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Pathfinder Online's technology demo gets soundly kickstarted

Eliot Lefebvre — Thu, 10 May 2012 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, MMO industry, News items, Sandbox

Two days ago, we announced that Pathfinder Online was starting a Kickstarter project to fund a technology demo for the game. Yesterday, the project went live. Today, the project has already hit its $50,000 goal and exceeded it, meaning that the game's demo will most definitely be funded when June 8th rolls around. There are still another 29 days left in the project, so if you're interested in the game, there's still more time for you to throw in your support.

But maybe you're one of the backers already. If you're still eager for more information on the game, the weekly developer blog has gone live, discussing the rationale behind the Kickstarter project and some of the future steps of the game's production. You can also take a peek at details behind the upcoming tabletop book available for backers, which might help motivate you to donate if you haven't already.

[Thanks to Nick for the tip!]

Pathfinder Online's technology demo gets soundly kickstarted originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 10 May 2012 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Pathfinder Online puts together a Kickstarter project [Updated]

Eliot Lefebvre — Tue, 08 May 2012 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Events, real-world, MMO industry, News items, Sandbox

Kickstarter has been getting a lot of attention from the gaming industry of late after a number of high-profile successes. It's even gained the attention of the team behind Pathfinder Online, the upcoming sandbox MMORPG based on the eponymous tabletop system. So instead of trying to secure venture capitalist funding for the project, the development team is reaching out directly to the fans via a new Kickstarter project to assemble a tech demo for the game.

It's important to note that the project is only for funding a demo of the game, enough to show bigger investors that the interest in the game does exist. However, the development team has still assembled a number of bonuses for prospective players, including special forum membership, specialized tabletop game products, and promotional posters. If you're interested in seeing the game continue in development, it's well worth dropping by the Kickstarter page and dropping in some money when it goes live soon.

[Update: The Kickstarter page is now live!]

Pathfinder Online puts together a Kickstarter project [Updated] originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 08 May 2012 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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First Gaikai demo shows WoW and EVE played via browser

James Egan — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:00:00 EST

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Sci-fi, Video, EVE Online, MMO industry, News items, Browser

Gaikai is a new game streaming service that's currently in development, which was first announced at GDC 2009 (and later was apparently previewed by game publishers at E3 2009.) We've since mentioned Gaikai a few times at Massively, and how the service could bring MMOs (and other games) to devices like netbooks that don't have adequate graphics capabilities to run these titles. Gaikai will use "Streaming Worlds" technology to do all the graphics crunching on remote servers and then stream games to your computer via a web browser. In effect, you're playing the game as a video stream. No client install required, no patching needed.

Given the reactions we've seen from gamers in our own comments and elsewhere on the web, skepticism abounds. Perhaps seeing is believing though, as Gaikai's David Perry has put out a video demo of the service today, explaining Gaikai to viewers as he plays several games, namely World of Warcraft and EVE Online. No doubt there will still be skepticism, but it's good to get a first look at the service. Perry makes a few details about the demo and the service itself clear on his blog: the data travel distance in the demo is 800 miles; this is a (non-fiber) home cable connection; it works over wi-fi and with netbooks lacking 3D graphics cards; any clicking sounds heard are only from Perry's wireless headset mic.

We've got a video embed of the Gaikai technology demo for you below, where you can see World of Warcraft and EVE Online played via a browser:

Continue reading First Gaikai demo shows WoW and EVE played via browser

First Gaikai demo shows WoW and EVE played via browser originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Second Life on an iPhone

Akela Talamasca — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 10:45:00 EST

Filed under: At a glance, Real life, Video, News items, Second Life, Free-to-play, Mobile, Academic, Virtual worlds

At first glance, this looks like Second Life running on an iPhone, but this is not the case. Instead, it's more of a SL-by-proxy sort of situation, where commands being entered through the iPhone interface are transmitted to an actual SL session running somewhere. There is a slight lag to the proceedings, which any resident of SL will be well familiar with.

Is this tech demo interesting in anything more than an academic way? If you could access SL through an iPhone remotely like this, would it be worth it? What if you could run World of Warcraft like this somehow -- would you? At what point is going mobile more trouble than it's worth?

Second Life on an iPhone originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 13 Feb 2008 10:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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