NCSoft – Page 27 – MMO Fallout

Guild Wars: Xunlai Tournament House Dies On Operating Table

Guild Wars players are likely fairly angry at the news that, after nearly a year of operational work, the Xunlai Tournament House will not be returning. A web-accessible portion of Guild Wars, the tournament house acted as a betting spot, where players could attempt to predict the outcome of the game’s player vs player tournaments.

“After much analysis and discussion, we’ve decided to permanently retire the Xunlai Tournament House.”

Unfortunately, at one point during ArenaNet’s seven month trump through the game’s code, it was determined that the entire tournament house would need to be rebuilt from scratch, pulling resources away from Guild Wars 2 that could not be afforded.

I don’t think this news is too surprising to Guild Wars players, although the fact that the house died to support Guild Wars 2 may disappoint and anger some, but hey: Stuff happens. More on Guild Wars as it appears.

Unsurprisingly: NCsoft Record Profits

With 16,000 accounts gone, less queues! — An indicator of high sales.

If MMO Fallout were a physical entity, I’d have a lot more fun searching through its records, what with the shelves of documents and that ladder on wheels I’d get to ride around. Going back to the earlier days of Aion’s coverage, I discovered an announcement that the MMO had hit the three hundred thousand preorder mark, along with a reminder that it’s all about the retention rate.

So it comes as no surprise that NCsoft is reporting record profits over the past quarterly report. Profits are up over one thousand percent, while sales are up nearly one hundred percent. Unsurprisingly, Aion made up 48% of those sales. Surprisingly, however, Lineage and Lineage 2 are still selling very well, at twenty seven and twenty percent respectively.

NCsoft’s rebound is very welcoming to the gaming community, especially after the company’s net income plummeted 50% in quarter 3 of last year, shortly before Aion was released, and even more so as NCsoft attempts to suppress the memories of Tabula Rasa, whose failure hit the company hard this past year.

So good work NCsoft. Keep being who you are, and keep that sweet sweet cash flowing in.

Help Doctor Aeon: Get City of Heroes Graphics Update Early

2010-01-06 23:07:52 — Fight against television.

Dr. Aeon needs your help, presumably apart from constant wrong numbers trying to reach Aion’s customer support. In his war on television, and the “facts” they use to slander him, Aeon is calling on the best and brightest heroes and villains alike to help him spread his propaganda. Help him, and he may have something of far more value for you: A jump start on the upcoming City of X graphics upgrade, for all players.

Hopefully this news straight from the mouth of an insane roleplaying GM is more of an indication that the much needed graphics upgrade will be coming sooner rather than later (later still being sometime before Going Rogue goes…rogue). City of Heroes will be celebrating six years running this April, and six years has taken much of a toll on the title.

Next to Aion, City of Heroes still stands as one of NCsoft’s more profitable titles after all of these years, and the graphics upgrade is just icing on the cake at this point. Whether or not the fan reaction to the “event” will actually have a toll on release is unknown, but it is likely Dr. Aeon just knows something that we don’t.

City of Heroes: Free Transfers Until Feb. 28th

NCsoft would like to remind you that the free character transfer program, unlike some developers, that was originally scheduled from December to the end of January, should not be taken as a preclude to any servers shutting down or merging. That being said, NCsoft would also like to announce that said free transfer program will be extended until February 28th.

There are certain limitations to the transfer, however. You will have to change your name if it is taken on the new server, only six characters may be transferred per week, you cannot transfer between North American and European servers, not all possessions will transfer and you will lose super-group affiliation, prestige, and your supergroup base items. If you need more information, it is in your best interest to ask on the forums, as the knowledge base link NCsoft has provided is currently dead.

For more on City of Heroes and its not-preclude to a server merger, stay tuned to MMO Fallout.

Why Not A Cryptic Pass? NCsoft Pass? Turbine Pass!

Whatever you think about Sony, you can’t deny the deal they have going for their titles. For the price of only two MMOs per month, you can access virtually any Sony game you own. Everquest, Everquest 2, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Planetside, Star Wars Galaxies, Vanguard, Free Realms, and that console Everquest game. That’s 8 games for the price of two!

Going over Sony’s station pass got me thinking: Why don’t other developers have a similar deal? I would love to see an NCsoft Station Pass, that could bundle Aion, City of X, Lineage, Lineage 2 in one package. Or possibly a Turbine deal, a package of Dungeons and Dragons Online, Lord of the Rings Online, and Asheron’s Call. How about a Funcom pack, with Age of Conan and Anarchy Online in one deal?

Now, some will say that developers will be losing money on this, but I wholeheartedly disagree. In fact, Sony’s Station Pass has shown to be a way to coerce people into spending more than they normally would on subscriptions. To believe that even a fraction of the players who have the Station Pass would spend the over hundred dollars a month on each game’s subscription separately is absurd to say the least. Having such a pass could also breath life into the older titles on the list.

Jagex has an offering similar to this. Although not an MMO, players can subscribe to Runescape and FunOrb for a discount. When Stellar Dawn is launched, it is expected that players will be able to opt for an additional discount.

This may all be wishful thinking, but I would certainly pay for a Turbine Station pass.

AionSource.com: Another Reason To Use a Fake Email Address

starwars — I knew we couldn't trust the jedi!

My suggestion for dealing with fansites has always been, if you have to register for the forums, use a separate email and a separate password, and preferably a separate username than you use on the game the website is dedicated to. If your game of choice is Aion, an armed bodyguard following you around the internet may not be a bad decision either. NCsoft continues to wage the war against real money traders, and unfortunately it is the players who are getting caught in the crossfire, with several fansites being compromised in the past few months.

Not that I need an excuse to reiterate this point in a new article, but members of Aionsource.com should be very wary of what pops up in your email over the next few months. According to an email from Aionsource.com, their website was compromised several days ago and a list of email addresses was stolen, leading to a large number of Aion players receiving emails that are phishing scams.

If you are a member of Aionsource, consider changing your password. Passwords may not have been stolen this time, but there is no saying that won’t happen if there is a next time. Otherwise, still take that advice, but apply it to whatever non-corporate owned website you visit. Remember, if the hackers don’t get you, a disgruntled soon-to-be-ex administrator might.

More on Aion, account theft, and more as it comes.

Excuse Me Aion, Have We Met Before?

This 9 minute trailer for Aion’s future is best viewed in HD. What you are seeing is a collection of projects NCsoft is working on for Aion, to be released at different times and not as a single update/patch.

Some of the features noted:

DirectX 10
Cryengine 2 upgrade
New zones
Dynamic weather and seasons
Player Cities
Mounts
More fluid combat
More weapon types (crossbows for starters)
New classes
City sieges
Player owned cities
More

No this video isn’t new, but it is a good indicator.

So That’s Where The Lineage 3 Code Went!

1212500952-lineage3_11 — None shall pass!

Here at MMO Fallout, we pride ourselves on being able to not only take important legal matters and translate them into digestible snausages for the masses, but also the ability to refer to a one man team as “we.” With Atari Vs Turbine and Bethesda Vs Interplay on the table, it’s easy to overlook less reported cases. For starters, NCsoft Vs Bluehole Studios!

By the time Lineage 3 was first canned, quite a number of the game’s mechanics were already in place and, by measure, copyrighted. A couple members of the developer team moved on to Bluehole Studios, currently working on upcoming MMO “The Exiled Realm of Arborea” (TERA), sparking a lawsuit by NCsoft. According to NCsoft, the two developers took with them source code relating to several copyrighted technologies. Mr. Kang and Mr. Yo are the former employees named in the lawsuit.

Sadly the case jumped right over MMO Fallout, in terms of breaking news. At least until today, where the Seoul District Court has awarded over 2 billion won in compensation to NCsoft. Naturally, Bluehole is expected to appeal the ruling. It is uncertain what effect this hefty fine will have on Bluehole, or TERA.

2 billion won equates to approximately $1.7 million dollars USD. More on TERA, not so much on Lineage 3, as it appears.

So That's Where The Lineage 3 Code Went!

2 billion won equates to approximately $1.7 million dollars USD. More on TERA, not so much on Lineage 3, as it appears.

NCsoft Confirms “Character Hack” Via Packet Manipulation.

The saga of NCsoft account security continues with the confirmation that an existent exploit in NCsoft’s systems. Not too long ago, I reported on Scayth, an Aion player whose account was compromised while it was inactive. The account was looted, and one or more of the characters may have been used for gold farming purposes.

Thanks to Scayth’s ongoing updates over at Aionsource, he was able to procure a reply (finally) from NCsoft over the account issues. The full image is below, but I will summarize:

The majority of accounts compromised have been through social engineering, viruses, fansites, and keyloggers.
The account was never hacked, the individual characters were. The account itself was not in any danger.
The hacker was able to use packet manipulation to access different characters at whim. The process is “very complicated” and did not give them full access.
Few characters can be accessed in this fashion, Scayth just happened to be one of the unlucky few, among 10 others who were also restored.
The process tricked the system into believing that the character belonged to that account.
The servers were hotfixed to prevent this that same day.

What will come next in the NCsoft security saga? MMO Fallout will certainly be here to cover the events.

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