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Face of Mankind: Rebirth goes into closed beta phase four
Face of Mankind: Rebirth, the revitalization and recoding of Face of Mankind, has hit their last beta milestone as of last week -- closed beta phase 4.Phase 4 is the final phase of their beta, the one where they let the flood gates wide open. If you have ever signed up for an FoM beta account, your account has been activated and you can log in to play the game. All you need to do is download the game client, which is available through links provided in your account activation e-mail.
The Daily Grind: What's your favorite indie MMO?
There's never enough credit given to the indie MMO developers. These are the teams that usually put it all on the line with the hope of making a darn good MMO for people to play in. They don't have the budgets that the big teams do, and sometimes they don't have the graphics, but what they always have is the soul and innovation to put out their title.So today's Daily Grind is dedicated to the independent teams out there. And, in honor of them, we ask you what your favorite indie MMO is. You've got lots of choices, from Love to Face of Mankind to Neocron to Fallen Earth to Ryzom to Istaria to Darkfall to A Tale in the Desert to many others. We could keep going, but you'd probably get bored of us naming off all of these games.So tell us of your favorite indie MMO! For good measure, tell us some stories about your indie MMO of choice! Go go go!
Anti-Aliased: Socially awkward
So, ok, we've been talking about Champions Online recently here in the column. Been talking about it a lot, as a matter of fact. I don't feel like risking having this column turn into a Champions love fest (as much fun as I'm having with the game), so we're going to change gears significantly this time and get onto a completely new train of thought.This week's topic: social gameplay. No, I don't mean those games you play obsessively/compulsively on Facebook or your social network of choice. I'm talking about how some aspects of gameplay completely rely on human interaction, for better or for worse. It's present in all of our games, but are we really taking advantage of it? We're going to take a look at some games that do take advantage of human-powered conflict, and why, perhaps, it might be a wave of the future for online games.
The Daily Grind: FPS 'mah MMO?
Combat systems are always an integral part of games, as they provide the main source of conflict and challenge for most players. Lately, however, we've been seeing a change in how our MMOs handle combat. Traditional systems have always been based on click targeting and skill usage, but a number of MMOs have opted to utilize new technology and integrate aiming and elements of first-person shooters into their systems. PlanetSide has been one of the first (as it's built to be a first-person shooter MMO, obviously) but other games like Darkfall, Face of Mankind, Hellgate: London, Huxley, APB, and others have embraced the aiming concept. Our question to you today is what do you think of this shift? Do you like having to aim in your games, as it presents a new level of skill-based gameplay, or does the aiming just not work for you, as lag and other factors can give some players a hefty disadvantage? Take your thoughts, pull them out of your head, smash them against your keyboards, and let them land on our webby page. We're used to these sort of things.
Face of Mankind: Rebirth bites the dust and NanoVerse Online announced
It has been declared that Face of Mankind: Rebirth is indefinitely canceled, the statement citing a lack of financial resources as the primary cause. Face of Mankind had its trials and tribulations, it launched back in 2006 and was plagued with bugs and many players found the gameplay difficult. It still managed to gather a small supportive playerbase and remained in operation until the official portal was hit by a series of denial of service attacks all throughout May, 2007. The attacks played a factor in the game's eventual closure in November, 2007, the perpetrators were later identified and arrested by the Scotland Yard computer crime unit. Duplex Systems, an already small development team, announced an attempt to continue support, add a bevy of new game mechanics, and relaunch the game as Face of Mankind: Rebirth if a publisher could be found.While it's sad to witness the death of one MMOG that wanted to live again, not all is lost from Face of Mankind. Duplex Systems has announced plans on a new MMOG entitled NanoVerse Online.
Anti-Aliased: Crime and punishment in MMOs
You're grinding in World of Warcraft's Stranglethorn Vale (voted most ganktastic by our friends at WoW Insider) when a level 70 druid finds it hilarious to moonfire your lowbie buttocks and camp your corpse for the next eight hours. You're grinding in Lineage II when suddenly someone completely rips you apart with Demon Sword Zariche, and the proceeds to do it over and over again. Face of Mankind players saw the days of other players killing player character police officers "just because it was fun and easy". Final Fantasy XI players dealt with the controversy of monster player killing, known as an MPK. Diablo had the problem of people raising you, killing you, raising you, killing you, raising you, killing you, raising you, killing you... I think you got the point.Griefing is a problem in MMOs -- a very big problem. As more users enter our wonderful worlds of fantasy and intrigue, more and more of them think it's hilarious to make others suffer and waste time. So why is this phenomenon occuring, and what can developers do about it?
