MMO Roundup: Ponzi scheme in EVE, LEGO Universe F2P, and more
by Alex Ziebart 
Aug 16th 2011 at 2:00PM
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Biggest EVE Online scam ever recorded nets over a trillion ISK Of all the stories that come out of EVE Online's colossal sandbox, it's the tales of criminality and dirty dealings that grab our attention the most. Thefts and scams would be cause for account closure in most MMOs, but they form a legitimate and dark part of the EVE universe. The latest scam, a simple Ponzi scheme, managed to net the equivalent of $51,677.50 in EVE's virtual currency. |
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LEGO Universe goes F2P Free-to-play conversions have been in the news a lot lately, with games as diverse as Age of Conan and Champions Online throwing open their doors with various flavors of free access. LEGO Universe is the latest freemium convert, and yesterday was the official kickoff for the brick-building MMORPG's new membership tier. |
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Nintendo patents "massively single-player" term According to an article at Gamespot, the 121-year-old Japanese console company has patented the term "massively single-player" to define a new genre of games that it hopes to create. The basic idea is that you would play a single-player game, and (through an internet connection) what you do in that game would influence the environment or economy of the same game on someone else's console. |
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The latest in MOBA news Not So Massively is your weekly guide to the MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) genre and other significant non-MMO multiplayer games. This week, League of Legends reveals more about new game mode Dominion, DotA 2's million-dollar tournament takes place at Gamescom, and more. |
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Massively Speaking Episode 160 Massively Speaking, Massively's MMO podcast, arrives this week as Shawn and Rubi are joined by Beau Hindman to discuss the week's MMO news. Topics include Guild Wars 2's Sylvari Week, documentary The Raid's world premiere, North Korea's gold farming budget, and more. |
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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 1)
Eregos ftw! Aug 16th 2011 2:08PM
Hmm... nintendo's idea is interesting, but I don't see it working that well.
If it did, that would be amazing.
Shinji Aug 16th 2011 2:35PM
As on outsider looking in, Eve has always piqued my interest. It's things like this that make it seem like such a foreign concept for a game, even from a seasoned MMO'ers point of view.
Drakkenfyre Aug 16th 2011 2:50PM
Here's another thing that's extremely foreign. You can level without even logging in.
You select a skill you want, and it takes time to learn that skill. So (made up example here) you select Navigation. You have to wait 15 hours to gain one level at that level. So, you select it, log off, and wait. Then wait for level 2, and so on. It led to the practice of people subscribing, queuing up all of their skills they wanted, then cancelling the subscription. It still kept going. Then they would just repeat the process. They removed this ability sometime back, because people were "playing" it more often while unsubscribed than subscribed.
Here's a good comic illustrating this.
http://www.nerfnow.com/comic/414
This also means that people who have played for years are impossible to catch up to.
They were supposed to fix this, where a new player could compete with a veteran, but I don't know if they have done anything or how they did.
Marcosius Aug 16th 2011 4:25PM
"This also means that people who have played for years are impossible to catch up to."
I totally hate this preconception about EVE. There are only 5 level tiers you can train, meaning you can catch up to even a 6 year veteran in a few months if not sooner. The key is specializing of course, training for a certain shipclass instead of them all. Sure, a 6 year veteran can do a lot more stuff than you can, but hey, he or she has been playing for 6 years. That still doesn't mean you can't train up an assault frigate and other relevant skills to their maximum, and be able to fight and win players much older than you. Of course they also have game experience, but it doesn't really take that long to understand fairly simple mechanics of the game. EVE really only looks complex, once you wrap your head around it, it's like "how didn't I figure that out sooner."
Drakkenfyre Aug 16th 2011 2:48PM
I say this as a fan of Nintendo, but Nintendo is so afraid of online gaming and player interaction.
With the Wii and DS attracting a younger audience, they are so paranoid about younger players interacting with someone who might be offensive (and I am leaving out all the rest of the worries, you know what they are) that they cripple their online service to the detriment to everyone else.
You can't even have annoymous names in their online games if the game even offers "annoymous" multiplayer. Super Smash Bros. Brawl doesn't display any name, your name, the other people's names, anything outside of their character. The other people show up. No way to communicate (even friendly taunts.) If you actually want to be able to play against someone, and see their name, you have to exchange System Codes, place each person on your friends list, then exchange Friends codes.
And each game has it's separate Friends code. Some games won't even let you play online PERIOD unless you know someone.
They are working this out with the WiiU, with the removal of Friends codes, but Nintendo is still going to keep their online play as inconvienent as possible
This "MMO single player" is just another way to enter the online play world without having to "risk" strangers interacting with each other. It's not innovating, it's yet another block placed up to keep people from playing together like everyone else has done for the passed ten years.
It really hurts to see, as a fan of Nintendo, them doing this over and over, and the rest of the gaming world leaves them behind.
Sergel Aug 16th 2011 4:23PM
"It really hurts to see, as a fan of Nintendo, them doing this over and over, and the rest of the gaming world leaves them behind."
Well i dunno about that. They kinda do their own thing. They are a bit behind on the online and HD stuff, but they have made some of the biggest innovations as far as gameplay and controllers in their history.
Tirrimas Aug 16th 2011 5:23PM
I suspect that Sony's "difficulties" this summer might have something to do with it, too. I realize it takes time to develop game concepts and such, but Nintendo has always been cautious with their releases, and this may have reinforced that method.
You don't build a 30-year franchise by jumping the shark.
Drakkenfyre Aug 16th 2011 9:54PM
Nintendo has had online plans since the NES.
The port on the bottom of the NES? Meant for a modem. Never materialized in the US.
SNES? Same deal. A third-party company filled the void with the XBAND network, but closed 3 years later (this wasn't technically online, but was very innovative and fun.)
Nintendo 64? Modem was part of the 64DD, released only in Japan. Used RandNET. Closed a year later.
GameCube? $50 modem separate purchase. Exactly one game used it.
DS/DS Lite? Just starting to get there.
Wii? Ridiculous System and Friend codes.
The history of Nintendo's online gaming, or lack of, is not a happy point for Nintendo fans. Each system gets promises about online connectivity, and gaming, and it never appears in the end, or ends up a badly neutered, watered-down version.
And Nintendo innovation may come back to hurt them. After the announcement of the WiiU, their stocks dropped. Which may seem familiar because the same thing happened after announcing the Wii, except this time they didn't recover at first. Nintendo's whole thing about the Wii was "bringing people together", even the name was chosen because it was 1. Not a word in Japanese or English, 2. Sounded like "We".
So now they decide to have this tablet-like controller, but due to the limitations in the hardware, only ONE can be used with a system, and they will not be selling them separately (they cost too much.) So they focus on a personal experience, and give the system the ironic name "WiiU."
While I have always loved that Nintendo innovates, I think they may try to innovate too hard this time, and end up with a system that simply won't sell. The people who have been buying the Wii have been the types who don't care too much for graphical power (the majority of the purchasers have been younger families, and older adults) so the increased power of the system isn't likely to appeal to them. With 3 of the 4 people having to use a Wii remote, and only one person getting the new WiiU controller, many people might see it as a non-upgrade over the Wii, and not buy it.
The 3DS has already been failing badly. It was overpriced (the price was based on people's reactions when it was unveiled) has poor battery life, a form-factor which is unattractive to some people, and almost everyone knows a "Lite" version will be coming sooner or later which fixes these problems. They had to drop the price by $80 just to get the thing to start selling again in Japan. (The largest and quickest price drop on a Nintendo system in history.)
Sergel Aug 16th 2011 4:22PM
I've been noticing lots of free to play games lately. Makes me wonder if MMO's are heading in that direction.
I kinda like Nintendo's idea, since i solo play mostly, but i gotta wonder how it's gonna work.
And i'm gonna ride off my question in the queue about limitations to story in mmos.
I've been playing Dragon Nest, and for the faults it may have, i think something it does better than any other mmo I've played is tell a good story with memorable characters. You really feel invested in them. Little things like cutscenes when you face a boss and npc's having voices all immerse me more into it.
However, I think it is still difficult to tell a great story in an mmo. The only way you could is make everything instanced or phased with cutscenes and cinematics, and i don't think most computers could handle all that. Even the best stories in mmos kinda pale in comparison to what are IMO some of the best RPG stories (ff8,9 and 10, Chrono series, Legends of mana, dragoon and the Tales series, even the elder scrolls are pretty good for the sake of more individuality).
I think there are things wow could learn from others, but they are improving. And as sad as it is, i think most ppl just wanna raid to get cool armor =(
Oh well, i guess it's one of the trade-offs of such a large world. I guess that's why i'm a bit excited for Nintendo's thingy
Fletcher Aug 16th 2011 7:10PM
The interesting thing about the Nintendo idea is that it already exists - Spore already does this, and was described during development as "massively single-player" - the creatures you make get uploaded to the Spore servers and propagate across other peoples' games.