This may come as little surprise to gamers, but Funcom today is celebrating the initial success for Secret World Legends, boasting that the game is at the highest player activity in years.
“We are very encouraged by the initial success of Secret World Legends; it has been years since we last saw a surge in player activity like this in the Secret World universe and it is a very good start leading up to Steam launch on July 31st,” says Funcom CEO Rui Casais
For players more interested in seeing what content Funcom has in store, you’re in luck. Along with the news of the population surge, Funcom released its roadmap for the months to come. This week marks the launch of elite dungeons with scaling difficulty.
Later this month will see the release of the Transylvania story missions with the special event to unlock Tokyo either in July or August and related world content. You can check out the roadmap at the link below, which goes through to next year.
Menaphos is the first expansion to RuneScape, a series of massive updates that are set to release every three months. While the content drops on the live servers today, MMO Fallout was invited to preview some of the changes last week, and the new content looks pretty exciting. As I have mentioned in previous update teasers, it’s been a while since Menaphos was first revealed to the public: Twelve years in fact, it’s like Boyhood but with a lot less growing up and a lot more angry desert deities. The city of Menaphos was first added to the map on April 26, 2005.
But players couldn’t get in. While its sister city Sophanem became available, Menaphos immediately closed its doors to outsiders amid rumors of corrupt leadership and stayed that way, for twelve years. In that time, players have come in contact with numerous desert deities, learned new magics, and assisted in god-tier sibling rivalries. Now, the cruel Pharaoh has reopened the doors and adventurers are flooding in to see what secrets the city holds.
You may be asking at this point: How is RuneScape sixteen years old and is only releasing its first expansion now? For the better part of that time, Jagex has been releasing content updates on a weekly basis with various major updates every year to add in new skills, update the game engine, and more. Last year Jagex polled players on whether they would like to continue the current system of trickling updates out on a weekly basis or release major content packs every three months. Players chose the latter, and here we are.
Content in Menaphos is targeted towards mid to high level players, although most players will find something to do after completing the three pre-requisite quests. The city itself is divided into four areas, with access to everything from a Grand Exchange, new skilling areas, a merchant area to steal from, and more. Each of the four areas has its own reputation system, and while it is possible for the more dedicated gamer to maximize his rank in all four areas, Jagex told me during the preview that it will take some time and most players will just focus on one or two factions.
The centerpiece to Menaphos is the giant pyramid around which the city goes about its daily life. Inside that tomb you can find the Grand Library which will be comprised of stories submitted to Jagex by the player base. As massive as the library is, we were told that so many players had submitted quality stories that Jagex is having a hard time fitting them into the game!
Shifting Tombs is a randomized dungeon crawler with procedurally generated tombs and monsters. Players have a set amount of time to plunder the dungeon, gathering as much loot as possible while still making it to the end and escaping within the time limit. Personally, I’m looking forward to meeting Krondis, the alligator goddess of life and pleasure. Krondis, as with much of the rest of the city, has been corrupted and is currently hoarding the treasures for herself, but we’ll see if that can be changed.
The city is full of lush trees and vibrant colors, a rather stark contrast to the other desert areas. Every area has its own stylistic theme, from the extravagance of the imperial sector to the downtrodden workers district. A big piece of the Menaphos update is that the Slayer skill is having its level cap increased to 120 along with new content to fill in that level gap. You can check out the update details on the launch page here.
Players can also get in on a free weekend beginning on June 9th, allowing free players to enjoy all member content throughout the weekend until the 12th.
Star Trek Online has released Season 13, continuing the story related to the Tzenkethi that began earlier this year. The update continues the Tzenkethi storyline, introduces new class-specific gear, and makes improvements to the matchmaking system. Escalation also introduces War Games, where two teams of five players compete against each other for rewards.
The Alliance needs to continue to explore the space surrounding the Tzenkethi advance to try and determine a pattern to their attacks. With our new featured episode “Mirrors and Smoke,” captains will work with the Lukari as they explore a mysterious nebula and discover the secrets within. The mystery of the Tzenkethi continues in Season 13 while new mysteries of the Lukari are discovered!
The full details of the update can be found here. Patch notes are here. Completing the feature episode this week will reward players with some extra gear. Escalation hits Xbox and Playstation at a later date.
Call it what you want, luck is a big factor in MMORPG’s. You can pray to RNGesus all you want, but at the end of the day you’re still beholden to that invisible spinning wheel landing on the items you need to make the big bucks. It’s the difference between going home a billionaire and heading home in a digital body bag. With today’s update to RuneScape, Jagex is retooling how your character’s luck is determined.
Luck-enhancing items now fall on one of four tiers. Tiers 1-3 affect content specific to certain level ranges. Tier 4 affects content of all levels, along with some extra benefits of its own.
Your luck rises with one of four rings, as well as through various other items. To check out the entire list of changes, click on the link below for this week’s patch notes.
Today’s snapshot comes to us from RuneScape. Today’s update to the ever-expanding MMO finally healed the scar in Lumbridge, where players assisted in a battle between gods Saradomin and Zamorak going on four years ago. Since then the battle-scarred land has been used for everything from holiday events to summer beach parties. With today’s update, a bit of life returns to the region with all sorts of rabbits and imps walking around.
Also part of today’s update is a major overhaul to the game’s wardrobe system.
If you pay attention to the media, reboots are all the rage this season (this season itself being a reboot of a previous iteration of the universe). In their latest quarterly report, outside of congratulating Conan Exiles for hitting its 12 month sales target within a month, Funcom has a lot to say about its New World Order MMO, The Secret World. Funcom hopes to rekindle interest in the MMO by bringing in new players and ex-players alike, improving the combat system and new player experience.
The Secret World will be relaunched during the first half of 2017. The goal of the relaunch is to broaden the appeal of the game through:
Redesigned new player experience
Major improvements to gameplay including combat.
Introduction of new retention systems such as daily rewards.
Adjustments to the business model, including allowing access to the story content for free.
Relaunch activities for The Secret World are set to start in March with the relaunch to occur in the first half of the year. MMO Fallout will cover the details as they are revealed.
The latest trailer for Elder Scrolls Online is out, showing off new weapons, armor, locations, and monsters that players will encounter in the upcoming Morrowind expansion. Morrowind launches this June.
Star Trek Online’s third expansion hits Xbox One and Playstation 4 next month, letting young couples show their love…for the original Star Trek series. Agents of Yesterday takes console gamers and tasks them with saving the future, by saving the past. The update includes new story missions as well as content from the Artifacts update.
Agents of Yesterday recruits Star Trek Online captains to become temporal agents and save the future by protecting the past. Players will create a captain from Star Trek: The Original Series and fly one of several 23rd Century ships, including the classic Enterprise, Constitution-class starship. As they play through each new episode, they will interact with iconic characters voiced by beloved Star Trek actors, including Chekov (Walter Koenig), Scotty (Chris Doohan, son of James Doohan), Temporal Agent Daniels (Matt Winston), Admiral Leeta (Chase Masterson) and cyborg crewman 0718 (Joseph Gatt).
Also on its way is a new specialization tree, new task force missions, and more.
The Marvel Heroes “Biggest Update Ever” is finally ready to go live today, as the official forums have posted an announcement for players to expect the servers to go down at noon Pacific with downtime of four hours.
The Marvel Heroes 2016 servers will be going offline at 12 PM PST for the Biggest Update Ever. Downtime is expected to last up to 4 hours.
Marvel’s biggest update ever was announced earlier this year as a part of the game’s yearly major updates. Gazillion is massively changing the way you play the game, from the removal of power points to the replacement of specialization with talents, and the removal of the omega system which is being replaced by a more streamlined infinity system (an alternate advancement system similar to Paragon in Diablo).
The update is sure to be divisive, and MMO Fallout will be covering some of the more major changes with an MMOments coming sometime this week. For details on the update, check out the link below.
ArcheAge is getting updated to version 3.1 on January 17, so long as you are playing on the Korean servers. Among the updates are more character and item growth, potentially pointing to an increased level cap, as well as an increase in overseas trading, balancing new and veteran players, and adding/improving conveniences. XL Games hasn’t given a whole lot of information on what is coming with the update, so we’ll have to wait and see about more details as well as when the updates is coming westward.
MMO Fallout 