Daybreak Game Company, the H1Z1 and PlanetSide 2 mob formerly known as Sony Online Entertainment, have laid off an unconfirmed number of staff. It's the second wave of layoffs at Daybreak this year, and a real tough time to be laid off. It's the usual "optimising our structure" sort of reason. Daybreak say they'll continue to run their current and are working on new games too.
]]>Backstage areas have always fascinated me. Behind the scenes in theatres, where all the glitz and glamour dies instantly the moment you step where the public isn't meant to see - down lethal staircases and in filthy preparation rooms. The tunnels in places like Walt Disney World, where cast members travel to avoid ruining the magic, and tough security guards probably not wearing mouse ears emerge to haul off trouble-makers. And in games, especially online ones, there's often parts that we're just not meant to see, from developer tricks to places for the GM team to hang out.
Quite often, these include prisons. For the really naughty players to go.
]]>I am standing in a place that shouldn't exist. It shouldn't exist because back in 2011 it was decided that this place and the countless others connected to it were no longer financially viable enough to warrant their own existence. Four years ago, almost to this date, thousands of players gathered where I am standing right now to witness the final moments of Star Wars Galaxies.
"When I was very little, I used to create trial accounts of the game for hours and hours just to continue exploring," John tells me. "Even though I never made it off of Tatooine or past level 12, I fell in love." That love is what inspired John, better known by his peers as Aconite, to get involved with the community dedicated to preserving and restoring Galaxies to what it used to be. He's part of a growing trend of MMOs that find a second life through the reverse engineering, emulation, and sometimes theft of their biggest fans.
]]>HO HO HO. Christmas is practically upon us, and games eveywhere... well, mostly online... are joining the party. Whether they call it Winter Veil or Frostfell, it's a chance to deck the hubs with bonus XP and let everyone from elves to orcs don Santa hats and hand out treats to the good little wizards and barbarians. Here's a few of the events going on around the worlds over the next week or so. Is there something cool happening in one of your games that you think folks would find fun? Wrap it up nicely in a comment and leave it under the tree. By which I mean the article. Sorry, that metaphor seemed to be going in a better direction at the start of the sentence.
]]>Over in Everquest II, they're trying an experiment at the moment - what's that? Yes, Everquest II. People are still playing it. The original as well. I know, I'm surprised too, but never mind. Specifically, they've created a prison server called Drunder. The idea is that instead of banning trolls, griefers and cheaters (presumably up to a certain point), they can simply throw all the troublemakers in server jail and let them play together with no possibility of escape. Nothing can possibly go wrong! If you want to indulge in the anarchy then you can request to be sent there, but again, it's a one way trip for your account. Has Daybreak finally discovered the ultimate fix for bad online behaviour, though? Let's ask our special ethics correspondent, a snowball in Hell.
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Well, while we wait, I thought it'd be fun to take a look at how a few other RPGs have decided to have a little fun with their dodgier elements, both online and off.
]]>One novelty punishment for cheats and blaggards nowadays is to imprison them with their ilk, from Dota 2 matchmaking folks who leave games with their fellow quitters to Max Payne 3 pitting cheaters against fellow cads. Now EverQuest II is joining in on the fun with with an "experiment" in launching an entire prison server to permanently lock away ne'er-do-wells - and people who are curious about life on the inside.
]]>SOE send word that the latest update to ageing fantasy massive 'em up Everquest II will give players a shoe-in at higher levels. They explain: "for a limited time new, returning and current players can create one permanent Heroic Character for free." This option will be available from now until the 15th. Beyond that, a new Heroic Characters Programme will allow you to try a level 85 character for free, and to buy in should you so wish. All this is in preparation for getting the community buffed and with a level 85 tan ready for November's high level expansion, Tears of Veeshan.
I've posted a video of the SOE Live panel explaining the upcoming expansion, below.
]]>I remember when I first played Everquest. I was younger then - naive, optimistic, and completely unable to grasp the concept that a PVP server meant idly tapping the attack button around other people could cause an international incident. Still though, it was my first MMO, and what a magical experience it was. I'll never forget my first death by Sand Giant or related, nearly naked corpse run through Terror Country. I tried it out again recently, though, and it's, uh, really different. But I suppose that makes sense, seeing as there have been 18 expansion sets. And now it's about to get even more different with a 19th. Also, EverQuest II's hitting number nine, because... jeez, really? Nine? Where did the time go, everyone? What were we doing?
]]>MMOs are pretty much about two things: breaking and taking. Kill ten things, take six things, etc, etc, etc. Monsters, boar gizzards, fish, barrels - nothing is safe. But all that destruction can get a bit exhausting at times. I mean, who hasn't met an Orc, ogre, or space marine who just wanted to paint? So now SOE's letting players balance out their wanton destruction with a little creation. Player Studio, as the new system's known, will allow players to submit custom items to the likes of EverQuest, EverQuest II, Vanguard, and (eventually) PlanetSide 2 for potential use by everyone in each respective game. It does, however, seem a bit less community driven than, say, Steam Workshop.
]]>The continued support and updating for EverQuest II never fails to surprise me. The MMO is now eight years old, but still played and receiving regular updates and content, and now some tech that I've not seen used elsewhere. They're awkwardly calling it SOEmote, a thing where a webcam pointed at your face will translate your expressions onto your in-game character. You can see it in action below.
]]>OK, so I actually sort of love the idea behind EverQuest II's latest bit of technical wizardry, but well, when I say "wizardry," I mean less Gandalf and more the really clumsy kid from Harry Potter - millennia before he became improbably talented. Basically, though, EverQuest II will - via mic and webcam - soon be able to read your vocal and facial cues and translate them 1:1 into Norrath. Conceptually, that's great! So long, demons of anonymity. Meet one of mankind's most primal, utterly essential roots of communication. But, uh, can we maybe try this again in ten years or so? And without the frog person?
]]>This is big news for all SOE games, actually, including EverQuest II, DC Universe Online, Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures, and Free Realms. PCG points out that SOE are signing a European publishing deal with Germany company ProSiebenStat. According to SOE's proposals this could mean that SOE customers will no longer be able to play on both American and EU servers, and in fact existing European players are going to be asked to create an account with the new company to transfer characters and continue playing. Of course, people aren't too happy about that, what with them having relationships with real people outside international boundaries and so forth. The inevitable internet shouting resulted in this response from SOE, indicating that they are "listening". The upshot of the current proposal would be that Europeans would not be (easily) able to play Planetside 2 with American chums. The RPS Planetside 2 outfit would be divided! Those are tears running down my cheeks.
]]>I still can't quite shake off the strangeness of receiving information about a game that came out seven years ago. But EveryQuest II lives on, and of course last month became free to play. But that's not stopping the updates, and the next is the ability to fly! Treading on Aion's toes, the old man of online gaming has added wing-ed combat, and just general flying around, looking faintly ridiculous. For those who still doubt, there's video proof below.
]]>If you can't or won't afford The Old Republic but are grumpily hanging around comments threads wishing you too were off on online adventures, it's worth remembering that exactly 312,129 MMOs have now gone free to play. No lightsabers, but also no queues. One of the more recent of these is Everquest II, the at-the-time ambitious fantasy world that's probably slightly annoyed that its precusor still co-exists alongside it. Below is a narrated video tour of some of the new stuff in the free to play to play update, the Age of Discovery expansion, the new class Beastlords, a dungeon designer tool and a major overhaul of key city Freeport. This is actually my first peek at the game in quite some time - it's really quite pretty, in a slightly austere way.
]]>Another day, another gobbet of news about pricing options in an MMO. This time it's Everquest II, which has been running two parallel worlds, one for subscribers and a lesser world for those who want their fantasy for free. Confusingly, the slimline free world is called Everquest II Extended, presumably because Everquest II Shrivelled didn't focus test well. Soon, that world shall be no more and subscribers will find themselves playing alongside all manner of freeloaders as the playerbase is merged. Non-subscribers will find some features limited, including access to the new Age of Discovery expansion. More details and a trailer below.
]]>Right then, what's left? Everquest 1, Ultima Online, World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online, Lineage... What else yet stands firm against the free to play tide? The latest to switch is SOE's 2014-launched Everquest II, which will offer itself to the microtransaction gods next month.
]]>Are any of you lot still playing EverQuest 2? Some people are, it would seem, since Sony are continuing to churn out both pay-for and free content. The latest free update, The Children of War, adds the fortress of Drunder, seven new missions, new PvP maps and modes, new quests, new crafting recipes and all kinds of other gubbins. This comes after Destiny of Velious, the latest pay-for expansion, added flying mounts and reduced the number of stats belonging to each character to two.
It would also appear that somewhere along the line the developers stopped hiring professional voice actors for their trailers, as you'll see below.
]]>As previously reported, Everquest II is adding a Free-to-Play option. The story is no longer true. It's gone into Open Beta, so now totally has a free-to-play option. The unique twist is that it doesn't touch the traditional game at all, instead offering a parallel Everquest II Extended free-to-play option. So if you want to play a sub game you can, and if you want to enter a more micro-payment option, you can do that too. You can download the client here, which has Guild-War-esque streaming tech to allow you to start playing rather than waiting for Gigabytes of stuff to squeeze out of your internet-pipe. Also, according to the FAQ, despite being a Beta, there won't be a character wipe when it goes live properly, so all your progress (and expenditures) will carry across into the full launch. This free-to-play second-life for 3rd-wave MMOs is very much a trend of the year, and you can see the Gamescom trailer below...
]]>With SOE having made some in-roads to freeland with Free Realms, it seems they're also going to try it with Everquest 2. It's not quite the DDO or LOTRO model, however, since Everquest II Extended is going to be an entirely separate (although mechanistically and thematically similar) game from the Everquest 2 that you probably abandoned to go back to World Of Warcraft. There are a bunch of details over here - it's probably going into beta on 17th of August - but you won't be surprised to learn that the game will be supported by sucking out vital elements of your soul and using them to feed the dead god Anubis, who lives on in a nth-dimension beneath the surface of the Earth an optional subscription and in-game micropaymentish marketplace.
Everquest II's fifth major expansion goes live today. It's a retail box at $40, and includes all previous EQ2 expansions and add-ons, as well as a load of new regions and new quest strings. To be honest I have little idea what kind of significance this expansion holds for the Everquest II community, which I understand remains fairly large, despite the fierce competition it faces from so many other MMOs. This interview delves into some of the details, and unearths some of the ways that the EQ designers are still polishing and reinventing their game.
Trailer and full press release after the jump.
]]>Ah, I'm late on this. I meant to post it a couple of weeks back, but got distracted by laserbeams firing from the heavens. But it's still relevant, so it's getting a quick nod here, in time for the weekend. After all - you weren't planning on going outside or something crazy? In short: Sony announced that anyone with an inactive account for either Everquest or Everquest 2 could play until July 31st absolutely free. Details of it here. I haven't played either since their respective early days. Does anyone think it's worth returning?
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