Tag: MMO

Creating Games Using Someone Else's Intellectual Property


As someone who started writing by creating derivative works of existing properties, I have a special place in my heart for amateur studios who do the same. So whenever I have to deal with such a group of people, I never see them as content theives when I tell them they will probably be served a cease and desist, if not sued outright, for stealing intellectual property.

As is the case with My Little Pony Online, a testament to the internet’s demand that not even this website can refrain from mentioning the show. MLP: Online is an MMO based on the tv show dedicated to a base of adult men. Unsurprisngly, MLP: Online was the target of a cease and desist by Hasbro for all sorts of infringements. The project will continue, but without anything that would identify it as a My Little Pony game.

Still, the law sucks. It puts content owners in a rough spot since if they don’t protect their properties, they could lose them.

Perhaps the better question to ask is why Hasbro took so long to send the cease and desist, considering the game was on the radar of the mane-stream press for a good while now.

I am so sorry.

Creating Games Using Someone Else’s Intellectual Property


As someone who started writing by creating derivative works of existing properties, I have a special place in my heart for amateur studios who do the same. So whenever I have to deal with such a group of people, I never see them as content theives when I tell them they will probably be served a cease and desist, if not sued outright, for stealing intellectual property.

As is the case with My Little Pony Online, a testament to the internet’s demand that not even this website can refrain from mentioning the show. MLP: Online is an MMO based on the tv show dedicated to a base of adult men. Unsurprisngly, MLP: Online was the target of a cease and desist by Hasbro for all sorts of infringements. The project will continue, but without anything that would identify it as a My Little Pony game.

Still, the law sucks. It puts content owners in a rough spot since if they don’t protect their properties, they could lose them.

Perhaps the better question to ask is why Hasbro took so long to send the cease and desist, considering the game was on the radar of the mane-stream press for a good while now.

I am so sorry.

Players Petition To Revive Pirates Of The Caribbean Online


Pirates of the Caribbean Online is one of those titles that has so far eluded the MMO Fallout radar. Surprising, considering the game predates this website by quite a bit. POTCO, as it is called, was released in 2007 by Disney Interactive Media Group, and while the game hasn’t exactly skyrocketed to a massive audience, one look at the website will show a small but very engaged and loyal community. Amazingly, the game is still updated on a pretty regular basis to introduce new outfits, new emblems for ship masts, and new ships. That being said, the skies are not exactly smooth sailing either.

A petition filed by the POTCO community raises concerns over all aspects of the game. The petition requests that Disney work on reviving the game, including making improvements to server latency, improving customer service, and dealing with existing bugs and the problem of people using cheats. The petition also requests that content be added into the game at a more efficient pace.

We invite Disney Interactive Media Group to reevaluate the uniqueness and potentials of the Pirates of the Caribbean Online game. Improvements on the technical aspect of the game (i.e., higher performance setting, problem solving, variety of contents, etc.) along with proactive customer service will improve the game performance and gaming experience tremendously.

The petition currently holds almost two thousand signatures.

(Source: Revive POTCO)

Falling Out #18: Freedom of Bankruptcy


True fact: Whenever a hardcore indie FFA PvP sandbox MMO shuts down, Blizzard releases a commemorative cash shop pet. Think about it.

Glitch Shutting Down December 9th


What a terrible day. As posted on the Glitch website today, the fledgling MMO will be shutting down forever as of December 9th. The website and forums will remain up until 8pm Pacific on the 9th, during which time the website and all services including mobile apps will no longer be available. The team is heartbroken to have to make the announcement, but according to the news post, Glitch had simply not attained a level of income to remain viable.

Unfortunately, Glitch has not attracted an audience large enough to sustain itself and based on a long period of experimentation and our best estimates, it seems unlikely that it ever would. And, given the prevailing technological trends — the movement towards mobile and especially the continued decline of the Flash platform on which Glitch was built — it was unlikely to do so before its time was up.

All recent purchases will be refunded automatically, while all purchases made since November 11, 2011 will be refunded eventually as they are to be taken care of by hand. According to the FAQ, selling the game is not possible:

It’s complicated, but it comes down to this: if that were a transaction that made sense to the purchaser, we wouldn’t be shutting the game down.

There is a ray of sunshine in this story, however. Even though Glitch will die, Tiny Speck will continue on as a company.

Tiny Speck, the company behind Glitch, will continue. We have developed some unique messaging technology with applications outside of the gaming world and a smaller core team will be working to develop new products. But now is not the time to talk about that. Right now our concern is with the players and our comrades who are suddenly looking for new work.

If you want to get some final memories of Glitch, do it now.

(Source: Glitch Website)

Questing On The Side With Side Quest


When we last saw Side Quest and Fractal Entertainment, the fledgling browser MMO was busy licking its wounds from a low turnout in its recent Kickstarter campaign. Of the ten thousand desired by Fractal Entertainment, the Kickstarter funding managed to bring in only two. However, not willing to give up, the folks at Fractal have released a playable version of Side Quest on the main website with the obvious hope that potential players put off by the “investor” phase will give the game a try and see its real potential. So over the past couple of weeks, I have dived into Side Quest, and I think it is about time to give my impressions on the game as a point of concept, not necessarily dealing with bugs (this is nowhere near completion, after all) and what not.

Jumping In…

Side Quest is a goofy, self-parodying side scroller with an equally ridiculous crew that makes me pine for the days of Dungeon Runners and gathering quests at Pwnston so I can take my +2 hammer of seal clubbing and just beat the crap out of a bunch of mobs. Making good on its Kickstarter advertising, Side Quest features a whole lot of single player, from the random fields that you will run through to gather gold and experience, and the quest story line that actually gives a bit of diversity and challenge. At the beginning of the game, following a short tutorial, you will have to choose one of five characters as your “main” character. This person is directly controlled and cannot be removed from the party at any point. The other four can be mixed and matched to your pleasure, and fall into the RPG archetypes.

Side Quest is controlled Patapon style: Your party of three moves through the level on its own, attacking enemies as you see them. While your two NPCs will do their jobs by themselves, your main character is the one that levels up and gains new abilities and stats. If you want the game to be easier, I suggest taking Krug (the tank) as your main role. If you want the game to be incredibly difficult, take on the role of healer. Then understand why your healer curses you out in World of Warcraft. Abilities and potions are lined up in the hotbar and activated with the number keys.

The loot system derives from some Facebook games. Each level contains a progress bar that fills as you complete the level over and over again, unlocking new difficulty levels as you go. When an enemy mob dies, it explodes in a shower of gold and experience that must be picked up with a simple hovering of the mouse. Chests drop additional experience and gold and are activated with a simple click of the mouse. While there are plenty of “filler” levels that are good for gold and experience and equipment boosts, the actual story quests are where Fractal Entertainment are showing off their creativity.

There is one quest, for example, that has you traveling down a river with your party. You must steer away from hazards while simultaneously beating away the tentacles of a large octopus attacking your raft. Steering is easy as clicking on the correct button, but you must manage between beating back the tentacles, steering, and repairing damage. On another quest, you are tasked with moving forward in a mess of bushes. Whenever you attack the bushes, creatures come from behind and you must turn around in order to fight them (which slows your progress). This one took me a couple of times to beat, as your healer (who is normally in the back) is constantly exposed to danger. You have to balance forward movement with keeping yourself from being overwhelmed from behind.

There are plenty of other activities already in Side Quest. You can head over to the arena (pictured in the first shot) and battle other player’s crews for ranking and arena points which can be used on potions and equipment. There are a number of daily quests available as you travel around and gain access to new areas and quest hubs. Fractal has promised that more cooperative and competitive multiplayer features will be coming at some point, but for right now the arena square you off against another player’s team controlled by AI. The other player is not actually at the computer. You can also play a game of Card Slayers, an interesting card mini-game.

The problem that Side Quest has is that the very early portion of the game is hand holding to its greatest extent. In other games, players exaggerate by saying that the game can be played on auto-pilot mode. In Side Quest, apart from picking up loot and experience that drops on the ground, the very early levels actually are on auto-pilot. The characters move themselves, attack by themselves (until you start getting special abilities), and heal by themselves. And the initial areas are so easy that all I had to do for the first hour or so was to click to enter the level and wave the mouse around to pick up loot. It’s easy to misinterpret this as representative of the rest of the game and lose interest.

In short: Side Quest isn’t a half-assed indie World of Warcraft clone, nor is it an open world sandbox MMO. In fact it isn’t really much of an MMO at this juncture. But what Side Quest has shown is already becoming a fun, unique experience, and the development team is very passionate about their game. You can play Side Quest at http://www.side-quest.com/

Gamigo's New Owner Should Focus On Advertising


Pop quiz: Why would a newspaper publisher have interest in an MMO developer? That is rhetorical, I can’t give an honest answer either. Regardless, back in 2008, for some reason newspaper publisher Axelrod Springer AG purchased the majority stake in Gamigo. Since then Gamigo has published some very high quality games, from Jagged Alliance Online to Black Prophecy, and a number of other games. Unfortunately as the communities of many of Gamigo’s games will tell you, few of the titles in their library have had an opportunity to shine, and some have even been shut down, due to a simple lack of exposure to the marketplace. Ask around and odds are not a whole lot of people will know that there exists a Jagged Alliance MMO, or Dungeon Empires, or that Black Prophecy was one of the best looking free to play MMOs on the market.

So I can only hope that someone from Samarion, who recently took over Gamigo, reads this and understands a simple fact: You have to make people aware that your games and company exist. Throw some money into advertising, get your name out there, and show everyone what you’ve got.

(Source: Gamasutra)

Gamigo’s New Owner Should Focus On Advertising


Pop quiz: Why would a newspaper publisher have interest in an MMO developer? That is rhetorical, I can’t give an honest answer either. Regardless, back in 2008, for some reason newspaper publisher Axelrod Springer AG purchased the majority stake in Gamigo. Since then Gamigo has published some very high quality games, from Jagged Alliance Online to Black Prophecy, and a number of other games. Unfortunately as the communities of many of Gamigo’s games will tell you, few of the titles in their library have had an opportunity to shine, and some have even been shut down, due to a simple lack of exposure to the marketplace. Ask around and odds are not a whole lot of people will know that there exists a Jagged Alliance MMO, or Dungeon Empires, or that Black Prophecy was one of the best looking free to play MMOs on the market.

So I can only hope that someone from Samarion, who recently took over Gamigo, reads this and understands a simple fact: You have to make people aware that your games and company exist. Throw some money into advertising, get your name out there, and show everyone what you’ve got.

(Source: Gamasutra)

Everquest Next Will Be The Largest Sandbox MMO Ever


It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything substantial about Everquest Next, and Sony’s reasons are pretty solid: They’ve blown up the game. At Sony Live 2012, John Smedley took to the stage and talked about how the industry needs to end the current system of launch and decline, and follow strategies laid out by games like League of Legends, who launch and continue to grow. This, Smedley explains, can only be done by adding more emergent gameplay, something the company hopes to do with its current and future MMO titles. As a result of this thinking, Everquest Next has been redesigned as a sandbox MMO:

What we are building is something that we will be very proud to call EverQuest. It will be the largest sandbox-style MMO ever designed. The same exciting content delivered in a new way. Something you’ve never seen before. The MMO world has never seen before. We didn’t want more kill 10 rats quests. We didn’t want more of the same. If you look at the MMOs out there, they’re delivering the same content over and over again. So are we. We need to change that. When we released EverQuest, we changed the world. We want to do that again with a different type of game.

Expect plenty more to come in the future on Everquest Next.

(Source: EQ2 Wire)

Xsyon Trial Server Now Open


Hey folks, remember Xsyon? Yes, it is still up and running and doing just fine. Up until now if you wanted to try Xsyon you had to buy the game and pay the subscription fee. The rules are simple: You can play as long as you want, and do pretty much whatever you want. The limitation is that the server will be reset every Monday, so if you want your progress to be saved, you’ll have to buy the game.

All players old and new that are signed up on our forums now have access to the Trial Server. Instructions on Trial Server access are available on your account page after signing up.

(Source: Xsyon)