MMO Industry

HEX: Shards of Fate, the MMO trading card game that we first introduced last week, is doing fairly well in its current Kickstarter campaign. How well, you ask? So far the company has raised over $600,000 of the game's $300,000 goal with 21 days still to go! That's thanks to almost 5,000 backers so far.

While these numbers are impressive one week into the campaign, it should be no surprise considering the talent working on this MMOTDG. Cryptozoic Entertainment is a veteran studio that has developed and published several other trading card and board games for The Walking Dead, Lord of the Rings, DC Comics, World of Warcraft, and more.

With the game already funded at this point, it's still worth checking out the game's reward tiers and stretch goals to see if it's something you might be interested in supporting. You have only 21 more days!

[Thanks for the tip, Sounder!]

"Imagine an experience with the action of Street Fighter inside a story and land like World of Warcraft, all blended into a fast-paced Call of Duty style arena." That's how 8 Bit Studios describes its newest MOBA Kickstarter project entitled Skara: The Blade Remains.

Skara looks to be high on the action with combat based on actual attack directions and multiplayer combos. This Kickstarter campaign has just begun, but offers some exciting rewards, including a digital copy of the game as low as the £15 tier.

Check out the project page and the informative video -- featuring some pretty sweet dev facial hair -- just after the jump.

[Thanks to Alex for the tip!]

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I've recently written about what the MMO future might look like, but in case you haven't read that piece yet, I can sum it up for you. Essentially I see the new generation being so used to gaming and communicating on portable yet powerful devices that the sit-down keyboard and mouse setup might very well be doomed. Even major PC manufacturers and sellers are noticing the trend. Take a visit to your local Gamestop or equivalent game shop and you will notice that the chains have started to sell tablets as well.

All of this tablet gaming might wound the current style of MMOs. I suspect that within the next decade or two it will all come full circle back to massive three-dimensional worlds on tech that becomes even more powerful and common, so we have to look at what the mobile market can do currently to keep MMOs in the lineup.

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Last week, drama swirled around Chris Roberts' Star Citizen pseudo-MMO when he announced and then clarified that certain early crowdfunders will receive lifetime insurance on their ships once the game launches. Potential players rightfully worried that such a move could taint the economy and create a special class of characters with pay-to-win perks that place everyone else at a serious disadvantage.

MMO players are becoming inured to the idea that Kickstarting a game might land them a poster or tattoo or title or even beta access, but non-cosmetic advantages seem to rile everyone up. It's one thing when Camelot Unchained offers special chat and another altogether when it promises big-time donors their own in-game islands. Then again, without such generous Kickstarter pledges, the games might never be made for the rest of us to play at all, so maybe the trade-off is worth it.

What do you think? Does it bother you that gamers with money can buy their way into godhood before a game is even made? Are there Kickstarter perks that put you off from future MMOs?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

The Lulzsec hackers responsible for a string of 2011 cyber attacks that targeted game companies including Sony, Nintendo, Epic, Bethesda, and Mojang have been sentenced to jail time.

Gamespot reports that Ryan Cleary, Jake Davis, Mustafa al-Bassam, and Ryan Ackroyd pled guilty last month. The BBC says that the men could also face extradition to the United States due to various indictments. Lulzsec targeted a number of high profile corporations during the summer of 2011. The attacks resulted in Sony Online Entertainment MMOs and Sony's PlayStation Network going offline for several weeks.

How's your Chinese? Mine's not very good either, but I imagine that the narrator for the new ArcheAge trailer is just saying the Mandarin word for badass over and over again for the duration of the clip's two-minute-and-29-second running time.

That's because everything in the clip is indeed badass, from the location fly-throughs to the mounts to the boat construction to the combat. The trailer is being released to build excitement for ArcheAge's Chinese beta phase, which is less than a week away. I'd say it's doing a pretty fine job of it, wouldn't you agree? Click past the cut to have a look.

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"Dawngate is a new MOBA, built from the ground up to look and feel familiar while offering a whole new way to experience MOBA gameplay." These are the opening words of a new website for Dawngate, developed by Waystone Games and published by EA.

Joystiq notes that the Twitch, Twitter, and YouTube links on the site are either inactive or private, leading us to believe that this game wasn't exactly meant to be public knowledge just yet. There is also speculation that Waystone Games is a dev studio reborn from the ashes of Dead Space 3's Visceral Games, which dissolved last year.

You can register for the upcoming beta through your EA Origin account.

Thus far I've sat out the whole MOBA craze. I don't have a good reason, really, other than all of the rest of the games on my plate coupled with a lack of time to play them. Lately I'm getting more and more intrigued, though, and I've been nosing around websites and forum communities to see which title might make a good starting point.

SMITE looks promising, and I'm a big fan of Hi-Rez thanks mostly to all the fun I had in Global Agenda. Infinite Crisis looks cool, too, though admittedly that's because I'm an incurable fan of the IP. And of course there's League of Legends, HoN, and the other big dogs. What say you, Massively MOBA players? Do you recommend a particular MOBA for newbs?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

MUD May has been a blast so far, but I won't lie to you and say that I hope to even make a dent in the decades-old history of many of these titles. I decided instead to use some examples from my favorite MUDs that I have come across over the last couple of years. It's admittedly been a challenge to think about what to cover. Do I cover the communities? The in-game mechanics? The publishers?

This week I decided to attempt to kill several birds with a handful of stones (and questions) and snagged Simutronics Producer Eric Latham for an video interview. Simutronics has been in the business for 26 years, and the publisher makes my favorite MUD, Gemstone IV. Latham has been with the company for 15 of those years! Technically I am using the interview and video as part of my Rise and Shiny series, but the questions and answers are more relevant to the general topic of MUDs. You might see it now as well as later, but it will hopefully provide some insight into the world of making MUDs.

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French telecom company Vivendi is still looking to sell off gaming giant Activision-Blizzard, according to the Wall Street Journal. Vivendi announced its quarterly results yesterday and also said that Acti-Blizz's board of directors is still weighing multiple sale options for a company that's been up for grabs since the summer of 2012.

GamesIndustry.biz reports that Activision-Blizzard was worth more than $8 billion when it was put on the open market.

Did you miss ArenaNet's Southsun Cove developer livestream? Do you have a spare 27 minutes and 31 seconds? If you answered yes to both of those questions, you can head to the Guild Wars 2 Twitch page and watch the replay. Even if you didn't answer yes to both of those questions, you can still watch the replay, and yes, I am attempting to fill out what is otherwise an extremely cut-and-dried news post.

Let's see, what else? ANet's Scott McGough and Leah Rivera are the developers on record, and there's plenty of gameplay footage and commentary packed into the half-hour block.

Remember A Mystical Land? Well, forget about it, at least under that name. Mad Otter and Neonga have sent out a press release announcing that the title is now called Villagers & Heroes in an effort to "better match the content and focus of the game."

The name change isn't the only change, either, as gameplay has been upgraded by the addition of player-created custom gear, new realms to explore, and new epic bosses.

Animal ranching is a thing now, too, so you can raise sheep, chicken, and pigs alongside those crops in your backyard. Additional improvements are planned for future updates, and Villagers & Heroes is also seeking your approval on Steam's Greenlight service.

[Source: Neonga press release]

Cryptic is pumping out the Star Trek Online dev blogs as the game's Legacy of Romulus expansion draws near. The latest comes to us from content designer Sean "Commander Ander" McCann, and it's all about the Nimbus adventure zone.

Nimbus is a crime-ridden locale currently lorded over by the Orion Syndicate. The new episode series Wasteland takes gamers all over the planet, from the run-down fugitive haven of Paradise City to a destroyed ship that doubles as an Orion stronghold to a Gorn-filled canyon that houses some sort of mysterious project.

Nimbus also boasts dailies, open missions, and accolade rewards for said missions and for exploration. More details are yours at the official STO website.

Ready for the latest SMITE character reveal? Isis is here, and Hi-Rez has published a blog post and a gameplay video heralding her arrival. The Goddess of Magic is a sceptre-wielding mage -- no surprise there -- who relies on her Funeral Rites passive ability and spiffy attacks like Wing Gust and Spirit Ball.

Hi-Rez has also tweaked SMITE's level system in the latest patch. God leveling earns you worshippers after every victory, which in turn translate to God Rank for a given avatar. The devs have also changed the old player level to something called Beta level. If you reach Beta level 30 prior to SMITE's official release, you'll get a free Ymir Cocadeamon skin. There's more info on all the changes at the SMITE website, and don't forget the Isis trailer after the cut.

[Thanks Don!]

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Playing EVE on my couch is bizarre. I know, technically it's called DUST 514, but let's be serious. DUST is basically the beginnings of a massive EVE Online expansion if you subscribe to the notion that EVE is a virtual world as opposed to merely a strategy game featuring internet spaceships and internet drama.

I've played EVE in some strange places prior to this. In an airport terminal, for example. On my toilet, even (yes, nature occasionally calls in the middle of a fleet fight and thank God for laptops). But DUST marks the first -- OK, technically the second -- time I've ever played in New Eden with a controller.

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