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Free for All: How free-to-play affected how I feel about RIFT
Back in April of 2011, I asked myself whether I would play RIFT if it were a free game. I know that I was impressed with its build quality but not so much with its lack of spirit. It seemed like a hollow game, one that used gimmicks to take the place of true adventure. At the same time, I didn't want to downplay how well it was made. I still agree with this sentiment; the game is great and has only improved over time, but I still wish it had a little something more. Did the recent switch to free-to-play change how I felt about the game? Why would a payment model affect how I felt while playing the game? After all, I champion the idea that a payment model does not define a game, but I still have to recognize how a payment model affects people. Including me.
Ultima Forever adjusts store prices based on player feedback
Mythic's been field testing Ultima Forever in the Canadian iOS market, and the studio now says that it's making significant changes to the in-app pricing based on feedback from players. Most of the changes will swing in the players' favor, including lowered repair costs and cheaper storage space increases. The studio is also considering a one-time buyout fee to get rid of all freemium aspects, although this is not a given. One factor did increase in price, however. The studio raised the cost to loot high-quality chests, as the devs found that once players nabbed the good gear inside, they had less incentive to keep on looting. Producer Carrie Gouskos said that the changes were necessary to keep from souring players' experiences. "You've got to get people to love your game first," she said, going on to remark that when player loyalty is established, revenue will follow. [Thanks to Space Cobra for the tip!]
The Soapbox: The soft launch scam
Back in the golden days of video games, there was no such thing as a soft launch. Nintendo didn't send out test copies of Super Mario World to special "backers," and Sega didn't ship half-finished Sonic games with promises of further content updates. Games, for the most part, were played only after they were finished, printed, packaged, and shipped. Even on PC, beta testing was more of an earned honor exclusive to players that showed dedication to a title and its community. Here in these modern times of Internets and always-ons, however, things are different. It would seem as though developers need only make enough game content to shoot a reasonably convincing trailer before the publishing team can begin collecting money by slapping a "BETA" sticker on the webpage and offering fans early access. Over the last few years soft launches have become increasingly common -- especially for creators of online games. The line between "in testing" and "done" is becoming blurred, and publishers are reaping the benefits while players suffer.
Diablo III coming to Xbox 360 right along with the PS3 and PS4
As reported by Joystiq, Diablo III is not only coming out for the Playstation 3, but also the Xbox 360 on September 3 of this year. Aside from the fact that the Blizzard game will also be coming out for the PlayStation 4 when that launches, the hints at an Xbox 360 release weren't exactly a secret. Still, it' s nice to have it official now.
Ask Massively: You can't cover WoW because of reasons
When I took over Massively last fall, I made myself a little digital post-it note in Gmail Notes that read, "Remember: You work for Joystiq, not studios." Today, I've amended that to also read, "And not commenters." I love commenters, even the trolls sometimes when you make me laugh. You guys provide instant feedback and adoration but also entertainment and skepticism of our ideas. You're the much-maligned vocal minority of readers, and interacting with you guys and being enlightened by your mad and witty and insane posts is a highlight of my work day. But it has to be said that the most bizarre feature of working at Massively is that legions of commenters have deemed themselves better-equipped than we are to decide what we can cover.
Blizzard congratulates itself on Diablo III's anniversary
Diablo III is a year old, and Blizzard's celebratory anniversary gesture is one of those mile-long infographic things featuring selected statistics designed to make you ooh and ahh. Said statistics include 67.1 million characters created world-wide, 3.3 trillion monsters killed world-wide, and 22.4 million characters that have killed Diablo. Interestingly, Blizzard left off the number of hours lost to launch server login issues, nor is there any mention of D3's much-maligned real-money auction house. You can see the full graphic after the break.
The Soapbox: Diablo III's auction house ruined the game
After his departure from the Diablo III development team, Game Director Jay Wilson released a statement that the introduction of an auction house "really hurt the game." While players predicted doom the moment the Real Money Auction House was announced, Jay argued that the gold auction house was equally to blame for the game's fall from grace following its absolutely stellar launch sales. I don't normally agree with what Jay has to say on Diablo III, but in this case he does have a very valid point. Diablo II was consistently popular for over a decade thanks to its immense replayability. At its core, D2 was a game about building new characters and gearing them up by any means necessary. Every enemy in the game was a loot pinata just waiting to be popped, and players farmed endlessly for a few sought-after unique items. You almost never found an item that was ideal for your particular class and build, but you could usually trade for what you needed via trade channels and forums. Blizzard claimed that the auction house was intended just to streamline this process, but when Diablo III launched, it was clear that the entire game had been designed to make the auction house almost necessary for progress. The fault here lies not just with the concept of an auction house but with the game designers. That's right: I'm here to argue not only that Jay Wilson was right about the auction house ruining Diablo III but also that it was his own damn fault.
RIFT gives a sneak peek at F2P item shop
What will RIFT's free-to-play version look like? While we won't get to see it in action until the game makes the transition on June 12th, Trion Worlds has posted a screenshot of the new item store and some of its offerings for players to peruse. The store screenshot includes a preview pane of a character wearing a fancy outfit and a top hat, as well as a list of several items. These include 30-day patron pass, faction changing scroll, character rename scroll, rename guild scroll, transfiguration bauble, rune unsocketing apparatus, and planar essence removal device. Later on in the thread, the studio posted a picture of a different cosmetic outfit being worn by a female character. To "ensure a successful transition," Trion has sent out surveys to all current subscribers about the free-to-play switch.
Diablo III devs talk about creating console controls
Diablo III, as you (savvy, informed reader that you are) surely know, is being released for the PS3 and PS4 at some point. Bringing the game over to a new platform has been an exciting challenge for the devs, which they discuss in this shiny new dev diary video. The crucial part of porting the experience, they say, is the controller. It acts as your connection to the character and really your agency in the game world. Skip below the cut to hear the devs talk about giving console gamers dodging, a quick equip option, and use of the touchpad.
Diablo III restores auction house, donates duped proceeds to charity
Is there a light at the end of Diablo III's auction house woes? Blizzard is putting its best foot forward in an attempt to make it so. After a nasty gold duping exploit and the subsequent suspension of all services, the Diablo III auction house is back online -- and Blizzard is looking to save face with its return. Production Director John Hight gave a lengthy explanation of what happened with the situation and why Blizzard responded the way it did. "Only a relatively small number of players had the billions of gold necessary to exploit the bug, and only 415 of those players chose to use this exploit for personal gain," Hight wrote. "We elected not to roll back the servers in the Americas and are instead working to remove duplicated gold from the economy through targeted audits and account actions (as indicated above) without taking away progress that our players rightfully earned." Hight said that the studio is donating all proceeds from auctions conducted by dupers to Children's Miracle Network Hospitals.
Get some Defiance DLC with a side of free updates
Now that Defiance is live and has gone through the usual slew of launch-day messes, it's time for the developers to start thinking about the future. That means DLC. The latest development blog explains both what the team is doing to address the game's issues and how DLC will be released in a tiered system, with every major DLC update containing upgrades to the cash shop, a paid DLC component, and a free update for everyone. The first DLC is already en route, and its $10 paid component allows players to make a Castithan character, access a unique storyline, and gain some special vehicles and outfits. Even if you don't pay for the DLC, you'll have access to new Castithan Blades, and a new open world game mode called Siege, and can earn new Charge Weapons. The game's store, meanwhile, will allow you to tint your Castithan Blades, buy new lockboxes or vehicles, and re-customize your character. There's a little something for everyone playing the game, and that's the ultimate goal.
Diablo III auction house down for 'at least another 24 hours'
Diablo III's auction house continues to be the stuff of legends. You may remember that a couple of days ago, the Diablo III auction house went down for a time due to a gold duplication bug that was being rampantly exploited by players. Thankfully, a patch was deployed in a nice, timely manner, and everything ended up all right. Or did it? Rather than performing a server rollback, which would set all Diablo III players back, Blizzard has decided to perform a complete audit of the transactions made on the auction house in order to find players guilty of utilizing the gold duplication exploit. Unfortunately, Blizz was a bit conservative in its estimate of how long the auction house would be down. While there's currently no new ETA for the auction house's return, a post by Blizzard CM Lylirra states that the studio anticipates the AH being down for "at least another 24 hours" while the audits are in progress.
Diablo III gold dupe bug fixed with no rollback
Oh Diablo III's auction house, you are the stuff of legends. Late last night, Blizzard took Diablo III's auction house offline to deal with a gold duplication bug that was discovered to be exploited by players. All gold trades were halted at the time, and Blizzard had a patch in place within 30 minutes. But it's the later update that concerned many D3 fans as Blizzard announced that it wouldn't be rolling back the server, but instead, dealing with each individual offending account on a case-by-case basis. This is more time-consuming for the dev team, but has much less of an impact on the community as a whole.
Diablo III PS3 preorders available now
Rumors of Diablo III coming to consoles have been around since before the game ever launched, and not long ago it was confirmed that the ever-polarizing action RPG would be making its way to the PlayStation 3. Well, the time has almost come for console players to set foot in the treacherous lands of Sanctuary. Blizzard announced on its official site today that preorders for the PS3 edition of Diablo III are officially open. Players who preorder the game will be given a gift in the form of the PS3-exclusive Infernal Helm. Each character created on the PS3 version will start with this stylish chapeau that grants its wearer a bonus to experience gained. There's still no official release date for the PS3 edition of the game, however, and the studio states that it will announce the game's release date as launch draws nearer (in case that wasn't blindingly obvious). In the meantime, Diablo devotees can go ahead and lay down their preorders.
MMObility: Revisiting The Lost Titans
It's pretty impressive that The Lost Titans, a new browser-based MMO by ZQGame, launched in China and was supporting 600 servers within six months, but China is a unique, browser-eating beast. I've talked about the foreign browser market before and often marvel at how so many players in the West scoff at browser games. It's not as though "browser" is a genre; it's a delivery system. But here we are, getting ready to scroll through comments to read about how "browser games" suck. That's like saying, "MP3s are bad music." Still, I cannot deny that some browser-based games do indeed suck. In fact, the last time I played The Lost Titans live, I found myself so bored I almost could not finish the stream, but I thought I'd try again with a fresh perspective. Despite finding many of the same issues I had before, I was surprised at how much further the game has come. I sat down with ZQGame's Laura Stephens during this latest livestream to talk about the game.
Second Wind: All Points Bulletin Reloaded
I could make this a very short piece by saying that APB: Reloaded is simply as fun now as it has ever been. The game is a blast in more ways than one. Heck, I could close it right now by telling you that not only was my return to the game well worth the effort but also that it also served to slap me on the side of the head to say, "Hey, dummy, remember how fun it is to run over people?" I'd rather give you more details, though, especially for those of you who might not have played the game or haven't played it in a long time. APB: Reloaded is essentially a lobby-based shooter. The lobby -- or social district, as it is called -- and the instanced battle arenas are massive places. While I livestreamed the game last week (you can watch the embedded video after the cut), someone accurately commented that watching it was like watching "GTA Online." I agree, but it's also so much more than that. Join me past the cut and I promise not to run you over. (EDIT: I was able to order an APB: Reloaded box from Newegg.com for $7.99 USD which contains "over $50 value" like a permanent Magnum gun, a Cisco car, 500 G1 credits and 30 days of premium. I paid no shipping fees at all and received it within three days of ordering, but after this article went live.)
Free for All: Ecol Tactics Online has a fun story but weak combat
I took a look at Ecol Tactics Online not so long ago and mostly enjoyed what I found. When the game recently launched into open beta, I knew I had to check it out again. It's possible that the game I experienced before the open beta would be vastly different from the one I'd find later on, but everything felt familiar even though I was given access to higher-level play and cash shop. I enjoyed the storyline and quest text much more this time around. Last time, gameplay appeared pretty standard, but now that I know what to expect with combat and performance, I can enjoy the story a bit more. But a player can ignore the story completely and still find the game enjoyable. That's an issue with many MMOs in general. A lot of the time the story has no bearing on a player's character. This time I slowed down and read up most of the quests I came across and discovered some pretty cute tales and toons. The combat is still fun as well. Of course, turn-based combat is what this game is all about.
BlizzCon's golden tickets going on sale in two batches
Grabbing one of the year's hottest tickets will be a tricky prospect, especially considering how fast BlizzCon typically sells out. However, Blizzard is giving everyone a fair chance at grabbing one of these tickets by announcing the dates and times that they'll be going on sale. Dates plural? Yes indeed! BlizzCon tickets will be sold in two batches, first on Wednesday, April 24th, at 10:00 p.m. EDT and second on Saturday, April 27th, at 1:00 p.m. EDT. The tickets for the two-day convention are $175, although if you want to package in the Children's Hospital benefit dinner with the show, you'll be looking at parting with $500. The studio also assured fans that it will once again be selling virtual tickets to BlizzCon, although specifics regarding these have yet to come. BlizzCon is taking place on November 8th and 9th at the Anaheim Convention Center in California.
Diablo III gets massive multiplayer improvements in 1.0.8
The Diablo III team has decided that its multiplayer co-op is in need of improvement. The game's 1.0.8 patch will be bringing in some changes to support and improve the system. Matchmaking tags such as Questing, Full Act Clear, and Keywarden are being added to public games. Explicit bonuses will be added into mulitplayer mode, giving players XP, Gold Find, and Magic Find boosts. Additionally, monster health is getting dropped down from an extra 70% per additional player to 50% per additional player. The UI is going to be working in favor of co-op, too. Whenever a player deals damage to or takes damage from Elite packs or Treasure Goblins, a notification will be sent out and the player's map location will be marked for easy regrouping. Private chat channels with up to 99 other users will be made possible. You can check out the full list of updates on the official dev blog.
Diablo III's auction house 'really hurt the game'
Diablo III's joint in-game gold and real-money auction house has played a fairly major role in the game since its launch. Remember that one time when a guy used the real-money side of things to bank a cool $10,000? That apparently wasn't really what Blizzard foresaw when creating and implementing the auction house. According to former Diablo III Game Director Jay Wilson, the auction house "really hurt the game." Apparently, Blizzard anticipated that very few players would make use of the auction house and that item prices would limit the number of transactions going on. That, uh, wasn't the case. Nearly every one of Diablo III's roughly 3 million monthly users make use of the auction house, and item trading has "damaged" the item rewards in the game. Without giving up any juicy details, Wilson has mentioned that the team is working on a viable solution to the current problems posed by the auction house.
