The success story seems to have no end: As of now, the dino game “ARK: Survival Evolved” has already attracted over 400,000 buyers, making it one of the most successful titles of the year.
64,000 players online simultaneously
Only a good week ago, the game became available on Steam and is currently in “Early Access,” which has been increasingly discredited in recent months. However, that doesn’t seem to deter customers. Perhaps the survival hunt with T-Rex and Co. is one of the big exceptions among unfinished survival games.
According to Jesse Rapczak, co-founder of Studio Wildcard, up to 64,000 players are online simultaneously, and if the success continues, the numbers will increase significantly by the weekend. ARK impressively demonstrates that even in the age of “cookie-cutter” survival games, good ideas and fresh approaches can prevail.
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The German developer studio Fairytale Distillery was unable to reach the desired 50,000 euros to finance the PvP MMO The Valley.
Only 520 supporters came together and enabled a total of 32,826 euros. However, the developers of the game do not see any of this money, as Kickstarter only collects the funds if a crowdfunding campaign has been successful. In the last 24 hours, it was even possible, to try the game for free, but this did not help – the financing has failed.
Looking at the comments on the Kickstarter website, many believe that while The Valley is a good PvP-focused game, it is not worth 50 euros. Many would only pay between 20 and 30 euros for it. Additionally, many testers criticized that there would be nothing to do in the game other than fighting. However, it is still an alpha version where not all features are included. Crafting and building structures and cities are supposed to be possible later.
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Fairytale Distillery thanks everyone who participated in the crowdfunding campaign on the Kickstarter page. However, the failed financing will not mean the end of the game. However, the release will be delayed as they must try to obtain funds elsewhere. The team assumes that they will first have to complete some contract work before they can fully focus on The Valley again.
Those who participated in the Kickstarter campaign will receive a personal email with a link and a key through which they can obtain in the game’s online shop the same rewards they would have received through Kickstarter. The developers were very pleased with the active participation in the 24-hour test and were able to gain some experiences from it that should ultimately improve the game.
How exactly things will proceed with the PvP MMO The Valley and what the roadmap for further development looks like will be announced by Fairytale Distillery shortly on the official website of the game.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
In the military MMO Armored Warfare, the next early access phase starts today, June 10th, at 5 PM.
Armored Warfare aims to take over where World of Tanks left off: with modern tanks and new conflicts. Today, the second early access phase of the MMO begins. It will last until June 24th. The servers are open from 5 PM to 9 PM during the week. On weekends from 4 PM to 10 PM.
There is even a possibility that these times could be extended.
This map “Roughneck” is also new in the second early access phase:
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In the second early access phase, improvements have been made to performance, new vehicles have been introduced, and of course, many bugs have been fixed. To learn how to access early access and play the game now, it’s best to check directly on the homepage.
From the hype. A few weeks ago, TERA was released on Steam and has since become very popular, now even counting as the most played MMORPG on the platform. Now Gameforge, the publisher of TERA in Europe, has put a stop to that.
Gameforge has a problem with TERA Steam
The publisher of TERA on Steam is the US publisher “En Masse” – and because Steam is quite popular internationally, many players use this service. However, in Europe, TERA is distributed by “Gameforge”, and there they see the “Steam-Tera” as a strong competition to their own offering. What exactly has happened between Gameforge, the Russian publisher Destiny Development, and En Masse can only be speculated.
In the official announcement from En Masse, they speak of “external pressure from publishers in this region.” This pressure has led to the decision to no longer offer TERA on Steam for certain regions.
Those who downloaded TERA on Steam before June 11 will still be able to use the game in its entirety. However, new players will no longer join via Steam but must manually download the game from GameForge or En Masse, thus taking a small detour. This applies to players from Europe. Americans are not affected by this.
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Dave Wilson, an employee of Blizzard, recently posted a lot of screenshots from the early days of “World of Warcraft” on his Twitter account. Many images have never been seen before and show the game in several very early stages. An exciting journey through time that could bring a nostalgic tear to many!
It started as a mod for Warcraft III
It’s not surprising that after the great success of “Warcraft III”, the first plans for the MMO using the RTS classic’s engine were made. However, the result is quite amusing and very far from today’s Azeroth.
One can clearly see the parallels to Warcraft III units.
Other secrets have also been revealed: For a long time, the internet has been buzzing with the rumor that female trolls were originally supposed to be just a “chubbier” version of the males – this now seems less far-fetched when looking at the first models of the female axe throwers.
Not quite as sexy as today, but certainly recognizable.
In the fantasy MMORPG The Lord of the Rings Online, patch 16.1 was released last week, fixing numerous bugs and making balance changes – including to the instruments.
One has to give credit to The Lord of the Rings Online: Surely, no other game’s patch notes would include a section about the “balancing” of musical instruments. One tone is lowered in volume, while another should sound less metallic. The acoustic range is increased overall by double to 30 meters, the lute is nerfed, and the flute is buffed.
But this is not all, may the gods drum for it. Extensive changes are taking place with patch 16.1. The perspective from the “third person” is now smoother, multiple call items can now be used at once, there are numerous fixes to the instances, and adjustments are made to the balancing screws regarding class abilities.
The fantasy MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV relies on a payment model in the Free2Play wonderland Korea and still generates interest.
Korea is the last of the major markets that Square Enix wants to tap into. In South Korea, Actoz Games will distribute the game. Korea is known as a Free2Play stronghold, and the Japanese Final Fantasy XIV is one of the last staunch advocates of the Pay2Play, subscription model. Does that fit together? After the initial interest, one could say: Yes.
For a closed beta phase, 25,000 spots are available. 150,000 Koreans have already applied for these spots. So the interest is there. It will be exciting to see how it looks at release when it costs something.
The closed beta starts tomorrow and will last throughout the week.
For more about the fantasy MMORPG with the Moogle, check out our FF-14 topic page.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
In the MMO shooter Destiny , a strange bug has occurred, causing curious scenes in the Crucible.
A wondrous scene took place in a completely normal Crucible match. The game was still relatively early on. Then a Blade Dancer defeated an opponent, and the kill was credited to him multiple times. The score counter ticked up, and the game was over.
The match exists both from the perspective of the victim:
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Extremely strange. Bungie has probably already used the game for “error analysis” to see exactly what happened. The match has since gone viral, causing a stir on both reddit and YouTube.
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Just a few days ago, Blizzard announced that there will always be “theme months” for Heroes of the Storm. The first one will be June, dedicated entirely to the Diablo universe. And the first hints about who the next hero will be have already surfaced!
King Leoric – Lord of the Undead
At a glance, one thing immediately stands out in the image: an undead hero who looks nothing like Arthas or Sylvanas. But since a game can never have enough rulers of zombie armies, it seems that “King Leoric” from Diablo will also make his way into Blizzard’s MOBA! While there are no concrete hints about his abilities yet, what would the “Black King” be without a few rattling bones at his side?
Who needs a sniper when you can have a crossbow?
In addition to Leoric, there will also be a few new skins that will likely be coming to Heroes of the Storm soon: an angel skin for Diablo (because… what else?), a skin for Nova, in which she has traded her sniper rifle for a solid crossbow, and of course a matching mount from the Diablo universe.
When exactly the new content will be released is not yet known.
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The beta of SMITE has been fully underway on Xbox One for a few months now. If you want to secure access, you can do so by purchasing the “Founder’s Pack” in the online store – or you can win a beta key right here and now! According to the latest information from HiRez, there will be no more “wipes” of player data, so you can carry over all earned achievements to the regular version once it is released.
And here’s how it works!
The process is simple. First come, first served, and you can start right away beating up your friends or strangers with the gods. All you have to do is provide a valid email address (and owning an Xbox One would be an advantage), then the fun can begin. Only the first 300 participants will receive a key, so hurry up and inform your friends you want to play with – have fun!
Update: All keys are gone!
We conduct the giveaway using the raffle tool godankey. Your data will be anonymized, not stored, and only used for sending the codes. Participation is free and the legal process is excluded.
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If you want to learn more about the free-to-play action game that is among the top 5 MOBAs in the world, we recommend taking a look at our SMITE review. The unique feature: You play in a third-person perspective and control well-known gods from mythology. P.S.: Players who link their PC account with Xbox One can carry over all achievements just once and receive an exclusive skin on both platforms.
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Hello everyone. It’s Wednesday again, and that means it’s time for a little outrage. Today, however, I would prefer to discuss a thought process that I stumbled upon at kotaku. And as the title suggests: Yes, it’s once again about Steam, specifically about the remarkably customer-friendly refund policy.
Steam Refunds – A great thing!
Basically, the idea of a refund policy for games that are not liked is wonderful for the customer. You have a maximum of two hours to test the product and then return it if you don’t want it or if your PC doesn’t meet the requirements.
Incidentally, it also has the pleasant side effect that developers can no longer easily lure customers with lies, as after two hours you often already know whether a game truly delivers what it promises. One can therefore assume that granting customers this much power positively influences quality development. A wonderful thing for blockbuster titles like Witcher 3 or Evolve!
… or maybe not?
Especially “Visual Novels” will suffer massively under the refund system.
However, this also has a downside that I had not considered before: What about all those brilliant games that only have a few hours of playtime? “Analogue: A Hate Story” or “Without Within” can be relatively easily completed within the refund period and then returned. I know, the sincere gamers who love a game would not do something like that – but not everyone is like that. Since money, at least in this world, does not grow on trees, it is quite tempting to simply demand a refund.
A clear signal is sent to the developers of these games: You are not welcome here. Produce games with a long playtime. I consider this to be a rather unfortunate development, as it is precisely through Steam’s “Greenlight” program that many wonderful games have become accessible to the public or have found their way to the European and American markets.
“Steam Refunds” is, in my (current) opinion, a double-edged sword that still needs a lot of maturation time. Certain games with short playtimes should be excluded from this regulation, without opening a backdoor for the black sheep of the gaming industry.
What do you think about this? Have you already made use of the new feature? What is your stance on games that have a short playtime, and what would be your suggestion? Or do you seize the opportunity and play every game you can get your hands on?
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This week, we also received a video from a reader who said he killed Crota “Worldfirst” in a very special way. What we got to see was indeed something we had not seen before:
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Here’s a short clip to say goodbye. Someone figured out how to dodge an Axion Grenade in the best possible way and what else can be done afterward. The best blink ever?
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The MMORPG Wander has just launched on PC and PlayStation 4. However, even though it is a relaxing online game without violence, some gamers currently want to go crazy.
Because the launch of the MMO went anything but smoothly. Many players who bought Wander for the PlayStation 4 report that there are numerous problems. There are frequent crashes, and clipping issues spoil the fun of the game. One player explains that his character exhibits strange behavior. If Wander were not crashing, the character would be running into invisible walls, performing a moonwalk, floating, or walking through walls. There would be a series of extremely bizarre behaviors. It is the game with the biggest launch issues on the PlayStation 4 so far.
Not everyone has problems
However, there are also players who claim the exact opposite. For these players, Wander runs excellently. There are no crashes and also no strange behavior of the character. It may be a problem related to the PlayStation 4, or the internet connection is to blame. Perhaps the tolerance threshold for console players is also lower regarding bugs at the launch of an online game.
At the moment, it is still unclear what causes these problems and why they occur for some and not for others. The developers, in any case, are already busy releasing updates and patches and addressing every reported issue. So if the developers manage to find out the reason for the strange behavior of the game on the PlayStation 4, one can certainly expect a patch soon.
Wander transports you to a mysterious island where you can take on the form of various creatures, each possessing different abilities. Only by frequently changing forms will you be able to uncover the mysteries of the island.
Are you also playing the non-violent MMORPG Wander? If so, are you also facing issues? What do you think of the game? Let us know in the comments.
The launch of The Elder Scrolls Online on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One was overshadowed by problems, but at least there is a new launch trailer and the staff are putting in overtime.
It really reminds one of spring 2014, back then we had headlines like “Problems overshadow launch” and this time not everything went according to plan at Zenimax either. Players have been waiting 14 months for the console release, took time off, wanted to play the first hours properly, and then there were indeed some issues with the login servers when the Americans could log in.
The European PlayStation 4 mega server was taken down today for maintenance. There are two-minute wait times at certain shrines, the achievements of PC players are not being transferred correctly, there are slight issues with the PS Vita and Remote Play, a gold cap briefly scared transferring players, things are shaky here and there.
Even the long months of refinement and improvement could not completely prevent this. But perhaps they prevent the tumultuous further difficulties that plagued TESO following the PC release back then. Players uncovered numerous holes or small weaknesses in the game’s design concepts. All of those should be patched and eliminated by now.
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As a representative for the launch day: A clever user on reddit opened a post “Everyone go to sleep, it will surely run fine in the morning,” only to add in a whisper shortly after: Hopefully enough are away now so I can play! The rush on launch day – The Elder Scrolls Online is not the first MMO to stumble over this temporary obstacle.
But communication has clearly improved, keeping fans updated, giving them the feeling “We are with you, we are working on the problems, we are on it.” Everywhere, people are working overtime, putting in effort, they know how important these days are for the long-term future of The Elder Scrolls Online. The reactions are positive as well. On Twitch, the game is causing a stir, and the first attention-grabbing successes are being achieved. The media are back. It is the hoped-for second chance.
And there is an official console trailer at launch: The Path of a Hero. Slowly but surely, one is really getting used to the melody, right?
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
In the MMO shooter Destiny a new Crucible mode called Elimination started at 7:00 PM on June 9th.
It had been announced for some time that the “Trials of Osiris” mode Elimination would also come outside of the event. Bungie just announced that it is now active starting tonight at 7:00 PM. It will likely be treated like the Inferno events, brought back from time to time.
Like in the Trials of Osiris it is a 3v3 deathmatch with special rules and a best-of-9 series, but with some differences:
There is matchmaking, Bungie finds you friends
The maps rotate – so it is not just one
Level advantages do not matter, as in the normal Crucible
You match opponents based on skill, not as in Trials of Osiris based on connection
The new Elimination playlist is active until June 16th, exactly one week. The perfect opportunity to practice Elimination without the heavy pressure like usual, Bungie states.
And since the news lacks a bit of color, here is a video of the new exotic shotgun Lord of the Wolves:
http://youtu.be/EEchpSFwOWY
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
The twist with “The Valley”: The world starts over again. When it threatens to become boring and stagnant, a new round begins. Crowfall, which is seen as a “kindred spirit”, is planning something similar.
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The Kickstarter phase is slowly coming to an end. This is being taken as an opportunity to start a 24-hour “Open for All” phase. The alpha client can be downloaded here with the password “free4all”. This way, everyone can familiarize themselves with “The Valley” completely free of charge. The “free entry” phase is valid until Wednesday, June 10th, at 3:00 PM.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
In The Elder Scrolls Online, a fan has now transformed the basement into an Elder Scrolls fantasy. For the cost, he could have bought a sports car or a swimming pool, instead he now plays in the finest medieval setting.
It is the ultimate eye-catcher. For 50,000 US dollars, 32-year-old comic artist Tyler Kirkham (“Green Lantern” for DC) built the perfect “Man-Cave”. This is a space that would have once been somewhat uncool in Germany called the “hobby room” or the men’s den. Today, these are “retreats” for men who need a place to unwind or simply want to hang out with friends in an uncivilized manner. A part of the house that is completely different from the functional rest.
While the basement or garage in the TV show “King of Queens” had a large flat-screen TV, a couch, and posters of the favorite sports team on the wall, there are also very different man-caves – one of the most extraordinary belongs to Tyler Kirkham.
A Piece of Tamriel in the Basement
The twist: The basement is another world. It looks completely like “The Elder Scrolls Online”. There are crossbows, a sword rack, even a training dummy to hit. In the bathroom, there is a waterfall covered with ivy. A secret door opens when you press the right book. And, and, and …
Along with a 20,000 US dollar home theater system to properly game. His wife points out that with that money they could have had a swimming pool in the backyard, but on the other hand, she loves the extravagant, which elicits a reaction from everyone who enters the “Man-Cave”: “Who wouldn’t want something like this? It’s amazing!”
The only one who was initially skeptical about the project was the father-in-law, a craftsman. But during the collaborative work on the project, the father-in-law also fell a bit in love with the opulent basement and is now eager to show it to acquaintances.
But with the man-cave, enough is enough. Tyler wouldn’t want to live in the real world of Tamriel. If anything, only as a mage: “Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t stand a chance of surviving,” he says.
In Aion, there is reason to rejoice: In the near future, 2 new zones will be released where the Daevas can roam. One of them is Cygnea, which will be released with patch 4.8. Although it will still take a while in Europe, it is already worth taking a look.
Cygnea: Raised from the Waves
The new area was submerged in the depths of the ocean until recently, and you can tell at every corner! Huge shells, colorful coral reefs, and plenty of algae cover the landscape. In addition, there are ruins from long-forgotten times and new adversaries, such as the axe-wielding sharkmen. However, nature has already begun to reclaim the land, and the first plants and even some trees are sprouting, giving the zone a friendlier impression. However, the gigantic statues of the dragons tell a different story and hint at the threats that still lurk here…
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In the MMO shooter Destiny , two new bounties were added on June 9. For the Queen’s event, it’s against Pirsis, the Pallas Curse. The Wanted bounties involve Wolf Executor. We will show you where the targets are located.
In each week since House of Wolves, more new bounties have been added, starting with Petra Venj. She’s the lady with the limited peripheral vision.
The community manager has now released further information. There is likely still a closed beta event planned. Depending on how that is received and how Western players respond, it will move into open beta either quickly or a bit slower afterward. No dates have been provided. But if you look at the calendar, it could very well be by July if everything goes well.
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