Yearly Archives: 2009

Myth War III: A New Combat-oriented MMO in Development

The Myth War series will eventually consist of three main games, each of them self-contained. People who have participated in the development of Myth War and Myth War II may already have a good insight into this brand new episode, Myth War III. If all goes well, we aim to release the new episode during Christmas 2009.

Continuing the themes of the previous Myth War episodes, Myth War III develops the storyline as players are forced to battle against powerful eternals. In this new episode, you will be led by the five soul stones to the Rarus Continent in 1900BC, a time of great turmoil where myths become reality. You will fight against Gods, evil Mages and corrupted Witches, all powered by a real time 3D graphics engine to generate amazing visual effects in the game.

In the new episode, you will be able to preview your characters before they are geared up or riding on pets, to help you choose more easily. The game features 3D lighting techniques where every object becomes more lifelike, even changing as the time passes from day to night. We are also excited to let players know about the new Homeland Construction and Collection and Production features, as well as newly developed dungeon areas.

Nostale: New Event

Uforia, Inc., a new online game publisher specializing in massively multiplayer online games, today announced that they will extend its firesale event on UFOs to celebrate the launch of its first MMORPG title, Nostale : Global through next Monday (11:59pm PST), January 26, 2009. The promotion provides gamers up to 50% off, using the game’s currency in Uforia’s Item Mall. Additionally, Uforia confirmed today that a second event featuring a scavenger hunt has just been added and will begin at 4 p.m. PST tomorrow, Tuesday, January 20.

“Due to the great response we have received on our launch, we have decided to extend the firesale event through this week to ensure our whole community gets a chance to take part, said Mike Min, Game Operations Producer of Nostale: Global. “And, as another thank you to our new community, we also thought it would be a great time to add a scavenger hunt for the chance to win prizes, have fun and explore the world of Nostale.”

Nostale: Global is a unique MMORPG with easy-to-access events which allow players to interact with other players in PvP and survival objectives. Gamers in North America can play Nostale: Global by going to Uforia’s website at nostale.uforia.com. While the game is free to play, the firesale event on UFOs offers players who want to purchase and maximize their character the opportunity to do so. For example, players who spend $9 will get $10 worth of UFOs at an 11% bonus from Uforia, while $25 will give players $30 worth of UFOs, and $50 will net gamers with $75 worth of UFOs at a 50% bonus!

Continuing to build upon a strong Nostale community, the second event for players is the scavenger hunt taking place tomorrow, Tuesday, January 20th at 4 p.m. (PST). Designed for Uforia users, the hunt will take place at Noscamp where the GM will meet up with players over at the Time Circle. There, the GM will provide players a clue regarding what he wants the players to go out and hunt for. The players who can figure out what the GM is asking for and can bring him five of those items before 10 minutes has passed will receive 10,000 UFOs!

Pirates Of The Carribean Online Review: Easy And Fun!

by Gabriele Giorgi
Ahoey, maties. Sharpen your cutlass and load your guns. Full sail! Approaching the corvette. Starboard cannons… aim… Fire! Get ready to plunder! Board that ship!!!
 
An ordinary day in a pirate’s life, especially in the Caribbean of Jack Sparrow and his friends. And with Pirates of the Caribbean Online you can be in the shoes of one of them. Yarrrrr!
Familiar faces
Your adventures as a pirate start… in jail. Fortunately, an old friend appears and rescue you, but he needs a favour in return: his name is Jack Sparrow and he wants you to help him with the Black Pearl. But first you’ll have to visit other people, like Will Turner, Elizabeth Swann, Tia Dalma and Captain Barbosa (with his faithful monkey).
If you’ve seen the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, you will be already familiar with them: you will have to refer to these characters during your voyages, to acquire tasks, get new weapons, and unlock other features.
And the music throughout the game will remind you of the movies as well.
Of course, your main goal will be to help Jack Sparrow restore his precious Black Pearl, but in order to do this you will have to improve your fighting and sailing skills… not to mention your gambling abilities.
Tools of the trade
Any pirate worthy of this name must know how to wield a cutlass and how to use a gun. As your notoriety grows (i.e. your level increases), you will unlock other weapons: voodoo doll, dagger, grenades and voodoo staff. Each of them has its own peculiar usage, and needs to be leveled separately, in order to unlock new skills and increase your health and mana as well. You only need to keep in mind two things: the gun cannot be used on humans (navy soldiers and the like) and the voodoo doll can also heal your allies.
But you will also have to demonstrate your capability as a sailor and a cannoneer. While one-to-one combat is quite easy, sea battles will be more difficult to master. When you are on your own, you will be in charge of the helm and you’ll have to steer your ship so that one of your sides faces the other vessel: then you can fire your cannons. And of course you need to avoid enemy fire as well. At first it will be a bit tricky, but once you’ve understood how it works you will be ready to take down tougher ships. You also have the option to embark on another vessel as a cannoneer: the captain will manoeuvre, and you will only need to worry about aiming and firing. Then, as soon as you land, the loot you plundered will be divided among the crew. Again, leveling sailing and cannoneering will unlock new skills, allowing you better manoeuvres and more powerful shots.
It’s important to notice that PotCO is free to play only up to a certain level, both for overall notoriety and weapon skills. In order to remove that cap, you have to subscribe. This will also unlock other two character slots, but, in fact, they are quite useless: since any character can do everything, you will want to focus on increasing the skills of your pirate rather than creating a new one.
 
The life of a pirate
While your main task is aiding Jack Sparrow with the Black Pearl, that does not mean you cannot do some plundering in the meanwhile. Also helping people might prove rewarding. There are plenty of quests to go by: you will always have something to do and you are not likely to wander around aimlessly.
A ray of light will guide you in your quests, shining on your next target or destination. While this certainly makes them easier, it must be noted that usually they will involve a lot of steps before granting you the long-awaited reward. Also you will have to go around a lot, both on the islands and in the Caribbean Seas.
In the islands there are "hazard zones" full of all kinds of monsters, and usually you will have to retrieve quest items from them. These maps are quite small, and they look too much alike: for example, you might notice that the cemetery of Tortuga strongly reminds the Governor’s Gardens in Port Royal.
In this dangerous zones you might find other fellows carrying out their tasks: you can help each other just hitting the same target, and the system will divide the reputation reward according to the damage dealt (also taking into account support, if one player heals another); but if you decide to team up, you will receive a reputation bonus for each kill… and the larger the group, the larger the bonus!
As usual, it’s better to arrange a crew if you want to fight bosses or capture flagships at sea.
Teaming up is even easier thanks to many pre-built dialogue options. Not only you will find standard sentences (in pirate slang, of course), but there will be also phrases directly linked to your journal, detailing what you are looking for to complete your current quests.
And if you want to indulge in PvP, you can do it in naval battles, siding with the French or the Spanish, or in fights against other pirates; the latter feature, though, does not seem to be very used by the community.
Trinkets and treasures
Since you talk and act like a pirate, you also want to look like a pirate. The graphics are very toon-like and will remind you the good ole Monkey Island. Even your character shape is deformed in some way: stocky, plump, lanky, tubby… But there are other things that make a pirate: clothing, hair, beard, pins, tattoos. Barbers, tailors, tattoo artists will be available in every island to provide you the most fashionable pieces of body art… and if you complete quests for them, you will receive some special reward that you cannot simply buy.
As a pirate, you will also want to amass treasure troves: there are different collections of jewels, trinkets and fun stuff you can obtain from mobs. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be an in-game reward for completing these collections, but since this is a MMO we may hope it will be added in the future.
Another loot you can drop from mobs are cards: they come in handy when you play Blackjack or Tortuga (!) Hold’em in taverns: swap one of those in your possession with one of your cards on the table… and hope they don’t catch you cheating!
 
Conclusions
Although it won’t be much of a challenge for seasoned MMOG players, PotCO is a good game for beginners: even if they might be quite long, quests are easy to carry out, and among the different weapons everybody will find one suited to their style. It’s also easy to make friends and venture and sail together. Additionally, poker and black-jack are nice mini-games to chill off from a day of plundering. Just try it out and see if you like it before subscribing.
 
Pros:
1. cooperation encouraged and rewarded
2. appearance of your pirate extremely customizable, even with jewellery and tattoos
3. pre-built dialogues that simplify chatting
 
Cons:
1. quite easy (not a challenge for experienced players)
2. no replayability
3. quest chains often too long

Muniz Online

Muniz Online has found a sweet spot between online games and communities: the game combines the best of these two worlds, to provide a rich multimedia experience to teens. The site is easily accessible, provides numerous forms of interaction and a real multimedia experience, delivers user-generated content and serves as a hub for social networking. The access to this virtual world is free and does not require any downloading.

Muniz Online is a free to play game for the 13 to 17 year old teens. The game is a MMO social hub with exciting features that include:

• Custom Avatars
• Pimp Out Your Pad
• Interactive Chat
• Mini-Games
• Social Networking
• Engaging Quests
• In-game Items

As players venture out on quests and chat with friends online they collect votes, the more votes they collect the closer they get to becoming The King of Muniz Online! Players can literally customize everything and express their own style portraying their ideal virtual self-representation. Beyond the social aspects of this game there are many fun mini-games that players can compete in. Muniz Online is a virtual world of entertainment and fun, so head on over and see if you have what it takes to Become the King of Muniz Online!

Anarchy Online Review: Customize Your Skills!

By: Vincent Haoson
 
Anarchy Online is a 3d sci-fi game from Funcom, the company which brought to the MMO industry Age of Conan: the Hyborian Adventures.
 
If you’re familiar to the sci-fi series Star Trek or with the Star War’s universe you’ve pegged the overall feel and look of Anarchy Online.  The game’s premise is that you are a newly arrived colonist of the planet Rubi-Ka. As a new colonist you are either given the choice of helping out with the taming on the land through various missions provided by the game’s NPCs or follow you own path.
 
In Anarchy Online you get to choose from four different races namely the Solitus, which are the basic all-around race, the Opifex, which is your fast and agile race, the nanomage which is your Anarchy Online version of the typical intelligence inclined race and lastly the Atrox race which is your typical brute/tanker type race.
 
The races are not gender locked except for the Atrox race. The three races have their female counterpart which makes the game more gender friendly.
 
With the seemingly limited and generic characteristics of the races in Anarchy Online, the game makes up with a ton of job class choices that you can choose. Anarchy Online has 14 default jobs available to choose from and each class has its own special skills.
 
You can either be a Metaphysicist, Adventurer, Engineer, Soldier, Keeper, Shade, Fixer, Agent, Trader, Doctor, Enforcer, Bureaucrat, Martial Artist or a Nanotechnician. All the jobs are available for any race except the Keeper and Shade wherein you need to be subscribed to the Shadowlands content.
 
The vast amount of choices that you have in Anarchy Online is one of the plus factors the game has. Unlike most MMOs in the market where you are only limited to one-digit choices of job classes the game allows you to choose 14. This not only gives you more freedom and breathing space for customizing your characters, this adds the fun factor and the game re-playability because you can toy and experiment the mixes of race and jobs.
Another big thing in Anarchy Online is that the stat and the skill allocation. Besides from the usual stats you can add your points to, you can also allocate to major skill categories which are namely, ability, melee, misc weapons, ranged, speed, trade and repair, nano and aiding, spying and lastly navigation.
Allocating in each category has its own ups and downs. Your character’s effectiveness is dependent on where you allocate your points to. It seems daunting for newbies but the game system has an explanation for each stat you can allocate to. Or you can go with the suggested point distribution that is pre-determined by the game system. 
 
The vast choices in allocating the stats in Anarchy Online will either make you stay or move on with another MMO. True, the vast choices you have gives you more customizing choices than most MMOs. It can be very tiring and irritating if you are more a person who doesn’t like to make lots of choices. However, if you are more into stat allocations and character skill customization, this can really hook you into playing the game.
Anarchy Online’s uniqueness is not only anchored to its customization but the game also has one unique camera feature that other MMOs do not have. You have the choice to toggle the first person view, though this feature has yet to show any significant reason, it totally gives you a different perspective at least, on what your character sees.
 
Conclusion
Anarchy Online may not be one of the most visually stunning games in the market. Plus add the fact that the game audio gets awfully repetitive when you play for hours on end. However graphics and sounds are not the things that make this game go toe-to-toe with other MMOs for nearly a decade in the industry. It’s the story and the content that keeps people stick to playing the game.
 
The constantly changing and consistent increase in the overall content gives you more things to look forward to. Customization is also a plus factor because you are given enough space in customizing your in-game character except in the sprites as you are provided with a limited amount of choices on how you can make your character look different.
 
Though the graphical limitations of Anarchy Online may be addressed now that Funcom is trying to upgrade the in-game engine and make the game more compatible with Direct X9. Though the engine design upgrade may help the game or not visually has yet to be seen it would definitely give the game a breath of fresh air.
 
This idea of the graphics upgrade for the game may seem enticing but the fact remains that there are a lot of games available on the market that can go against the content value of the game but are visually superior and free.  The saving grace for the game though is that it has extended the free play feature till this year giving new players an opportunity to try and feel the game.
 
It is your decision if you’d like to shell out for the premium content. Though I must say that you can’t really judge Anarchy Online with the free content play, because most of the good stuff you can get from the game is found at the premium content. One content upgrade that you can look forward to in the premium content is that you can actually ride mechs to go against other players in pvp battles.
 
For seasoned MMO players, Anarchy Online doesn’t have anything new to put into the sci-fi genre that other MMOs of the same type have not improved upon. Still the level of sci-fi experience Anarchy Online provides still has that certain sci-fi kick that some games of the same genre fail miserably to provide, that is why don’t eliminate Anarchy Online as a pooh-pooh game just because of its graphics and sounds. I suggest at least trying the game for the meantime and seeing if what they offer suits you just fine, if not then drop the game and look for something else.
 
Pros
• Consistent updates and fixes
• Engaging storyline
• Character skill customization
 
Cons
• Game’s graphics engine is outdated
• The Game’s BGM can be repetitive
• The choices can be overwhelming for new players 

Tales of Pirates: Silver Mine Guide

In Tales of Pirates there are always a lot of newbie players. What will they experience during their training? Will they find it tedious or challenging? Are there good places for them to level up quickly? Now we will be introducing a fairyland called the Silver Mine.

The Silver Mine has a total of 3 floors with different monsters on each floor. The BOSSes here range from Level 30 to Level 50, have low defense and are easy to attack, so it is a good place for players to train. Included in the Silver Mine there are BOSSes like the Level 31 Vampire Bat, Level 35 Miner Mole, and Level 36 Mud Monster. Players between Level 20 and Level 40 can go there to challenge these BOSSes. In addition to the level 31-36 BOSSes, players will also find in Silver Mine2 the greater BOSSes like the Level 38 Ninja Mole and the level 46 Pumpkin Knight. It is recommended for players’ Level 40+ to go challenge them in a team.

The curvy road in the Silver Mine makes it so difficult to navigate that it’s almost like a maze. Players should find the portals to the different floors, or they can directly access it by using the Ticket to the Silver Mine. In the Silver Mine players can collect much more useful items, including the Pumpkin Head, the Mushroom Soup, the Lantern, the Mole Claw, the Ninja Sword, and the Demon Wings.

The Silver Mine is like a garden of opportunity for newbie players’, they can level up very quickly, they can find a mentor to help them, and they can also find warmhearted friends. It is very convenient place for players especially, newbie players. So if you want to start a new game, why not come and experience the Silver Mine in.

Angels Online: Iron Castle Guide

Four factions are available for players in Angels Online to choose from. Players can talk to the Angel Tutor to graduate from the Angel Lyceum after they’ve gained enough credits. After the graduation, players will have to choose a faction and accept the main quests from that faction.

Iron Castle is located in the northeast of Eden. It is a firm castle standing high on a desert wasteland of pale yellow sand, where even a single blade of grass would feel lonely. It is a high-tech building because of its high defense and attack abilities designed by the super engineers who live there.

Working machines which guarantee the normal operation of the city can be found everywhere in this square castle. This monstrous castle contains three floors, with the bottom one being the main work area for scientists to research the technological breakthroughs. General players are not allowed to pass through there, it is barred to anyone who has not earned the highest honors from the Iron Castle.
The middle floor is available to all players. They come from all over the world and gather here to consult on strategies about how to protect their territory. The top masters from all the classes can be found here as well. What’s more, the Bank Clerk, Ride Merchant and Robot Merchant are always ready to serve players.
In the northwest of the castle, players can find the Iron Castle Angel, and from here they will begin their adventures in Eden. Passing through the stairs on the second floor, players can arrive at the third mysterious floor, which is currently closed to all. It is said that elite army personnel are stationed here. Only when there’s a big disaster will these elites come out to save their home.

How amazing it is to watch such superbly exquisite building craft while wandering around the castle. How respectable these cautious and conscientious people are. Although the materials they require are limited here, scientists are able to make this oasis flourish by using underground deposits of coal and oil.

Players who choose the Steel Faction have the same indomitable spirit as the Iron Castle possesses. Only this spirit and the constant efforts of the people within prevent this whole structure, and the way of life it supports, from collapsing on the soft, shifting sands it sits on.

Chinese government: MMO players need to register their real name

China announced a radical new measure to keep citizens’ MMO addictions in check: mandatory real-name registration with the government for all newly-created accounts. The news is reported by China Daily:

The government will start real-name registration for online game players this year, said Zhang Yijun, director of the General Administration of Press and Publication’s technology and digital publication department.

Four online game companies’ operations have been suspended after it was found that their software did not have the mandatory anti-addiction system, he said in Qingdao on Wednesday.

(source: China Daily)

SOE to host fundraising drive for child’s play charity

Sony Online Entertainment LLC (SOE) is making it easier for players of its popular online video games to support charity in its Child’s Play 2009 Winter Charity Drive – and get cool new in-game items in the process.

In a month-long fundraising campaign beginning on Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2009, SOE will donate $10 each time an EverQuest or EverQuest II player buys a specific Child’s Play item on the Marketplace with Station Cash (SC), SOE’s recently introduced in-game currency.

To support the ongoing efforts by Child’s Play to improve the lives of hospitalized children worldwide, EverQuest players will be able to buy the Child’s Play Guktan Shield Ornamentation, and EverQuest II players can purchase the Child’s Play Bouncing Baby Bear Cub.

“SOE and our players have been staunch supporters of this charity since 2003, and with the integration of Station Cash into our online games, teaming up with Child’s Play for this online campaign was an easy decision,” said John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment.

Founded in 2003, Child’s Play is a game industry charity that is dedicated to providing children with toys and age-appropriate games at more than 40 hospitals worldwide.