Tag: MMO

Nexon, Hanbitsoft, NCsoft Block Korean Probe Into Gambling


You’ve most likely heard of “jackpot items,” even if you aren’t entirely familiar with the term itself. These items cost real money and only offer the chance at a high level piece of equipment, usually a very slim chance at that. I’ve been rather critical of jackpot items in the past, I’ve referred to them as taking advantage of people with gambling problems, and criticized a certain company on using it in conjunction with abusing the name of charity to gain funds.

But the question remains as to whether or not such an item constitutes gambling. While you or I might say yes, the Games Rating Board of South Korea asked ten publishers to hand over information relating to their jackpot items. The companies reportedly revealed names, costs, and currencies involved, but refused to hand over details of payout percentages. When pressed, the GRB was met with statements that the data constituted confidential company information, and was not under the jurisdiction of the GRB.

The Games Rating Board is now accusing these companies of obstructing an investigation. It is unclear at this time what, if any, ramifications these companies could face.

Falling Victim To Your Own Greedy Nature


While the MMO Fallout inbox is never saturated with emails, so to speak, I get a fair amount of tips especially regarding outbreaks of account theft. For the most part, these thefts are not real. A person will have his account stolen at the general time his friend did, so his conclusion is that a lot of accounts must be getting stolen (or the company is selling accounts to gold farmers, please stop emailing me with those conspiracy theories). A quick check of our archives will show that I do indeed report on legitimate server breaches.

One particular email I received prompted this article: To sum it up, a “regular reader” made the claim that I am being paid off by “illegitimate gold farmers and bot developers” to not post warnings when a bot program is actually a trojan horse or a gold farming company starts stealing credit cards. To start off, my apologies to this disenfranchised man. Secondly: I don’t believe in warning potential cheaters that their service of choice may be even less legitimate than thought.

Let’s break that down, shall we? To use the term “illegitimate gold farmer” implies that there are legitimate gold farmers, which would only apply if the developer sold the gold/items or authorized players to do so. No, I’m not going to make the baseless claim that all gold farmers are identity thieves, but to call the business legitimate is about as disingenuous as you can get. Rather, I see the system as knowing the risks. You buy gold knowing full well the potential consequences if this person turns out to be an actual criminal. To give an outside comparison, this is akin to the people who buy laptops off of truck beds in parking lots and then find out the box is full of rocks.

So I don’t write warnings about criminal cheat websites for a few reasons, but I do write articles like this one warning the unwary (however few of you might exist) that gold farming outfits are indeed shady business that has become a haven for identity theft. This way, when the time comes that your Runescape account is cleaned out and Jagex bans you for buying powerleveling services, you might not write to me and ask me to warn other people about an illegitimate service turning out to be a scam.

Nominations For Golden Joystick Awards/GDCO


The Golden Joystick Awards have been running for 29 years, making the ceremony older than a good amount of the people reading this website. Every year, games compete in a number of categories from shooter to adventure and everything in between, with the voting determined by viewers like you. This year marks the first year that there is a “Best MMO” category, as well as “Best free to play,” meaning Jagex won’t be the only developer with a Golden Joystick (Jagex has won “Best UK Developer” two years in a row, but that category is gone this year).

The Games Developers Choice Online Award is in its second year, and spawned from GDC Austin, and acts as a sister competition to the Games Developers Choice Awards, similar yet focusing on online innovations. The actual awards ceremony will take place on October 12th at Games Developers Conference Online in Austin, Texas.

You can still vote for the Golden Joystick Awards here. For the sake of space, check after the break for the full nominee list.

Continue reading “Nominations For Golden Joystick Awards/GDCO”

How About An Authenticator In The Standard Edition?


Dear developers,

You cannot say that you are in tune with player security and then only include one of the best security options available (authenticator) as an exclusive item with the collector’s edition. When Final Fantasy XIV was released, Square only allowed players to obtain the authenticator through the $79.99 collector’s edition. With the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic, the details of which were just confirmed today, the authenticator will only be released with the $150 collector’s edition.

Now, games like World of Warcraft allow you to buy the dongle separately, while games like Rift opt for digital versions (iOS and android devices). That isn’t to say Bioware won’t have the authenticator on sale at their store after the game launches, but given the standard edition already carries the premium-console price ($60), adding an authenticator could help justify that extra $10.

When Star Wars: The Old Republic launches, it will be one of the biggest launches since Aion, and that means every gold farmer and their brother is going to be phishing, hacking fan sites, and launching every attack they can to steal accounts. We see this in World of Warcraft, Aion, Lineage, and all of the big name MMOs: Where player activity is high, so is rampant account theft (the goal, for the unfamiliar, is to wipe the account clean and sell items for cash before the player can recover it). If Bioware wants to be known as the company that entered the MMO market swinging, they need to get serious about account security, as in starting yesterday. Otherwise they’ll be spending a lot of resources beefing up customer service to deal with all the incoming requests.

I say the same for Square Enix with Final Fantasy XIV, although the price of the game has dropped so dramatically, picking up the collector’s edition is a $25 investment at my local stores, so obtaining the authenticator is hardly out of one’s grasp like the $150 TOR edition.

Glitch: No Idea What I’m Watching


I don’t know what is going on in this trailer for Glitch, an upcoming free to play MMO, but it’s being created by the guys that made Katamari Damaci, so i want it.

Glitch: No Idea What I'm Watching


I don’t know what is going on in this trailer for Glitch, an upcoming free to play MMO, but it’s being created by the guys that made Katamari Damaci, so i want it.

Mortal Online: Not Against Selling The Game


Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but so is speculation. Ever since the sale of Earth Eternal following its almost invisible launch and shut down, I am convinced that any MMO has a potential buyer as long as the owners are willing to sell. Over on the Mortal Online forums, Henrik Nystrom has posted the type of long, rambling message that only I could beat or fully appreciate, in which he talks leadership, testing, and potential buyers for Mortal Online.

His somewhat frustrated rant can be summed up rather effectively: StarVault would love to have more testers, better tools, and more developers, but they don’t have the resources. You may remember that Mortal Online is running at a loss due to a lack of subscribers, resulting in two cost cutting measures according to the company over the past few financial reports. Henrik then goes on to speculate on selling the game:

If there is not enough resources we will have to adapt and see what options we have… There are plenty of major companies that have their eyes on Mortal, and have had so since the beginning. They know exactly what is needed to develop and release a game such Mortal on your own, and that alone is a huge accomplishment which we are proud for. They know its almost impossible to develop a large scale such MO with such small team and they are very eager to get their hands on both the game and the team.

Henrik then points out that if StarVault does sell the game, the buyer may very well change the core of the game.

If they share the exact same vision with full loot, full pvp, monthly payment however is another question. Which I guess why most of us is here, us the devs as well, but if it means that if some of those core features changes when a company have the rights for it and it gives a bigger player base then that’s what they will go for most likely.

You can read the entire post at the link above, but it sounds like StarVault’s financial troubles are stinging more than they did a few months ago.

Station Price Dropping To Little Over 1 Subscription: $19.99/Month


Sony Station access is an excellent deal, and it’s about to get even greater. Normally priced at $29.99, or the cost of about two Station subscriptions, Sony announced at E3 that the price will drop to $19.99, or 1 and 1/3rd the cost of a subscription to one of Sony’s MMOs. The announcement was made at E3 today, with no specific date other than “soon.”

For those unfamiliar with Station Access, the service grants players access to:

  1. Access to all of SOE’s titles:
  1. DC Universe
  2. Everquest
  3. Everquest II
  4. Everquest Online Adventures (Playstation 2)
  5. Pirates of the Burning Sea (membership perks)
  6. Planetside
  7. Star Wars Galaxies
  8. Vanguard
  9. Free Realms (membership perks)
  • Additional character slots for Vanguard, Everquest, and Everquest II
  • Bonus adventure packs.
  • More features added as new content is released.
    • It’s important to note: You MUST own the game in order to receive a subscription to it. You don’t have to buy Pirates of the Burning Sea or Free Realms, but you have to buy Everquest, DC Universe, etc in order to gain access. The pass covers the subscription, not the purchase of the client if one is required.
    Good news? Bad news? Sign of more downgrading to come? Hopefully not.

    Major Fallen Earth Announcement Coming May 31st


    Fun fact: The announcement is not for content coinciding with the release of a Fallen Earth line of Lego minifigures and playsets, although those odds would be much higher were this the 1990’s. So what is the big major extraordinary amazing unannounced news? You’ll have to wait until Tuesday to find out.

    The Fallen Earth team has a MAJOR announcement during the scheduled maintenance set for next Tuesday, May 31. We’re giving ya’ll a chance to sit down with Senior Game Designer Marie “Aro Sei” Croall as she discusses the State of the Game and plans beyond.

    Take out the trash, call off work, heat up those microwave dinners, put your pets to bed and your kids in the kennel, you won’t want to miss this. You’ll have two chances to hear this amazing announcement live (or just check this website), which you can find here on Fallen Earth’s ustream. Once at 3pm and once at 8pm Eastern.

    Of course, the question now is…what would be this major? Of those answers I can think of, it is either:

    • Fallen Earth is going free to play.
    • Fallen Earth is shutting down.
    • Icarus Studios is making a new game.
    We already know of a lot of upgrades coming to the game. Combat changes, that housing system, and more. What better time than now to announce a free to play section? If the announcement starts out with “we want to thank everyone who supported Fallen Earth from beta to launch and onward,” then you might have grounds to be concerned.

    Third Square Enix MMO In The Works…Why?


    Square Enix’s past with MMOs can be summed up a such: Final Fantasy XI was released and still trucks along well to this day. Fantasy Earth Zero was launched, died a quick death, and was revived by another company only to die again just this year. Final Fantasy XIV, however, is where the story gets interesting. Still reeling from its own launch, FFXIV has yet to institute subscriptions and has no timetable for doing so. The PS3 version has been delayed indefinitely with no release in sight. Finally, Square Enix’s upcoming MMO…hold the phone, upcoming MMO? One moment please.

    And we’re back. Yes, folks, Square Enix is working on a third MMO, according to their most recent earnings report. The game is set to be announced this fiscal year, which means this article is essentially show boating and a reason to incorporate Tough Guys Don’t Dance into MMO Fallout.

    There is good news, non-Final Fantasy fans. The MMO will be a different IP, it appears, meaning it could be anything from Dragon Quest to Thief, Kingdom Hearts, or more (personally I’m rooting for Snoopy’s Red Baron MMO). More on this title as it appears.