A topic that comes up in every game and every era of MMOGs is the neverending supply of Hackers and their onslaught against the game(s) that we hold so dear to us. These are the people who seem to make our gaming experiences that much more problematic and difficult to endure. But how do they seperate the community even more so than ourselves? If the "legit" players of the community weren't problematic enough, what about those who exploit the system that runs and maintains our most cherished games? Our adversities are actually our fellow players, and the types that jump up in levels or kill us in two attacks at level 1 make things much more complicated than they should be. Jealousy runs through our veins because we see these people out level us in the most immoral kind of ways.

Common Memory Editor

These hackers end up using memory and/or packet editors to manipulate the client that we, the normal players, have been using for ages in ways that are completely illogical. Everything from gravity modifications to damage modifiers are found in the most under-played games on the Internet. Even when you least expect it, that silly little Flash-based game you play when you're bor

Throughout times, we've experienced the worse of the worse. As players, we've suffered from terrible incidents that resulted in us losing our characters, items, or even our account due to another player's desire to obtain what you have. Not only that, when was the last time you've gone into a Player Versus Player server or room without being called a 'noob' for the most unreasonable thing the person could come up with? It's come to my attention that gamers are no longer the 'passive' gamers they used to be; instead, they're trained and then normally stolen off of the person who worked so hard for it. This isn't always the case, but these times in MMO history are darker than any other. I've seen articles resembling "Was <year> the worse/best year for MMOGs?" popping up; and to my dismay, they don't seem to have any background information about how MMOs used to be.

The time before we all gave up hope..

Needless to say it wasn't always like this. There were times before all of the hype of being 'the best character' existed. Once upon a time, there were players who only wanted to enjoy the embrace of a good game with a bunch of like-minded players who enj

So I decided to see if I could get ahold of a Nexon Korea account, as they're the current publisher for Elsword (a side-scrolling Cel-Shaded MMOG). Luck has it, a friend of mine passed one over so I could try this game out. If you've been following my reviews or articles, you'll notice that I've also taken a hankering for another game (with the same type of genre classification) called "Grand Chase". Incidentally, they share the same parent (developer). Kog has been developing both Elsword and Grand Chase for some time now; except Elsword is newer and is currently undergoing Closed-Beta Testing. For whatever reason, Elsword seems like a near-exact clone of Grand Chase - except heavy improvements have been made to further the community and the player's personal experience while gaming.

You may find me comparing Elsword and Grand Chase a fair bit in this 'preview', as they are remarkably alike. Except, they're not alike at all. I say this not to confuse you, but because there's really nothing better out there to explain how I see Elsword. No, to all of the now-avid Grand Chasers, Elsword is not the sequel to Grand Chase. In fact, there are no characters that share the same

Yes, that's right, you saw it first hand.. Guild Wars. It was in June of 2005 when my best friend told me that he was going to buy it for me and demand that I played with him. I was living here in London, England at the time and he was still in the United States (since I originally come from there). He transferred the money for it to me via Western Union and I was on my way to the nearest GAME (video game retailer here in the UK) to pick up my copy. With glee, I found myself skipping down the streets of London like a giddy little schoolgirl... alright, not really, but I felt like I was!

Installation of the game was a breeze, even though it seemed to take ages (it was just my imagination). I heard a fair amount of good things about Guild Wars from looking online when my friend became so demanding that I play it (Hey, a man can only trust the insane ramblings of his best friend for a decade before he starts double-checking the information!). The previews, articles, and reviews that I read for Guild Wars were incredible, very few people had anything nasty to say about it. By the time it was installed, I knew what type of profession I wanted (or at least a close idea to it) and was read

One of the more 'unique' distributors out there, GameTribe, has been providing the European-Region with 'Infinity Online'. Infinity Online is a 3-D 'hack and slash' genre-based MMOG. It circles around a very mediocre storyline; which seems to be split up into different "Acts". You take control of several characters: Kirius, Beakho, and Elina. However, with enough in-game cash (called Liras), you can purchase more characters to conqure the storyline and PvP realms of Infinity Online. Each character has its own unique set of skills, attacks, and equipment [of course].

Like many MMOGs out there, it's not too terribly unique in any way. In fact, the only uniqueness that comes from Infinity Online is how absolutely terrible it is. Before you all grab your flaming swords and rebuttal shields, let me elaborate and explain to the best of my ability. As with my other reviews, I will make it as detailed as I can to try to make sure I'm not missing any points that could be focused on better.

Gameplay

As I've already mentioned, there are several characters you handle in this game. Their weapons aren't too interesting, from the get-go. You have the dual-swords, the 'evil claw', the sta

Marketing and Advertisments of MMOGs: The Likely Future

In the past recent years, console and generic PC games were really the only games that had television or magazine advertisements. Although, lately, there's been a few companies out there willing to break the boundaries of what is 'acceptable' to market and what is not. In the North American market, there have been very few games that have been advertised that were focused around online play. This isn't to say that there weren't any, but most of them were console games. As time progresses and the market becomes more flourished and prepared for newcommers, we're seeing more and more companies jumping off of the normal bandwagon and advertising in the 'real world'.

One of the more 'revolutionary' companies that have decided to pull their power from their asian-based companies is Nexon America with their MapleStory television advertisements. There was alot of negative feedback from the already-existant players of Nexon's flagship, MapleStory, as they felt that the advertisements didn't do the game 'justice'. However, as horrible as the advertisements seemed to most of the players, it did bring in more players. The difference betwee

Just last month, Ntreev USA started the Open Beta of another 'unique' MMOG straight from Korea called Grand Chase. While Grand Chase isn't an RPG game, it is one of those interesting 2D side-scroller/fighter-type games that will bring nostalgia to even the most veteran players of the 16bit era. This cel-shaded game can keep players interested for an endless amount of hours, for either the competitive Player Versus Player junkie or the adventurous storyline crawlers out there. The controls are rather straight-foward and the platform has a mediocre learning curve for even the less-experienced players out there.

Since Ntreev USA's release of this game, they have continued to 'up the ante' when it comes to content, patches, and support. At the time of this review, there are currently 12 different dungeons for players to explore and conquer the bosses that protect (or more so, destroy) them. Ntreev USA even has some of their Quality Assurance team scouting their Bug Report forums to make sure that they can try to fix as many of the bugs faced in this Beta as soon as possible. Some players have become discouraged in regards to making threads about common bugs or issues, as some of the mo

This was mainly inspired by the fact that "DragonBall Online" has been announced to the general public. Personally, I have no grief about the game coming out and I've been looking forward to such a thing for quite some time now. However, there are probably a handful of people who will remember the multiple Quake III-engine induced games that were being developed by a group of freelance programmers that revolved around the DragonBall 'Universe'. It erks me, in a strong way, to see how these games have been demolished even after hours of seemingly-endless programming had been put into these 'freelance' games. The game that crosses my mind started out as a Quake III modification that involved the "Dragon Ball Z" characters (Goku, Piccolo, Gohan, Vegeta, and various others) that was practically a First Person Shooter. Funimation ended up forcing them to pull the plug on it, making the horde of loyal followers cry out in rage.

Alright, we all can understand the big company's point of view. Someone else was using characters from a registered/trademarked franchise that they had the rights to. But what about the little guys? Those hardworking programmers who were only d