Massively

First Impressions: WarMage Battlegrounds

Beau Hindman — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 16:30:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Screenshots, Game Mechanics, Previews, PvP, PvE, Opinion, Free-to-Play, Browser, Casual, First Impressions, Miscellaneous

WarMage Battlegrounds, by developer Burst Online Entertainment, is as simple game that pops up in a window and requires no large downloads. At first, everything about the game is simple, from the character creation to the layout of the map. However, after spending some time in the game tweaking my army loadout, and worrying about how to get my WarMage's mana pool to refill faster, I have to say that there is quite a bit of in-depth strategy packed into this unassuming indie title.

You play a WarMage, a caster-type who has been set into the world to defend and conquer other WarMages. Your weapons consist of a small army, creatures, and a hotbar filled with scrolls, artifacts, and spells, and you battle it out with other players and NPCs on sometimes large (but always manageable) maps. If you have played Pox Nora, a turn-based title from Sony Online Entertainment, then you will be familiar with WarMage Battlegrounds. But WarMage Battlegrounds does some things that are well ahead of Pox Nora, things that take strategy gaming to newer heights.

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First Impressions: WarMage Battlegrounds originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 18 Oct 2012 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MMObility: The pros and cons of Tibia's browser version

Beau Hindman — Fri, 04 May 2012 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, Previews, Opinion, Free-to-Play, Browser, Casual, Miscellaneous, MMObility

Tibia is an MMO that has been hanging in there for many, many years. You have to give it respect for that alone. When you add on the fact that the game seems to be updated relatively frequently and boasts a pretty good-sized playerbase, it becomes even more intriguing. I've played it in the past and have enjoyed the simple graphics and slower-paced gameplay. I like how NPCs chat with you, old-school EverQuest-style, and how there seems to be a lot more to the game than meets the eye.

There are plenty of eyesores, however. The developers recently released Tibia in a beta browser form. While the client was always easy enough to download and run on my multitude of devices, I always prefer to just jump into my browser and load it up.

I found a lot of neat little systems but also quite a few bugs or odd design choices. Colors and layout can be a problem, and I am not the biggest fan of Flash-based MMOs. Still, I am enjoying myself so far and look forward to more. Let's talk about what I found over these last several hours with Tibia's browser-based version.

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MMObility: The pros and cons of Tibia's browser version originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 04 May 2012 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rise and Shiny recap: City of Eternals

Beau Hindman — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 14:00:00 EST

Filed under: Betas, Screenshots, Opinion, Hands-On, Humor, Rise and Shiny, Livestream

City of Eternals is somewhat of an enigma to me. I've heard of it off and on through the last few years. I've seen it before, and it doesn't seem as though it has changed much, if at all. I am familiar with it just because I have been covering games for a long time, yet I've never really checked it out. Sure, I poked my head into it through Facebook once or twice, but to be honest, I didn't really like what I saw. I am all about independent, different-looking, or not-so-pretty games... heck, if I weren't, I'd have nothing to play but bloated "AAA" grindfests.

But there's just something about the skinny-jean, pleather-wearing vampire scene that I cannot stand. My wife is into True Blood, the campy, vamp-heavy, naked-people festival that shows on the HBO network, but at least the show has fun with it and builds up interesting characters. City of Eternals seems to be stuck in that cheesier area of vampire fandom, though.

Still, I played it over the last week and started to enjoy it a bit, for a few different reasons. Click past the cut and I'll tell you about it.

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Rise and Shiny recap: City of Eternals originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 26 Jun 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MMObility: The constants of the console

Beau Hindman — Tue, 17 May 2011 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: Opinion, RuneScape, Free-to-Play, Browser, Consoles, Casual, Humor, MMObility

Once again I find myself envious of the console gamer lifestyle. If you think about it even for a bit, you can see how they almost have the best of all gaming worlds. Most popular console titles support some version of multiplayer that can simulate an MMO. Granted, players don't have access to potentially thousands of players at once and all that "massive" entails, but if we are even mildly honest, we'd admit that a great many MMO players spend their time in an instanced dungeon with the same handful of people, most of the time.

A console is also portable and standard. If you buy a console game, you pretty much know it will run on your system. Sure, there are hiccups here and there, but those would be generally the same hiccups that all players would have. The games are made for the console, not the other way around. My jealousy has begun to affect how I play -- I am starting to find ways to step further and further away from the standard PC setup, and hopefully I will never utter the words "upgrade my PC" again.

Browser-based and portable gaming are much like the console market. Let's discuss how so and why this really makes me feel good. Click past the cut!

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MMObility: The constants of the console originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 17 May 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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First Impressions: Fortune Online

Beau Hindman — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 15:30:00 EST

Filed under: Betas, Galleries, New Titles, PvE, Browser, Hands-On, First Impressions

You know, there is no shortage of "Diablo clones" out there. We've all played them, and we've probably enjoyed many. It's safe to say that "Diablo-esque" is a real word with real meaning -- something you can say to your gaming buddy and he'll know exactly what you mean. However, as with any other genre, it's very easy for it to become repetitive and boring. The initial thrill of the game or style that inspired the movement tends to pass away if developers continue to regurgitate it in the hopes of profiting from gamer nostalgia.

In some cases, it works pretty well. Torchlight, for example, is a lot of fun and easy enough to play -- as evidenced by the success of the game. The fact that it was really nothing new didn't stop us from having a lot of fun with it. The tales of an online version tantalize us, but wouldn't it be nice if we could play a Diablo-esque game that truly offers MMO benefits?

It's possible that we can with Fortune Online. I was asked to spend some time with the beta to see how it's going. Is it really a good choice for fans of top-down dungeon grinding? Click past the cut to see what I thought.

Gallery: Fortune Online

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First Impressions: Fortune Online originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 18 Feb 2011 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gazillion and Netdevil's Fortune Online closed beta mystery

Krystalle Voecks — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 19:30:00 EST

Filed under: Betas, Screenshots, Video, New Titles, News Items, Free-to-Play, Browser

One of the things we love to do here at Massively is to point you to interesting MMO games on the horizon -- especially when it comes to signing up for beta testing! We figure since nerds of a feather flock together, you'd probably enjoy finding out about new games just as much as we do. That's why we admit being to a bit flummoxed by this one. You see, Gazillion Entertainment and Netdevil have just launched the website for their new browser-based game, Fortune Online, which currently offers only a login page or a sign-up for a closed beta spot. However, since you need a code to sign up, you can't currently get further into the site than this page, leaving us to look at its shiny graphics and wonder... what gaming goodness lies beneath?

Thankfully, Gazillion Entertainment sent us a pile of screenshots and a video to give us an idea of what the game will be like. Created to play in "any browser released in this century," Fortune Online is a lush, isometric, Diablo-esque action game offering the ability to play with friends in a persistent world. Even more interesting is that the game is flash-based, which will spare us from enormous downloads and give players the ability to jump in from just about any computer they can get access to. The game is also designed to allow ease in inviting friends to play with you. To top it all off? Fortune Online will be free-to-play! So while we wait for open beta, check out the gallery of screenshots below and the action-packed video behind the break! Or, you know, you can go look at the shiny site and click expectantly on the buttons like we did.

Gallery: Fortune Online

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Gazillion and Netdevil's Fortune Online closed beta mystery originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 02 Feb 2011 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rise and Shiny recap: Dofus

Beau Hindman — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 14:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Video, Dofus, Opinion, Free-to-Play, Hands-On, Mac, Casual, Rise and Shiny, Livestream

Years ago I had to find a job in my new home state of Texas. Luckily for me, my wife hooked me up with a friend who helped me get hired at Starbucks. At first, I hung my head in shame. Later, though, I enjoyed dealing with customers and the free coffee. I had a co-worker, a real chin-scratching, coffee house wanna-be intellectual who would often spend more time dreaming about some game than about getting people on their breaks. He even brought his Macbook to work to sneak in time in the game.

I glanced over his shoulder one day and was delighted to see an odd-looking, cartoony, turn-based game on his screen. It turned out that the game was Dofus. I tried it immediately and fell in love with it, but that was years ago. I still found time to revisit the game, but once I started working at Massively, most of my time became dedicated to every other game in the world.

Well, it's time to visit it again. During the first part of this week, though, I thought this was going to be a disaster. I stayed strong and battled my way through bot after bot, spam message after spam message, and eventually found the great game I remember. Click past the cut to see exactly what I found!

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Rise and Shiny recap: Dofus originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 02 Jan 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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All-star team gets funding for Ohai MMO

Shawn Schuster — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 09:00:00 EST

Filed under: Business Models, MMO Industry, New Titles, Browser, Casual, Virtual Worlds

What do you get when you mix former SOE developers, a Flash-based virtual goods environment and about 6 million dollars in capital funding? You get Ohai, a new project in development from such industry vets as Scott Hartsman, Blake Commagere and Don Neufeld.

Last fall, the folks at Ohai raised an undisclosed amount of financing (rumored to be $6 million) from August Capital and Rustic Canyon Partners for their new Flash-based MMO. Very little is known about the game, aside from tidbits here and there. Susan Wu, the company's CEO, recently told Virtual Worlds News that it will be a virtual goods focused business, and they're steering clear of the word "casual", in lieu of the much more appropriate term "accessible". Oh, and they're looking to spend a bit of that cash on some talented artists and programmers.

All-star team gets funding for Ohai MMO originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 27 Jan 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Twin Skies scraps their 3D MMO plans to focus on a F2P Flash game

Shawn Schuster — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 09:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Business Models, MMO Industry, New Titles, News Items, Free-to-Play, Twin Skies

You may remember Twin Skies from our extensive interview with Meteor Games at PAX earlier this year. The game looked very promising and we had nothing but good things to say about it. In a surprising announcement made today, we get word that they're actually scrapping the 3D part of the project to focus on the Flash-based content, making some storyline changes and turning it into a free-to-play model.

While this news is both good and bad for die hard fans, it does change quite a bit about the whole game. The integration of a 3D world with a 2D Flash-based client was going to be something special. Of course, the company's CEO, Adam Powell, says that they may revisit this concept at a later date, but he attributes these changes to the current economic problems that are affecting everyone these days. We wish the folks at Meteor Games the very best, and hope this new approach to Twin Skies works well for them and the players!

Twin Skies scraps their 3D MMO plans to focus on a F2P Flash game originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 02 Jan 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Whirled and deviantART announce design contest winners

Shawn Schuster — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 20:00:00 EST

Filed under: Contests, Culture, Fan art, Events (Real-World), MMO Industry, Browser, Casual, Whirled

Three Rings, the developer of the Flash-based casual MMO Whirled, has just announced the winners in their new "Design your Whirled" art contest. In conjunction with deviantART, the largest online social network for artists, this contest challenged members to create the best individual or multiple rooms for the game. Because of the success of this first contest, Three Rings has already announced that they're accepting entries for the second contest of the same name.

The top winner was awarded a new 15-inch Macbook Pro and one year subscription to deviantART, while the second and third place winners were awarded Wacom tablets and other deviantART subscriptions. You can view the winning entries by visiting the main Whirled site, and register your own entry for the next contest at the Whirled wiki.

Whirled and deviantART announce design contest winners originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 23 Dec 2008 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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