I haven’t yet reached end-game, but I’m moving along at a decent pace, currently level 34 and at this point I thought I’d be enjoying at least some open PvP goodness. Yet in the last three worlds, Nar Shaddaa, Tatooine and Alderaan, all of which have open PvP zones, I’ve only run across two enemy faction players.

So where’s the PvP? Yes, I know I can join the Warzones, but to be honest, I’ve grew tired of them in Warhammer Online and while BioWare has added new elements and Hutt Ball, I still prefer open PvP much more than warzones, plus I hate Hutt Ball. I basically do my one daily Warzone per day and that’s it.

What I really want is open PvP and while I’m constantly told I’m flagged for PvP, I never see anyone. The two times I did, the guy ran away because I was a few levels above him and the second time we actually fought. He caught me during a mob fight so he killed me first, but 10 secs later after I revived myself, I was able to kill him.

Being my first open PvP kill I was expecting some sort of reward or at least acknowledgement of my first kill, but there was nothing, which just left me with an empty, why bother, feeling. I didn’t even gain XP or Valor for the kill.

Now, I’m not asking for a full fledged PvP rewards system like so many MMORPGs have today, because in my mind that just leads to PvP grinding. But I would like at least some acknowledgement of my efforts. Even something as simple as a personal stat board to show me my kills and deaths.

The problem with the open PvP zones is there is absolutely no incentive for players, which is why they’re empty. Why bother in a open zone when you can queue up for a warzone and get all the rewards? While hardcore PvPers will say the reward is in the kill itself, that’s not enough incentive to get most players to participate, so there has to be some reward be it XP, Valor or something else.

When it comes down to it PvP is flat out broken in Star Wars: The Old Republic and needs to be fixed asap. Being a one character per MMO type of guy, I don’t re-roll or start alts, my biggest concern is getting to the endgame and finding out there’s nothing left for me to do.

At a recent auction in China for the upcoming MMORPG Age of Wulin, a gamer purchased an in-game virtual sword for $16,000. Other gamers also purchased virtual items, a $1,600 Hook of Departure sheath and a Lordly Spear sheath for $2,500.

Now forget the fact that the two lesser items are only sheaths for cosmetic purposes, why are these people buying items for a game that’s still in beta? What happens if the game is a flop?

Age of Wulin is also a PvP centric game, what happens if it has full corpse-looting? These people are either going to lose their items or never use them for fear of getting ganked. I’d also hate to be this guy once the first expansion gets released and makes his $16,000 sword worthless.

The browser version for Frogster’s Runes of Magic is now live in open beta and will be until Jan 9th 2012 if you want to give it a try. Not a lot of information has been released as to what if any limitations the browser version has when compared to the full game client, so I’ll take that as there are none or very little.

If you want to give the browser version a try, just head to the new ROM broswer website and signup, you can even just your Facebook login.

I have to say it’s pretty amazing that they can get a MMORPG like Runes of Magic to run in a web browser, how well it will run, well I guess that’s what this beta is for.

In a class action lawsuit filed against Square-Enix back in June of 2009, a Final Fantasy XI player accused the company of deceptive and unfair advertising strategies as listed below. On Dec 23rd of this year, the lawsuit was dismissed by the judge who concluded the claims were “without merit“.

This case narrowly focuses on Defandants deceptive advertising, unfair advertising, and fraudulent concealment to conceal certain critical information about their online games. The deceptive advertising, unfair and undisclosed business practices, and concealment concern, among others:

1. Licensing of the online games software disguised as a sale
2. Monthly fees (“fees”) to play online games
3. Penalties for late payment fees
4. Interest charges for late payment fees
5. Charges while the online game account is suspended
6. Termination of the right to use the online game for late payment of the fees
7. User restrictions and conditions related to the online games
8. Termination of game data for late payment of the fees

However in a press release sent out by Square-Enix it stated,

The District Court ruled, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed, that Square Enix’s business practices and click-through user agreements were both fair and legal. Both Courts confirmed that Square Enix owns all of the character-related data generated during gameplay.

While this case was not a direct challenge of who owns the actually gaming account, it does state that Square-Enix owns all the “character-related data“, which in itself if a huge win for MMO publishers. This in itself doesn’t close the debate as to who owns the actual account, but it is a step forward for MMO publishers and a defeat for those players who argue they own their accounts and characters.

The big showdown between the companies that run these virtual worlds and the players the inhabit them is unavoidable and I hope within the next few years we’ll have a court case that once and for all will determine who is the rightful owner of these virtual characters and property.

Welcome to our fourth Star Wars: The Old Republic datacons guide, this time we reveal the locations at Korriban. Datacrons are hidden items and permanent stat boost for your character. Since they are hard to find and get to, we here at MMOCrunch decided to create some video guides to make it easier on you.

Coordinates for the 3 datacons on Korriban.

• Endurance +2 X: 150, Y: 78
• Red Matrix Shard X: -55, Y: 379
• Willpower +2 X: 529, Y: 65

Be sure to check out our Datacron guides as well.

• Hutta datacron location guide
• Dromund Kass datacron location guide
• Balmorra Empire datacron location guide

Below you can find the datacron video guide for Korriban. More guides coming soon.

Continued…

Welcome to our third Star Wars: The Old Republic datacons guide, this time we reveal the locations at Balmorra for the Empire. For those of you who don’t know what datacrons are, they’re items and permanent stat boost for your character. Since they are hard to find and get to, we here at MMOCrunch decided to create some video guides to make it easier on you.

• Aim +2 X: -1017, Y: 1514
• Cunning +2 X: 1853, Y: 111
• Green Matrix Shard X: -505, Y: 1990
  This one required two players to get as you have to activate two computer terminals across a room at the same time
• Strength +2 X: 727, Y: 2033
• Willpower +2 X: 191, Y: -346
  While finding the box is pretty easy, opening it is another matter. To do that, you have to buy a key from a vendor which is marked on the map below. It cost 5000 credits, so make sure you have the cash first. There is also a second lockbox at the vendor with a key that cost 8000 credits and contains 2 Reconfiguration Disassembler Cores (purple). These cores can be used to disassemble the  Matrix Cube that you can create out of the Matrix Shards you’re collecting.

Be sure to check out our Datacron guides as well.

• Hutta datacron location guide
• Dromund Kass datacron location guide

Below you can find the datacron guide for Balmorra as Empire. More guides coming soon.

Continued…

EA announced today that Star Wars: The Old Republic has officially become the fastest growing subscription MMO in history, with over one million players registering since the Dec 20th launch.  EA also released some other stats which are listed below.

• Logged 28 million in-game hours – roughly equivalent to watching all sixStar Wars movies, two million times
• Averaged well over five hours a day playing the game
• Created more than 3.8 million characters; 510,000 Jedi Knights and 550,000 Sith Warriors
• Killed more than two billion non-player characters in the eight days since Early Game Access began

The third stat is pretty interesting and reveals something about players class choice . The stat tells us that out of the 3.8 million characters, about 28% are Jedi Knights or Sith Warriors, slightly more than the 25% if we were to divide the classes evenly. I’d be interested to see the numbers for the remains 6 classes especially the Bounty Hunter and Smuggler classes.

Welcome to our second Star Wars: The Old Republic datacons guide, this time we reveal the locations at Dromund Kaas. For those of you who don’t know, datacrons are items and permanent stat boost for your character. Since they are hard to find and get to, we here at MMOCrunch decided to create some video guides to make it easier on you.

Dromund Kaas has 5 datacrons which are listed below and shown in order in the video.

• Endurance +2 X: -793, Y: 1450
• Presence +2 X: 581, Y: 798
• Strength +2 X: 855, Y: 643
• Yellow Matrix Shard X: -187, Y: 1738
• Cunning +2 X: -1219, Y: 209

Be sure to check out our Hutta datacron location guide as well. Below you can find the guide for Dromund Kass. More guides coming soon.

Continued…

It seems more and more gaming companies are being targeted by hackers these days, from SOE to the Steam and LotRO forums and just a few days ago Square Enix. Well today Trion sent out emails to all its customers stating,

We recently discovered that unauthorized intruders gained access to a Trion Worlds account database. The database in question contained information including user names, encrypted passwords, dates of birth, email addresses, billing addresses, and the first and last four digits and expiration dates of customer credit cards.

There is no evidence, and we have no reason to believe, that full credit card information was accessed or compromised in any way. We have already taken further action to strengthen our systems, even as we, with external security experts, continue to research the extent of the unauthorized access.

You should have continued, uninterrupted access to RIFT, and we do not anticipate any disruptions to your playing time.

To compensate players for the breach, Trion World is giving all subscribers 3 extra days added to their game time plus a Moneybags’ Purse, which increases looted coin by 10%.

RIFT players will be required to change their passwords on the next log-in and players using Mobile Authenticators will also need to reconnect their Authenticator.

Stay safe.

Jedi and Sith warriors invaded Time Square on launch day to battle it out in the heart of New York city. They were then joined by about a 100 SWTOR fans as they froze in place mid fight for New Yorkers and tourist to snap some shots of the epic duels.

While the flash mob fad might be getting old and worn out, showing up everywhere from commercials to TV shows and movies, a SWTOR flash mob is still awesome Check out the video below.

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