Archive for the 'MMOGA News' Category

News Original From: Tobold’s MMORPG Blog

There is an interesting phenomenon going on in the World of Warcraft economy: Deflation, prices of nearly all goods are falling. The WoW economist and the Greedy Goblin have different explanations for it, but I think they are both wrong. Both are far too much looking at the WoW economy like a real economy, and forgetting that World of Warcraft is first and foremost a game.

The reason why one would expect inflation in Wrath of the Lich King is that players can now make even more money when doing daily quests. And there are less money sinks, WotLK flying is 5 times cheaper than the TBC epic flying mount. So people could grind 25 daily quests a day, and spend that money on crafted epics, enchantments, potions, special buff food, and whatever else there is that can make their characters stronger. Which is what they did in The Burning Crusade, so why wouldn’t they do it in Wrath of the Lich King?

Because in Wrath of the Lich King they don’t need to. In a real economy it makes sense to get as rich as possible. In a game economy virtual gold is just a means towards a final goal: The game over screen. Wait! World of Warcraft has a game over screen? Not a real one, no. But at some point in time you will feel the game is over for you. Either because you just didn’t have fun any more. Or because you reached something which is as close as it gets to a game over screen in a MMORPG: You killed the final boss and got the final gear, with no way to further develop your character any more before the next content patch or expansion adds more. And in Wrath of the Lich King that point is a lot closer for all of us than it was in the last expansion.

Nihilum famously “finished” Wrath of the Lich King just 65 hours after it was released. But even regular raiding guilds like mine cleared already most of the currently existing raid bosses. Not yet 6 weeks into the game I’m already wearing 7 level 80 epics, and getting full epic is only a matter of time. And as long as we are making good progress, why would we want to push much harder? The kind of effort where raiders were grinding all day to get the very best in enchantments etc. is simply not necessary any more. Be Imba! tells me that not all my gear has the best possible enchantments or gems in it, but I’m so not going to put an enchanment that cost several hundred gold on one of my remaining blue armor pieces! And I believe that most people think that way. If you can reach your goal with a reasonable effort, why would you want to make an exceptional effort, and grind money for hours for a small incremental effect? Especially if you can expect to soon find better gear, spending too much money on enchantments is just a waste. It is only when raid guilds get stuck that they go into overdrive, and try to get past the blockage by using every tiny little advantage. In Wrath of the Lich King most people simply don’t experience that blockage yet, and depending how hard the future raids are, they never might.

Raids being easier and the end of the raid progression being so close right now has a profound effect on the WoW economy. Green Armadillo helpfully lists all the options you have to get an item-level 200 cloth robe, and concludes that by far the easiest way is to get it as drop in a raid. My mage is tailor and made a moonshroud robe for my priest, and an ebonweave robe for himself, but because of deflation and not needing the mage robe right away (mage is still 70, robe is 80), I’m trying to sell it on the auction house. No takers, although I’m just asking for a bit over the AH prices of materials. Because anyone who feels he would actually *need* such a robe, is probably in a position where he could get it easier as a raid drop. Why farm money or grind reputation if the same reward can be had with a bit of luck on your next raid night?

So I think inflation isn’t happening because people just don’t see the need to farm money to buy things. And WoW being less of an end game grind is totally fine with me. The current deflation is from prices falling towards a reasonable level from an initial “oh, new, shiny, I must have that immediately” level. The huge inflation in lets say enchanting materials that the WoW economist expects might still happen, but only if the next raid dungeon is a lot harder.

Read More Articles: www.Tobold.com

News Original From MMOsite’s columnist Theo

Empire Of Sports Goes Into Beta Just In Time For New Years
December 30th, 2008 by Theo

Empire of Sports, which has been in private beta or what it calls “prologue” since its March 2008 announcement has recently opened its doors to the public.

“TAKE PART IN THE PROLOGUE

Empire of Sports is between the Prologue phase and opening its doors to the masses!

…True to our vision of developing with the players, today, we are able to open a vast community in Empire of sports.  As a persistant world, Empire of Sports is constantly evolving.  Football 11 against 11, basketball 5 against 5, tennis, skiing, … seven sports are already available and more will follow in the coming months.  By taking part in the Prologue, you directly contribute to the making of this world.”

Empire of Sports has a total of 6 main sports games, including Basketball, Football (Soccer), Tennis, Skiing, Bobsleigh, and lastly Track & Field, which is made up of four sections, Sprinting, Hurdling, Long Jump and the Triple Jump.  In addition to the main games there are also some mini games to help improve your characters overall body condition, these can be found in the Training Gym, Target Range, and on the Dance Floor.

There are already a great deal of reviews and news articles following the launch of EoS’ prologue giving both positive and negative viewpoints of the game. 

An early and detailed April review of the private beta from Eurogamers’ Oli Welsh gave a mixed view stating that “The game is prone to bugs and has a sluggish interface. There are several NPCs with nothing to say and vendors with nothing to sell. This isn’t your usual open beta, rolled out to load-test the servers and generate some word of mouth; this is a genuine visit to the development coal-face of an MMO. ” while at the same time praising its innovativeness, showing an aura of overall optimism that the product will benefit the market in the future by concluding, “However, Empire of Sports is a genuinely light, throwaway, quick-fire and accessible sports MMO, and that makes it quite unique. The best of its sports are simple, addictive, and offer satisfying progression. It has a very, very long way to go before it’s polished enough to be unleashed on the general public – but we remain optimistic that Empire of Sports can bring a much-needed dash of Eurotrash to the po-faced world of MMOs. “

Some more recent reviews from Ten Ton Hammer & Gamesplay  regarding the public beta have stated that

“…the game does seem to share certain similarities with the way Guild Wars is structured.  There are social hubs in which you can interact with larger groups of other players, form ‘teams’ and then enter various arenas to compete in events.  You’ll also have the option to compete solo with the assistance of AI driven teammates, though much like GW it seems you’ll get much more out of the experience when you participate with other players, especially when you get into some of the larger matches like 11 vs. 11 football.”

And

“The Prologue will mean gamers can now download Empire of Sports online free of charge and join over 150 nationalities already playing online and communicate their in-game experiences to help fine tune the gameplay and the business model during the final stages of development.” showing that the game may not be a simple a hit and run title, but perhaps is taking other successful MMO designs and the feedback from their community seriously.

If you are curious to see what Empire of Sports has to offer, put on your game face and head on over to www.empireofsports.com fill out their simple account form, download the 2.4 GB client and jump in.

See, the anticipated live action movie Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li has released its Japanese version trailer so we can take a first look about the movie. Enjoy it!

Click here to download HD version.

“The Legend of Chun-Li” was Adapted from a popular Japanese video game Street Fighter series and will follow the titular character on her journey to seek justice. As she flexes her muscle to learn the art of fighting, she uncovers the truth of her family’s bitter past and who is actually responsible for it. The movie will come out in U.S. theaters on February 27, 2009.

PlayStation Home (also marketed and referred to simply as Home) is a community-based service for the PlayStation Network which entered into open beta on 11 December 2008. Looks like in an effort to curb as much “bad” language as possible from Home, recently SFgate.com reported that Sony has blocked words such as “gay”, “lesbian” and “bisexual”. This was discovered by a guy who wanted to make a straight/gay alliance group and tagging it with the same terms and having them filtered out. 

The details are as bleow:

Michael Marsh, an 18-year-old gamer from Norwalk, Conn., wanted to set up a gay/straight alliance club in PlayStation Home, Sony’s new free 3-D virtual world component for the PlayStation 3.

The problem was that the words he was using – “gay,” “lesbian” and “bisexual” – were being filtered from text chats and were not being allowed in the naming of clubs or in postings in club forums. Marsh, who is straight but supports gay rights, said he raised the issue with Home community managers during the private beta test, but the problems persisted after the public beta introduction of Home on Dec. 11.

“I can understand if they’re filtering out profanity, but if feel like it’s discrimination,” Marsh said. “By blocking a word like ‘gay,’ which is a preferred term by the gay community, you’re encouraging it as a bad word.”

The censorship issue is just one of a number of glitches and problems that have dogged Home, which was designed as a virtual social community for gamers. Users had trouble getting into the world on the first day and continued to have trouble connecting, prompting Sony to issue a patch aimed to fixing those problems. The fix, however, temporarily suspended voice chat.

Sony Computer Entertainment America spokesman Patrick Seybold said the company is working to improve Home on a daily basis and is incorporating user concerns and suggestions. He emphasized that while the virtual world is open to the public, it is still being tested and is a work in progress.

In the case of the censored words, Seybold said, Home employed filters to prevent defamation in Home’s closed test version. But when the service went public, he said, it should have started allowing those words. Some other users, however, noticed that the filtering continued, and blocked words like “Christ,” “Jew” and even “Hello,” which apparently was flagged because it starts with the word “hell.” Seybold said the company is looking into the censoring of words in Home’s clubs.

The long-delayed Home has been a major undertaking for Sony as it tries to build a more robust online community around its PlayStation 3 video game console. The world is not only aimed at fostering more connections between gamers but also represents money-making opportunities for Sony and other brands that want to sell virtual goods.

…

Read more on SFgate.com

Korean MMORPG Lunia, which is developed by allm and operated by Nexon Japan, added a new game character Ryan Hunt in the latest massive updat December 26th.

The special new characters Ryan Hunt is the first character used firearms in Lunia, a character-type of Bounty hunter. He can use a variety of new weapons, and do fire, light and physical attack in a long-distance. The character is fun and easy even for beginners.

Here are the new screenshot and the wallpaper of Ryan Hunt.