Welcome to the first edition of our weekly news musings and reflections, where we take a look back at some of our biggest news stories of the week. This week in the news two games died, one was born, a new virus emerged, SOE made some new account changes, and RuneScape turns 13. Try saying that five times really fast and let's get started.
New Births
Ok, maybe not so much new birth as an MMORPG fetus. Brad McQuaid, one of the key figures behind the original EverQuest, has returned once again to tease some new artwork and reveal the name of his latest project, Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen. The project is expected to head to Kickstarter later this month, but we are a minimum of three years from release according to a recent McQuaid Tweet.
McQuaid is both known by fame and infamy in the industry with his early work on EverQuest being the fame, and that unfortunate incident with Sigil and Vanguard being the infamy. Still, McQuaid is a capable developer. So with any luck, this new project will see him return to form.
Birthdays
RuneScape turns 13 on January 4th and the devs are celebrating by expanding player influence on design. Its like a democratic process for game design. What could go wrong with that?
You can drop by the RuneScape forums and wish them a happy 13th birthday or add your own opinion to the upcoming content polls.
Obituaries
From the dead and buried section, 2014 has already laid claim to two more titles this week with Lunia shuttering its services on January 1st and Nexon halting development of Mabinogi 2: Arena. While these two games are some of the first to go they are nowhere near the last. Magic: The Gathering Tactics is also scheduled for an early execution on March 28th, 2014.
Security Advisory
Blizzard is warning players about a new Trojan virus thats apparently being installed from a fake mockup of the Curse website by way of a bogus Curse Client. The Trojan reportedly lies dormant in your PC, nearly undetectable by conventional means and anti-viruses until you try to login to your account. At that time, it apparently activates and makes off with both your password and authenticator information at the time that you enter it, compromising even authenticator protected accounts.
Blizzard has posted a few suggestions on how to check for the virus, but for now, the best way that you can protect yourself is to make sure that you are really on the website that you mean to be on before you go a clicking on the download button.
border="1">
title=""> href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/229903"
title="">
Brainteaser of the Week
SOEs upcoming account changes for subscribers have left some players scratching their head. While it looks as though the changes will heavily benefit those with individual accounts, what the payoff may be for All Access accounts, aside from full sub access, is still unclear. The short version is that the 500 Station Cash stipend is going away, replaced with a once-a-month, no carry-over option to pick a 2,000 Station Cash or less item. This doesnt apply to DCUO, which is getting a new Loyalty Point system akin to its PlayStation counterpart and Vanguards subscription stays the same with the monthly 500 SC stipend. Well, unless you get All Access in which case it appears that you get nothing. Its best if you just read the full story as this is one of those topics that gets a bit muddled when condensing down.
SOE is still tweaking the final version, so you have time to voice your like or dislike of this new set of changes on the appropriate game forum.
And that wraps us up for this week folks. Have a safe weekend and please, for the love of all things holy (or unholy for you necros), check those URLs.
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Game Page.