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Category: Article Posted on Oct 24, 2008 Add to Bookmark

 

I just finished reading about the Maplestory divorce (read it here – thanks to Avarwen for the article) and it got me to thinking. Online games are getting more in-depth these days. More and more developers are trying out new ideas and features hoping to strike it big by getting the jump on the next hottest thing. So it’s only a matter of time before a game is released that actually encourages online relationships within the game itself. A few games have already toyed with the idea (World of Warcraft offers a few pieces of “Wedding Gear”) but there’s nothing that actively promotes its use by players. Don’t misunderstand me though. I’m not against the idea, quite the opposite in fact. I’ve had a few MMO relationships myself and despite all the people crying out “But it’s not a real relationship!” or even the more vocal “zOMG!! Tob is teh cYb0rZ! LOL!” the actual feelings involved were very real (for the record, I have never “cybered” in my life… it’s just too weird). This is the biggest appeal for the idea behind online relationships. It’s also the biggest dan

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Category: Article Posted on Sep 22, 2008 Add to Bookmark

World of Warcraft Killer. It's become an actual term in the gaming industry.

It's the Shangri'la of gaming, a mythical paradise that all gamers and developers dream of but no-one knows if it actually exists, or even if it can.

Dethroning WoW has become the ultimate goal of game development - it's the ultimate title that can be bestowed unto any game - but maybe we should take a step back and have a look at this ideal with a more critical eye.

Now, everyone who has had WoW negatively affect their lives in some way, please raise your hand now...
1...2..8...312... Hmm, that's a lot.

Alright, now for all the non-gamers who've had their lives impacted by a friend/relative/partner who has a WoW addiction, please raise your hands...
...Oh my, it's about the same amount, if not more.

Don't start throwing your rocks yet guys, I know you get awfully defensive when it comes to your precious Azeroth, but hear me out.

Did you see all those hands? Yeah, that's one helluva lot of people who've been affected by just one game. I should know, I'm one of them (WoW claimed my soul during closed beta... I wasn't part of the beta, I was hooked just hearing about it). My concern is simply this: Do we

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Category: Article Posted on Sep 20, 2008 Add to Bookmark

My love for the handheld system has been reignited (and some of my faith in Square-Enix at the same time):
The World Ends With You...

Well, reignited is probably too strong of a term in my case. I never had much interest in handheld systems until now. I'd just assumed that they were used exclusively for Pokemon games and that everything else was just an afterthought. Heck, the whole reason I bought a DS in the first place was for Pokemon.

(By the way, you should probably know now before you hear it from someone else and get the wrong idea: I own a pink DS... it's a long story, don't ask)

 

TWEWY is a damn near perfect game. I've spent weeks playing it so far and have been really struggling to find a fault... but this isn't about TWEWY.

The handheld market seems to be growing stronger and stronger by the day. The DS and the PSP have all but revolutionised portable gaming forever. Such amazing games are being released on these systems now that portable gaming is becoming harder to ignore. These things are not out of the ordinary though, this is just the natural way any gaming system/platform evolves. No, it's the new possibilities that got me thinking.

 

 

Which new door

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Category: Article Posted on Aug 13, 2008 Add to Bookmark


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Alright, I figure I’ve kept you waiting long enough. My test was successful by the looks of things.

A while ago I wrote this to try and make a point - that gamers want a good to hear a good story. Numerous people kept asking me when part two was going to be uploaded (I cheekily told them to wait, knowing full well there was actually no part two at all) because they wanted to see more.

I devised this little test based on a major grievance I have with MMO games. Do not misunderstand me, I mean every last MMO game in existence. There are no exclusions, no exceptions… nothing.
Every MMO I have ever played has failed to deliver any kind of immersive story-based experience whatsoever.  By now you’re probably bright red with rage and ready to throw whatever  potentially dangerous instrument you can find directly at my head, but allow me to explain further before you decide to severely injure me.

MMO’s have only ever been designed to kill time. Questing, grinding, questing, etc… all very repetitive, all designed to delay the players from reaching the end of an “open” game. If this process is followed as predicted by designers, then the
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Category: Article Posted on May 13, 2008 Add to Bookmark



I’ve seen a few articles lately discussing the good and bad things about “cloned” MMO’s. The closed beta release of Wind Slayer has reignited debate on whether blatantly cloning an MMO is good for the gamers, the game itself and the industry as a whole.For those who haven’t seen it, Wind Slayer is almost a carbon copy of another MMO; Maple Story. It does have a few differences in some areas (such as PvP) but the similarities are too many to ignore. Wind Slayer just doesn’t seem to have any original ideas of its own and even resorts to flat-out plagiarism at times; one of the NPC quest givers is named “Gangdalf”, naturally he’s a kindly old wizard (who would have guessed?) and in one of the quest texts his name is misspelled as “Gandalf”. But Wind Slayer is not the game that shamelessly plucks its essence from other sources: Wind Slayer vs. Maple StoryLineage 2 vs. ShaiyaLord of the Rings Online vs. …well, a little bit of everything. While the focus is currently on whether or not cloned games are any good, I’ve become a bit more worried about the genre overall. Cloning games, while not always a good thing, is still accepted in the MMO community. The humble MMO seems to be now stuck
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