Tag: MMORPG

Getting A Beta Perspective: The Secret World Templars


Entering into The Secret World takes you to a world your crazy uncle Tom always thought was a reality. The Illuminati is not only a real organization, but they continue to strive toward a New World Order by working behind the scenes and out of sight. In the secret world of The Secret World, the Illuminati also has to deal with equal super powers: The Dragon, an operation that molds its power through chaos and unpredictable action, and the Templars, an ancient organization dedicated to the destruction of evil wherever it rear its ugly head.

If you were to only play, say, the first ten minutes of The Secret World, you might leave the game feeling rather disappointed. Character creation lacks choice, and your character’s introduction to his new found powers goes down the path of a very long and boring cutscene filled with drawn out exposition by what is hopefully a placeholder voice actress. Luckily, this is the low point of the game and the cutscenes and voice actings only get much better from this point.

The world of The Secret World is dark, without a doubt. The locations you travel through are beautifully detailed and permeate with an overwhelming emotion of dread, hopelessness, and the imminent darkness that waits around every corner. The world is coming to an end, and you are one of a select few who are even aware of it. The town of Kingsmouth offers plenty of nods to your favorite fiction stories, from Lovecraft to a possible nod toward Left 4 Dead with the vehicles (jump on a vehicle and the alarm goes off, calling in zombies).

The tutorial is a high time to leave your ego at the door. You are not the hero that The Secret World deserves, and the game makes no qualms about telling you right up, “you are not the only one, and you are not the chosen one.” The tutorial gives you a chance to try out and select a desired weapon from the list. Your choices are between melee (sword, brass knuckles, sledgehammer), guns (pistol, shotgun, assault rifle), and magic (elemental, blood, and chaos). Personally, I chose the sledgehammer. They don’t call me Sledgehammer Omali for nothing. In fact, they don’t call me that at all.

Combat in The Secret World is familiar and fast, somewhere around the lines of Age of Conan without the directional attack/block mechanics. You have attacks that build energy and attacks that deplete energy. With my sledgehammer, special attacks were mainly focused toward hitting multiple targets. Magic and guns were not radically different to melee, albeit at a longer attack range.

Leveling can be an overwhelming experience, especially when you first lay eyes on the skill wheel presented to you. The Secret World offers the ability to create the character you want to play, and if you don’t know what character you want to play, this can come off as almost too much freedom. Luckily, you don’t have to worry about accidentally gimping your character by spreading his abilities out too far, later on you have the ability to build decks of skill combinations and change them on the fly.

I hesitate to talk about performance with The Secret World, although the beta worked just fine with a few hiccups here and there that likely had more to do with running capture software at the same time I was playing. From the limited area that I saw in the Templar beta, The Secret World is coming along great. The map of Kingsmouth is huge, with quests and collectibles scattered around to encourage exploring every nook and cranny of this dark future.

With some luck, I will be able to provide more beta coverage of the other factions in the near future. For now, I had a lot of fun playing The Secret World and can’t wait until the game launches later this year.

Building My Own MMO: A Storybricks Alpha Look


I know I am not the only MMO gamer who has said to myself “I want to make my own MMO. With blackjack and hookers.” I don’t know about the latter two, but thanks to the power of Kickstarter I discovered a developer who not only shared my thoughts but wanted to make my dreams come true. In comes Storybricks, a toolset in development that will allow people to build their own living MMO worlds.

I was able to sit down with an alpha build of Storybricks. The game has a long way to go, but the foundation is present and it looks promising. Essentially, as a player you are able to set NPCs in the world and designate their behaviors, responses, desires and interactions. To try out some of the features, I created a small city populated by just a handful of NPCs. Upon entry, the player enters with a coin and is direct toward a guard by the omnipresent narrator. The guard informs the player that the king has been corrupted and the player must procure his ring so that a new king can be crowned. In order to receive this, the player must talk to a wealthy citizen who trades a coin for a scroll. The (enchanted) scroll is given to the king and the player steals his ring. In return, the guard gives the player an apple (yes, not the best reward).

Short? Yes, but evidence of the prospects in Storybricks as a product. This is all accomplished with a very easy to learn toolset that directs how the player interacts with NPCs and how they interact with each other. The wealthy player is given the desire for coin, and is willing to trade the scroll given to him in the editor. The corrupt king desires magical artifacts, and “trades” his ring when the player when given the scroll. Given more time fiddling with the editor, it might be possible to have the corrupt king removed from his position and replaced with a new “good” king NPC, with the old one jailed.

If you haven’t already, check out the Storybricks Kickstarter page. There is far more information here including how you can play in the early alpha test. And if you like the idea, make a pledge. For a mere $15, you can get access to the game when it launches and one year of premium service (perks not entirely grounded).

Check out the Storybricks website here. I have an interview with the Storybricks team that should come out this weekend.

Kickstarters For You: Pathfinder Online


Pathfinder Online has been featured here at MMO Fallout several times, mostly to discuss the more hardcore routes that the themepark/sandbox hybrid would like to take. From old Everquest corpse runs to bounty systems and everything in between, Pathfinder is the dream of some well known names in the gaming  and role playing businesses. From CEO Ryan Scott Dancey (Chief Marketing Officer at CCP Games) to Lisa Stevens (Vampire The Masquerade), Mark Kalmes (City of Heroes) and a guy named Richard Baker (3rd edition of some indie pen and paper game called Dungeons and Dragons), Pathfinder Online is bringing together all of the big names to hopefully put out the best MMO on the market.

However names don’t pay the bills, and allegedly neither do pictures of seven legged spiders. So Pathfinder Online is on Kickstarter (see: Title), and needs your dosh. The goal to meet is $50,000 by Friday, June 8th. You can head over to the Kickstarter page linked below for a trailer and much more information as to the game itself, including some cool rewards for pledging your lods of emone.

Remember: Kickstarter is a method for aspiring companies to get funding and start out on a closer relationship with their consumers. Your pledge will not be charged until the Kickstarter fund ends (June 8th in this case), and if the goal is not reached you will not be billed at all.

Kickstarter Page

Xsyon Wants You Back: 10 Days


Remember that MMO, Xsyon? It launched at the beginning of 2011 after much hubbub and a few delays, and since then it’s been trucking along in the background, making great strides as it has rolled along this past year. So to bring back anyone who may have left in that time, Xsyon is offering old members ten free days starting May 18th.

Now, the free ten days is being issued over the course of about a five week period. Players will be notified of when their scheduled ten days will be in this time period. For active subscribers, Notorious Games is offering two free extra weeks added to your subscription.

Xsyon recently celebrated its first anniversary.

(Source: Notorious Games)

Shadowbane Resurrected…In China


There are two words I never thought I would say again. Shadowbane holds a name similar to pre-CU Star Wars Galaxies, it has become the benchmark by which many sandbox gamers judge their MMOs, and very few if any titles come close to matching the awe-inspiring devotion of the Shadowbane fandom. So why haven’t you heard of it (if you haven’t)? Shadowbane shut down in 2009 after several changes in ownership and business model, and cementing the community’s hatred of Ubisoft.

Well, Shadowbane is back. Changyou, a Chinese-focused game site, has purchased the source code and rights to Shadowbane and is using these properties to develop World of Shadowbane. There are virtually no details released right now, but here in the west we can always pray for a miracle.

More on World of Shadowbane as it appears.

(Source: MMO Culture)

Darkfall Developer Blog: Korea And Onward


Who loves Korea? MMO Fallout loves Korea, and not just because the country has spiraled up to about 50% of my traffic over the past couple of days. Aventurine also loves Korea, in the latest Epic Blog Tasos Flambouras starts by commenting that the developers are heading to Korea to sign an agreement with new partners with more details to come next week.

In addition, you can check out the entirety of the blog to read up about changes to the user interface, the upcoming addition of “player points,” the addition of an achievement system, and new village control system.

Darkfall 2.0, the major relaunch of Darkfall is set to go live this year, or more specifically, sometime between today and the apocalypse.

(Source: Epic Blog)

Gods & Heroes Doesn't Have Developers


Gods & Heroes has had a rough life for an MMO. Back in the day the game began under Perpetual Entertainment which turned out to be not so perpetual and went bankrupt in 2008, orphaning its two MMOs. Already hit with a setback, Gods & Heroes was bought up by Heatwave Interactive, developed further and released in 2011 to almost no fanfare. The game was fun, but riddled with bugs and containing very little content outside of questing. Heatwave came out shortly after with a blunt announcement: The game wasn’t running up to par.

This January, Heatwave stopped charging subscriptions in favor of a buy to play system, with the promise of an upcoming free to play system. In an announcement today, however, Heatwave has announced that there isn’t much of a development team left, and won’t be until the game finds funding.

However, at the end of 2011, it was clear that we would either have to let the team go, or find another way to keep them around. So, in order to keep the game alive and have a real chance at getting the free 2 play effort funded, we’ve reassigned the majority of the development team to new projects and made the service free for everyone. The game will have to remain in this state until we find further funding. I hope my honesty and transparency about what has been going on with G&H communicates our commitment and belief in the project.

Gods & Heroes isn’t shutting down any time soon, however. There is enough funding to cover hosting.

There is definitely no expiration date on Gods and Heroes and funding for that is not an issue. I want to make it very clear that we have no intention on shutting Gods and Heroes down and we are committed to the IP.

Gods & Heroes is still available via digital distribution for $10 with no subscription fees.

(Source: Gods & Heroes Forums)

Gods & Heroes Doesn’t Have Developers


Gods & Heroes has had a rough life for an MMO. Back in the day the game began under Perpetual Entertainment which turned out to be not so perpetual and went bankrupt in 2008, orphaning its two MMOs. Already hit with a setback, Gods & Heroes was bought up by Heatwave Interactive, developed further and released in 2011 to almost no fanfare. The game was fun, but riddled with bugs and containing very little content outside of questing. Heatwave came out shortly after with a blunt announcement: The game wasn’t running up to par.

This January, Heatwave stopped charging subscriptions in favor of a buy to play system, with the promise of an upcoming free to play system. In an announcement today, however, Heatwave has announced that there isn’t much of a development team left, and won’t be until the game finds funding.

However, at the end of 2011, it was clear that we would either have to let the team go, or find another way to keep them around. So, in order to keep the game alive and have a real chance at getting the free 2 play effort funded, we’ve reassigned the majority of the development team to new projects and made the service free for everyone. The game will have to remain in this state until we find further funding. I hope my honesty and transparency about what has been going on with G&H communicates our commitment and belief in the project.

Gods & Heroes isn’t shutting down any time soon, however. There is enough funding to cover hosting.

There is definitely no expiration date on Gods and Heroes and funding for that is not an issue. I want to make it very clear that we have no intention on shutting Gods and Heroes down and we are committed to the IP.

Gods & Heroes is still available via digital distribution for $10 with no subscription fees.

(Source: Gods & Heroes Forums)

Would You Sacrifice Immersion For An Elder Scrolls MMO?


Here at MMO Fallout, I like to take rumors and expand on them in theory rather than posting a simple “this might come out,” so at least if the game does turn out to be fake, we had a decent discussion. With the rumored upcoming announcement of the Elder Scrolls MMO, an announcement that will be about as surprising as Earthrise shutting down, I got to thinking: What would I be willing to sacrifice for an Elder Scrolls MMO? The answer? I’ll have to get back to you.

I have a certain disconnect with MMOs. Games like World of Warcraft and Everquest are enjoyable, and I take particular joy in building a character and giving him far more of a back story than is really necessary, but I have no emotional investment in anything that goes on in my quest grind to end-game or boredom, whichever comes first. Unlike most single player games, I am constantly reminded that I am indeed knee deep in slow moving pepper grinder, making my way up to the fate of endless raiding. The quest logs lining the side of my screen, hotbars down below, enemies that are impossible to defeat until I turn in a quest, level up, and can suddenly knock them upside the head without missing a beat.

But more so, it is the community that ruins my sense of immersion. I may not be a real general in the fight against hell, nor have I traversed the real land of the elves, and you won’t find my blaster in a sand dune on Tatooine, but any immersion I would have had in the game goes right out the door when I enter the first area and see names that amount to the creativity that might bleed out of a preteen AOL Instant Messenger chat room. And I’m not even going to include the thousands of Legolas and Gordon Freeman I’ve seen. As a writer, I understand that sometimes people just want to play as their favorite characters.

I’m talking about seeing xXxPwnNoObzxXx, or FkdUrMum95, or screen names that look like the person rolled their hands on the keyboard. The names serve an important purpose, no doubt: They are a free beacon to let me know who to avoid, because odds are engaging in discussion with players like FkdUrMum95 is just going to lead to the filling of my ignore list.

Is my stand elitist? Probably, I’d like to say that it isn’t. I log into World of Warcraft knowing that I will likely have my sexuality, weight, and social life questioned, someone will attempt to scam me, Chuck Norris jokes, Chuck Testa jokes, the cake is a lie, my mother is a ho, and at least one high level player will be complaining that his meme-based name was in style back when he created the character, and now he is stuck with it. But after ten straight years of Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim, I’ve come to expect something of a serious atmosphere. One without people bunny-hopping all over the map and playing dance emotes while saying “stripping 4 gold, plz tip,” one without the ridiculous holiday events that break immersion, where I am the sole hope for the survival of the world, and more importantly: One where the game isn’t compromised for the sake of building a world where thousands of people can interact online.

So I will play Elder Scrolls Online, but for me it will be a cheap imitation. Sure it may look like Elder Scrolls, taste like Elder Scrolls, and may fill me up, but it won’t grant the satisfaction of a true offline Elder Scrolls title.

RuneScape Free Trial Returns?


Last month I posted an article about a 14-day membership for new accounts. The trial was unannounced and held rather ambiguous requirements as to who could participate (at the time it appeared to be UK-only), and remained unmentioned by Jagex until later in the month when Mod Hippo posted to announce that the trial had ended.

With today’s update to RuneScape, it appears that the trial is back. Upon character creation, users are reporting seeing this:

I am checking up on the RuneScape forums to see if I can find any comment by Jagex staff and will update with any more information.