Today’s MMOrning Shot comes to us from Archlord II. Who is this man? What is he thinking? What does this have to do with Archlord II? I don’t claim to have all of the answers.
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Webzen has announced the unification of its three game portals, bringing together its own games under a single portal with gPotato and gPotato EU. Players will have easy access to all of Webzen and gPotato’s library of games, including the upcoming launch of Archlord II.
“A total of over 40 million players, from 150 countries, will be able to play and enjoy their favourite games together. This is what online games are all about – fostering online friendship.”
Webzen acquired gPotato as well as its parent company, Gala-Net, for a small sum last month.
(Source: Webzen Press Release)
Players of Allods Online will soon have more friends to play with, as Mail.ru has announced that the firm is taking control of global hosting services for the MMO. Beginning March 18th, Mail.ru will take over hosting from gPotato and merge the European and American servers into one service. On the plus side, this means that players will no longer have to worry about regions carrying different game versions, except for the Russian server which will remain ahead by a small margin. On the down side, the Polish language is being dropped.
Having all European and North American players on the same servers will require the client versions to be synchronized; this puts additional pressure on the version preparation – especially on the localization of the new content. Considering all possible risks which may emerge and cause a delay with the upcoming version updates for all players, we had to make a hard decision of not supporting Polish localization starting from v.5.0.00.
Mail.ru is committed to closing the gap between the Russian and global servers, noting in the announcement that the aim is to only have one month difference in updates.
(Source: Mail.ru)
Webzen has revealed that Archlord II will launch its global service this summer. The service will launch under gPotato and while there is no date set, a teaser website is already up. Archlord II has struggled in its native home of Korea where the servers have already undergone mergers following a lack of population. Players have criticized the game for launching with a heavy cash shop and pay to win aspects.
Archlord II has received several updates since then to lighten the cash shop.
(Source: MMO Culture)
Webzen has released their 2013 earnings release, and the results are a mixture of bad and probably salvageable. Despite a 26% rise in revenue over last year, operating profits dropped by 67%. To put the loss into better perspective, Webzen’s 2012 revenue amounted to $53.6 million USD (approximately), with $45.6 million of that going toward operating expenses, leaving around $8 million left as operating profit and that doesn’t even factor in taxes. In 2013, while revenue gained 26% to $67.47 million, operating costs surged even higher by 42% to $64.87 million. So while revenues grew during the year, operating costs resulted in the final operating profit plummeting.
With a number of titles still in development, Webzen’s portfolio is looking rather slim at the moment. The last year saw the shuttering of Archlord, SUN, and Arctic Combat, with only two of the four games currently listed on Webzen’s global website actually being playable. Games like R2 and Mu Rebirth are still “upcoming,” with development continuing on other titles including Archlord 2. Also worth noting is that revenue from domestic sales fell slightly while overseas grew by a wide margin to 73% of Webzen’s total revenue.
Another factor of operating cost could be related to Webzen’s 100% acquisition of gPotato.com back in February.
(Source: Webzen Earnings)
As Archlord continues its shuttering, the sequel doesn’t seem to be faring any better. Last month, we reported that Archlord would be shutting down its global servers on January 1st, and MMO Culture is reporting that the Korean server will also be closing. Citing an inability to “provide players with a stable environment,” Webzen announced that Archlord’s final territory will be shutting down on February 13th. According to MMO Culture, Archlord II hasn’t been seeing a great response. Currently in open beta, Archlord II has been heavily criticized for latency issues, poor game design, and heavy pay to win features.
The MMO reportedly merged down to two servers, with players still having trouble finding parties. Archlord II is set to head westward at some point in 2014.
(Source: MMO Culture)
Archlord is one of those games whose history I have found difficult to track. This MMO began under Codemasters way back in 2005, launching to pretty low reviews before it went free to play and ultimately shut down in 2009. Webzen, who published Archlord in other territories, took on the role of global publisher. At one point, Webzen started talking about something called Archlord X, which according to this rather poorly translated Facebook notice from September 2012, has ceased development.
Thank you for waiting for release of Archlord X. We notice that all Archlord X contents containing various quest, enhanced battle system and efficient user interface will be applied to Archlord’s major expansion on September. We believe that qualified contents from Archlord X, which was used to enhance Archlord contents, will offer you exciting game environment. Please come to Archlord to enjoy Archlord X contents.
Sadly, Archlord itself will be shutting down January 1st, likely in preparation for the launch of Archlord 2. Compensation packages have not been finalized, and Webzen has promised more details in the coming weeks.
On August of 2009, Webzen.com was thrilled to release Archlord globally. Since official launch, we have been working hard to build a strong community and gaming environment through new content updates and various events. Unfortunately, we have come to a difficult decision to end this long journey we have enjoyed and cherished together. We understand that this will disappoint many of our players.
(Source: Archlord)
Okay, I will admit. I came into the announced shuttering of Arctic Combat with my usual schtick: Another low quality renaming of another failed game imported from Asia shuts down in the west, blah blah blah you already know how I feel about those games and the whales that keep them healthy just long enough to call it a launch and get away with the profits without having to put in any long term support. Or did I just say that again? Anywho…
Arctic Combat is Webzen’s first person shooter, better known as the previously shut down Battery Online. Arctic Battery Combat Online is a lobby based first person shooter that is free to play with a cash shop, it is shutting down in September likely because the popularity and revenue weren’t meeting expectations. What caught my eye was the compensation. I assumed that a game like Arctic Battery Combat, at best players could expect a stipend of cash and some items for other games.
Webzen is refunding W Coins/gPotato currency spent based on tiers, starting at $50 and moving up to $100, $300, and $500. Your reimbursement is the lowest end of your tier, so if you spent $75 your reimbursement is $50. If you spend $450 you will receive $300. It might be fake currency, but Webzen is dropping some serious cash to keep their players in good graces. It isn’t as good as a real-money refund, but it is a welcome change when you consider the number of recent games to shut down without giving their players much more than a goodbye and a suggestion to buy their next product.
On the other hand, one guy on the comments section mentioned that Arctic Combat is being shut down because it is too successful and Webzen apparently can’t handle all of the money. Either way, you don’t see the possibility of 1:1 compensation all that much, so kudos to Webzen.
(Source: Webzen)
Continent of the Ninth is extreme, so extreme that this is simply an artist’s rendering of an actual screenshot. The real thing would have blown the megabytes off of our gigabytes. How extreme is it? C9’s new dungeon has players fighting insanely difficult creatures with the ultimate goal of tracking down and capturing Bardiel, the God of Fire.
MMOrning Shots is a daily line of screenshots from various MMOs. Most are taken in-house or come to us in press releases, but if you would like your screenshot featured, send it over to contact[at]mmofallout[dot]com with the subject “MMorning Shots.”
Every once in a while I come across an MMO here at MMO Fallout and think to myself, “oh yea, whatever happened to that game? It never launched, or if it did I certainly haven’t heard anything about it.” Huxley is just that MMO. In fact, the last time we discussed Huxley here at MMO Fallout was over the fact that it did not make its intended release for 2009. So what in god’s name happened?
For the uninformed, Huxley is an Unreal 3 Engine first person shooter announced way back in 200x with the intention of release on PC and Xbox360, the latter of which was indefinitely put on hold. Originally designed to be an MMOFPS with over a hundred players per battle, budget restraints forced Webzen to reduce their capacities down to simple 32 v 32 matches, essentially making the game Unreal Tournament but only on those servers with the RPG mod enabled. On the PvE side, Huxley might have resembled Hellgate Global somewhat, with players grouping up to tackle instanced dungeons filled with monsters.
In June 2009, Huxley had its first closed beta test, followed by another in July. Following, Huxley went into open beta on May 3rd, 2010. On December 30th, 2010, Huxley’s Korean services shut down completely. Following the closure of the Korean service, work on the international version has apparently come to a complete stop, with Webzen not even acknowledging the game’s existence on their website anymore. Curiously however, the page for Huxley still exists, although it hasn’t been updated since the game’s original anticipated launch date of 2007, and if you can find Webzen game cards in your local stores, odds are they still have the Huxley name on them.
So it looks like Huxley is dead in the water. Not such great news for those who participated in the beta and found the game immensely enjoyable, but closure to those of us who may have lost touch with the game’s progress over the past couple of years.
MMO Fallout 