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It’s certainly not a household name, but indie developer Innogames has certainly chalked up some impressive numbers – over 120 million players have signed up for their free-to-play MMORTS games. Gareth Harmer was recently invited to the grand opening of their new offices in Hamburg, and spoke to developers and investors alike.
This will be the final “In Progress” Elder Scrolls Online article before next week’s final score tally. I’ll maintain that the big detractor from ESO’s score (based on the average out of 10 of our seven categories) will be the major culprit of “polish”. It’s plain to see that for all its fun, ESO wasn’t quite ready for launch. But we’ll get to all of that next week. Today I’m going to talk about the PVP in Tamriel: The Alliance War or AVA.
ArcheAge has some big plans for its upcoming Founder’s Pack program. For those of you in Alpha right now, you have gotten a taste of sandbox heaven with the game. Now players will get the chance to log in a little early, fly around on a glider, and lay the groundwork for their own space in the sandbox while waiting for the official launch later this year.
Wargaming's flagship title, World of Tanks, boasts more than 80 million registered players world-wide—a colossal number born not only from the game's simple-but-addictive gameplay, but also from the publisher's willingness to give the players what they want. Last week, Wargaming held the first ever World of Tanks Grand Finals in Warsaw, Poland, an event that Wargaming hopes will bolster the profile of both it and e-sports as a whole.
For the first week’s article, head here. I’ve locked in around 30 hours so far, I’m sitting at level 17, and just finally completed the first main zone of the Ebonheart Pact. By completed, I mean I’ve finished the quests achievement, unlocked all the POIs on the map, and collected every skyshard available. And yet, I’ve not completed the Fungal Grotto and I’ve not even set foot in Cyrodiil.
Last year at SOE Live the team here at MMORPG.com got wind that Sony was working on another black box project that they were not willing to talk about yet in addition to EverQuest Next, and EQN: Landmark. Earlier today the internet got confirmation just what that project is. It was announced during an episode of Game Talk Live featuring SOE President John Smedley, their new MMO is H1Z1.
Dark Souls 2 is a resoundingly good RPG, if our official review is anything to go by. But the original Dark Souls’ PC edition was an abhorrent nightmare of a port. The studio, From Software, admittedly said, “Look, we’re sorry, but we’re not PC guys. We’ll do better next time, I promise.” So it was with cautious fingers and eyes on my monitor that I booted up DS2’s PC edition. I will say these things primarily: the graphics transferred nicely. The UI and controls, have not… yet.
This weekend was the official $200K Smite Launch tournament, a huge event brought to you by Developer HiRez Studios in celebration of the official launch of Smite! This was an incredible event hosting the best Pro Teams from all around the world. I will try to give you a breakdown of everything that happened at the event, from what was awesome and of course, the not so awesome.
Nothing spites a news manager more than the arrival of April 1st and the attendant, and expected, games industry jokes. To celebrate the day, we've rounded up April Fool's pranks for your amusement into one convenient feature that we will update throughout the day. Keep your eyes right here to see the industry's best!
Richard Garriott’s team at Portalarium has been steadily moving forward with their new game, Shroud of the Avatar over the last month, and another release is upon us. Last week I had a chance to sit down with the guys based in Austin, Texas and get an early demo of this month’s release. Today we’re going to take a look at what’s in this release and what’s not in it, and see what it says about where the game is heading.
ArenaNet tried something different with its bi-weekly Living Story updates. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. With the current Living Story season just about ready to wrap up, let's take a look back at what went right and what went wrong – and how those might be addressed in the next installment.
Recently the Kickstarter campaign for Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen failed to reach their $800,000 goal. Being run by Brad McQuaid, one of the original creators of Everquest many in the community assumed it would easily reach the funding goal. As the 40 day campaign began to wear on, whispers in forums spoke not of what a terrible idea Pantheon was, but that something much more serious was behind the slow growth in funding: Kickstarter fatigue.
Pop quiz. Which title generated the most revenue for NCsoft in 2013? As I noted last time, February is always an informative month for those of us who like to follow the state of the global MMOG industry because it's when various publicly traded publishers report their Q4 and full year financials. So, we now know that the answer to our question was not, as many here in North America might have guessed, Guild Wars 2.
To the MMO player, a PC is much more than a glorified games console or business workhorse. It’s a window onto scores of virtual worlds, a device that transforms us from mundane mortals into legendary heroes, and a communications interface that bring friends that are continents away into the room beside us.
We gamers are a grudge-holding bunch, as Square Enix found out last year upon releasing Final Fantasy XIV. The game failed fans in spectacular fashion thanks to inadequate server support, bugs and obtuse mechanics. Despite public opinion and unsettling financials, Square vowed to redeem its failed MMO and against all logic, has actually done so. In fact, the game's fortunes have so reversed, Square's on the cusp of releasing it on the PS4.
