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Hartsman addresses ArcheAge APEX exploit: 'There isn't a dupe bug'
ArcheAge has been having a bit of trouble with bugs and exploits since its launch, if you haven't noticed. Trion Worlds head Scott Hartsman has weighed in on the APEX bug that has been affecting the game; specifically, he's said that the bug is not a dupe bug. Players were rather upset as soon as this announcement was made, pointing out that the bug is a known issue that has been affecting the game and the playerbase since it was first discovered. Community manager Evan "Scapes" Berman clarified that the bug in question is not, strictly speaking, a dupe bug; rather than duplicating an item multiple times, the bug was allowing players to continue to reap the benefits of an item without consuming it as intended. APEX are still unavailable as more hotfixes are put into place to prevent further abuse of exploits, with action already being taken to both patch out the issue and remove funds accumulated by abuses of the exploit.
Trove gets a sugar high with its Candy Barbarian class
Feed your sweet tooth in your gumdrop house on Lollipop Lane: Trove has added the Candy Barbarian to the game today. The Candy Barbarian is the sixth class added to this quirky sandvox; it stands alongside other characters like the Neon Ninja and the Fae Trickster. It uses twin swords and has a small array of candy-themed attacks, including Vanilla Swirlwind and Sugar Crash. Currently Trove is in open beta and has no plans to wipe progress going forward.
Enter at Your Own Rift: How to tell a great story in an MMO
My character still hasn't (ahem) ascended to Nightmare Tide levels yet, so today's RIFT story will instead be about Storm Legion. I had been working my way through the Eastern Holdings in Brevane when I encountered a quest chain that floored me with brilliant storytelling that showed exactly how MMOs can utilize this platform to tell tales in ways that other mediums cannot. It is audacious, bold, and incredibly dark, especially for RIFT. And I cannot praise it enough, especially in light of long-held claims that RIFT is often weak on story. I have two caveats before we go through what made this quest chain so great. First, I'm going to spoil it from start to finish, so if you haven't played it and want to remain innocent, just bookmark this column to read later on. Second, there are some truly edgy themes in this recap. Got it? Let's go!
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!
Lost Continent: Lucking into a breezy ArcheAge bungalow
My ArcheAge avatar is pretty fortunate. Last Friday night he became the proud owner of a breezy bungalow, which is that big bamboo marine house that you've probably seen in screenshots, videos, and the like. The bungalow's blueprint costs a whopping 300 gilda stars -- i.e., no small amount for a guildless guy like me who mostly duos his way through Haranya. I'd managed to save 250 of the character-bound gilda by doing various dailies over the past several weeks, but I had a few days to go before I'd finally be able to afford the plans. How did I come up with the balance ahead of schedule, not to mention the boat load of materials required to actually build the house? That's an interesting story, and it's another example of how ArcheAge's mechanics are a necessary breath of fresh air in a stale genre.
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.
RIFT adds extra days to its Autumn Harvest
Grumpy that Christmas music is already blaring in the stores? Then take solace in the fact that at least one MMO isn't prepared to let go of Halloween just yet. RIFT announced yesterday that it will be adding a few extra days to the ongoing Autumn Harvest event. Previously, it was scheduled to end on November 13th, but after "listening to feedback from [its] players," Trion Worlds said that the event will now go on through the end of Wednesday, November 19th.
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.
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]
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!]
Enter at Your Own Rift: Do my bidding, minions!
RIFT: Nightmare Tide is here at last, and the one overriding thought that permeates my every gaming minute is this: I am going to get totally addicted to minions. Heck, I already am. I'll be getting into other aspects of the expansion in coming weeks (spoiler: sidekicking is way tubular), but since this one feature is available to everyone right now and it's completely new to the game, I wanted to discuss minions today. There isn't a lot of information out there on the minion system thus far, which is surprising considering how much I've seen guildmates and general chat buzz on about it. Perhaps it's simple enough not to require detailed explanations, but there's still enough depth to elicit a few questions. So what's the minion system like? How does it benefit players? How much money does it require of free players? What are some good strategies for it? I'm all over this today, so let's get into it!
ArcheAge's Auroria launches today
ArcheAge is scheduled to launch a big new update today on its North American servers. How big? Well, you can get a pretty solid idea just from the patch notes. The game is adding four new zones to be conquered and claimed by players, complete with space to build castles and houses once the claims have been made. There's also a new dungeon being added to the game, giving players uninterested in the land rush something to do with their time. New recipes have also been added for high-end weapons requiring Gilda Dust to craft. Vehicle stats have seen a rebalancing in an effort to make sure that no single vehicle is the unquestioned best in every field at all times; the vehicles retain unique abilities, but their performance is identical. Check out the full patch notes on the official site and start downloading as soon as you can since this patch is a big one. [Thanks to Robert for the tip!]
The Daily Grind: Are you an MMO jerk?
I've been doing some auto-fishing in ArcheAge recently, and not an hour goes by without a passing player trying to bump my avatar and disrupt his casting motion. On the one hand it's kind of funny since I'm not AFK and thus am able to immediately continue fishing. On the other hand, I have to wonder about people who go out of their way to screw with someone, especially when there's no benefit to the screwer and there's -- at worst -- a minor inconvenience for the screwee. What say you, Massively readers, are you a jerk in MMOs that allow jerkish behavior? 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!
Lost Continent: This is how you go off the rails in ArcheAge
Are you an ArcheAge tire-kicker who's wondering how to go "off the rails" and trade the game's questpark level grind for some of that downhome sandbox flavor? I'm here to tell you that it's as easy as deciding that you really want to do it. There's no magic button or pre-scripted path, though, because the game is sorta sandboxy.
