bigpoint
Latest
Drakensang Online is now available for the Mac
Bigpoint has announced today that Drakensang Online is now available for the Mac. "Our aim is to provide everybody easy access to Drakensang Online regardless of the operating system they use. We are very happy to invite Mac users everywhere to join our large community centered on the best 'hack and slay' gameplay available, with truly outstanding graphics and an epic story. We believe that this will enrich the Mac MMO space significantly," says Jürgen Frerichs, Associate Producer of Drakensang Online. This move now brings Bigpoint's entire game library to for the Mac. You can download the Apple OS X beta client for Drakensang Online on the game's official site. [Source: Bigpoint press release]
CCP's Craig Scott switches to lead designer at Bigpoint
Free-to-play-focused publisher Bigpoint has announced the newest addition to its design team: Craig Scott. Scott jumps into the role of lead designer on a new game for Bigpoint. A 14-year gaming industry veteran, Scott was previously at CCP where he first worked on character creation in EVE Online, moved up to manage the game's design team, and ultimately worked to turn the fate of Dust 514 around. Scott noted that his new position affords "space for trying new things, which is a premise for making really innovative games." Of Scott, Bigpoint CEO Khaled Helioui said, "Craig brings a genuine passion for game design and innovation for the benefit of the players, and he fits perfectly with the game development philosophy we are promoting at Bigpoint. We are focused on attracting the most brilliant minds in the industry to develop innovative and incredibly fun games." [Source: Bigpoint press release]
Bigpoint's DarkOrbit Reloaded launches
Fans of the original browser-based Dark Orbit that launched seven years ago are in for a treat today: Bigpoint announced the release of Dark Orbit Reloaded. The space MMO's new iteration has a new UI, a redesigned game entry (including bonuses for newcomers), over 200 new missions, an epic storyline, new maps, and new faction characters. Taking advantage of newer technology, Dark Orbit Reloaded also boasts high-resolution graphics as well as has other features in the works for players to look forward to. Check out the official trailer below. [Source: Bigpoint press release]
.jpg.cf.jpg)
Rise and Shiny: Zombie Pandemic
I really want to recommend Zombie Pandemic, a browser-based, post-apocalyptic "MMORPG" by Pixel Pandemic. I really do. The problem is that I can see you sitting down to play a cool-sounding game, recommended by me, only to leave it within an hour because its server issues literally make the game unplayable at times. It's such a shame because there are several great ideas going on in the game and several systems and mechanics that rely heavily on real timing and, you know, the server running smoothly. During my time with the game this week, I had the game reset a good portion of my progress, kill me with server burps, and block me from purchasing item shop goods. Yes, that's right... not only did the game prevent me from playing at times, but it also prevented me from giving it money. Still, I'm going to tell you why I liked the game and why you should still check it out. It's a great game for players who enjoy zombies, post-apocalyptic survival, board games, and relatively deep storylines.
Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to Drakensang Online the dwarves go
Do you like guns, machinery, and beards? Then Drakensang Online's newest addition is exactly what you want to play. The dwarven Steam Mechanicus has just been added to the game, offering a new play option for those who prefer to reach out and touch someone with projectile death rather than the more traditional fantasy options. In lore, the dwarves are purely fascinated with mechanical gadgets for their own sake, not usually concerned with the larger world's politics. But a swarm of evil dragons descending over the land kind of forces even the gadget-happy to take notice, since they'll probably trash the local Fantasie Beste Buyye. The Steam Mechanicus carves his gameplay niche in the mid-range area, using a variety of projectile attacks, self-built turrets, and rocket-powered jumps to pull together a victory. This new class is exclusive to subscribers for two weeks, at which point it will lose its exclusivity but retain its overall fiddly qualities. [Source: Bigpoint press release]
The Mummy Online shuts down today
Do you remember The Mummy Online? It was a browser game by Bigpoint, it was in beta testing, it... you don't, do you? Apparently a lot of people didn't, seeing as how the company is shutting the game down as of today without much fanfare. According to the official announcement, Bigpoint has determined that due to the dropping playerbase it simply made more sense to sink more resources into games with an active group of players rather than trying to revive something slowly drying out. There's a metaphor in there. No word has been given on any kind of compensation for players who had spent money on the game. Readers may also note that the game never technically left beta testing, making it one of many titles to fold before an official launch. Our condolences to any gamers or developers affected deeply by this loss. [Thanks to Scott for the tip!]
Drakensang Online lands in Southeast Asia
Players in Southeast Asia will now be able to leap into the world of browser-based dungeon-crawler Drakensang Online. Bigpoint announced the expansion of Drakensang's market today, noting that the release marks the first time a Western European developer has worked with Southest Asia's Friendster social gaming platform. Drakensang Online will be offered as part of the Friendster X-Clusive series, which puts Bigpoint directly in contact with 115 million registered users across the region. The game has already launched in over 200 countries and boasts 19 million registered users. Here's Bigpoint chief business officer Jeronimo Folgueira from the announcement: As a region with increasing internet use and online gamer penetration, Southeast Asia comes with one of the most significant free2play markets worldwide. As a game changer in the region's business, Friendster is the right partner to deliver high-quality games to a sophisticated gaming community. [Source: Bigpoint press release]
Gamescom 2013: Merc Elite melds MOBA with military tactics
Tired of fantasy MOBAs clogging up your hard drive? Bigpoint's got a change of venue for you with Merc Elite, a near-future military MOBA that's now in beta. The game takes place in a future when five corporations now rule over the battle-scarred planet, and players must fight for one side and (presumably) a 10% corporate discount at the commissary. Merc Elite is being developed by 49Games and is the first title that studio has produced for Bigpoint since being acquired in 2011. It's going into open beta this summer and will be playable in a browser with the Unity 3D engine. The title was introduced at Gamescom this week. If you're hanging around there, you can get your hands on it now in Hall 8.1, booth B11; otherwise, you can sign up for the beta on the website. [Source: Bigpoint press release]
Free for All: The 10 best-looking browser-based MMORPGs
Beauty, they say, is in the eye of the beholder. Keep that in mind before you tell that me the games that fill out the following list of "best-looking browser-based MMORPGs" are ugly as sin. Sure, some of them are an acquired taste, but I wanted to display just how much variety there is now in browser gaming. It's not the delivery system it once was; we have had fancier-looking Flash-based titles for a while, but now with engines like Unity or Silverlight and even HTML5 coding, we have games that look no different from their client-based counterparts. There are still some ugly-as-sin games out there as well, but they have endearing qualities all the same. So keep that in mind; this is my top 10 list. If you want to suggest your own in the comments section, I would love to hear them! Now, on to the list, in no particular order...
Rise and Shiny: Warstory: Europe in Flames
Warstory: Europe in Flames is one of those deceptively simple MMOs that makes me feel a bit lost for most of the week that I look at it for this column. It seems as though I stumbled into a game that features not only a time-limited server but one that is about to restart once the capital city of Berlin is taken by either the Russians (my side) or one of the other Allies. The goal is to race through content until Berlin is finally nabbed. I was even able to roll a new commander on a new server, but that game was far enough along to convince me that I really need to play in a brand-new game to see what happens from the very beginning. I am getting ahead of myself, though. How about we talk about the gameplay and how it all feels? Then I'll allow myself to scheme about my possible glory.
Free for All: The continued standardization of selling power
Selling power is a much quieter controversy than it used to be. I've been in gaming long enough to remember when selling anything desirable at all was taboo. At the same time, it's always been OK to sell some things like subscriptions or special boxed editions, proving that MMO gamers and others are brilliant at segmenting their rage. If it's a cool, special box with a neat virtual item inside, it somehow does not fall under the same umbrella as selling powerful, useful items in game. I think it does. But geeks in general are good at justifying poor behavior if they get what they want; just ask the hackers and file-swappers. Still, it doesn't matter how we feel about selling power because the industry is already moving in the direction of selling power, lots of power. EA recently announced that every title it produces from now on will feature microtransactions. While that doesn't guarantee the sale of powerful items, I can promise that it will include some. This train ain't stopping. Sure, the console community seems a bit late to the party when it comes to the power-selling controversy, but that's likely because of MMOs' always-on multiplayer mode.
Bigpoint employees vote to unionize, firm trumpets 300 million registered users
Bigpoint staff have voted to organize under the banner of the Ver.di trade union, according to GamesIndustry.biz. The move comes after the October layoffs of 80 employees from the free-to-play browser giant's Hamburg, Germany office, and Bigpoint will no longer be able to make staffing cuts "without first consulting the organization." Bigpoint also issued a press release this week stating that 300 million users have registered across its 65-game portfolio.
Free for All: Casual is as hardcore does and the daily gaming list
It's always a lot of fun to compare casual players to hardcore players. We've all seen many articles and had our own discussions on the topic and it never seems to stop being entertaining. After all, how much or how intensely a player plays an MMO can help predict how that player might react to market changes or to new titles, so we can easily see how developers will always be interested in the information even when we tire of it. For me, personally, I would rather skip the whole discussion and just talk about how I play casually. I can list hours played and titles accessed, but I think it would be a better idea to sketch out a rough but typical day or week in my household to illustrate just how someone who considers himself casual is actually quite committed. Does that mean I am hardcore in certain cases? I don't care anymore, frankly. What I care about is seeing if how I play is completely alien or if there are other players out there who love to do what I do. Let's call it a cry for help... or at least information.
Bigpoint cutting 120 jobs, abandoning U.S. development
Browser game outfit Bigpoint can be forgiven if it doesn't look fondly on 2012. Last summer the firm noted for Battlestar Galactica Online and an upcoming Game of Thrones spinoff vacated its mobile development business and jettisoned a couple of executives. Now GamesIndustry.biz reports that the free-to-play company is cutting 120 jobs. Bigpoint will shutter its San Francisco development office (approximately 40 jobs) as well as terminate 80 employees at its Hamburg location. "We have seen that developing games in the U.S. is not really the most efficient way for us at the moment," CEO Heiko Hubertz tells GamesIndustry. "The games that we have developed in the last two years haven't been that successful, and the San Francisco area and Bay Area is quite a competitive market. San Francisco is, after New York, one of the most expensive cities you can live in in the US, so the people are quite expensive." Hubertz will abdicate his CEO duties for an executive chairman position later this year. Bigpoint has yet to name a replacement. Hubertz also indicated that none of Bigpoint's current titles will be affected and that the company will continue making games.
MMObility: Finding the fun within the browser
Fun is an odd thing to define. I have to be honest and say that I don't often have fun when playing MMOs. I don't. I enjoy myself, sometimes to an amazing degree, but I don't have what I would call "fun." When I play a game like Wurm Online or Parallel Kingdom, I am not having fun but am having something closer to the feeling you get when you read a good book. You know the feeling: You're breathing deep, lying on the bed, possibly, very relaxed. OK, I understand how dirty that sounds, but you know what I mean. Playing a good MMO is often like playing chess. It's not really fun, but it is still a very good thing. Browser-based titles can often be enjoyable, but the normally limited graphics and sometimes click-and-wait gameplay means that I get more of a scratch-my-chin sort of feeling when I leap into Illyriad or other games. Of course, in-browser graphics are changing and becoming more and more like standard client-based MMOs. Thanks to Unity and other engines, we can play in immersive, three-dimensional worlds in our browser. Smartphones are becoming more tablet-like, and mobile games are quickly becoming more like standard gaming as well. So what do we play when we want to have simple fun?
The Soapbox: There's no such thing as pay-to-win
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. I hate it when MMORPG players completely misrepresent this hobby. I cringe every time I find myself in the middle of a discussion about "MMOs" when most of the people chatting are pulling only from their experience as a World of Warcraft raider and nothing more. There are hundreds -- actually, thousands -- of MMOs in existence. Discussing MMOs without knowing about as many as possible is really talking about specific titles, not a genre. You wouldn't catch a group of "foodies" basing all of their passions on a few items from a handful of menus. The same should apply to MMO discussions if we ever want the genre to be taken more seriously by outsiders. MMO players love to pigeonhole titles. What are some of the worst descriptions? "Hardcore" is one. What does that even mean? Does it mean a title is hard to play? In what way is it hard? Does it mean that it takes time to play? How much time equals hardcore? "Facebook game" is another term that drives me crazy, and it's often used by many MMO fans to dismiss all sorts of titles. While I know that the term generally refers to FarmVille-style gaming, using the term literally reflects how little the person knows about the variety of games that actually appear on or are connected to Facebook. The term that drives me the craziest of all is pay-to-win.
Choose My Adventure: The indie edition
It might be your time up there, but it's my time -- my time -- down here! For this latest edition of Choose My Adventure, I get to hand out a selection of odd little games for you to vote on, and then for the next month and change, I will stumble my way through the title. At your direction and with your help, of course. The trouble is that I have already played darn near everything. I've downloaded and tried so many games that I simply can't remember them all. So, what to do? Well, I decided to give a mix of games a chance at several weeks coverage here on Massively. I picked out an assortment of browser games, independent titles, and lesser-known client-based MMOs. Hopefully you will steer me the right way, and if I am lucky, I won't even have a horrible time. I chose games that I know have a robust community in the hopes that plenty of voters will turn out. The key is to get the word out there, so if you have a favorite, go tell your community! But first, click past the cut and vote on the game you would like to see me tackle for the next several weeks. Just don't expect to see triple-A games on the list!
Drakensang celebrates end of beta, releases Atlantis trailer
There's good news and bad news for Bigpoint. Yesterday we told you about the bad news as the company announced it would be shutting down its mobile games division. Its bread-and-butter browser MMOs are still alive and kicking, though, none more so than Drakensang Online. The free-to-play hack-and-slash title is celebrating its end-of-beta milestone, and Bigpoint says the game has amassed a whopping nine million registered players. As usual with such stats, we don't know how many of those nine million have actually played (or paid), but it's a big number nonetheless. The game also boasts a new continent (Atlantis), and Bigpoint has released an accompanying teaser trailer that you can view after the cut. [Source: Bigpoint press release]
Bigpoint company shake-up includes closing mobile games development
German online games publisher Bigpoint, best known for free-to-play and browser games, will be dumping its mobile games development side very soon. Two managing directors, brothers Tobias and Philip Reisberger, and the chief communications officer, Nils Holger Henning, will be exiting the company to pursue work in mobile gaming elsewhere. Bigpoint CEO Heiko Hubertz stated that of the approximately 10 games that were in development, "some of them are finished and will launch in the next few weeks but most of them will be completely closed and shut down." Bigpoint is not abandoning mobile games completely; it is looking to assist and support external development teams. The company has stated it is focusing on game development and distribution and plans to open more offices globally.
See the Game of Thrones MMO in motion
This is the first footage of Game of Thrones: Seven Kingdoms, the upcoming free-to-play browser MMO from Bigpoint. It ... um ... it doesn't look as thrilling as its source material. Nice music, though.
