Princess Fury

Chinese iPhone devs Mo-Star release Princess Fury:

Inventive developers Mo-Star today announced the release of their new fantasy battle game for iPhone, Princess Fury. This gorgeously illustrated action game boasts a combination of classic arcade action style and a creative, real-time strategic battle system.

As Princess Fury, players strike down enemies with the combined power of servants and soldiers. With stunning swordplay and magic, players can combat over 100 enemies at once in epic battles that rely on collaboration with friendly forces as much as one’s own competence and courage.

“Most of our developers grew up playing arcade and console games, so our goal with Princess Fury was to provide a console quality gaming experience, suited to the mobile player,” said Qin Yi, general manager at Mo-Star. “We spent lots of time making the controls sharp, the battles fun and exciting, and fine-tuning the sound and graphics effects; and now we have created a game that we enjoy playing, and we hope fans will enjoy it too.”

A princess-y RTP with Chinese characteristics? Sounds great to me. Can’t wait to check it out!

Popularity: 1% [?]

An Alien, Bigfoot and Frankenstein’s Monster on ‘Tiger Eye: Curse of the Riddle Box’

I’ve posted about Tiger Eye: Curse of the Riddle Box and about The Game Composer’s Blog before, and today’s post over at the Game Composer’s Blog was just awesome. Sayre’s latest post transcribes a podcast he did about Tiger Eye, with an alien, Bigfoot and Frankenstein’s monster.

ALIEN: Welcome back, humans. One of your kind is now with us. Behold Matt Sayre!

MATT: Thank you, Alien. I’m happy to be here.

BIGFOOT: (English accent) Welcome, Mr. Sayre.

FRANKENSTEIN: Urrrgh!!

MATT: Hi, Bigfoot and Frankenstein’s monster.

BIGFOOT: Oh, go ahead and call him “Frankenstein”. He’s grown accustomed to that particular appellation.

MATT: Great. I will, thanks.

FRANKENSTEIN: Gyee.

ALIEN: Begin this interrogation by giving us the history of your project and the human faction that has created it.

MATT: Tiger Eye: Curse of the Riddle Box is a new hidden object puzzle adventure game based on the paranormal romance novel Tiger Eye by Marjorie M. Liu. The game basically covers the first half of the book. You play as Dela Reese, a young woman traveling in China. She finds a mysterious riddle box and once she opens it she discovers an ancient warrior, Hari, who has been trapped within for centuries. He is cursed to serve as a slave to whomever possesses the box. You try to rid him of the curse and deal with the Magi, the antagonist who is responsible for the curse and who wants his riddle box back.

Our team, PassionFruit Games, was formed specifically to make this game and, we hope, all its sequels. Tiger Eye is the first in the Dirk & Steele (the psychic detective group Dela belongs to) series of books and it’s an exciting series, perfect for video games. The members of PassionFruit Games previously worked at Her Interactive (I did contract work for them, the rest were full-time), where they worked on the Nancy Drew Dossier series. Unfortunately, the Dossier series did not pan out (even though Resorting to Danger won Yahoo’s 2009 Hidden Object Game of the Year award) so the team was laid off. The day after being laid off, however, we were already planning this new venture. And last month we shipped TE: CotRB!

I kind of want to quote the whole thing, actually. And also I want to subscribe to the Alien, Bigfoot and Frankenstein podcast.

Via Tiger Eye: Curse of the Riddle Box Postnatal « The Game Composer’s Blog

Popularity: 1% [?]

Rainblood

RainBlood, an RPG from Chinese indie developer Soulframe, has just been released in English translation. Bloodrain uses hand-drawn environments and characters (with a little help form RPGmaker) to create a plot-heavy RPG set in fictionalized China. In this single-player game, players will enter the town of Pang to uncover mysteries involving a plague on the city and hidden loyalties as they fight monsters and avoid would-be assassins. The game takes place in one day in Pang, but flashbacks, interior stories and a complex overall storyline promise to make the game more of an interactive novel than a button-masher.

I’m pretty excited to check it out, I love RPGs in general, and usually indie storylines prevent my friends from having to listen to me whine endlessly about how the game could have been better with more character development.  I also love Chinese myths, but after two years of living in  China, my Mandarin is still basically confined to reading a menu or buying a train ticket, so I’m pleased to see the release of the English version.

There’s also a sequel to Rainblood already in the works.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Asian Beta for Heroes of Might and Magic Online

Hull, UK / TQ Digital have confirmed that their anticipated MMO, Heroes of Might and Magic Online, licensed by renowned publishers Ubisoft, will be entering it’s Asia area closed beta on May 7^th.

Fans of Heroes of Might & Magic, one of the most loved PC-franchises of the last 15 years, can finally take their adventure to the MMO space on May 7^th with Heroes of Might and Magic Online, developed under the careful study of established china-based online games developer, TQ Digital.

With millions of players already habiting their other titles, including such well known names as Eudemons Online and Conqueror Online, TQ Digital have had a wealth of expertise to call on while crafting a playing experience based around the wants and needs of the series’ loyal fans.

Licensed by Ubisoft – who boast a host of mega-franchises, including The Settlers and Assassins Creed – Heroes of Might and Magic (HoMM) Online will take players back to the classic gameplay elements of HoMM III, mixing it with the stunning updated graphics of HoMM V in a 2.5D turn-based massively multiplayer environment.

Though Ubisoft introduced a new universe to the series for HoMM V, their first title after acquiring the franchise from 3DO Company, TQ Digital are finally bringing the popular fantasy setting of Erathia back, which debuted in 1999 releases, HoMM III and Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor.

Gameplay in Heroes of Might and Magic Online is as varied as it is beautiful, with gorgeous graphics complementing your epic quest to prove your valiant leadership.

Chose from a variety of 8 unique factions, develop elaborate castles that dominate the skyline of bustling metropolis Harmondale – epicenter of trade in the sweeping Antagarichean continent – plunder resources in exhilarating missions and fortify your armies against the inevitable wars of domination that lie ahead as you carve out your own legacy like the legions of plucky adventurers before you.

Experience magic based on an innovative in-game star system. Cast a new spell to increase your proficiency or perfect spells through a dynamic online training center.

Randomly generated combat maps, designed with strategic gameplay in mind, ensure you will need to think studiously about unit formations and tactics, while the hundreds of unique campaigns, each with deep storylines and goals, including 10 chapters of battlefield missions, are guaranteed to keep play refreshing throughout.

Develop towns of different races with the unique Town Prestige System, form guilds, gather resources, and prove your worth in the bloody-thirsty Challenging Arena. TQ Digital will be hosting a slew of PK events with HoMM Online: Team PK and Extreme PK are only the tip of the iceberg, with these events providing opportunities to gain priceless honor points and increase faction reputation.

Summary of HoMM Online game features:
• First Persistent World Turn-Based Strategy MMO
• 8 towns, 16 classes and 56 creatures
• Hundreds of campaigns with epic storylines
• Unique Anima and Dragon Scale Forge System
• Glorious Guild Building & Exciting Guild Wars
• Challenging Arena and PK Tournaments
• Heroes can build towns of different factions

The Asia area closed beta for HoMM Online launches on May 7^th. For more information on the game and a chance to register for beta access, visit the game’s official website today: http://homm.91.com/

Popularity: 1% [?]

Passionfruit Games

New development studio Passionfruit Games plans to release a casual adventure game Tiger Eye: Curse of the Riddle Box, based on the paramornal romance novel Tiger Eye by Marjorie M. Liu. Romance games are a wildly popular genre in Asia, but in the US, they’re hard to find and usually pretty second-rate games.  (Did I mention how bad My Boyfriend was?) We have high hopes for this one because new Passionfruit is made up of many HER Interactive veterans — the game team who put together Nancy Drew Dossier: Lights, Camera, Curses! and NDD: Resorting To Danger.  The game is currently in beta.

From the Passionfruit press release:

Tiger Eye: Curse of the Riddle Box also officially marks the launch of PassionFruit Games and represents a unique moment in the history of gaming.  Although a market for romance themed video games has existed abroad for years, these games are essentially unknown in the U.S.  Tiger Eye: Curse of the Riddle Box will be one of the first romance casual games to hit the U.S. market when it goes on-sale in April 2010.

In discussing PassionFruit Games’ decision to launch their company with Tiger Eye: Curse of the Riddle Box, Melissa Heidrich, Studio Director, expressed her enthusiasm for reaching out to romance readers: “The majority of casual gamers are women aged 25-65, who report they play casual games mainly to escape.  Interestingly, those same attributes apply to romance novel readers – so it’s surprising that there are currently so few romance casual games on the market.  That’s why we’re excited to bring Tiger Eye to life as interactive entertainment.”

For Marjorie M. Liu’s fans, it will be a great chance for them to experience a game written by, designed by, and created for women. Mari Tokuda, one of the designers translating Marjorie’s novel into game form, says: ““There just aren’t many romance games in today’s market.  And, for many women, romance novels are not interactive enough.  That’s where we come in – we are giving players a chance to experience the romance through fun gameplay and sensual cut scenes that further the relationship.  This game will really appeal to players who want a storyline and those who want to BE the smart, down-to-earth romance novel heroine.  And of course, we’ll have a sexy leading man heavily featured in the game.  A game like Tiger Eye is one of the most engaging ways for readers to experience characters’ relationships.”

Fans will also be able to experience things that weren’t in the book and to search for hidden objects, play minigames, listen to a film quality soundtrack, and solve puzzles, all the while following the storyline as the main characters’ relationship deepens emotionally and grows in intimacy, though there will not be explicit sex scenes.

PassionFruit Games acknowledges the challenges of turning a popular book into digital entertainment and of adhering closely to the book’s storyline.  In their quest to stay true to the novel,  all members of the team—from artist to programmer—read Tiger Eye, as well as other novels in the Dirk & Steele universe, to get a feel for the “essence” of the game.  The producer and lead designer held regular video conferences with Marjorie to go over the latest design ideas and Marjorie herself wrote the script for the game and is involved with the game every step of the way,  giving input on scene art, character design, and voice actor selection.

Says Marjorie, who is well known for her New York Times bestselling Dirk & Steele and Hunter Kiss series and for co-authoring the hugely popular Dark Wolverine Marvel comic book series, about playing the game’s early build: “I was amazed by the beautiful cinematic cut scenes and the way players could actually experience things my characters had done.  It’s an incredible feeling to not only see favorite characters brought to life but to experience life through their eyes as you progress through the game.”

The Tiger Eye novel, which Publishers Weekly praised as a “first-rate debut” and “a striking paranormal romance,” tells the story of Dela, a woman with psychic abilities who buys a riddle box in Beijing’s Dirt Market and opens it to find an ancient warrior, Hari, bound to serve as a slave to the person who has opened the box.  The action moves between China and the U.S. and PassionFruit Games will mirror this international scope through two games, the first to take place in China and the second in the U.S.  PassionFruit games also plans to involve readers in the release of Tiger Eye: Curse of the Riddle Box with the chance for a select few fans to be Beta testers and with fan voting on looks for the character, Long Nu.

More on Passionfruit Games and Tiger Eye: Curse of the Riddle Box from Simpson’s Paradox.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Kill 10 Rats And Bring Me Their Tails!

Guest author Lexton “Lunarhound” Collins discusses the upcoming Guild Wars 2, believable NPC drama, heroic errand-running, and shares his perspective on what makes a good MMO great.

Most gamers, both fans and detractors, would agree that MMO’s need shaking up. It’s happened before, when City of Heroes and, shortly afterward, World of Warcraft made camp grinding a thing of the past and brought quest-based advancement to the mainstream. Suddenly, characters had purpose-driven lives. Other games followed suit, and life was good in cyberland.

Now, several years later, gamers are growing weary of the new grind. It’s tough to ensure that every single one of the hundreds of quests necessary to keep an MMO going are interesting, and players are growing weary of the endless variations on “kill ten rats and bring me their tails”. Mini dramas acted out by NPC’s cease to feel immersive when sticking around for a minute afterward lets you watch the world reset before your eyes so that the next players in line can ride. Collecting exclamation marks and running errands for people too lazy to deliver their own letters or fight their own battles feels less like an adventure and more like checking off a list of chores. Few want to go back to the way things were, but developers, and many players, seem to be finding it difficult to see a way forward.

There have been efforts to do something different but they’ve gone largely unnoticed. Guild Wars came hot on the heels of World of Warcraft, and attempted to remedy many of the ‘theme park’ issues that came with a static world that had to reset each quest for the next player by making heavy use of instancing. Players see each other in towns, but once outside, you and your party had your own private copy of the world. This allowed them to change things permanently based on your actions. Unfortunately, this lead to many players not considering it a real MMO and, despite its commercial success, it didn’t inspire many imitators. Additional problems came from the fact that players could not jump, climb or swim and the world was full of invisible walls that forced strict adherence to the current mission path. Dungeons & Dragons Online came along a few years later with a similar world structure coupled with much better implementation of the mission-based game play and a great new action combat system, but the facts that it couldn’t (at the time) effectively be played solo and it required a monthly fee, it also ended up being relegated to niche status.

Now, Guild Wars has a sequel on the way. ArenaNet was very secretive about it for quite some time after its announcement, and even now information is limited, but what is beginning to emerge paints an interesting picture of a title that is trying to shake up the genre all over again. With the inclusion of open world areas and much greater mobility (players will be able to jump, swim and climb as they can in most other MMO’s), as well as new attitudes toward creative use of instancing, they might actually succeed this time.

In a preview at Eurogamer, back in August, lead designer Eric Flannum states that “I think I can safely say that you won’t see a single exclamation mark floating above a character’s head in Guild Wars 2.” This one little sentence makes for a pretty bold statement considering the direction of MMO’s for the past few years and, luckily, he elaborates:

“We actually don’t have a traditional RPG/MMO quest system… Instead what we’ve got are Events. Think of them as group-orientated activities. This is one of the many things that will encourage the player to explore the world – you can wander through and never quite know what you’re going to see. You might come across a fortress that’s being attacked by centaurs, or it might be that the centaurs attacked half an hour before you got there and they hold it now. You might start walking along a road you’ve walked a hundred times and suddenly there’s a caravan traveling along that road that you may not have seen, and you can go help that caravan out.”

Supposedly, these events will form a complex web within any given public area, spawning new ones and phasing out old ones based on cause and effect. An older example given is that of a dragon attacking a bridge. Players can band together to defeat the dragon, which might open up a new chain of events that can be participated in. Alternately, they might fail, choose not to help, or simply not be there when the dragon attacks, which would result in the bridge being destroyed and a completely different chain of events opening up, revolving around repairing the bridge. The difference between this and something like Warhammer Online’s public quests is that they will not simply reset repeatedly so that players can do them over again. The assertion that there will not be a traditional quest system seems to indicate that public areas will consist of countless such events and, rather than wandering around looking for someone with an exclamation mark to tell them what to do, players will spend their time looking for something actually happening. The potential of such a system to change the way questing is seen in online games is staggering.

That isn’t to say that all adventuring will be completely directionless. Each player will have a personal quest chain to play through that reflects his or her own character. From an interview with MMORPG.com in December:

“When a player creates a character in Guild Wars 2, they will be able to answer many questions about their personal character history. These answers will help determine your personal story in the game. As many fans have theorized, one of the first things you choose is a ‘subdivision’ of your race, which provides a more personal feel to your character’s history. For the humans, that means their ancestry–Elonan, Krytan, Ascalonian and Canthan–and also their social status as gentry or commoners of the city of Divinity’s Reach. For charr, it primarily means their legion, whether Blood, Ash, or Iron. The asura choose between the three most respected colleges of learning; Synergetics, Dynamics, and Statics. The sylvari follow the path of their seasonal cycle, or the time of day in which they awakened, being Dawn, Day, Twilight or Night. The norn choose their personal totem, and may choose to walk in the path of bear, snow leopard, raven or wolf. From these and other initial determinations, a wealth of personalized storylines develop, so that each player in the game experiences a story that is individually tailored to their character.”

According to ArenaNet, these choices, though part of character creation, will not affect class or power in any way. Their sole impact is on the player’s own personal narrative. This sounds tantalizingly like the Origins system in Dragon Age: Origins, and is an exciting thought when considered in the context of an MMORPG.

There’s no telling, of course, how much of an impact any of this will have or how well it will be received until the game is available to the public in some form. And if these claims were being made by a smaller developer without the experience or budget to back them up, they might be only a faint cause for hope at best. But ArenaNet has the budget and the talent to back up its big ideas, and it has already proven with one successful series that it knows what it’s doing.

Most seem to believe that the ultimate feat for an MMORPG would be to topple World of Warcraft. I’m not so sure. I think the ultimate measure of success is moving the genre as a whole forward. With a new approach to quest content, a strong focus on providing the player with a personal storyline, and the lack of any sort of monthly fee, Guild Wars 2 stands poised to do exactly that. Will it topple World of Warcraft? I doubt it. But it may force Blizzard to change in order to compete, which would almost certainly lead to other games following suit. Now that would be an accomplishment.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Game Review: Cake Mania 3

I have a new review of Cake Mania 3 up over at Casual Gamer Chick.

Cake Mania 3 is an adorable time-management game for the Nintendo DS. Jill, our heroine from Sandlot Games’ PC versions of the Cake Mania imprint, is cheerfully preparing for her wedding day when she accidentally breaks a time-bender (I suppose it was wedding decor), and sends herself and her loved ones off through space and time, only to be saved through extensive cake baking! Jill must rescue her displaced friends and family, repair the time-bender and make it back for her wedding – all by making and decorating cakes.

Once Jill lands in a new location and sets up her bakery (“Oh look,“ Jill notices, “My oven works in ancient China! That’s not weird at all!”), the top screen is used for progress stats, like time spent and money earned, and icons of waiting customers. The bottom screen is Jill’s bakery. Players send Jill rushing from oven to customer with a tap of the stylus. A checkmark appears over the future actions in Jill’s queue so you can easily keep track of what she’s doing. Tap the checkmark to remove a planned action from Jill’s to-do list.

Read the rest of my Cake Mania 3 review over on Casual Gamer Chick.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Game Review: Cooking Mama 3

Game sequels are in a tough spot. Go too far from what we loved in the original, and players who loved the first game will lose interest in the second. Stick too close to the original game, though, and players feel like we’ve bought the same game in a pretty new case.

Cooking Mama 3 brings back all the usual chopping and frying fun, but adds new recipes and techniques. You’ll still use the stylus as a knife, a whisk, a rolling pin and almost any other kitchen implement as you practice cooking with Mama or prepare dishes for guests. You can also dress Mama in different paper-doll outfits, redecorate the kitchen or jazz up your picture diary, but that’s really secondary to cooking.

Translated instructions are still a bit vague, but the game isn’t too punishing for failure to understand what the arrow is telling you to do.

I could spend all day talking about the cutely addictive qualities of cooking with Mama. The stylized utensils, cartoon meat and produce, Mama’s unfailing ability to recover my burned food, and of course the fun of pretend cooking and pretend serving. Recipes come from all different cultures, with an definite Asian focus — some Western dishes are plated just like the UBC coffee menu.  Tempura and sushi offered my favorite minigames (chopping!) and prettiest final dishes.  I was especially fond of the dried-squid recipe, although the minigames were nothing special, because it reminded me of the rows of hanging squid, an everyday scene in beachside Shandong province.

CM3 has quite a few options involving de-veining shrimp, gutting salmon (slit the fish’s belly and rub the stylus over opening to clean), de-inking squid and other fish-preparation tasks that would be quite unpleasant off Mama’s pink cutting board. My kindergarten-age niece and Cooking Mama partner-in-crime found some of the seafood preparation tasks a little icky, which led to a long discussion about different cultures, and what we find gross, and why. Foreign customs through Cooking Mama! And people say games aren’t educational.

I loved CM2, so finding more of the same in CM3 was great, but there are also some new playmodes. One of the major changes in Cooking Mama 3 is a new multiplayer mode for competitive chopping, egg breaking and other prep tasks. (I often rant about technical issues interfering with game enjoyment, so it’s worth noting how fast Cooking Mama 3 found and connected with the second DS.)  There’s also a chance to make up your own recipes, using ingredients and techniques from other parts of Cooking Mama to make something new.

Cooking Mama 3 also offered a new shopping game, which sends players out to pick up ingredients without running into annoying store characters who’ll slow you down by trapping you into annoying minigames. It was uncannily like shopping in China. I enjoyed the cuteness of the supermarket  — Cooking Mama really is adorable without becoming an all-pink disaster –  but lost interest in the actual games pretty quickly, just like I did with Gardening Mama.

Overall, I found it a great new addition to the Cooking Mama series. If you liked Cooking Mama 2, and you’ve finished unlocking the recipes, rush out and pick up Cooking Mama 3!

Popularity: 5% [?]

Game Review: Women’s Murder Club

James Patterson’s Women’s Murder club has been a successful series of novels, a TV show and a series of casual mystery PC games before coming to the DS. The new Women’s Murder Club: Games of Passion seems designed for a casual DS gamer to tuck her into her purse, instead of a Patterson mystery novel. Most of WMC is played with the DS turned sideways, using the read-only screen to display a list of objects to find, instructions, or images to accompany the action in the interactive screen, which creates a book-like format for more of an interactive novel feel.

WMC follows the usual pattern of story cutscenes, hidden objects and minigames. The hidden objects casual adventure game is a pretty crowded genre, so it’s hard for a new game to really stand out. Probably the most unique characteristic was the James Patterson characters.  Players solve crimes and meet with the WMC ladies as Patterson’s detective Lindsay Boxer, and supporting characters with solid personalities made this more that just a reskinned HO game.

The story progresses via cutscenes and dialogue options. Players have some choices for what to say, but it was more of a quiz on recent plot events. Believable banter makes the cutscenes worth reading, and the linear storyline makes it feel like reading a novel, not being hemmed

Random side note: The mysterious Chinese markings found on the victim actually do say bu zhong, Not Loyal. My Chinese  literacy is just good enough to be completely thrilled with the developers for using real words when dramatic red scribbles would have acceptable. (It always cracks me up when I see upside-down characters or random other words.) Good work, THQ.

A lot of the game was hidden objects, whether it was tidying a crime scene or looking for clues, but this was a particularly bad HO. The small DS screen doesn’t really lend itself to searching, and players search a picture that’s larger than the screen, for maximum squinting-at-the-screen annoyance. It was also the Highlights magazine type of hidden objects, instead of the cluttered-room HO. It felt oddly childish to look for giant peace signs and lightning bolts, especially on crime scenes with mysterious dead bodies. The game does mix up the hidden objects a bit by giving players a clue instead of a list of items, but still gives the feel of an activity book more than an adventure game.

The story leads to several minigames, which were much more engaging than the picture find. When I got the Women’s Murder Club press release, I was pretty excited to see the game included a science lab minigame, and the puzzle’s gameplay didn’t disappoint.

One of the minigames was a mah-jong game, which is also accessible under an icon that says China (This character is a different zhong, an object lesson on why I am not so good at Chinese!). I usually consider mah-jong games to be computer solitaire 2.0, but I found something charming in the tiny tiles and stylus interface, and ended up playing this minigame more than I’d expected.

Women’s Murder Club: Crimes of Passion offers a solid storyline and characters from the popular novels to fans of the hidden objects mystery.

Popularity: 15% [?]

WarCraft Down In China

I blogged from Beijing last year about World of WarCraft access in China. Technical difficulties were keeping nerdy expats from accessing servers from outside China, and when you’re in China, you know that a sudden “technical glitch” preventing you from accessing a previously available site means that something is going on that the Chinese government doesn’t want you to know about. (See also: inability to connect to YouTube, Twitter, Blogspot, etc. during the current Xinjiang unrest, last year’s torch relay protests, that stuff that didn’t happen in T-word place, etc.)

Although it turned out to be real technical difficulties, we spent a long time worrying about what had gone politically sensitive in Azeroth. Was it a Free Dun Morogh rally?

Anyway, seems like there’s there’s another technical issue with WarCraft and in the Middle Kingdom, and this time it’s the China-based servers, not the foreign ones, affected.

The handover should have gone smoothly. Blizzard had decided to change its Chinese handling company for World of Warcraft from The9 to Netease.

And so on June 7th the WoW closed down for the handover but has yet to come back again.

Apparently Blizzard and NetEase are “working around the clock” to get the service restored to millions of Chinese users, but after three weeks there’s still no show.

The result has been long waits to enter Taiwanese servers as Chinese players swamp them.

via Boomtown – PC.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Fashion Solitaire Hard Copy

This isn’t the only game I’ve beta-tested, but it was still awesome to see it on the shelf!

I was so excited to see this in Target the other day! I beta-tested Fashion Solitaire in February 2008, but I was in China when the game came out so I’d never seen a hard copy on a store shelf before.

Via Fashion Solitaire On The Shelf on Simpson’s Paradox.

Popularity: 11% [?]

The growing free-to-play model

I mentioned the growing free-to-play model when I talked about China’s gamers a few days ago, and about the differences in Chinese gaming and American gaming. Fat Foogoo is also talking about this:

A primary deterrent to early free-to-play titles in the Western market was that they were developed in and for an Eastern market style of play. That, and 9 times out of 10, well, to be honest, they just weren’t of very good quality, thereby leaving the end user with a ‘errr….this is crap, can I play WoW now please?’ experience. Add to this experience the fact that Western developers and studios just couldn’t grasp the profitability margin in ‘optional payment’ games. Fast forward, and may I introduce to you both ‘Runes of Magic’ as distributed by Frogster, and ‘Wizard 101’ as developed by Kingsisle. Note that ‘Runes of Magic’ is in fact developed by Taiwanese studio Runewaker, but distributed and marketed by a Western firm, Frogster (based in Berlin, Germany). Both of these free-to-plays have conquered a rather vociferous audience and successfully ported them to the world of free-to-play. Sure, there have been some grumbles here and there, but at the end of the day, the numbers that both Runes and Wizard are putting up in such a short amount of time cannot be a coincidence.

Interesting choice of example games. I played the beta and reviewed Wizard 101, and guest author Lexton Collins played the beta and reviewed Runes of Magic. We didn’t set out to make an East-West comparison, but it is an interesting one.

I think the free-to-play model will continue to grow among young, Western gamers, since it gives players a chance to try out a new game without a prohibitively high price tag. I see this type of marketing as similar to the system on Big Fish and other portals who offer a free demo and then a paid full version.

In either system, if you’re hooked, then you pay, and most gamers don’t mind shelling out for a game they enjoy but are wary of buying something they haven’t played. There are losers who steal games but in general gamers have a respect for the people who make our toys and don’t mind paying for something good.

(And, yes, this logo has almost nothing to do with the discussion, I just like how it looks.)

Quote from 2009: The year of Free-to-Play .

Popularity: 15% [?]

China’s Gamers

It’s not often when my interests in China and gaming collide. Nate, of the China blog Orientation, recently posted on Chinese gaming habits, particularly the huge numbers of MMO gamers in wang ba, or net cafes.

China contains an undulating 59 million online gamers. Despite the fact that 47m of them play free-to-play games, this is a massive amount. To put that into perspective, the 2007 estimate of England’s population was 51,092,000 while the 2008 census quoted America as having 306,068,000 million people. Imagine the entire country of England plunking down and playing a game everyday. Keep in mind that these are only online PC games.

The majority of Chinese gamers, though, seem to play in net cafes and not on personal computers. (Although this may be changing, I saw plenty of Beijing teens with their body weight in personal electronics, and laptops can’t be far behind). Playing in net cafes instead of at home changes the gamer culture quite a bit. No more jokes about nocturnal gamers living in their basements, although there are plenty of 24-hour wang ba for late-night gaming sessions.

Also, fewer games rely on the purchase of software (I’ll save the discussion of China and software piracy for a different post!), since one copy will be installed in the cafe and anyone who comes by will use it. Instead, games have an in-game cash shop or an hourly fee. While talking about Runes Of Magic, Lexton Collins credits the Asian game community for bringing us the free-to-play MMO model.

I also wrote on Chinese net cafes and gaming culture over on  Wang Ba: Gaming In A Strange Land on CNReviews. (It feels a bit odd to quote myself, but it’s better than re-writing my description):

Chinese net bars sell computer time by the hour, and most also sell juice, soda, candy, snacks, and instant noodles, the Chinese equivalent of a Hot Pocket. You can also buy cigarettes, smoking isn’t just permitted in net bars, at times I think it’s mandatory.

The library-like silence of an American net cafe is gone, replaced with the usual thousand-decibel cellphone conversations, Tudou or Youtube videos, and shouts from the boys playing CounterStrike. It might not be the most conductive environment for working, especially when compared with the headphones-wearing crowd back home, but the cheery shouts of videogame victory don’t need translation.

Another thing Nate noticed was the divide between guys playing combat-heavy games and girls spending their internet time using QQ, China’s answer to AIM. Chinese girls do play games but it’s more likely to be something cute on a handheld game or on their mobile phones than hardcore PC games.

I’m sure Chinese netizens and Old China Hands will see this as a very surface analysis, but it’s very interesting to me, to see how the gaming sub-culture translates into other countries! Share your thoughts in the comments!

Related: Travel in China is like a Fantasy Novel, Living In China Is Like an RPG.

Popularity: 18% [?]

Guest Review: Runes Of Magic

Lexton “Lunarhound” Collins was kind enough to review the upcoming MMORPG, Runes Of Magic, for us. Lexton has been playing the open beta of Runes of Magic for a few months now. Here he discusses Runes of Magic in particular and the free-to-play gaming model in general. Runes will be officially released on March 19th, 2009.

And now, there’s Runes of Magic. It’s aiming squarely for a more Western feel, with WASD controls (though point and click is still available for those who want it), a heavy focus on quests, brisk advancement pace, higher localization standards, and a user-friendly approachability sorely lacking in many other free games. Its creators are determined to prove that you can make a free MMO that’s just as good as any of the more expensive ones out there.

One way it’s doing this is by blatantly copying the current best. The term ‘WoW clone’ is tossed around a lot these days, but it usually doesn’t have much basis in fact. Here, though, the similarities in both graphics and game play are immediately obvious. While die hard fans of the game will protest mightily that this is absolutely not World of Warcraft in any way, an honest assessment quickly proves this to be wishful thinking. The aesthetic isn’t identical, but it comes extremely close sometimes. While it might have been nice if they’d set themselves apart a bit more in the art department, it’s hard not to feel that adopting the same interface, control scheme and core play mechanics was the right thing to do. If you’ve played WoW before, everything will feel immediately familiar and the learning curve, at least when it comes to the basics of getting around and playing with the UI, will be reduced to almost zero. If you haven’t, the same intuitiveness that makes Blizzard’s masterpiece so easy to get into will still ensure that you spend more time playing than learning how to play in Runes of Magic.

In many ways, it almost feels like an improvement over WoW as far as features are concerned. Visual customization options for your character are more extensive, with sliders for adjusting height and resizing various body parts. Once in the game, the customization options expand via the cash shop, with purchasable facial tattoos and the option to dye your clothing and mount in the colors of your choice. All players are granted a free house, without any rental fees, early in the game. This can be upgraded to larger sizes, decorated with furniture that grants a rest bonus similar to WoW‘s, equipped with crafting tools, and used to store possessions. Besides the standard instanced dungeons, there are varieties with randomly generated maps that yield a special treasure at the end. There’s a dual class system, allowing you to mix and match abilities from any two classes. It’s possible to wipe the stats from a favorite piece of equipment and transfer the stats of a different piece to it, so that if you find a great new breastplate but like the way your old one looks better, you can keep both the appearance of the old and the benefits of the new. The interface is even modifiable via XML, and a sizable collection of useful addons can already be found at curse.com.

What it doesn’t have down quite yet is World of Warcraft’s amazing diversity of environments. Nothing here looks bad and, taken individually, each area actually looks pretty good. But there are very few surprises or (excuse the pun) “wow” moments. The game has the basic fantasy staples – green fields and forests, dark caves, snowy mountains – but very little of the raw creativity that makes WoW so stunning. Blizzard‘s environments are brimming with personality and a sense of artistry that elevate them above standard fantasy fare, despite that being exactly what they are. Azeroth has a real sense of place. Taborea doesn’t. It’s not boring and it’s not bad, it just doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be besides a traditional pseudo-medieval fantasy RPG. The developers haven’t yet figured out how to capture that sense of wonder that seeing Darnassus or the underground tram for the first time can evoke.

One place where more creative energy has been spent is on the story. Taborea’s background is involved and interesting. There are no scene-setting cinematics or mood-setting cut scenes to draw you into it – you’re just dropped unceremoniously into the world – so some players might not take enough interest to pay attention to what the NPC’s are saying. If you do, you’ll be treated to a rather unique (as fantasy MMO’s go) pioneering storyline. Unfortunately, this will probably be lost on a large portion of players, as the fairly simple goals of many of the initial quests (talk to him, give this to her, kill that) don’t seem to be worth the large blocks of text that precede them.

The dual class system is interesting and useful, but can often feel cumbersome. Though each class holds up well on its own, the fact that your secondary eventually provides all of your base stats with a bonus means that going without one will leave your character crippled later in the game. Because each of your two classes must be leveled independently (you can swap your primary and secondary at your house, and only the primary is able to gain experience points or raise its skills), it often feels as if you’re being forced to play two characters. Some won’t mind this, but those that don’t have as much time to devote to the game or simply don’t like playing alts will likely find it irritating. The flip side of this is that the system allows for a lot of great options and it really is fun to play with different class combinations. If you enjoy a traditional paladin character, a knight/priest fits the bill and comes with the added benefit of being able to change to a full-on healer if the need ever arises. What if you like tanking but aren’t so fond of the low damage output? Try a knight/warrior or knight/rogue. A rogue/mage can hurl fireballs from the shadows as well as holds its own in melee, a mage/priest can both dish out serious punishment and make up for its lack of fortitude with healing spells, and a warrior/scout can hold its own in both melee and ranged combat. The individual classes feel complete on their own, but each pairing also feels like its own specific class, with its own strengths and weaknesses. It’s just too bad that it has the downside of requiring you to essentially level two separate characters.

One of the features that could still use a bit of work is upgrading. Runes of Magic features an upgrade system that allows you to bolster the power of your equipment in several ways. One is with runes. Through defeating enemies and dismantling equipment, you’ll be able to gain runes that can enhance equipment with various bonuses. How many bonuses one piece can support depends on how many rune slots it has. With the use of a special device that you’ll acquire early in the game, you can combine lower tiered runes of the same type into more powerful, higher tiered runes of that type. This all works fine. What isn’t so polished are the direct stat upgrades through the use of jewels. Certain special jewels offer the chance to increase a piece of equipment’s base stats, with the risk that you could also get nothing at all, or even a downgrade. Each increase will put a +1, +2, etc. after the name of the equipment, up to +6. The problem with this is that increasing a piece of equipment to the point that you’ll notice any tangible benefits is so low as to make the entire system almost pointless. Getting to +1 after a few tries isn’t too difficult, but beyond that, the chance of failure or a downgrade seem to be so much higher than the chance of an upgrade that it’s not even worth the effort. The jewels are expensive and you can often end up spending thousands of gold with no positive result, or even a negative one, to show for it. Worse, these jewels are offered for sale in the cash shop. While their tooltips clearly warn of the chance of failure or downgrade, they don’t highlight just how high that chance is, and several players have already complained of spending significant amounts of real money hoping for an upgrade, with nothing at all to show for it. What’s even more baffling is that the upgrades, when successful, are so slight. If the developers were so afraid of equipment becoming too powerful, it’s hard to understand why they decided to include the upgrade system at all.

All in all, Runes of Magic is a pretty impressive package. It has a solid beginning, it’s at least as good as a lot of other games that require a fee, and it puts a number of features from the genre’s best in one place. There’s nothing revolutionary about the game design itself, and if you’re sick to death of traditional MMO’s, it likely won’t do anything for you. What makes it stand out is the fact that, despite a few flaws (and it’s still early enough that they could be worked out), it’s both free and a genuinely good game. If you’ve played pay to play MMO’s in the past, it’s easy to forget, while playing this one, that it doesn’t have to cost anything. Though it falls just short, it comes closer than any other completely free game has to being able to stand toe-to-toe with the big boys. Hopefully, it will become popular and visible enough that it will start a trend.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Press Release: Mahjong Solitaire

Some new casual games to play on your iPhone:

Budapest, Hungary, January 29, 2009 – Artex Studios, Inc., the owner of CasualGameStore.com is scheduled to release the iPhone and WiiWare version of Mahjong Zodiac and Str33t Racing.

Mahjong Zodiac
———————-
Mahjong Zodiac is a unique combination of the classic mahjong and the three matching games. The classic mahjong gameplay with the intriguing twist, guaranteed to challenge anyone looking for a brain workout. Embark on a journey through ancient China and Buddha’s life in this story-filled mahjong game. As you progress from level to level, a beautifully illustrated story is revealed, immersing you in a great gaming experience.

- 96 well balanced level
- unique hand drawn graphics
- particular mahjong tile set
- beautiful particle system
- authentic background music and sound effects

Mahjong Zodiac sounds a bit like Liong:The Lost Amulets for a blend of mahjong solitaire and a story, don’t you think?

Str33t Racing is due out later in 2009.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Beta News: Perenthia

Quick note to let you all know that the text-based RPG Perenthia is looking for beta testers! I loved playing Adventure (and beta testing) so of course I signed right up! 

Via Perenthia, a Silverlight-based RPG in beta | Adam Kinney, Continuum Explorer

Popularity: 5% [?]

Reading And Gaming

Jenni Lada at Gamertell has an editorial on how games encourage kids to read. As a teacher and a gamer, I’m always pleased to see someone focusing on the positives of gaming. Videogames, like anything else that entertains kids, can be a useful classroom tool.

Games based on popular books also help encourage kids to read the source material. The Harry Potter series of games often only presents a small fraction of the story from the books and, if a child plays the game and watches the movie, he or she may then be compelled to move on to the books to discover subtle nuances not found in the other adaptation.

Lada makes some great points. Jenni, if you’re reading, bonus points for seeing manga as a stepping
stone towards reading for pleasure, not going the other way, towards a generation of illiterates who can barely spell out “POW!” and “BAM!”  Still, she seems a bit caught up in using game and movie spinoffs to point kids back at books. This isn’t wrong, but I think she’s skipped over all the great text-based games and story games that intergrate playing and reading. Yeah, I’m old, I remember when computer games were text. The older Adventure or Zork games were essentially choose-your-own-adventure books.

I recently played Nancy Drew: Lights, Camera, Curses! and part of the dialogue was remembering what you’d seen earlier, and choosing that option. Even games that aren’t quizzing players on their recall require reading of mission descriptions, journals, RPG clues and so many other things.  Unfortunately, players determined not to read, say, WarCraft quest text can just click OK and go kill things, but this is where Lada’s point comes back. Quite a few of the hack-and-slash RPGs have spawned spinoff novels.

Via Opinion: Video games get kids to read without them realizing it – Gamertell

Popularity: 3% [?]

What To Do With That Max Cooking Skill?

Open a WoW-themed cafe, of course!

Seeking to capitalize on the success of World of Warcraft in his native country, a Chinese businessman has opened a restaurant rife with artistic touches gleaned from Blizzard’s MMO.

His goal, he claims, is to offer WoW fans a place to enjoy themselves and share in his affection for the game. From the recreation of Tel’drassil in the center of the dining room to the vast murals depicting artwork from the game, the attention to detail alone is evidence of that affection.

While I’m sure this eatery would be sued out of existence if it were created here in the United States, Chinese copyright law is somewhat less strict. Though I’m sure Blizzard — and Chinese WoW operator The9 — are less than pleased with the restaurant, it’s unclear if either firm has any legal options regarding the establishment.

Much as I love China, China is where intellectual property and copyright means nothing. Nothing. You ca buy knockoff everything, not just on the street but on the shelves in real shops, so I don’t know if Blizzard is going to be making any money from this cafe. (Although with millions of Chinese subscribers, and the number steadily increasing, they’re probably not hurting for RMB)

I can definitely vouch for WoW’s popularity in wang ba or internet cafes. I wish I’d gotten to see this when I was in ChinaQ

Now for the important questions: Can I order Deviate Delight and Nogginfogger Elixir here?

Via World of Warcraft Restaurant Opens in China | Game | Life from Wired.com

Popularity: 5% [?]

GTA: Chinatown Wars Features Drug-Selling Minigame

Few days ago a news came that Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars , which is the upcoming DS GTA game from Rockstar’s exceptionally popular crime series, will feature a drug selling mini game where players will be able to earn money pedding six different kinds of narcotics around town. 1up.com reports that unsurprisingly, this isn’t going over very well with anti-drug organizations. According to Gamepolitics British tabloid The Sun, a member of the charity Drugsline condemns Rockstar’s use of illegal narcotics.
Darren Gold, on behalf of the Drugsline organization, said,”"Anything using drug-dealing as entertainment is sending out the wrong message.Glamorization doesn’t help our work trying to educate kids of the dangers of substance misuse.”

Popularity: 2% [?]

New D&D Books

Simpson’s Paradox finds some good things about life back in the US, like D&D and a new local gameshop

New D&D rulebooks came out while we were in China, so of course we had to get those. We went to a new games store called The Game Connection near Stick’s parents’ house. It was definitely a family games store, the shoppers we saw were moms looking for birthday gifts, not goth boys buying Whitewolf. A lot of card games and miniatures, and the owner really seemed to enjoy explaining different games to the moms.

Via Game Connection, Waffle House

Popularity: 2% [?]

HiPiHi: more than Chinese Second Life

A post on VGViews discusses HiPiHi, China’s answer to Second Life:

HiPiHi is pretty new, and so it’s struggling to get out of the shadow of Second Life. The similarities are pretty strong, but I think there’s enough interest in virtual worlds to keep both going. Also, China’s market share in MMORPGs is growing by the minute, so there are more and more online citizens, which are all potential HiPiHi-ers.

Chinese MMORPGs are collossal, with just huge numbers of subscribers. They’re also huge in another way, as the casual online gamer is pretty rare in China. (Which isn’t to say casual gamers are rare, just they they’re more likely to play a game on their cellphone or handheld.) Marathon gaming sessions are nothing new to Chinese high schoolers, who have been prepared for such long hours in front of the PC by marathon cramming sessions. So I don’t think HiPiHi will have any trouble getting subscribers!

Still, HiPiHi will need more than just bodies to distinguish themselves from Second Life.

Read the whole post on VGViews or check out HiPiHi’s English page.

Popularity: 27% [?]

Fire Mage Tragedy

A Chinese WoW player lost his temper — and possibly his mind — and burned a classmate, beleiving he had fire mage powers.

After losing a schoolyard fight, a 17-year-old boy in Beijing recently covered a classmate with gasoline and lit him on fire, claiming he “had lost himself in World of Warcraft and when he committed the crime he had transformed into a Fire Mage.”

In light of the recent “Mortal Kombat killings,” we’re hesitant to believe the claims of any youth who says they have been influenced by a video game into violence. In this case, though, we believe him simply because China lacks our American legal system that allows people to claim “games made me do it,” and subsequently shift all blame to the game’s creators.

This is a tragedy, and I’m sorry to see the “playing games made me do it” defense is spreading.

Via Wired

Popularity: 3% [?]

WarCraft Access in China

Foreign WarCraft servers are blocked or down or just plain grumpy in China. They’ve been on the blink since this weekend. I don’t know any official reason (Blizzard’s main site is also unavailable) but at least there’s a workaround that will let China-based WarCraft players get online on.

Go to your World Of WarCraft directory on your computer. In this directory, there’s a WTF file called Realmlist. [Not the WTF folder] Open this up using Notepad. Change the text to say:

Save the file, and don’t do anything zany like change the name, even if Windows prompts you to do it.

(Instructions are also on Violet Eclipse)

Popularity: 3% [?]

WarCraft Maintainance

WoW maintainance drives me crazy. Yes, I realize that they do try to pick an off-peak time for the weekly shut down. I’m definately in the minority, as a resident of China playing on the American (English) servers, who has Wednesday mornings off… but the early-morning (in the US) shutdowns are prime WoW-playing time for me.

BestOfWarCraft has a post explaining why the weekly maintainance is neccessary:

The reason why we take down all realms at the same time is because it’s quicker, it doesn’t restrict some realms more than others, and it doesn’t force players to swamp other realms that are up. If anyone remembers some of the larger issues we had back a couple years ago or so, when a realm or group of realms go down, everyone on those realms would converge on a single realm and more or less grief the entire population of that realm. Not fun for the original players of that realm. It’s quicker because the maintenance can take a while, and doing one group of realms at a time would mean some group of realms, or multiple groups, would not be available near or during prime time, and we like to avoid that whenever possible of course.

Popularity: 2% [?]

WoW Almost Free In China

So I heard a rumor that the masterminds at Blizzard were about to change World Of WarCraft from a monthly subscription to free in China. I was pretty excited, my boyfriend and I have been talking about getting a copy of Chinese WoW to practice our Chinese as we slay bad guys, and waiving the monthly fee would definately motivate us.

Unfortunately, it went the way a lot of stories in the Chinese media go… a retraction.

Zhao Yurun, deputy director of The9′s marketing and public relations department, told Interfax that reports of any free-to-play plans for WoW were “speculation” and “rumor” on the part of media and gamers, despite the quotes from The9′s CEO. Zhao declined to comment further.

From Tianjin Daily, from Kotaku.

Popularity: 3% [?]