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The marriage of mobile gaming and MMOs
The convergence of mobile phones and Massively Multiplayer games is something we've been talking about since the site launched. Whether it's a mobile tie-in to World of Warcraft or the possibilities of the iPhone SDK, it seems to be a goal of many developers to tie the virtual and real worlds together via your cell. A discussion held at last month's Game Developer's conference went over a number of different MMO-appropriate elements from mobile gaming, and might give you some idea of what the MMOmobile future might look like.Game designer Dan Roy was the speaker at that particular event, and ran down the numerous ways that mobile communications can hook into MMO worlds. He cited the 'show off' factor of having a max level character, and offered that socializing with fellow players would be enhanced by a cell-connected virtual world application. He spent some time describing a few games that go whole-hog, putting an entire virtual experience onto a mobile platform. He seemed somewhat dismissive of several of these games, saying of Ragnarok Mobile Mage, "It sucks. It's terribly designed." His closing thoughts surround the possibility of even tying combat into a mobile app - weighty thoughts for future designers. Are any of these ideas at all interesting to you? Would you use a mobile client to check your in-game mail, for example? Or how your auction house bids are going?
Armada: Kingdoms, an MMMORPG
Is the world ready for an MMMORPG -- a Mobile Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game? Bloomsix, out of Amsterdam, is betting that it is. Coming in the second quarter of 2008, Armada: Kingdoms is an MMO to be played on your Java-enabled cellphone. According to their website, Bloomsix says the game is as much about building a community as it is about combat. While they mention that maintaining one's town can take a mere 10 minutes a day, deeper involvement is encouraged.Even better, Bloomsix will be leveraging the connective features of the cellphone to enable players to contact one another even when they're not logged in to the game. But is this something people will find engaging, or ultimately annoying? The hardcore players out there will likely appreciate being kept up to date on every last event, whether it requires their personal attention or not, but if you're like me, when it's time to quit, I shut the program down and walk away. I don't want to have to worry about it when I'm no longer in-world -- that would just be obtrusive.However, the concept alone is intriguing. No word yet on whether this will be free-to-play (unlikely, considering the cost of airtime) or require a subscription. We'll keep our eyes on this and see if we can't figure what it's all about when it's released in Q2.[Thanks, Joris!]
