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Warhammer Online offering free server transfers as prelude to two server shutdowns
If you're playing on the Iron Rock or Volkmar servers for Warhammer Online, it's time to get ready to say goodbye. The development team for the game has just announced that free server transfers are being unlocked for both servers, allowing players to transfer to Gorfang to help bolster the population. That in and of itself wouldn't be all that unusual, except that when the transfer starts, both Iron Rock and Volkmar are being flagged as Legacy servers to prevent any new characters from being created. Starting on February 9th, transfers will be enabled and the Legacy flag will go into place. After three weeks of open transfers, both Iron Rock and Volkmar will be flagged as "Retired," meaning that any characters not transferred off the server will have to be transferred to Gorfang (or Badlands via a paid transfer). That means that two of the game's remaining four American servers will be removed in the near future, and while the population boost will no doubt help Warhammer Online's RvR battles, it's still a shutdown for two servers.
Fantasy Earth Zero shutting down on March 24th
Sad news today for fans of Fantasy Earth Zero -- after officially launching less than a year ago, the game will be shutting down in North America in just under two months. Gamepot USA has posted a full statement explaining the game's shutdown schedule as well as the policies on refunds for any game currency purchased within the last month. The game's cash shop has been closed, with all servers set to quadruple experience and money so that players can enjoy the time that's left. Fantasy Earth Zero took the long way around to get released stateside in the first place, after being developed by Square-Enix and then nearly shut down in Japan due to poor sales. An emotional farewell letter has also been posted, something fans of the game will no doubt wish to read. There's still time left to enjoy the accelerated servers before the shutdown, but when the lights go out on March 24th, they won't be coming back on. [Thanks to Jeffrey for the tip.]
EA closing Sims Carnival, announces new round of game server shutdowns
It has become a part of the game industry circle of life: EA shutting down online servers for its older (or unpopular) games. The company has announced a new round of shutdowns, including the complete shutdown of its The Sims Carnival creation site. The company notes that all games and content on the site will no longer be available after January 16. The Sims Carnival site does state, however, that Game Creator and game files can be downloaded before the service ends and played locally. Furthermore, EA has announced that its publishing deal for Lord of the Rings games has expired, meaning the last active title, Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 2 on Xbox 360, will be shut down on January 11 for Xbox 360. The PC version was closed on December 31. Several sports games are scheduled to be shut down on February 8, including several FIFA and NCAA titles. Finally, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 for Wii will go offline March 1.
Next wave of EA game server shutdowns detailed
The list of game server shutdowns back in January was pretty extensive in its own right, but EA's not done retiring more of its legacy titles from online play. Over at EA.com, the full list of server shutdowns details the next wave of house cleaning, starting on April 15 with Burnout 3: Takedown for PS2 and Army of Two for PS3 (in Asia only). Then, on March 15, additional titles will no longer support online functionality, including Def Jam for PS3 and Xbox 360, Mercenaries 2 for PC and Lord of the Rings: Conquest for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. For the full list of games going offline and when, head on past the break. [Thanks, Marcus N]
Warhammer Online merges two more servers
It wasn't entirely unexpected -- after all, Jeff Skalski gave some indications this might be coming in our recent interview with him -- but it's still unbalancing. Warhammer Online community manager Andy Belford confirmed today that two of the game's servers, Dark Crag and Phoenix Throne, will be shutting down. The population of these servers will be allowed a free transfer to two other servers each -- Iron Rock or Badlands for Dark Crag, Gorfang or Volkmar for Phoenix Throne. He also mentions that there will be a 20% bonus to experience and renown in the weeks following the transfer, to at least slightly take the sting off the event. It looks as if there will be slightly more servers in the European region, as they have a total of 13 still open... but several of those are due to the different languages, and at least one of the realms is scheduled for shutdown. As for what this means for the game itself... it's hard to call it anything but bad news, even with the promises of a boost incoming to ease the impact. We know that Warhammer Online's future looks a bit shaky after recent events, but this is more dire than any of us had expected or hoped. We'll keep up on any news as it becomes available. [ Thanks to JP for the tip. ]
Star Wars Galaxies to shut down 12 servers
In a letter to all Star Wars Galaxies account holders today, Sony Online Entertainment has announced that they will be shutting down 12 servers on October 15th. This brings their number of active servers to 13 -- a pretty respectable number for any game to still host.This shutdown has come as a response to the free character transfer service that SOE has offered Star Wars Galaxies players, leaving certain servers with drastically low populations while other servers have become the new homes of the community. Many members of the SWG community only look upon this move with happiness, as now it means having worlds teeming with players rather than wasteland planets.
Power upgrade may affect select realms
Blizzard has just announced that a facility where some WoW realms' servers are located will be undergoing a power system upgrade tomorrow, September 4th, from 8 AM Pacific to approximately 6 PM Pacific. They do not expect the upgrade to have any effect on the realms in question, and they say that they will be working to make sure everything goes smoothly. Of course, the unspoken follow-up here is that there just might be some issues. If you play on any of the realms listed after the break, you might want keep in mind that you may encounter some choppy waters tomorrow, and possibly a full shutdown.
Apocalypse Soon: Tabula Rasa going out with a bang
It seems that NCsoft will be ushering the fairly unsuccessful Tabula Rasa off this mortal coil in a somewhat unorthodox, yet completely awesome fashion. Soon-to-be-retired players won't be popping champagne and mingling during tomorrow's server shut-off festivities -- no, they'll be pushing back one last onrush of bloodthirsty Bane combatants in a cataclysmic event that will likely see the annihilation of every living thing, ever. Players were warned in an in-character message on the Tabula Rasa site that should their defenses crumble during the Bane's final onslaught, humanity will turn to its ominous-sounding "last resort weapon," which will ensure the complete destruction of both sides of the conflict. The missive's reasoning was concise -- "if it is truly our destiny to be destroyed," it explains, "we are taking them all with us." Tabula Rasa may have not made a flashy arrival onto the MMO scene, but it sounds like NCsoft is making sure it has one hell of a departure.
The Daily Grind: Were you going to play Mythos?
We hope you knew what Mythos was -- or is, depending on how things play out -- because the game was a whole lot of fun even in beta. In fact it really seemed ready for prime time and that was several months ago. We really don't know what the future holds for the game, but right now it's on indefinite hiatus and that makes us wear our sad faces. So for today's The Daily Grind we're asking you: Did you plan on playing the game once it came out of beta?As a free-to-play game, Mythos stood a chance to become a wonderful "instead" game. What we mean is that it was the perfect game to play instead of your regular evening or weekend getaway game. Don't feel like grinding through more dungeons in Lord of the Rings Online or World of Warcraft today? Play Mythos instead, it's easy-going hack n' slash fun! The examples are beyond several. Well, they were beyond several. We truly hope to see a rushed revival for those of you (us included) that were planning on playing the game once it launched.
Age of Conan's old beta test servers shut down
It is time for beta testers milking the beta gravy train to pay-up and subscribe if they want to continue playing on an official Age of Conan test server. According to Scott over at Pumping Irony, upon firing-up the old test launcher players were met with the somber news and much kudos for their hard diligent bug reporting and feedback during the whole testing operation. Funcom kept their old beta servers online for a month after Age of Conan launched before pulling them offline yesterday and the plan is to convert them over into a "Testlive" server. A common practice after an MMOG launches. To keep a healthy test playerbase busy swatting bugs and pillaging bleeding-edge content the following standard measure is planned: "We will be doing several things to encourage people to play on Testlive. We are looking at being able to copy characters from Live, having "buffing" NPCs that will level and gear your character up."Doesn't seem like much incentive to play on the official test live server, but what else can they do aside from handing out bags of money to all your non-test characters? You tell us.
