Dungeon Party Open Beta

Ahoy there! More free MMO gaming ahead!

Dungeon Party has gone into Open Beta.

1. Register here.
2. Download here.
3. Play.
4. ???
5. Profit!

Free games are flowing faster than I can write reviews (or maybe free games are finally to a point where they are fun to play for more than 10 minutes and therefore I don't have time to write reviews)!

The Path

Just a quick note, Eurogamer has their review of The Path posted.

Very few Indie games intrigue me, but The Path has intrigued me enough to spend $8 on it. Yes, it sounds that good IMHO.

Bob's Red Ball

From Broken Toys we meet Rights, Profit, and Drama:

Rights: Well, of course. He’s stating the obvious. Does your landlord in the real world, even though he owns your house and the land it’s on, have any right whatsoever to read your mail and pop in unexpectedly when you have a date? Why should virtual landlords have more rights than realspace landlords?

Profit: I can’t believe we’re even having this discussion. If I’m going to be threatened with lawsuits because of constitutional rights you have to my server, I’d have to be retarded to ever open my company up to such liability by making a server. These are entertainment products, and we are being paid to create a safe and enjoyable environment for everyone. There is no such thing as virtual civil rights, only EULAs. And if you somehow get the courts to disagree, we’ll take our balls and go make console games.

Drama: I KNEW IT I KNEW IT I WAS RIGHT I KNEW IT the company needs to give me my account back now.

Read on through that link for the full article. Read below for my thoughts.

I have always had a simple idea of ownership. If Bob paid for the red ball, is holding the red ball, and decides to give it to you to play a game of kick ball (for free or for a rental charge), Bob still owns the ball.

Virtual space is still real. It exists on a hard drive somewhere. Thou who controls the physical media, owns the virtual goodies within. End of story.

MMO gamers don’t own the physical media and should not have rights to it. MMO gamers pay to access a service. BOB OWNS THE FUCKING BALL!

Playing Free is the Way to Be

Part of my move towards value-based gaming includes keeping a keen eye on the Open Beta market. Open Betas are often a chance to play a full-featured game for free, and sometimes they can last quite a while.

The Chronicles of Spellborn, an MMO long in production, has finally hit Open Beta.

To gain access to the Open Beta simply download the game here and login with your Acclaim User ID and password. If you don't have an Acclaim User ID you can register for free by clicking here.

Enjoy!

Runes of Magic: Linux, Launch, and U

In keeping my ear to the ground listening for great values in the gaming market, I keep coming accross Runes of Magic, a free to play, but supported by micro-transactions MMO. I normally disdain micro-transactions, but I can live with them when the game is being given away for free.

Anyways, I figured I'd take the time to throw up some info I've come across while researching RoM. First, it is launching on March 19th.

So here's the plan: Tomorrow on Wednesday, 18 March 2009, at 2am PST / 11:00h CET we will take down almost everything.
The Runes of Magic game servers, the official website and the official forums.

Only the patch-server stays online. We want everyone to be able to keep their clients updated so that when we go live on Thursday not everyone tries to download the patch at the same time. Be aware: if everything goes to plan, it might take a while to get through. Good news: there is no need to download a new version of the client!

While the servers are down - as a little incentive for new and old players - you can top-up your Diamond account.
We offer a 30% discount on Diamonds during the game's downtime.

During the downtime we go through the forums, tiding up a bit - doing our equivalent of spring cleaning - and uncluttering that unwieldy forum structure.

So that's what we have to dom but what about you? You don't really think we'll just let you go on playing like this, do you?

Well, actually we don't let you. You have to wait.

And when the servers come back up on Thursday, 19 March 2009 at exactly 1am PST / 10:00h CET you do have to redistribute all you TP again, because there's a big TP reset for everyone.

Secondly, for the Linux gamers out there, it looks like RoM runs smoothly through WINE.

Bounty Hunters, Concerns

Bioware has released another video documentary for Star Wars: The Old Republic and in it, they announce the Bounty Hunter as a player class. My Boba Fett action figures are jumping for joy.

However, I have to voice my concern for the underlying gameplay that Bioware chooses to show in these videos. The concept art is great, the developer commentary is spot on, but the actual gameplay looks dated and depressing. The animations and combat looked average at best.

Every new video from Bioware seems to feature fewer seconds of actual gameplay and more "how great this game will be" propaganda. It makes me wonder what Bioware is hiding.

Hopefully this is all overblown huffing and puffing on my part over some alpha (or earlier) footage of the game, but there is this little jaded gamer inside of me that doesn't buy that excuse.

Unreal Tournament III Free Weekend Play

My Internet has been down all day thanks to my ISP trying to block my wireless router's MAC address, otherwise I would have posted this sooner. Unreal Tournament III can be played for FREE this weekend via Steam. Plus it's on sale for %40 off (making it just $11.99).

Load up Steam to play Unreal Tournament III, and the recently released Titan Bonus Pack, for free, until 1PM PST, March 15th.

One more reason to love Steam. One more reason I am loving my shift to FREE (aka the best value in town) gaming.

And for anyone getting started this weekend, READ THIS FIRST!

The Corollary to That

“The corollary to that is if you’ve seen a game consolidate servers, you know it’s in deep, deep trouble — that’s not a healthy sign for an MMO,” he said, citing Sony’s January-released “Pirates of the Burning Sea” as a recent example. “It will be the same for ‘Warhammer.’ Look at us six months out. Look at us six weeks out. If we’re not adding servers, we’re not doing well.”
- Mark Jacobs 8/29/08

Fast forward to today:

On Tuesday, March 10, we will be performing a final transfer of characters from several of the servers that have been, in the past, a source server (ie. we have offered transfers off of). Please read on for all the details, including a list of affected servers.

Failures do not become more epic than this. As Obama's presidential run was a lesson for all future presidential candidates, so will Mark Jacob's pre-launch WAR propaganda be for all future MMO developers.

Sadly, Mark is going to find out the hard way how right his original statement was.

Darkfall Launches

It's the LOL heard around the world: Darkfall has gone LIVE!

On a side note: a new Star Wars: The Old Republic web comic!

FPS Gaming Goodness: Quake Live and Team Fortress 2 Scout Update

The Quake Live beta has started and I can be found getting fragged repeatedly as heartlessgamer. Just to note: there are queues to get logged into the beta website, so get in line now if you want to get your frag on!

Actually the queues have subsided to just a couple of minutes now, but last night they were swollen with tens of thousands of people trying to log on to the new service. Apart from being over-subscribed and the verification emails taking a while to turn up, the browser-launched Quake 3 is looking good. The front end system, with its rankings and insta-matching systems, appears remarkably solid and easy to navigate. Why not go and have a look? It’s completely free, after all.

Next on the schedule for FPS fans: Team Fortress 2 has released the Scout Update.

Baseball pre-season begins. And the Scout Update goes live. After the vote to see in which order the unlocks should be added, the order is announced. It’s Force-A-Nature first, then The Sandman, then finally the Bonk Energy Drink. You can read all the details of all the updates with this handy link.

Also to note: Team Fortress 2 is on sale for a mere $10 until this Friday. Get it while its hot. Oh, and apparently games work just like taxes, lower them and more revenue is made. Or I mean to say: lower game prices and more revenue is made.

The holiday sales lead to interesting numbers. A 10% reduction lead to 35% increase in amount of money which came in (i.e. Not just sales). 25% lead to a 245% increase. 50% lead to 320% increase. And 75% lead to 1470%. Which is an interesting one to interpret in a few ways.

A great one-two punch. A free, web-based FPS that plays great on almost any PC. And a game developer delivering digital downloads at a reasonable price making money hand over fist. Take that you stupid, overpaid fucking twats running 90% of the game development industry.

Monpy Tython

Star Wars: The Old Republic is still looking OLD! I present: The Making of Tython.



After watching the video linked above, please read the following.

Is it just me, or does every new video for SW:ToR make the game look absolutely boring? Bioware better have some wiz-bang combat previews coming up or I am officially jumping off the train for this one.

Here. We. Go.

Now the Fun Begins is the title of Jack Thompson's e-mail announcing his official disbarment from practicing law in Florida.

In a four-page written order, the Florida Supreme Court today affirmed a referee's recommendation to permanently disbar controversial Miami attorney Jack Thompson.

The action, which takes effect in 30 days, means that Thompson will no longer be licensed to practice law and may not apply for reinstatement. Ever.

And after reading the article, all I saw in my head was the Joker in The Dark Knight going "Here. We. Go.".

For some reason, I don't think this is the last we'll be hearing from Mr. Thompson. He just won't have the legal clout to back his idiocy up any longer. Essentially, he becomes like the rest of us on the Internet, no laws to hold his vitriol back. Not that he followed any laws in the first place.

WAR Delayed, L4D Gold

Oops, screwed up the title.

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR) has gone gold.

Mythic Entertainment today announced that the highly-anticipated MMORPG, Warhammer® Online: Age of Reckoning™ (WAR), has gone gold and will open its servers on September 18, 2008 at an MSRP of $49.99 in North America.

“We’ve done our best to create the next great MMORPG experience, but it’s the fans that will bring our world to life,” said Mark Jacobs, vice president at EA and general manager of Mythic Entertainment. “The Day of Reckoning approaches and it’s going to be glorious! It’s time to go to WAR.”

Left 4 Dead (L4D), Valve's co-op zombie shooting masterpiece, has been delayed so the launch can coincide with Half-Life's 10th anniversary.

Well the date has been changed again, and now Valve's highly anticipated co-op survival horror has different release dates for North America and Europe. Left 4 Dead 411 made a request to Valve for definite confirmation, and Doug Lombardi responded, "Nov 18 in the States. Nov 21 in Europe (US retailers do 'new release Tues' and the EU does that on Friday)."

The new release date still ties in with Half-Life's anniversary, as the game was originally launched on November 18, 1998.

Beta Leaks Gone?

Word on the street is that the popular Beta Leaks website is officially down. Good riddance, maybe now a true beta leaking website can take its place, where actual information is leaked instead of weighted opinions.

September 18th

The day that will live in infamy, September 18th, will mark the launch of the next big thing, also known as Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.

Also, from the looks of things, Mythic is maintaining the status quo as far as monthly fees. $14.99 per month or a bit less if you pay for three or six month packages ahead of time.

The announcement has me somewhat reinvigorated to stay away from any MMO that I may want to run back to while I wait. I may be burned out on action, but I think I can find something productive to do with my time until launch.

Gamestop Pre-order Details for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

First, Gamestop e-mailed a release date and server-up time announcement for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.

“Please Note: Servers will not go live until 10:00am EST on 9/18/08.”

Now, they've emailed details about a pre-order deal that gets players into the thought-to-be only for collector's edition orders Head Start event.

Reserve Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning and receive:

Open Beta Access: Be one of the first players to experience the glory of battle and the thrill of WAR! Open Beta will run from September 3, 2008 at 10am EST until September 12, 2008 at 10am EST. The Open Beta will level capped and content restricted.

Live Game Head Start: Reserve customers will get a 3-day head start on the battlefields of WAR. The Live Game Head Start begins on September 15, 2008 at 10am EST.

Bonus In-Game Items: Equip your characters for the journey to the frontlines with Rittenbach’s Portable Camp and Sentinel’s Amber Band.

Universal Fighting System Battle Deck: The Emperor Karl Franz and Tchar’zanek, dread Champion of Tzeentch, go head-to-head in this exclusive collectible card game deck from Fantasy Flight Games.

ONLINE/IN-STORE PICKUP CUSTOMERS: You will receive a code for the bonus items. Please provide a valid email address at time of purchase.

STORE CUSTOMERS: All bonus items will be available in store at time of reservation. Items available in store week of August 4. Please call ahead to confirm availability.

August 4th shall be very interesting.

Oh, and a card game? Interesting, I thought that was SOE's thing. Oh well.

Massively Overrated

One quote is all it took to tip my anger against Massively.com:

"With recent news of other games opting to release "on time" with minimal content, we can't help but scratch our heads at this type of situation. It's been asked a million times before, but we'll ask it again: would you rather have a partial game released now, or a complete game released later?"

Other games being specifically Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. They can call me a raging fanboy, and probably will. I am sick of this constant belief that WAR is somehow releasing an unfinished game because some people had promises magically transplanted into their brain.

I think it is due time that I give up reading Massively. Between the gratuitous self-linking and biased news sniping, I would begin to believe Massively a professional news organization.

I apologize to the better Massively.com posters, who take care to post actual news in news postings, not biased snipes based on uneducated guesswork.

Oh, and I'm not the only one. Keen found a pretty wonderful stinker on Massively as well.

“WAR strikes me as WoW mechanics wrapped in different lore plus a couple of new features. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Clearly Blizzard got a lot right with WoW, but it doesn’t do much for those of us looking for that “new” experience again.”

Knights Of The Online Republic

One simple quote has brought the Internet to its collective knees:

“We’ve got two of the most compelling MMOs in the industry in development,” said Riccitiello. The first title, based on the Warhammer property, will launch soon. “And the one that people are dying for us to talk to them about — in partnership with Lucas, coming out of BioWare, which is, I think, quite possibly the most anticipated game, full stop, for the industry at the point when we get closer to telling you about it.”

Does Riccitiello mean the oft rumored Knights of the Old Republic Online? “Yes,” he said.

MMO gaming has NEVER looked better. Anyone that thought that the industry died with World of Warcraft was dead, dead wrong.

Team Fortress 2 Achievements and Unlockables

First the Medic. Then the Pyro. Soon, the Heavy. Team Fortress 2 (TF2), an every-man's FPS, has been making me nostalgic for MMO class nerfs and buffs. Every player is a fan of a certain class. It is their class and they can not wait for it to get "updated". Unfortunately, "updates" for one class, are nerfs for another. This holds true in most class-based MMOs and TF2.

Unlockable Weapons

I was quite excited to hear about unlockable weapons for TF2. The game was great already and this was just icing on the cake. TF2 was a complete game at launch. These unlockables were not used in a "patch the game in later" approach that so many MMO failures use. However, Valve has committed a sin that many MMO developers have, and I am a bit miffed on how the unlockable weapons are being rolled out.

Valve decided that unlockables would be rolled out one class at a time. This is reminiscent of MMOs that often choose to update classes one at a time. As one class gets "updated", the other classes suffer. Fortunately, for TF2, the classes are pretty strong and well-balanced to begin with.

Unfortunately, whatever TF2 class receives an update becomes overplayed and it doesn't take long for the "X is overpowered" cries to begin. When the Pyro, the first offensive class to receive unlocks, update came out, every server was filled with Pyros, all trying to unlock the new weapons. As the zerg of Pyros began upgrading their weapons, many players felt that Pyros were unfairly made overpowered.

I play a lot of TF2 and I strongly feel the new Pyro weapons are not overpowered. The problem is that there are a million Pyros running around and when a player constantly dies to the same new weapon, it feels overpowered. The servers are starting to settle down as most die-hard Pyro players have received their goodies, but it will all start over when the Heavy class is updated.

Achievements

In order to unlock new weapons, players must complete class-specific achievements. Sticking with the over-the-top theme of TF2, the Pyro achievements were a riot. Like the Medic achievements, the majority of the Pyro achievements take actual skill and teamwork to achieve, but an ugly truth hides just under the surface.

The ugly truth is that Valve has no system of official ranked servers and most players simply go to "achievement" servers to cheat. On an achievement server, specifically built for a set of class achievements, it takes a matter of hours to complete all achievements. A feat that would take hundreds of hours in normal play.

To me, this completely invalidates the entire achievement system. Worst of all, the weapon unlocks are directly tied into the achievements system. In order to unlock the new weapons, a player must complete a set number of achievements. Players aren't stupid and achievement servers are big business.

The argument comes up that achievements are a personal goal, but I don't give a damn if a player can say to themselves: "I know I didn't cheat". No one else will care and it won't matter when the player that exploited runs them down with a Level 10 Backburner. Either players cheat, or they suffer at the hands of those that do.

The class updates should be a boon to all players, not just those that cheat. This could easily have been achieved by allowing everyone access to the weapons, completely removing the unlock system. The weapon unlocks should have never been tied to the achievements, as it just promotes the rampant cheating that is occurring.

Valve desperately needed an Official Server system in place prior to these achievements going live. Without a means to control how achievements are gained, there is no merit in any of them. Lack of integrity is wont on the Internet, especially where frags and pwning are concerned.

Its a sad state of affairs for an otherwise great game. The achievements and new weapons themselves are brilliant, but the achievement/unlock system as a whole is just another sad excuse for cheaters to prosper over honest players.

Meh

Meh, Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) gets its own card game. This is something that would of been awesomely cool at launch, but feels completely tacked on now. Plus, Sabaac is the penultimate card game for any Star Wars role-playing game, and no company seems to be willing to touch it. I honestly had wet dreams when it was mentioned that SWG would possibly have Sabaac in game at some point. Sadly it never happened.

I am not going to blast SOE too hard on this one. I am a sucker for card games and the market needs more of them on official online platforms that don't cost an arm and a leg to participate in (I'm looking at you MtG Online).

I've said it before; these sort of projects are the ones I can bear coming out of SOE. I just don't like the tacked on feeling of most of them. Can't one of them be launched on its own platform without a tie-in to a B-rate MMO?