It’s not often you hear of Shadowbane since the acquisition by Ubisoft, but their latest Dev article makes an unheard of announcement for the MMO market.

The complete reset of all characters and server data, bringing the entire game to a blank slate with everyone starting over again.

The Shadowbane Team decided that it would be best for the longevity of the game to reset all server and character data and start from scratch. By doing so, the game benefits in a variety of ways. First, we feel the community will be better served by being more consolidated and less fragmented. Second, resetting the game removes items that have accumulated over the years that have caused imbalances to the game. In addition, numerous updates and enhancements have been made to the Shadowbane service to improve the performance. Some of the changes were not as effective due to preexisting data and resetting the service will allow the servers to work under optimal conditions. Finally, this update also gives us a chance to address certain game issues.

Their reasoning does sound pretty solid, and with the game having gone free it’s not like they’re beholden to those players still in the game.

Whether those players come out with the pitchforks against the Dev’s is anybody’s call, the game being so long in the tooth and wipe could actually be a good thing for many players.

As an aside if anyone is in the middle of a MMO gaming slump looking for a new game, Shadowbane is completely FREE with no strings attached. Shadowbane has always had a dated look, clunky controls, but also offered some of the most unique and unprecedented PvP and Guild vs. Guild features of any game to date.

Another day in MMO game industry, means another delay for one of the more anticipated PvP oriented MMO’s of the year. Funcom and the AoC Developers are taking a pretty serious hit here to do what’s needed in order to deliver a polished product to the market.

Considering the ill-fated early release of Anarchy Online and the damage that did to their initial subscription numbers, this is a pretty good indicater they’ve leaned from past mistakes including those of other game development companies.

While we can applaud this decision, it also puts the AoC release squarely within that of the Warhammer Online release building up for an epic fight between the two competing MMO’s.

Gaute, the Community Manager for Funcom and AoC had the following to say on this last delay,

“Launching in March was our clear goal, even up to last week. As a listed company we are forced to deal with release dates in a different manner, especially since a lot of our value is based on Age of Conan. And whenever something changes, we need to inform the market first. Most of our people only found out this morning due to legal requirements. The final decision was something I and some of our key management people made over the weekend. The premise was simple. As we now moved into the home stretch, we took that last, long look at the state of the game. How would it be come March? Would it become like we intended it to be if we launched in March? The final word from our CEO came on Saturday evening, after we discussed this through the day. And here we are.

Let me be very clear about this; as opposed to our last pushback in August we are not about redesigning parts of the game this time around. Now we are on the final stretch, with the goal plain in sight. I have assured you before, but we are neither the first nor the last gaming company to add more development time to our game in the last stretch. That is not an excuse though, but ultimately it’s the quality which matters. That is the only yardstick which truly matters. This additional time is about hope. In only four more months you will know if we made the right move. I feel confident we have!”

Whether an additional 8 weeks is enough will remain to be seen, given how mature the massively multiplayer market has become since World of Warcraft’s unprecedented arrival on the scene. Subscribers are becoming more demanding and fickle by the day - there’s no room or tolerance for poorly executed MMO’s. -DR

Funcom announces a new release date for Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures.

The highly anticipated MMO receives 8 more weeks of development, allowing Funcom to deliver a more polished MMO experience when the game launches on the 20th of May 2008. Despite great feedback on vital aspects like immersion, fun factor and the exciting combat system, the management of Funcom has decided to polish the game even more. Eight weeks of development work is therefore added to stress game systems and polish the game further leading up to launch.

Funcom is fully committed to its communities and the quality-level they demand and deserve, and has previously postponed the Age of Conan launch. The changes implemented as the game was moved to a 2008 release have proven to greatly improve the experience for newcomers, while introducing a more involving and accessible character progression throughout the game. Press and beta feedback in the aftermath of these changes has been very positive. As a result, the ongoing presentations of the game have continued to increase the anticipation for Age of Conan. To date, Age of Conan has received more than 20 magazine covers and 15 industry awards, and is widely considered to be one of the most anticipated MMOs in development.

Funcom has great faith in the Age of Conan game, and feels certain that further polish is in the best interest of the hundreds of thousands of gamers who follow the game. “The companies standing apart in the gaming market today are those with a relentless drive to achieve quality. Even though we regret delaying the launch, I am certain we made the right choice. I hope that our followers and fans will support our decision, and respect our commitment to quality,” said Gaute Godager, Producer and Game Director of Age of Conan.

Funcom will also continue the beta efforts for the title with continued testing on its large server parks in North America and Europe. Players can already sign up at pre-order programs in several countries and enjoy the recently released website at www.ageofconan.com, displaying part of the wealth of marketing and game material already prepared for the game. A special Collectors Edition of the retail box is available for pre-order at select retailers. Thousands of players have been invited to the beta of the game, and the number will continue to go up as Age of Conan moves towards launch. If you too want to join the Beta of Age of Conan you may sign up for the Beta on www.ageofconan.com

Amid the SEC report, the staff leaks of their design discussions, and rumors of an unknown media company aquiring the company, Perpetual has been calling in damage control with their Devs playing down the move to a “casual” game and the micro-transaction payment scheme as no more than ongoing discussions by the team.

Panicked fans were soothed on the Startrek-Online.net forums by STO Executive Producer Dan Stinnet with the following post:

Hi Everyone,

I just wanted to step in and give everyone a quick update given all the rumors circulating. We are now in the process of finding a formal publisher for STO, which involves conversations with a variety of parties. We have been working on our business model for some time and once we establish a publisher, we will work with our new partner to communicate exactly what we are building - something I know all of you have been waiting a long time for.

There was also a report about PE liquidating our assets. That report relates to a transaction that took place a while back. And while I can’t go into details right now, I want to assure the community that the entire Star Trek team is still here working hard and eagerly anticipating our chance to finally share our big plans.

Thanks, and hang-tight.

- Daron

Regarding the rumored plans of a micro-transaction system:

You guys are very charitable - thanks for the support. And I mean that. There are some really nasty and incorrect rumors circulating right now and while the support is obviously not unanimous, I was expecting much more piling-on in this thread than is the case.

I personally think that MMOs need to be a better deal. Paying $200/year is a good deal for some but I don’t think that is sustainable for the category and certainly rules out a lot of people who don’t have the time to get enough value out of that expense. So we are discussing this issue internally. Unfortunately that discussion leaked and the characterization is incorrect. It’s also unfortunate that we have not yet come to conclusion internally so it is hard to present the real story since we are in the process of figuring it out.

But I do want to reassure everyone that STO is still going, it is still a triple-A game, and we are thinking hard about how to make our efforts even more appealing with a lower barrier to entry than is the norm.
__________________
Daron Stinnett
Executive Producer || Star Trek Online

We all know that $15 subscription aren’t an ideal value for all players. Given alternatives, especially with past experience playing the old pay-by-the-hour games of Compuserve and GEnie showed you could make hundreds of dollars, if not thousands by just exploiting a small percentage of your userbase with the proper monetization. Besides, what corporate Ferengi would ever limit their business to a flat fee all you can eat approach?

As for calling the yet to be released title a “triple-A game” Daron, we think that’s best left to the players to judge, unlike the tragedy of a MMO we dare not name. The IP you licensed is Triple-A, whether it’ll avoid the Star Trek curse and make it as a Triple-A game? We’ll see.. forgive us as sci-fi fans and MMO gamers if we take seeing such an important IP flushed down the drain again so seriously… There are no second chances for this property, and everything is riding on Perpetual to do it right.

Elsewhere, possibly spurred on by the rumors to show something other than artist renderings, the latest STO Dev Blog has released the first ever screenshot of their MMO’s interface as seen from the 3rd person spaceship mode.

The standard MMO interface bar and chat dialog system in STO will be the common element for ease of use across the entirety of the game for all ground based and space based interactions. As far as the old LCARS interface goes, you’d barely notice it was in the game at this point beyond a few small touches here and there.

With a cartoony screenshot in-hand of the stylized STO interface it does re-inforce the rumors of a casual World of Warcraft playstyle seriously puting into question any possibility of a rich and deep Star Trek MMORPG.

It’s official! The Pirates of the Burning Sea NDA has been dropped as of 12/3/07 by Flagship Studios for their upcoming MMO. Stay tuned as we’ll be giving our own jaded gamer perspective on this unique Pirate MMO.

In the meantime several avid bloggers have already broke the news with Tobold’s highly detailed review of the games systems, and Potshot’s initial impressions. Keen of Keen & Graev’s Gaming Blog has also posted his impression of the game.

All in all we’re finding many of our fellow bloggers experience to mirror that of the DR staff experience after beta testing PotBS over the last several months.