Posted 11/10/09 at 10:01:41 PM by Nathan Grayson

Bad news, Guild Wars fans. You’ve been waiting patiently for Guild Wars II, and now, you’re being rewarded with – wait for it -- more waiting. In an NCSoft financial call, CEO Jaeho Lee laid out Guild Wars II’s path to completion, and unfortunately, the finish line’s still a long ways off.
 
“I believe there will be certain public events in the year 2010, at least a closed Beta test for those titles,” Lee told investors. “Commercialization will be expected, at this point, probably sometime in the year 2011.”

So, NCSoft finally breaks radio silence on Guild Wars II only to bring us this sobering tidbit. Huh. Whoever said “no news is good news” clearly wasn’t an MMO player.

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Posted 10/06/09 at 12:07:05 AM by Nathan Grayson

Aion’s really taking off – as per publisher NCSoft’s plans – but with great popularity comes great responsibility. Players are flocking to the game in droves, and unfortunately, the servers can’t bear the load. NCSoft’s solution? Server transfers, of course!

“I’m excited to confirm that we are currently working on implementing a server transfer service beginning next month,” said executive producer Lance Sites. “Specifically, we will offer every player a free one-time server transfer for a limited time to select servers. You can rest assured that addressing the demand for Aion is our biggest priority. And I know a big question is ‘Why did you not deploy more servers?’”

"Most of you are savvy enough to realize that a healthy MMO server needs a robust population. We have to calculate our reasonable concurrency numbers in a week and in a month and beyond. The last thing we want to do to our players is spread them out so that the ‘massively’ in ‘massively multiplayer’ gets lost.”

Here’s hoping that people haven’t been having so much trouble, however, that they don’t just start making server transfers back to World of Warcraft. We’d hate to see such a promising MMO lose its shot at the big time because of a few early technical gaffes.  

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Posted 09/17/09 at 01:00:48 AM by Nathan Grayson

At first glance, you’d think Paltalk Holdings Inc. has a few loose screws rattling around in its head. After all, it recently declared legal war on a who’s-who list of big-name MMO developers: Blizzard (WoW), Turbine (Lord of the Rings Online), SOE (Everquest), NCSoft (Guild Wars, City of Heroes), Jagex (Runescape) – you name it. If you’re on top of the MMO world, Paltalk is trying to knock you down a peg or two. So, why would Paltalk risk getting torn to shreds by some of the fiercest lawyers in the videogame business? Easy – because the company already forced Microsoft to pony up an undisclosed sum with the very same lawsuit.

Paltalk holds a potent pair of patents that basically spell court-ordered doom for any massively multiplayer game publisher. These patents grant Paltalk providence over “sharing data among many connected computers so that all users see the same digital environment.” Sound like any MMO you’ve ever played before? Because it sounds like every MMO we’ve ever played before.

So, will this super team of MMO publishers – forced together by circumstance – be able to overcome Paltalk and its sidekick, Johnny Law? Really, we have no idea. Are there any lawyers in the audience who might be able to give us a more solid answer?

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Posted 08/12/09 at 11:40:36 PM by Nathan Grayson

Every MMO-maker wishes their game could cast its net as wide as WoW, but these days, most are content to eek out a modest living in the shadow of Blizzard’s behemoth. Over at NCSoft, though, things are… well, they’re just like that. But, if WoW’s coming in at the head of the pack, NCSoft’s hoping its upcoming fantasy MMO Aion can at least be the neck.
 
"I believe the performance of Aion in the US and European markets will be very successful. ... We are guessing that Aion will be -- could be -- the second [most] successful MMO in the US market next to World of Warcraft,” NCSoft CFO Jaeho Lee said during a recent conference call.

When Aion and the recently deceased Tabula Rasa were mentioned in the same sentence together, however, Lee wasn’t so kind.

"Ok, um, it's very unfortunate to hear the name of Tabula Rasa at this conference call," he said. "And we all want to forget and erase that memory from our performance. We did a very poor job with Tabula Rasa, and we disappointed our retailers in US markets and also European markets.”

So, for those who’ve tried Aion, do you think it has a shot at taking off on our side of the pond? Or do you think NCSoft should drop its expectations down a notch or two?

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Posted 05/01/09 at 01:18:29 AM by Nathan Grayson

Want to play two of PC gaming’s genre bests? Also want to hang onto your cash with no attached consequences? Well, that’s theft. People like you belong in prison. But for once, the kind hearts at NCSoft and Valve are turning a blind eye to your antics, so you can finally live out your typically larcenous dreams – for a limited time, anyway.

For the next 24 hours, Left 4 Dead is in free trial mode, meaning that anyone can download and play Valve’s highly implausible piece of anti-zombie propaganda for free. Don’t dawdle, though; you only have until Saturday to take advantage!

As for City of Heroes, snagging a freebie is tad trickier. In celebration of the game’s fifth anniversary, NCSoft has reactivated all City of Heroes accounts – retail or trial – until 11:59pm EST on Sunday. On the menu for this birthday bash is a brand new player-driven mission editor, special events, and in-game commemorative badges. We can’t really think of any reason not to want to be a friggin’ super hero, but a few extra perks are never a bad thing.
 
So, how will you spend your free time this weekend – cleaning up crime or drowning in Boomer bile? Or are you gonna try for a twofer?

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Posted 03/13/09 at 03:11:02 AM by Nathan Grayson

We’ve always taken issue with the Internet’s highly malleable list of steps for rocking ultimate. "1) Do a thing, 2) Do another thing, 3) ???, and 4) Profit" are all well and good, but our generation’s best and brightest seem to have omitted the final step: Get sued by a tiny, opportunistic company over some patent that holds about as much water as a shattered snow globe.

Worlds.com, currently in the process of suing NCSoft -- while almost assuredly sliding its fingers down a bountiful mustache and readjusting its monocle -- has voiced its diabolical intentions: First NCSoft, then the World… of Warcraft. Then the world.
 
Worlds.com CEO Thom Kidrin said as much when he told Silicon Alley Insider that his company “absolutely” intends to send the gavel crashing down on games like WoW and Second Life if its suit against NCSoft succeeds.
 
Apparently, the conspicuously convenient patent arises from a collection of Starbright patents, which provide “an architecture for enabling thousands of simultaneous users in a 3D virtual space.” Worlds.com now owns said patents and decided they might – like an errant $20 bill in a recently washed pair of jeans – be useful.
 
So, where does mean old man Jenkins’ money-grubbing plot fall apart? Let our good friend and super sleuth Thomas McDonald explain it for you:

“This must be news to Steve Colley. Back in 1973, he and some other young programmers interning at NASA created MazeWar… Not only did you navigate a maze, but each player was represented by an avatar (an eyeball), people could shoot each other, and the whole thing was networked, complete with online chat!”

“But MazeWar wasn’t Colley’s work alone. Others had inspired him, and subsequent people built on his work, drawing on the potential of new technology to forge the entire gaming industry. No one person or company can claim ownership of these ideas.”

So there you go.

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Posted 02/28/09 at 03:59:30 AM by Nathan Grayson

The game that gave birth to Operation Immortality is, ironically, about to reach the end of its unfortunately fly-esque lifespan -- but it’s giving us one last lecture on why we totally dropped the ball on this one before going upstairs and never coming back down.

Tabula Rasa will not end with a whimper, but with the kind of bang that one anticipates before hearing a balloon pop. But here’s the crucial difference: Tabula Rasa delivers.

Beginning today at 8PM CST (or GMT, depending on your server), the sci-fi MMO will tape down itsself-destruct button with an intricately planned in-game event. Said a “message” from AFS High Command:

“Special Intelligence units throughout AFS territory have been monitoring an escalation of Bane assaults and communications in the recent weeks. Some of the communications have been intercepted and decoded, and we have reason to believe that the Bane are planning a massive, multi-front assault sometime in the coming days.”

“We request that all military personnel begin fortifying defenses at every AFS base in preparation for a massive Bane assault. If enemy troop movements are as large as we fear, and the Neph are truly prepared to lead all out war against us, this may be our last stand. Penumbra has been informed of the situation and is standing by on the use of their last resort weapon.”

“We cannot afford to be complacent or uncertain, but if it is truly our destiny to be destroyed, we are taking them all with us.”

Sends chills, really. This game was too good for our undeserving world.

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Posted 02/18/09 at 12:16:45 AM by Nathan Grayson

In a document recently obtained by VE3D, publisher NCSoft announced that Guild Wars 2 won’t be nestling up inside your hard drive until – at the earliest – 2010. Prior to that, the game was scheduled to enter beta during 2008. However, developer ArenaNet screen-blurred into an entirely different flashback, saying that NCSoft’s purported release window for Guild Wars 2 is pretty much hogwash.

“On Friday, NCsoft released investor materials that showed a very broad release window for Guild Wars 2, with the explanation that release timing is still ‘to be announced.’ ArenaNet has never given a release date for Guild Wars 2 other than ‘when it's done.’ NCsoft's investor materials are a reflection of that philosophy,” said ArenaNet’s Mike O’Brien.
 
“I know some fans had hoped for a smaller gap between the launch of Guild Wars: Eye of the North and the start of beta testing for Guild Wars 2, but we communicated last summer that it would be some time before we could commit to any beta or launch dates. Guild Wars 2 is a large and ambitious game, and we're going to take the time to do it right.”

So then, maybe the game will take its first wobbly steps in 2010 or 2011. Maybe even later than that. 2009, though? You can stop holding your breath now.

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