Tag: Removed

Gamigo Disables Ayanad Library On ArcheAge Unchained


Gamigo today announced that the Ayanad Library has been disabled on ArcheAge Unchained pending removal.

Howdy everyone,

The Ayanad Library has been disabled. It was planned to be retired in an upcoming update, but because of the performance issues it is causing, we have disabled it on ArcheAge: Unchained. Players that were in progress on Ayanad Library related quests, like the Ayanad Earring, will have those quests refreshed in an upcoming update. Affected players will be able to continue making progress after the update is released, which is anticipated for some time this December.

Thanks for your understanding and feedback!

~The ArcheAge Team

The Ayanad Library is an instance in ArcheAge that many players use to level up their characters. It also appears to be the source for major server lag due to the number of players opening instances.

Source: ArcheAge

[NM] Valve Cuts Off Another Shady Developer Over Fake Reviews


In a world where curation on Steam Greenlight is virtually nonexistent, shady developers seem to be getting more and more prevalent. Introduce Matan Cohen’s Studio, an indie developer consisting of two people (one of whom is probably named Matan Cohen) who released the game Art of Stealth. It wasn’t well received by a lot of people, with the only positive reviews suspiciously coming from accounts that are private and only seem to own one game (Art of Stealth). Before long, accusations of the developer deleting posts, flagging negative Youtube reviews, and flagging negative Steam reviews as “abusive” naturally came to light.

So what is wrong with Art of Stealth? It may be in the reviews of players claiming that there aren’t any actual stealth elements present within the gameplay, or the off-the-shelf Unity store graphics, the developer’s fragile ego, or the suspicious looking positive reviews. It didn’t take long for Valve to step in and swiftly remove the game from Steam outright, posting this announcement via a certified Valve Employee account:

We (Valve) have identified unacceptable behavior involving multiple Steam accounts controlled by the developer of this game, Matan Cohen. The developer appears to have created multiple Steam accounts to post a positive review for their own game. This is a clear violation of our review policy and something we take very seriously.
For these reasons, we are ending our business relationship with Matan Cohen and removing this game from sale. If you have previously purchased this game, it will remain accessible in your Steam library.

Luckily Valve’s forensics team didn’t need to do much work, the developer admitted the reviews were posted by friends.

A few friends of mine who study computer science with me in the university have decided to join Steam in order to support this game by posting positive reviews. My friends love Art of Stealth and they told me that some members from this forum post annoying comments on their reviews, only because they are positive.

The rise of shovelware games on Steam coupled with the lack of curation by Valve has only spurred the growth in watchdog groups constantly searching the shadows for games like the Art of Stealth trying to sneak in unnoticed among the virtual waterfall of games entering the marketplace on a daily basis. If anything, placing bad games on Steam has only become more dangerous as unscrupulous behavior is now more likely to be widely reported and ultimately do more long lasting damage to said developer’s reputation.

(Source: Steam)

Defiance Ditches Auction House After Instability


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Trion Worlds has announced that the recently implemented auction house in Defiance is being removed, citing an inability to fix server issues that the update brought about. Players will no longer be able to place auctions on the exchange beginning today (July 25th) and the feature as a whole will be completely removed within a few weeks.

As you know, we’ve been working hard to review and implement fixes. However, several challenges remain that must be resolved for the sake of the game, which include preventing players from using third party programs to inject currency into the game, maintaining a stable game environment, and fixing any issues that prevent players from logging in to the game. Removing the Exchange helps solve all of these challenges.

There are no plans to bring back the exchange in the future.

(Source: Defiance)

Valve Pulls Game After Developer Tweets Threat


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Social media has brought many great things to the gaming community, chief among which being a much closer and more personal connection with the people who make our games. Unfortunately, it has also had the effect of giving faces to the otherwise faceless, a voice to those who for the sake of the company’s public image, perhaps shouldn’t be given an open microphone.

Paranautical Activity has been removed from Steam and Valve has terminated its contract with the developer after Mike Maulbeck posted a profanity-laced rant on Twitter. In his tweets, Maulbeck called Valve “incompetent,” lamented the company’s monopoly, and expressed his hopes that the platform would no longer be a monopoly by the time his next game released. Maulbeck posted another tweet that has since been deleted, stating “I am going to kill gabe newell. He is going to die.”

Whether or not the “threat” was genuine is irrelevant to what transpired. At the end of the day, video games are a business and companies like Valve expect a certain amount of professional conduct from their partners. Business issues should be dealt with professionally via email, not through vitriolic rants on Twitter.

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[Europe] TERA Custom Guild Emblems Temporarily Removed


I’ve always said that developers/publishers should not punish the entire community for the actions of a small group. Now, I hadn’t taken a full look at the TERA guild emblems I posted (which were essentially dumped from a folder on my hard drive) until I started writing this article, but lo and behold I found a penis in the pile. Unsurprising in the highest order. In Europe, however, TERA publisher Frogster has taken upon itself to disable the feature entirely for everyone for the time being.

We had to remove the possibility to use custom guild emblems, as there were cases of inappropriate pictures.

The emblems aren’t gone forever, just until Frogster is able to filter them.

We haven’t just removed the guild emblems without contacting Bluehole Studios. We’re working together with them on this problem, and try our best to find a way to censure/filter inappropriate images.

Community Representative Sealath also explained that the publisher also has an issue with the logos being saved to the local hard drive.

(Source: TERA forums)

Jagex Removes Dice In Runescape: Fights Scams


Back in 2009 when Jagex created the bag of dice, an item that allows a player to roll a set of dice and broadcast the results to his clan chat, they didn’t exactly anticipate that players would take their invitation of emergent gameplay and go ahead and turn the item into a tool for underground gambling systems run by shady, often fly-by-night operators. And when Jagex threw the nuclear switch and knocked all of the bots offline a few weeks ago, the number of players sitting at the grand exchange (and elsewhere) advertising their dicing services rose exponentially. Barring one shattered poodle, Jagex was forced to step in and proclaim that this is why we can’t have nice things, Pepper.

In response to the growing complaints over spam, scams, and shady business, the dice have been disabled and will be removed upon the next content update. Mod Mark commented:

Don’t gamble! There are too many people who will try to scam you or alter the odds in their favour. It’s never supported by JAGEX unless it’s about gameplay (like the duel arena). It’s likely that dice scammers will move over to another method of trying to scam you, so please, be vigilant and remember… if it sounds too good to be true, it’s probably a lie.

Of course, dicing will simply be replaced by another popular method, assuming one hasn’t already. Still, busting bots and blasting a scam method in succession is rather impressive, even if the latter was essentially Jagex’s own Frankenstein’s monster.