Addicted Gamer Sues NCsoft
Posted on Tuesday, August 24th, 2010 and filed under Game News.
A Hawaiian man is suing the creators of Lineage II for the monetary damages made to his life by the addictive nature of the game 1. Craig Smallwood claims to have played Lineage II for approx 20,000 hours over the course of five-years between 2004 and 2009. He claims that he would not have begun playing the game if he was aware “that he would become addicted to the game.”
A federal judge is allowing a negligence lawsuit to proceed against the publisher of the online virtual-world game Lineage II, amid allegations that a Hawaii man became so addicted he is “unable to function independently in usual daily activities such as getting up, getting dressed, bathing or communicating with family and friends.”
Ncsoft asked him them to please toss the claim, but Judge Kay’s ruling came Aug. 4.
Aion’s Next Expansion can come with Kittens!
Posted on Tuesday, August 24th, 2010 and filed under Game News.Aion’s next expansion, Assault on Balaurea, comes out September 7th. It is a free expansion, but NCsoft is also releasing SKU combing the expansion with the main game, and inside each copy will be a retailer-exclusive pet, along with a speckled Ailu (Panda), a premium Pack pet which increases a player’s warehouse by 12 slots. 1
In Aion the pets that may seem cosmetic in many other popular games have abilities that can help your character.
Pets in Aion are split up into five groups initially. Companions adventure alongside their owners. Signal pets alert their owners to nearby enemies. Pack pets add inventory slots. Fortune pets give their owners presents after being well-fed. And Purebred pets combine multiple functions into one pet. That’s important, for while characters will have 100 pet slots, only one can be active at a time.
So grab a new Aion pet with your expansion Sept 7th! They look pretty adorable.
Jon@MOGS
- source: Kotaku.com ↩
Aion 2.0: Assault on Balaura Release Announced
Posted on Sunday, July 18th, 2010 and filed under Game News.
Aion’s first expansion, Assault on Balaura was first hinted at back in May and fans of the game have been digging through the patch notes 1 ever since, but one big question has remained unanswered until now: When?
Well, my feather-winged friends, it looks like the drop date for North American and European players will be released both digitally and boxed on September 7th, 2010. European players will see their full game boxed copies (along with the exclusive in-game pet found in the North American release) hitting store shelves on September 10th. The in-game pet found in the boxed retail version of the game will be something of a newer variety than we have seen with pet’s in the past, considering now there are “functional characteristics” added into the game, although it’s still unannounced what the exclusive pet’s functionality will actually be at this time. However, all pets will now have a unique function added, and more new pets are being added into the game.
- Decorative: Unique appearance, no game play value. Standard non-combat pets for looks (ala Warcraft)
- Alertive: Warns its master when an opposing race character approaches within a certain range.
- Productive: When you feed it, you may receive an enchantment stone, manastone, Aether, Balaur materal, ore, jewel, dye or hairpin.
- Warehouse: Owners can use a warehouse-type storage space while it is the active pet (6 slot/12 slot/18 slot/25 slot)
- Multi-type: A pet with more function.
In Aion: Assault on Balaurea, the exciting new chapter of Aion, characters have the ability to align together to launch massive counter assaults against the invading Balaur on their homeland while experiencing new and updated instances and zones, an increased level cap, new weapons and items, new skills and added flight mechanics. Characters will not be alone as they explore the new areas, as Aion introduces functional pets equipped with in-game benefits.
Unlike any MMO before it, Aion is a uniquely crafted online gaming experience where flight offers much more than just a way to gracefully explore the landscape – it is a strategic and integral part of combat, quests, and exploration. Players will use flight to dive into battle and plunge through thousands of unique, story-driven quests, all while trying to save and control a world literally shattered in half from centuries of brutal conflict. 2 For more information about Aion and Aion: Assault on Balaurea go to http://www.aiononline.com.
Jason@MOGS
- Korean PTS Initial 2.0 Patch Notes: http://powerwiki.na.aiononline.com/ ↩
- source: http://na.aiononline.com/board/notices/view?articleID=330 ↩
NCsoft, RMT, Gold Spamming.
Posted on Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 and filed under RMT News.NCsoft, the makers of Aion have recently released a statement concerning advertising that makes use of a black hat tactic known as “gold spamming”. Gold spamming is a practice that most any player of any game can instantly recognize and absolutely can’t stand. The repetitive spam messages boasting incredible prices and claims such as, “instant delivery!”, “we’re so fast it’s probably already in your mail!” and “Buy 1000 gold and get 10% free plus a trip to Hawaii!” we’ve all seen it and most people are sick of it.
Real Money Trade (RMT) is a business based on providing services centered on virtual products such as, currency and items. There are many businesses involved in RMT and the industry as a whole has a bad name. Part of that bad name comes from the endless in game spamming that is used as a pathetic attempt to gain customers. The truly sad part is that for as many people as it annoys there must be a lot of people trying services that stoop to this level of advertising, seems more and more companies are turning to this method, but so far the vast majority of the companies that use gold spamming seem to come and go like a bad taco.
Mogs.com supports Real Money Trade; we are all for providing a service that is extremely helpful for a lot of gamers out there. However, we deplore the actions of these 2nd rate hack shops spamming everyone in game non-stop. It’s annoying, it feels desperate, and it just makes everyone in RMT look bad. We support NCsoft’s tough stance on gold spamming. NCsoft further recommends that if you are experiencing issues with chat spam you can simply right click the user’s name and choose to block the character. This of course won’t kill all of the spam, but a little bit at a time will help. NCsoft promises new tools that will also help rid Aion of these pesky spammers. Mogs.com thinks this is a great idea, take it a step further and beyond RMT’s normal controversy and simply don’t buy from companies that are inundating you with spam. Half of them want to rip you off and key log your account. We suggest taking your time and researching RMT companies, and always simply keep mogs.com in mind, we are a small Cleveland, Ohio based company that’s been working in the industry since the late 1990’s and as MOGS since 2004. We do our best to battle spam and keep it out of the game. We are gamers and we built this company with gamers in mind. Please read NCsoft’s statement here: http://uk.aiononline.com/board/notices/view?articleID=169&page=
In order to help soothe your spam frustrations, we have scoured the internet for weeks to find you the PERFECT game to ease your spam concerns. Monty Pythons: Spamalot
Aion VS Spam
Posted on Friday, October 2nd, 2009 and filed under Game News.
Aion released a patch silently this morning thats targeting a few minor bugs currently existing in the game. One of the biggest problems that can be seen in the game currently is the massive amount of in-game spam that is prevalent from the moment you create your character until you sign out.
The new patch will limit any character under level five from sending whispers, similar to general chat which also maintains this restriction.
While this is a step in the right direction, I have to say I’m not super impressed with this solution and am surprised that this kind of problem wasn’t anticipated pre-launch. That might be confusing for some of you, considering I am a “gold seller”, but truth be told that’s just not how we roll around here. We are all gamers, we play the same games you guys do and have to deal with many of the same in-game issues that you do (except for currency, haha!).
So far, as far as I can tell, this has had very little to zero effect. I still find myself getting whispers 2-3 times per minute and even if you use /anon you will still see tons of spam on the LFG and other channels.
Considering it takes about 30 minutes to reach level 5 this really won’t be very much of a limitation. A majority of spamming is done through Trial Accounts, which then raises the question, why not implement a system where Trial accounts can’t whisper anyone they aren’t befriended with? Or a privacy setting in the users account page that enables similar functionality on an opt-in basis.
While it is nice that they are actually recognizing there is a problem with spam in game, I just don’t think they have made a big enough leap yet on really curbing this practice.
