Category: MMO (Page 8 of 9)

September was a great month for MMOs

October 21, 2009 / Jeff Morgan

The NPD numbers are in for September showing strong sales among MMOs in the PC market. NCSoft’s Aion topped the list, bumping last month’s Sims 3 down a slot. Third and fourth went to Champions Online and Wrath of the Lich King respectively, and the Collector’s Edition of Aion. took fifth.

Aside from the MMO scene, the list was dominated by older titles and smaller games. September wasn’t set to be a huge month for blockbuster titles, regardless of the fact that most of the major Q4 releases have been pushed to 2010. Any time Nancy Drew: Ransom of the Seven Ships is in the top 20, you know it’s been a slow month. Here’s the full list:

MMO, News, PC

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CrimeCraft going free-to-play this month

October 4, 2009 / Jeff Morgan

If you’re sitting around bored as November approaches, fear not. You’ll be able to play what is widely considered a terrible game, just now it won’t cost you anything! Hurray! Yes, CrimeCraft is going free-to-play with an “unlimited free trial” starting at the end of October. The trial will basically be a limited version of the game that the developer hopes will lure you into subscribing at the $5 or $10 level.

Along with the announcement, Vogster Entertainment also promised a big update to game content. From what I’ve read, that update would have to essentially make CrimeCraft a completely different game to save it.

MMO, PC

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Healer Wanted – Willing To Pay

September 21, 2009 / Jeff Morgan

Every World of Warcraft addict has wished at some point or another to make a living playing Blizzard’s MMO. As it turns out, there was at least one other addict willing to indulge that fantasy this weekend.

The posting has since been removed, but someone in the Bay area posted for a WoW arena partner to take him to a 2000+ rating. Thankfully, Kotaku was able to copy an image of the post before it was pulled. The position required 20 hours a week, a Death Knight for farming, and the ability to carry someone with too little skill and too much money to the top of the arena ranks.

The pay? How about $50/hour up to 1850 rating, $100/hour after the 1850 mark, and a $5000 bonus if you reach 2350. Since Kotaku picked up the story I’m sure the poster has received digital droves of hate mail and spam, mocking his abilities and rebuking his method. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to just buy an account at that level?

Activision, MMO, News

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Mythic Admits Warhammer Mistakes

September 19, 2009 / Jeff Morgan

Mythic did something at GDC this week that I honestly don’t expect from any developer: it acknowledged mistakes. Not just one mistake, either, but a slew of them that kept the Warhammer MMO from becoming the best new thing on the market. I appreciate the acknowledgment for a couple reasons. First, the game was a letdown, and a pretty big one at that. Second, the things the Mythic staff pointed out gives us a close look at how small changes can affect the scope of a game in a big way.

Here’s the bulk of Mythic’s comments from VG247:

There’s a big difference between easy play and ease of use. One of the lessons that we thought we learned from ourselves and other games, was that it’s important to have ease of use, and it’s also important to hit the right balance between easy gameplay, challenging gameplay, and too difficult. We thought we hit that, but Warhammer, in PVE, in the beginning, is too easy. It doesn’t make you thrilled to do it.
[As for] our economy… we just missed the mark. If you look at the reasoning behind the economy, you’ll see things like, ‘Hey, we’re not going to let gold farmers in our game.’ ‘We’re going to try to make sure we have controlled inflation.’ We had all the best reasons in our game, but what it caused us to do was build a game where economy is not important enough.

All I can say is, “yup.” Those are exactly the sorts of things that sound great in theory but in practice create an uninspiring world, one you’ll find hard to justify spending money to be a part of.

MMO, PC

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WoW Faction Changes Go Live At $30 A Pop

September 3, 2009 / Jeff Morgan

I really hate the fees that come along with Blizzard services for World of Warcraft. Name changes are a completely absurd $10, server transfers are $25 per toon, and the “re-customization” service, which will include a name change, runs $15. Blizzard made an addition to the list of money-minting scams with the faction change. The service, which a lot of people have been after for some time, will run you a whopping $30. That’s almost 3 months of gameplay on a subscription plan, which is just ridiculous.

While the rest of the services seem to truly be aimed at character customization, and not necessarily just making money, this one looks to be designed to bleed players dry. For starters, there’s no included server transfer. I don’t know about you, but for my part, changing factions to play with other people means changing servers. I would think it’s pretty rare that your friends just happen to play the opposite faction on your server. Changing factions for this reason means you’ll be spending $55 per toon. Pretty rough.

Also, Blizzard is looking to roll out a Race Change feature in the future, at what I assume will be similarly rapacious prices. For a full list of limitations to the new service, check out Blizzard’s two-page FAQ.