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Elvenar brings city building to a fantasy world
Pristine worlds and virgin landscapes are an affront to sentient sensibilities, which is why the call is going out to colonize the world of Elvenar. Today, InnoGames announced that it is working on a new city building game, this one to be set in a fantasy world. Players in Elvenar will get to choose between Elves and Humans, after which they will get cracking on building a city to honor that race. Like other InnoGames titles, Elvenar will have not only a building component, but trade and battle ones as well. Elvenar is planning on a January 2015 closed beta test for the PC. Mobile editions of the game are also planned, although they will be coming later. Players can pre-register on the official site right now. [Source: InnoGames press release]
Rise and Shiny: Anno Online
At first, Anno Online reminded me of The Settlers Online, a similar title that was brought to us by Ubisoft, the same publisher. Both games look good and mostly avoid hardcore combat, and both move slowly and concentrate on proper building placement and trade. I have to admit that I grew tired of The Settlers Online because it was hard to keep up with influence from local bandits and the constant destruction of the environment. In Anno Online I don't have to worry about trees or mines or running out of goods, and there are no enemies. The pace of play is slow for sure, but I enjoy it. I can keep the game running all day in my browser with no performance hit and I can even play it on my Samsung Chromebook. It's a game of slow growth and trade, and it's more of a pseudo-MMO that allows players to connect with friends loosely. Still, it's wonderful to look at and it's a quality game. But let's get to the details.
Cities XL releases first content pack
Cities XL is nearing the end of their first month post-launch and beginning to look toward what the future holds for the game. Their first step is the release of their very first content pack, and Cities XL promises more to come on a regular basis. All Cities XL players will now have a new farm model, a high school, and a Ford dealership to add to their growing towns, with even more new content exclusive to Planet Offer players. The content pack for Planet Offer subscribers will also include an eye-catching Old England building pack, three new maps (Want to live in a crater? You can now.), and three new megastructures. You can gather the resources to build the megastructures, but Cities XL also offers up an interesting addition to their overview: "Check your profile out on a regular basis to see if you are the lucky winner of an Alcatraz prison, a Tokyo Imperial Palace or a 30 St Mary Axe office building!" The new content is automatically downloaded and installed through the launcher, so you won't need to do anything extra to receive it.
Cities XL launch day roundup
Today is the European launch of Cities XL, while tomorrow is the North American launch of the game. We've enjoyed playing the game throughout beta, and have given some hefty coverage along the way. Check out our best Cities XL posts and articles below, preparing you for getting started easily. Massively hands-on with Cities XLAs the Cities XL closed beta continues to run strong, we got word that the beta's NDA has lifted [Edit: for press] and we can spill the beans on our first impressions of the game so far. Now, two very important points to be made here include the fact that this is not a review (MMO reviews are bad, mmkay), and this is still in early closed beta stage. E3 2009: A chat with Cities XL's Alexandre ZambeauxLast week at E3, we had a chance to sit down with Alexandre Zambeaux, Marketing Director for Cities XL developer Monte Cristo Games, for some more info on the current state of the game, and what MMO gamers can expect from such a project. You may remember a pre-beta Q&A we did with the Monte Cristo team a few months ago, and as the game hasn't hit an open beta just yet, it will later this year. Cities XL closed beta Q&AMonte Cristo was founded in 1995, and has mostly been very focused on simulation games. In recent years we have shifted our efforts to the city builder genre, especially with our latest game City Life. We currently employ over 80 people in two studios in Paris and Kiev, and we have been increasing in size a lot (and still are) for Cities XL. Cities XL Limited Edition box contents revealedMonte Cristo and Namco-Bandai have recently announced the contents of their Limited Edition box for the upcoming city-builder MMO, Cities XL. These Limited Edition boxes, as well as the Standard Edition boxes, are available in Europe on October 8th.
Cities XL trailer offers glimpse of empires to build
As the days of fall tick by, many people who just can't wait to get their massive city-building sim on are looking for more details on Monte Cristo's upcoming game, Cities XL. This ambitious project will offer players the ability to build their very own detailed cities (or slap together cities, if you're more interested in seeing what kind of havoc you can wreak by doing it wrong on purpose) and attract residents. With a variety of tools and some interesting twists, this title is raising the bar by adding MMO elements and making city building on persistent worlds an option. While it's cool to see the cities build up, some of the avatars in this video look like they got hit in the face with a toaster. But to be fair, if you're playing a city building sim, avatar looks really shouldn't matter that much anyway. At the end of the day it's all about making the toaster-faceries drop some of that hard-earned sim cash so you can build more cool buildings. (Perhaps a plastic surgeon's office would kill two birds with one stone?) If lording over your own online sim-pire is right up there on your list of fun game ideas, be sure to check out the Cities XL "Build your dream cities" trailer behind the break for a quick nibble of things to come.
Cities XL announces delay, new October 8 and 9 European launches
It looks like our European readers are going to have to wait a bit longer to get their hands on Cities XL, a new title that will bring MMO elements to a city-building game. Cities XL developer Monte Cristo Multimedia announced today that they're pushing back that September launch date to early October. The game will release on October 8th for these European countries: France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Austria. The French and German language versions of the game will be distributed by Focus and Flashpoint. October 8th will mark the Australian and New Zealand launches as well, with Namco Bandai Partners distributing the English language version of Cities XL. The English version will also launch the following day, October 9th, in the UK, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, and Italy.
Cities XL feature set and subscription pricing for European release announced
Paris-based game developer Monte Cristo Multimedia is only a few months away from releasing Cities XL which will potentially bring something fresh to the MMO scene: persistent world city-building. We've reported that some of Europe's French and German-speaking countries will get their hands on Cities XL first as of September 3rd. Monte Cristo has dropped more details today about the online play they'll deliver with Cities XL with their online/persistent world "Planet Offer". We suspect the feature set will remain much the same when the title releases for North America, however subscription pricing has only been announced for Europe:
Cities XL dev blog explains integration of gameplay with social networking
Cities XL is a game in development at Monte Cristo Multimedia that's ... well, it's a little hard to explain, as it's quite different from the titles we typically cover at Massively. Essentially, Cities XL is an MMO variant of popular 'builder' games where players can create urban landscapes with all that entails, plus businesses and industries, even determining the makeup of city populations (age, education, wealth). The cities designed and established by players can become part of a global, interconnected system, giving rise to all sorts of interactions in this persistent world. (It should be noted that Cities XL can be played in single-player mode as well.)There's a Cities XL dev blog at IGN that's taken a look at some of the features that will be in place with the Planet Offer (fully interactive), namely how a user's profile page will integrate social networking into Cities XL play. The blog entry states: "You will be informed in real time of everything that is happening around your game."
