Family
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The Inochi Project offers adorable robot-animals in exchange for Kickstarter money
If you've got some money burning a hole in your pocket and a love for all things robot and cute, then Forwardfor's Inochi Project Kickstarter campaign would like to have a chat with you. Launching today, the campaign seeks £30,000 (about $50,000 US) to help accelerate further development on the MMO. The game will allow players to create their own robot animals (ani-mechs), customize homes, participate in battle arenas, explore cities, and fight against the rust plague that is turning ani-mechs into rust-covered villains. Stretch goals climb upward to £350,000 (about $586,000 US), but pledges begin at $1.60 US. If you want to play the beta, $16 is your buy-in. We've got the trailer after the cut!
Today's your last chance to play Free Realms and Clone Wars Adventures
Per SOE's announcement last January, today is your final opportunity to play its Free Realms and Clone Wars Adventures MMOs. If you can't play, be sure to join Massively's Larry Everett for a farewell stream later tonight.
The best of Massively's MMO Family column
While young children aren't Massively's target demographic, we frequently encounter MMOs that appeal to kids as well as MMO gamers with kids. That's why we ran the MMO Family column for over four years. Helmed first by Lisa Poisso and then Karen Bryan, the column reviewed kid-friendly games and offered advice and insight on how to survive as the parent of budding MMO gamers. Enjoy our picks for the very best of their collected work in MMO Family.
LEGO Minifigures Online previews a world of pirates
It's a world of peg-legs and hooks for hands, it's a world of parrots and coastal lands. It's a giant pastiche on the wide-open seas, it's a pirate world after all. Yes, that's the obvious takeaway from the newest preview from LEGO Minifigures Online, showing off the game's nautical land of cutthroats and cutlasses for all to see. And as you might expect, it's playing the routine straight to the hilt. So what can you expect from the game's Pirate World? If you said "pirate ghosts, sea creatures, and gold," you've seen a movie within the last decade and you are entirely right. Still, it looks to be exactly the sort of broad-strokes swashbuckling that can provide plenty of fun. So if you're eager to slap on an eyepatch and say "arr" more than entirely necessary, hop on past the break to check out the full video.
Massively exclusive: Pirate101 announces new advanced pet system
Pirate101's pet system is getting an update, and KingsIsle tells us that a new test realm will soon open its doors to showcase the changes. Pet owners will be able to send their minions on various world-based training missions which will raise their level, unlock talents and powers, and more. The devs are also adding the ability to PvP in a pet battle arena as well as a new quest that details the new advanced pet system. KingsIsle has penned a lengthy dev diary explaining how everything works. You can read it after the cut.
Pirate101 explains the making of its combat system
If you're the type of player that likes to know how the sausage is made, then strap on a peg leg and wobble over to a pair of dev diaries explaining the making of Pirate101's combat system! "One of the systems that reviewers feel stands out the most in Pirate101 is the combat. Combat in Pirate101 has been described as 'deceptively simple' and 'really fun,' but it took years of iteration and changes to finally arrive at the experience that players have today," the devs wrote. The diaries go through the early prototype of the system, how the team figured out combat sequencing, and the difficulties of getting the camera placement just right. The devs said that once the basic system was in place, adding the extra elements such as reflex talents and bullet time was a blast to do.
MMO Family: First impressions of Ganz's Amazing World
WebKinz is one of the oldest kid-friendly MMOs around, and it still boasts a healthy community, long after other running titles have closed their doors. But Ganz Studio recently launched a new MMO that takes the WebKinz spirit and plants it in a colorful 3-D world. Amazing World combines cuteness with adventure and adds a more modern look and feel. But is Amazing World really that amazing? In this week's MMO Family, we'll take a look and give some first impressions!
MMO Family: Winter fun and cool cash in Roblox
EverQuest Next Landmark might be generating a lot of buzz over the impressive creations that players are putting together, but Roblox has been doing it for years, and many of those creating are still in grade school. Indeed, Roblox has continued to improve the structure of the game and give players great tools to become amateur developers. Recently, the developers showed off those tools with a series of winter games. But the real excitement is found in their Developer Exchange system, which now allows arm-chair developers to earn up to $2,000 a month from the games they create. Let's take a look at what Roblox has been up to this winter in this week's MMO Family.
Protect your child's email experience with Tocomail for iOS
There's always a degree of tension present when it comes to technology and children; what's appropriate and safe for a savvy 10-year-old may be nothing but trouble for a less-responsible teenager, and only an involved and vigilant parent or caregiver can make decisions about what works for a particular kid and family dynamic. While most parent agita centers around social networking, bullying/abuse and photography (what I like to call the "unholy Snapchat trinity"), even the question of whether young kids or tweens should have their own email accounts may raise eyebrows. Providing safe and secure email experiences for kids is the business of lots of services, including some that have come and gone over time (this PC World article references our parent company AOL's former AOL Kids offering, which was sunsetted back in July of last year.) Tools like Zoobuh (US$1 a month per kid) deliver filters, monitoring and granular control for younger email users. While parents can and do set up regular email accounts for kids, most consumer services have a minimum age limit like Google/Gmail's 13-and-up rule. Trying to slide by on that may result in your child's account being suspended at the worst possible time (like when a key assignment is due or a big birthday party is coming up). And maybe it's not the best lesson regarding integrity and honesty when you have to warn your child to consistently lie about her birthdate lest the Google FBI (family birthday investigators) throw her into juvenile digital detention. Apple's parental controls for the Mac Mail.app client let you lock down approved senders, but don't deliver the flexibility of a web and mobile client. The demand for an easy, manageable service that's Mac- and iOS-friendly is so high that even an April Fool's parody story on "iCloud for Families" from TidBITS gets pride of place in a web search. The new Tocomail service and corresponding iOS app are meant to assuage some of those anxieties. With both a free tier and a $2.99/month premium option, Tocomail gives your kid(s) a choice of preschool-simple or grade-school "blackboard chic" interfaces. There's an iPad/iPhone drawing board for preliterate correspondents, a "picture timeline" view and more. Adding contacts is easy from the parent-centric web interface (which looks a lot like the kid-centric UI, just be warned). You can see a quick promo video here. Parental control is baked into Tocomail, and it allows parents to easily monitor and quarantine email to their offspring. The premium tier adds a contact "gray list" for subsequent approval, and lets kids create their own contacts; parents can also approve or decline new contact requests directly from an email notification, rather than having to go to the web Tocomail interface to approve them. Premium Tocomail also includes a preset bullying filter to prevent issues before they occur. Part of me wants to love Tocomail, and it is indeed a very simple and manageable way to give your kid an email account without worrying about setting up lots of positive filters and granular management. But given that a lot of schools are already using Google Apps for Education for students as young as fourth grade, the kid-simple interface strikes me as a disservice to digital-native kids. Why create an iPad app that looks like a coloring book, when today's coloring books already are iPad apps? Wouldn't it make more sense to give them something that treats kids (and parents) as the sophisticated software consumers they are? The other red flag for me is that giving your kid an email address at any age-specific service means that somewhere down the line they will have to change their address, and deal with all the accompanying contact-management and notification hassles. No 14-year-old is going to want to be getting and sending email from Tocomail, but that's what family and friends will know them by. I'd much rather use a domain I own and control and then handle forwarding/recipient screening as needed; however, that level of effort may not be appropriate for all dads/moms and all families. Tocomail is free on the web and in the App Store, with a $2.99/month or $29.99 annual premium service option.
New AT&T plan makes it cheaper to share smartphone data off-contract
AT&T's current Mobile Share plans can be quite expensive for families and small offices that don't want to be tied to a contract. However, service is potentially more affordable through a new plan launching Sunday. The tier starts at $130 per month with two off-contract lines for new customers (existing contract customers can also sign up) and 10GB of shared data, but it costs a more modest $15 per extra line instead of the regular $25; the carrier reckons that a family of four could save anywhere from $40 to $100 per month over the regular rates. You can go for more than 10GB of data if your clan craves extra bandwidth, too. It's not clear if AT&T's deal will be enough to lure families away from low-cost carriers like T-Mobile, but it's certainly a better offer than before.
SOE shuttering Vanguard, Clone Wars, Free Realms, and Wizardry [Updated]
SOE is closing down four of its MMOs. Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures and Free Realms will close on March 31st. Vanguard and Wizardry Online will bow out on July 31st. "At Sony Online Entertainment, we are always evaluating our portfolio to ensure we're providing players with the best gameplay experiences," the company said via press release. "At times, as part of this commitment, we have to make the difficult decision to sunset a game so we can refocus our resources on other areas in the best interest of our company and player community." SOE CEO John Smedley will be fielding questions on Reddit at 6:00 p.m. EST. We'll update you with the link when it's live. [Update]: Smedley's Reddit AMA
MMO Family: How to encourage reading through video games
In a recent Wall Street Journal article, author Christopher John Farley posited that literature can learn from the rise and success of video games. Polls reveal that families are increasingly concerned that their children aren't reading as much as they should. And they're right to be concerned because studies have shown that good reading habits are forged during childhood, and after age 12, it's extremely hard to get kids to read if they aren't big readers already. Video games and literature seem an unlikely duo, but there some important ways that gaming can encourage reading. Let's explore this topic in this week's MMO Family. (Photo credit: Tim Pierce)
Choose My Adventure: Back in the saddle again edition
Yeeehaw! Now that Mike has finished his ride, they're lettin' me back in the saddle for another round of rootin' tootin' Choose My Adventure fun! And the opportunity has come not a moment too soon: I've had my spurs on and been raring to go for weeks now. As you know, this ain't my first CMA rodeo, and I'm sure as shootin' excited for this next wild romp through a new world. Of course, I won't be doing this alone. This ain't a one-woman show, and you ain't just spectators. I'm the rider all right, but y'all actually have a hold of the reins and will be leading me through the adventures. I'll wrangle up some options each week, and y'all will make the choices for what we do, where we go, and how we get there. Our first choice: which game we're going to tame! I've corralled a herd of titles that ain't seen their time in the spotlight yet (or at least, not for a long, long time). We've got an assortment of breeds to choose from -- some I've the barest hint of experience with; with others, I've none at all. Look 'em over, size 'em up, and then tag the one you want us to spend our next six weeks in. Y'all have until 11:59 p.m. EST on Saturday, January 25th, to make your selection. Then we rope the winner and get this ride started.
WoW Moviewatch: Family
Some stories are simple and beautiful enough that they barely need words. Told with a laconic, thoughtful pace, Family relates the heartwarming love of an unlikely adoption. You don't see many machinima like this. Not only is the animation pleasing and convincing (even if baby elves are a little creepy), but the entire piece is told with so much soul and reality that you almost wonder if something in real life inspired it. As Nixxiom said when he suggested this movie, this is a video that hits you "right in the feels." It's an incredibly well done piece, and probably one of the best I've ever seen. Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at moviewatch@wowinsider.com.
MMO Family: Forbes' three essential parenting tips on video games
As video games continue to grow in popularity each year, there is a correlating increase in the number of studies and advice columns offering insight into how parents should tackle the many parenting issues that go with it. Sadly, far too many of the "experts" who offer advice have little or no real experience playing video games, and their advice is shaped by an overall negative view of video games. But as Forbes blogger Jordan Shapiro points out in his article 3 Things Parents Should Know About Video Games and Kids, video games and the internet are here to stay. And it's unrealistic to look at the issues of raising a child in the age of technology strictly in black and white terms. Shapiro offers up the three pieces of advice that are great starting points for parents, and we'll take a look at them in this week's MMO Family.
Some Assembly Required: Virtual world roundup for 2014 and beyond
Just over two years ago there was a great disturbance, as if millions (or so) of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. Yes, something terrible had happened: a beloved virtual world was destroyed. And that left a number of sandbox refugees looking for a new place to call home. At that time, Some Assembly Required offered a roundup of the then available virtual worlds that could possibly offer accommodation, depending on what qualities players most desired in their games. But as things are wont to, they changed; a lot can happen in the MMOverse in 24 months, from additional features in existing games to new games to the loss of more worlds. So it's time to update this list of virtual worlds to reflect 2014 and beyond. Take a look and see what titles or titles-to-be have the sandbox features that best make a game a home for you.
MMO Family: Setting Sail in Pirate101
Yo ho ho and a bottle of yum! It's been a while, but I've recently returned to the Spiral to explore the world of Pirate101, along with my two younger game testers. We enjoyed our time in-game the first time around, and were curious to revisit the game to see what's changed. Would we find a hidden treasure or end up sunk? In this week's MMO Family, we're donning our Tricorn hats and setting sail in Pirate101!
Five tech things you can do for your family today
There's no place like home for the holidays, and certainly no place else where you're likely to encounter so many of your family members at the same time. Chances are, the advice and assistance you provided last year on the technology front has faded into memory just like a wilted poinsettia plant -- but there's still time to get folks off the naughty list and onto the nice list for 2014. Here's a quick few suggestions for low-impact, high-value help. Check the backups. Is Time Machine in play? CrashPlan, Backblaze or Carbonite online backups more your thing? Whichever approach your folks are using to protect their data, please check the setup, verify the backup drive and make sure nothing has gone off track since you got it working originally. Test restores are always a good idea, or make a quick clone of the Mac boot drive for offsite safekeeping with Carbon Copy Cloner, SuperDuper! or ChronoSync. iWish you a merry iCloud. Has your mom's iCloud storage allocation filled up with video clips and zillions of photos? Make sure that Photo Stream is landing someplace other than just the phone, and that iCloud backup is turned on for any iDevices (unless they're syncing locally, which is a good idea at least once a year). If your relatives don't already have Find My iPhone turned on, insist that along with the figgy pudding they have an ounce of device loss prevention. Apps and iOS updates. Just like visitors and uncooked fish, stale apps begin to emit an unpleasant reek after some time has gone by. Take a moment to verify that the folks are running the current iOS, OS X and app versions available. If they tolerate change well, you might even turn on automatic app updates in the Mac and iOS App Store to help keep them current. Scanning for Santa. Document scanners from Neat or Doxie may have shown up under the Christmas tree, but even the lowly iPhone's camera can help organize files and photos when paired with a savvy app like Evernote. Take a few minutes to discuss where key family documents are stored, and see if you can work out a better system than "somewhere in the basement near the water heater." Passwords be with you, and also with you. Using the same three passwords for every website is like walking under a ladder carrying a broken mirror on Friday the 13th. Get those cousins and kin thinking about a better way to manage their website credentials with 1Password, LastPass or iCloud Keychain, and suggest that they consider two-factor authentication for those critical accounts like Google or iCloud. If they really want to feel like they're living in the future, show them the device unlock magic of Clef plus Waltz. We wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year -- enjoy the day, travel safe, and tune in this afternoon at 5 for our handy helping Hangout, where Doc will gladly answer any questions he can about setting up Macs, iPhones, iPads and more!
LEGO Minifigures Online puts together a new site, aims for summer 2014 launch
Anxious to know more about the adventures to be had in LEGO Minifigures Online? Curious about how the game's mechanics will play out? Just eager to see some of the sillier minifigures in play? The latest video update from the game will satisfy all of these needs right away. It's a top-level overview of the game as a whole, and it comes along with a full website overhaul to help potential players learn more about the game before its launch in summer 2014. The video shows off a small sampling of the many minifigures in the game, ranging from the obviously combat-oriented (such as the Knight and the Revolutionary Soldier) to the almost completely ridiculous (the DJ or that guy in the chicken suit). All of the figures will have a role and a purpose within the game, and each one has its own unique set of abilities the help allies and hinder opponents. Check out the trailer just past the break. [Source: Funcom press release]
Wizard101 fulfills a child's wish
Wizard101 is a kid's game. It's designed to be played and enjoyed by kids. So what does Kingsisle Entertainment do when the Make-a-Wish foundation calls up with a wish from a child who's a big fan of the game? Apparently, the staff brings him in to the studio and surprises him with a brand-new character modeled and designed by the child in question, making him a permanent part of the game. What better way to wrap up a tour of the offices where your favorite game is made, right? Allan GhostDust and his pet, Lord Snoopie, can be found in Khrysalis as part of a new quest titled "Message in a Bottle." Any player who has completed the "Secret Heart" quest in the region is eligible to take on the new quest. If you'd like to read more about Allan's story, take a look at the full dispatch for your daily dose of heartwarming.
