Steam – Page 75 – MMO Fallout

Perfect World Talks: RaiderZ

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.

Steam Greenlight's List Hard To Figure Out

I received a press release from Xsyon today mentioning that the sandbox MMO had reached the top 100 titles on Steam Greenlight, and while there is a special place in my heart for the folks at Notorious Games, the placement doesn’t make me want to jump to the “expect Xsyon on Steam soon” headline. You see, if there’s one thing that indie MMOs like to send me, it is the reveal that their title hit the top 100, top 50, and more to promote the idea that their game will be coming to Steam sooner or later. Over several months, and virtually none of them have seen approval. The reality is that Valve’s process of approving Greenlight games has almost nothing to do with their standing on the Greenlight Top X, according to my correspondence with Star Vault, Mortal Online spent the past three or four lists of approved games near the top, and its greenlighting was very often passed over for games further down on the list.

Which isn’t to say that Xsyon won’t be releasing on Steam, if anything it is a good sign that it will be. It is important not to jump to the conclusion that Xsyon is front of the line for approval, because if Steam Greenlight can be imagined as anything, it would be a game of musical chairs, with the winners being the ones who get a seat when the music stops. There’s no guarantee that being in the front of the line will get you a seat.

Still, congratulations to the Notorious Games crew for getting as much attention as they have through Steam, and best of luck with Greenlight.

Steam Greenlight’s List Hard To Figure Out

Still, congratulations to the Notorious Games crew for getting as much attention as they have through Steam, and best of luck with Greenlight.

Mortal Online Greenlight On Steam

Star Vault has announced that Mortal Online has finally been approved by Valve for release via Steam’s Greenlight program. The sandbox MMO has sat near the top of Valve’s list for a good while now, seemingly passed over with every month’s release set. Well the good news is that players will soon be logging in and running around buck naked or clothed if you’re into that sort of thing.

Thank you to our awesome community for voting us up to the very top of 15,000 game titles and earning our place on Steam, the worlds largest online PC game distribution platform. More information concerning our plans for Steam will be announced shortly; we just wanted to shout out a big “thank you” to our incredible community. Mortal Online’s future is getting more exciting by the day!

Hopefully the influx of new Steam players will bring much needed profit to the Swedish developer.

(Source: Mortal Online)

Jagged Alliance Online’s Steamy Success

Jagged Alliance Online recently launched on Steam, and suffice to say the guys over at Cliffhanger Productions are very happy with the results. In a press release sent out today, Cliffhanger Productions noted that in the three weeks since its launch, Jagged Alliance Online has skyrocketed into the top five most popular DLC products on Steam, pulling ahead of some of the more recently launched MMOs. As a result, the developer has been forced to increase server capacity in order to contain the mass of new players. Wolfgang Duhr, member of the Board of Directors of publisher bitComposer, had some words of praise:

“We are really happy about the rapid success of Jagged Alliance Online and would like to congratulate the Cliffhanger team on the successful relaunch.”

Cliffhanger Productions recently finished a Kickstarter for their second MMO in development, Shadowrun Online.

(Source: Cliffhanger Press Release)

Jagged Alliance Online's Steamy Success

“We are really happy about the rapid success of Jagged Alliance Online and would like to congratulate the Cliffhanger team on the successful relaunch.”

Cliffhanger Productions recently finished a Kickstarter for their second MMO in development, Shadowrun Online.

(Source: Cliffhanger Press Release)

MMOments: Akaneiro Demon Hunting

(Editor’s Note: This is not a review of Akaneiro)American McGee is the patron saint of MMO Fallout, an interesting turn of events when you consider that the man has never been involved in an MMO. What I love about American McGee is that his companies have remained one of the few developers willing to take real risks, knowing full well that not everything they do is going to be a winner. For every brilliant title like Alice there is a Bad Day LA, but it is not without the mistakes made in the latter that the former could be fully realized. Akaneiro: Demon Hunters certainly doesn’t disappoint in the category of unexpected mashups: A Diablo-esque hack and slash set to a an adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood which takes place in Feudal Japan and features Okami-style calligraphy graphics.

For all of you Diablo/Torchlight fans out there, you already know how this works: You have a central hub where the trading and leveling takes place, and the game mostly revolves around repeating dungeons where the objective is to beat the crap out of vast armies of enemies in order to obtain the randomly generated loot which can either be equipped or sold to a vendor. As you level up, you gain access to better loot with which to kill bigger and tougher bad guys to get even better loot. Each area contains multiple difficulties that must be completed in order and each level increases the power of mobs in the area as well as the types of mini-bosses, their placement, and difficulty. Shops sell equipment (which is typically overpriced and underwhelming in quality, as is the case in most ARPGs) as well as boosts which increase your base stats, exp gain, and quality of drops.

Akaneiro is still in development, meaning features like crafting and cooperative play are still unavailable. With that in mind, let’s talk about the worst aspect of Akaneiro: The cash shop. Had there been no cash shop, Akaneiro might be considered something of a hardcore title: The game completely removes the potion system, meaning instead of relying on chugging vials you have to kill enemies for their delicious karma shards, as well as gaining health via abilities that sap foes. You don’t level up as you move through a dungeon, instead the experience all goes into a pool that is awarded once you complete your designated task and head back into town. If you have to abandon the mission for any reason (including death), you forfeit your xp pool.

The system isn’t to make the game more hardcore, unfortunately, but to monetize death, and this is no more apparent than once you get further into the game and Akaneiro starts throwing not just larger swarms of tougher mobs, but creatures that can stun you for ridiculous lengths of time while their friends club you to death. As a mechanic, Akaneiro is a callback to the days of coin-gobbling arcade machines where life was cheap, death was often unfair, and the game was geared the nickel and dime the player, or I should say quarter and quarter. I probably wouldn’t even be as annoyed if the game forced you to forfeit the xp gain, but the fact that death is just seen as a funneling mechanic to the cash shop is both obnoxious and, in a way, sleazy on Spicy Horse’s part.

And I could be wrong on some of this, not that there is any way of finding out since any and all of Akaneiro’s help tools either don’t exist at all or are “coming soon.”

Overall, Akaneiro is shaping up to be a solid game that will probably be killed by its disappointing monetization scheme in the form of what they call “pay to revive,” which Spicy Horse finds to be agreeable on the grounds that “players are not forced to revive.” I agree with this statement one hundred percent as fact, and judging by the statistics supplied to us by Raptr where players have played an average of 24 minutes (3,623 players and 1,501 hours played as of this writing) it looks like they aren’t forced to play at all. It takes a whole five hours of tracked game time to reach the top 10% of players in Raptr.

Jagged Alliance Online Now On Steam

As previously announced, Jagged Alliance Online is now available for download and play on Steam. The free to play MMO was originally launched on browsers via Gamigo’s game portal, and is expanding its visibility to the Steam community. The game weighs in at a rather light two gigabytes of storage space and recommends a 2.4ghz processor and at least four gigabytes of ram. As with the browser version, Jagged Alliance Online is always online and naturally requires a constant internet connection.

While the original game is free, Steam is offering 10% off until June 12th on two DLC packs. Each pack costs $29.99 ($26.99 on sale) and contains 80 new contracts, extra rewards, achievements, prestige contracts, an exclusive mercenary and $150,000 in cash. Check it out at the link below.

(Source: Steam)

Eve Online Could Be Receiving Steam Workshop Treatment

This Eve image is still current, right? I’m sure someone will tell me if it isn’t. Rejoice, netizens, for Eve Online is on Steam! What’s that? Eve Online has been for sale on Steam for longer than MMO Fallout has existed? Oh. Well, starting today (if today is May 30th), you will be able to purchase Eve Online subscriptions as well as PLEX through Steam itself, rather than through CCP’s billing system. The program to allow subscriptions directly through Steam was launched alongside Darkfall: Unholy Wars.

Enough about that, though. According to CCP, the developer is looking further into Steam integration, including the Community Hub and even Steam Workshop, a hub where players can create and submit their own custom content for various supported titles.

“Other aspects of Steam we are potentially very interested in are the Community Hub and Steam Workshop. Our community team has already started looking into the possibilities here, and we would love to hear your feedback on this as well.”

No clue on what players would be able to create via Workshop, and hopefully more details will be coming in the next few months. It is worth noting that the new subscription plan does not extend to existing accounts at the moment.

(Source: PC Games N)

City of Steam Successfully Greenlit on Steam

Congratulations are in order for the team at Mechanist Games for the successful Greenlighting of City of Steam on Steam Greenlight. City of Steam joins as one of the twenty titles approved in the sixth batch of games to be given the go ahead by Valve to release on the mega-platform. City of Steam is an upcoming browser game built for the UNITY web player and set in an industrial fantasy world with Steampunk elements. Players are able to take control of eleven races of creatures with four classes to choose from.

City of Steam is currently in between beta stages and is set for release sometime before Tupac finishes releasing new albums.

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