Sony Online Entertainment – Page 20

Everquest II: Cataclysm May Be On Its Way

everquest-2-sentinels-fate-logo — Cataclysm

John Smedley acknowledges that Everquest II players are not World of Warcraft players, as reflected in moves by Sony Online Entertainment to not jump on the bandwagon by introducing a $25 mount to…To be fair, I’m sure that the Everquest II Prowlers were being developed years before World of Warcraft did it, more likely around a time when Sony was allowing sandbox title Star Wars Galaxies remain unique rather than dramatically shifting gameplay, say, right after a major expansion, overly simplifying the gameplay in order to compete with WoW. That’s just crazy talk.

In an interview with Kotaku, Smedley admitted that it isn’t current Everquest players that Sony is afraid of losing to World of Warcraft, but rather the pool of new MMO players Sony is looking to grab away from Blizzard. Despite what one might think, Smedley apparently has deep respect for Blizzard and their behemoth of an MMO, noting:

“The reason I respect Blizzard so much is that they don’t make massive mistakes,” he said, talking about the risk of making massive changes to a massive game. “They have the goods and they know it. So why not take a risk like that?

Of course, Everquest II isn’t the only MMO looking at a Cataclysm. Maplestory is set to release the Big Bang patch, which is supposed to be a dramatic change to the game’s map and leveling curve. Crimecraft is set to launch Bleedout tomorrow, a PvE storyline system. Of course, more MMOs will follow with their own world shifting events.

Burn The Sea For Free: PotBS Is Now Free To Play

Legally speaking, Flying Lab is required to give players 30 days notice before making changes to the subscription and payment system for Pirates of the Burning Sea, which they surpassed with flying colors thanks to the presence of some game busting bugs, not to mention the Thanksgiving weekend. After a long wait, players can finally play Pirates of the Burning Sea for free…partially.

As far as content goes, free players are restricted from premium missions, which can be purchased at the shop. Otherwise, the system is pretty traditional. Character slots, dockyard slots, ship storage slots, economy slots, ship insurance, and a few other things must be purchased from the item store. Premium accounts get a bump in the restrictions, and premium is automatically applied to those who subscribed in the past (with good account standing) and those who subscribe for even just a month. Captain’s Club members (the $15 a month crowd), gain full access to the game, with added bonuses of a 20% discount to everything in the cash shop, automatic access to the premium missions, and a 10% bonus to loot, experience, and faction standing.

You can read the differences here: http://www.burningsea.com/page/f2p

If you’ve been holding off playing Pirates of the Burning Sea, now is the best time to get in. You can’t go much lower than free.

Play Star Wars Galaxies Free This Week

What does Star Wars and Indiana Jones have in common? If you answered Harrison Ford, you would be correct. And if you want to be your own Indiana Solo and rescue Princess Belloq (kudos if you know who that is off-hand), from the evil Toht The Hutt-I’m just going to stop merging names. If you’d like a hat and whip of your own, you are cordially invited back to Star Wars Galaxies this week, while subscribers will receive the items as wearable cosmetics.

Sony is also offering a free to play week, which technically started two days ago (the 23rd) and goes until the 30th of November. During this period, you can pick up your fedora and whip, while after the period ends those who subscribed or stayed subscribed can turn the items into wearables. Otherwise, they’re really only good for displaying in your house.

So there is no confusion, the whip is cosmetic and does not act as a weapon. For those of you thinking of checking out Star Wars: Galaxies, the link above has a nice list of new updates you may have missed.

Pirates of the Burning Sea: F2P Delayed

Bugs! Everyone hates them and yet none of us are willing to tell them that they aren’t paying rent and need to either shape up or ship out. Sure we all talk about bugs behind their back, but apparently it’s not enough as they are still with us. Especially considering that they break hearts, delay everything they touch, and generally annoy the hell out of us.

For Pirates of the Burning Sea players, the past few weeks have not been great, and the objective date of November 22nd (according to Flying Lab being the earliest possible date, legally, due to disclosure requirements) for the big transition is not being met, and there were a few issues with players being unable to transfer off of closed servers during the recent merger. In the case of the free to play launch, glitches are being blamed, with the developers noting that they would like to spend Thanksgiving with their families, not at work fixing bugs that would have appeared had they launched today.

The team is looking at the week after Thanksgiving for launch, which you can read more about here: http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=77188

Everquest 2: Extended Free Gold Weekend

Everquest II went free to play just a few months ago, and the folks at Sony Online Entertainment want to spread the wealth…for a few days at least. If you’ve been playing the free version of Everquest II and are interested in what those elite gold members are doing, you’re in luck: Sony is allowing you full access to what the gold members get, and for free. Bronze members will have access to higher level spells, extra bag space, bank space, extra coin and journal quests.

The free trial lasts until the Sunday and started today, so you’re already a day late. Check out more information here: http://everquest2.com/news/read/current/3756.

By The Way: Everquest II Server Mergers Abound

A great man once told me, “mark my words, Everquest II will have a big server merge less than six months after it goes free to play.” I can’t recall who said this, and thanks to the wonders of corrupt hard drives and lack of backup copies I no longer have his name on file, so I will let him take credit wherever he is. Those of you playing Everquest II, be it the free or paid version, are likely well aware of today’s announcement that Sony will be shuttering a number of Everquest II live servers. Sixteen servers, overall, are merging into eight, with the remaining eleven being unaffected.

Players with legacy titles will have their titles changed to “of <server name>.” The server mergers themselves are nothing surprising, however, as Sony put it:

We’ve been planning to merge the EQII Live servers for a long while now, and most of you have been asking for it to happen for just as long. As part of our ongoing effort to utilize community feedback and deliver the best gameplay experience possible, I am happy to announce that we will begin merging several servers this fall. Bigger population density on a server is just simply more fun for everyone involved, so it’s time to get it done.

Everquest had a server merger just a couple months ago. It happens when your MMO is not named World of Warcraft.

DC Universe Online Delayed Until 2011

dc_scr_grpAct_Got_003_r1 — Sorry Preorderers...

Holy batjinks, Batman! It’s a letter from The Riddler! It reads,

Dear Batman and Robin,

No doubt you’ve put down fifty or sixty bucks on the upcoming MMO DC Universe Online, with the hopes of playing it this November. You’ll find that I have stolen all of the DC Universe Preorders and have hidden them in a location that neither you or your insipid heroes will ever find without my help. If you want any chance of finding your precious preorders by early 2011, you will need to follow this riddle. The answer lies in a 1979 song by new wave band Oingo Boingo.

Thanks to the hijinks of the Riddler, DC Universe Online will not be launching this November. Instead, the title has been pushed to sometime in early 2011, whatever that might mean. If you’ve preordered the game, you’ll find yourself with a guaranteed spot in the ongoing beta. Other than that, you’re out of luck for the full version. Look at it this way, you’ll get that much more time playing the (albeit broken and unfinished) game that much longer!

Looking forward to more information on DC Universe.

Psst…Clone Wars Adventures Is For Kids…

Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures launched ten days ago to moderate fanfare from the media (IE: Me), a factor that can mostly be attributed to the idea that the game is for kids. This isn’t to say that Clone Wars Adventures is a low quality game, simply that many kids are likely to just jump right into the game, rather than research it beforehand. Any research being done will most probably be by the parents, and as a direct result many of the articles are directed towards that group.

Now, I do the occasional review of Nintendo DS and Wii games over at Giantbomb.com, but I can honestly say I have never played Imagine: Party Time Babyz nor do I have any inclination towards the title. I’m sure by my standards it is a sloppily put together low budget shovelware title that copies every other mini-game framework on the market and sticks it on the shelf for fifty bucks, knowing that little girls will see the photographs of babies on the front and beg and scream at their mothers to buy it, but to each his own. What you also don’t see me doing is buying the game and reviewing it, from the perspective of a twenty-one year old with a mustache, and talking about how easy it is. I have the reasoning ability to know that Party Babyz is not directed towards my age group. Luckily, however, Party Babyz costs money, meaning no one except the target demographic is going to buy it, making such badly aimed reviews nonexistent.

So it baffles me when I read a news article on Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures hitting one million registered users just a week after launch, and the threads are populated with claims that the figure must be a lie, that nine hundred thousand of them must have quit, that it is essentially a lobby with mini-games, Free Realms is much better, etc.

News flash to Sony Trolls: Clone Wars Adventures is a lobby-centered mini-game-based social activity center for children. It incorporates a wide variety of fairly short mini-games with a difficulty setting that ranges from extremely easy to quite difficult, even for many adults, and foregos grinding mobs for grinding mini-games. CWA is also not Free Realms, it has been designed with a 100% different outlook in mind, as a lobby based game, where Free Realms is closer to your more traditional open world approach.

Granted, most of this frothing rage is coming from your usual Sony trolls of whom, if Sony had made the aforementioned Party Babyz, would buy the game for full price and then complain about how Sony screwed up once again. One million users may mean absolutely nothing in terms of activity, but a lot of the feedback towards this news isn’t directed at the one million figure, but rather your usual nerd rage coming from a group of people who still haven’t grown up from the Star Wars Galaxies Combat Upgrade, or who still hold ire towards Sony for Vanguard’s botched launch.

More on Clone Wars Adventures as it appears.

Everquest Next: With The Everquester In Mind!

eqnexttown — And John Smedley Said: Let there be light!

If Sony Online Entertainment’s abbreviated name was NSD, I could point out that their name could also spell out Never Shuts Down. However, since it doesn’t, I’m stuck with my next best idea: Soldier On, Edith which, although surely touching to anyone named Edith who enjoys Sony’s products, only appeals to a limited audience.

But enough of my attempts at word play. At the 2010 Fan Faire, SOE fully announced Everquest Next, the third Everquest MMO to come out at some point in the future. So, very little was offered in terms of when we might actually see Everquest Next, but the SOE staff present were more than willing to give out information regarding the title.

Everquest Next is not a sequel, nor a prequel to Everquest, but a re-imagining. Sony is going for the original charm of Everquest, and notes that fans of the original will feel right at home in the title. They hope to give more engaging content, better combat, immersive story lines, and a more streamlined approach to players with less classes (think Everquest).

More importantly, however, was the fact that Sony is committed to supporting both Everquest and Everquest II, neither of which will be going anywhere anytime soon. We were also promised that players will not be shepherded to EQ Next like they were with Everquest II, a move that was wholly rejected by the Everquest community when Everquest II released those many years ago. Everquest Next will also offer scalability to lower end machines, something Everquest II sorely missed.

And even more importantly, Everquest Next is not being made for kids, and you can take that to the bank.

The Days of 51/50 Servers Are Over

Everquest is one of the few ongoing MMOs to dive into experimental servers, generally temporary servers featuring anything from permadeath to progression (the server starts at the base game and expansions open as players progress), and more. The 51/50 server, for those not in the EQ-Know, is where players start at level 51 with 50 levels AP, in order to get them into the meat of the game as quickly as possible. The servers, sadly, have not been very popular, and for a while now the air has been all about mergers.

Mayong, Zek, and Fioriona are the three 51/50 servers on Everquest, and after great discussion between staff and players, Sony has begun the process of merging, starting with Mayong. Currently, the 51/50 ruleset has been removed, and no new characters can be created at level 50. The Mayong server will be merged in September, although players can ship their characters off early for $10 (a discount on the normal fee).

SOE has stated that new information regarding this merge, as well as the upcoming changes to Zek and Fioriona will be coming “soon™.” As one developer put it:

“It’s not as simple to merge servers as it is to, say, merge a little rum into some cola. We’ll be choosing the server that Mayong merges with by the usual method (dart board).”

Everquest’s next expansion, House of Thule, goes live in October this year. More on the Everquest mergers as they appear.

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