Bluehole Studios, the newly formed developers of TERA are to compensate NCSoft for the sum of 2 billion Wons(approximately 1,721,836.820 USD)  for plagiarizing Lineage 3’s source code. This decision was made by the Seoul Central District Court after they found the former development director of Lineage 3 guilty. According to Bluehole, they are not satisfied with the judgement, and will lodge an appeal immediately.

It is still unknown whether this will affect the development of TERA, or the existence of Bluehole, and NCSoft have yet to make an official statement on the case.

The reason behind the case is the fact that Mr. Kang and Mr. Yo, former developers for Lineage 3, used some of the technologies copyrighted by NCSoft after the project’s cancellation, in their latest game – TERA.

I know that it is not possible to travel backwards or even forwards in time. We are not going to have a metaphysical conversation here. What I feel would be good customer service and would heal relationships between NCSoft and its customers is by taking care of the victims of the latest hacking spree going on in Aion Online.

Backstory.

In recent posts I gave a good friends story of how her account was hacked and how badly she was treated by customer service. The first thing I asked her was, “Did you get your gear back?” and the second after she told me no I asked, “How long will it take you to earn it back?” Her answer was “Weeks.”

As an MMORPG gamer and veteran I know how long it takes to get endgame gear in the first place. Now to have to regrind all that back is annoying to say the least and time consuming. She told me that a few of the dungeons are at least 3, 6 to 9 hours to complete! There are no insurance policies for virtual goods.

You are not alone.

Is what I said to comfort her. I simply googled ‘aion accounts hacked’ and got a slew of forum complaints from other victims of their Aion accounts hacked. Here are the links if you want to read some of the other horror stories I found.

Account hacked! What will NCSOFT do?

My wifes account was hacked today.

Account hacked second day in a row.

NCSecurity: Phantom Hacker Steals Aion Account

Account hacked, what do I do?

Husbands account hacked…

Can you see a trend here? It seems that the same cause and effect is happening while the company does nothing to help the customer other than restore their accounts. And in some cases even slow to do that.

A worst case scenario.

Imagine you come home to your house/apartment to find your front lock is changed and your key does not work. After finally breaking the door down you walk it to a ransacked apartment. Your electronics are gone, so are your jewelry and even your old microwave.

It has to be one of the worst feelings in the world to find out you are robbed. You may be lucky to have insurance on your stuff; you call the police, fill out a report and hope for the best. It still doesn’t remove that gross feeling of being invaded and you cannot even begin to calculate how much you lost monetarily.

The bottom line is you could have protected yourself as best as possible, if someone is determined to rob you, they will. And it’s not your fault you were robbed. The best you could do cut your losses and move forward. But what did you really lose?

You lost your time. When it comes down to money, you have to look at the time it took to make the money to buy that DVD player and Xbox you lost. The jewelry might even be heirlooms that are irreplaceable. It will still take a long time to build it all back. I think your first investment would be of course new ways to secure your home so it never happens again. At that point any help is a relief.

My proposal.

I’m willing to fight for you. My dedication to the honest paying game player like myself, is why I write mMO MONEY.

In my opinion I feel NCSoft should give at least 2-3 free months of gametime subscription to anyone who had their account compromised. As well as Aion customers they can also be held accountable for customers of Lineage and Lineage II,City of Heroes/Villians and Guild Wars as well. If their security is bad for Aion, it has to be for their other games too.

I think it’s also very important to improve their security too. They removed their gameguard before going live and maybe it wasn’t a good idea to do so. I also know that it created many technical issues, but I would rather have that than lose weeks or months worth of my efforts because of faulty security.

Here’s my strategy.

There is a website that offers a free online petition service: http://www.petitiononline.com if you, the MMO community would be kind to collaborate with me for this cause, or are a victim of NCSofts’ faulty security and would like some retribution. Then give me some feedback and your support, please. In the meantime I am going to write a thesis on WHY they should be giving their customers the time to replace some of the equipment they were robbed of from these terrible hackers. I think they least they could do are to give 2-3 free months of subscriptions to their customers. Don’t you agree?

I’ll post it and I will start a largescale petition to rally the community to stand up for themselves against NCSofts weak response to this problem. What do you think? Any and all feedback is welcome. This is not the first time an online game account was hacked so this is  going to send a message to NCSoft but hopefully change the way that all MMO distributors will approach their games security and most important how they treat you, loyal customer.

It’s you loyal customer, who pays his $14.99 a month not matter what, and who is the most important person at the end of the day. Don’t you think it’s time these game companies started treating you like one?

I am starting a forum post here for your feedback. Thanks in advance =)

Play safe,

Frank Inktomi

Today, Ndoors official launched their new 2D sidescrolling MMORPG, WonderKing.   With the official launch of the game of course come the official game trailer which also has been just released today, which you can view below.  But be warned, it’s loud, so if your speakers are turned up, turn them down.

For those of you not familiar with WonderKing, it is a free to play sidescrolling MMORPG that features PvP, an item mall and your normal MMO questing.  More info can be found at the official site where you can also download the game for free.

As the release date for the first expansion of Age of Conan draws ever closer, Funcom have decided to shed some light on one of the new mounts that Rise of the Godslayer will introduce – the wolf mount.

The wolf mount is just one of the many new mounts Rise of the Godslayer will feature, including the tiger and Hyrkanian horse. In order to receive a tiger or a wolf mount, players must enter a long and difficult quest-line, starting with capturing them as. The idea behind this is to create a bond between the players and their mounts. Next comes training and raising them to full grown animals.

“Some of the thinking behind this new system is that players will create a connection with their new mount,” says Lead Designer Joel Bylos. “Raising the mount from a cub and teaching it how to hunt, track and fight is a long process, and by the time players have proven themselves worthy of riding it a bond has been created. When you see players riding a tiger or a wolf you’ll know that it is not just a right to do so, it’s an earned privilege.”

Turbine is getting ready for the third major content update to Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited, and has released a set of new DDO screenshots which depict a new night time mode.  More information about the update was posted yesterday on Ten Ton Hammer and I’ve quoted some of the juicy stuff below.

First, no more leveling sigils. This means all players on all types of accounts, including free accounts, will be able to level up all the way to maximum level without having to hunt down leveling sigils or buy anything from the DDO Store.

Another change in accessibility is a new dungeon challenge level of “casual.” This difficulty setting replaces the “solo” setting in many dungeons, and is a new option to almost all higher level dungeons. And the best part? This setting is available for all quests right up to level 20, except those that are solo- or raid-only. Previously solo content started running thin around level six but this will no longer be the case and players will now be able to enjoy all the content despite their group size.

four new quests for high level characters. The cool thing this time is that these new quests are all free content as well and won’t need to be purchased through the DDO Store.

I think it would be best to start this post of with a few small, but vital details – Earth Eternal is a browser based game and yes, Earth Eternal is a real MMORPG. Not just a text adventure, with some graphics here and there. And last but not least – Earth Eternal is a World of WarCraft clone. We all know WoW wasn’t very original to begin with(don’t hate me), but it’s been a tendency lately to change the name of the game world, make a few graphical updates/remodels here and there and copy/paste everything else. But if you were to ask me: Is Earth Eternal any good?, then my answer would be: yes, definitely. Why? Read the Earth Eternal review below.

A Technical Feat

I already mentioned that Earth Eternal is an free MMO, and it’s time to pay the developer Sparkplay its respects. The only thing you need to play Earth Eternal is a small browser plugin called Spark Player and you’re good to go. Being browser-based has its advantages, which Earth Eternal squeezes to the max. First – the web community. At any given time you can edit your profile information, signature, avatar, etc and other players can see them. And of course, you are in your browser, meaning you can just open up a new tab and google something while your character is resting. Graphically, the game is as pretty as it gets and is well designed in a comic-style. The soundtrack is fairly simple, most of the time its just static background noises.

Gameplay

Remember how I said the game is a WoW-clone? I meant it. Anyone whose ever played the hit MMORPG by Blizzard entertainment will feel at home, as the controls, interface, quests, professions, everything is practically a remodeled version of WoW. One of the few noticeable differences are the game’s races who are, but are not limited to.. anthropomorphic animals. The game has 22 races in total, allowing for vast character customization. We see a lizard, a rabbit, a raccoon, an owl, a robot, a cyclop, a yeti, a demon.. and many more. Unfortunately the only thing each race provides is a different look and thats all – no race exclusive classes, no racial skills, no nothing.. Moving on you customize your avatar a bit(colors mostly) and you’re ready to hop onto the newbie zone that is a small mushroom island. You do a few quests, repair your boat and are taken to the island to Corsica, where you can meet friends, explore, pick plants, kill plants, or do quests. Here is our next conclusion: the gameplay of Earth Eternal is not very advanced, but suits the job. It takes a surprisingly long period of time for you to get bored. The interface is taken to a minimum, everything is explained as simple as possible. But hey – the game is a browser-based WoW-clone where you can play as a goat, you can’t expect Baldur’s Gate. Skills are obtained by using skill points.. All in all, Earth Eternal offers a bit simplistic gameplay that is packed with repetitive content and does its job well. The game also lacks any kind of PvP, which only serves to declare that, it’s not hardcore even more.

Community

One of the strongest sides of Earth Eternal are its community tools which not only take complete advantage of the platform, but continue both in-game and out. The game’s popularity is growing and on your way you’ll meet many people. The bad side to the casual goodness that is the game is in the form of the credit system, where at a certain point you will have to start wasting money in order to keep up with the pace. The game also has a clan system, where you will mostly make new friends. I imagine you already got it but in case you haven’t – Earth Eternal depends a great deal on its community.

Sayonara

Earth Eternal is a wonderful and simple MMORPG for anyone. The game has its flaws, but the fact that it can be ran on practically anything and that its easily accessible only serves to tighten its casual style. You, as a hardcore gamer, may not like Earth Eternal, but you could point it to someone whose never played an MMO and just wants to kill a few hours.

As the open beta for Star Trek Online (STO) comes to an end, we reflect upon our experiences in this Star Trek Online preview. The player starts aboard a Federation starship and begins the game’s tutorial (voiced by Zachary Quinto). The tutorial summarizes the key points of the game mechanics, and introduces the story of how your character becomes the captain of a Federation ship. After the tutorial the player is free to follow the main storyline and partake in the game’s many side missions.

STO comprises mainly of space combat; somewhat similar to which can be experienced in Pirates of the Burning Sea (POTBS). Space combat is comparable to submarine warfare. The battles are not extremely fast paced and strategy plays key to victory. The ground combat is a bit more in-depth than POTBS; although, at times it too can be rather mundane. One of the most enjoyable aspects of ground combat is the ability to select your away team and to equip them with items and abilities such as you would in a RPG game. STO offers a large amount of customization. Not only is the player customizable, but also the bridge officers and the ship itself. This can include designing and customizing your ship, or changing the costumes and physical look of you and your bridge officers.

One of the notable aspects of the leveling system is the inclusion of skill points and rank. Each rank has 10 grades, such as Lieutenant – Grade 5. As you progress in rank, you obtain access to new ships, and as you progress in grade you will achieve new skill points to spend on yourself and your bridge officers. The skill point system adds variety to player builds, similar to what Star Wars Galaxies was pre-NGE.

The game allows you to play as two factions; the Federation or Klingons. The Federation side allows you to experience a pve storyline, as well as participating in pvp combat. The Klingon faction is more pvp oriented, and at the time of launch will not include much pve content. Klingon characters can level up primarily through participating in the pvp zones. Each faction allows for different race selection, and each race has particular traits associated with it. If you choose to do so, you can create your own race and select your own traits. Some races such as the Cardassians are not available as a playable race; however, you can still create the look of one using the custom race creator.

Star Trek Online includes plenty of lore and references for Star Trek fans. Leonard Nimoy provided the voice-over work for the different space sectors, and for some of the missions. Occasionally the missions are based upon the films or movies; such as The City on the Edge of Never which references the original series episode The City on the Edge of Forever. You do not have to be a die-hard Star Trek fan to enjoy this game, although that does add to the immersion.

Although the open beta has been met with mixed results, the game does fulfill its genre of MMO quite well. Additionally, Cryptic Studios has been impressively responsive to player feedback. While the game is not for everyone, it certainly offers a lot of content and immersion for Star Trek fans. Star Trek Online officially launches on February 2nd, 2010. May you play long and prosper.

I was doing some house cleaning the other day, and I came across a few items that I’ve decided to give away.  My WoW TCG loot code giveaway via Twitter worked pretty well, so I’ve decided to follow that model.  During the course of this week I will be giving away a few items from various trade shows that I’ve attended.

Any players of interested in some in-game exclusives for Warhammer Online or Fallen Earth should follow iTZKooPA to be notified of the giveaways shortly before they happen.  The items codes are first come, first serve, so get those fingers ready.  Please @iTZKooPA when you claim a prize so everyone knows.

Actually, I’ll start the giveaway right now to benefit the RSS subscribers.  Here’s a Fallen Earth code for Brass Goggles: 72B5-56D2-7CAF

I’ve had these Selentine Keys in my bank for quite a while now and have never seen a Selentine Chest (the lowest level “cool” chest) in which to use them. Recently, I found a nice spot, with an easily accessible chest and nothing more than Dire Zombies guarding it. Dire Zombies can still give me headaches, but if I play smart, I can handle three at a time without too much trouble. So, early one morning, I grabbed three keys and headed to the chest, hoping for my first taste of phat Darkfall loot.

The fighting at the chest location went pretty well. I killed the first wave of zombies and cleared the area as new ones spawned. The danger in a situation like this isn’t the mobs, it is the fact that lots of other players know a chest is out here too and thus you are very likely to be ambushed by a player-killer. Every 6-8 minutes, I would check the chest to see if it had refilled, fight a couple zombies, hide, heal, scan the horizon. About a half-hour of this and I had about 1000 gold in my backpack, an enchanted leather chest piece and two enchanted scale chest pieces.

This is good stuff… not great, but good (I have never owned scale armor, let alone enchanted scale), and the money alone was about 1/3 of my current bank balance. I decided to back off and recall to home, which was the nearby hamlet of Skarnibben. Unfortunately, as I sat there helpless, waiting for the recall spell to complete, a zombie wandered back to my hiding place and zapped me, cancelling the recall. I killed the zombie, but the damage was done. I would either have to wait for recall to become available again, or walk back to the town.

I am impatient, so I start the run back to Skarnibben. About 1/2 way there, clan chat lights up. There are reds at Skar killing the various harvesters there. I come over the hill and in the distance, I can see a blooming ball of fire and some other glows that indicate magic is being tossed around. I could charge in and fight… and most likely die and lose my precious new scale armor pieces. I could charge in and try to get to the bank, but I would likely be killed before getting everything banked. Ugh.

I decided to turn east and head for the nearest NPC town. Hopefully, I could get there without running into anyone. So, I sprint and keep to the mountains, rushing to get back to the safety of a guard tower. About 2/3 of the way back, I clamor down a mountainside and fall a bit, taking some damage. I pull my staff and fire a heal as a reflex, but as I look around, I sure wish I hadn’t, because there, no more than 25 yards from me, are the two gankers who were wiping people in Skar. One is on a drake and the other is off, heading for a nearby chaos chest. I hesitate and start to back away, hoping they hadn’t seen me…

But they heard the heal and I don’t get out of sight quickly enough. I run, but there is no chance and I am bitten to death by the drake. Very disappointing.

Mistakes & Lessons Learned

There was no excuse for my recall being interrupted by a zombie– This was my first mistake. If I am going to “back off an recall to home”, then I should have backed off. I just ducked around a corner and thought I was safe to recall, but I could easily have backed off an additional 50 yards and ensured the completion of the spell. Had I recalled, I would have been involved in the fight at Skarnibben, but I would have had ample time to bank all of the goods I wanted to keep.

Use all the information the game has for you – At some point, I should have known the bad guys were headed out of Skarnibben, because the ClanKills tab went quiet. If the bad guys are killing and re-killing everyone at the bindstone, a steady stream of kill messages will appear on that tab and when that stopped, I should have known that Skarnibben was safe. Had I turned around and walked to Skar, or recalled again, I would have been counting my noob loot at the bank.

Stop rushing every so often — Had I not been in such a hurry to get to town, I might not have sprinted down the hill and I might have been able to see the reds before they saw me. Instead of sprinting down the hillside, perhaps a few moments of crouch walking was in order. Slowing down and being aware of my surroundings would have allowed me to avoid the reds.

When in doubt, be aggressive — Finally, when I saw that I had landed on top of these two player-killers, I should not have hesitated. I was not going to outrun them, and the chance of them not spotting me was small. I played scared and thus had no chance of surviving. Had I been a little more on the ball, I should have charged. One of the reds was off his mount heading for a chaos chest. Had I charged past him, I might have stolen his mount which would have given me a much better chance to escape to the safety of the watchtowers… and would have made for a much better story.

Vigilant Class Ship

Today Atari released details regarding the Star Trek Online Vigilant class ship. The tier-4 tactical escort is based off the designs of the Defiant class ship seen during the Dominion War. The ship is designed for front-line attack and is configurable for massive, single-target strikes or multi-target volleys. The Vigilant also features dual phaser coils, improved torpedo guidance systems, dual-ablative armor, and can be outfitted with tetryon, plasma or polaron weapons. This ship can be obtained at the rank of captain. Star Trek Online launches on Febraury 2nd, 2010.

The Vigilant is designed for one thing: combat. It has limited space for crew and no quarters designed for families or guests, a feature that is standard on Starfleet vessels assigned to long explorations.