empire-of-the-eclipse
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MMObility: Parallel Zombies, Glitch's new butlers, and a new space MMO
It's been a great week for mobile MMOs. That's a wonderful thing to type up, especially considering how few mobile MMOs are released when compared to standard browser- or client-based games. This week, I found myself logging in quite a bit of time with a few titles, but I still want a lot more time to explore some of these games. One you can't play yet, another you have played probably quite a bit already, and the last one promises to suck up a lot of your time in between meetings. It's neat to see another iOS MMO. iOS doesn't seem to get as many MMOs popping up in its market as with Android, but things are slowly evening out. The imbalance right now might be due to the fact that Android phones feature larger screens and sometimes more power than the latest iOS phones, something that is simply appealing to gamers. I wonder whether we'll see a larger iPhone screen anytime soon? Probably so -- and that would mean more MMOs!
Star Trek Online artist voyages to iOS with Empire of the Eclipse
When Lee Dotson left his job as lead artist on Star Trek Online to form his own development studio, ZarkSoft Games, he clearly didn't leave behind a thing for interstellar combat. Empire of the Eclipse for iOS, the indie's first title, draws its inspiration from the classic 4X strategy game Master of Orion, Dotson says, as well as the Civilization series. ZarkSoft has "worked diligently to make a game that lives up to the standards set by those milestone titles," according to Dotson, and has built an engine that supports up to 1500 players per game instance across 90,000 sectors of space. In announcing the game, the developer stressed that Empire of the Eclipse won't include microtransactions of any sort, in order to preserve a "fair and competitive play experience for all." There's no hard date or pricing yet -- just a promised release window of Q1 2011 for the title.
