Tag: War of Legends

What Happened This Week: That’s Not Linguine Edition


Here’s a question for this week: If you could sit down and talk to anyone in the gaming industry, who would you talk to and what would you ask them? Over here at MMO Fallout, I came upon that decision rather easily. The Who: Free to play/cash shop developers. The What: Their business model. Thanks to the saturation by games in the East, the cash shop model was tainted long ago with the idea that any game bearing such a tag would be free to download, pay to win, and buy to compete. With the crowding of the market, the games that do wind up being buy to win are quickly shunned in the west (although they are still great money makers in Korea, China, etc) and have a habit of shutting down only a year or two outside of launch.

I’ll have more details in the weeks to come on that note, but let’s talk about what happened this week.

1. Go To Hell-Gate In a Handbasket

The Hellgate closed beta launched late Friday, and the resulting server implosion was exactly what you would expect with a 50-50 chance of being approved along with major giveaways from 3rd party websites. In fact, I’m not entirely sure that you could call the beta “limited,” given how many keys were being thrown around. Once again, however, a closed beta has gone up and every other video game must have closed doors, because the Hellgate forums are filled with whining about the servers being down, and an apparent lack of anything else to do with your time.

I’ll remind you: The servers for a free beta test for a free game are down, and people are already calling the game a “failure.” Well if the game is a failure, no sense sitting on the forums flailing your arms like toddlers in a WalMart parking lot, right? I’m sure it’s not worth noting, but I’m continually amazed by the amount of people who will (allegedly) call in sick, take the day off, skip school, to get opening day at a video game. Forgetting the obvious lack of priorities, you are guaranteed to be disappointed when the game’s servers are down due to the amount of other people who did the exact same thing.

I rarely suggest people preorder MMOs, because almost none of them have the mentality that accepts the inevitably broken/delayed features, laggy servers, and game breaking bugs. Forgoing income for the sake of playing a video game is just ridiculous in and of itself.

2. Perpetuum Online Mass Ban

Nothing says loving like a mass ban in the oveng. The guys over at Avatar want you to know that cheaters are being dealt with by the mighty banhammer. In a blog post, the team threw up this graph and briefly talked about a game mechanic being exploited in a way no one could mistake for legitimate gameplay, allowing for a massive amount of resource collection.

Good for Perpetuum. A smaller game with a smaller community has to work extra hard to get rid of cheaters.

3. You Remind Me Of Another MMO

Dear MMO,

I’ve had this odd feeling about you over the past year or so, and it wasn’t until just recently that I figured out why. That strange feeling not that I’ve played you before, but that I covered your company, despite being the first game your company has developed. You don’t share any names with this other game, but in spirit you are almost one in the same.

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks, sweeping me back into a series of waking nightmares I hadn’t experienced for around six years: Mourning. The name, its company…Colton Burgess’ cronies sending me harassing emails and private messages. Sending beta versions of the game on unlabeled Memorex CD’s. Refusing refunds, possible fraud, wiping the forums, administrators telling me to run away as fast as I can! Virtually the only MMO de-listed from MMORPG for harassment from the company-MOMMY!

Happy thoughts. Luckily I managed to close my notes before my brain was Shish Kebab’d by my wine opener. For those of you who weren’t around when Mourning was up (2005), do some Google research on Mourning, Throne of Chaos, Colton Burgess, and Loud Ant Software. Just in case you need a good laugh, or a horrifying night of no sleep.

4. Does Jagex Need Two Evony-Style MMOs?

Jagex are most known for their MMO Runescape, but did you know that the company has several products live right at this moment? Only two of which they developed in-house. Currently live, Jagex has Runescape (the Fantasy MMO) and FunOrb (mini-game collection) developed in house, while the company publishes War of Legends (Cash shop flash city builder). Upcoming, Jagex is developing Stellar Dawn, a sci-fi MMO, an unnamed fantasy MMO (not a sequel to Runescape), Transformers Online (a Transformers MMO, go figure) and 8Realms, an HTML based city builder.

I’m not saying Jagex can’t maintain two MMORTS games, given all they do with War of Legends is publish it, but you’d think much like the Pizza Hut having a problem with my local Target opening a Pizza Hut in-store and being just down the street, that the War of Legends guys would have an issue with Jagex opening up a direct competitor to their game. Of course, that may just be my speculation.

5. More Stellar Dawn, Less Transformers Online

While we’re on the subject of Jagex, let’s talk Transformers Online. Jagex had the character creator on display at Botcon 11, with some information on the upcoming MMO. The game is set in the Prime continuity, but the team is working with Hasbro to integrate as many characters as possible. The game will feature hundreds of customization options for each part of your bot, and you will indeed create your own transformers robot, on the side you choose. Further down the line, players will be able to create and upload their own parts, decals, and art to make their bots truly unique (or to just upload crudely drawn penis/swastika decals, I’m sure).

Only question remaining is: Why can’t Stellar Dawn get this kind of love? For a game that is reportedly going into beta this year, Jagex has been rather hush on the game. Why the lack of love, Jagex?

And on that note, I’m heading back into the Hellgate Global beta. Sure my character is going to be deleted, but listening to Russians spamming chat is just too good to pass up.

What Happened This Week: That's Not Linguine Edition


Here’s a question for this week: If you could sit down and talk to anyone in the gaming industry, who would you talk to and what would you ask them? Over here at MMO Fallout, I came upon that decision rather easily. The Who: Free to play/cash shop developers. The What: Their business model. Thanks to the saturation by games in the East, the cash shop model was tainted long ago with the idea that any game bearing such a tag would be free to download, pay to win, and buy to compete. With the crowding of the market, the games that do wind up being buy to win are quickly shunned in the west (although they are still great money makers in Korea, China, etc) and have a habit of shutting down only a year or two outside of launch.

I’ll have more details in the weeks to come on that note, but let’s talk about what happened this week.

1. Go To Hell-Gate In a Handbasket

The Hellgate closed beta launched late Friday, and the resulting server implosion was exactly what you would expect with a 50-50 chance of being approved along with major giveaways from 3rd party websites. In fact, I’m not entirely sure that you could call the beta “limited,” given how many keys were being thrown around. Once again, however, a closed beta has gone up and every other video game must have closed doors, because the Hellgate forums are filled with whining about the servers being down, and an apparent lack of anything else to do with your time.

I’ll remind you: The servers for a free beta test for a free game are down, and people are already calling the game a “failure.” Well if the game is a failure, no sense sitting on the forums flailing your arms like toddlers in a WalMart parking lot, right? I’m sure it’s not worth noting, but I’m continually amazed by the amount of people who will (allegedly) call in sick, take the day off, skip school, to get opening day at a video game. Forgetting the obvious lack of priorities, you are guaranteed to be disappointed when the game’s servers are down due to the amount of other people who did the exact same thing.

I rarely suggest people preorder MMOs, because almost none of them have the mentality that accepts the inevitably broken/delayed features, laggy servers, and game breaking bugs. Forgoing income for the sake of playing a video game is just ridiculous in and of itself.

2. Perpetuum Online Mass Ban

Nothing says loving like a mass ban in the oveng. The guys over at Avatar want you to know that cheaters are being dealt with by the mighty banhammer. In a blog post, the team threw up this graph and briefly talked about a game mechanic being exploited in a way no one could mistake for legitimate gameplay, allowing for a massive amount of resource collection.

Good for Perpetuum. A smaller game with a smaller community has to work extra hard to get rid of cheaters.

3. You Remind Me Of Another MMO

Dear MMO,

I’ve had this odd feeling about you over the past year or so, and it wasn’t until just recently that I figured out why. That strange feeling not that I’ve played you before, but that I covered your company, despite being the first game your company has developed. You don’t share any names with this other game, but in spirit you are almost one in the same.

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks, sweeping me back into a series of waking nightmares I hadn’t experienced for around six years: Mourning. The name, its company…Colton Burgess’ cronies sending me harassing emails and private messages. Sending beta versions of the game on unlabeled Memorex CD’s. Refusing refunds, possible fraud, wiping the forums, administrators telling me to run away as fast as I can! Virtually the only MMO de-listed from MMORPG for harassment from the company-MOMMY!

Happy thoughts. Luckily I managed to close my notes before my brain was Shish Kebab’d by my wine opener. For those of you who weren’t around when Mourning was up (2005), do some Google research on Mourning, Throne of Chaos, Colton Burgess, and Loud Ant Software. Just in case you need a good laugh, or a horrifying night of no sleep.

4. Does Jagex Need Two Evony-Style MMOs?

Jagex are most known for their MMO Runescape, but did you know that the company has several products live right at this moment? Only two of which they developed in-house. Currently live, Jagex has Runescape (the Fantasy MMO) and FunOrb (mini-game collection) developed in house, while the company publishes War of Legends (Cash shop flash city builder). Upcoming, Jagex is developing Stellar Dawn, a sci-fi MMO, an unnamed fantasy MMO (not a sequel to Runescape), Transformers Online (a Transformers MMO, go figure) and 8Realms, an HTML based city builder.

I’m not saying Jagex can’t maintain two MMORTS games, given all they do with War of Legends is publish it, but you’d think much like the Pizza Hut having a problem with my local Target opening a Pizza Hut in-store and being just down the street, that the War of Legends guys would have an issue with Jagex opening up a direct competitor to their game. Of course, that may just be my speculation.

5. More Stellar Dawn, Less Transformers Online

While we’re on the subject of Jagex, let’s talk Transformers Online. Jagex had the character creator on display at Botcon 11, with some information on the upcoming MMO. The game is set in the Prime continuity, but the team is working with Hasbro to integrate as many characters as possible. The game will feature hundreds of customization options for each part of your bot, and you will indeed create your own transformers robot, on the side you choose. Further down the line, players will be able to create and upload their own parts, decals, and art to make their bots truly unique (or to just upload crudely drawn penis/swastika decals, I’m sure).

Only question remaining is: Why can’t Stellar Dawn get this kind of love? For a game that is reportedly going into beta this year, Jagex has been rather hush on the game. Why the lack of love, Jagex?

And on that note, I’m heading back into the Hellgate Global beta. Sure my character is going to be deleted, but listening to Russians spamming chat is just too good to pass up.

Jagex: Making Threats? Get The Police…


Update: For reasons I was unable to uncover, this article was originally published as a blank slate. Although I lost what I had written, I was able to recover the original draft and reupload it. Remember to always keep a backup of your work!

You're going to need an attorney...

“Gonna kill myself.”
-Any MMOer

How many times have you typed that out in chat? In jest, of course, not in a serious manner. Something goes wrong, you get killed, you lose something, you accidentally destroyed your favorite and most powerful weapon, or someone backstabbed you and the only conveyance of your disappointment in yourself or the game is to make an off-color joke about suicide.

Unfortunately for players, and unlike Walt Disney, Jagex doesn’t find suicide very funny, in any context. Following a somewhat high profile suicide that was posted on the Runescape forums several years ago, Jagex has since been taking threats of suicide very seriously, no matter what context it may be in. Players reportedly threatening suicide in order to have their accounts banned started receiving this message instead:

But a talking to may not be the only thing you receive. MMO Fallout has received several reports and accounts of players being reported for threatening suicide, only to have the police show up to investigate a reported threatened suicide. It appears Jagex has joined a small group of developers who are taking no chances and forwarding all threats to the proper authorities.

I know this is going to get some comments about free speech and taking jokes too seriously, but the difference between “I’m gonna kill myself” and “I’m gonna kill myself” is nonexistent when in the form of text, unless the sarcasm is very explicitly pointed out. This is one issue online that many people continue to forget, and are surprised when what they say is taken verbatim.

I am not going to try to force my sense of humor down your throat (because it is far less appropriate than jokes about suicide), just keep in mind who may be listening in. You don’t joke about bombs in an airport, and you don’t joke about guns in a school, so don’t be surprised when your joke (by perception) is taken with less humor than you would like it to be.

Jagex Dips Into Microtransactions…


Play War of Legends, free forever my lord!

Perhaps I shouldn’t have made the connection between Jagex and Evony several months ago, because I don’t think I’ll be able to play Jagex’s latest title to go into open beta, War of Legends, without thinking of microtransactions, gold farming companies, and breasts. War of Legends plays out much like Evony, and similar titles. Players start a city, they become more powerful, and they branch out into other areas of the world. Eventually player vs player combat is allowed and players can ransack each other’s cities, and build new cities, and trade, and pay for everything out the tooth with microtransactions.

War of Legends also happens to be Jagex’s first take on microtransactions in the form of Jcredits (The J presumably standing for Jagex), a move the company displayed interest in several years ago, but noted that doing so in Runescape would not be beneficial to the game’s economy. War of Legends does, of course, set up the possibility for future titles (IE: Stellar Dawn) to incorporate some form of payment system similar to this, however no word from Jagex has arrived.

And before the inevitable comparisons start, yes War of Legends looks suspiciously like Evony, minus being developed by a gold farming company, and advertising with breasts. Micro-payments are nothing new, and Jagex is just one of the many companies to dive into it this year, including Blizzard who many thought would never “sink so low” (their words, not mine.)

On second thought...

Another Jagex Title?


Jagex is one of the companies I don’t get to talk about much on MMO Fallout, mainly because their main MMO Runescape doesn’t break much ground, and the upcoming Mechscape/Stellar Dawn title has been under heavy wraps, barring a few breaking news pieces.

Enter Jagex’s Twitter: @OfficialJagex, which revealed today a new title: War of Legends. The game is touted as a free multiplayer strategy game, although it is yet to be known if this will be an MMO or not. It is completely possible that this is a title for Jagex’s partially free game service, FunOrb, although not much else is known on the matter at this time.

More on Jagex as it appears. War of Legends releases early 2010.