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The Nexus Telegraph: Is WildStar's raid size change too late?
Very few people are going to contest that scaling WildStar's biggest raid down to 20 people is a good move. Some will, yes, but when 400 players are working on content five months after release, that's a good sign that it's not doing the most basic job of getting people to play it. Bringing Datascape's size down is an indisputable good thing. The question, of course, isn't about that. It's about whether it's too small a change too late in the game. Make no mistake, this is a change that is significant enough to merit an announcement, but it's one that just missed the big patch we finally received not too long ago. (My initial reaction to that is middling, for the record, neither bad nor really a break from form or something that justifies its long delay.) I would be surprised if we see this change actually live in the game before next year. And it's a change of more conceptual significance than anything else because unless someone very quietly managed to clear Datascape without telling anyone, the end of that raid has gone unseen.
Economy exploits plague ArcheAge [Updated]
If you were hoping that this would be the week in which there were no stories of ArcheAge bugs or exploits hitting the news, we're sorry to say that reality has dashed your hopes. Players are reporting numerous exploits hitting the game, some of which have been publicly detailed on the game's subreddit, such as a method to force the game to offer specific loot when random boxes are opened. The exploits are being investigated and will be rolled back illegal character gains will be reversed if discovered, according to Trion Worlds. Further posts clarify that players who were unknowingly involved in these exploits (through the Marketplace or simple dumb luck) will not be targeted, although players are advised to use caution in their dealings and avoid obviously suspicious deals. [Thanks to squidgod2000 and Thunder for the tips! Our original story conflated the words rollback and reversal. Trion Worlds has told us that server rollbacks are not on the table. The studio says it will reverse characters found to have knowingly benefited from the exploit. The marketplace has been taken offline while the exploit investigation continues.]
The Daily Grind: What's your favorite MMO ship?
I finally got my ArcheAge fishing boat over the weekend, and now I'm setting my sights on bigger and better ship designs. And I'm doing a lot of fishing, naturally! I'm kinda partial to the Lutesong Junk, but then again the Eznan Cutter is pretty badass, too. What do you think -- what's your favorite in-game ship in ArcheAge or any other MMO? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
ArcheAge is going mobile
Sprawling, beautiful, messy sandparks like ArcheAge aren't usually the sorts of games that translate well to mobile platforms, but apparently that's exactly what's happening. A press release published today declares that XL Games has teamed up with GAMEVIL to make a mobile ArcheAge a reality. Global game publisher GAMEVIL has partnered with development company XL Games to release a mobile version of the widely successful MMORPG ArcheAge. [...] In addition to receiving praise in Korea, ArcheAge has also amassed over 2 million players in North America and Europe after being released in these regions in September 2014. By adapting this online game into a mobile RPG, GAMEVIL and XL Games hope to let even more gamers around the world enjoy ArcheAge. [...] The mobile version of ArcheAge will combine XL Games' development with GAMEVIL's service to provide the ultimate mobile MMORPG experience. It appears to be a standalone adaptation rather than some sort of crossplatform tie-in, but we will be very disappointed if we can't plant vegetables, gank noobs, and yoink housing plots on our phones as in the MMORPG.
WildStar is scaling Datascape down to 20 players
WildStar brought 40-player raids back to the forefront. The game is now pushing said raid size back away from the forefront, as the game's 40-person raid pinnacle is getting scaled down to 20 players. The official post on the subject notes that the number of people entering was far too low and the attrition rate far too high, so the raid is being rebalanced (but not nerfed) to account for having only half of its originally designed population inside. Several reasons are cited for the changed, such as the game's combat working best with a smaller number of people, the lowered demands on computers, and a consistent raid size for future raid content which will hopefully make guild management easier. While the topic stops shy of saying that the 40-player versions are never coming back, that is certainly the implication. So it'll at least be marginally easier to form a group for Datascape soon if you're able to get through the first raid successfully.
WildStar gold exploiters may get lifetime bans
Carbine is working on a hotfix for a WildStar gold exploit that many players have mentioned via social media and the game's forums. Community manager Tony Rey says a rollback isn't necessary because "the current scope of abuse is not outside of our ability to manually correct where necessary." Rey goes on to mention the possibility of lifetime bans, though he does note that players who have used the exploit have until tomorrow to contact customer support for a reduced punishment to include the removal of ill-gotten gains.
WildStar slashes box prices by 33%
In a day after releasing its third major update to the game, WildStar has gone on sale by reducing the cost of both editions by 33% if purchased through the official website. This brings the standard edition down to $40 and the digital deluxe edition to $55. Both editions come with a month of game time included. Earlier today we reported on an interview in which the studio said that its publisher was standing behind the game and that it had strong though unspecific box sales. Yesterday, WildStar released Drop 3, Mystery of Genesis Prime, a content patch with over a hundred pages of bug fixes.
NCsoft 'sees a future' for WildStar
Eurogamer recently spoke to WildStar Creative Director Chad Moore and Product Director Mike Donatelli to counter concerns that WildStar is a "sinking ship." Fortunately for players, NCsoft, which controls Carbine, apparently doesn't think so. "They specialise in MMOs, that's what they do. And they see a future for WildStar," Donatelli explained. "And as far as NCsoft is concerned, they're going to support us, and I take them at their word for that when they've made a commitment to us for the future, so I feel very comfortable making that statement." Moore noted that Carbine still has "hundreds" of employees in spite of recent layoffs, and while he wouldn't outright condemn negative Glassdoor reviews, he did recommend they be taken "with a grain of salt." Regarding sales, Donatelli told Eurogamer the game sold "many, many, many times" the hoped-for 250,000 boxes, but he doesn't mention current subs. Back in October, he told Massively that the game had "hundreds of thousands of active players." NCsoft declined to clarify that ambiguous phrasing when asked. WildStar's Mystery of the Genesis Prime patch launched yesterday.
Global Chat: Why we blog
Why an MMO player decides that he or she needs to take up an additional hobby of writing about these games isn't much of a mystery. We may all blog about a huge variety of topics, but the impetus behind it tends to be very common: We have so many thoughts about and so much love for these games that we can't hold it in. To blog is to open up and share experiences, observations, and hopes. It's to connect with others and to perhaps give another layer of meaning to the time that we spend in-game. We don't blog because we have to; we blog because we simply could not not blog. So let's see a few examples of what MMO bloggers couldn't keep inside of them! From spooky stories to rapturous tales of exploration, it's a testament to the power of words and goofy rejoinders.
WildStar's Mystery of the Genesis Prime is live today [Updated]
It's been a long road getting from there to here, but players who have been waiting patiently for the next WildStar patch can stop waiting. Mystery of the Genesis Prime adds two major new pieces of content: the Defile, a new zone extending off of Blighthaven; and Journey to Omnicore-1, a new solo instance that allows players to explore more of the story behind Nexus. The Defile includes the Black Focus (which we toured), the Siege of the Lightspire, and a variety of solo quest chains. Journey to Omnicore-1 kicks off the game's ongoing story, exploring more of the details behind what took place on Nexus and how the events on the planet could have long-lasting consequences for everyone on the planet and off. The patch also increases loot rewards from enemies fought in groups, adds rental mount vendors for low-level players, and increases money rewards from quests and junk items. You can take the patch for a drive today; it took a while to land, but there's a lot of new stuff therein. [Source: Carbine Studios press release] [Update: Carbine has posted a list of known patch issues on the official site; they include currency display issues, non-functioning gardens, and borky public events.]
WildStar Loremaggedon illuminates the Mordesh, Draken
WildStar's Loremaggedon is down to its final two races. This week's installment features the Mordesh and the Draken, and it's required reading if you're curious about how the former lived "before they because quasi-undead space zombies." Carbine's Chad Moore says that Loremaggedon isn't quite finished, either, even though it's now covered all of WildStar's races.
An ArcheAge player found a way to kill the servers at will
It's never a good day when you see players on the forums boasting about causing server crashes. In nearly every single case, it's a matter of someone bragging about doing something with no actual proof as a bit of pointless ego boosting. What's worse, of course, is when a player posts about causing a crash and claiming it can be replicated... and then proceeds to do exactly that, demonstrating that the server can be crashed at will. This is apparently what happened to ArcheAge. User ArchegeDown posted a thread on the forums on Friday, stating that a specific bug was responsible for bringing down the servers and that it needed to be fixed. To prove these claims, the user caused two more server crashes at scheduled times, demonstrating the ability, with the stated intent being to simply get Trion's attention. The thread is currently locked, but it's possible that subsequent server crashes are a result of other players discovering the same method of inciting a server crash. [Thanks to xpactor and Matt for the tip!]
The Daily Grind: How long do you give an MMO to improve?
A couple of days ago I took ArcheAge to task. My rant wasn't an I-quit post, though, as I'm still having quite a bit of fun with the game thanks to its unique systems and its immersive virtual world qualities. While I certainly hope the game improves enough to serve as my permanent MMO home, I don't have any inkling how long that might take. What about you, Massively readers? How long do you generally wait for a flawed but promising game to course correct and live up to its potential? Or do you wait at all? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
ArcheAge producer update talks Auroria, patron discounts, and more
Trion published a producer's letter for ArcheAge earlier today. In it, the company detailed why no rollbacks will be forthcoming in response to the disconnection issues that surfaced during this week's Auroria launch. Producer Victoria Voss went on to say that out of "tens of thousands of new, legitimate land owners," under 20 ended up with "more land claims than would have been reasonable." The letter also contains bits about ArcheAge's siege gameplay which the Auroria patch has enabled as well as an update on the much-discussed 10 percent patron discounts. "The 10 percent patron discount will take effect in the form of a 10 percent bonus to credit pack purchases beginning later today. This is something we're able to roll out independently, without adding more workload on the game's developer. As such, we've agreed that this is the best way to get a great benefit into your hands as rapidly as possible," Trion says.
Lost Continent: It's getting harder to like ArcheAge
ArcheAge fandom is hard. It was initially hard because of the waiting. Consider that we've known of the game's existence since 2010 and that some of us have been playing it in various incarnations since 2011, which is a full three years -- and dozens of gameplay changes -- prior to its official North American launch. Now that we're past said launch, the difficulty has shifted to watching Trion (or is it XLGAMES?) do its best to destroy a promising title via a series of clownshoes decisions.
Trove enters open beta, ArcheAge deploys Auroria in the EU
Have you been looking for another pixel-polygon building game to call your home? After being in the test phase for so long that you could be forgiven for speculating that it would never be released, Trove has hit open beta, letting everyone log in and try the game for both bugs and just for the heck of it. There will be no more wipes of the database, so you could easily regard this as something of a soft launch for the game. If you're not feeling that particular sort of building and you're over in the EU, you can instead try your hand with the latest update for of ArcheAge, which mirrors the patch deployed earlier this week on the US servers. Hopefully the EU rollout will not include the same login issues that hit the US servers as well. The patch is scheduled to go live today at 5:00 p.m. GMT. [Source: Trion Worlds press release]
A tour of WildStar's upcoming Black Focus area
The next update for WildStar has some pretty big shoes to fill. Arriving on November 11th, it's the first update the game has seen since August, when the game abruptly peeled back from monthly updates to quarterly ones. It comes after a round of server merges. It needs to prove to fans who are still subscribed to the game that there's good reason to keep playing and that more content is on the way in the near future -- that there's a reason to hold out hope. Earlier this week, I toured the Black Focus, the five-person group content releasing in the new region of The Defile in the upcoming patch. Not all of my questions about the zone as a whole were answered since I didn't get to go through all of the quests leading into this particular encounter. However, I did get a chance to form at least some first impressions and see how well this bit of content holds up. And there's a new trailer past the cut if you just want to watch that.
The Daily Grind: How do you diverge from conventional MMO wisdom?
I was reading some forum reviews of ArcheAge recently, and had I not played it extensively myself, I would have come away with the impression that it's a grindy gankfest with crappy combat and a hacker infestation so vast that it's actually unplayable. Needless to say, I disagree with all of those assertions. Similarly, most if not all of my MMO-playing friends and co-workers swear by Guild Wars 2's combat. It's so fluid and actiony, they say, to which I usually smile, nod, and think, if it really was all that, I probably would've played the game for more than a week! I'm likely in the minority on that one, though, which leads into today's Daily Grind. How do you diverge from what passes as conventional MMO wisdom? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
ArcheAge scrambles to fix disconnection issues after update
ArcheAge launched a big update yesterday filled with exciting new features -- chiefly, new territories that players can capture, build castles upon, lay siege to, and so forth. At least, you would be able to do any of these things if you were one of the lucky few players capable of logging into the game, which has not been the case for a great many players since the update went live yesterday thanks to serious disconnection issues. As of 7:45 a.m. EST this morning, the official Trion post on the subject says the studio has devised a new build to correct the issue, and the servers were brought down early this morning to apply the patch (they're back up now). However, that might not be enough to pacify the players who are agitating for a rollback under the perception that the update's new territory was claimed while significant portions of the playerbase were forced offline. We'll have more on this situation as it develops. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in! Our own AA players are in the same boat!]
WildStar shows off the Mystery of the Genesis Prime
The nature of the Genesis Prime is one of the major elements of WildStar's story as presented to players on the road to level 50. Even once you get there, though, you still have questions, ones that will hopefully be answered by the end of the game's next update. Lucky for you, a new trailer for the Mystery of the Genesis Prime update is now available, along with a look at the Defile region that should help bring much of this storytelling to a conclusion for the time being. Inside the Defile, players will be exploring solo content in the Sonic Plaza and the Strain Maw, taking on five-person tasks in the Black Focus, and fighting through large-group challenges with the Siege of the Lightspire. Carbine intends to have content in place for you no matter what your preference is. The update was originally scheduled to launch in November, but no formal date has been announced. Check out the trailer past the break, scope out the locations available, and get ready to find some answers to one of the game's biggest mysteries. [Source: Carbine Studios press release]
