Yearly Archives: 2011

DDO Releases Comprehensive MMO Glossary

DDO Releases Comprehensive MMO Glossary

 

Turbine, the creators of Dungeons & Dragons Online, has released a great overview of the most important MMO terms. While the full glossary is impressive and helpful it is also a little bit overwhelming. So here are the eight most important terms in MMO land in random order:

-CC: Used as shorthand for “Crowd Control” CC refers to a set of spells and abilities that can momentarily stun or paralyze mobs and players. Crowd control is essential when dealing with large groups of mobs, making a class that excels at CC a highly desirable addition to any group.

-Class: A “Class” represents a particular set of in-game abilities which determine the way a player interacts with the world, primarily during combat. The most common class types consist of melee (close-range) offense, melee defender, ranged offense, crowd control, healing and general support.

-NPC/Mob: A monster (or humanoid character) controlled by in-game AI, and never another actual player.

-AoE: An “Area of Effect” that generally refers to an area where an ability hits multiple targets.

Aggro can apply to a hostile mob that's noticed a player and is actively attempting to attack said player

 

-Aggro: This term can mean a couple things. It can apply to a hostile mob that’s noticed a player and is actively attempting to attack said player. However, it can also refer to the amount of “hostility” a player has generated on the mob. Most times, in combat, a defensive class will try to gather as much aggro as possible in order to keep mobs from attacking the more vulnerable group members.

-Buff: A temporary boost to a character, usually improving health or another core statistic that improves weapon or magical attack damage. Think of it like a magical injection of caffeinated beverage without any of the drawbacks.

-Crafting: A game system designed around the creation by players of in-game goods. Generally, crafted items include weapons, armor, rings, enchantments, and the like.

-DPS: “Damage per Second”. this term refers to how much damage is being dealt to a target. You’ll see its use for both player characters and non-player characters, such as mobs.

 

Check out the full glossary.

 

Welcome Back Event Goes Live in Dragon’s Call

Welcome Back Event Goes Live in Dragon’s Call

 

To ease the pain of sad dilemma and get the DC veterans back to the exciting battles with old alliance mates, EverDream is hosting a warm “Welcome Back Event” in Dragon’s Call now. Besides those enchanting in-game gifts, EverDream had also upgraded the server stability and provided many new servers with larger capacity. Furthermore, in case some veterans might not know, the new expansion, Sacred Wings, was launched a few weeks ago along with many new features and bug fixes.

Dragons Call FREE MMORPG, Welcome Back

The event document revealed that users who haven’t accessed their account from 25th Dec. to 3rd Jan. will be able to receive the Special Welcome Back Package from the in-game event NPC. Click here for more details.

 

Sacred Wings New Features List –

 

Badge  

Combine Magic Formation

Sky City Arena 

Wings 

Feathers 

Sky City Arena Guides

Creative WoW Wireless Headset Review: I’m Deaf – And Scary!

Creative WoW Wireless Headset Review: I’m Deaf – And Scary!
By Ditte (Jerelyn) Korsgård, OnRPG Journalist

I’m now deaf, and it’s the Creative Sound Blaster World of Warcraft Wireless Headsets fault.

 

Creative Headset WoW Header

 

My dear boyfriend gave me this new headset for Christmas because the old one had died a horrible, horrible death. Something with the wheels of my office chair and the left side speaker not getting along quite as expected – it was ugly. Don’t ask.

 

Unboxing this little beauty was nice and easy. Cut the little piece of tape at the bottom and lo and behold after opening the front flap, it was right there in its full battlesuit of “easy-to-remove” plastic covering. No fiddling with a scissors to unwrap it nor cutting my fingers on the hard plastic while swearing and getting increasingly frustrated. What is up with that kind of wrapping anyway? I’m happy that Creative thought of this, so I can get right down to business and start using my new headset immediately. Almost.

 

So, I picked up my new, fairly light headset and seeing it is wireless there should be a little Bluetooth USB pen that the headset connects with. I couldn’t find it at first, but rattling the carton I figured it must be in one of the side pockets. In one side was a small screwdriver and in the other, the USB pen and the detachable microphone. What.. a screwdriver…? Ah right! The headset comes with two sets of World of Warcraft faction lenses to attach to the sides of the speakers. One for the Horde.  And one for the Alliance. These can be changed around using the before mentioned screwdriver. There’s also an ordinary USB to Mini USB cable to charge the headset between uses or even while I use it.

Creative Headset Accessories

Included is also a very nice, good quality carry bag, with the World of Warcraft logo on the front and the Creative Sound Blaster logo on the back. Well, I guess that kind of depends how you turn it. Inside the carry case are two, small pouches attached to the sides, to hold the mic and the screwdriver. Nah just kidding! They’re for the USB pen and the screwdriver ;-).

 

Seeing this is my very first Wireless Headset, I figured that RTFM might be a good idea. This is very informative! For instance under “Removing the headset lenses” is says: “To remove the headset lenses from the headset, use the supplied mini flat screwdriver to gentry pry the lens off the cup as shown in the diagram”. I haven’t managed to “gently pry” anything without actually ruining it but I gave it a go, and the lenses are fairly easy to remove and reattach – without casualties. The manual gives useful links and a quick start guide to setup the bluetooth connection. Setting up the wireless is fairly easy.

 

I downloaded the Sound Blaster World of Warcraft Wireless Headset Pack for my OS from the Sound Blaster website, which quickly gave me the World of Warcraft Audio Control Panel. Now THAT is epic!  You can control and setup the THX TruStudio PC sound technology and speaker illumination as you please. Crank up the bass, it’s fantastic! However the best part is without a doubt the VoiceFX technology, with which I can change my voice into a variety of World of Warcraft voices like for instance Blood Elf Male and Mal’Ganis. But let’s be realistic, there’s no reason to use any other voice overlay than Mal’Ganis. It is genuinely scary! We played around with it a bit and it is hilarious!

 

Creative Headset THX

 

And now to the part you’ve all been waiting for. The headset is very comfortable and super light weight, considering how massive it looks. It sits nicely on your head and it is very easy to forget that I’m wearing a headset. Not having an additional wire crawling around your neck and desktop further enhances this. Also the large ear cups conveniently blocks out soft ambient noices like for instance boyfriends and pets, so I can concentrate on gamesounds and music.

 

The mic picked up every sound in the room until I changed the settings. My cats meowing as Mal’Ganis was – to put it frank – very scary! Now it only records my own voice and broadcasts it crispy clear. However not being able to move the mic into any another position annoys me a bit, but I’ll just detach it when it’s not in use. There’s a tiny little bit of interference on the sound, but this is mainly due to my system setup and nothing that bothers me at all. The Surround Sound is silky smooth regardless of what I’m listening to. The headset definitely deliver a fantastic sound, even though it is wireless.

 

So far the only downside is the volume up and down buttons on the side of the headset speaker. The buttons are easy to click, but hard to find. They do not stand out in any way and unfortunately that makes me search for them a bit too long for it to be worth it. I currently just use the master volume of the computer to turn the volume up and down. The on/off and mic mute/connect buttons are easier to locate and use. The Bluetooth USB connector could’ve had light at the top or at the minimum on both sides as it’s not very easy to see if it is turned away from me.

 

Creative Headset Big

All in all it’s a great headset and definitely worth the money for a World of Warcraft fangirl. Not only because of the awesome World of Warcraft branding but also because of the Wireless awesomeness. Now I just need the Sound Blaster World of Warcraft Tap ChatTM for the ultimate experience. Meanwhile I’ll abuse the Mal’Ganis voice overlay on my guildies. Do not underestimate the Mal’Ganis voice overlay!

 

“You hear the voice of the Dark Lord. He whispers to you through the blade you wield… What does he say, young human? What does the Dark Lord of the Dead tell you now?”

WarFlow Review – Sink or Swim?

WarFlow Review – Sink or Swim?

Neil Kewn – OnRPG Journalist

I have lost count of how many browser-based real-time strategy games I’ve played. You see them advertised everywhere, each providing arguably the same core gameplay mechanics hidden under a slightly altered skin. Their relatively quick rise to super stardom comes off the back of Farmville, Facebook’s notoriously successful social network game. Not only does it mean we are swamped with bad imitations and cheap cash ins, but those populating offices across the world have an absurd amount of choice when it comes to not working. WarFlow, developed by Leekol Inc, isn’t going to blow anyone away with its originality, but how appealing is it to those looking to procrastinate?

 

Warflow Review

In WarFlow, you’re tasked with building, upgrading and maintaining a town and an army. Shops, training grounds, houses and most importantly Town Centers require training and upgrades to progress. The latter acts as your “hub”, and it is imperative that is it is kept in peak condition. No other building in your settlement can progress to a higher level than that of the Town Center, and the level it possesses determines your overall rank. Training itself is a bog standard affair, with cooldowns populating the left side of the screen indicating when next an upgrade can be queued. Gold, one of the game’s two currencies, can be spent on removing these wait times making new training opportunities immediately available. As each action is usually followed by a several minute cooldown, you will find yourself dipping into the gold pot regularly.

Combat is uninspired. A random backdrop plays host to two sets of sprites, who proceed to throw attacks at each other in an awkward fashion. Battle scenes may not last very long but it still makes for a completely pointless and ultimately boring diversion. Combat itself is devoid of any interactivity, so preparation beforehand is the key to victory. Outfitting your heroes with powerful equipment and keeping your level high is important, as battles become increasingly difficult fairly quickly. The level of your shop determines which weapons and armour your heroes can wield and what upgrades they can receive, low geared heroes can often bar you from progressing to new areas.

 

Warflow Review

The interface is split into a number of sections. You can view your town, neighbouring settlements, contested areas and a world map. Flicking through each is pretty seamless and winning battles will reveal other opponents in the area. It is your job to clear zones completely of enemies. Often, those defeated will join your cause.

Silver is the game’s other currency, and is used to purchase upgrades and new items. Silver can be acquired by completing tasks issued via the game’s quest system. Quests appear in the log when available, and regularly offer large amounts of coin for simple tasks. Extra Gold can be purchased via credit card, or awarded through the levying of silver.

To move onto new areas, you must defeat enemies that populate occupied zones. Progress is mighty quick during the first few hours of the game, but without gold to spend on cooldowns, the waiting time that is applied to the most menial of tasks soon adds up. It’s an interesting funding method, opting to slow down your game rather than restricting it, but the lack of polish (and more importantly, content) makes it hard to justify. Despite this, WarFlow possesses something that the hundreds of other throwaway browser games don’t – an actual sense of enjoyment and achievement.

APB: Reloaded’s Closed Beta Coming February

APB: Reloaded’s Closed Beta Coming February


APB has been in the news an awful lot recently. Just over a month ago reports snuck out that K2 Network purchased the rights to APB after the game went up for sale. Those reports were indeed correct and Reloaded Productions (Part of K2) confirmed the purchase a week later with an official press release.

 

In the release Reloaded Productions stated that it would be turning APB into a full free-to-play MMO which would support micro-transactions and also revealed plans to re-release APB as APB: Reloaded in Q1 2011. Which we are in right now.

 

 

Yesterday news came out that the re-release is on track for release. A closed beta for the new APB is planned to begin in late February and the official APB Reloaded Twitter feed states that more information will be coming next week.

 

The question on everyone’s mind is: How well will APB do second time round? Will it plummet once again or will it become a success? One thing has been made clear: APB Reloaded will be more appealing to the F2Player by opening up all zones to everyone and not requiring the former subscription model to participate in battles.  

 

Here’s hoping those bugs and janky controls have also been corrected too.. right?

WESTERNIZE IT: Is Japan Really 5 Years Behind In Game Making?

Is Japan Really 5 Years Behind In Game Making?
By Kei Beneza (dividelife), OnRPG Journalist

 

Not so long ago, Capcom’s development lead Keiji Inafune shocked the world after mocking the Japanese gaming industry, as well as his current employer at the Tokyo Game Show (TGS). According to him, none of the games featured in that event impressed him, and that their gaming industry was 5 YEARS BEHIND (Ouch). For him, Western games are currently tiered to perfection, catering to a wide variety of gamers with a diverse set of games. I have been a fan of Japanese games ever since I could remember. From fighting games, to RPGs, Japanese games definitely screamed QUALITY. As an avid gamer, I would attest to these claims, especially after playing the recent games.

 

Western Intro

Evolution Matters?

 

So is the Japanese gaming industry really 5 years behind? After seeing games like Final Fantasy XIII and Record of Agarest War, I couldn’t help but agree with Inafune’s rant. The main fact that western RPGs like Dragon Age and Mass Effect were able to provide us with a living and breathing world somehow acted as the nail that drove these JRPGs (or Japanese Games in general) down to the ground. With tons of new features presenting itself via western games, being able to appreciate the classic feeling of Japanese games became somewhat a chore. While we were offered new First-Person-Shooters, the freedom of choice, and a higher scale of roleplaying, the only games the Japanese gaming industry came up with were more tactic-based RPGs, linear storylines, and an array of sequels to games that didn’t even deserve them. Truth be told, their adult visual novels offered more diversity than their current RPGs. At least you’re given a choice if you were going to pursue a girl or not.

 

Evolution Matters

Graphics, especially in this era, should also have its benchmarks. Other than the linear Final Fantasy XIII, I have yet to see another game that made use of today’s graphic engines. I’m not saying that the 2D sprites are passe, but it could definitely use a huge makeover. Surely they could create high definition sprites that matches today’s resolution, rather than just upscale it to a BEARABLE degree like running a PS1 game on an HD TV.

 

For Specific Audiences ONLY

To be honest, I am not quite sure if those games are really 5 years behind or if they were just made for a target audience. In an attempt to shed some light on the spectrum, I browsed around the web, hoping to see their current line up. To my surprise, I saw a bunch of Visual Novels, a few shooters, and a collection of anime games that are mostly made for hardcore fans (not that I mind, of course).

Specific Audiences Only

MMOs

Although I think that these things rely greatly on the player’s preferences, Japanese MMOs have not exactly been a treat for MMO fans everywhere. Sure, Final Fantasy XI was pretty decent, but here comes Final Fantasy XIV. There’s no doubt that games like Final Fantasy hold a dear place in our hearts, but as far as evolution goes, it’s still the same Japanese game we used to love (and that right there is the problem). As much as we enjoyed old RPGs like Chrono Trigger and Actraiser, it never really evolved in any other aspect except for the graphics and platform.

 

 MMOs

5 Years Behind, Or 5 Years Advanced?

While some deem Inafune’s words as the absolute truth, I can’t help but seek the other side of this argument. Sure, their games are hard to understand and will constantly lack tutorials for the years to come, but at some point, it can also be considered as the main point of Japanese games (yes, not being able to understand it). Japan is full of hardcore games, and you can probably attest to this theory after playing some danmakus (bullet hell games) or by trying out their unrivaled combo systems. According to some, Final Fantasy XIV’s interface was pretty bad, due to the fact that you had to click a couple of times just to execute the simplest actions. Menus would often lead to sub-menus that are normally just a click away when playing other Western MMOs like Warhammer Online and World of Warcraft. Maybe it was meant to be that way. Some people want more depth and difficulty in their gameplay, and being able to be a complete interface master by scrolling through menus that are practically impossible to understand could count as a remedy.

 

5 Years Behind

Old School Forever

Admit it, even though we’re living in a whole new generation of gaming, you’re still craving for some old school action. Claims like “Nothing beats old-school games” will always be there; sadly, that is also where the contradiction stems from. Japanese games have been keeping it old school ever since, and even though people rave about the classics as being the best, they still criticize the game for not being able to give them new or nextgen content. Maybe it’s really time for the Japanese industry to take it to the next level.

Is Westernizing Really The Option?

Inafune also stated that their games were too “Japanese” to appeal to the majority of gamers. This is perhaps one of the most drastic methods the Japanese gaming industry is about to take. They have started the process already, to be honest. Castlevania has been given its western revamp, and soon, Devil May Cry will follow. Is this really the best option? I’ve heard various rants about the westernizing projects already. Japanese Games have always been another genre for me, which is why Japanese RPGs are called “JRPGs”and not just “RPGs”. For me, Inafune is both right and wrong regarding the Japanese gaming industry. Western games DO have the edge right now, as their games provide a lot of new features that we’ve yet to see… but completely stemming their projects from that thought would only make everything the same. Japanese games are NOT 5 years behind, for they are their own genre. Why else would people want to play Ragnarok Online with all the new MMO out there if they didn’t enjoy it? That, right there is the answer. Blending in would only make the entire gaming spectrum one-genre-short.

DC Universe Heroine Perspective Review: Brave and the Bold

DC Universe Heroine Perspective Review: Brave and the Bold
By Kat Miller (Sareini), OnRPG Journalist

 

Criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot, said a man who dresses as a giant bat and prowls the rooftops of his city looking for thugs to beat up once discovered, and I’m now trying to follow in his footsteps. True, I don’t have a Bat-gadget for every occasion and I’m hoping I don’t end up as a memorial in a glass case in the Batcave, but someone has to be there to fight the minions of Braniac, Scarecrow and Gorilla Grodd, to name a few. Welcome to the world of DC Universe Online.

 

DC Universe Online (DCUO) is the latest MMO from Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) and Warner Brothers, taking a combination of the DC comics and animated universes and combining them into one big online world. With such big names behind it, you won’t be surprised to hear that a lot of work and money has been poured into this game, from the graphics to the voice acting for several of the big-name NPCs, including Adam Baldwin (of Firefly fame, not the acting family) and Wil Wheaton, as well as long-time fan favourites Kevin Conway and Mark Hamill.

 

The Brave and the Bold

When the game starts after character creation (more on that below), you find yourself a neophyte hero trapped on one of Braniac’s harvesting ships (the explanation for what is going on is given at the start of the game in a wonderfully rendered movie but, in brief, it involves time travel and nanobots) and, with the help of Oracle, you have to stop Braniac’s troops and escape. By the end of this tutorial you will have learned most of the important basics of the game: how to use your powers, the game’s controls and how to interact with people and objects to start with.  When you fight alongside Superman himself at the end of the tutorial, you end up feeling quite heroic indeed, and even the admittedly-confusing control system (obviously adapted to be used by both PC gamers and PS3 gamers, as the MMO is released on both) might be becoming a little easier to use. After that, it’s off to your mentor’s home city, where you start to take missions and continue your heroic career in earnest.

 

DCUO Combat

 

DCUO has an incredible level of detail in both its graphics and its gameplay. For the former, this is a good thing – characters, NPCs and areas are carefully drawn and rendered, with just the right amount of cel shading without it becoming annoying and distracting to the game itself. In places there seems to be a little too much detail, however – costume parts are just a little too shiny when you might not want them to be, or there’s so many energy effects on your screen at once that you don’t know where to turn. With regard to gameplay, however, things are rather too complicated – the control system, for example, is a mixture of using movement keys, mouse look, the right and left mouse buttons in both clicking and holding, and using several other keys on the keyboard, sometimes in quick succession, which can at best be confusing and at worst, downright frustrating and a game-breaker for some players. This, of course, is the end result of having a game meant to be played on PC and on console when they don’t really seem to have taken the time to properly work on the PC controls.

Identity Crisis

DCUO’s character creator is certainly one of the more interesting creators I’ve encountered in MMOs. One of the first things you choose in the creator is your mentor – for playing a Hero, that’s a choice between Batman, Superman or Wonder Woman – and this choice determines your starting city and, more importantly, some of the armour and items you can use in the game. After that, you can create your character’s look, either starting completely from scratch or choosing to start with an “inspired by” look from a selection of templates based on some of the DC universe’s iconic members (for example, Superman, Batman, Deathstroke, etc). The power choices might seem initially limited; however, you can also choose how you express or use your powers, so if you want to shoot mental blasts with a bow or cast mystical spells with a staff, you can do so. There are also a lot of costume options to choose from – maybe not as many as some people would like, and some options cannot be used with others (such as the trench coat, which cannot be used with any of the chest pieces other than the shirt it has attached to it). Helmets and masks are also very limited as nothing can be added to the basic designs but it is pretty easy to make your own unique character with it.

 

Character Creator

 

The problem with the character creator is that it is actually rather counter-intuitive. For example, when you select a costume part, you cannot choose its colours unless you go back to the main creation menu and then select the colour sub-menu. Furthermore, your costume is seemingly limited to only three colours – you can swap them around and change their hue if you want, but in the end if you were wanting to create, say, the Rainbow Warrior of justice, you’re not going to be able to express that with his costume. Furthermore, almost as a final insult, once you’ve spent the time creating your character’s look and entered the game, armour pieces you pick up and wear change the look of your costume, sometimes radically, and taking them off takes your costume off altogether. It’s a glaring flaw in a game that is going to attract a lot of players who will want to spend a long time working on their look and will not be happy that the first chest piece they equip changes all of that.

 

Crisis on Infinite Earths

The game is still very new, and so the usual bugs and some teething problems are to be expected, but there are still some glaring problems that need to be addressed at some point in the near future. One such issue is the extremely limited chat interface, which only has a small window in the corner of the GUI which can be difficult to read, there are no chat channels and it is difficult to communicate with other players if they are not in your immediate vicinity. Again, this seems to be down to the fact that it is also meant to be played on the PS3, and the expectation seems to be that people will use the built-in voice chat to communicate with one another – a nice enough touch certainly but not everyone wants to talk like that to strangers in an MMO. The extremely sensitive chat filter is also causing a lot of unintentional hilarity (as well as annoyance) with some of the words and phrases it edits out (and of course, with voice chat all the filtering would be rendered moot anyway, so you wonder why they bothered…).

 

DCUO Inventory

 

Another problem is that age-old problem of so many MMOs – it feels like a solo game that you happen to play online. Certainly, there are missions where you can team up to fight some of the iconic supervillains of the DC universe such as Bane, but for the  most part if you want to just wander through the game by yourself as a lone wanderer, you can easily do so. There just doesn’t seem to be very much incentive or even a need to team very much. There is the option to create ‘Leagues’ – the game’s version of supergroups or guilds (and a nod to DC’s long-running Justice League) – but so far the benefits to these seem to be entirely social in nature.

 

World’s Finest

In the end, DCUO is still a (very) new game, and in the genre of superhero MMOs, it doesn’t have too many competitors. It has great potential, certainly, and it is fun to play, at least in short bursts, but in the long run things like the over-complicated control system for the PC and the lack of any real incentives to play with other people are going to be sticking points for SOE unless they address them early on. It feels like a pretty but awkward console port at the moment – one with a great deal of promise, but with several aggravating factors that can make it more of an annoyance to play than an enjoyment.

 

Pros:

 – beautifully-built world with just the right amount of cel shading

 – easy to jump into to play for a couple of hours without committing yourself

 – a great deal of potential

 

Cons:

 – awkward control system for PC users who aren’t using a gamepad

 – character creator is counter-intuitive in places and rendered moot in others

 – currently very limited social interaction available in-game

World of Tanks Hits One Million Registrations

World of Tanks Hits One Million Registrations

 

Wargaming.net announced that World of Tanks has recorded more than one million registrations in America, Europe and Russia. This significant milestone has been reached in less than one year since launching the closed beta in Russia.

 

To handle the rush of players, World of Tanks team is installing additional European servers to the line-up. The steady growth of the World of Tanks’ population will enable Wargaming.net to continuously update and polish the game in the run-up to its commercialization for the Western audience in the first quarter of 2011.

 

“World of Tanks team is grateful to our community for achieving such impressive figures”, said Victor Kislyi, CEO of Wargaming.net. “We would like to thank all the WoT fans for their support. Wargaming.net will continue to work hard on adding new content to the game regularly to guarantee that our community gets maximum fun from playing World of Tanks”.

 

World of Tanks Hits One Million Registrations

Die2Nite Preview: All They Want Is To Eat Your Brains…

Die2Nite Preview: All They Want Is To Eat Your Brains…
By Kat Miller (Sareini), OnRPG Journalist

The zombies attacked again last night, but we got lucky and only two people died this time. This morning I had to drag one of them outside the gate and leave him there. I could have used some water to destroy the body, but our reserves are running low and I didn’t want to waste what we still need to drink. So I guess I’ll be seeing him again tonight… Meanwhile, the zombies are still out there, moaning, and we don’t know if we’ll build up our defenses in time for tonight…

 

Die2Nite FrontPage

Die2Nite is an upcoming game from developers Motion-Twin, a French games studio whose previous offerings have included MyBrute and MyMiniCity. It’s a browser-based game where the objective is simple: survive for as long as possible in your town in the midst of the zombie apocalypse.

 

They’re Coming To Get You, Barbara…

When you start the game you are placed randomly into a new town – although really, they’re less towns and more “huddled groups of survivors” – with nothing more than the clothes on your back and one day’s worth of stale food. You then have to work with the other residents of the town (or against them, although if you do your actions may well have consequences!) to build up the town’s defences by scavenging for items in The World Beyond, and then use them to build various things to aid the town. The zombies are a constant threat, of course – you can come across them while out scavenging and have to fight your way through them to escape, and every night they will attack the town en masse. If your defences aren’t up to the task or, worse yet, someone leaves the town gates open, the zombies will get in, at which point your best hope is to pray they eat the person in the tent next to you and leave you alone…

 

Die2Nite How to Play

Die2Nite is, essentially, a strategy game. From the very start, you have to decide how you’re going to use your limited Action Points (AP) each day. You can refill them through eating, drinking or taking homemade drugs, but it’s still not much and so you have to be constantly aware of everything going on, or risk being stuck outside with no AP left to get to safety… You also have to work with the other residents of your town to build essential defences and structures, and this can be where things get very interesting, because while you might think your town needs a Water Pump the most to survive, someone else might think you need a Great Pit, and you have to work out some sort of compromise (sadly, there is no Thunderdome for people to work out their differences, so you’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way).

 

When There’s No More Room In Hell…

There are many ways to die in Die2Nite. You can die from dehydration, from an infected wound, from being outside the town when the gates close at night, and of course from being eaten alive if the zombies get past the town’s defences. If you’re really unlucky, you can even be murdered by someone else in the town… But in Die2Nite, death is not the end. Instead, you are ‘reincarnated’ and placed into a new town, ready to start the fight for survival all over again and hopefully learn from any mistakes you made the last time.

 

Die2Nite Buildings

When it comes to the other residents of your town though, it’s best to try to get along with them. After all, you all need to work together if you have any hope of surviving more than one or two nights, and what’s more, everyone has the option to make a complaint against another player, for various reasons, and if you receive eight complaints you are promptly banished from the town and left to fend for yourself. So it is generally in your best interests to work with the rest of the town and not do things like upgrade your meagre tent to a hovel or a shack… at least, not at first.

 

On the other hand, those who get banished have one other option available to them – they can work to overthrow the town and put everyone else out in the desert. If several people have been banished together, this can all happen remarkably quickly too, so while it might be tempting to throw out anyone who doesn’t agree with your plans for the town, it can very easily come back to bite you – in more ways than one.

 

“There’s a Lot To Get Done Before You Can Afford To Lose Me.”

Another feature of note in Die2Nite is the Hero system. There are two ways to become a Hero in the game. One is to survive the longest in your town and receive the coveted “Last Man Standing” title, which “upgrades” you from being a regular citizen to being a Hero. The other way is to buy Hero days in month-long blocks. Currently it costs around 12 Euros for a month of Hero days, with discounts if you buy several months’ worth at once. The price does put some people off, due to the exchange rate, but the devs are working on several other ways for players to gain Hero days without having to pay quite so much.

 

Die2Nite Special Actions

There are several benefits to being a Hero. You can carry slightly more items, and once per day you can choose to do a heroic action, such as killing two zombies in the same zone you are in with your bare hands, or rescuing someone who has gotten stuck outside the town minutes before the zombies are due to swarm in, eating everyone in their path. When you are a Hero, you also get to choose one of three special professions – Scout, Scavenger or Guardian, which all have special abilities that can prove very useful for your town (Scout, for example, can sneak through zones full of zombies that would normally trap normal citizens, making him very useful for scouting out areas for potential expeditions).

 

Of course, the game is only just out of its English-speaking beta and so it still needs some polishing. The occasional piece of untranslated French can still be seen, and the game isn’t yet optimised for all browsers (Chrome, I’m looking at you). There also isn’t currently a way for friends to play together unless one of them gains Hero status and creates a coalition, and even then there’s only space for six people. Otherwise your placement in towns is more or less random. The relatively small amount of AP you have per day can also be maddening, especially when you’re trying to build things up. Overall though, Die2Nite is shaping up to be a fun and original little browser MMO, and one that’s well worth a look if you can. After all, what have you got to lose except your delicious brains?

 

Pros:

– Interesting strategy-based take on the zombie game
– Good for casual players who can just jump in and out when they have time
– Strong community

Cons:

– The current price for Hero days can put people off
– Difficult to play with friends without a lot of organisation
– Working with the other players can be as much a curse as it is a blessing