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Journey to the West opens up its international beta on Saturday
Want a new game to try out this holiday weekend? Journey to the West International might be up your alley if you have a high tolerance for goofy imports. It's yet another MMO inspired by the Chinese epic tale of the same name, and its open beta launches on November 29th. Players can actually reserve their character names for the beta starting today. JTTW boasts a level cap of 40, instanced dungeons, four classes, recurring events, and a psyche system that transforms characters into powerful elemental manifestations. It's also got an open cash shop, meaning the game is effectively soft launching this weekend. We've embedded two game videos below, courtesy of MMO Culture. Enjoy!
Our Enslaved: Odyssey to the West trailer is your trailer
The most recent episode of GameTrailers TV brought with it the first moving pictures associated with Ninja Theory's upcoming Chinese fable-turned-video game, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. Our initial thoughts on the trailer is that it loses a significant amount of points for sheer bossiness ("My something is your something," the video frequently informs us), but regains said points for the protagonist's creative methods of ladder navigation. Update: Trailer embedded above.
MMO Family: A parent's look at Ether Saga Online
MMO Family is your resource for leveling a gaming-specced family ... From tips on balancing gaming with family life to finding age-appropriate niches for every family member, MMO Family offers you advice on MMO gaming of the family, by the family and for the family. Next in our look at kids' MMOs is Ether Saga Online, winner of a 2009 National Parenting Publications Award for tweens and teens video games. Compared with the freewheeling, open-ended approach of Free Realms, ESO presents a more traditional MMO face. Even so, you probably weren't expecting a work of classic literature -- but that's in fact what you'll get. ESO, which was first developed for Chinese players, is based on Journey to the West (often known in the West as Monkey), considered one of the four great classical novels of Chinese literature. All that, and it's free to play, too.
Zhengtu Online holds 1 million concurrent users
According to the Star Online, Zhengtu Online is one of only three MMOs whose userbase exceeds one million players at peak times, the other two being Journey to the West and, of course, World of Warcraft. It goes without saying that American companies would do well to do some research into the Asian markets to see what it is that they're doing over there to be so successful; it can't be a coincidence that 2 of the 3 top-played MMOs are Asian.Having said that, what, exactly is the appeal? Are these other two games simply the best of the breed, as WoW seems to be (die-hard EQ, Guild Wars, EVE Online fans can climb off your soapboxes right now; I'm just going by statistics here)? Are there congruences between the three? Similarities in gameplay? If either of the other two were to come over to these shores, would WoW suddenly find some serious competition? Have any of you played these games, O Faithful Readers? Leave a comment![Via the Star Online]
China online gaming trends
BusinessWeek online recently ran an article that effectively summarizes major issues in the burgeoning Chinese gaming industry, including MMO addiction, Internet population growth, and the increasing quality of China's homegrown titles. Also, the horse armor debate may soon find new life overseas, as there are plans for several Chinese game operators to switch from a subscription-based revenue model to the sale of virtual goods and other downloadable content "needed to advance various games".The article is supplemented by a slideshow that showcases China's hottest online games, one of which hails from the States -- Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach. This is consistent with vendors I visited during a recent trip to Shanghai who claimed that DDO was among their bestsellers.See also: More chaperones in China's Internet cafes SUN is most anticipated game in China Take-Two announces 2K Shanghai
