Monthly Archives: January 2015

Predictions 2015: David and Goliath

By Jaime Skelton (MissyS), Senior Editor

 

2014 was a little like the story of David and Goliath for the online gaming industry. We saw the rise of the indie developer and the humbling of the giant mega-gaming corporations. As gamers, we’re starting to embrace the idea that the little guy can actually win and that success can’t simply be measured in subscriber numbers. This year, I think we’re going to see more balance: the giant will get up from the fall and continue with lessons learned, while the unlikely hero will gain more even footing for the future. Comparisons to ancient stories aside, allow me to look forward and predict what the next chapter in both their stories are for 2015.

Kickstarter meme

Kickstarter Reclaimed By Indies

In late 2013 and most of 2014, the video games industry saw a heavy surge of crowdfunding both on and off Kickstarter. What started as a trend for smaller game studios to gain some awareness and funding became a bandwagon, and the indie studios that had previously earned their success on crowdfunding platforms were becoming obscured by larger companies. Leviathans swept through, gamers gave, and now gamers wait for giants like Shroud of the Avatar, Star Citizen, and Camelot Unchained.

SUTMM

While I love the potential of crowdfunding when it comes to video games, it’s also proven an unsustainable fad.  Kickstarter has made many of us small-time investors with no experience or education in investing. In short, gamers have become easy prey. We’re easily swayed by promises of early access and extra goodies by becoming “founders,” easily wooed by celebrity names in the field (note the games listed at the end of the last paragraph), and easily forgetful of the fact that we don’t get our money back once funded even if the developers up and disappear without fulfilling their promises. Even without a funding progress bar, founder’s packs have not only become plentiful in the field, they’ve also sometimes jumped to unreasonable levels (like $500 for a free to play game already developed).

ImPoor

Pocketbooks and patience are becoming exhausted. As a result, sites like Kickstarter are seeing less big name titles and more indie projects. Certain games, like Shards Online, are making second rounds on Kickstarter after initial failures. I’m sure this trend will continue through 2015, and small video game developers will again start seeing success while the leviathans return to their hoards. Video game crowdfunding needs to return to its origins, especially when it comes to MMOs – where we seem to be happy to throw millions of dollars to industry celebrities in hopes of the next big thing.

 

Blizzard Regains Dominance

It seems everyone has intense feelings toward Blizzard Entertainment these days. Still, there’s little argument that Blizzard doesn’t produce high quality games that appeal to large audiences, even with stacks of criticism enough to wallpaper their offices many times over. Heck, I wouldn’t even label myself a fan, but here I am playing World of Warcraft and Diablo III again, along with an occasional match of Hearthstone. (“Dammit, Blizzard” might be one of my most regularly uttered phrases. Even I hate myself sometimes when I find myself launching Battle.net.)

OneDoesNot

2015 is shaping up to be the biggest year yet for Blizzard. On top of a successful new WoW expansion that does a lot to rekindle old flames, and Hearthstone becoming a household name with growing success as an eSport, both Heroes of the Storm and Overwatch are slated to see beta testing this year. Heroes of the Storm may not be able to knock the top three MOBAs out of their nest, but it will certainly succeed well enough to support itself for at least a few years. Meanwhile Overwatch’s hype train took off at hyperspeed from the first moment the game emerged at Blizzcon 2014.

WhatIfIToldYou

Even for a major company like Blizzard, six online games (yes, Starcraft, you aren’t completely forgotten) and millions of players is a lot to ask any company to manage. So far, Blizzard has survived with a grace that often makes you forget one company rules them all. Will HotS and Overwatch be enough to break that calm? That I can’t predict. What I can predict is that Blizzard will once again regain the lion’s share of the online gaming market, with two new products and a diverse portfolio that keeps old players coming back and new players coming in.

 

More Mobile, More Console

It’s pretty obvious that online multiplayer is taking off on both mobile platforms and consoles. Technically both adapted to online play early, but in limited genres: consoles had their shooters and iOS and Android had social games. Large scale multiplayer has been, until recently, the domain of the PC. Within the past few years, however, the demand has grown. Mobile online gaming has significantly bloomed in the past few years, to the point where MOBAs like Vainglory have braved the challenges of mobile technology and come forward as champions of a new era of mobile gaming. Even the traditional MMO publisher Snail Games is now introducing its W3D mobile gaming device.

DayZCrossPlatform

Consoles are taking longer to take to adapt to the demand for MMOs. The reasons why are long enough to deserve their own essay. Suffice it to say, console MMOs are complicated from approximately every aspect imaginable. Despite this, more developers are taking the challenge: for example, SMITE and Neverwinter are headed to Xbox One, H1Z1 and Planetside 2 to PS4. Prepare to see more announcements of console releases coming this year, even if cross-platform play’s future is looking bleak.

 

More of the Same

It’s a boring prediction, but it’s also the one I’m most confident in: despite everything, the year will generally be more of the same patterns, trends, and games that we saw in 2014.

NotAgain

It isn’t that the online gaming industry is stale, although from year to year it may appear that way. It’s that change is slow. Video games take time to produce, and it may be months or years before developers can react to new trends. Take the sandbox voxel genre, for instance. Minecraft saw its alpha release in 2009, but it wasn’t until 2014 that our inboxes were suddenly inundated with announcements for sandbox voxel MMOs like Trove and SkySaga. The pattern has been repeated many times over the years – look at the gaps between EverQuest and World of Warcraft, or League of Legends and the current surge of pop-up MOBAs.

mobas everywhere

Overnight innovation just isn’t possible when it comes to MMOs: there’s too much work involved at every level of the game’s existence. So when you look at this year’s predictions, don’t feel glum if the outlook is bleak. Just take a look at the bigger picture, and realize that change is happening and always will be.

Xsyon MMORPG Event Season Kicks Off Today

Xsyson Screen

The apocalyptic fantasy sandbox MMORPG, Xsyon kicks off its guide run Event Season this Friday starting with an always popular Treasure Hunt event!

Players will search for hidden treasures scattered around the central lake basin on both the War (PvP) and Peace (PvE) servers.

This Season, events will run on weekdays and weekends at different times to accommodate players from every time zone. Planned events include timed battles, team navigation competitions, scavenger hunts, a special Valentine’s Day event and capture the flag tournament where teams will build their own fortresses.

All players are welcome to join in these events, participate in the fun and of course win valuable in game prizes!

A full schedule of events is posted on the official Xsyon website.

The apocalyptic fantasy sandbox MMORPG, Xsyon kicks off its guide run Event Season this Friday starting with an always popular Treasure Hunt event!

Players will search for hidden treasures scattered around the central lake basin on both the War (PvP) and Peace (PvE) servers.

This Season, events will run on weekdays and weekends at different times to accommodate players from every time zone. Planned events include timed battles, team navigation competitions, scavenger hunts, a special Valentine’s Day event and capture the flag tournament where teams will build their own fortresses.

All players are welcome to join in these events, participate in the fun and of course win valuable in game prizes!

A full schedule of events is posted on the official Xsyon website. http://www.xsyon.com

One Piece Online Open Beta Pack Giveaway

OnRPG has partnered with Joyfun to celebrate beta testing of One Piece Online with a special set of beta packs. With two potential packs up for grabs, you never know what you might get!

One Piece Online features frantic ARPG gameplay elements melded into a tower defense setting. Players embark with iconic characters from the famous manga as they collect the ultimate team of pirates to complete the quest to become King of Pirates, following the manga story arcs as you progress. With hundreds of characters available to collect, and over 300 instances to tackle, the path to become Pirate King will test your tactical prowess and mental metal.

Pack 1 Includes:

  • Hourglass*5
  • Coupon*50
  • Beli*20000

Pack 2 Includes:

  • Vitality x10
  • Coupon*50
  • Vivre card x50

 

 

 

 

 

 

To Redeem your Key:

  • Players can register for One Piece Online HERE.
  • Click Receive Giftpack on the upper right corner.
  • Copy & paste the Cdkey in the pop up window.
  • Click Receive button to receive the corresponding gift pack.
  • Rewards from the gift pack will be listed on the lower right corner.

Google’s Ingress Introduces Recruiter Medal To Enlist New Agents

Ingress Recruitment Badges

Today, Google’s Niantic Labs introduced the Recruiter Medal to Ingress, a new way to reward Ingress Agents for successfully recruiting new Agents to the global fight.

Ingress players on Android and iOS now have the opportunity to invite and enlist friends and family to their faction by accessing the “Recruit” tab in the Ops menu of the game. The Recruiter Medal will have five tiers, rewarding players based on the amount of new Agents they successfully enlist, including:

  • Bronze – Recruiter enlisted two Agents who have reached Level 3 or higher.

  • SIlver – Recruiter enlisted ten Agents who have reached Level 3 or higher.

  • Gold – Recruiter enlisted twenty-five Agents who have reached Level 3 or higher.

  • Platinum – Recruiter enlisted fifty Agents who have reached Level 3 or higher.

  • Black – Recruiter enlisted one hundred Agents who have reached Level 3 or higher.

Following the upcoming anomaly season in which thousands of Ingress Agents will take to streets of their cities and neighborhoods to capture control of key real-world locations (dates and cities of the next anomaly player tour are still to be announced), Niantic Labs will also reveal the Top 100 Recruiter leaderboard, highlighting how many recruits joined each faction and rewarding the winning team with points in the overall event series.

New World of Tanks Mission System Gets Personal

World of Tanks Personal Missions

Wargaming today announced the all new personal mission system for the free-to-play online action game World of Tanks is now live worldwide. The intricate system gives tankers the opportunity to personalize their mission experience by selecting specific missions from a variety of different campaigns and offers unique rewards upon completion.

Each campaign in the new setup is composed of a collection of missions for players to choose from. Players are not restricted to one single campaign, and they may opt to complete missions from different campaigns without playing them in succession.

After completing a chain of missions in a campaign, tankers will be awarded unique prizes specific to each mission. These new rewards include credits, Free Experience points, and high tier vehicles, the StuG IV (Tier 5), T28 heavy tank concept (Tier 7), Т-55 NVA DDR (Tier 9), and Object 260 (Tier 10), all with 100% tank crew, as well as the Sisterhood of Steel perk and female crew members.

Nexon to Develop LEGO Mobile Game

NEXON Logo

NEXON Co., Ltd. (“Nexon”) (3659.TO), a worldwide leader in free-to-play online games, today announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, NEXON Korea Corporation (“Nexon Korea”), has entered into a licensing agreement with TT Games Ltd. (“TT Games”), an affiliate of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Inc, under which Nexon Korea will develop a role-playing game (RPG) for mobile devices based on several hit LEGO properties, including LEGO Ninjago and many others. This agreement was made with full involvement from The LEGO Group and is an extension of the licensing partnership between TT Games and The LEGO Group.

“LEGO is among the most wildly successful and iconic brands of our time, and we are thrilled to be teaming up with TT Games to bring LEGO-based online games to mobile gamers,” said Owen Mahoney, President and Chief Executive Officer of Nexon. “Players can look forward to the fun and unique game experiences that Nexon is known for, along with the LEGO characters they have come to love. This agreement is the most recent example of Nexon’s ongoing quest for creative, new ideas for great games, both through our own development and by partnering with other creators of world-class IP.”

“Nexon’s relentless commitment to quality and fun, their expansive global footprint and their strong track record of developing and sustaining successful franchises around the world make them an ideal partner to expand LEGO into online free-to-play mobile games for the first time,” said Tom Stone, Managing Director, TT Games. “This agreement leverages Nexon’s unparalleled expertise in online and free-to-play games and the power of the LEGO brand to deliver unique, high-quality game experiences to players around the world.”

The game is expected to be released in 2016 and will initially be available in Asia on both iOS and Android platforms.

Camelot Unchained Meets Sound Engineer Stretch Goal

Camelot Unchained continues pushing forward with more and more funding, now at over $3,025,000 at the time of this publication! This week they reached their latest stretch goal, allowing the hiring of a professional sound engineer to add proper sound effects and music for a more cinematic experience upon their battlefields.

Camelot Unchained Hug the World

With this comes the latest and, in its simplicity, possibly most exciting stretch goal yet, Hug the World. No this isn’t a hippie charity stretch goal but in fact funding to hire additional artists to polish out world graphical visuals, allowing the core animation and art departments more time to polish and prepare character models and effects. Overall this would mean a higher quality product at launch, and possibly even a launch date on time with early estimates!

Alongside today’s announcement came some new technical reveals of additional elements being added to the third alpha rendition patch, as well as some preview concept art of the TDD factions archers and arrows as seen below!

PAT #3 Checklist Additions:

1. Move patcher off of main game server.
2. Multithreaded renderable/animation updates on client.
3. Better concurrency on octree updates.
4. Editor – User is now able to create their own working channel in an easier manner.
5. Better error handling in client if it encounters a missing resource.
6. Models 2.0 complete – Assets can now be made of multiple parts, such as meshes, VFX, and lights.
7. Slope Sliding – Character will now slide down slopes, dependent upon the angle of terrain on which they stand.
8. VFX now properly attach to bones at lower LODs.
9. First pass Concept – TDD Archer (shown below).

TDDArcherArrowheads

TDDArcherConcept

LucharpanArcherConcept

Learn more about the Camelot Unchained project at their official site.

The Simpsons Coming Soon to Minecraft on Xbox

The Simpsons Minecraft

Minecraft players can soon bring the characters of Springfield to life in fully-textured, cubic glory when Twentieth Century Fox Consumer Products and Xbox launch THE SIMPSONS content packs for Minecraft Xbox 360 and Xbox One editions. Scheduled for release in late February 2015, the downloadable pack will include the entire Simpsons family—Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie— plus 19 of Springfield Elementary School’s beloved characters from the Emmy Award-winning animated show and the longest-running scripted show in television history.

“We have an active community of more than 17 million die-hard Minecrafters on Xbox Live enjoying the wide range of downloadable content on Xbox, and they have been clamoring for us to bring Simpsons characters to the game,” said Phil Spencer, Head of Xbox. “We are thrilled to partner with Twentieth Century Fox and Gracie Films to bring THE SIMPSONS to life on Minecraft Xbox 360 and Xbox One editions. I can’t wait to see what the community creates.”

“Like THE SIMPSONS, Minecraft is a true cultural phenomenon embraced by people of all ages, from every corner of the globe,” said Roz Nowicki, executive vice president of global sales and retail for Twentieth Century Fox Consumer Products. “We know fans of the show will have a ton of fun bringing the colorful characters of Springfield into the intricate worlds they’ve been building in Minecraft.”

Minecraft is one of the most popular video games in history, with over 100 million downloads since its launch in 2009. Minecraft’s THE SIMPSONS downloadable content pack for Xbox will release in late February for $1.99 USD on Xbox 360 and Xbox One. Stay tuned for more information on THE SIMPSONS downloadable content pack on other platforms.

H1Z1 Early Access Now Available on Steam Worldwide

H1Z1 EA Survivor

Sony Online Entertainment LLC (SOE) announced that the  H1Z1 virus has spread beyond SOE labs and is now available on PC to all survivors worldwide through Steam’s Early Access program starting at $19.99 USD. SOE advises players to start strategizing for survival, though it remains unclear if banding together or fighting against one another will improve their chances of surviving.

“We’re excited to launch H1Z1 into its Early Access Alpha,” said John Smedley, President, Sony Online Entertainment. “H1Z1 puts players into a post-apocalyptic zombie survival role — it triggers those primal fight-or-flight survival instincts. Since we first announced this game, we’ve been developing it side-by-side with our players, gathering feedback through platforms like Reddit and Twitch. Now, players can finally join us in game and really make an impact as we continue to perfect gameplay elements during Early Access. We’re eager to see how the players react and how H1Z1 evolves.”

Set in a post-apocalyptic world,  H1Z1 is a zombie survival MMO where players must use their wits and skills, as well as strategically align with friends and fight-off enemies to survive the worldwide infection. A game truly about survival, players will have to overcome environmental elements such as starvation, weather and animals, hordes of zombies, and other hostile players if they want to live. To increase their chances of survival, players will need to be creative with materials found in the world and utilize the game’s expansive crafting system to construct weapons, buildings and more.

H1Z1 Zombie Sneak

To accommodate a variety of playstyles, players have access to multiple ruleset servers in  H1Z1 that can be mixed and matched, including: Player vs Player, Player vs. Environment, Head Shots Only, Hardcore and First-Person Only. Additionally, private servers will be tested throughout Early Access, giving players the power to create their own rulesets and community. Though the program will gradually expand, initially private servers will be invite-only to ensure adequate time for testing and refinements.

SOE has also partnered with the creator of PLAYERUNKNOWN’s Battle Royale, Brendan Greene, to license the extreme survival mod for a dedicated Battle Royale server in  H1Z1. Offering a unique gameplay experience, Battle Royale plunges players into a bloody last man standing game-mode, where the only goal is to survive to the end.

“I was blown away when John Smedley at SOE contacted me about Battle Royale,” said Brendan Greene (aka PLAYERUNKNOWN), the creator of Battle Royale.  “SOE could have made their own game mod, but instead reached out to the community. Partnering with SOE on H1Z1 was the best holiday gift I could have imagined, and I can’t wait to jump in and play.”

Players will be granted access to the Battle Royale server through Event Tickets, which can be purchased or earned through gameplay.

H1Z1 Slicer

At Early Access, players can expect to see initial iterations of crafting, base building, combat, vehicles, circle-of-death, day / night cycle, weather, player vitals, hunting & forging, and, of course, Zombies, in the game.  H1Z1 will continue to grow and evolve throughout development. More information about what to expect in Early Access can be found here.

H1Z1 survivors will have two Early Access options to choose from — Standard or Premium:

  • Standard – $19.99 USD – Includes Early Access to  H1Z1, as well as 3 Event Tickets, 2 Crates and 1 Crate Key
  • Premium – $39.99 USD – Includes Early Access to  H1Z1, as well as 25 Event Tickets, 3 Airdrop Tickets, 6 Crates, 4 Crate Keys and an exclusive Aviator Hat Crafting Recipe

Players that want to be part of the development process are encouraged to actively provide feedback on design choices and upcoming features through  H1Z1’s official Reddit page,  or forums.

To download  H1Z1 from Steam®, visit:  http://store.steampowered.com/app/295110/.

Path of Exile’s First PvP Invitational Tournament Streams This Weekend

Path of Exile PvP Season 1

Following an eventful and well-received PvP Season One, Grinding Gear Games, developer of the award-winning action RPG Path of Exile, will be hosting the game’s very first PvP invitational this weekend.

Livestreamed on the official Path of Exile Twitch channel at twitch.tv/pathofexile with commentary from popular Path of Exile streamers WillyWonka and GreenDude, two invitational events will take place at the following scheduled times:

European PvP Season One Invitational

Saturday, January 17 at 10am PST/7pm CET/Sunday at 7am NZST

 

American PvP Season One Invitational

Sunday, January 18 at 5pm PST/Monday at 2am CET/2pm NZST

Each invitational (of 16 players) should last approximately 2-3 hours and will consist of double-elimination tournaments, with eight Standard League and eight Hardcore League players competing in a series of 1v1 matches to crown an overall winner in Standard and in Hardcore. These competitors will then fight a grudge match to determine an overall winner of their region’s invitational. All participants have been selected based on their performance during this season’s weekly PvP events and tournaments.

Two of Grinding Gear Games’ major partners — Razer and KARMA KOIN: The Online Game Card — are the official sponsors of PvP Season One, and will be providing prizes to the winners of the invitational this weekend. Razer will be giving away its award-winning gaming peripherals, used by some of the world’s top eSports players, and KARMA KOIN will be giving away online gaming currency.

For more information about the Path of Exile PvP Season One America and Europe Invitationals, please visit pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1175283.