MMO Roundup: RIFT's free character transfers, Sony's fiscal losses, and more
by Alex Ziebart 
May 24th 2011 at 4:30PM
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RIFT offering free character transfers with patch 1.3 Trion Worlds has announced that with the advent of patch 1.3, RIFT will allow players to move to select servers once per week -- for free. These free character transfers include a wholesale move of all of the character's items, achievements and titles. Also, Trion has stated that initially, there will be no limit to the number of times your character can hop to a different server. |
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Sony loses $3.2B, spends $170M in response to hacker attacks Sony's bad year is getting a smidge worse. The company, which had previously predicted a healthy profit for the past fiscal year, is now expecting a loss of $3.2 billion for the period of April 2010 through March 2011. The reverse in fortunes is mostly due to writing off a $4.4 billion tax credit, although the company has been struggling with both the recent earthquake and hacker attack that disrupted operations of both its physical operations and online services. |
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Funcom prepping new Age of Conan adventure pack inspired by film reboot Recent rumors of new film-related content for Age of Conan proved to be accurate. According to a new press release, the pack "includes but is not limited to" content from the forthcoming Conan the Barbarian film reboot and will see players traveling to the lands of Turan some 20 years after the events of the movie. |
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Guild Wars 2's explosive seventh class: The engineer ArenaNet has announced the seventh Guild Wars 2 profession: the engineer. Rifles, dual pistols, pistols with shields, explosives, flamethrowers, and automated turrets -- come on, do I really need to say any more than that? |
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Massively Speaking episode 148 Massively Speaking, Massively's MMO podcast, is back this week as Shawn and Rubi discuss the latest MMO news, including some more details on ArcheAge and Guild Wars 2, a better explanation of the DCUO MegaServers (formerly Super Servers), and the return of SOE! |
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Massively's week in review Don't let WoW Insider do all of the talking when it comes to Massively's best content of the week. The Massively staff themselves have picked out what they think is the best content their site has to offer in their own weekly roundup. |
Filed under: MMO Roundup
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
wutsconflag May 24th 2011 4:37PM
Free character transfers, eh?
*taps on microphone*
Hey, Blizzard, you listening to his?
;)
Elmouth May 25th 2011 1:48AM
They're busy coming up with more ways to make WoW boring, redudant, tedious AND recycle old content.
Narshe May 25th 2011 3:25AM
I get what your saying, and I wish server transfers were free on WoW, but Trion cant afford to charge for this when they are having trouble keeping their player base right now. Offering these free perks will help (hopefully) even out their imbalanced server sizes and queue time on full servers.
And in all fairness, Blizz used to offer free server transfers to low populated servers back in the day. Hats off to Trion tho for the extent of this feature though, but in the long run wont this hurt their game and cause imbalance even more if anyone can do what they want on a server without worry of backlash when they can simply xfer the following week? this must be a ninja's wet dream.
thepiratester May 25th 2011 7:58AM
I just started playing Rift the other night- I love it- It’s a fresh change for me and my friends that also made the change. I recently cancelled all 4 wow accounts tied to my BattleNet- ( Mine, wife and kids) After many years of playing we had enough with the EJ BS and paying for stuff our small group of friends never had a chance to see. ( I am going to miss Wow insider! I hope they branch into a Rift insider soon! :D )
namethe May 24th 2011 4:50PM
*In before "Blizzard, you listening to this?"
Oh, nvmd.
:P
gapid May 24th 2011 4:51PM
There are pros and cons to free transfers. Charging for a transfer is not just another means for income for blizzard, but it is also a deterrent for the users to have an ever-changing per-server player base. Honest opinion- transfers should be free, but limited to once a month or even once a quarter.
Dale May 24th 2011 4:57PM
I would even be ok with $5 transfers. Just the price now is insane.
wutsconflag May 24th 2011 5:08PM
Mostly, I'm hoping Blizzard will lower their prices. I don't think transfers should be free, but the price now is just dumb.
Sergel May 24th 2011 5:51PM
I don't care too much about the transfers, though a lower price would be nice.
What I'd like is for wardrobe slots. I don't really see what's so bad about them, and we all know people will gripe over how the tier sets look.
Anyway, for GW2 the engineer is pretty cool. Glad they can do something, unlike most games they can't do much or are just professions.
I'm guessing the last class is a Mesmer.
omedon666 May 24th 2011 8:50PM
As someone who plays both WoW and RIFT, "wardrobe" slots are AMAZING. Wardrobe slots and armour dye together are heaven. I will be amazed if WoW doesn't announce them (or something more in the personal customization department, anyway) coming to WoW at Blizzcon, RIFT is targeting the few weaknesses WoW has, and exploiting them to create a fun and complimentary alternative.
John May 25th 2011 8:54PM
waiting for Rift to throw in Guild Housing to show Blizzard how it's done.
jtrain May 24th 2011 6:26PM
Every GW2 announcement/video makes me want it more. Gimme a release date already!!!
jfofla May 24th 2011 8:22PM
RIFT is not offering free xfers to be nice, they have to.
Too many ghostown servers.
raingod May 24th 2011 8:52PM
Agreed. Sounds more to me like a desperate attempt to keep players.
thinkuknowme May 25th 2011 9:09AM
^ That's exactly what it is.
jfofla May 24th 2011 8:29PM
Stella,
How is Blizzard ripping people off by charging for an optional convenience?
Do you also rage about how France is ripping people off by selling fine champagne?
The hubris and sense of entitlement from WOW players is stunning.
raingod May 24th 2011 8:50PM
You must play a Troll.
Amaxe May 25th 2011 12:06AM
Having moved some characters off of a server after some bad guild drama, I wish the price would be lower.
However, I suspect the price is there to allow people to do it without having people jump constantly.
rkaliski May 25th 2011 5:16AM
Price does not stop the jumpers. On Cenarius you had the same group of people jumping between horde and alliance and then around to different realms. What stops most people is the same thing that keeps us from jumping from town to town in real life. It is the giving up of friendships and the familarity that makes us comfortable.
Before you could change realms like you change your clothes, people actually got familar with each other, the guilds were fairly stable and you didn't just pop onto a high population server to gear up then move on leaving the guild in the lurch. Oh you could do it on the server, but your reputation got around.
Honestly I haven't played WoW since Feb because I just got tired of the people there. The game itself was fun, the people took all the joy out of it.
RogueJedi86 May 25th 2011 5:44AM
jfofla, following your analogy, where can I get free fine champagne? Which country? Because I'd go there in a heartbeat. So I'd say your analogy backfired.