Tag: Perfect World Entertainment

Lessons From 2013 #13: Until We Say It's Over


champs

You have to hand it to Cryptic, the company just won’t give up whether you want them to or not. Champions Online launched way back in 2009 and while the game was pretty fun it suffered from the effects of being the first game on a new engine. Systems weren’t fleshed out, the game is still pretty clunky, and the system feels bogged down by all of the new features that Cryptic has piled on over the years. Rather than leaving the game in the dust, Cryptic Studios announced earlier this year that they are opening Cryptic North, a brand new studio primarily made up of ex-Flying Lab Software employees. The studio has one goal, to improve Champions Online and allow the game to fully utilize the current Cryptic Engine platform.

Everything’s been quiet on the western front, so we have to assume that the team is busy plucking away. Hopefully we will hear more about Champions 2.0 in 2014.

The Big Perfect World Finance Chart


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Perfect World Entertainment becomes the latest company to enter MMO Fallout’s portfolio of charts and graphs. As you can see from the chart above, the Chinese developer/publisher has come a long way just since the earliest financial statements available on their website (Q3 2007). This quarter, Perfect World made out with $136.2 million in total revenue and $104.4 million in gross profit. Robert Xiao, CEO of Perfect World, was happy to report that the company’s bottom line has been boosted by 50%, thanks to strong reception of numerous expansion packs and content updates, as well as the release of several new Chinese games.

In the pipeline, Perfect World is gearing up for releasing DOTA2 in China, as well as the Chinese localization for Neverwinter. Perfect World will also acquire 100% equity in two of China’s leading gaming portals, Wuhu Huitian and Daqu. Revenues for Q4 2013 are expected to increase by 2-7% over this quarter.

(Source: Perfect World)

PSA: Use Your Perfect World Codes Now


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If I learned one thing from writing here at MMO Fallout, it is that publishers love consolidated launchers and stores. Steam, Origin, Uplay, iTunes, Google Play, Amazon Store, and even that evil decaying behemoth once known as Games for Windows Live. Perfect World Entertainment has joined the list of publishers with the introduction of Arc, an upcoming consolidated launcher for Perfect World’s games. Eventually everything will be moved over to the Arc Network, with a single client handling all of Perfect World’s game downloads and operations, code redemption, etc.

What is crucially important to this process is that keys issued before the transition will not be redeemable.

It is important to note that most keys that were issued before the initial transition will not be redeemable in the new system, due to an entirely new system being implemented. If you currently possess any keys or codes, we recommend redeeming them before the new website launch.

Check out the whole announcement at the link below.

(Source: Perfect World)

Perfect World Talks: RaiderZ


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RaiderZ is an action-combat game from the minds of MAIET Entertainment, the folks behind GunZ: The Duel and GunZ 2. Released in 2012 as a free to play MMO, RaiderZ features active combat which places an emphasis on dodging and blocking incoming attacks, as well as an emphasis on crafting and big boss fights. Sadly, RaiderZ has hit some hard times with the announcements that Gameforge and Neowiz would be shutting down their servers in Europe and South Korea respectively. What does this mean for RaiderZ? I had to know.

So naturally, I saddled up and went directly to the source with my pen, paper, and a box of Necco Wafers in case I needed a bribe. With Perfect World Entertainment as the only western host remaining, I wanted to know where RaiderZ stood in terms of support from its remaining publishers, and developer MAIET Entertainment. PWE was kind enough to hook me up with Senior Product Manager Mark Hill, who had no problem answering my questions.

Omali: RaiderZ has shut down in Europe and Korea, with both announcing their closure around the same time. How did Perfect World manage to come out unscathed?

Hill: We are highly committed to RaiderZ and to the fans of the game, so we haven’t even considered closing our servers at this point. We feel that we can build upon the current success of RaiderZ and continue to improve the game for current and future players.

O: What do you say to players who might be concerned over the fact that half of RaiderZ’s territories just shut down?

H: It is very unfortunate if they were involved in the closure of servers that they were playing on. As a gamer, I know how it feels when a game you’re passionate about is no longer available, and it’s not a good feeling. That goes double for MMOs, and for the players that dedicate hundred and even thousands of hours to the game, community, and the publisher.

While I wish there was a way that those affected players would be able to resume their progress on our servers, it’s unfortunately logistically and contractually impossible. However, we do encourage anyone that is able to start up a character on our servers. I think they’ll find a solid and dedicated community to experience the game with, and it may even give them a chance to level up a new character in ways that they didn’t experience before.

O: With Gameforge stepping out of the picture, has any interest been expressed in picking up European publishing?

H: We’re definitely always looking for new market opportunities, and seeing the feedback from European players that were affected makes it clear that they still want to play. There are license and contract restrictions still in place even after they closed their servers, but we have discussed the possibility of Perfect World Entertainment bringing RaiderZ back to Europe. Of course I can’t promise anything, but it is something we are interested in.

O: Is RaiderZ region locked to North America or are players from Europe capable of creating accounts and logging in?

H: European players are able to create accounts on the Perfect World servers. They can register by visiting raiderz.perfectworld.com.

O: Have you considered putting RaiderZ on Steam to bring in a wider audience?

H: Oh man, you’re reading my mind! Yes, we have considered it. But before we do, we want to make sure the game is in top shape in terms of bug fixes, player retention, and overall game experience, which is what we’re working on now. Keep an eye out on Steam, though!

O: Is MAIET still committed to developing content for RaiderZ?

H: Absolutely! As a matter of fact, we have big expansion coming soon that is current being QA tested. You can read all about it in the forums here. We talk to the developers at MAIET every day, and we are both committed to making the game a success.

O: If MAIET does cease development, is there any chance of Perfect World adopting a license similar to Neowiz in Japan, allowing for more in-house control of content?

H: That’s a great question, but it’s not something that we’ve considered at this point. We’ve heard great things out of Japan, and are always open to new opportunities in order to ensure the continued success of the game, and making a positive experience for the players.

I want to thank Perfect World Entertainment and Mark Hill for taking some time to answer our questions. You can check out RaiderZ for free at Perfect World’s website.

MMOrning Shots: Champions Tronline


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Today’s MMOrning Shot comes to us from Perfect World Entertainment, and shows a piece of the new story arc hitting Champions Online, FATAL ERROR. Players are tasked with saving the world’s supercomputer from being hacked, I can only assume by a subsection of comic-book rendered neckbeards living in their mother’s basement. Episode 1: Intranet Deployment, has launched on the live servers allowing players to dive in and grab some exclusive gear and even a vanity action figure, as well as Questionite ore.

Intranet Deployment acts as a daily instance/mission. You can check out the announcement page at the link below.

(Goto: Champions Online)

Perfect World Rolls Back Neverwinter Servers To Fix Exploit


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Last time we checked in with Perfect World over the Neverwinter auction house exploit, the company was pretty determined to keep the possibility of a rollback secluded only to those accounts that were affected by this weekend’s brou ha ha. At one point the company must have determined that character-specific rollbacks were not on the cards, as Neverwinter has performed a rollback to early Saturday morning.

We took the Neverwinter OBT down for emergency maintenance, found the bug, corrected it and tested it. In order to fix the damage this exploit caused to the in-game economy, we implemented a necessary rollback of our servers to 5:20 AM PDT the morning of May 19, 2013. This means that characters have been reverted to the state they were in at that time, pre-exploit damage. That includes items, level, experience, etc.

All Zen exchanged after this time (whether spent or traded on the auction house) will be returned to its original owner. There is apparently an issue with returning astral diamonds which PWE is still working on. The Foundry was not affected by the rollback, so players who created levels or made changes after the rollback time will be happy to see that their work was not reversed. Characters created during that period will be lost, unfortunately. It appears that Perfect World is working on a package for players to thank them for being patient during this period.

As far as complaints that the bug existed long before this weekend, going further back into earlier beta tests, Perfect World will be checking logs and removing accounts that were already using the exploit in open beta.

We are performing additional log searches and investigations to ensure that the appropriate actions are taken against any accounts that performed the exploit before the rollback window. Exploits that were performed prior to our rollback window make up a fraction of a percent of total impact, so we will be dealing with those issues selectively as not to cause greater impact on those legitimate testers.

You can read the entire FAQ below.

(Source: Neverwinter FAQ)

[Perfect World] Help, My Region Is Disabled!


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Good evening, folks. Omali of MMO Fallout here (who else?) with a short notice for some of you attempting to access the Neverwinter open beta. Some of you have been emailing me asking why you are receiving a “disabled region” notification. As always, I will remind you that I don’t work for any MMO developer and my inbox is not a place to send your technical questions.

Perfect World would like to remind you all that the following countries are banned from accessing any game on the Perfect World Entertainment library. In many cases, the ban is due to regional licensing, and in others it is due to administrative reasons. Unfortunately, this also includes IP addresses that are “close to” any of the following countries.

  • China
  • Hong Kong
  • Macau
  • South Korea
  • Taiwan
  • Vietnam
  • Russia
  • Egypt
  • Japan (Only in Rusty Hearts)

Star Trek Online Is Perfect World’s Best Product


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So life isn’t exactly perfect over at the Cryptic Studios offices right now. Long story short, a series of bad choices and oversights on the part of the Cryptic team lead to a very long thread and a long apology from producer Dan Stahl. I will allow Mr. Stahl to explain it in concise detail:

An apology is due, and while I’ve admitted fault in previous posts about this , I’ll do so again in this one. The release that was pushed to Holodeck last week failed in several critical ways. There was a failure on the part of a designer to test their work before it was checked into the game. Similarly, there was a failure in communication with the QA team on the said check in and on top of that, no one headed the concerns on TRIBBLE. Ultimately, this is all my responsibility as the lead on the team and I do apologize. There has been corrective action on our end to address this issue and it is our intention that the build going out to Holodeck tomorrow will resolve problems introduced last week. This doesn’t mean that all bugs on Holodeck are magically gone, it means that we are looking into the processes that cause these bugs and taking action to correct them.

In addition, the removal of Fleet Marks was a heavy handed change. It needed to be done because it was getting out of hand and there was an ever increasing amount of exploitation in the Foundry to maximum Fleet Mark rewards. That said, we should have had the Fleet Mark changes we are making this week ready to go last week so there wouldn’t have been a week with the drop in Fleet Mark earning. Again sorry. It doesn’t make us feel any better when we make stupid mistakes.

One bit of information to take out of this is Stahl’s comment that Star Trek Online is currently Perfect World Entertainment’s most successful title. This puts the game over other big titles in Perfect World’s library, from the Torchlight series, Blacklight, PWI, and more.

While you may not agree with all of our designs and decisions, the proof is in the success the game is having and how much the game continues to grow. While we don’t share our internal information, STO is the best performing game for Perfect World Entertainment and is enjoy month after month increases in new captains.

This also puts Star Trek Online above Cryptic’s other game, Champions Online.

(Source: Star Trek Online Forums)

Star Trek Online Is Perfect World's Best Product


screenshot_2010-01-12-13-03-55

So life isn’t exactly perfect over at the Cryptic Studios offices right now. Long story short, a series of bad choices and oversights on the part of the Cryptic team lead to a very long thread and a long apology from producer Dan Stahl. I will allow Mr. Stahl to explain it in concise detail:

An apology is due, and while I’ve admitted fault in previous posts about this , I’ll do so again in this one. The release that was pushed to Holodeck last week failed in several critical ways. There was a failure on the part of a designer to test their work before it was checked into the game. Similarly, there was a failure in communication with the QA team on the said check in and on top of that, no one headed the concerns on TRIBBLE. Ultimately, this is all my responsibility as the lead on the team and I do apologize. There has been corrective action on our end to address this issue and it is our intention that the build going out to Holodeck tomorrow will resolve problems introduced last week. This doesn’t mean that all bugs on Holodeck are magically gone, it means that we are looking into the processes that cause these bugs and taking action to correct them.

In addition, the removal of Fleet Marks was a heavy handed change. It needed to be done because it was getting out of hand and there was an ever increasing amount of exploitation in the Foundry to maximum Fleet Mark rewards. That said, we should have had the Fleet Mark changes we are making this week ready to go last week so there wouldn’t have been a week with the drop in Fleet Mark earning. Again sorry. It doesn’t make us feel any better when we make stupid mistakes.

One bit of information to take out of this is Stahl’s comment that Star Trek Online is currently Perfect World Entertainment’s most successful title. This puts the game over other big titles in Perfect World’s library, from the Torchlight series, Blacklight, PWI, and more.

While you may not agree with all of our designs and decisions, the proof is in the success the game is having and how much the game continues to grow. While we don’t share our internal information, STO is the best performing game for Perfect World Entertainment and is enjoy month after month increases in new captains.

This also puts Star Trek Online above Cryptic’s other game, Champions Online.

(Source: Star Trek Online Forums)

[Community] First Impressions Are Everything


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Jbuck1984 over on Reddit wants RaiderZ developer MAIET Entertainment to know that it took him ten minutes to decide that the MMO wasn’t worth investing the time into. Simple: Upon entering the game, Jbuck1984 was immediately greeted by a spam bot that could not be blocked due to poor UI and an impossible to read name.

Would have loved to give it a shot, but there was a random gold spammer with the name llllllllll. In game I couldn’t differentiate the L’s from the I’s and I couldn’t click in the chat window to block him. The only next logical step for someone like me who gets annoyed very quickly was to uninstall the game. Thanks Raiderz for making the interface so horrible. If you couldn’t develop a functional chat window I can only imagine what the rest of the game is like.

Some of you will likely see uninstalling the game as a bit of an overreaction, but that doesn’t make Jbuck1984’s point any less true. Walking into an MMO and being presented with an environment like the one described is a bit like entering a nice restaurant and having solicitors start berating you from the entrance to your table to try and sell you stuff. The food might be of five star quality, and odds are a good few people with higher levels of patience will stick around long enough to eat it. There are, however, others who will just get up and go to a restaurant that doesn’t tolerate solicitors.

The post over at Reddit was deleted before this article was published, so you’ll have to excuse there not being a link to the original post. If you have a thought you would like to submit to Community Concerns about RaiderZ or any other MMO, throw us a comment below.