CosmicBreak and GetAmped 2 Never going to Release

Two games that seem like they’re never going to fully launch are CosmicBreak and GetAmped 2. Both are published and developed by the Japanese MMORPG company CyberStep. I’m convinced that these guys have no idea what they’re doing, because both GetAmped 2 and CosmicBreak began their open beta testing phases nearly a year ago, but NEITHER game is fully released yet. Why? After open beta isn’t full release supposed to begin? Apparently not if you ask CyberStep, as both games have since went through additional beta testing phases – all of which have been followed by wipes. CosmicBreak is set to be released by December, 2010 – another three months of waiting. I think anyone who wanted to play CosmicBreak by now gave up on the game and moved onto something else. No one wants to wait this long to play a game – especially when it was playable 6+ months ago. I think Vindictus made the same mistake of taking forever to launch, which allowed other action MMORPGs like Divine Souls from OutSpark and Soul Master from GamesCampus to dip their toes into action MMO market. Fists of Fu from Outspark also took quite a while to launch, but at least it did launch!

Other delayed MMORPGs which seem to be taking forever to launch are Huxley: The Dystopia and Priston Tale 2. ijji was supposed to publish Huxley like a year ago, but they recently announced that Webzen will continue development for the game. Even so, Huxley seems like it’s never going to actually come out. The same thing applies to Priston Tale 2 which actually released recently in Europe (through GamerKraft who also makes FreeJack), but the game is still nowhere near release in North America. That’s because Suba Games has no idea what they’re doing. They show the Priston Tale 2 page as “coming soon”, but it’s been “coming soon” for over 1 full year. I’m convinced that Priston Tale 2 will never come out in North America. On the positive side, the Malaysian version of the game will be available to AsiaSoft soon and they said they wouldn’t be blocking North American Ips. They also publish Battle of Destiny and Warriors of the Three Kingdoms, which are available to North American users. Unfortunately, games available in Malaysia and Singpaore are extremely laggy for gamers in Europe and North America. I tried playing Counter Strike Online recently, but my pings were in excess of 250, making the game unplayable.

Other delayed MMORPGs that will likely never release are Dance Groove Online, Kart Rider and Dreamland Online. Dance Groove Online is a dancing game that looks a bit like Audition Online and ShowUp. It was announced a year or so ago on Outspark’s site, but about 6 months ago, OutSpark took the game off their homepage, which pretty much confirmed the game was never going to release. Kart Rider did a large open beta test in North America in 2008 or so, but after that, the game vanished. Dreamland Online was announced by IGG ages ago, but it has been delayed indefinitely. The game was supposed to closely resemble Dragon Saga, LaTale, WonderKing and other side scrolling MMORPGs. Too bad there’s no definitive release date on it.

Do you guys know any other games that have been delayed over and over again? If so, name them in the comments!

Lord of the Rings Online Free to Play a Big Success

Since going free to play The Lord of the Rings Online has enjoyed a 400% increase in active playerbase and a 200% increase in monthly revenues. Turbine also announced that the game now generates more money in optional monthly subscriptions than it did back when it was pay to play. I don’t think the game enjoyed the same level of success that Dungeons and Dragons Online did upon re-launching as a free to play game, but that’s mostly because The Lord of the Rings Online was already successful and profitable to begin with whereas Dungeons and Dragons Online had a tiny playerbase that was slowly dwindling away. Needless to say though, Turbine has once again proven that the free to play business model is a viable one. Not everyone is ignoring Turbine’s success with free to play.

Sony Online Entertainment recently made their flagship MMORPG EverQuest 2 free to play. But that’s old news that I’ve talked about in the past. What’s more interesting is that Pirates of the Burning Sea will also be relaunching as a free to play title in the coming months. And yes, it’s official. The company announced that they will be shifting to a free to play game when their latest expansion goes live. Since Turbine made Dungeons and Dragons Online free to play, Electronic Arts has tried their luck in free to play too. Over the last few years EA has released Battlefield Heroes, Lord of Ultima, FIFA Online and Tiger Woods Online as free to play titles, but has been hesitant to convert any of their current pay to play titles such as Dark Age of Camelot of Warhammer Online to free to play, which I think they should seriously consider doing. Both Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer Online aren’t very popular and are in clear decline. Dark Age of Camelot used to have 30+ servers but has 3 today. Warhammer Online launched with some 35+ servers but its down to 4. They need to do something to revitalize these games and going free to play could work. Free trials for those MMOs just isn’t cutting it.

With Dungeons and Dragons Online, The Lord of the Rings Online and EverQuest 2 now free to play, I think there’s a lot of pressure on Funcom to make Age of Conan Free to Play and on NCSoft to make City of Heroes and Lineage 2 free to play. As more and more pay to play games become free to play, game companies will realize that demanding a monthly fee to access a game is going to get harder and harder. I don’t think World of Warcraft really has to worry, as they’re still the market leader in the space, but smaller less successful MMORPGs like Champions Online and even Star Trek Online will need to eventually begin embracing free to play, as pay to play has been on a decline since Turbine made Dungeons and Dragons Online free to play. Plus, high quality free to play games like Runes of Magic, Fists of Fu and Heroes of Three Kingdoms are also putting pressure on pay to play games to re-consider their business models.

The Lord of the Rings Online is Worth Checking Out

In case you didn’t hear – The Lord of the Rings Online from Turbine relaunched as a free to play MMORPG. This happened about a month ago and anyone can go ahead and download the game today and play it for free. Turbine has had a great of success with free to play, as their other MMORPG – Dungeons and Dragons Online made a ton of money as a free to play MMORPG. In fact, Dungeons and Dragons Online was a failing MMO, as it had very few subscribers and was bleeding red ink for Turbine. Only after making the game free to play did Turbine turn a profit out of Dungeons and Dragons Online. The Lord of the Rings Online going free to play is a bit more interesting in my opinion. Pay to play MMORPGs have gone free to play in the past – think Archlord, RF Online and FusionFall with newer MMORPGs like Pirates of the Burning Sea from Sony Online Entertainment going free to play soon. Pirates of the Burning Sea announced it would drop its subscription in the near future back in August. I suspect other pay to play MMOs will release MMO news saying they’ll go free to play in the future.

Okay, enough talking about other MMORPGs though. What makes Lord of the Rings Online unique as a pay to play MMORPG gone free to play is that Lord of the Rings Online was a success. The game was making plenty of money for Turbine and the company didn’t make it free to play in a desperate move – the same way they did for Dungeons and Dragons Online. Archlord and RF Online went free to play because they were utter failures as pay to play games with no subscribers. Lord of the Rings Online was plenty profitable for years. Turbine made it free to play because they think that they can make more profit as a free to play game than as a pay to play one. Now this is interesting. In the past only failed games went free to play, so with Turbine’s latest move with Lord of the Rings Online, hopefully other game publishers and developers will do the same thing. Maybe NCSoft could make City of Heroes and Lineage 2 free to play? Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if Electronic Arts made Warhammer Online free to play – as they’ve already launched NUMEROUS free to play games in the last year. They developed and launched Battlefield Heroes, FIFA Online, Tiger Woods Online AND Need for Speed World as free to play MMOs. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise to ANYONE if EA made Warhammer Online free to play.

Since Lord of the Rings Online went free to play in August, the game’s playerbase has spiked. We haven’t heard too many official announcements from Turbine yet about LOTRO, so we won’t know if the game is a success yet or not. I’ve personally played LOTRO and I absolutely love it. Why? Because it has that certain pay to play feel to it. The visuals are great, the quests are in perfect English, the MMO plot makes sense and the MMO music is great too. All of these little details add up to make The Lord of the Rings Online of the best free to play MMORPGs available. Obviously top tier f2p games like Runes of Magic and Fiesta Online shouldn’t be ignored either, but I think Lord of the Rings Online is raising the bar for free to play.

GamesCampus MMO Publisher is Growing Fast!

GamesCampus – the free to play MMO publisher which launched back in 2006 with one MMO (Shot Online) has been growing rapidly over the years. They now publish at least half a dozen games with plans to launch numerous new games in the future. I’ve written about other MMORPG publishers in the past, but I wanted to talk about GamesCampus today because they recently announced that they would be publishing Drift City in North America. Yep – you heard me correctly. GamesCampus will be publishing Drift City soon. After October 28 to be precise. So what’s going to have to the ijji version of the game? It’s going to shut down. Don’t worry though – players can transfer their characters to the GamesCampus version after the game closes its doors. Unfortunately cash shop items bought on the ijji version and Gcoins acquired will not be transferable. Players can spend their Gcoins on some other MMORPGs that ijji publishes though like HolyBeast Online, Rohan Online, Genesis A.D, Lunia, Luminary: Rise of the Goonzu, and numerous other titles.

Besides Drift City, GamesCampus launched a new anime MMORPG into closed beta this week – Legend of Edda. The game actually entered into closed beta on September 30, 2010 and is a cute MMORPG with chibi style graphics. After playing the game for a while I was surprised to learn that Legend of Edda is actually a PvP intensive game. The game features large scale faction battles like Aika Online from gPotato and Fantasy Earth Zero from GamePot USA. On a side note I think gPotato has been doing really swell lately too. They continue to update their older games like Rappelz and Fly For Fun. Even Tales Runner remains updated too. Too bad FreeJack launched recently, it’ll be competing with Tales Runner, as it’s the only other parkour style foot racing MMO. GamesCampus is also working on launching a tank themed MMO called Tank Ace, which will compete with World of Tanks. Too bad there’s no definitive release on Tank Ace, as the game looks neat. I thought World of Tanks was neat, but the game was super annoying, as higher level players and tanks 1 shotted lower level tanks. It’s realistic and all, but bleh. It played too much like NavyField.

Over the last few months GamesCampus also launched two games into full release. Soul Master being the more interesting one and Heroes in the Sky being the other. I like Soul Master because it’s a unique with strategy elements. It plays like Dragonica Online from Gravity Interactive, except with some unique strategy aspects. Heroes in the Sky is cool too because it’s one of the only dog fighting MMOs – except for perhaps Ace Online from Suba Games. The game is also set during World War 2 and has plenty of real life airplanes in it. So World War 2 buffs or airplane aficionados will find something to love in the game.

Gamigo is Launching tons of new MMORPGs!

The German free to play MMO and MMORPG game publisher Gamigo has been on a roll lately. Their newest game King of Kings 3 launched on September 27 right after it finished closed beta testing. No second closed beta testing or open beta testing – straight to full release after closed beta. How awesome is that? For those of you who haven’t heard of King of Kings 3, it’s a 3D PvP MMORPG that plays a bit like Aika Online. PvP is definitely the game’s main focus as it has a really in depth tiered guild system and faction wars system. Like Mu Online and Silkroad Online – King of Kings 3 has a really high level cap too – something like 90+. Any game with a level cap higher than 80 is considered high in my book. Graphically though, King of Kings 3 isn’t anything special, but on the graphics department Gamigo has an awesome sci-fi theme MMO launching soon.

That awesome sci-fi themed MMORPG is Black Prophecy. It’s supposed to play a lot like Eve Online, except with a much stronger emphasis on action rather than just slow paced tactics. It’ll mop the floor with other space themed MMORPGs like Pirate Galaxy and Outer Galaxies – even though they’re browser games. Black Prophecy has some of the best graphics of any free to play MMORPG. Hopefully the music is good too, because MMORPG music is really important in my opinion – as it helps set the mood. I think games like Ragnarok Online, Sword 2 and S4 League are remembered so fondly, because of their excellent musical scores. Black Prophecy is currently in closed beta though, so I haven’t had a chance to play it. The MMO videos I’ve seen so far though make it looks really epic.

Another upcoming MMORPG from Gamigo that look really neat is Loong: The Power of the Dragon – a 3D Fantasy themed action MMORPG set in Ancient China. Graphically – the game looks quite awesome, but graphics aren’t everything – I actually enjoyed playing Fantasy Earth Zero from GamePot USA and Zentia from ChangYou – even though they have less then great graphics. To be fair, Zentia has decent graphics. But Cabal Online and Diablo 2 are great MMORPGs even though they don’t have the best graphics. Unfortunately Loong: The Power of the Dragon has no set release date, and I fear it may be another 6 months before it actually releases.

Yet another upcoming MMO from Gamigo is War of Angels. The game looks awesome because players can purchase wings in the game which lets players fly around. I think the only games that support flying mounts / wings are Perfect World, Fly For Fun and Jade Dynasty. I’d like to see more games add flying mounts – but what I like about War of Angels is that the graphics are good, but not so good that my computer can’t run it.

So what do you guys think about Gamigo? I think they publish some of the best MMORPGs out. The only thing they’re lacking is some browser MMOs in my opinion. Games like Caesary, War of Legends and Dark Orbit for example. If they had some browser MMOs they’d be one of the most varied publishers out.

MMOFPS Games are all the Same!

I remember back when Sudden Attack, from GameHi, and Combat Arms, from Nexon, first launched in the U.S. I thought there would be some sort of new dawn in the field of free to play MMOFPS games. I figured in a few years time, no one would be buying console shooters like Modern Warefare 2 and would instead play free to play MMO shooters. Boy was I wrong. Both Sudden Attack and Combat Arms were GOOD games, but newer free to play MMO shooters like K.O.S. Secret Operations, WolfTeam, Soldier Front, Operation 7 and Cross Fire are ALL the exact same! Well, not the exact same, but they’re all tactical shooters where your opponents die in 2-3 hits. Graphically, each of these games are a bit different, but in terms of core gameplay, they’re nearly identical.

In terms of playable game modes, each and every one of these MMO shooters have a Counter-Strike style “planet the bomb – defuse the bomb” game mode, a team deathmatch and a free for all mode. Once Combat Arms launched its own Zombie mode – every new tactical MMO copied it! Practically every single one of these shooters have their own “zombie” modes now. Even the brand new Mission Against Terror MMO shooter from Suba Games, which launched into open beta on September, 2010 – has a zombie mode. Oh, and it has the exact same game modes that every other MMO shooter has!

There is hope though. MicroVolts from RockHippo productions is a third person MMO shooter which is launching into open beta in October. It looks and plays a lot like Valve’s Team Fortress 2. S4 League is another third person shooter. It’s by Alaplaya and has fast paced gameplay and awesome MMO music. Battlefield Heroes is third person too – and is the first free to play MMO shooter from DICE. It plays much like other Battlefield games, except with a distinct cartoony look. The game’s RPG elements give it a nice touch and helps the game stand out. Alien Swarm from Valve and Robo Smasher from KRU Interactive are original too – so props to those games for actually making something unique.

I’ve actually played every single tactical MMO shooter out there and it’s shameful how similar they are to each other. Seriously. If you’ve played Cross Fire, you might as well have played every other “tactical” MMO shooter as they all run on the same exact engine. It seems like all MMOFPS games are the same. I think there’s only one original tactical MMO shooter – and that’s Alliance of Valiant Arms from ijji. It actually looks and plays different than all the other copy cat games. It actually plays a bit like Call of Duty 4, but that’s just my opinion. It’s also one of the best MMO shooters because of its originality.

What do you guys think about all of these MMO shooters copying each other? At least we can look forward to Genesis A.D From ijji in the coming months.

So Many Foreign MMORPGs

You’d think that 200+ free to play client based MMORPGs available in North America is a lot, but in reality its nothing compared to the number of free to play games available in China and Korea. This is because “free to play” is the ‘norm’ in these countries. Paying monthly to play an MMORPG is unheard of in the East. Games like Age of Conan from Funcom and World of Warcraft from Blizzard Entertainment are still available in Asia, just with a different business model. Lineage 2 and Age of Conan for example are both free to play with cash shops in South Korea. In terms of variety, North America is lacking compared to Korea. Obviously the mega popular MMOs like MapleStory, Runes of Magic and Vindictus are available in both the East and West. Other smaller MMOs like Prius Online and Koongya adventure from Netmarble aren’t yet available in the U.S or Europe.

In fact, there are so many smaller free to play MMORPGs in South Korea and Japan that MMORPG players over there have much more variety. Even with 200+ free to play MMORPGs in the U.S. Variety Is lacking – especially since most free to play MMORPGs in the West are the same old fantasy MMORPGs rehashed. Anime MMORPGs like Luna Online and Fly For Fun look neat, but there are so many similar games. Heck, if you’ve played Luna Online, you might as well have played every other anime MMORPG from Adsa Story to Zu Online – as they’re all very similar. I’m sure a lot of games are clones of each other in Korea and Japan too, but with more games means more variety.

I know Korea is big in MMO development, but Japan isn’t. There are only a handful of MMOs actually developed in Japan. I think Ran Online and Pandora Saga are some of the only two. I’m talking free to play MMORPGs, not pay to play ones, so I’m excluding games like Final Fantasy 11 & 14. Oh, and there’s Florensia as well as CosmicBreak. Korean MMORPGs seem to be more popular than Japanese MMORPGs, as Nexon is one of the biggest MMO companies in the world, and they specialize in free to play games. Perfect World Entertainment – the company behind Battle of the Immortals, Perfect World, Forsaken World and Jade Dynasty is also very big on free to play MMOs. I think Perfect World Entertainment and Nexon are the two biggest MMORPG companies in the World. There aren’t too many Western MMO developers, yet, so most of the free to play titles in the U.S. Are imported and licensed from Korean developers. Firefall from Red5 Studios is supposed to be free to play and League of Legends is f2p. So aside from these there are very few new western developed f2p MMOs, though big companies here are starting to realize the potential of free to play. I think Electronic Arts has been doing a good job embracing the genre. They should make their upcoming Star Wars MMO “The Old Republic” free to play too. That would be awesome.

Anyway, I’m done with this long random rant =).