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President Obama orders stricter sanctions on North Korea after Sony hack
According to a press release that just hit the Treasury Department's website, President Barack Obama has issued an executive order that calls for even more restrictive sanctions on North Korea for its role in the massive hack attack on Sony Pictures late last year. In his words, the new financial clampdown is because of North Korea's "destructive, coercive cyber-related actions during November and December." "Today's actions are driven by our commitment to hold North Korea accountable for its destructive and destabilizing conduct," Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said in a statement. "Even as the FBI continues its investigation into the cyber-attack against Sony Pictures Entertainment, these steps underscore that we will employ a broad set of tools to defend U.S. businesses and citizens, and to respond to attempts to undermine our values or threaten the national security of the United States."
Tree of Savior will launch free-to-play, heads toward first closed beta
If you had any lingering doubts that Tree of Savior would be launching as a free-to-play title, best to put them out of your head now. The game will indeed be launching free-to-play, at least in Korea, with an undisclosed number of "extra" items in the cash shop (which will be revealed in the future). Recruitment for the first closed beta is already underway, with the first test starting on January 15th, 2015. This early test will be limited to 3,000 participants, and as it's for the Korean version, you'll need a Korean Nexon account. Some clarification regarding the game's class structure has also been posted; it lays out how players can move up to the more advanced classes at regular intervals. The first test features only 28 possible classes rather than the full 80 of the final game, but more options will be made available as the game moves through testing.
Leaderboard: Are you following Bless or Black Desert?
I'm a big fan of Korean MMOs, and I always look forward to what's next from our friends in the Far East. Since Blade & Soul doesn't seem to be gaining any traction in Europe or North America, that arguably leaves Black Desert and Bless as the primary triple-A Korean titles on the horizon. Black Desert seems to have more of the sandbox features I want, but I'm sure I'll play Bless too at some point. What about you, Leaderboard readers? Are you looking forward to either of these games? Vote after the cut!
'The Interview' and the aftermath
After a very public admonition by President Barack Obama, Sony Pictures released The Interview to Google Play, YouTube, the PlayStation and Xbox stores and now iTunes, to say nothing of over 300 independent theaters across the United States in time for Christmas. Despite the risks and the technical challenges involved, Sony did it. It made good on its word. Now that we're past the big holiday weekend, though, let's take a moment to step back and look at The Interview's aftermath as it stands.
Taking a look at the Black Desert cash shop
So what does the inside of Black Desert's cash shop actually look like? Sure, the exact contents aren't going to matter to players who hate having cash shops at all or the players who were going to play the game no matter what, but a good implementation or a bad one could have an impact. Hence a new post on Steparu walking through the options available and giving a loose idea of how the pricing breaks down. With a $50 budget, some options were simply out of reach on the shop, specifically the limited edition mount armor. A handful of limited-time packs with boosts are already in-place in game, alongside the usual options of dyes, inventory expansions, and makeovers. The cash shop also contains exclusive hairstyles and under-armor options. Check out the full piece for a more comprehensive glance inside of the game's real-money marketplace.
North Korea is suffering a complete internet outage (update: restored)
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (that's "North Korea" to the common man) has just four networks that connect to the World Wide Web -- and none of them are working today. "The situation now is they are totally offline," Doug Madory, director of internet analysis at Dyn Research told Bloomberg. After a weekend of spotty connections, the country's pipeline to the outside world reportedly went down this morning. "This isn't normal for them," Madory said. "Usually they are up solid. It is kind of out of the ordinary. This is not like anything I've seen before." Update: According to a tweet by Dyn Research, North Korea's internet service has been restored after a nine-hour, 31-minute outage.
FBI confirms North Korea's involvement in Sony hack as attackers talk ceasefire
After a whole host of unconfirmed media reports, the Federal Bureau of Investigation just officially stated it believes that North Korea was indeed involved with a gigantic Sony hack that saw personal information, unreleased movies and thousands of emails leaked online. According to a release issued by the Bureau, an investigation revealed "significant overlap" between the means of attack against Sony and previous hacks conducted by the North Korean government. Earlier reports also suggested that the FBI would identify China as a potential participant (either directly or through use of its network infrastructure) in the attack, but no mention of the country was made in this first announcement. "North Korea's actions were intended to inflict significant harm on a U.S. business and suppress the right of American citizens to express themselves," the Bureau's statement reads.
Black Desert is officially in open beta... in Korea
Still pinning hopes and dreams on Daum's breathtaking sandbox MMORPG Black Desert? If you're in South Korea, those hopes and dreams are a reality this week, as the game officially entered open beta in that region yesterday. Blogger Steparu has already posted one video from the event, a snapshot of progress on a mid-level Sorceress. We've included it below. If you're bilingual and already enjoying the game, we'd love to hear about it, as those of us in the West will be waiting until at least 2016.
Sony Pictures cancels 'The Interview' theatrical release (update)
Threats posted by the people behind the unprecedented hacking of Sony Pictures appear to have had the desired effect. The Wall Street Journal and The Hollywood Reporter both state, based on anonymous sources, that the largest movie chains will not debut the movie next week. Carmike Cinemas said that it would not be showing the film, while the sources indicate they will be joined by AMC, Cinemark, Regal and Cineplex. In a statement to THR, Regal cited Sony Pictures' 'wavering support' for the film, as well as the threats, as the reason it decided to delay the film's opening. According to Variety, one possibility is to release the movie straight to video on-demand, but so far Sony Pictures has not commented publicly. Update: According to CNN's Pamela Brown, Sony Pictures has pulled the plug and will not premiere The Interview on December 25th as it originally planned. In a statement (included after the break), the company said "In light of the decision by the majority of our exhibitors not to show the film The Interview, we have decided not to move forward with the planned December 25 theatrical release." Meanwhile, another movie set in North Korea starring Steve Carell that was about to go into production has been cancelled. Update 2: According to media reports, the US government will publicly identify North Korea as the source of the cyberattacks. Update 3: According to the LA Times, Sony Pictures says it currently has no plans to release The Interview in any form, including straight to DVD/Blu-ray, VOD or subscription streaming.
Black Desert's sieges are purposeful chaos
Believe it or not, Black Desert's appeal doesn't begin and end at darn fine looks; the Korean MMO has a wealth of other features as well. Two of those features are the subject of a new trailer today, half of which shows off the mighty field boss fights and the other half showing the chaos of castle sieges. We've got a five-minute look at both of these features in a gameplay trailer after the break! Our favorite part is the musician who is merrily wandering around the field of combat belting out sweet tunes, oblivious to the carnage all around.
True fans of the genre, get thee hence to Cabal II's closed beta
Are you a "true fan" of the MMO genre? If so, then according to a hyperactive press release by ESTGames, you'll surely want to sign up for Cabal II's closed beta on the official site. The beta sign-ups for the sequel to Cabal Online are indeed live, and a focus test is already in the works for December 19th through the 22nd. Cabal II is an action-MMO with "fluid, skill-based combat"; it's aiming for a 2015 release in both North America and Europe. [Source: ESTGames press release]
TERA's Korean incarnation is getting a new class this month
Have you ever been playing TERA and thought that what the game really needed was more guns? Because the upcoming additional class (tentatively translated as Arcane Gunner) brings exactly that to the game. More guns. All of the guns, in fact. There's no space for any more guns because the ladies of this class are hauling around cannons as big as they are. Yes, ladies; much like the Elin-only Reaper, the new class is limited to High Elf and Castanic women. Aside from the aforementioned huge gun, the new class will also be able to summon sentry drones and robot helpers whilst it blows everything away. There will even be new hairstyles available. No word on when the class will arrive in the game's local incarnation, although based on the last added class, it'll be four or five months. You can wait on gunplay until April, right?
Black Desert's characters still look incredible
Had enough Black Desert trailers yet? Good, we haven't either. This latest one gives us an eyeful of the fantasy sandbox's singular character design. The two-minute clip features NPCs, mobs, and some really slick-looking avatar outfits (with damage!). See for yourself after the break.
Bless Online adds mounts in closed beta
It's disheartening to play an MMO that forces your character to walk everywhere like an animal. Much better to get an actual animal to do all the walking for you, yes? Thankfully Bless Online will allow players to do exactly that, with the game's current closed beta test adding 30 mounts for players to use as their personal transport tools. Mounts in the game can be obtained via NPC trainers, via quests, or via finding and taming certain creatures out in the wild. They're also not meant as mere cosmetic variations, as each one supposedly has unique skills and attributes once you climb on its back. It looks as if flying mounts will be available in the future, giving players all sorts of different ways to get from point A to point B without having to rely on something so undignified as actually walking there.
Black Desert's latest trailers tour the massive open world
How about another round of Black Desert videos? Daum's released a pair of them today. The first is over 12 minutes of extensive, dizzying fly-over of the seamless open world. The second, shorter video is a bit harder to parse if you don't read Korean, but there's a lot of running and jumping and sailing and playing drums and blowing up boulders and stealing sheep and milking cows and getting kicked in the face by cows and why are you looking at me like that? The action-sandbox enters closed beta in South Korea next week. Daum has already uploaded videos featuring the game's combat and non-combat activities. Enjoy today's vids!
North Korea treats its state-sponsored hackers like royalty
There's still a dispute as to whether or not North Korean hackers broke into Sony Pictures' network, but one thing is clear: the country spoils its cyberwarriors rotten. A defector tells Reuters that Bureau 121, the spy division responsible for at least some state-sponsored internet attacks, gives hackers "very strong" financial incentives. They get giant apartments in posher parts of town, and they're relatively wealthy; one Bureau member could pay to move his entire rural family to the capital if he wanted. Many North Koreans see one of these jobs as an honor.
Lost Continent: Yep, F2P sucks for ArcheAge
Thus far I've put up with quite a lot of crap in my quest to like ArcheAge. There was the launch debacle in which no one realized that many millions of people will show up and expect a working service if you yell "come play for free!" Then there was the Auroria debacle, in which no one cared about server accessibility during a competitive launch event. And of course there's ArcheAge's easily exploitable code, the ramifications of which include hacks, cheats, and bot-related problems that continue to be visible to anyone taking Trion's really-guys-it's-only-a-tiny-minority spin with a grain of salt. Finally, there's the grossly intrusive monetization plan that prevents subscribers from playing certain parts of the game unless they spend additional money in the cash shop. ArcheAge has a comically long list of problems, but it's this last one that's finally wearing me down.
Expect zero seizures from today's Black Desert features reel
OK, so you don't like the spazzy shaky-cam and motion-blur of Black Desert's videos. Fortunately, you can turn it all off inside the game. Even more fortunately, there's more to the game than bouncing-off-the-walls, eye-spasm-y hack-'n'-slash, as today's video from Daum demonstrates. There's farming, fishing, boating, gathering, and other crafting skills, plus what looks like an elaborate minigame attached to harpooning sea critters. There's also an extended section on horse taming and associated mount activities like mounted combat. (The horses are gorgeous.) The sandbox is slated to enter closed beta in South Korea on December 17th. The video's below!
Check out Black Desert's combat in a new video
Are you keeping an eye on Black Desert, the Korean sandbox MMORPG headed to open beta on December 17th? Then you'll probably want to know how combat looks and feels, right? I won't lie -- Massively commenters have called it "nauseating" for a reason, but maybe this style of visceral action-combat is your thing. I'd be turning off camera-shake in no time, personally, but it's pretty cool all the same. Check it out in a new Daum video courtesy of MMO Culture below.
Here's a Black Desert FAQ as K-OBT approaches
Steparu has long been the best source for Westerners interested in Korean fantasy sandbox Black Desert. Now, he's offering his expertise in the form of a FAQ/AMA post as the title's open beta approaches. Topics covered include playing the Korean OBT (it requires a Korean cell phone or I-pin Online identification), the Western release timeframe (originally 2015 and now possibly slipping to 2016), and several gameplay-specific issues.
