Month: November 2010

FanSwarm Dishes-Out Hanukkah and Christmas Treats for Players

Posted by – November 30, 2010

BOSTON (November 30, 2010) — Ayeah Games, Inc.’s “social reality” game, FanSwarm™, will roll-out special holiday-themed game features tied to Hanukkah and Christmas launching on Thursday, December 1st , and Saturday, December 20th respectively. Using these indexes, players will be able to see the rise and fall of holiday related stars as a group and thereby make more well-informed choices about which celebrities to back during the holiday season to gain a larger number of points and achieve higher levels of influence within the game. The announcement was made today by Doug Levin, Founder and CEO of Ayeah Games.

“We saw a large number of players using our ‘Halloween Index’ and ‘Thanksgiving Index’ which instills us with the anticipation that FanSwarm’s steadily growing fan base will thoroughly enjoy the upcoming holiday themed features we are unveiling on December 1st,” said Levin. “As we enter into the Open Beta phase of FanSwarm’s product life we will continue to create and establish new, fun and exciting features and levels of game play for our all types of players.”

Beginning Thursday, December 1st, FanSwarm will celebrate the Jewish community by releasing a “Hanukkah Index” listing the top 25 celebrities featured in television shows (e.g. Seinfeld), movies (e.g. The Hebrew Hammer) and musicals (e.g. Fiddler on the Roof) as well as singers who pay tribute to the holiday (e.g. Adam Sandler).

FanSwarm will continue the holiday cheer on Monday, December 20th with the release of a “Christmas Index” noting the top 50 famous figures featured in a variety of classic Christmas television shows, specials, movies, musicals and popular holiday singers (e.g. A Christmas Story, The Miracle on 34th Street, Harry Connick Jr., etc.).

These four holiday themed indexes were compiled based on a combination of factors such as top box office earnings within the genre, cult classic standing and individuals who have achieved celebrity status.

FanSwarm can be found online at http://apps.facebook.com/FanSwarm.

F2P MMO NADIRIM CBT begins on December 8, 2010

Posted by – November 30, 2010

Munich, Germany – 30 November 2010 – Digital Reality and Twisted Tribe are pleased to announce the imminent start of the closed beta for Nadirim. On 08 December 2010, the browser-based, free-2-play MMORPG Nadirim will begin its closed beta, which is expected to last until March 2011.

During the following three-month test phase, all the important game features will be scrutinised carefully, including the minion system, the achievements, ranking system, and different social functions. The highest priority is on well-balanced and rich play in both, the PvE and PvP.

‘After having to move back the beta test in October to provide a high quality game even in the beta, we are very glad that we can now start the next phase of Nadirim and are able to offer our fans and players access to the fabulous realm of Nadirim, inspired by the legends of the Thousand and One Nights,’ says András Peller, CEO of Digital Reality.

During the course of the closed beta, various community and in-game events are planned, along with special community packages for milestones.

You can register for the Nadirim closed beta at http://nadirim.com/beta. Beginning on 10 December, over 15,000 beta keys will be given out continuously in several phases in cooperation with numerous international media partners.

Drakensang Online Trailer Unveiled – New Era for MMO Ushered in

Posted by – November 30, 2010

Browser game has ushered in epic era in which developers widely employ and adopt technology, bringing paw-dropping quality games on web browser.

5 years ago, players only expected text-based browser games that are basically played by reading the words and pretentiously immersing them into a virtual world, but time has changed. New and innovative technologies are shaping gamers’ habits and even lives.

Bigpoint is one of those braving out to make the original browser games for students, workers and hardcore players. On November 30, 2010, the Berlin-based Bigpoint team unveiled a remarkable browser game called Drakensang Online after they announced 3d space game Battlestar Galactica Online.

Take a look at the trailer below and does that remind you of Diablo series like Diablo 3 ?

here is the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZjFHHXOBAg


Blizzard Product Slate Leaked

Posted by – November 30, 2010

A gamer, speaking on condition of anonymity, sent mmogamesite.com a Blizzard’s top priority working timetable that depicts Blizzard’s working plan in the next 4 years.

So far, Blizzard officials did not claim the ownership of this Blizzard Product Slate, but from the table above, we could conclude that Blizzard is ambitiously moving towards World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, WOW 4, WOW 5, Star Craft 2 and plus a new game called TITAN targeted for Q4 2014.

Update1: Blizzard China Former General Manager Ye WeiLun was fired due to Product Slate Leak

Update 2: Blizzard HQ may reshuffle Chinese Staff for Product Slate Leak

Stay Current With MMO and MMORPG on mmogamesite.com, you will know all the inside news.

MMORPG Pirates of the Burning Sea: F2P Coming

Posted by – November 30, 2010

MMORPG Pirates of the Burning Sea allows players to battle on the high seas, PobBS awaits young pirates who want to live in freedom, without following conventions or laws. As a pirate, you seek new adventure in the distance in search of the treasures of the seas.

According to the official website for Pirates of the Burning Sea, PobBS F2P patch will be launched on 29 November, 2010. That means the classic MMORPG  Pirates of the Burning Sea will go free to play following a wave of free to play gaming Lord of the Rings Online, Champions Online and EverQuest 2.

The online MMORPG Pirates of the Burning Sea was developed by Seattle-based Flying Lab Software and since the game was released on January 22, 2008, it has attracted a large number of playes adventuring on the vast seas by role playing as as pirates.

Meanwhile, the online game publisher Sony Online Entertainment behind EQ2, DCUO, the Agency also published Pirates of the Burning Sea.

Most recently expansion called Power With Prestige was introduced simultaneously along with the announcement that for the Pirate MMORPG goes Free 2 Play.

So on Monday, the servers are down for a while. For this purpose, but was specially set up a chat channel on the website so that impatient players can then replace the official opening with other players.

The Free MMORPG Pirates of the Burning Sea offers a good PvP content and solid gameplay to the high seas. Furthermore, there is also an economic system and of course many common features of an online RPG.

With more and more great mmos becoming F2P, you may be wondering if these free to play titles will affect the actual gameplay mechanics. Indeed, free to play means unbalanced gaming, unfriendly levelup, and more annoying “features”.

Guild Wars 2

Posted by – November 30, 2010

The moment ArenaNet fires its first ‘shot’ in the online ‘warfare, the whole fantasy world gets trembled. MMOs panic at the thought of being overshadowed by the ravishing story this newcomer weaves out and the lavish visual feast it promises for all fans. RPGs get antsy at the fears of being defeated by the thus triggered skill-packed, much more engaging and strategy-bounded combats which everybody can make a dent in and even manipulate for his/her own benefit. Guild Wars 2, However, with new non-human races and eight professions or classes, features a paw-dropping action, dynamic PVP,  higher level cap and online persistent world.

You don’t spend your monthly fees to play it. Would this time be a rare exception? Since most of the time, the biggest fuss turns out only a hype-up which fizzles out quickly as it is tested by gaming vets. Let’s check around a little bit first.

So here we are, right in the eye of the Guild Wars storm, and totally loose our cool. Wondering in this bizarrely-beautiful, life-oozing and war-blazing fantasy land, we couldn’t go a minute without gaping and gasping. Gee, what kind of innovative gaming minds and artistic brushes can make things this enthralling? While such an impeccable MMORPG experience makes other developers all fidget, it leaves us gamers, especially those dying for some real fighting stuff, with nothing but raptures and itchy hands!

The fully fledged 3D MMORPG Guild Wars 2 will deliver a persistent world with no micro-transaction, no monthly subscription fee, and no additional credit fees. What you need to do is buy the game and play online with your friends like its original Guild Wars.

All thus make their way here to fight the Guild Wars 2. Hero comes in his classic loner look, face masked, swords on back and armors glistening. Rogues arrive in bands, with hordes of chopper-holding lackeys at heels ready to loot. Even monsters crawl out from the deepest forests to rock the killing party! Well, these war bugs clearly wouldn’t make a peaceful crowd, would they?

The release date of Guild Wars 2 will be set for Q2, 2011 and the Closed beta may be expected to start earlier than what we are expecting. Perhaps GW2 qualifies itself as the best MMORPG ever, and even the highly hyped sci-fi mmo Star Wars: The Old Republic will dwarf in front of Guild Wars2.

Although there is no information about the comparison with Funcom’s MMO The Secret World, and Blizzard’s dark horror RPG Diablo III,we have firm belief that Guild Wars will be in no way inferior to the market’s Giant World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.

All are feverish about the coming battle, busy doing preps which they think are most right. Some plunder the weapon-smith for the sharpest gears; some mingle around for socializing to either “know thy enemy” or make possible alliance; others have already started local fights on to pick up new skills/tactics or simply do drills while the big day is counted down.

No one would get sidetracked during the Guild Wars 2. Various modes of real-time combats allow for a role of each knack out there, be it brutal strength, nimble skills, flexible strategies or seamless teamwork. PvP battling and PvE arena fighting, though soul-stirringly competitive, offers leveling fields for both war vets and the fresh recruits. Besides, you can always choose to brush off any challenges or turn to pick up on someone of your own level if running short of stamina or necessary skills to stand for a winning chance. Truly in Guild Wars, each dog fight his own way for its day!

Features:

Guild Wars 2, the much-acclaimed 3D fantasy war title, draws in the striking beauties of both MMO and RPG, offering a unique exploring-for-combat experience the gamers couldn’t let go easily.

Apart from tough instanced battling, skill pickup and tactics jockeying all help to pull things off more quickly and with less losses.

Huge world map leads you to dungeons, city hubs, wilderness and many other mysterious locations where challenges and fun walk neck by neck.

Play in solo or group, and all designs are tailored for the most broadest players.

Guild Wars respects no boundaries, and when it does rampage across your territory, dude, just tell me, ARE YOU READY for all the rocks and jolts?

Project Blackout

Posted by – November 29, 2010

It is all about the reaction time. Build your landout, pick a side, fight! Joint project blackout now be experience an intense non-stop action fps with fully customizable features.

The free massive multiplayer first person shooting game Project Blackout takes you on the urban settings where you play with thousands of worldwide players in the lobby, or room -based virtual world. Wanna be urban rivals in the modern street? Check the official features below:

Every map in project blackout is carefully crafted to give operators an immersive experience.With realistically skinned models and destructible environments, project black out raises the bar for immersion in MMO shooters. Shoot through barriers to take out hiding enemies, employ explosives, dust, realistic ballistics, and utilize the environment to gain the edge and destroy your enemies!

Need a quicker route through a map? Make your own! Destroyable architecture makes it possible to create a shortcut through a map to gain a tactical advantage when you really need it. As the environments change, so will the operators need to adjust tactics to survive.

Effective use of the environment is key to an operator’s survival.

Project Blackout will test your skills as a gamer with fast paced action, precision shooting, and twitch response times. Project Blackout’s graphics, surround sound, and camera effects will put you in the middle of the action and test your skills at a whole new level. Luck and load!

There is more to war than killing! You need training, you need equipment, and you need experience. Operators in Project Blackout are expected to keep at the top of their game. Project Blackout offers special missions in game that will reward operators with special perks, items, and rank. These missions will drive you to be more than just another grunt with a gun, they will turn you into an elite operator.

Fortunately, these mission, while challenging, can be accomplished during regular play so you won’t need to be distracted while trying to complete your missions.

A well trained operator knows that without a weapon, you might as well be dead already. In project blackout many weapons come with extensions that augment the functionality of your weapon. Whether its dual magazines, holo sights, scopes or red dots these extensions will give you an edge in battle.

But it is all up to operator preference; you need to pick the weapon you are most efficient with.

Body armor and helmets give operators the ability to protect vital organs and their head from enemy fire. Enemies will be watching for you to poke your head out and take your down, so don’t be caught without proper protection!

In project blackout, operators can shoot through enemies and barriers, so don’t rely on others or walls to protect you from that sniper. Smart tactics and good use of body armor will save an operator in a pinch!

With the desire for customization always on the rise, operators will have choices of special defensive and offensive bonuses, and equipment to improve battlefield experience.

The developer Ntreev also run a simulation game called Alicia: Horse and My Story in Korea.

Utopia Kingdoms

Posted by – November 29, 2010

Forge your own empire, choose from six unique races. Crush your friends in battle, join forces and build powerful alliances. Team up with your friends and send them resources, or lead your army on daring raids to steal theirs. Learn skills and customize your Kingdom to match your play style.

The facebook game Utopia Kingdoms is a social version for 2008′s browser game Utopia Kingdoms that is redesigned based on the X-software’s Khan Wars. The game employs a round based system that requires players to start game every 30 days.

As a empire building independent browser game, Utopia Kingdoms was released in 2008 by Jolt Online Gaming that has already published browser games such as Legends of Zork,  and Playboy Manager , but due to the slide-down of online gamers, Jolt Online has never been successful in every respect. Till the end of November, 2010, the guys behind social gaming company Jolt Online rolled out a social version for Utopia Kingdoms that is based on Khan Wars game engine, in hopes of restoring the game on Facebook.

Unlike other strategy city building games Evony or Age of Empires Online, Utopia Kingdoms is not a persistent  but a round-based game where you even need to construct your basic resources facilities first such as Lumber mill, farms, Gold Mine, and Iron Mine instead of your capital city. With detailed tutorial, you can easily to build your Kingdom.

After finishing building the material buildings, you also need Peasants to work in your buildings and to be recruited as soldiers. You must build Homes for them to live in. The more Homes you build, the larger the Maximum Population will be in your Kingdom, and the faster the Population Growth Rate.

You can use “Browse World” button to find the world maps where all your friends and enemies, allies and deadly foes can be found. This is where you deal with everything outside of your own Kingdom and send your forces out to do your bidding. You can view and interact with your neighbors.

You will have six races to choose from.

The Humans

Humans are versatile and strong, spreading across the land and filling as many niches as they can. As such, they can recruit military units quicker than other races. A tradition of heroic swordsmen means that most humans are competent with a blade, making their swordsmen much cheaper to enlist.

Unfortunately this focus on swordsmanship leads to other martial training being neglected. As a result, it costs more to train a human archer than one from any other race.

The Dark Elves

The Dark Elves live deep in the bowels of the earth. Powerful magic users, they use their arcane power to map the richest gold seams, allowing them to produce more gold than any other race. Their skills with magic also carry over to their military, letting them create the powerful elite unit, the Grand Magus.

However, with limited space and long-lived adults, the Dark elves carefully monitor their population, leading to a much lower birth rate than other races.

The Dwarves

Dwarves are natural engineers and can construct any building cheaper than the other races. This proficiency with large, heavy tools makes their axemen much cheaper to train. Dwarfs despise Orcs and will fight even harder when defending their homes against an Orcish raid.

Unfortunately for the dwarves, their short stature makes riding horses particularly difficult, so Dwarven cavalry is less powerful than the horsemen of other races.

The Avians

Living high in their fortified eyries, the Avians have developed traditions of medicine that are more advanced than the other races, allowing their hospitals to be much more effective. In addition, being creatures of the air, their focus on ranged warfare means that archers cost less to recruit.

However, a nest atop a cliff isn’t the best place to train a horse, so an Avian stables have less capacity than those of other races, and cannot be used to recruit heavy cavalry.

The Elves

An ancient and proud race, the Elves prize the art of archery above all else. With immaculately carved bows and years of training, eleven archers are second to none. They have also perfected a harmony with nature, which allows them to produce more food than any other race.

However, the long-lived elves have very strict rules, and carefully control how large a family can grow. As such, they have a much lower birth rate than other races.

The Orcs
Often seen as savage brutes, the mighty Orcish armies have a very simple goal in mind: Hit it with a stick until it stops moving. This makes their infantry very cheap to equip, but no less powerful. Unencumbered by unnecessary luxuries like armor, they can carry away extra plunder with every raid.

Unfortunately, this emphasis on raiding means that they are poorly equipped to defend themselves, and are more likely to take damage when they are raided themselves.

Four Rankings inlcude Overall, XP Ranking, Honor Ranking and Military Might.

The Overall ranking displays players by Win Percentage in offensive and defensive battle. A player must be at least level 5 and have fought at least 20 battles to be counted in this table.

The XP ranking displays players by total XP. XP counts towards the player level and is gained by constructing buildings and fighting battles.

The Honor ranking displays players by their Honor. Honor is gained by raiding players that are on the same level or above. Honor is lost by raiding lower level players.

The Military Might ranking displays players by the strength of their armies. Units are worth different amounts with cavalry being worth more than infantry, and elites being worth more than cavalry.

Premium Features

Now you know all the information and time to learn the skills and unlock all achievements in Utopia Kingdoms!

Tera Online will be more attractive than Diablo 3 and RaiderZ

Posted by – November 29, 2010

Korea’s largest gaming Evet GStar 2010 has just wrapped up in Busan, spanning for four days. And the annual gaming show brought much enjoyment, fun and surprises to worldwide gamers. The most anticipated game is nothing but Diablo 3, the upcoming dark fantasy RPG developed by Blizzard.

However, Diablo 3 never dominated the Gstar 2010, but RaiderZ online showed more potential for gamers. With the fantasy theme, dynamic gameplay, console-like graphics, and fast-paced action, RaiderZ Online easily attracted visitors around. (Korean MMO is rising?)

In Fact, Hangame performed well than what the guys were keenly concerned of the fact that they are closely near Blizzards booth. Indeed Korean games are becoming another mainstream in gaming industry. As TERA Online’s developer Bluehole CEO said Tera Online will be more attractive than Diablo 3 in Gstar, which has been evidenced by the number of visitors to TERA Online’s booth.

By injecting $ 40 million into the upcoming Project TERA Online, BlueHole appears more confident about its just-near release. Unlike other Asian MMORPGs, TERA Online will not go free to play, but monthly subscription order, according to BlueHole’s CEO, who said there have been a great number of great MMOs scored impressive achievement, but these games, including World of Warcraft: Cataclysm and LOTRO, are short of contents in the post-success period. For Tera team, they have already prepared tons of contents such as storyline, quests, dungeons and events for gamers in the upcoming open beta. What is more, they are planning to make massive updates each quarter. All of that is to make sure players will never find it boring.

When Bluehole’s CEO was asked why they chose to operate the game in North America instead of licensing the game to a native publisher, he said they did not find an appropriate operator in the video game-based North American market.

League of Legends Review

Posted by – November 29, 2010

League of Legends is a session-based MMORPG by Riot Games. It is based off the Warcraft 3 map variant DoTA (Defense of Tower Ancients) tailored for competitive and aggressive players. The basis of the game is that you summon champions into battlefields to battle. The game currently has 64 champions. Each one has 4 different spells and a passive skill. The champions have a lot of variety in their skills and their jobs on the team. Champions are either ranged or melee and spells can be both active and passive.

In the game there are 2 different maps. Twisted Treeline is a small map with two lanes and is made for 3v3, while Summoner’s Rift is a larger map with 3 lanes and is made for 5v5. Twisted Treeline is based much more on which team can get into more 3v2 and 2v1 scenarios in order to get more kills. Summoner’s Rift is based more on team fights in which the teams are equal in size. In both it is important to have a balance between stuns, dps, and engagers.

The F2P MMORPG League of Legends takes on DoTA’s gameplay and bears a Team-based similarity with PVP Arena game Bloodline Champions.

The hardest part of this game is getting through the beginning of it. At low levels many people cause you to lose games through lack of experience or by leaving the game. It can also be pretty hard to learn how to play the game, even with the help of the tutorial. Along with this it can be frustrating playing with people you don’t know. This is why I recommend adding people to your friends list who you find are good at the game. This can help you find a good team and can allow you to dominate unorganized teams at low levels. By higher levels leavers aren’t that common, and people know how to cooperate pretty well so that even when you play with people you don’t know it’s not that big of a deal.

My favorite part of the game is that they are constantly adding new content. Almost every week a new patch is released. In this patch they rotate the free champions, which are the champions that you can play without owning. You can buy champions by using Influence Points (IP), which you get after every battle, or Riot Points (RP), which you can get by using money. They also add new skins for characters, which can only be bought with RP, balance out classes, fix bugs, and on occasion add a new character to the game.

One major problem is the server’s reliability. Although it is getting much better you never know when the server is going to go down. About once a month the server completely shuts down without warning from about 12-24 hours. It used to happen almost weekly, but they’ve been trying to fix it. Other than this it does go down for maintenance, although its only once a week, scheduled, and not for very long.

I suggest before you play to read a guide over the character you want to play on the following sites: Mobafire.com
and Leaguecraft.com. By the way, I would like to mention the upcoming F2P MMORPG Champions Online, because this game also immerses you into the position of Champions Goer and hunter.

Taylor Reinhard reviewed League of Legends (LoL) and Edward Wong edited this article.