additional attack. Phantom characters between levels 3 to 100 will also be able to level up a total of 3 levels per each level up through the Mega Burning event.”
Also included in the update is an updated wedding system allowing players to team up with their dearly beloved for buffs and gifts, as well as a new emote wheel and more. The one year anniversary will have events of its own with special experience rewards, skins, accessories, and more. Starting July 25, players can take part in the Monster Park amusement park event for heavy experience gains.
Source: Nexon Press Release
Today’s video comes to us from Neowiz and shows off some of the features coming with the upcoming console spinoff Bless Unleashed.
There is an upcoming beta test for Bless Unleashed coming on Thursday July 11 at 10 a.m. pst running until Monday July 15. The beta will be available for preload on July 10.
Those of you who keep tabs on the industry will remember that Entropia Universe turns 16 this year, meaning that not only can the game now drive in most states, but it retains its discount card along with the other long-lasting MMOs. As it goes, I had to know what their secret was. Thankfully MindArk was kind enough to let me chat with their CEO Henrik Nel to answer my numerous questions.
The full interview is below, and once you are finished I highly recommend checking out Entropia Universe for free.
MMO Fallout: Entropia Universe launched in 2003, which in the gaming industry is basically three lifetimes ago. What is the secret formula that has kept the game running so long?
Henrik Nel: If we told you it wouldn’t be a secret would it? We are very proud about our real cash economy. Having the game being built around it has created something truly unique which can’t be found anywhere else in the gaming industry. We have achieved a level of trust after 16 years where players can feel confident about their investments being secure and treated with bank level security. It also helps that our community is very mature, entrepreneurial and newcomer friendly.
M: Being free to play, Entropia lacks a barrier to entry. Does Entropia still see a lot of new people peeking their heads in?
H: Yes, we do have a constant stream of players eager to check out the game. Even though some our players started over a decade ago, it is still very possible to start from nothing and
play with them on an even field with some cunning strategies quickly.
M: It seems like growing technology is the biggest threat to older MMOs; with some titles shutting down simply because they have hit their ceiling with new operating systems/hardware. Have you had any major technical hurdles to cross with Entropia now being old enough to get its learner’s permit?
H: In 2009 we made the change from Gamebryo game engine to Cryengine 2. With that change, we had to re-develop a lot of our systems to adapt with the new game engine. As many of the developers are still around from that time, we still possess the knowledge from that transition which will make another upgrade much smoother. We do actually have a graphical improvement just around the corner which utilizes Cryengine, but unfortunately I can’t go into detail about it just yet.
M: How would you most succinctly describe Entropia’s real money economy to someone who only knows it as “that real money MMO”?
H: In Entropia Universe everything has a real-life value since all items has a PED value. PED is our in-game currency which is exchangeable with USD at a 10:1 ratio, so if you loot an item
worth 1000 PED it is worth $100 in the real-world. Your avatar skills can also contain a PED value so everything from your weapon to your acquired skills is worth real USD. Just like in the real world, the actions you make inside Entropia Universe have a real economical consequence.
M: Similarly, I think that for a lot of outsiders, their major experience with Entropia is through these record-breaking land deals. Can you give a brief detail on how land ownership works and how people end up spending tens of thousands of dollars investing in virtual property?
H: Sure, a good example would be the Crystal Palace Space Station which was originally sold in 2009. The player who purchased it at the time got access to four different domes filled with unique creatures only found there. These creatures offer users in Entropia the possibility to loot rare and unique items and in exchange the land owner receives a small tax from the users. The land owner also needs to stay vigilant and listen to the users of their land too as they to possess the ability to alter the look and feel of the area. If done properly, they, just like anybody else in Entropia Universe can withdraw their profits to their real-life bank account.
M: And for a final question in that category, how would you bring in a gamer who is curious but afraid that they will need to put in a substantial investment to get started?
H: Try it out and see for yourself, speak with other players when you are on the inside. There is nothing to stop them from downloading it as it is free to play. We do have Starter Packs for new players which are intended for people that want to start out with a smaller investment, but again it is not a prerequisite to enjoy the game. The Starter Packs are made in such a way that they are extremely helpful for all newcomers. Another important thing is the great society we have inside the game, that as well as the mentor systems really help new players to get a great start and a good way to meet new friends.
M: What kind of content updates does Entropia see these days? Looking at the website there appears to be a steady flow of events for players to participate in.
H: You’re right, we do have a lot of events which is suitable for a lot of different users no matter if you’re a high level or new user. And we have some very interesting content updates coming out this year, with new systems attached. But as Entropia Universe is a Real Cash Economy I can’t go into details on this as it might affect the in-game markets.
M: Has the idea of an Entropia Universe 2.0 ever been tossed around the office?
H: It has been tossed around for sure, and while you should never say never, it is nothing that we are planning to do in the foreseeable future.
M: With many MMOs making the leap to other systems, is the plan to keep Entropia PC-bound?
H: In the future you might very well see more parts of Entropia Universe on other platforms, we already have an Android app connected to our systems, which we have had since 2012. With Virtual Tycoon users can craft and trade while on the move. But currently, we focus a 100% on our PC platform.
I want to extend a big thank you to Henrik Nel and the folks who helped make this Q&A a reality.
Caret Games has announced the official launch of their mobile MMO RebirthM in North America for January 24.
RebirthM starts players off at level 100 and lets them loose to level up indefinitely through a new upgrade system. Exclusive elite dungeon challenges will open as players level, facing off against powerful bosses that will reward valuable items. The game also boasts as PvE environment with an endless world, as well as challenging PvP modes for more rewards including a battle royale system where players fight to the last person standing.
To celebrate its launch, RebirthM is holding a number of launch events for players to receive exclusive items. More information can be found on the official Facebook page. While the launch is exclusive to North America and Brazil, Caret Games has stated that the title is slowly expanding to more countries with a global server on its way.
MMO Fallout 