The second faction is a Russian transnational corporation called EDEN, which contracts mercenaries to do its’ bidding. The “story”, doesn’t have an actual ending as you would expect from an MMOFPS and just serves as an unneeded, but a nice backdrop to explain why all these guys are running around shooting each other. But that’s not why you’re here. You’re here because you want to shoot people. Is Iron Sight a good game to satisfy your multiplayer FPS itch?

The Gameplay

Iron Sight has 4 PVE and PVP game modes respectively although only one PVE game mode is of any real importance. The first PVE game mode is a tutorial, which was likely thrown in as a formality more than out of necessity. All four PVP Game Modes are what you’d expect from a modern FPS. You’ve Team Deathmatch, Search and Destroy, Resource Takeover, and Secure Point; the last of which is used in the game’s ranked matches.

The game has over a dozen of maps at the moment, and they’re pretty standard for a futuristic FPS. An airport, a dam, an enclosed city-based area etc. Most of the maps are pretty well-laid out, with no choke points where players can cheese through matches. Some of the maps though are too spaced out and as a result, there may be lulls in the action but nothing too bad. I would’ve liked to have seen a bit more creativity on the maps though.

The Graphics

As far as visuals go, Iron Sight is rock-solid. Or iron solid is perhaps more appropriate. At first glance, the game could easily be mistaken for a last-gen console shooter in the mold of notable FPS franchises such as Call of Duty, Tom Clancy or Medal of Honor. The graphics are good in general, but particularly for an F2P MMO. F2P MMOs are always a mixed bag in the graphics department, and you never know what you’re going to get, but the devs put in a lot of work here. The game runs on its’ own proprietary Iron Engine and the devs should be proud of the job they’ve done.

Is It Pay To Win?

Most of the microtransactions in Iron Sight are purely for cosmetics. And that’s how it should be. You do need to repair your weapons after matches, which takes up gold (the game’s earnable currency), but the repair costs are never steep. You earn gold through a number of ways, the easiest being by simply playing matches. You also get gold from leveling up, completing challenges, and from logging in via the daily login rewards.

Iron Sight also has the expected loot crates, in the forms of supply and superior supply chests. These can be bought with either earnable or premium currency. I tried a few out, and they seem fair. You can get anything from these things, gloves, scopes, sights or even new guns. And again, you don’t need to buy anything in this game with your own hard-earned money, and playing as an F2P player is more than possible

Worth Playing?

Make no mistake. There is nothing on offer in Iron Sight that is groundbreaking or in any way reinvents the wheel. The game draws inevitable comparisons to Call of Duty, and for good reason; it looks and plays like a yesteryear Call of Duty. And that’s not a bad thing.

Iron Sight is fun. It’s simple and fast-paced. It’s a game you can play for a few minutes or a few hours. Despite the F2P MMO label, it doesn’t suffer from problems that plague a number of F2P MMOs, and it doesn’t employ an obnoxious microtransactions game model that pushes people away. It’s a great game and well worth playing.

The post Ironsight 2019 Steam: Play Or Not? appeared first on Mmos World.

1. Alienating A Wider Audience By Being ‘Hardcore’

One of the values that Wildstar as an MMORPG sold to players prior to launch was that it wanted to make MMOs hardcore again. That meant harder raids and end-game content. While this for the most part is true about the higher, harder tiers of the end-game content post launch, it also pretty much killed it for everyone else. With where the MMO community is today, one could argue a more casual and accessible approach with the optional hardcore end-game would be more preferable. The playerbase have ‘aged’ since vanilla WoW. The once upon a time youths of hardcore MMOs have grown up to start families and work jobs, and that’s a possible result for the low demand for hardcore MMOs these days. As a result, this shunned many potential players away from the game or for sticking around longer than necessary.

That’s not to say Wildstar is all hardcore. In fact, it does have some of the most fluff stuff an MMO can have, with its excellent housing system and generic questing content. The cartoon art style is a great draw for the unknowing player, but the tedious requirements to get to end-game on top of the challenging end-game itself was perhaps, a step too far in hindsight.

2. Mismanagement Within Carbine Studios

What’s the trendy thing to do when an NCSOFT game shuts down? It’s to blame the publishers themselves. Not this time cupcakes. Many within the game’s community and the industry have suspected for a long time, that Carbine Studios wasn’t running the game efficiently. As a former developer pointed out, the studio had issues even before launch, as management had to reboot the IP, and missed deadline after deadline. Intriguingly, this former developer of the studio shed revealing insights about how Wildstar never turned a profit and NCSOFT never made a return of investment from the game after launch, yet still showing patience with the studio. They also mentioned the constant layoffs of employees to keep the bills manageable.

“Teams and personnel were constantly shuffled around at random without any real concern for if this was creating useable content. The economy team, which is, you know, the core of an MMO and literally the most important component to player retention and monetization, was a skeleton crew where staff were just flung at it when a producer didn’t like them but wouldn’t actually fire them. By the time someone went ‘Hey wait, isn’t the economy important?’ and reorganized the team, it was far too late to catch up on those systems… which included our end game content.” Source

3. Lack of Marketing and Promotion

Two key tenants of running a successful MMORPG involves making sure players have heard of you, and for those that are already with you, making sure they have things to do in-game. Wildstar failed to manage both. The game did have a big promotional push just before release and the studio’s clever usage of social media to highlight key aspects of the game was commendable. The Dev Speak videos are still my favorite things to watch, personally. But after the game was shipped, nothing else came out on the larger scale. We now know why – they never made enough revenue in return to push to marketing – but they could have found other ways to spread the word, like using players themselves for guerilla marketing campaigns. Today, MMORPGs include YouTubers, Twitch streamers and other influencers into a ‘Partner Program’ to create content about their game in return for rewards and privileges. Wildstar didn’t have that. And for a self-touted hardcore MMO, when hardcore raiders have never heard about your game, that’s a sign of terrible marketing.

4. Subscription Model Dragged On Way Longer Than It Should Have

Would have dropping the sub early on once the studio realized it was making literally no money stabilized the ship sooner? Perhaps. One wonders if they let the sub model drag on for another year was done to milk as much from the paying player-base as much as possible, when there should have been a Plan B in place.

What’s Plan B? Go buy to play/free to play, include scummy monetization options and as a last resort go Pay To Win? I loath typing the next few words, but unfortunately, it works. Neverwinter. Black Desert Online. Even RIFT for pete’s sake. What do all of them have in common? They and they’re studios and games, are alive and making money. Wildstar should have done something sooner, but they jumped straight to free to play without any contingency plan but it was too little too late. Changing payment models when done for the right reasons at the right time works. You only need to look at The Elder Scrolls Online, Guild Wars 2 and Secret World Legends to see how they’ve capitalized on that decision.

5. Lack of Substantial Content

What about content? Allegedly, Wildstar was supposed to ship with more than the vanilla zones, but because of mismanagement, no one knew how to do it or what the content scope post launch was supposed to be.

“The scope of the game was never realistic – we were supposed to ship with tons of extra zones, all of which got cut when they were well into production, because nobody actually knew what a pipeline was. But the higher ups would literally start screaming at the line designers for so much as laughing during work because obviously if we had time to laugh, we were wasting time that could have been used meeting these impossible deadlines.” Source

Players ended up waiting for ages for any new substantial content to drop. So there was no expansions adding beefy content, no ‘questpacks’, just events and holiday fluff for a very long time. And when you offer that as a subscription-only MMORPG, you’re destined to get buried alive.

The post Wildstar: 5 Key Issues That Led To Its Shutdown appeared first on Mmos World.

1. Alienating A Wider Audience By Being ‘Hardcore’

One of the values that Wildstar as an MMORPG sold to players prior to launch was that it wanted to make MMOs hardcore again. That meant harder raids and end-game content. While this for the most part is true about the higher, harder tiers of the end-game content post launch, it also pretty much killed it for everyone else. With where the MMO community is today, one could argue a more casual and accessible approach with the optional hardcore end-game would be more preferable. The playerbase have ‘aged’ since vanilla WoW. The once upon a time youths of hardcore MMOs have grown up to start families and work jobs, and that’s a possible result for the low demand for hardcore MMOs these days. As a result, this shunned many potential players away from the game or for sticking around longer than necessary.

That’s not to say Wildstar is all hardcore. In fact, it does have some of the most fluff stuff an MMO can have, with its excellent housing system and generic questing content. The cartoon art style is a great draw for the unknowing player, but the tedious requirements to get to end-game on top of the challenging end-game itself was perhaps, a step too far in hindsight.

2. Mismanagement Within Carbine Studios

What’s the trendy thing to do when an NCSOFT game shuts down? It’s to blame the publishers themselves. Not this time cupcakes. Many within the game’s community and the industry have suspected for a long time, that Carbine Studios wasn’t running the game efficiently. As a former developer pointed out, the studio had issues even before launch, as management had to reboot the IP, and missed deadline after deadline. Intriguingly, this former developer of the studio shed revealing insights about how Wildstar never turned a profit and NCSOFT never made a return of investment from the game after launch, yet still showing patience with the studio. They also mentioned the constant layoffs of employees to keep the bills manageable.

“Teams and personnel were constantly shuffled around at random without any real concern for if this was creating useable content. The economy team, which is, you know, the core of an MMO and literally the most important component to player retention and monetization, was a skeleton crew where staff were just flung at it when a producer didn’t like them but wouldn’t actually fire them. By the time someone went ‘Hey wait, isn’t the economy important?’ and reorganized the team, it was far too late to catch up on those systems… which included our end game content.” Source

3. Lack of Marketing and Promotion

Two key tenants of running a successful MMORPG involves making sure players have heard of you, and for those that are already with you, making sure they have things to do in-game. Wildstar failed to manage both. The game did have a big promotional push just before release and the studio’s clever usage of social media to highlight key aspects of the game was commendable. The Dev Speak videos are still my favorite things to watch, personally. But after the game was shipped, nothing else came out on the larger scale. We now know why – they never made enough revenue in return to push to marketing – but they could have found other ways to spread the word, like using players themselves for guerilla marketing campaigns. Today, MMORPGs include YouTubers, Twitch streamers and other influencers into a ‘Partner Program’ to create content about their game in return for rewards and privileges. Wildstar didn’t have that. And for a self-touted hardcore MMO, when hardcore raiders have never heard about your game, that’s a sign of terrible marketing.

4. Subscription Model Dragged On Way Longer Than It Should Have

Would have dropping the sub early on once the studio realized it was making literally no money stabilized the ship sooner? Perhaps. One wonders if they let the sub model drag on for another year was done to milk as much from the paying player-base as much as possible, when there should have been a Plan B in place.

What’s Plan B? Go buy to play/free to play, include scummy monetization options and as a last resort go Pay To Win? I loath typing the next few words, but unfortunately, it works. Neverwinter. Black Desert Online. Even RIFT for pete’s sake. What do all of them have in common? They and they’re studios and games, are alive and making money. Wildstar should have done something sooner, but they jumped straight to free to play without any contingency plan but it was too little too late. Changing payment models when done for the right reasons at the right time works. You only need to look at The Elder Scrolls Online, Guild Wars 2 and Secret World Legends to see how they’ve capitalized on that decision.

5. Lack of Substantial Content

What about content? Allegedly, Wildstar was supposed to ship with more than the vanilla zones, but because of mismanagement, no one knew how to do it or what the content scope post launch was supposed to be.

“The scope of the game was never realistic – we were supposed to ship with tons of extra zones, all of which got cut when they were well into production, because nobody actually knew what a pipeline was. But the higher ups would literally start screaming at the line designers for so much as laughing during work because obviously if we had time to laugh, we were wasting time that could have been used meeting these impossible deadlines.” Source

Players ended up waiting for ages for any new substantial content to drop. So there was no expansions adding beefy content, no ‘questpacks’, just events and holiday fluff for a very long time. And when you offer that as a subscription-only MMORPG, you’re destined to get buried alive.

The post Wildstar Is Shutting Down Today: Here’s Why Wildstar Won’t Make It To 2019 appeared first on Mmos World.

Monthly Crowns Allowance Is Increasing

November 13th onward, as an ESO Plus member, you will receive an additional 150 Crowns as part of your monthly stipend, bringing your total to 1650 per month. Note that if you are partly though a 3- or 6-month membership, you will be credited your bonus crowns by the end of November.

While a 150 Crown increase seems minor, it all adds up eventually. It’s still an increase in value which is nice to see ESO do – more value and reasons to subscribe to the game’s optional sub is a clever way to to do so.

Exclusive Free Items Only For Members

With this update, ESO Plus members will be able to acquire free collectibles from the in-game Crown Store. The free items will only be available to ESO Plus members and will be indicated in gold text labeled “Free” next to the Chalice icon. Free items will be added to the Crown Store only on rare occasions and for a very limited time.

The first free ESO Plus member-exclusive item includes a unique collectible: the Priestess of Mara costume. Note that the new costume will not be available immediately, but will arrive in the Crown Store later in the year.

Member-Only Crown Store Sales and Discounts

With ESO Plus membership-exclusive deals, you’ll be able to acquire select Crown Store items at a special, discounted price. The discounted items will be in the Crown Store with gold text and a Chalice icon. The items available at a membership-exclusive discount can change often (and some might only be available as part of a limited-time offer), so be sure to check the Crown Store on occasion to see what is available.

Exclusive Crown Items Found No Where Else

In additional to unique deals, ESO Plus members will also gain access to exclusive Crown Store items. These exclusive items may be available for sale for Crowns or even free (as mentioned above). These items can include collectibles such as costumes, pets, mounts, and more, and will be identified by the gold text and Chalice icon. Like the exclusive deals, these items can change often, so be sure to keep an eye out.

New UI For ESO Plus Section In The Crown Store

To help you keep track of what deals are currently available when new benefits arrive, you’ll be able to visit a new ESO Plus tab within the Crown Store UI. From there, you will be able to check your current benefits and review what Crown Store items are available on sale or exclusively to members. Note that it will not be possible to Gift an item acquired for free, purchased at a discount, or purchased exclusively due to your ESO Plus membership. However, you can still purchase items as Gifts at full price.

The post Elder Scrolls Online 2018: 5 Major Updates Coming To ESO Plus Memberships appeared first on Mmos World.

It’s Classic Browser Warmongering

You start off in Call of War by choosing which region you want to call your own, and the game automatically sets you up with a selection of territories and cities with which you can construct buildings and train troops. You’re going to need those infantrymen and armored tanks, too, to conquer the world. Or at least to wage war against someone who’s trying to do the same.

You could certainly play Call of War as you would most other 4X games, by being entirely passive, developing the most sophisticated sovereign nation on the planet. Of course, your military force would likely falter, and then you’d likely get squashed like a highly civilized bug. So yes, in Call of War – as is the case with most games of its nature – you want to carry a big stick even if you plan to never use it. Just have that thing ready to swing.

The Freedom To Be Diplomatic or Hostile

Whenever you’d like, you can open the diplomacy window to get a view of any other players in the same game as you, their current power, as well as your relationship with them. From there, you can either go down a peaceful or not-so-peaceful route. There’s also the World Herald – a newspaper that gives you a good glimpse into the goings-on in your little bubble of the war-torn world. Naturally, the world is yours to do with as you please. Though Call of War is set during WWII, you’re by no means obligated to follow a similar route. Veer off the timeline as much or as little as you’d like.

It’s Traditional – Don’t Expect Quick Matches or Campaigns

Much like actual war, Call of War is a slow-going game for anyone who doesn’t want to dump cash into it. Constructing buildings, producing units, and conducting research is typically no quick task, and some of those tasks require more than a week before you can even start them. While most free-to-play games of this nature tend to ease you in as they try their best to get their hooks in you, not Call of War. It wastes no time before having you wait over 24-hours to produce a simple infantry unit. Waiting is fine in most of these games – it comes with the territory – but in this case, the waiting comes too quickly while simultaneously giving you little to do in the interim.

It Looks Like Old School RISK

When it comes to graphics Call of War utilizes a simplistic 2D style highly inspired by board games such as Risk. It’s clean, responsive, and does a pretty good job of relaying pertinent info to you without overburdening you with advertisements or offers or any of that junk. The grindy hooks of infinite waiting might be there, but Call of Wardoesn’t do much in the way of shoving it in your face, which is something it should be lauded for. Of course, the fact that a player can choose to give themselves such a ridiculous advantage over other players by paying should be acknowledged, even if it’s a pervasive aspect to these types of games.

Should You Play Call of War: 1942?

As free-to-play 4X games go, Call of War doesn’t really try to do anything new or original, and its slow nature will likely drive away anyone looking to play it more actively, but for anyone looking for the type of game to play once or twice a day while you busy yourself with work, school, or any other endeavors, then maybe consider heeding the Call of War. And as an FYI, the game is also on Steam.

The post 5 Reasons To Check Out Call of War:1942 appeared first on Mmos World.

Final Fantasy VII, IX, X and X-2 Will Arrive 2019

The big bombshell that left fans squeeling in joy is the arrival of multiple beloved Final Fantasy games next year. They include VII, IX and the HD Remaster versions of X and X-2 as well. Players can finally take their FF stories on-the-go and play through those memorable experiences wherever they want to.

Animal Crossing Is Finally Announced – 2019

Fans have been asking for Animal Crossing to come to the Nintendo Switch since the console launch. Almost a year later, the company confirms that the game will be coming to the system next year. The direct also revealed that Isabelle will be part of the Smash Brothers roster – which is surprising, but her skill combos do look interesting. As for Animal Crossing, we sure hope more features will be added to the game when it’s out next year.

Sid Meyer’s Civilization VI Releases November 16th

Strategy fans rejoice – the Switch console will soon be bolstered by the presence of a true classic. Sid Meyer’s Civilization VI will launch on November 16th, and Take Two Interactive are responsible for the port. From the footage shown, the graphics look pretty damn awesome for a hand-held console, and we can’t wait to pour hours into this one, building empires for days on end.

Diablo III and Warframe Get Their Release Dates

We’ve all been scratching that itch, wondering when both Diablo III and Warframe will change their release dates from TBD to something substantial in the e-store. We have the answers. The Nintendo Switch Diablo III release date is set for November 2nd while Warframe will be playable on November 20th.

Asmodee Board Games Announced, Includes Catan

Our final pick and highlight are for board game lovers! Asmodee – the studio behind the recently released Lord of the Rings LCG on Steam, is at it again but this time for the Nintendo Switch. That Lord of the Rings LCG has been confirmed for the Switch later this year, and next year we’ll see more popular board games such as Pandemic and Catan making an appearance too.

The post The 5 Biggest Announcements From Nintendo’s Direct September 2018 (Final Fantasy Combo, Civilization VI and More!) appeared first on Mmos World.

League of Angels 3

The world of League of Angels in the third installment is about to be destroyed by an ancient threat, and players are sent back in time to collect legendary weapons and recruit powerful companions to prevent this catastrophy. The game features full 3D graphics that looks excellent on any browser. Questing remains largely unchained from the second game, whereby players follow a theme-park style quest chain that is tied to the main story. Along the way, players will unlock more gameplay mechanics such as manual combat, mounts, dungeons and more.

Combat and progression has been given a face-lift and feels significantly better than before. You will need to collect heroes that joins your party in formation during turn-based combat sequences that feels strategic and fun. At end-game, there are high level world boss fights and other content to do, which makes the journey there worthwhile. While the in-game cash shop may be attractive, plenty of things on sale serve to speed up progression and are not necessary for purchase to play the game effectively.

Dragon Awaken

Dragon Awaken is a turn-based, browser MMORPG that does most of the work for you but still leaves you with plenty of choices to make and loot to claim. Most of the actual gameplay is automated (save for multiplayer dungeons – you have to actually participate in those). But solo adventures all play out automatically. You can choose to queue up attacks with your primary hero, or just set it to auto and watch as your party lays waste. But there is some strategy involved, especially when it comes to trying to maximize both your character and party power.

Fairy Tail: Hero’s Journey

Fairy Tail: Hero’s Journey is the official online MMORPG of the manga series. For a free to play web-browser game, fans of the franchise will be rewarded as it features authentic characters and story from the manga.

The gameplay is easy to grasp as players pick from one of three classes and progress through the world via leveling up themselves and their companions. Combat is turn-based with party dynamics that are fun to watch due to the excellent animations. However, the battles are passive for the most part meaning you actively do nothing but watch most of the time. The game also has an in-depth cash shop that can be advantageous, but not necessary for end-game progression. Overall, Fairy Tail: Hero’s Journey is a good free to play title that will serve loyal fans of the series with plenty of originality and fun.

Dark Omen

Dark Omen is a high fantasy browser-based MMORPG that pits you and other heroes against a demon invasion and you must save your world. The game is free to play and features in-depth MMORPG systems like PvE dungeons, PvP arenas, Guilds and more which is great for browser players.

The game offers limited class choices at launch, but makes up for it with very good graphics and combat mechanics. Content isn’t original, but offers enough progression such as upgrading mounts, gear and more to keep players interested at the end-game.

MU Ignition

Save the world of Mu from a new threat in MU Ignition, a browser-based MMORPG. Choose to be a Dark Knight, Dark Wizard, or an Angel, each with their own skill trees. Complete quests and defeat enemies to level up and distribute stat points to build your character to match your playstyle.

Synthesize and enhance armor and weapons found as loot. Tackle various dungeons in parties of up to four which automatically adjust to the party’s overall level. Participate in PvP at the Chaos Castle as an individual and join a guild to partake in team-based battles. Acquire a mount to move faster in the game world and get pets that will guard and protect your main character.

The post The Top 5 Best Browser MMORPGs 2018 (Fantasy) appeared first on Mmos World.

1. Alienating A Wider Audience By Being ‘Hardcore’

One of the values that Wildstar as an MMORPG sold to players prior to launch was that it wanted to make MMOs hardcore again. That meant harder raids and end-game content. While this for the most part is true about the higher, harder tiers of the end-game content post launch, it also pretty much killed it for everyone else. With where the MMO community is today, one could argue a more casual and accessible approach with the optional hardcore end-game would be more preferable. The playerbase have ‘aged’ since vanilla WoW. The once upon a time youths of hardcore MMOs have grown up to start families and work jobs, and that’s a possible result for the low demand for hardcore MMOs these days. As a result, this shunned many potential players away from the game or for sticking around longer than necessary.

That’s not to say Wildstar is all hardcore. In fact, it does have some of the most fluff stuff an MMO can have, with its excellent housing system and generic questing content. The cartoon art style is a great draw for the unknowing player, but the tedious requirements to get to end-game on top of the challenging end-game itself was perhaps, a step too far in hindsight.

2. Mismanagement Within Carbine Studios

What’s the trendy thing to do when an NCSOFT game shuts down? It’s to blame the publishers themselves. Not this time cupcakes. Many within the game’s community and the industry have suspected for a long time, that Carbine Studios wasn’t running the game efficiently. As a former developer pointed out, the studio had issues even before launch, as management had to reboot the IP, and missed deadline after deadline. Intriguingly, this former developer of the studio shed revealing insights about how Wildstar never turned a profit and NCSOFT never made a return of investment from the game after launch, yet still showing patience with the studio. They also mentioned the constant layoffs of employees to keep the bills manageable.

“Teams and personnel were constantly shuffled around at random without any real concern for if this was creating useable content. The economy team, which is, you know, the core of an MMO and literally the most important component to player retention and monetization, was a skeleton crew where staff were just flung at it when a producer didn’t like them but wouldn’t actually fire them. By the time someone went ‘Hey wait, isn’t the economy important?’ and reorganized the team, it was far too late to catch up on those systems… which included our end game content.” Source

3. Lack of Marketing and Promotion

Two key tenants of running a successful MMORPG involves making sure players have heard of you, and for those that are already with you, making sure they have things to do in-game. Wildstar failed to manage both. The game did have a big promotional push just before release and the studio’s clever usage of social media to highlight key aspects of the game was commendable. The Dev Speak videos are still my favorite things to watch, personally. But after the game was shipped, nothing else came out on the larger scale. We now know why – they never made enough revenue in return to push to marketing – but they could have found other ways to spread the word, like using players themselves for guerilla marketing campaigns. Today, MMORPGs include YouTubers, Twitch streamers and other influencers into a ‘Partner Program’ to create content about their game in return for rewards and privileges. Wildstar didn’t have that. And for a self-touted hardcore MMO, when hardcore raiders have never heard about your game, that’s a sign of terrible marketing.

4. Subscription Model Dragged On Way Longer Than It Should Have

Would have dropping the sub early on once the studio realized it was making literally no money stabilized the ship sooner? Perhaps. One wonders if they let the sub model drag on for another year was done to milk as much from the paying player-base as much as possible, when there should have been a Plan B in place.

What’s Plan B? Go buy to play/free to play, include scummy monetization options and as a last resort go Pay To Win? I loath typing the next few words, but unfortunately, it works. Neverwinter. Black Desert Online. Even RIFT for pete’s sake. What do all of them have in common? They and they’re studios and games, are alive and making money. Wildstar should have done something sooner, but they jumped straight to free to play without any contingency plan but it was too little too late. Changing payment models when done for the right reasons at the right time works. You only need to look at The Elder Scrolls Online, Guild Wars 2 and Secret World Legends to see how they’ve capitalized on that decision.

5. Lack of Substantial Content

What about content? Allegedly, Wildstar was supposed to ship with more than the vanilla zones, but because of mismanagement, no one knew how to do it or what the content scope post launch was supposed to be.

“The scope of the game was never realistic – we were supposed to ship with tons of extra zones, all of which got cut when they were well into production, because nobody actually knew what a pipeline was. But the higher ups would literally start screaming at the line designers for so much as laughing during work because obviously if we had time to laugh, we were wasting time that could have been used meeting these impossible deadlines.” Source

Players ended up waiting for ages for any new substantial content to drop. So there was no expansions adding beefy content, no ‘questpacks’, just events and holiday fluff for a very long time. And when you offer that as a subscription-only MMORPG, you’re destined to get buried alive.

The post 5 Reasons Why Wildstar Failed appeared first on Mmos World.

1. No Gear In Lootboxes That You Can’t Get By Simply Playing

There should be no gear in lootboxes that you don’t have a chance to acquire by playing the game. If gear is in a lootbox, it should also appear on a game vendor or as a reward for content within a short period of time. On the day that new content is released, players should not be able to get the brand-new gear with end game currency or Store purchases. The initial rush of gear needs to come from playing the new content and getting rewards for completing it. As such, the vendors for gear and lootboxes will not appear until a few weeks after that content is released. The exact timing might also depend on how involved the content is.

2. Raid Gear From The Highest Difficulty Will Always Be Better Than Lootbox Gear

Gear that comes from a new Raid at the highest difficulty, or the equivalent raid completion gated vendor, will always have more power than comparable gear that comes directly from lootboxes. If gear comes from a raid, you need to complete the raid at least once before you can obtain the gear from a vendor using game currency. This remains unchanged.

3. New Update 23 Currency Can Be Used To Barter for End-Game Gear

Gear will be rewarded for running content while you level up to 120: from quests and deeds, reputation barter, instance chests, and from defeating bosses in the raid (which will be released later this year). In general, instance gear will be better than questing gear, raid gear will be better than instance gear, and content with higher tiers of difficulty will reward better gear than easier content. This is pretty much how things work now.

The new currency for end game in U23: Where Dragons Dwell and beyond is Embers of Enchantment. Embers can be earned for doing weekly quests, and by deconstructing gear you don’t want. This Disenchantment process may also be familiar to you, as it’s what you’ve been doing with Ashes of Enchantment.

4. Lootboxes Drop The New Currency Too

One big difference in U23 and beyond is you will be rewarded with Embers of Enchantment directly when you do endgame quests, rather than indirectly through lootbox keys. You’ll accumulate enough Embers to buy the gear you want from a vendor. This helps fight random luck when trying to get the stuff you want. The Ember vendors won’t have gear from the most recent end game group content until around two or so weeks after that content is released. So, the only way to get this gear when content is first released is to play the content. Finally, the vendor may have a requirement that you complete the content before you can pick any of the gear.

5. Older LOTRO Content Consolidates Currency

Older content will work on a similar system, with its own currency. Ashes of Enchantment are becoming Motes of Enchantment, and you’ll earn new Motes of Enchantment by running older content. Older gear will also Disenchant to Motes of Enchantment, and Motes items will have their own vendors. Quests that used to bestow keys or key slivers will bestow Motes directly instead of Black Steel Keys.

How do lootboxes fit into all of this? Lootboxes will continue to appear in-game, and you can buy keys from the LOTRO Store to open them. They’ll have cosmetics, gear – with identical gear available from the Ember vendors, and some Embers. The gear and cosmetics will be available on the Embers vendor at the same time it debuts in a lootbox. Both new lootbox items and new vendor items will arrive a few weeks or so after new content is released.

Lootboxes are not required to gear up, but can be used to help you catch up on gearing, and acquire cool new cosmetics. If you don’t want to buy a key for a lootbox, you can instead run content to earn Embers for the items. LOTRO absolutely want to reward players who are awesome enough to support the long-term success of the game by opening lootboxes, and get joy in doing it, but they don’t want players to feel like they are forced to open lootboxes in order to play or excel in the game.

The post LOTRO: 5 Changes Coming To Lootboxes and End-Game Gear In Update 23 appeared first on Mmos World.

Legacy of Discord: Furious Wings is a mobile MMORPG that boats excellent graphics and a variety of gameplay to keep mobile fantasy lovers happy. There’s a PvE story mode and PvP arena battles too. At the start of the game, you are given a choice of three characters to become: a male berserker, a sorceress, or a male bladedancer. Each class have unique abilities and skills, and shows you from the start just how epic you could become.

After that, the game jumps right into the action: the humans are losing the war against the demons, and you’re starting in the last place run by humans, Beacon City. You’re carried through for a while as part of a tutorial, which runs you through the paces of the game and on through the first chapter. After that you’re on your own, trying your best to level up your Battle Rating. This is what determines how strong you are, as well as what battles you will win or lose.

Very Accessible Mobile MMO

The actual controls of the game are quick to catch up on. Holding the device like the game console controllers of old, you’ll quickly find your left hand in charge of moving (much like a joystick), while your right hand controls your attacks. Picking different attacks is quick and easy, and has a timer that will count down until you can use that attack again. One of the downfalls of this setup is that when you’re in the heat of battle and slide your fingers too close to the outside, Samsung users will find themselves tapping the application button and forcing your epic battle to be paused, while your phone shows you every program that you have open.

In terms of the levels and the actual game development itself, it’s easily accessible by everyone. There are only three real realms that you explore – Beacon City, the demon-ridden worlds (Furnace of Pain and other chapters where your gameplay take place), and the battle arena. Despite there only being three main worlds, there are constant areas being unlocked as you level up as well as updates that add layers and challenges.This means that even as you play, the game is reinventing itself into something new, making it always interesting and exciting.

Are The Graphics Really Good?

The graphics are beyond spectacular for a mobile device. Even better, it runs easily on your mobile device without drawing too much power or memory. Even the loading pages are beautiful, and the animations during the battles are seamless and the same quality that you would find on a bigger console. Like many other MMORPG games, it also gives you gentle nudges to keep you playing and engaged.

Final Thoughts

The android MMO market for RPGs is one saturated place, but Legacy of Discord: Furious Wings does a lot to stand out.  A big pro is the gameplay, graphics and constant updates and developments, which is common when a game is still within its first year of being played. Still, with having such amazing graphics and easy gameplay, it really does have something for everyone.

The post Legacy of Discord: Furious Wings 2018 Review appeared first on Mmos World.