Latest Gaming and MMORPG Updates

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• Call of Duty’s Lackluster March Isn’t Indicative of Much
• God of War: Ascension Goes Backward While Hopefully Taking the Series Forward
• Blue Tears (CN)
• Path of Exile
• Dragon Blade (CN)
• Dungeon Hero (KR)
• Garena signs Club Mstar for Southeast Asia
• ChangYou preparing Shadowbane reboot
• Eyedentity Games developing 3rd online game

Call of Duty’s Lackluster March Isn’t Indicative of Much Posted: 20 Apr 2012 06:12 AM PDT Generally speaking, the videogame industry sees the sale of games come primarily at launch before quickly tapering out. Nintendo games and Call of Duty games are some of the few exceptions to this. Whereas even many big titles will disappear from the NPD sales charts within a few months of launch, the latest Call of Duty traditionally has a long stay at the top before sticking around in the top ten long after when the majority of games would have fallen off. Modern Warfare 3 has yet to drop out of the top ten but it is doing more poorly than Black Ops was at the same point last year, leading some to wonder if the Call of Duty bubble is ready to burst. The series’ haters may want to delay celebrating just yet, however, as it’s hardly as if Activision is on the verge of being forced to shelve the series like it did Guitar Hero last year. The “shortened tail” of Modern Warfare 3 first had attention called to it last week by PiperJaffray analyst Michael Olson. Gamasutra reported Olson was expecting MW3 to sell in March half of what Black Ops did during the same period last year. He was not of the belief this decline was specifically related to Call of Duty, though. “We believe big name titles are no longer able to sustain ‘fat tails.’” he said. “This ‘thinning tail’ phenomenon is driven by 1) casual gamers leaving the market, 2) a steeper pre-sale and up-front curve, and 3) cannibalization from the pre-owned market.” The impact of secondhand sales can be debated all day; some would say they hurt new game sales, while others would counter that they make it possible for some gamers to afford new games and lead to the sale of downloadable content. Both sides have a point. In the case of a game like Modern Warfare 3 that doesn’t use any sort of online pass, it’s entirely possible that many consumers looking to pick it up now are opting to save a few dollars by purchasing a used copy (making it seem as if there is less demand for the game than there was for Black Ops last year). More up-front sales, as Olson pointed to, is also likely to be contributing to some degree. It may not be selling as well this many months after launch, but Modern Warfare 3 had a record-breaking launch with both its first day and first five days. Despite being available for less than two months, it was also the best-selling game for all of 2011 in the United States according to the NPD Group. The point of this is not to remind you Call of Duty is a big deal, but instead to suggest the possibility that some of those people who waited until spring to buy Black Ops were compelled to pick up Modern Warfare 3 right at launch. So rather than having its sales more spread out over time, MW3 has attracted more early adopters. Considering that increases the likelihood of those people paying full price — you’re less likely to find the game on sale in November or December than you are in March — that is not necessarily a bad thing (and it’s also not a Call of Duty-specific phenomenon, according to Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter). And as noted by Olson, it’s possible some of the more casual players have moved on to entertaining themselves in other ways. That could mean they’re buying other games (considering the lull the industry is currently going through, I wouldn’t put my money on it) or using their consoles for other purposes, such as streaming video content from the increasingly large number of entertainment apps found on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The aforementioned dip in software sales industry-wide are another factor that could be contributing to the current decline; software (and hardware, for that matter) is simply not selling well in much of the world right now. The availability of Battlefield 3 isn’t helping MW3′s case, either, and the marketing muscle EA put behind it would explain part of Cowen and Company’s Doug Creutz’s assertion that the MW3 drop is due to decreased sales on Wii, handhelds, and PC. It’s entirely possible many PC gamers are opting to pick up BF3 instead of MW3. Those with a disdain for Call of Duty — a group that seems to increase with each passing year — would no doubt argue the poor March sales are a direct result of the annualization (and accompanying lack of innovation) that has plagued the series for the past half decade. By alternating between Infinity Ward and Treyarch, Activision has allowed each to have two years in between releases. As far as the cynics are concerned, though, each new release brings little more than new guns and levels; it’s an oversimplification, certainly, though there is no denying every game feels remarkably similar to the one from the year prior. Then again, considering the games continue to sell as well as they do, changing things drastically could be considered a poor business decision. We unfortunately don’t have exact sales numbers for Modern Warfare 3, so it’s difficult to know precisely how it stacks up against Black Ops overall. (Analysts have suggested it has sold between 4 and 5 percent fewer copies.) Whatever may be responsible for its disappointing performance last month, the year-over-year growth had to stop eventually. (The launches may continue to get bigger, but that, too, will stop at some point.) It is easy to imagine things being different next year because of the retail market recovering or simply because Black Ops 2 will be competing against Medal of Honor Warfighter, which I don’t expect to put up as much of a fight as Battlefield 3. Even if future Call of Duty games fail to sell as well as Black Ops, that doesn’t mean they will be any less successful. As more gamers take their consoles online, that increases the potential number of people to sell downloadable content to. More importantly, the introduction of Call of Duty Elite has opened up a way for Activision to get $110 out of hardcore fans per year instead of $60 plus a few possible $15 DLC purchases. In year one there are upwards of 1.5 million people willing to fork over $50 for an Elite subscription; it will be interesting to see how many of those stick around and how Activision tries to attract new subscribers. The monthly DLC installments MW3 Elite subscribers are seeing are a good start. Considering all of this, Call of Duty haters should not be too excited about the news of MW3′s performance last much. At least until Call of Duty stops being a yearly record breaker, it’s not about to go anywhere. Similar article: http://www.1up.com/news/call-of-duty-down-not-out

God of War: Ascension Goes Backward While Hopefully Taking the Series Forward Posted: 20 Apr 2012 06:12 AM PDT What’s so terrible about DmC? People sure were angry when Capcom revealed this Devil May Cry prequel/reboot last year. Not having particularly followed the series myself, I found the outcry a little baffling. Sure, it was being outsourced rather than being developed internally by Capcom, but the studio responsible for it is Ninja Theory, who have yet to make a poor game; on the contrary, their work — particularly the recent sleeper Enslaved: Journey to the West — have been quite nicely received by critics. In the end, the complaints mainly seem to boil down to the fact that protagonist Dante suddenly has dark hair and a coif that look an awful lot like that of Ninja Theory’s boss, Tameem Antoniades. OK, so maybe it’s a little self-gratifying. But still, I have to ask: What’s so terrible about DmC? Now that I’ve had the opportunity to play DmC for myself, I have a hard time imagining that any fan of Devil May Cry fan wouldn’t enjoy Ninja Theory’s take on the franchise. Yeah, Dante has become something of a self-insertion character, and he’s a cocky twerp; but his brashness is offset by a delirious combination of over-the-top silliness and over-the-top action game excess. One moment, Dante is answering the door of his trailer home in the nude; the next, a massive demon is attacking and the hero dresses himself in slow-motion by free-falling through the air into his clothes. (Conveniently placed hovering free-fall objects such as slices of pizza manage to preserve his modesty to the viewer through an increasingly improbable sequence of events.) There’s a real sense of tongue-in-cheek absurdity to it all; were these events to simply flash past in a moment, they’d seem frivolous. Instead, they drag on just a little too long and become just a little too ridiculous, and that clearly deliberate excess amounts to a knowing wink at the audience. It works. Similar article: http://www.1up.com/previews?cId=3187009

Blue Tears (CN) Posted: 20 Apr 2012 06:11 AM PDT I do know cute, fast and action sounds like a weird mixture in an online game, but at least that was what I felt Originally published by NCsoft back in Korea under the title “Punch Monster”, the game was unceremoniously canceled by the company in just a few months. Personally, I blame NCsoft for not placing more efforts into marketing the game and getting the right team to manage this action + casual side-scroller. NCsoft failed with Dragonica Korea as well (now under Gravity Korea as Dragon Saga), hence I shall give the label of “King of Failed Casual Games” to NCsoft. Luckily, Punch Monster’s development studio is not under NCsoft, hence the game continued to thrive in other countries, such as China where I had my fair share of fun. Weekday evenings and weekends are a chore though, with the server practically full 24/7 and proving near impossible to log into the channels with less than a 30 minutes wait… This happens even when certain level ranges will only get bonus EXP for entering selected channels. Now called Blue Tears in other Asian countries, I must say that I was surprised at myself for lasting so long in the game given that I am a “retired” MMO player. Sort of anyway. While Dungeon Fighter Online is no doubt the king of action side-scroller, Blue Tears is not far behind in the speed category in terms of combat. That is what I really liked about the game (to hell with MapleStory) and the really cute design, which some comparing it with Paper Mario. Class selection is pretty standard, with 3 basic ones branching out into 2 advanced ones. I chose to be a warrior, and then continued to being a Dragon Knight, which is essentially the tanker. To some extent, I never really felt like a tanker until I upgraded my equipments to +8, and even then I felt paper thin against some bosses in the special dungeons (mentioned below) while normal dungeons are a breeze for me. Giving up my shield recently, I reset my skill points (and taunts) and decided to go a 2-handed spear style… No one kicked me out of a party for that, yet. I am dealing decent damage with many defensive buffs, hence I am quite happy with it. For skills, players get 1 point upon leveling. However, you don’t really just add a point to the skill. Instead, you add the points to enhance the skills. For example, a skill call Dragon Wave will come with 2 enhancement options, 1 which will increase damage, while the other increase the number of foes it hits. Each of this enhancement skills can be leveled up to a maximum of 9 from what I observed. If you added 3 points to the enhancements, the main skill will automatically be level 4 (level 1 to use) and have increased attributes. Though there are a couple of games using this system, it is no doubt still a rarity. While there are open world maps for quests and bosses, there are the signature instance dungeons as well. Each dungeon will have up to 3 difficulties, requiring players to unlock them after completing an easier one. Unfortunately, there are limited times a players can enter dungeons each day given the 1000 dungeon points. But I am not complaining, since the points are really more than enough for me on a weekday. There will be special bonus objectives when entering the dungeons, such as “Get hit less than 50 times” or “Use less than 50 potions”, most of which are really easy to achieve. Next, there are the special dungeons which players can only enter 2 times each day. These dungeons are much tougher, monsters have insane amount of health points and the bosses are really a pain in the @$$. I got mined kicked really hard when entering the mid-levels one for the first time. Other than quests, these special dungeons’ monsters drops items which allows you to trade for NPC set-item gears at the entrance. While it sounds easy, collecting them (up to hundreds of them) is really time consuming. Not that I am complaining, I think no one should since these are basically free gears requiring just patience. I am really impressed with the abundance of quests found in Blue Tears, since they really never stop appearing after completing older ones. Yes, most of them are the classic “Kill X monsters” or “Collect X materials”, but somehow I never really got tired of repeating the same formula, at least for the past 2 weeks. The game is bright and the models, environment are all clear and vivid, and while emulating some sort of childishness in the design style, is not too over the bar. Given that the game is developed in Korea and being published in cash-rich China, there is no doubt a couple of advantages using the cash shop. For example, I can boost my strength by 20% after equipping my pet with a skill bought from the cash shop. Granted, there is not really any guild battles except simple 1 on 1 PvP, I think it is really ok… Well, I spent a hundred on the game so far, I am enjoying it :p There is actually a little bit “fairness” in terms of upgrading equipments, where items which boosts success rate by 10% and items which prevent destruction cannot be used at the same time. At certain intervals, for example from +4 to +5 and +7 to +8, there are no penalties other than failing and losing the gold. In fact, equipments will not break until from +10 and onwards. However, even equipments will fall down 1 level if the upgrade fails. From +2 to +1 is really… Argh… There are various other features such as automated fishing (chance to get an ultra rare fish as ingredient), the various costumes and mounts, bounty system for bosses and also a card game which I never really tried. You might be thinking “Wait, ain’t this just another Korean grinder?”… Well, it really is. Sometimes, a generic game just has that strange alluring charm which attracts the naysayers to give it a try, which in this case, is me. I think I need to see a shrink soon.  A MMO shrink. Similar article: http://www.mmoculture.com/2012/04/blue-tears-cn-cute-and-fast-with-tons.html

Path of Exile Posted: 20 Apr 2012 06:08 AM PDT [Game website] Crowd-funding seems to be the hottest thing right now in the gaming industry, with developers trying to get the financials in order to operate and sell games themselves. Those pesky publishers like EA should really do some self-reflection. Back to the MMO, Path of Exile, developer Grinding Gear Games sent out a press release earlier to extend their thanks to the gamer who bought virtual points even before the game is out. USD 200,000 from 13,000 players is by no means a small amount seeing that it only took them 6 days. You can still contribute (link) and Open Beta is currently scheduled in June. MEDIA RELEASE Indie Action RPG Path of Exile crowd-funds $200,000 over Easter AUCKLAND, New Zealand – 11 April 2012 – Following a hugely popular public test weekend, the makers of Indie Action RPG Path of Exile, New Zealand-based Grinding Gear Games, have launched a 'crowd-funding' campaign where players can pre-purchase game currency and receive rewards such as Closed Beta Keys and exclusive in-game pets in return. In first six days the free-to-play 'ethical microtransaction' funded action RPG has sold over USD$200,000 worth of supporter packs to 13,000 fans. The previous weekend 46,911 players stress tested the game. "We literally had hundreds of people asking how they could support the game to get to Open Beta sooner. We were blown away by the community enthusiasm at the stress test weekend, so we moved quickly to open our shop earlier than planned. We've been blown away again by the support over Easter," says Grinding Gear Games' co-founder Chris Wilson. 13 people have bought the $1,000 Diamond Supporter package, which will let them help design one of the game's Unique magic items. Path of Exile features its own dark, gritty take on the Action RPG genre, a unique skill gem system, a huge passive skill tree and PvP combat in a persistent online world. "The crowd-funding presales mean Path of Exile will enter Open Beta in June with three acts of content. Although we plan to pile on the content for years to come, further support will greatly accelerate it and help pay for our US and European servers." Grinding Gear Games have committed to never charge for content or power. "Selling supporter packs and currency has also been a great test of our 'ethical microtransaction' philosophy. We hate the concept of pay-to-win games, so it's great to see that players are willing to support the game and to buy purely cosmetic items," says Wilson. A range of supporter packs are available on Path of Exile's website. The cheapest tier is $10 which includes Closed Beta access. Higher tiers come with in-game Kiwi bird Pets, a collector's edition copy of the game, t-shirts, soundtracks, signed posters, and the option to design a Unique Item. All packs include game currency which can be used to buy extra character slots and stash tabs for compulsive item hoarding. More personalisation options and player services are planned for the Open Beta. Any purchases made now will continue into the Open Beta, although Closed Beta characters and non-microtransaction items will be wiped upon entering Open Beta in approximately June. During the stress test weekend, 46,911 people tried the game with the servers successfully handling a peak load of 7310 players. "The stress test was great – we learnt a lot about how people are playing and enjoying the game. We've built Path of Exile as an online game with PvP and support for various leagues and game modes from the ground up, and we're really pleased with how the servers performed," says Wilson. Path of Exile has been in development for five years by Grinding Gear Games, an independent studio of hardcore RPG fans based in Auckland, New Zealand. Key features of 'Path of Exile': - Completely free to download and play, but never 'pay-to-win' - A persistent online world capable of supporting hundreds of thousands of players - A dark and gritty game world rendered from a fixed 3D perspective - Randomly generated levels and items for extreme replayability - Online ranking and ladders for every game mode - Visceral combat with dozens of combinable skills - Battle in PVP tournaments for worldwide recognition - Dynamic skill system Similar article: http://www.mmoculture.com/2012/04/path-of-exile-developer-thanks-easter.html

Dragon Blade (CN) Posted: 20 Apr 2012 06:01 AM PDT [More info] China’s number 2 MMO company, NetEase, is not shying away from naming Tencent’s upcoming Blade Soul China as its main competitor. First revealed late in March, Dragon Blade so far has garnered mixed reviews, some claiming it to be a Blade Soul clone while others managed to picked out small details which differentiate it from the NCsoft-developed title. Nevertheless, I personally feel it is always good the have strong competition. A new Dragon Blade gameplay trailer was revealed just around an hour ago, so do take a look. The trailer left me with quite some thoughts. It seems like a mixture of Blade Soul in terms of design, TERA in open world non-target action combat, and perhaps even Aion at the ending sequence with the wings. And not forgetting the trademark loli race which is in almost all “big” 3D online titles now. Still, Dragon Blade looks promising, I am certainly not discounting it yet. Similar article: http://www.mmoculture.com/2012/04/dragon-blade-cn-new-gameplay-trailer.html

Dungeon Hero (KR) Posted: 20 Apr 2012 06:00 AM PDT I know, Dragon Nest developer Eyedentity Games just announced Dungeon Striker (link) recently, which I think forced EyaSoft to reveal their rendition of a online dungeon crawler as well. EyaSoft, if you remember, developed some rather memorable titles including Luna Online, Legend of Edda and Iris Online. After temporary ceasing all work on their previous games (link), EyaSoft is now back with its 2nd title, Dungeon Hero. The first title to be announced after the studio’s revival was the spiritual successor to Luna Online, Luna Story: ELs (link). Unlike Dungeon Striker which is a real time action slasher, Dungeon Hero still adopts the classic targeting system, which will no doubt draw in a different crowd of gamers who are still not used to action games. Combat is not really that slow, which I can attest with my experience in Legend of Edda and Luna Online. Featuring a “Heroes’ Arena” inspired by MOBA games such as Dota 2, Dungeon Hero is still very much focused on PvP despite EyaSoft’s trademark cute design. There is also a PvP map which accommodates guild wars, supporting 100 Vs 100 players at the same time. Dungeon Hero is expected to enter beta later this year. Similar article: http://www.mmoculture.com/2012/04/dungeon-hero-kr-eyasofts-dungeon.html

Garena signs Club Mstar for Southeast Asia Posted: 20 Apr 2012 06:00 AM PDT Garena has always been known to be more of a company hosting PvP games such as Heroes of Newerth, League of Legends and most recently Firefall (link) in the Asia region, hence today’s news came as a surprise to me. The company has signed a contract with Korean developer Nurien and CJ Games for the English publishing rights of Mstar Online (or Club Mstar), an online dancing game for Southeast Asia including Taiwan as well for the Traditional Chinese version. From what I remembered, developer Nurien was on the brink of closure when Club Mstar lasted just a few days in Korea before the servers went offline. The game was previously heavily touted since it was developed using Unreal Engine 3, perhaps the first dancing online game to ever do so. Apparently picked up by MMO giant CJ Games, Club MStar was subsequently drafted into its online portal Netmarble which prompted its massive revival. No exact date is set currently for the game’s release, although it is scheduled for Q3 later this year. Similar article: http://www.mmoculture.com/2012/04/garena-signs-club-mstar-for-southeast.html

ChangYou preparing Shadowbane reboot Posted: 20 Apr 2012 05:58 AM PDT Yesterday at a big media conference where ChangYou revealed several new titles, the company’s Vice President revealed that the company secured the Shadowbane IP rights and is developing an online game mentioned as “World of Shadowbane”. Having been part of the original Shadowbane China operating team, he said that the game left him with some regrets. No other information was given. Update: “World of Shadowbane” at this point has been in development for 1 year already. This reminded me of NetDragon’s Dungeon Keeper Online (link). At the media event, a total of 6 other MMOs were revealed, although most are in codenames such as Project X7 and Project M. Having got the rights for both CryEngine 3 and Unreal Engine 3, they will be used to develop several upcoming titles. These games were teased to be of several different genres, including 1 with a Diablo III feel, one which is an action combat game and an adventure MMO along the lines of Tomb Raider. DaVinci Online was also part of the announcement, which was reported several months ago (link). Developed in Korea, ChangYou obtained global rights for the online shooter inspired by the Renaissance era, which means gamers can expect an English server in the near future. There will be an iPad version as well. Similar article: http://www.mmoculture.com/2012/04/changyou-preparing-shadowbane-reboot.html

Eyedentity Games developing 3rd online game Posted: 20 Apr 2012 05:58 AM PDT After announcing Dungeon Striker (link) just a couple of days ago, Korean media website Inven confirmed that the company is currently developing a “large scale” MMORPG as its 3rd game. While details are scarce including the name and genre, the 3 lead members for the team was revealed. They are all from Nexon, with experience in planning/ programming/ motion capture among many other skills for games including Mabinogi and Mabinogi Heroes. The first hint of the team’s formation was discovered when one of the members posted on Twitter Korea about his new role. Similar article: http://www.mmoculture.com/2012/04/eyedentity-games-developing-3rd-online.html

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