Offline mode will be available.
Continue reading “MultiVersus Is Dead, Will End After Season 5”
Tag: Warner Bros
Video: MultiVersus PvE Mode Trailer
MultiVersus Is Coming Back In May
Multiversus Shows Signs of Life
Slow News: MultiVersus Is In Open Beta Today
Gotham City Impostors Quietly Sunsets
[NM] Warner Bros. Makes Forthog Free, Issues Refunds, Still Donating
Warner Bros. put out an announcement today in regards to the upcoming Forthog Orc-Slayer DLC for Shadow of War, and has decided not to sell the item as paid content.
Earlier this month, Warner Bros. announced that it would be releasing a piece of DLC content in memoriam of a deceased employee who had worked on the game. The download would introduce Forthog Orc-Slayer, an NPC who would show up to help the player when he is most needed, was a tribute to Michael Forgey who passed during development. According to Monolith’s announcement, all proceeds from the DLC sales would go to Forgey’s family.
But criticism quickly sprang up after people noticed that the donations came with an apparent caveat, as according to the official trailer, only purchases in the states would be donated and even then, select states would not be included. Monolith has apologized for the confusion and announced that the DLC will be free and instead Warner Bros. will make a donation to the family. Everyone who preordered the DLC will get a refund.
We now recognize that tying our donation to sales of the DLC was not the best way to achieve our goal of offering financial support to the family and creating a lasting memorial to Michael Forgey. We sincerely apologize to the fans and to the Forgey family for the confusion we created.
Our thoughts: I’ll go back to what I said in the original controversy, that the disclaimer that only certain areas would be eligible was to protect Warner Bros from state/foreign laws regarding gifts/donations, and that the company would figure out a way to “Pachinko” the money to the right places by funneling the money down the right channels. It’s not a donation if you don’t call it one!
(In all likelihood, we will never be told exactly how Warner Bros is going to make not donating and not profiting work, but if MMO Fallout had to throw in its two cents, I recommend looking at how Pachinko parlors in Japan. You can bypass just about any payout law by adding more steps and calling it something different.)
(Source: Warner Bros)
Exclusive: Middle Earth Shadow of War Preview
Middle Earth: Shadow of War is the long awaited sequel to Shadow of Mordor, a highly rated open world fighter that takes place in everyone’s favorite land of Mordor. Players once again control of Talion as he forges a new ring of power and attempts to keep control of it for use in the war against Sauron and his forces of darkness. The game doesn’t officially launch until October 10, but it just so happens that I was in the store and they miraculously had a copy on the shelf already. I couldn’t pass up this opportunity for an exclusive review, so I took it.
The more I play this, the more I’m pretty sure that this is an unreleased prototype spinoff, possibly taking place in between the first two games. My local store had a copy called the Shadow of War: Pepperoni Edition, and frankly within ten minutes I could tell that this would revolutionize gaming as a medium. To start, the special edition was clearly mislabeled and thus rang up for about $4 at the counter. The cashier didn’t seem to care that I was getting this product more than a month early.
And I know what you nerds are going to say: Why focus on Pepperoni as a character when she was such a minuscule factor in the books and never made it into the movies? Look, I love Lord of the Rings just as much as any of you do, likely a lot more. I’ve read the books literally three thousand times each, and I’ve been waiting what feels like decades for the Tolkein Estate to finally release the rights to Pepperoni for her own game. In fact, just the idea that pervasive sexists are fighting so hard against her appearance as a lead character should be all the evidence the Warner Bros needs to put her front and center.
The most surprising thing of Shadow of War’s Pepperoni spinoff is that it not only isn’t compatible with any of the current gen systems. Instead, Pepperoni Edition is compatible with most microwaves and convection ovens. It does contain a code for 100 coins in the main game, however. The cashier told me that this game doesn’t play as well on the microwave, so for the ultimate experience I went with my trusty convection oven. After a quick 10 minute installation process at 400 degrees, I was ready to go.
Let’s get into Pepperoni as a character in Shadow of War. It’s nice to see Warner Bros. finally giving us a gritty female character, one with a tough, crispy outer shell that actually hides a rather saucy personality underneath. We see a character that is both sweet and a bit tart, always ready to help when called. The dialogue can get a little cheesy in parts and it lacked a really meaty ending, but overall the presentation is one that you can really sink your teeth into.
While her motivations aren’t as in your face as, say, Talion wanting to survive and destroy Sauron in the main game, it’s pretty clear from the get go that Pepperoni is all about sustaining the survivors still hiding within Mordor. She wants to enrich life back into the lands via copious amounts of iron and protein. The game really goes far to show the gritty, greasy reality of life in Mordor and while I wouldn’t exactly call this game “profane,” it is dirty enough that you will literally need some napkins in order to walk out with your hands clean. Perhaps some wet naps.
The delivery method of Shadow of War: Pepperoni Edition is going to irk some customers. The idea of games slowly becoming more of a service than a product has become more popular over time, but this is the first game made entirely out of consumables. The box came with 40 consumables that must be individually installed, of which I used a baker’s dozen for this review. Now I can see why this cost $4 at the store, most will beat it in less than a week while hardcore games can probably get through it in a day. I did severely burn my mouth on the first three consumables, but that’s the cost of games journalism.
There is little doubt in my mind that this review is going to get slammed on social media because “oh it’s not a real game,” and “oh Connor you don’t know what a real game is, you’re not a real games journalist.” Shadow of War: Pepperoni Edition doesn’t cater to the ‘hardcore gamer,’ the unemployed basement dweller who has all the time in the world to memorize button combinations. You don’t need quick reflexes to play this game well, nor do you need to memorize insane codes or find secret areas. Shadow of War: Pepperoni Edition can be played both solo or co-op/competitive, but there is no online option.
MMO Fallout Verdict: 4.5/5 – Shadow of War: Pepperoni Edition is a welcome spinoff of presumably a great game. It’s simple to install, engaging to play, and features a filled out protagonist with clear cut motivations. Will it win the hearts and minds of hardcore gamers? No, but the general public will find something to love in Pepperoni’s cheesiness.
Warner Bros. Says It Won’t Profit Off Shadow of War DLC
Warner Bros. has spent the last week on the receiving end of some flack after the announcement that upcoming title Shadow of War would include a memorial to a deceased Monolith employee in the form of paid DLC. Some have accused the company of profiting off of the death of one of its employees.
Forthog Orc-Slayer appears in Shadow of War as part of a $4.99 paid DLC pack, he was created as a memorial to executive producer Michael Forgey who had passed away from a brain tumor last year. An NPC in the game, Forthog can show up when the player needs him most to lend a helping hand. The announcement also came with the statement that $3.50 from each sale would go directly to Forgey’s family through December 31, 2019.
Players quickly took umbrage with a caveat noted at the bottom of the video, that not only would the donation only include purchases made within the United States, and thus exclude other countries, but certain states would be excluded. While one can surmise that the exclusion of countries and states is due to various laws/regulations and not some malicious act, the response from Warner Bros. hasn’t done much to clear up the confusion.
"Neither Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment nor Monolith Productions will profit from any sales of the Forthog Orc-Slayer DLC regardless of the territory in which that DLC is sold."
Reading between the lines on this statement suggests that Warner Bros. has a card up its sleeve to ensure that the money goes where it needs to, and in the likely event that this is related to local laws and regulations, it would not behoove WB to state publicly that they plan to circumvent said laws.
(Editor’s Thoughts: In all likelihood, we will never be told exactly how Warner Bros is going to make not donating and not profiting work, but if MMO Fallout had to throw in its two cents, I recommend looking at how Pachinko parlors in Japan. You can bypass just about any payout law by adding more steps and calling it something different.)
Donations directly to the family can be made through Youcaring.com.
[Community] Turbine Is Now Making Mobile Junk
Turbine is a hard company not to view in revulsion, considering that the company interest in developing real video games probably left when Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online were spun off to Standing Stone Games, the rather underhanded way in which Turbine scraped what little they could off of Asheron’s Call while lying about their intentions to hand the game over to the community, and some disapproval over the announcement that publishing of LOTRO and DDO would be handled by Daybreak Game Company. All of this came alongside the announcement that Turbine would be focusing on mobile game development, a statement that qualified the company as no longer having anything of value to give to the industry.
Well you weren’t wrong. Turbine has announced its next game, and it appears to be exactly the cynical, cash grabbing, pay to win mobile strategy game that many of you immediately though of when you heard the words “mobile developer.” A popular franchise shamelessly slapped onto the same Evony clone that Chinese developers have been ripping off and releasing by the thousands over the past decade, one that will no doubt exist for a year before fading into obscurity, because as we have repeatedly seen not even a high profile property skin like Game of Thrones is enough to guarantee success in the saturated mobile market, and will disappear as silently as it came.
Head on over to the official website and you will find several paragraphs about the registration bonuses but virtually nothing about the actual game mechanics. There is a good reason for this, games of this caliber have no mechanics and if advertised as they truly are, a game where the player most closely allied with the Iron Bank of Braavos will win, well less people would want to sign up. Games that, even in the context of video games, have utterly no point and slow down to incentivize you to pay money to go nowhere, like paying for the gas to run your car on a treadmill.
I’ve railed against games so boring that the developer builds in bots so they can play themselves, on a level so rough that my joke review actually got covered at the Game Developers Conference in China, but despite the presence of an auto-play button, you can argue that there is a game there for those who want to play it. You couldn’t make an auto-play button for the vast swaths of identical city building games, because there is nothing to play.
So rather than continue beating down Turbine, I’m going to count my blessings that Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons & Dragons Online are in the hands of a leadership that actually care, or at least are willing to pretend that they care, that Warner Bros. and what remains of Turbine are no longer handling it.
Otherwise I have no opinion on the matter.
MMO Fallout 