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‘Ni No Kuni’ mobile MMO looks utterly gorgeous
'Ni No Kuni' games have a history of being heartbreakingly beautiful, and in that regard, the upcoming MMO for mobile won’t disappoint.
Amazon is co-developing a 'Lord of the Rings' game
Lord of the Rings fans have been patiently waiting for the long-promised Amazon series. While we still don't know when the show will debut or who will star in it, Amazon has more Lord of the Rings news. Today, Amazon Game Studios announced that it's working on a Lord of the Rings massively multiplayer online game.
Amazon Game Connect links free-to-play, MMO games to store accounts, turns 1-Click into way too many
Amazon must have a lot of free time for gaming during its summer vacation: just a day after unveiling GameCircle as a cloud infrastructure, it's trotting out Game Connect to make buying game content that much easier. Once it's integrated into a title, the new platform will let customers buy content in free-to-play games, or subscribe to massively multiplayer online games, directly from their Amazon accounts -- no copy-and-paste juggling involved, even if the game account has to be made on the spot. A handful of game developers have already lined up, including Super Monday Night Combat creator Uber Entertainment and World of Tanks' Wargaming.net. If you're engrossed in gaming enough that you'll need 1-Click to buy virtual goods and MMO renewals that much faster, Amazon has you covered... although you may also want to slow down and relax.
Free for All: So, what does "MMORPG" mean?
As a reader of Massively, you should have a pretty good idea what MMORPG means. Not just what it stands for, but what it feels like, looks like, and behaves like. The problem is, despite common definitions, the games keep coming in different shapes and sizes -- and from all over the world. While I receive many comments about the Western coverage that Massively features, I would only be doing half my job if I reported on only the latest half a dozen games to break the multi-million-dollar budget mark in America. The world is a smaller place, especially now. And across the world there are MMORPGs that are being played and enjoyed in many different ways. There are PvP games, games that place players into instance after instance with only a handful of other players, all while offering the potential to hang out with thousands of other people. Is an instanced combat game still an MMO? How about a game like Mabinogi, which maintains a persistent world, but is broken into several invisible channels for players to skip in to and out of? This is impossible, but I think I will try to define exactly what MMO means -- now, in this current market.
DS Daily: MMO-tivated
Thanks to Phantasy Star Zero, we've had a lot of nostalgic chats lately. We've been tossing around our fondest memories of playing previous titles in the series and thought about the other massively multiplayer games out there that might work on the handheld. There's plenty to choose from, after all.So, what would you like to see? A spin-off World of Warcraft for DS? Some Final Fantasy action? Or would you like something a bit bigger and more ambitious? If it's a stretch, don't worry about it. All ideas welcome!
The Digital Continuum: Don't Fear The Re: Console
Massively Multiplayer Online Games have always been the slaves to their PC masters, rarely able to exist on anything other than the PC platform. That isn't to say there haven't been partial attempts in the past such as Final Fantasy XI, but since launch that game has been developed for three different platforms including the PC. Developers still have yet to create a console MMOG that becomes as financially successful as some of the more popular PC titles. In all reality, it still remains easier to make and maintain MMOGs for PCs. The reason MMOG developers find creating and sustaining their games on the PC easier is the very problem with a console exclusive. When creating any Massively Multiplayer Online Game for the Xbox 360 or the Playstation 3 that problem happens to be that as advanced as those consoles are they do not offer the flexibility of a PC. A large part of Blizzard's longterm success with World of Warcraft comes from the depth of the community tools and game customization. It's the wonderful ability to alter your user interface and the incredibly addicting habit of alt-tabbing back and forth from game window, forum posts or online game guides. I'm personally unable count the number of times I've been playing City of Heroes windowed while listening to various albums, simultaneously browsing news, guild forum posts or maybe just checking my email. You may be able to get a browser onto your PS3 and you might manage custom music on both the 360/PS3 but in the end would it be as easy as a keystroke to flip back and forth between both of those functions?
Massive Magazine planned for MMOG coverage this fall
The folks behind Computer Games Magazine have just announced that they'll be starting up a new publication this fall dedicated completely to the purview of massively multiplayer online (MMO) games.Massive Magazine is touted as the first print mag of its kind, packaged together with "a free DVD packed with MMO demos and games" when it launches for "a three-month run on September 19, 2006" and then begins as "a stand-alone quarterly publication by January 2007."We can only assume that theglobe.com guys 'n' gals will provide extensive coverage of other MMO genres besides the typical RPG grinds, such as FPS (Huxley), driving (Auto Assault), and puzzle (Puzzle Pirates) themed games. A digital version via Zinio.com is also planned.[Thanks, JamesO and Jonathan]See also: WBIE's original fanzine plans for The Matrix Online More genre-breaking MMOs The year in Second Life [from embedded journalist Wagner James Au]
