Just got this news in from the folks at Asylumsoft, Inc. Their new online "medieval RPG" Dransik has gone gold and is available as a free client download. Upon signup, you can also play the game free for 10 days before having to pay for the service. I haven't installed the client yet, since I am in the middle of a long work session, but I look forward to checking this out. Their Web site is packed full of very nice-looking tutorials, active forums and an extensive FAQ to fill you in on the game and its community. Looks good so far. :)
Please let me know if you have any opinions about the game. I'll talk more about my impressions later. Here's a chunk of the press release:
DRANSIK combines the best in classic role-playing with innovative and fresh game play to deliver the most fun and deep MPOG experience. Asylumsoft welcomes all online game players to download the highly acclaimed game for FREE, as well as 10 days to play for free. The client is available at www.dransik.com/download.asp.
Asylumsoft, Inc., a team of pioneering developers and artists that have worked on some of the gaming industry's top titles, have offered DRANSIK in beta format for the last several months. The commercial release version of the game, DRANSIK 1.0, is based on traditional game play features with a fresh pace of game play. The game offers more quests and monsters, magic systems, and vast lands to explore. Features to be added into the game will include a construction system, paper-dolling, and a revolutionary player-controlled government system. The game will be offered as a monthly online subscription service, and discount programs are available for longer-term subscription commitments.
Asylumsoft, Inc., founded in 1999, will also re-release its first title, Dransik Classic. Asylumsoft is conversing with a publisher about plans to release yet another version of Dransik for the Asian market by mid-year.
"It is truly amazing to finally have the much anticipated commercial version of DRANSIK available. So many upgrades have been made available through the beta period, so we really want to thank all of our beta players for making this truly great game what it is today," said Jason Ely, Asylumsoft's President and Chief Executive Developer.
More exciting details, storylines, and the downloadable file are available at our website www.dransik.com. Enjoy the game players have voted January's "Game of the Month" on http://www.mpogd.com.
Saturday, January 18, 2003
MassMOG News: A Tale in the Desert -- Release Date and Final Beta Session
- hoza @ 7:31 pm MST View/Post Comments (0)
After about 4+ years of development and beta testing (and immediately after I set up a calendar system in the forums for posting beta test session announcements for games like this), A Tale in the Desert is set to go live on February 15, 2003. If you've been a reader around here for a while, you have seen many opportunities posted for participating in their open beta sessions. Hopefully many of you have experienced a taste of this very intriguing experience and will find it interesting enough to support their efforts. I look forward to hearing about their future success with this game.
For now, however, you still have a chance to see the world for yourself before the end of the final Beta #3. Here's the info from Andrew Tepper of eGenesis:
To stress the servers, we're going to have our longest "play session" ever. This event is:
Friday, 1/17/2003 at 2:00PM EST (GMT-0500), 24x7, for 2 weeks
The close of this 2 week session will be the end of Beta#3. After that, we'll do a series of short sessions, typically 24 hours each, where we repeatedly reset the game world. Everyone is invited to help with this final phase of beta.
Beta#3 will end with a contest unlike anything you have seen previously.
The people over at www.atitd.net are organizing a contest with an official A Tale in the Desert chocolate pyramid as a prize. How do you win? Submit a screenshot of your finest sculpture, along with in-game coordinates. All entries will be displayed in a gallery on the site.
For this session, I have made some adjustments to allow for easier charcoal production. First, I have lag-proofed charcoal ovens (but not hearths). Next, (as of last session in fact) I have released Charcoal Braziers, which have a totally different method of operation than hearths/ovens. Braziers turn out 200 charcoal at once while consuming a minuscule amount of fuel. The skill to build and run them is expensive:
Requirement ---- Hint: ------------------- ---------------- 100 QuickSilver ---- Only known source is in 7 Lakes. Good trade opportunity. 8 Thermometers ---- Some players have figured out the secret to efficient production. 200 Firebricks ---- Common. +4 Focus ---- Recipes for this are known - ask around.
My expectation is that Egypt will soon move beyond charcoal being a significant time sink. Finally, the Test of the Demi-Pharaoh will start about 24 hours into the session.
Some of that look like nonsense to you?? Well, you better get on in there and learn the ropes right away so you can follow the lingo! Download + Instructions: Download the client here Chat room: irc.stratics.com, port 6667, channel #ATITD
Tobias Baumann has asked us to relay a request for input on a survey of multiplayer game players (redundancy dept. wording). The study ends February 17, 2003, so fill out the form if you would like to participate.
I am a student studying Bachelor of Arts (Multimedia Arts) at the SAE Institute in Zurich Switzerland. Currently I am doing a research about the ideas and goals behind multiplayer games. "Why do we play multiplayer games?" I call it. The main resource for this research are people who play multiplayer games. So I kindly ask everyone who ever played a multiplayer game to fill out an input sheet.
And now it begins... we get to see whether or not the "mainstream" will embrace a monthly fee for playing a game. Well, I think that's one of the more interesting things to watch with The Sims Online going live. It's going to be very, very interesting to see just how massive one of these games can get, and I think this game will give us a window into the possibilities. Sure, Star Wars: Galaxies will likely be big, but it's much more of an exercise in seeing just how many of the world's total population of CRPG fans will be in one game, IMO. Oh, and there's Lineage, (yeah, yeah, I know it's insanely massive right now,) but that's like an exercise in getting the most possible avatars onto one 640x480 screen at one time.
In The Sims Online, players create and control the actions of a character known as a Sim. Players enter the world with a small amount of money to spend as they wish. They can purchase their own piece of land to do with as they please or they can join with other players to create shared homes and businesses or host wild events.
If you've got the tele on tomorrow, you can check out national television coverage of an online game... see what I mean?? Huge?
The Sims Online makes its primetime debut! Don't miss 60 Minutes II, Wednesday, December 18, at 8:00PM ET/PT, when reporter Bob Simon takes an in-depth look at the video games industry with a spotlight on The Sims Online. The story features interviews with designers Chris Trottier and Will Wright.
The Unreal Estate Boom is an article up on Wired talking about the valuation of "virtual" goods and property in real-world dollars... well, that's sort of a summary. Buying and selling of in-game objects generating millions of dollars of real-world cash, while some small countries don't have this much money in their economy for real-world goods... hrmmm. Discussions walk around issues like these:
These little economies raise big questions, therefore, and by no coincidence, they tend to be the big questions of the economic age. How, for instance, do we assign value to immaterial goods? What defines ownership when property becomes as fluid as thought? What defines productivity when work becomes a game and games become work?
And, of course, the question of questions - the one that in a sense asks them all: How, exactly, did a 7-Kbyte piece of digital make-believe become John Dugger's $750 piece of upmarket real estate?
Here's a press release from Got Game Entertainment about the gold status (final version sent to manufacturing) of the upcoming space game DarkSpace being created by PaleStar, Inc. I've briefly played the beta version of this a while ago and it looked very nice at the time. The graphic engine is sweet and the gameplay is very interesting from what I saw. I look forward to playing the final version.
DARKSPACE "GONE GOLD" Retail version of MMOG in stores by end of month
Weston, CT - November 12, 2002 - Got Game Entertainment, publisher of entertainment software for PC and other platforms, today announced that the retail version of DarkSpace, a massively multiplayer online action strategy game has gone gold and will be on retail shelves in North America by the end of November.
Got Game's retail version of Palestar's action strategy game, which is set in space and puts you in command of a massive starship, is distinguished from the online download by an exclusive soundtrack and a free one month subscription. New players with the retail version will also enjoy a higher starting rank which expands their choice of ships to command.
DarkSpace players subscribe to and participate in a massively multiplayer world, shattering campaigns and receiving dynamic content updates of new ship types, races, technology, and strategies that make the game re-playable virtually indefinitely. Team based game play means you are never alone or without help, all players in your faction are your allies. DarkSpace also features 3D accelerated graphics using developer PaleStar's proprietary MEDUSA(tm) engine.
DarkSpace will retail for $19.99 (US) and $29.99 (CAN)
That's the official word on another beta test going on, this time for War of Conquest. I got this notice a while back, so I hope it's getting out in time for you folks to check it out.
'War of Conquest' Final Beta Test Begins
Now entering the final stage of beta testing after 12 months of development by some of the people behind 'Asheron's Call', 'War of Conquest' (warofconquest.com) is the first massively multiplayer strategy game to reward skill, tactics, and tenacity with cash prizes.
Create a nation, recruit your friends to join forces with you, forge alliances or wage war with your friends or your enemies. Grow in strength and learning, develop your technological sophistication from stone tools to nanotechnology and beyond, all while competing for the planet's precious resources.
Your ultimate goal is to search out the ancient and mysterious orbs that are scattered throughout the landscape, conquer those who would have them, and make them your own. Every minute you hold on to a captured orb your cash prize grows. The rewards can be great!
I thought I'd drop a note for the beta-hungry folks around here about another MassMOG in beta... Rebel Dawn is a sci-fi themed Shockwave game played in a Web browser. Gameplay consists of primarily these features: "travel from planet to planet, buy and sell cargo, buy items, go on missions, and interact with other players." This is not intended to be a preview (and since my friends are making the game, I'm sure they're gonna yell at me for not being more thorough), so I'll just leave you with the above link and the below clip from the game's backstory:
The Rebel Dawn Universe You begin your adventure in Rebel Dawn just as the galaxy reaches a critical point in its history. The Intergalactic Revenue Service (IRS) has raised taxes yet again. The Republic that holds all the systems in the galaxy together is falling apart. Some planets have left the Republic completely. Other systems have declared their political independence from the Republic, while still submitting to IRS taxation to avoid war. Most traders have stopped paying IRS taxes. The IRS has deployed many IRS Tax Collector ships to hunt down tax evaders. In addition, many traders have started running missions for the rebel planets. The galaxy is now in a state of civil war.
Here's the bulk of a press release about an upcoming MMOG release called DarkSpace. I checked out DarkSpace briefly with an offline tutorial-thing and it looks quite sweet. I'm really looking forward to checking out the final version.
MMORPG "DARKSPACE" SET FOR NOVEMBER RELEASE; Retail version or massively multiplayer game to include bonus ships, ranking, one-month free subscription, and new soundtrack
WESTON, CT- October 25, 2002 - Got Game Entertainment, publisher of video games for PC and other platforms, today announced that the retail version of "DarkSpace", the massively multiplayer online RPG set in space and alive with star ships and diverse alien races, will hit retail shelves by the end of November 2002. The retail version will give players priority access to ships, prestige ranking, and a one-month free subscription, as well as feature a new and exclusive soundtrack by a veteran game composer.
Developed by Palestar, "DarkSpace" takes place in a universe splintered by intergalactic war. Humanity has split into two hostile factions, while a new hostile alien race advances into human space. In the midst of turmoil and civil unrest, players start as an ensign, piloting smaller craft and eventually working their way up to a fleet admiral, controlling a massive capital ship and plotting strategic maneuvers in one of the three initial factions.
"The retail version of DarkSpace will include a coupon for a free month," explained Richard Lyle, President of Palestar and Lead Programmer for "DarkSpace". "This coupon will give new players a higher starting rank which expands their choice of ships to command."
The soundtrack, exclusive to the retail version, was custom written for the project by Paul Baker and is loosely based on the orchestral music of Gustav Holst, composer of the "The Planets". Baker's other notable contributions include "Wing Commander" (3 and 4), "Kilrathi Saga", "Longbow AH-64", "Longbow: Flashpoint Korea", "Pacific Strike", and "Ultima 8". Cakewalk sequencing software and Kurzweil, Roland, and Gigastudio synths were used to create the music.
"There is just something about space that inspires great music," said Got Game Entertainment President, Howard Horowitz. "When you think about "Star Wars" or "2001: A Space Odyssey", you think about the music. We think the DarkSpace players will enjoy this soundtrack, as well."
Faction Earth has wrapped up Beta 2 and is now available for public use. Players are being offered a special discounted trial period of 30 days, 50% off the regular pricing, only $1.99.
Faction Earth is a massively multi-player online role-playing game (MMORPG) set in the corporate mega-cities of Earth in the year 2125.
This world, behind the sanitized corporate faade, is one of corporate wars, industrial espionage, super-hackers, mastery of newly discovered magic, battling factions, and a constant struggle of humanity against its own genetic creations gone awry.
