MMODump

Last month, Valve boss Gabe Newell gave us a taste of just how successful online game sales can be. This week, we have proof of the fact.

While the NPD sales charts still have Empire: Total War sitting at #1, we’ll ignore that, because, well, online sales don’t have much impact on the NPD’s data. But the Steam and Direct2Drive charts, they’re all out of whack, and they’re out of whack thanks to some savvy price-cuts.

Like Assassin’s Creed on Steam, which thanks to this week’s discount sold more than either Left 4 Dead or Empire. Similar story on Direct2Drive, where a 50% reduction in Defense Grid’s price saw it go top ahead of newer, albeit pricier titles.

NPD Sales Charts March 8-14

1. Empire: Total War
2. Wrath of the Lich King
3. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe
4. Dawn of War II
5. World Of Warcraft Battle Chest
6. World Of Warcraft
7. The Sims 2 Apartment Life
8. Spore
9. Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst
10. Red Alert 3

Steam Sales Charts As Of March 24

1. Assassin’s Creed
2. Left 4 Dead
3. Empire: Total War
4. Counter-Strike Source
5. Dawn of War II
6. HAWX
7. Team Fortress 2
8. The Orange Box
9. Unreal Tournament III Black
10. Oddworld Pack

Direct2Drive Charts March 9-15

1. Defense Grid: The Awakening
2. Red Alert 3: Uprising
3. HAWX
4. Men Of War
5. Empire: Total War
6. Rome: Total War Gold Edition
7. Dawn of War II
8. The Path
9. World in Conflict: Soviet Assault Expansion
10. FINAL FANTASY XI Vana’diel Collection 2008

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Filed under: Online, Meta (about Joystiq), MMO

The World of Warcraft is a strange and beautiful one. It can be hard to understand sometimes, but that’s where Joystiq’s sister site WoW Insider comes in: whether you want to know how to start playing a certain class, how to make money while leveling, or how to beat the toughest raids in the game, we’ve got news, analysis, and insight on everything Azeroth.

News

• WoW Insider’s Guide to Patch 3.1
  Everything you need to know about the upcoming content patch, and then some.
• Tier 8 set bonuses hit the PTRs
  Time once again to drool over gear you’ll probably never wear.
• New addon policy makes selling addons against the rules
  Blizzard says no to in-game donation buttons and outright selling third-party addons.
• World of Warcraft Mountain Dew coming soon
  Game fuel is returning, in a few Azeroth-inspired flavors.
• Confirmed: New battleground on the way
  Blizzard is still planning on beefing up the in-game battleground situation.

Features

• The Queue: Item level, attunement, and more
  We answer your questions… with answers.
• Spiritual Guidance: The Undying experience of a Priest
  How to get 10 people through Naxxramas without losing a life.
• Encrypted Text: Why patch 3.1 won’t transform Rogues
  Hoping 3.1 will make your stabby dreams come true? Better not hold your breath.
• Arcane Brilliance: I still don’t like spirit
  More Mage updates in preparation for the new patch.
• Ready Check: Nearly Immortal
  10 people living through Naxx too easy for you? Try 25.

The best of WoW Insider: March 17-24, 2009 originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 25 Mar 2009 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Curt Schilling may not have revealed any new information about Copernicus — really, nothing new there — but he’s had reservations about choosing the MMO genre for the premiere title of his 38 Studios. Speaking with Adam Sessler on stage during the inaugural GamesBeat conference, he admitted, “There have been times in the past 24 months where I’ve thought to myself ‘What the hell was I thinking?!’ I should have made a first-person shooter.”

Overheard@GDC09: Curt Schilling half-jokingly wishes he’d made a simpler game originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Speaking at the inaugural GamesBeat conference in San Francisco, Ira Rubenstein, head of the global digital media group at Marvel, stated that the comic book company plans to stand behind Gazillion’s future Marvel-based MMO, lending its writers and artists to the project.

Rubenstein didn’t want to speak for Gazillion, but said that Marvel offers an IP that isn’t very common — a full universe of superheroes that has yet to successfully manifest in an MMO. Considering the 10-year deal Marvel has inked with the “new” company, there should be enough time to get some MMO based on the popular characters out the door.

GDC09: Marvel getting involved in Gazillion’s MMO with art and writers originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The public hasn’t seen much of The Agency since it was first revealed in 2007. When questioned about the lack of updates on the ambitious PC/PS3 online espionage game, SOE’s Hal Milton told us: “We don’t want to keep having hype sessions just showing movies and crap. We need to make the game and not just keep promoting it.”

GDC continues that idea, with Sony Online Entertainment revealing nothing more than a distant release window for both The Agency and DC Universe Online. John Smedley, president of SOE, revealed that both titles will arrive in 2010 in his keynote, “An industry perspective on how new online games will reach the masses.”

We understand that it takes time to craft a solid game, especially a massive online one. However, we’d like to remind Smedley that the first step for a game to “reach the masses” involves, y’know, releasing it.

GDC09: The Agency and DC Universe Online coming 2010 originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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About 36,000 fans recently flocked to Copenhagen, Denmark for LEGO World! Read on to learn more…

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Combat is one of the most exciting aspects of any MMO and this week, you get to meet the Combat designer for STO. A little known fact?

read more

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Two new screenshots have been posted, as well as a new piece of Concept Art for Lemuria. Whether you like it hot (fiery robots!) or cold (underwater seascapes!), we’ve got it!

Talk about the new art on the forums!

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It’s GDC week! And let’s celebrate that with a contest! Fallen Earth LLC, the makers of post-apocalyptic MMO of the same name which we covered in an interview earlier, is letting us give away some beta keys and t-shirts!

The contest is simple. You have to come up with a great tagline for Fallen Earth. We will pick the best ones and present them on the site and the winners will receive Fallen Earth beta keys and t-shirts.

5 winners will receive closed beta keys and t-shirts and another 5 winners will receive only closed beta keys.

The rules are also simple. 

1. Entries must be posted as a comment to this newspost.
2. Entries must be one-liners.
3. Contestants may submit multiple taglines, it only increases your changes of winning!
4. The contest will run until Friday the 27th of March and winners will be announced after the weekend.

What more are you waiting for? Let the games begin!

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The BIG Lottery has sailed past a quarter trillion ISK in all-time tickets sold since its 2003 inception. This impressive milestone was attained earlier this month during round 153 of the innovative BIG Lottery.

Over thirty-four thousand pilots have sought their fortune in the BIG Lottery over the years. Those lucky enough to have their number drawn often net billions of ISK worth of cash or prizes. Earlier last year Lena Masca was the recipient of a record-breaking twenty billion ISK payout.

The brainchild of BIG Corporation CEO TornSoul, BIG Lottery has grown exponentially since the meager days of ten million ISK jackpots often partially subsidized by BIG. Today the jackpots are billion ISK affairs with 2008’s five year anniversary round smashing all previous records. This single round distributed over eighty-five billion worth of ISK and prizes among thirteen winners including Lena Masca.

This May will mark BIG Lottery’s 6th consecutive year of operation.

BIG Corporation, the lottery’s holding entity, is best known for its unique internal asset sharing policy in which all members pool their resources as a community. The policy applies without exception to ships, ISK, and any other personal assets one may acquire. While the policy may be difficult for traditional employees to envision, BIG’s success and longevity speaks for itself.

In addition to the lottery, BIG runs a variety of equally unique ventures including the BIG Merchant Bank of EVE, BIG Betting, and BIG Deal where small corporations are given the opportunity to “rent-to-own” battleship blueprint originals.

Round 153 concluded last Sunday and featured a billion ISK jackpot along with five hundred million ISK prizes for both second and third place. The next round is already underway and all pilots wishing to purchase tickets should send their ISK to “BIG Games”. Each ticket costs one thousand ISK and pilots may purchase a maximum of ten thousand tickets per round according to the BIG Lottery portal site. Those wishing to participate in the interactive drawing process should tune in Monday, April 6th to the “BIG Games” channel at 1800 New Eden Time.

GalNet References

BIG Lottery portal

Are you affected by the events in this article? Do you have information regarding another event in New Eden? If so, please contact us with any information that you may have.

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Playnet and CRS are excited to announce a huge contest in which you could win airfare and accommodation to our upcoming 10th anniversary party in May. That’s right, in a few short weeks it will have been 10 years since our humblest of beginnings and now it’s time to celebrate a little and we want you to join us.

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We’re pleased to introduce the Battle.net account — a brand-new way for players to manage their Blizzard Entertainment games, make online Blizzard store purchases, log in to World of Warcraft, and more using just one set of login information.
World of Warcraft players now have the option to create a Battle.net account, merge a World of Warcraft account (or multiple accounts) with it, and begin logging in to the game, the Armory, and the forums using their new Battle.net account login information.
Merge your World of Warcraft Account now
Some of the benefits of the Battle.net account include:
Fewer passwords to remember. One single login lets you access World of Warcraft, the online Blizzard store, and more — including upcoming games such as StarCraft II and Diablo III.Opt in to upcoming Blizzard Entertainment beta tests. Put yourself in the running to be invited to test upcoming games.Easy access to your classic games. Store your CD keys for classic Blizzard Entertainment titles, and then download the games whenever you wish. And more to come… We’re planning to add more features in the future, including tools to help friends communicate between games and bring players closer together.

At this time, signing up is completely optional — but if you’re interested in taking advantage of the benefits of the Battle.net account today, check out the FAQ for more information, or
create an account now.

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There’s a ton of breathtaking screenshots that capture the essence of Telon in a simple picture. Captivating videos that show many different places and adventures also appear frequently. The talented artists within the community also produce some amazing wallpapers as well. The View From Telon takes time to highlight these and many other items so be sure to check out what we’re showcasing this week!Read on

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AoC’s new Director/Producer talks about ‘missing the mark’, and the improvements made since launching the game.

ZAM: Moving to game-play discussion, players comment on the forums that exploiting end-game content is rampant amongst top guilds and Funcom has done little to monitor and/or track this….

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Tasos has an update on Darkfall’s launch. You can read the whole post here.

Since Darkfall’s launch we have been dealing with issues round the clock, and we’ll continue to do so in order to improve your gameplay experience with every day that goes by….

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In Ultima Online’s Publish 13 notes Darkfall’s March 21 notes, Runesabre Tasos notes that availability is improving even though you still can’t technically buy the game, and then goes on to explain:

We have been permanently banning all accounts that we detect are using 3d party software exploits. Still, there are a few people who don’t understand this and continue installing and using these exploits. You will definitely be banned if you do this. No appeals and no excuses are accepted.

Macroing: We are working to address it at its source, but until then we need to enforce our policies. Before we do that we will appeal to players not actually playing the game to log off rather than leaving their character in-game. This will allow more people to be able to enjoy Darkfall instead of unmanned characters taking up server space. If you’re skilling up by not playing the game as it was intended, you will be kicked and repeated offenses will result in a ban.

In response, players have created flash movies involving OSI GMs running a PK guild Youtube movies involving Hitler running a PK guild.

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New research from PC Gaming Alliance also outlines growth of digital distribution

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Ether Saga Online on Ten Ton Hammer and dev diary on Ten Ton Hammer.

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In Warhammer Online, currently the Slayer stands as one of the most played classes, but can just anyone be a Slayer? Some people play a class for several levels before they realize the types of…

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Dog-fighting in space is much more than circle-strafing.With every tick of the clock, the team at NetDevil’s Colorado-based
studio draws closer to finishing their work on their upcoming space
combat MMO, target="_blank">Jumpgate
Evolution. As the Game Developer’s…

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Check out the list of forum class gurus.

The new Age of Conan Advocate Program is well under way and while they are still looking for a few good men (or women) most of the class Advocates have been chosen! Click here to see the full…

read more

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