LEAKED: EVE Online to Open 'Fresh Start' Server

Big news for the popular MMO EVE Online. After nearly twelve years, the game may be finally opening a new server. Below is a photo that has purportedly been leaked from CCP Games in Reykjavik.

Leaked photo from "Project Renaissance" meeting

Dubbed "The Renaissance Project," a newly leaked photo shows that in fact CCP will be opening a new server where all players will have to start from scratch. The photo, obtained by GCD News, shows what appears to be a slide from a meeting at CCP Games never meant for the public's eyes describing the new server initiative.

Reasons for the decision appear to benefit newer players of the game who feel burdened by the overwhelming skill point and ISK gap faced from EVE veterans. The good news from the leak is that all current subscribers will have access to this new server. It is speculated that players will be able to train skills on one character on both the Tranquility and Renaissance servers, allowing long time EVE players to try the Renaissance server as well.

Since there has yet to be any formal announcement, the new server mostly likely open no sooner than Q1 2016.

Wildstar Player Loves Paying for Sub with CREDD, Just Wishes He Had Time to Enjoy Rest of Game

It's around 7:30pm on a Wednesday and Marcus Stanton is settling into his old, worn in desk chair for a night of gaming. After entering his login credentials, his eyes move to his cellphone and his fingers quickly enter the six digit authentication a moment before the code expires. "God, I love it when I beat the timer like that. Tonight's going to be a good night on Nexus."

CREDD allows Wildstar players to pay for their
subscription using in-game currency

For Stanton, the end of the month, and more importantly the end of his Wildstar subscription, is looming. Since late May of last year, his gaming ritual has remained the same: log in, grind platinum. Following its launch, Wildstar players have been afforded the opportunity to forgo the $15 monthly subscription by purchasing CREDD tokens with in-game currency. "I am so appreciative the developers created a way for me to pay their game without having to fork over money each month," says Stanton. "I instantly fell in love with the gameplay and lore as I leveled, so I can't begin to tell you how awesome it is that I can enjoy myself and not worry about whether or not I am getting value for my sub."

After loading in, Marcus' engineer zips along the dirt roads of Thayd, stopping only to check his mail before hopping a shuttle to the Crimson Badlands. He expertly rips through robots, spiders, and rock giants in less than thirty minutes. Next up is the Northern Wastes which must have gotten its name from the brutal way Stanton laid waste to all in his path. He completes his dailies with the clinical efficiency of someone who has done it hundreds of times before. That's because he has...over two hundred times. As his night of gaming comes to a close, Stanton gives a fist pump as he checks the market and sees he has enough platinum to purchase this month's CREDD. It now seems that he may now have a few days to venture out and begin taking part in dungeons, adventures, or even some PvP.

"Once I buy this CREDD, it's time to start earning plat for next month. I am going away for a few days in April and the last thing I want is to get home from vacation and have to work...at earning platinum. My ultimate goal has always been to get a few months ahead so I can start enjoying everything Wildstar has to offer." Nearly a year has passed and Stanton is no closer to this goal since he was when he hit level 50 last June. "My ONLY gripe with this game is that I never have time to enjoy it. The cost of CREDD has risen steadily, so it's a grind to keep up."

Stanton's house in Wildstar sits just as did on launch day

"There is so much I am excited to explore once I have three or four CREDD in the bank. My guild keeps begging me to join their raid group, but with the cost of repairs there's no way I could keep playing for free. I hear it's really fun, though." Raiding is not the only part of Wildstar Marcus sees himself diving into if he ever can get ahead of the CREDD curve. "I have always loved sightseeing in MMOs," he explains, "I can't wait to level my main's explorer profession as I hear that's really fun, too. Oh, and housing, I've heard about players building some amazing creations. I hope to check it out at some point. From what I have seen in screenshots on Reddit, building your own house looks like tons of fun."

When asked why he chooses to spend all of his play time earning platinum instead of partaking in activities he enjoys, Marcus is quick to defend himself, "It's 2015, who charges a subscription anymore? I already bought the game, I am not going to keep forking over cash just to keep playing it." The only other option, Stanton says, is to stop playing Wildstar altogether. "I've thought about it a lot, actually. Why don't I just stop playing, stop grinding, and stop having to worry about a subscription? The answer is simple, after almost a year on Nexus, there is one thing I know for sure: this game has potential."

Game Studio Seeks First 'Kickhire'

With competition in the computer game market at an all time high, development studios are constantly searching for ways to set their product apart from the rest. In order to create a game that is unique and innovative, companies must have the right combination of developers, content creators, and artists. A team that has great chemistry and vision could mean the difference between adding or merging servers three months after launch. However, the chances of a smaller studio luring a big name developer away from a big name studio is nigh impossible.

For small computer game companies, sometimes a little out-of-the-box thinking is what's needed. Last week, newly founded Pander Studios launched their mandatory Kickstarter to fund their inaugural MMO due out in 2019. While most of the the reward tiers offer the usual beta access and in-game items, the largest backer tier proved to be the most unusual. Dubbed the "You're Hired Tier!", the company seeks to recruit up to five new game developers in the form of project backers.

In order to get hired by Pander Studios, a backer must pledge $50,000 to secure a spot on their payroll. There is no job experience or educational background required.

Studio founder Jason Albrecht described the motivation behind the move, "We really want to hire someone who is passionate about the game. If donating fifty grand to a game doesn't show passion, I don't know what does." When asked about the discrepancy in the amount pledged versus the amount paid for the job, Albrecht explained, "well, we still need your money to make the game, now don't we?"

Comments posted on the game's Kickstarter have been mixed. While most congratulate Pander Studios on giving everyday gamers the opportunity to fulfill the dream of creating computer games for a living, some followers of the game are outraged. User 733tNooblet seemed most distraught at the fact the "You're Hired Tier!" reward was not offered at a lower backer tier. "Even though the campaign just launched, this game is already p2win [pay to win]! I've been following this game since it was a GDD [game design document] in Google Drive. The devs should really be rewarding players who have been here since the beginning, not whoever can fork over the most cash."

Dismissing such comments as a very vocal minority, Albrect is confident that his company will eventually be able to attract talented developers to Pander Studios. "It's a win-win for Pander Studios. If we end up hiring someone who terrible at the job, then we just fire the backer after a month, take the money they contributed, and hire someone who doesn't suck."

Open Letter to the Devs: Gear Should Have Meaning

Dear Devs,

Let me get right to it. Many moons ago, when I began my foray into MMOs, it was the gear you wore that set you apart from everyone else. Gear meant something. It meant you better than other players and you had way more time than everyone else to show them how much better you were. When a server celebrity would stand in the middle of the capital city and show off that shiny new chestpiece looted off the most vicious of bosses in the most dangerous of dungeons, it was an event in itself. I remember being one of those onlookers inspecting the gear of our shard's top raiders, hoping that one day I would rise to such a level of prestige. But, I knew that if I wanted the best gear, I would have to put in the work...and by work I mean play the game at least forty hours a week. The amazing sense of accomplishment that came with a "server first" or slotting a legendary piece of gear in a game where I had sunk countless hours into made it all worth it.

Devs, I want this feeling back. It has been years since I have played a game where a player was rewarded for hard work and perseverance while at the same time taking into account playstyle. But let's get real here for a second. I am just going to assume that all MMO enthusiasts are exactly like me and have less and less time to dedicate to the hobby as they grow older. Please realize this is not my fault. I play as much my real life (read: wife) will allow me. But at my current rate of progression, it will be WEEKS until I, if at all, obtain the best gear your game has to offer. I love this game as much as the next player, but yet, I am punished because I can only manage two or three play sessions a week. It blows my mind that players who can raid or PvP for six hours a day, five days a week are the only ones who have access to BiS gear. It shouldn't have to be this way. As I stated earlier in the paragraph, 99% of your playerbase is exactly like me and changes should be made to accommodate this cold, hard fact. I guess what I am saying here is, I want gear to be special, but I don't want to have to play much to get it.

Don't tell me that group content has better rewards. Most of my friends have moved on from MMOs. Don't tell me to find a guild to join. I can't use voice comms for fear of waking the baby and my severe case of FOMO makes me super anxious when new guildies start using inside jokes that I don't get. I do not, I repeat, do NOT want to make this game pay to win, so whatever you do, do not implement microtransactions. Oh, and please don't get me started on the notion that player skill should be rewarded with elite items. This "skill" is merely gained by experience and I challenge any Dev to come up with one real world example of someone putting time into something and getting better at it.

In the end, all I want is to be able to own some gear that few (if any) other players on my server possess, and I want it to feel special because earning it is a true accomplishment. But also, I should not have to sink an unreasonable amount of hours into the game or have some pro level skill, either. Gear that is meaningful and exclusive, but accessible by players like me, yet a true indicator of how awesome I am at your game should be the end game of all MMOs.

Sincerely,
John Q. Gamer

Developer Admits Mistake in 'Dolphingate'

Controversy in the major MMO ArcheAge arose yesterday following the game's attempt to convince former players to log back in to its servers. For those of you not following the story, on March 18, all former ArcheAge players were sent an email as part of the game's "Win-Back" program to encourage players to return. To sweeten the pot, several in-game items were offered to those that did, including a rare aquatic dolphin mount. Originally, the only way to obtain this mount was through purchasing RnG boxes from the game's cash shop and crossing one's fingers until they would break. This caused quite the uproar among the game's playerbase as loyal subscribers who received nothing felt just a tiny bit slighted.

Cyafin the rare aquatic dolphin mount...
Does ArchAge have a non-aquatic
dolphin mount?

On the morning of March 20, GCD News' head "-gate" expert uncovered some startling news. An anonymous source within the game's studio has confirmed that an enormous mistake was made by sending former players in-game items. In fact, former players were never to be given in-game items at all. "The mix-up occurred in our outbox department, which is run by interns and handles all of our outgoing email, " explained the source. "Simply put, the wrong message was copied and pasted. The real target for those exclusive items were all of our Patron subscribers. We felt that rewarding their loyalty to our product was paramount."

So what was going to be used to lure former players back to ArcheAge? "Stock options," said our source. "We figured, what better way to get players to re-invest in our game than to actually invest them. Each returning player would have received 100 shares of our company, which would be valued in the thousands of dollars."

Whether or not the ArcheAge community will make it through this crisis remains to be seen. Regardless, players across all MMOs are canceling their subscriptions today, hoping to receive an email with free loot attached.

On Tour with a Pro Gamer

If you are anything like the writers here at GCD News, then you often wonder while watching ESL Starcraft 2 match replies on YouTube in bed eating Pringles what it's like to make a living playing video games. The Global Cooldown was lucky enough to follow one such pro (via instagram as our travel budget is $0) to give all of you noobs, peasants, and trolls at home a small glimpse into the glitz and glamour that is professional gaming. 

Disclaimer: The Global Cooldown is not responsible for any rash decisions made from viewing these photos, such as, but not limited to, quitting one's job and trying to make it as a professional gamer.

Repopulation Development Shifts Focus to Real Life Crafting

Earlier today, it was announced that Above and Beyond Technologies (ABT) will soon partially shift its focus away from the development of its upcoming MMO The Repopulation. Currently in its final alpha phase, the game had garnered an ever increasing amount of followers that hailed it as the spiritual successor to Star Wars Galaxies. The announcement came as a shock to the gaming community where the initial reviews of The Repopulation have been positive, specifically about the robust and complex crafting system implemented by ABT. As it turns out, it is the crafting system itself that is responsible for the change.

"When we first drew up how crafting was going to work, we wanted to make it feel realistic to the players by requiring not just materials, but thought and creativity as well," explained developer Joshua Halls. "After our initial testing, we soon realized its true potential."

Beginning in April, Above and Beyond Technologies will begin using The Repopulation's crafting system to create real world items. "Since we were designing how to make items in game, we thought 'why not make them in real life'? Turns out, there wasn't much of a difference. In fact, most items that can be made in-game are actually easier to create in real life," said Halls.

Crafting a single sword in the Repopulation requires over a dozen components.
To be fair, it is a future sword.

ABT hopes to release its first product, a personal vehicle called a 'hyper cycle', by November 2015. While it seems like a lofty goal to bring such a high tech machine from design to store in such a short time, Halls is confident in the proposed timeline. "We estimate it will take a player north of nine months to figure out how to craft a hyper cycle in-game, which means we should be able to create a real life prototype in about half that time."

Be on the lookout for all future ABT products available exclusively at RadioShack TBD.

HotS - Guide for Playing Murky for New Players

Since this week Murky will be featured in the free rotation, GCD News had our own resident Heroes of the Storm Expert put together a comprehensive guide on how to play the character.






1. While in the lobby, click "Change Hero" and select Murky

2. Be sure to check out all of Murky's skin and mount variations!

Grunty Murky

3. Click "Change Hero" and select any hero other than Murky

4. Choose your game mode and click ready

5. Enjoy a game of Heroes of the Storm



Thanks for reading! Be sure to check back here at The Global Cooldown for more Heroes of the Storm guides!

EVE Trader Earns Zero PLEX Through Buddy Program

Lars Reinhardt loves the internet spaceship game EVE Online. A capsuleer of New Eden since 2006, Reinhardt boasts that he has only missed logging in on nine separate occasions, "One wedding, three power outages, four funerals and one really, really bad case of the runs." In game, he is known as "ScroodMcFcuk", a well known magnate in the popular Jita solar system with just shy of a trillion imaginary currency known as ISK. Although he has seen great success and experienced innumerable hours of self-perceived fun, Reinhardt still has always felt something was missing.

"Friends. Friends would be great. Almost nine years in EVE and I have yet to join a player corporation. I have read far too many horror stories of scams, spies, and thievery. During my first few months playing, I lost nearly all of my ISK to some obvious criminal mastermind who I swear is now a member of Anonymous. Did you know that back then just because it says 'Caldari Navy Raven' in the trade window does NOT mean it's an actual Navy Raven? Yah, well, trust me, it doesn't."

ScroodeMcFcuk can't figure out why his friends
won't try EVE after sending them screenshots like this

The next few years were lonley for ScroodMcFcuk. He rarely left Jita 4-4, minimized local, and put all of his focus and attention into making as much ISK as he could. "It was a way I could PvP without directly interacting with other players. No way I was going to be scammed again." But after a while, even billions of ISK, ship spinning, or the ambient station noise was enough to keep him company. It was at his darkest point that CCP released their Buddy Program to encourage players to get their friends onto the EVE server.

"I immediately sent a mass email to all my friends with my buddy code. Almost all of them were instantly drawn to the aesthetically pleasing, single shard universe and started asking questions about the game, so I sent along some screenshots. I must have had over twenty friends of mine email over the course of three days. Oddly enough, I didn't earn a single PLEX for my efforts."

One of several spreadsheets created
by Reinhardt in order "win at EVE"

Reinhardt redoubled his efforts a few months later, this time accompanying his screenshots with an attached spreadsheet showing how much profit he was making manufacturing capital components on his alt. He even added a screenshot of his T2 blueprint hangar in hopes of demonstrating the depth of the game's crafting system.

 ScroodeMcFcuk's T2 blueprint
collection

"I received even less replies than the first time," Reinhardt recalls. "Not even a picture of the robust market interface seemed to work. Showing friends in person was no help either. I'd log in and run them through my daily routine of checking my buy and sell orders, and well, that's really all I get to show them as they typically walked away at that point. The ones that did stick it out were often confused or say they 'don't get how staring at graphs and numbers is fun.' I am at a loss really. Not sure how someone can't see the potential in EVE."

This is the view that Reinhardt
experiences 97% of the time while
playing EVE Online

It has been years since EVE's Buddy Program has been introduced, and yet the free PLEX it offers has eluded Lars Reinhardt. As he continues to haunt Jita 4-4 and inflating his wallet, the hope to convince a real life friend is still very much alive.

"I've offered friends hundreds of millions of ISK if they would just subscribe for a month and still nothing. Maybe I will send them some gameplay video of my new hisec mining alt and see if that changes their minds." 

Future MMO to Feature Nanotransactions

Following a leak of design documents from its yet-to-be-named MMO in development, Kappa Games & "Entertainment" released a statement to the gaming world in order to address several pre-early access screenshots that were revealed. Below are the most interesting snippets:

"...Most of the chatter we have read claims our game will heavily feature microtransacitons. This is 100% incorrect. There will be NO microtransactions in our game. What we will have are called nanotransactions..."

Pre-Early Access Screenshot

"...As most following the development of the game know, we have brought in a world-class economist to develop our pricing model. Although we have yet to name him, trust me when I tell you that he is legit... glasses, leather elbow patches on his sport coat, Norwegian, pretentious as all get out...the guy even smokes a pipe..."

"...It was after much analysis and deliberation that we decided that nanotransactions were the way to go. Financially speaking, charging a monthly subscription puts a cap on our per user income, microtransactions doesn't get the money coming in fast enough, and simply charging $60 for the game once is idiotic..."

"...In the end, we wanted to allow players the choice on how they wanted to play our game. Being burdened with a monthly sub only puts pressure on players to log in. Don't care what your character looks like? Then why pay for a character creation tool? Crafters can pay their $.03 crafting fee and completely ignore the $.01 mob attack fee..."

"...The numbers and prices seen in the screenshots are not final and are subject to testing and balancing. These are screenshots from our Pre-Early Access. Expect there to be many changes come Early Access and Pre-Alpha, followed by Alpha, which leads to Early Release, after which we will run our Open Beta. Please be aware that these prices will change over time, most likely in an upwards direction..."

Pre-Early Access Screenshot

Pre-Early Access Screenshot

Pre-Early Access Screenshot

For the Hoard! No Cure for Potion Non-Use

Anyone who has played an MMO knows the feeling. You are hours deep into your current play session, battling the second boss of a dungeon when things start to go awry. One by one, your party is annihilated and sent back to the spawn point. "Why didn't you pop your pot? We may have had enough DPS that time," your party leader asks over voice.

"I, uh, forgot," you reply.

You didn't forget. That health potion is sitting there on your hotbar ready to use at a moment's notice. You, my friend, are a potion hoarder.

Potion hoarding silently afflicts thousands of gamers across hundreds of servers across dozens of games. The main motivation for this condition is the fear of not having the potion for when it is really needed. The truth is, hoarders will never, ever consider the present as a time to really need a potion. They are constantly living with the fear of a future encounter against some yet unknown super boss or enemy player zerg.

The futile struggle to rid someone of this behavior lies in the eternal paradox of a potion hoarder's reasoning. If a hoarder lives through an encounter, then the non-use of potions is justified. If the encounter ends in death, the player then congratulates himself or herself on not "wasting a pot" and "saving that level 14 potion for a fight I'll really need it."

Treating potion hoarding is something MMO psychologists continue to wrestle with. "Denial is the biggest obstacle in attempting to get a player to comes to terms with it," writes Dr. Josiah Morgoone of 'MMO Psychology Yearly'. "All you will get from them is: 'I don't have a problem... and that's why I never need to use any of my pots.'"

Kickstarter Backer Pulls Pledge for Devs Not Fulfilling Vision

Over the last several years, the rise of crowdfunding has given gamers more of a voice in the development process. Games like Star Citizen, HEX, and Elite: Dangerous have all raised millions of dollars to bring them to market. While some will argue that backing a campaign shows faith of vision and concept, others feel it means far more than that. Meet Nick Kidwell of Providence, Rhode Island. Nick has been an avid gamer for as long as he can remember. He often regales the younger folk with tales of Vanilla WoW and "the time battleships were the largest ships in EVE."

Recently, Nick has fallen into a bit of a rut when it comes to MMOs and has been searching for the next game that will hold his attention. "Every game I pick up starts off so promising and it's easy to ignore its faults at first," said Kidwell. "But after a while, they do get to me and the time between logins becomes longer and longer. Ideally, I am looking for a polished game that combines all of the MMO mechanics I have grown to love over the years." Naturally, he turned to Kickstarter.

 In late February 2015, Artcraft launched a crowdfunding campaign for their work-in-progress Crowfall. In a matter of days, their funding goal was reached and has since broken the seven figure mark. "Within two hours of hearing about how popular this game was on Kickstarter, I was all-in with a pledge of $30," Kidwell recalls. "This project had momentum on its side, so I figured I would take advantage and start posting my ideas the forums." And post he did. Cries of hijacking the "suggestions" category on Crowfall's boards were rampant as Mr. Kidwell created no less than seventeen threads in a matter of days. With posts such as "My idea for a looting system", "Final Fantasy 2 style combat is a must!", and "Why in-game marriage should be added", Nick's excitement and anticipation grew considerably. That is, until Artcraft began publishing more and more information about Crowfall.

"I couldn't believe what I was reading. It's as if they didn't read a single one of my suggestions. As someone who was financially AND emotionally invested in this project, I felt swindled, hoodwinked, and all around bamboozled. How do they think this game will succeed if they don't listen to its backers?" said Kidwell, adding, "This is NOT the game I initially backed."

UPDATE: Nick Kidwell has officially pulled his pledge from the Crowfall Kickstarter. The Global Cooldown has since received Kidwell's official reason for cancellation as typed into the comment field: "If you can't promise the game your backer's want 17 days into your campaign, how are you supposed to deliver two years down the road?"