MMO – Page 22 – MMO Fallout

Bigpoint Unveils Merc Elite, The Not-Fantasy-Themed MOBA

I know what you’re thinking: “A MOBA that isn’t set in a fantasy theme? Bullschtack, Omali!” Personally I am still not convinced that this isn’t some hallucination brought on by the gas station sushi I ate just a few hours ago, but for the sake of staying true to reality, or for the laughs we’ll have when this sushi wears off, let’s just say that the press release is completely true. Bigpoint Games, best known for their UNITY has announced their upcoming MOBA game: Merc Elite. In Merc Elite, players will take the role of one of five classes and equip high tech weaponry in order to dominate their opponents. Merc Elite uses direct fire aiming and will require some strategic tactics to take on your opponents.

Bigpoint has boasted Merc Elite as the first ever military themed MOBA.

“A team of more than 40 people have developed our newest Unity Game,” says Jeff Lydell, Senior Producer at Bigpoint, “Merc Elite goes beyond standard free-to-play browser titles by employing stunning 3D graphics powered by Unity and delivering a flurry of PvP action that includes an array of high-tech weapons, cunning tactics and a variety of character classes, while ensuring fair gameplay with skill-based combat.”

Merc Elite is expected to launch this summer and take its place alongside Bigpoint’s other browser games.

(Source: Bigpoint Press Release)

MMOrning Shots: Wildstar Housing

NCSoft released a decent number of screenshots and concept art for Wildstar today, and I’ve taken the liberty of posting one of the more interesting (in my opinion at least) of the player housing screenshots. Set for release in 2013, Wildstar comes to us from Carbine Studios and will be published by NCSoft.

You can check out Wildstar’s February State of the Game to learn more about the upcoming MMO.

MMOrning Shots is a (somewhat) daily line of screenshots from various MMOs. Most are taken by our in-house editors, but if you would like your screenshot featured, send it over to contact[at]mmofallout[dot]com with the subject “MMorning Shots.”

MMOrning Shots: A Phoenix Shall Rise

So today’s MMOrning Shot isn’t from an MMO, at least not yet. What you are looking at is from the upcoming community-sourced MMO: The Phoenix Project. Set in motion by a group of die-hard City of Heroes fans, Phoenix Project looks to rebuild the super hero MMO that thousands enjoyed, even if it isn’t exactly the same product. Phoenix Project is being developed on the ~~CryEngine3~~ Unreal 3 Engine. If you want to check out the project, hit up this link to Missing Worlds Media.

MMOrning Shots is a (somewhat) daily line of screenshots from various MMOs. Most are taken by our in-house editors, but if you would like your screenshot featured, send it over to contact[at]mmofallout[dot]com with the subject “MMorning Shots.”

Mortal Online Shows Higher Resolution Textures

There is no denying that the citizens of Nave have faces only a mother could love, and in many cases a body of hair that even Robin Williams would be impressed by. Not too long ago, Star Vault set up a donation system where players are able to throw a little extra into the coffers. The idea, of course, is that while Star Vault does not receive 100% of revenue from subscriptions (I’m guessing much of it goes to licensing), they are able to keep 100% of the donations, which they put toward extra development goals.

The latest goal to be announced comes in the form of $6,000 toward the “character build” update, aiming to bring a brand new look to Nave’s player folk, both in the face and armor departments. The update will also allow several other features to be put into place, including general optimizations and a few other graphical improvements. The whole list of improvements is as follows:

Much better looking player characters (rebuild of all races and genders).
Better looking character face customization; more support for scars, tattoos etc.
Rebuild of all armor meshes/materials/shaders parts making them look much better.
Allowing us to add more and new armor parts in the game.
Almost all resource material gets its real and unique look.
Much better control over the dye system.
Better performance on player characters, no more 1-2s freeze lags when loading a bunch of players.
Removal of the texture merges system which means a big memory optimization on the client and better overall performance.
More players on the screen will not add cost on the client as it did in the old system.
A full new armor set will be included in this package; new types will arrive in the future now since the new system will allow it.

The donation system has drawn some controversy, although from outside the Mortal Online community rather than inside of it. The concept may seem surprising to players outside of the game, but the community hasn’t just embraced the donation system, they are the ones who demanded it be put in place to begin with.

(Source: Mortal Online)

ArchAge Publisher In West Is…Trion Worlds

There’s been a lot of speculation about who might be publishing the notorious sandbox MMO ArchAge in the west, and we finally have an answer: Trion Worlds. So breathe a sigh of relief, gamers, it wasn’t who you thought it was going to be.

Leading online games company Trion Worlds and renowned South Korea-based game developer XLGAMES have entered into a strategic agreement for Trion to exclusively publish and operate ArcheAge® in the West. Created by Jake Song, best known for his hit game Lineage, the highly anticipated ArcheAge is poised to be the most polished massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) coming out of Asia. Trion will host the game on its Red Door platform in North America, Europe, Turkey, Australia and New Zealand.

There is currently no information regarding beta or launch dates.

(Source: Press Release)

Wakfu Publishing Changing Hands In North America

New news, Wakfu players. As of March 1st, Square Enix will no longer be handling the publishing of Wakfu in North America. In an email to account holders sent out today, Ankama Games will be taking full responsibility of publishing in the region. The good news is you won’t have to do anything, unlike in most other transitions. If you have an account on Wakfu, you already have an Ankama account. Ankama Games is the developer and international publisher of Wakfu, meaning players will be dealing directly with the source instead of a third party publisher when it comes to game issues.

We’d like to reassure you that this decision was not made lightly, and that this process will not have any impact on the game itself, your characters and progress, or the delivery of new content; we will do our utmost to ensure that the transition will be as seamless as possible and without interruption of service.

This may be the easiest publisher transition in MMO history. Characters and accounts will make the transition with no input needed from the user, subscriptions that overlap the transition date will not be affected at all, and accounts will have the same amount of Ogrines as they did under Square Enix. There won’t even be any server downtime associated with the move (planned).

(Source: Wakfu News)

Age of Empires Online Isn’t Shutting Down, Content Development Ceases

You like Age of Empires Online just the way it is, right? Hopefully you do, because Gas Powered Games has announced that future content development has ceased. A small amount of content will be released in the coming weeks, but after that Age of Empires Online will only see a few small changes to fix bugs as they crop up, as well as maintenance to keep the game running. Following this little bit of content, the game will be set as it is forever. Granted, this doesn’t mean that Age of Empires Online is close to shutting down.

Far from it in fact, rather Microsoft Studios notes in the announcement that nothing will change for current gamers:

However, nothing else changes for players, nothing that currently exists will be removed. You can still play everything you own, earn EP, and purchase any content you do not currently own. We will still fully maintain and support the game and its players; no one is losing anything that you have earned or bought. Our Community team will continue to support the game by way of Community Challenges, streams, contests, PvP tournaments and more.

The cause for the sudden cancellation is due to a reported high cost of developing content for the MMO.

(Age of Empires Blog)

Age of Empires Online Isn't Shutting Down, Content Development Ceases

Far from it in fact, rather Microsoft Studios notes in the announcement that nothing will change for current gamers:

However, nothing else changes for players, nothing that currently exists will be removed. You can still play everything you own, earn EP, and purchase any content you do not currently own. We will still fully maintain and support the game and its players; no one is losing anything that you have earned or bought. Our Community team will continue to support the game by way of Community Challenges, streams, contests, PvP tournaments and more.

The cause for the sudden cancellation is due to a reported high cost of developing content for the MMO.

(Age of Empires Blog)

Family Guy Online Shutting Down Next Month

Family Guy Online is a self-proclaimed “MMLOL,” fancy business speak which when translated into common English means “mediocre game based on well known IP.” Sure, Family Guy Online was an incredibly shallow game experience that put more effort into various fart jokes and racist/sexist comments than coding, but look at it this way: Underneath all of the bugs, lag, and far jokes lies a mediocre game. But hey, as the folks at Twentieth Century Fox must have assumed, the Family Guy television audience will certainly show up in high enough numbers and play it, right?

Wrong. As it turns out, they didn’t. Family Guy Online is shutting down on January 18th, 2013, after an unsuccessful beta run. All purchases from October 22nd to December 21st will be refunded automatically in early January. It’s good to see that even though the game failed, the developers are kind enough to refund everyone who paid into the beta.

(Source: Family Guy Online)

Rift Hit Hard By Layoffs At Trion

The Christmas season just gets worse for game developers. Trion Worlds has confirmed that a number of people have been laid off “in response to market conditions, product timelines and the natural evolution of our company,” although the developer has not offered an exact number. Trion does not offer figures such as concurrent subscriptions or expansion sales. Rift’s latest expansion, Storm Legion, launched last month. More recently, Trion took control of End of Nations from developer Petroglyph, who suffered layoffs of their own.

We wish the best for Trion’s ex-employees. Numbers by an ex-employee point the layoffs at around 40.

(Source: Gamasutra)

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