Today is the day we look at January and say “See you next year!” Yes it can only be February, and February can only mean another Everquest expansion is releasing.
February starts off with two titles releasing: Global Agenda and Star Trek Online, on the first and second respectively. An important thing to remember about Global Agenda is that the game does have a single player and multiplayer free component, and that the persistent world AvA is the only portion that requires a subscription. Whether this subscription will maintain or go the way of Cities XL and Crimecraft is yet to be seen.
Star Trek Online, on the other hand, will be seeking the approval of Trekkies and non-Trekkies alike. Considering its place at the top of Steam’s sales list for the past few weeks, if Cryptic can keep the retention rate high, they will have a highly successful title on their hands. As for the myriad of preorder exclusives, we can only hope they will be available at some point on the Cryptic store.
This month also brings us some interesting news from Star Vault and the oft-delayed and much trolled Mortal Online. This month, today in fact, Mortal Online will be going into an open beta phase, where everyone can join! Although relegated to their own open beta server, that may or may not be capped, alongside a 5 euro discount in the box copy, anyone can join in for free and start playing. And by playing, of course, I mean jumping on the forums to textually assault those who paid for beta access by preorder. Mortal Online will stay in open beta until the game goes gold, when it will start charging the monthly fee and you will be required to own the game.
There’s no time for that, Omali, you say! Everquest 2 has a new expansion coming out this month! Sentinel’s Fate brings with it your normal expansion goody bag. New zones, new dungeons, a higher level cap (90), new loot, new weapons and armor, and new quests. Four hundred quests to be exact, and thousands of new items.
As for MMO Fallout, I decided to prune a couple of categories from the Live list due to clutter and inconsistency of updates. The Anarchy Online, Tibia, and Ragnarok Online categories have been deleted. Hopefully the Live category will be that much less cluttered.
Surely this can’t be all that is happening in February, you say. Of course not, but if I told you everything now, what reason would you have to keep coming back until next month? I see your trickery, internet, and I will not fall for it. Not after all of those lost buffs.
Aion launches alongside the delayed Fallen Earth come September 22nd, and those of you who have watched sales figures over the past few months will have seen Aion topping the charts for the PC market, both retail and digital through Steam and Direct 2 Drive. Aion preorders have gone so well, that NCSoft has proudly boasted the latest mark of over 300,000 preorders for the upcoming MMORPG. NCsoft is looking to make Aion not just localized, but going forward and culturalising the title for Western markets, changing various mechanics in the game to suit a different play style and expectation.
MMO Fallout 