As you can probably tell, I have for the most part moved on to different things.  Currently, I’m not actively playing any games provided by Nexon America; The only game that really has my interested piqued at the moment would be KartRider and it seems that there’s no rush to them to get it out. (Since it’s been a year since the end of open beta) I do occasionally update with little tidbits of information as I hear about them if I feel they’re big enough, but since I don’t actively play anything under their control at the moment, I haven’t had much to talk about that’s Nexon outside of Sleepywood.net.

Not having anything to write about, I’ve decided to write about whatever comes to my mind about video games in general on my self-hosted blog, A Gamer’s Mind.  At the moment I’m not doing much as I have prior commitments in life and am going through a rough patch, but I’m hoping that once I get going that I will be updating it on a more regular basis. (I’d like to be updating it once every couple of days eventually)

Most of the stuff I write about is things that I see from my point of view, mainly pertaining to my interests as a gamer and about some of the games that I’m playing.  That being said, I can’t guarantee that it would be a blog that everyone here likes as everyone’s opinions are different and I’m bound to contrast a good amount of people.  However, feel free to check it out.

If I find some big info about anything Nexon I will of course be posting it here.  Until then, though, I’ll be writing over there.

It’s a sad day for Auditioners in North America. On February 24th, Nexon America announced that the US version of T3 Entertainment’s dancing game will be shutting down shortly after March 10th. As part of the closing transition, certain licensed songs and all cash shop items will be removed from the game on that day.

Nexon is offering some generous compensation for anyone who has played the game in the past year, in the form of closed beta access for their next offered game and a MapleStory beginners package. (Although I’m sure a lot of Auditioners out there are already Maplers.)

Fortunately, this doesn’t seem to be the absolute end to the US version of the game, as Nexon has also hinted at it being picked up by another publisher.  Any details as to whom and when have not been announced yet.  Speculation is also around as to what Nexon has in store for this game that’s going to replace it… or maybe KartRider, which hasn’t seen the light of day in North America since Open Beta’s end nearly a year ago, might finally come into play here?

Audition isn’t the only game that is closing down this month.  Earlier in February, OGPlanet announced that they will be closing their arcade golf-style game, Albatross 18, on March 8th.  Shortly after, the US division of Ntreev Soft (the original developer) announced that they were going to start hosting it shortly after it closes on OGP under its original name, PangYa.

In a rare update for a blog that I never really have any news for now, but while skimming Sleepywood’s posts I found something that might be devastating to the future development of Sugar Rush.

It’s not new news to say that the world economy is in a recession.  Up here in Canada that recession hasn’t hit too badly (having a prime minister that’s an economist helps) but that unfortunately doesn’t save Sugar Rush’s developers: Humanature studios.  Two days ago, Kotaku reported that the Vancouver-based studio that works for Nexon is shutting down, and that they have already laid off 90 of their employees.

We’ve just gotten off the phone with the helpful, friendly receptionist at the Vancouver Nexon America development studio, who informed us that all of the approximately 90 employees at the location were let go this morning, and that the studio was now closed. One of our tipsters indicates that the news came by way of a studio-wide meeting this morning, which was expected to result in only half of the workforce being let go.

-Mike Fahey, Kotaku

This is bad news for those that were looking forward to Sugar Rush, and so far no comment has been made as to whether or not development will continue.  However, if you’re worried about Nexon’s other games, don’t be. Since all of Nexon America’s games are managed from LA, none of their games currently in service are affected, and the same probably goes for KartRider. (which has been out for nearly a year following the end of open beta)

This is also bad for the portion of the gaming industry operating out of Vancouver as well. Humanature is the second casualty of the gaming industry based out of downtown Vancouver alone, after rumors starting going aflutter about EA Black Box possibly shutting down as well.

I can just see the “welcome to last week” comments now.

I admit, when I first saw Pirates in kMS, I thought it would take years for it to reach gMS. I was wrong.

Someone at the Nexon Forum posted an image of the back of the October edition of GamePro showing an ad for playing as a pirate in the “latest expansion” of MapleStory.

Current speculation is that Pirates would be coming in November, so along with the subtle hints Nexon’s been leaving with its pirate speak, I think pirates by the end of the year will be a safe bet to say.

Now… as far as I go… I remember saying to myself that Pirates would be an interesting time to come back.  Will I hold up to that?  Who knows?

UPDATE: In-game, a world mourns.

This is an odd post, and it’s definitely not like me to be posting something personal on a gaming blog, and it really pains me to write about this at the moment.

Tonight, I learned that one fairly close friend of mine from my MapleStory days, Israel Troy Ruyle a.k.a. “turkishmonky” of Bera, died late last week (Aug. 28) at the age of 18.

I do not know the cause or the events leading up to it, but for a death at so young I can only think about what happened, and I don’t want to come to that assumption.  At this point I’ve decided that I am not asking for details.  However, already on the heels of the deaths of two of my relatives (a step-great grandfather and a step-grandmother) I am finding that this is fairly devastating.

What had made his friendship unique to me in a MapleStory standpoint is that, for a hardened and strict legit player, he was one of the only a small number of ex-hacker friends that I had. (Though I had at least two others before him.)  What makes this the hardest for me, is that for all the time we shared together and when our personalities clashed, I feel horrible that I was never made up for this.

My heartfelt sypmathies go out to the Ruyle family, and all of Isreal’s in-game friends, though mainly that is for two people, both of Bera; Staci a.k.a. Staci8o8/stacix3, and Desiree a.k.a. “Dezalicious” (or whatever character she uses now) who is not just a very close friend of mine, but was quite possibly even closer of a friend to him.  I’m just sitting here and looking at her AIM away and it breaks my heart to see this happen. This shouldn’t happen. It does, but it shouldn’t.

Peace be with you, Izzy.

For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ, who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:1-4 NIV)

Even in my indefinite hiatus from the game I had to seize the moment.

First of all, let me say that Nexon’s mass ban record had never been perfect; It has been far from perfect.  Nothing can be less farther from the truth than today.

This goes back to the days back in early 2007. Joe W. had made himself known in the general community as the head of the customer service department, hackers were rampant, Maplenoobs was a roaring success, and every server check and patch contained lots and lots of bans.  Every week, they would take a look at logs of possible hacking attempts, figure out which ones were positive and add them to a list that would be processed during the next SC to ban those accounts for 30 days and also take them off the rankings forever.  Many SC nights were spent to ensure that characters were still on the ranking following the SC. (Being a part of Maplenoobs meant that I was constantly searching for hackers, meaning I had to be very careful to make sure I was quick to get in, report, grab a screenshot, and leave so that I wasn’t mistakenly caught.)

However, it was not a perfect system.  False positives were found on occasion, and every once in a while you’d hear a story about how someone was wrongfully banned. (Although we’ve had threads like this made on Sleepywood, which unfortunately for them Joe stepped in and proved them wrong with video proof, which would summarily make them the laughing stock of the whole forum and eventually permabanned for being a hacker and a complete idiot.  You can still find these videos on his YouTube channel.)

Fast forward to September 2nd, 2008.

At around 4:00 PM, Nexon started handing out temporary bans between 3 and 30 days long to over 1200 people who were suspected of exploiting the Bigfoot glitch. (As I haven’t played the game in months, I don’t know what the exact glitch is.)  However, they might not have been as accurate as they thought.  Suddenly, topics at the Nexon Forums, Sleepywood, and MapleTowers were made by people that were banned, yet they never even touched Bigfoot.

Now, with some of the supposed “false” hacking log bans I could understand.  Maybe out of those that killed Bigfoot a bunch of times since its insertion in the last patch, but how can accounts where no characters fought Bigfoot at all be included with this?

I guess some mysteries were left unsolved.

(As a side note: The bans that were handed out for this purpose were filed under the “misconduct” reason, meaning that a permanent ranking ban will likely not happen for these accounts.  However they will no longer be able to change names or worlds.)

Well, I’ve been out of the Nexon loop for quite a while.  Right now I’m not playing anything under Nexon America’s reach, and unless KartRider or Sugar Rush come out soon it probably will be a while, unless I have the urge to play Mabinogi or even MapleStory again, before I play under their service again.  Thus, I’ve had nothing to really blog about as of recent and am thinking, “What else can I do?”

Right now my webspace is looking quite barren.  I thought I might put it to good use with another concept that will hopefully get my brain churning again.  At the moment I’m thinking of just creating a blog that I can fill with some of my general gaming thoughts every now and then; Not really anything big and such but it will at least keep me busy as I’ve been bored to death for the last month or so.

Obviously enough it won’t be on this blog; (I don’t want to start filling general thoughts on this Nexon-based one) As I said I will most likely host it myself as I have loads of space and bandwidth on one of my domains.  If/when it does created I will be posting about it here.

The testers have been chosen and Sugar Rush is all ready to go for 2:00 PDT (or is it 3:00? A bit of confusion between the notice and the news item) tomorrow.  If you applied, then login to the Sugar Rush Website and check to see if you were accepted or not. (I got accepted for once. OMG MIRACLE)

For those that didn’t get in, you probably won’t miss much, as this is the first time this game is being tested, ever, in a public environment. (Previous games up to this point were already out in other areas of the world, but Sugar Rush is going out to the public for the first time)  Those that did get accepted are most likely in for a buggy experience.

Testing times are going to be a big short, though the best chance to test the game for those that got in will be on the weekend.  The final testing period will end at 3:00 PM PDT on Wednesday, June 25th.  By then, I will most likely be giving my first impressions, so watch this space.

Also, for those that were part of Combat Arms’ closed beta and participated in the survey, winners have been posted for those getting 25k NX cards and $25 amazon.com gift cards, so make sure to check the CA website to find out if you’ve won.

And finally, MapleStory Patch 0.56 will be happening very shortly, which will implement Ariant, skill macros, a legal window mode, party search, and guild alliances.  (All of this coming from gMS Tespia.)  At first I thought it would be enough to bring me back to MS, but I’ve decided to stay that.

As if Nexon wasn’t getting enough new games out already, only not too long after Mabinogi’s official release and Combat Arms’ closed beta. (Which is probably also adding fuel to the fire of a bunch of already furious KartRider players.)

The situation, is a bit different this time.  This is the first game offered by Nexon that has been developed on this side of the Pacific. (Out of all the games Nexon America offers so far, all have been by Korean developers; Wizet for MapleStory, T3 for Audition, Nexon Korea for KartRider, DOOBIC studios for Combat Arms, and devCAT for Mabinogi.)  Nexon American’s next game, Sugar Rush, has been designed by their development team up here in Vancouver and this will be the first time the world has ever seen this game.

A big test for Nexon will come with this year’s release of its first game aimed at the North American market, “Sugar Rush,” in which players brawl with each other as they try to gobble up virtual coins. The game is being made by a team of Nexon workers in Vancouver, Canada, including Steve Rechtschaffner, a former competitive freestyle skier who helped to create EA’s popular SSX skiing game during a 12-year career at the games publisher.

-Nick Wingfield, Wall Street Journal (Source)

I also don’t know about you guys, but my thoughts about this game just by reading that are kind of summed up in five words: “Super Smash Bros. Coin Battle.”  Then again, I guess we won’t know until we see it, right?

That being said, closed beta applications are currently being taken on the not-so-secret-now Sugar Rush Teaser Site.  Login to your Nexon account and you’ll see the “Apply for Beta” button.  I myself have applied but am not expecting anything because, quite frankly, Nexon doesn’t choose me for jack.  (Oh well, depending on how Sugar Rush plays I guess I can get my fix by playing a few coin brawls in SSBB.)  Because this is an initial release, though, I would be expecting the initial beta to be very private and very buggy, so I wouldn’t expect a “backdoor” way to get into this beta as was the case with Mabinogi.  Beta signups will be closing fairly fast, and will be chosen this coming Wednesday or Thursday; I can’t remember exactly what date.

Also, system requirements are also a concern for me; I know I’ve said it with KartRider, and with Mabinogi, and with Combat Arms and every time my computer has held up to it, but this time with it being a brand new game, whether my computer can run it is really a toss-up this time.  I guess the only way to know is to try it when I get the chance.

Also, another interesting tidbit by Nick Wingfield from that same article:

Rechtschaffner, now chief creative officer at Nexon Publishing of North America, predicts more and more consumer dollars will shift toward free online games and away from traditional games costing $60 each. “I think we’re going to become television to their film,” he says. “There will always be room for big blockbusters, but there will be less and less of them. I think we’ll reach a much, much broader audience.”

-Nick Wingfield, Wall Street Journal

In that case, let’s hope net neutrality holds up for this sort of gaming enterprise can succeed in the future.

Although it got off to a rocky start, (server issues were preventing games from being played at all)  Combat Arms’ closed beta is underway now.  As it has been said before, this testing period will last until next Friday at 2:00 PM PDT and you must have gotten a beta key from Fileplanet to access the game.

After looking through a few things, I eventually decided to get myself all set up and give it a try.  At first I was worried about video requirements and such, but my computer has been taking it quite well.

Combat Arms is the mix of a couple of different games; It has a bit of Soldier Front, (in terms of RPG elements) a bit of Counter-Strike, (in terms of team-based play and the “search and destroy” mode, which plays just like a de_ map) and a bit of Unreal Tournament (in terms of having awards like “double kill” etc…) all into one game, but how does it play?

Personally, I think it’s been executed very well, especially when compared to its older FPS/RPG counterpart, ijji’s Soldier Front.  New weapons and armor are bought using in-game currency that is awarded at the end of every game.  Guns can also be modded with things like supressors and scopes to try to get an edge in combat. (Although, I think it’s funny to see a scope on top of a colt.)  The only catch here is that everything you buy, like in Kartrider, is only temporary, obviously using this as a hook to get you to play more.  (Although you do have a default set of weapons that will never expire.)  You also gain experience as you continue to play, although I’m not sure that it does anything more than upgrade your rank at the moment.

Currently there are only two play modes: Team Deathmatch (which is pretty self-explanatory) and Search and Destroy. (which as I mentioned is pretty much the same thing as a DE map in CS.)  Whether or not there will be any other modes in the future is currently unknown.  Out of these there are only about four maps available, which is about as much as I would expect for a closed beta.

The gameplay in general is fairly good.  The default control scheme follows the popular WASD configuration, and is configurable to whatever you want it to be.  For myself, it was a bit difficult of points due to a tad bit of FPS lag but everything stayed smooth for the most part.  (For some reason, whenever I try to change to one of the preset graphic settings it resets itself back to “high.”  You can customise that, though.)  All in all I was enjoying the experience, although in general I suck at the FPS genre.

Combat Arms features a Messenger (it could be “Nexon Plug”, which is the name of the messenger that was built into KartRider and functions as a messenger across their games over in Korea IIRC) and a clan system, but neither has been made available for the closed beta.  (I would assume that clans will most likely come around in OB or official.)  Another interesting option that I noticed is the ability to turn the badword filter on and off, although this hasn’t been enabled either.

All in all, Combat Arms was a fairly good experience; Probably not the best but definitely better than other FPS games of this type.  If you’re not a part of the CB I would definitely recommend at least giving this game a bit of a test spin.  It won’t be the next Counter-Strike or Call of Duty, but it’s a good go.