Tag: Server

[Column] Champions of Titan, or, Schrödinger’s MMO


What is an MMO? A miserable pile of microtransactions.

Today I’d like to talk about Champions of Titan, or my preferred title; Schrödinger’s MMO. You may recognize Champions of Titan by its previous namesake Wild Buster. Wild Buster along with Guardians of Ember and a few other titles were removed from the Steam store where it was hosted under publisher Insel Games after it came to light that the CEO was manipulating reviews in order to gin up more sales. Insel Games has since gone on to exist in a mostly vegetative state, while its published games were either shut down or spun off to new companies.

Case in point being today’s topic. Wild Buster was spun off to IDC Games whose name does not, as it turns out, stand for “I Don’t Care.” It might, since a quick browse through the forums of many games that IDC publishes comes up with two major topics: The server performance is terrible and customer support is virtually nonexistent, and more than one of the forums just flat out wouldn’t load when I tried to boot them up.

Champions of Titan is alive and well, in a theoretical sense. In a practical sense, it doesn’t seem like the game has been properly functioning in quite some time. People are logging in to find that the game client no longer works, what with there being no character selection screen.

Now comes the hard part: How long exactly has the game been broken and is it broken for everyone? The answer to the second question is evidently no, as the earliest complaint that I found on the forums discussing the above issue dates back to October 21, however another player posted a first impressions piece on December 13. There are multiple threads discussing the fact that the game doesn’t work going through the end of July with sporadic comments from staff asking players to contact customer support.

It seems to be the case that nobody is really trying to play the game so the number of people getting rejected from the client not working is virtually none with even less willing to go on the forums and complain about it. I got a response from the IDC people after submitting a ticket that they are aware of the situation, and you would imagine that the game just being wholly inaccessible would be a major priority to be fixed right away, but after a week since my report and ten months since the earliest report, it’s apparently not the case.

But that’s just my opinion on the whole thing.

H1Z1 Orders More Hardware To Deal With PS4 Overload


The H1Z1 open beta has arrived on Playstation 4 today, and many of you trying to log in may be unlucky enough to find yourself getting stopped at the door. Daybreak Game Company has announced via Twitter that 200,000+ concurrent users are trying to get online and the servers are having some trouble keeping up. As a result, more hardware is being spun up to accommodate the extra server load.

Daybreak has asked that players hold on tight while the servers stabilize.

(Source: H1Z1)

Trion Worlds Announces Rift Prime: Subscription Server for Spring


As surprising as it may be, Trion Worlds was once very much against the idea of Rift going free to play. Yes, that Trion Worlds, the one with the $100 weapon pack in Defiance, the one that has more than once had to apologize for stepping over the line with its monetization strategy for Rift. In fact, it was Trion CEO Scott Hartsman who back in 2011 said that free to play would be a large net negative for Rift and its community.

“One of the assumptions people make is you can just take a game and throw a switch and change the model. For starters, you’d have to decide that that would be a good thing, and I do not think it would be – that would be a fairly large net negative for Rift and Rift community.”

Well all that is going to change, as Trion Worlds has announced the launch of Rift Prime, a subscription only server set to go public this spring. Rift Prime will, as stated, require a subscription and will remove loot boxes and drastically reduce the presence of the cash shop.

In the Spring of 2018, we will launch a new server, RIFT Prime. We’ve paid a lot of attention in discussions with all of you and within the broader gaming community regarding business models in the MMO and games industry as a whole.

We have the opportunity to experiment with this fresh RIFT server using an oft-requested subscription model and progressively unlocked content. Our goal for RIFT Prime is to provide the experience that many of you have requested: no lockboxes, a significantly reduced store with more of the current store-based items obtained through gameplay (or removed entirely) – plus the excitement of sequential progression through RIFT’s content with monthly milestones and achievements.

More details on the cash shop are on their way.

(Source: Rift)

Perpetuum Online To Shut Down Its Servers This Month


Perpetuum Online may be shutting down its official servers, but the game isn’t necessarily going away forever. Avatar Creations last week announced that, after seven years, the official Perpetuum servers will go offline as of January 25. If you happen to have an itch that only Perpetuum can scratch, you’ll still be able to log in to one of the game’s already available standalone servers, operated by members of the community.

We cannot release the live server’s database to the public due to privacy issues, however DEV Crm is committed to keep the live DB alive with his own private server solution. This won’t be the same as the current official server in terms of speed and availability and it’s strictly a “no promises made” gig, but it’s something.

The official news post goes into more details on standalone server operations. There are presently five servers online, however most have single digit player counts.

(Source: Perpetuum)

And Then There Were 5: The Old Republic Merges Servers


Star Wars: The Old Republic has come a long way since its 2011 launch, and Bioware has plenty in store for the game going forward. Details regarding the upcoming United Forces update hit the official website today, and a big part of the update involves merging the seventeen remaining servers down to five. There will be two North American and three European servers, one for English, French, and German in the latter category.

The United Forces update expands your connection to a galactic-sized community of players. We will be integrating our existing seventeen servers to five new servers, one for each existing region and language. Our goal is to make this experience as simple and rewarding as possible.

The FAQ goes into detail in regards to legacy ranks, achievements, and more. Premium subscribers who have more than 52 characters per server following the merge will be accommodated for but will be unable to create new characters as long as they are above the limit. Free players will have all characters above the 2 per server limit deactivated.

Currently, a Premium (Subscriber) account is allowed a maximum of 52 characters per server. Following the United Forces update, accounts with more than 52 characters on a server will be accommodated. You will still be able to access and play each of those characters. However, if you wish to make any new characters after that point, you will need to delete characters until you are back at or below the cap of 52. For Free-to-Play accounts, this process will work a little differently. Following the United Forces update, if your account has characters beyond the Free-to-Play limit of 2, then all your characters will be set to ‘deactivated’. This allows you to log in and choose which characters you would like to activate and play.

Bioware’s announcement of the mergers has received some criticism from players on Role Playing servers being merged into standard servers.

(Source: The Old Republic)

[NM] Gravity Rush 2 Servers Shutting Down Just One Year After Launch


Sony Japan has just announced that the servers for Gravity Rush 2 will shut down on January 18, 2018, just one year after its launch on the Playstation 4. While the game itself will still be playable, the following services will be shut off:

  • Receive, send a challenge
  • Ranking browsing
  • Receive, Post Treasure Hint
  • Receive, post, review photo ghost
  • Obtaining a dusty token and obtaining its remuneration

Gravity Rush 2 was developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan Studio in conjunction with Team Siren (aka Team Gravity) and released in January 2017 on the Playstation 4. For the remainder of the service, players will see an increase in dusty token drops to obtain desired items before the servers go down for good.

ArcheAge Plans More Server Mergers


Trion Worlds has announced that more server mergers are coming to ArcheAge, with twelve servers being merged into four across North America and Europe. As is usual with ArcheAge server mergers, rather than merging into an existing server, ArcheAge merges two or more existing servers into fresh new servers. Instead of players on the merging server losing their land to the higher population server, everyone loses their land and must claim anew.

A Server Evolution is similar to a server merge that you’d see in other online games, except those affected by it will be moved to a new server rather than a currently existing server. We perform Server Evolutions in ArcheAge to give everyone involved the most equal chance at claiming land and castles in their new homes.

The list of affected servers can be found at the source below. The transfer process will begin on August 16th and go until the 29th. More information at the link below.

(Source: ArcheAge)

New Everquest Server Will Never Catch Up


Everquest pumps out progression servers on a pretty regular basis, but have you ever looked at them and wondered what life would be like if the community never voted to progress past Planes of Power, aka when the game stopped being good (your words, not mine). Well consider that thirst quenched, as Daybreak Game Company has announced that the next progression server will do just that.

When server Agnarr launches on May 24, it will unlock new expansions every 12 weeks, without interference or vote, until finally Planes of Power unlocks. After that, nothing more. The server is true box, meaning one client per computer. As always, All Access membership will be required.

More details can be found at the FAQ below.

(Source: Everquest)

Turbine Reneges On Private Server Plans, Shutting Down Asheron’s Call


Turbine Entertainment has announced that Asheron’s Call and Asheron’s Call 2 will shut down on January 31st, 2017, following the news this week that Dungeons & Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online would be spun off into a separate company with Turbine continuing to focus on the mobile gaming sector. Those of you who have followed the game for the past few years now will no doubt be wondering what happened to those private servers that Turbine announced nearly three years ago?

They aren’t coming. According to a post on the forums, while private servers were planned, the team at Turbine was unable to make the plans a reality.

We had hoped to be able to hand off our servers to the community, so our most loyal players could continue their journey through Dereth. Unfortunately, this is something we were unable to do.

Both games will be free to play until the servers shut down, with new account creation disabled entirely.

(Source: Asheron’s Call)

Lineage II: Server Transfers Stopping Over the Holidays


Lineage II players thinking about changing servers might want to make up their minds soon. In a post on the official website, NCSoft has announced that server transfers will be shutting down for two weeks while the staff takes a much deserved holiday break. In addition to the two week break, the post notes that if your transfer on December 14th fails, it will not be processed until January.

Important dates are noted below:

  • December 14: Last server transfers are processed, and closure of Server Transfer applications.
  • January 4: Server Transfer applications open again.
  • January 11: Server transfers are processed, and function as normal once again.

(Source: Lineage II)