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MMObility: is mobile at risk?
It doesn't take much effort to see evolving and emerging trends in today's connected world. Memes, popular fashion, even popular methods of becoming inebriated -- basically if we humans hear, read or talk about it we will probably take it on as our own. It's just how we are, we need to fit in with each other a lot of the time in order to feel connected. I suppose it should be no surprise that we do this with our video games as well. In fact, I would go so far as to say that most of the games I find borrow very heavily from each other, sometimes to the point that I wonder if the developers didn't literally just cover their game with a new title and skin and ship it out to players. This is a time in which the same-old same-old is shrugged off because developers "didn't promise anything revolutionary." That's right, we players have gone on to provide an excuse for shoddy development, so many developers don't even have to. It happened with "social" gaming...everyone and their Aunt Tilly jumped into making a Farmville ripoff. The few fantastic titles were covered up by a sea of copycats. Now, is it going to happen in the mobile market? Can such a new market already be seeing it? Click past the cut and let's talk about it.
MMObility: Creating a hidden-object mobile MMO
Around the time we left for E3, I discovered some of the hidden-object games published by Big Fish Games. I have enjoyed puzzle games in the past, but these seemed to have a nice, dependable quality to them that I had not seen before. On the way home -- during the last several hours of our trip, when it became hard to settle down -- I pulled out Moonfell Wood, a lovely hidden-object game set in a magical world of fairies and princesses. (I think the target audience was obvious.) It was just a trial, but it was very relaxing. The music was nice and the puzzles were challenging but not mind-crushing, and my wife would look over my shoulder once in a while to point out one of the objects or to help solve a puzzle. It really got me to thinking: could a hidden-object MMO be created for the mobile market? I think it could. Click past the cut and let's discuss it.
MMObility: My iPhone versus my Android
I've been lucky enough lately to surround myself with some pretty nifty gadgets. It's not hard, really, being that my mobile phone provider gives me a large discount every two years. Coincidentally, my phones need to be upgraded about every two years, so it works out perfectly. Lately, though, I've been using my phones less and less as phones and more as gaming devices. I text to communicate and also make heavy use of the cameras. They might be called a "phone" but making phone calls is the least I do. We were generally an iPhone household for a while. When my wife's old original iPhone was upgraded to a 3GS, I got the old one. When we upgraded her to an iPhone 4, I got the 3GS and my mother got the original. (She loves it by the way.) We also have an iPad 1 and 2, but no Android tablet... yet. I do have my HTC Inspire Android phone, though. I've spent enough time with all of them to form a pretty strong opinion on both. Now, this is not going to be a tech-talk filled column. I don't do that sort of thing. I don't care if I save a few frames per second -- that stuff varies so much anyway. I am going to just lay out how they work for me specifically, and maybe you readers can fill in some blanks with your opinion.
MMObility: How to real-time-strategize your way into my heart
If there is one thing I can appreciate in my gaming choices, it's flexibility. I want to be able to not only do what I want but do it when I want. If I want to avoid combat or other players, the game should allow me to do that. I don't want to bother with things that annoy me. If I am in the mood for tweaking my character, sure, I'll do that, but I don't want it to be forced on me by a pushy fellow player or virtual progression wall. In other words, give me as many choices as possible and I will love you. Once I discovered the world of browser-based real-time-strategy games, I found a large number of games that provided me with almost everything I needed. While I normally preferred more "immersive" play, I found that the miniature armies and grand scale of most of these newer titles filled in my imagination just fine. In fact, the more I play with them, the more I am reminded of tabletop gaming as a teen. Those were glorious times, despite the fact that I am now, and always have been, horrible at war. Let me tell you all about my recent obsession with browser-based real-time-strategy MMOs. (That's quite a mouthful.) Click past the cut!
MMObility: Staying desktop-free with Splashtop Remote and Warspear Online
Let's face it: If you are frequenting this site and specifically this column, you probably have a soft spot in your heart for gizmos, gadgets, and gear. I know I do. But all that cool stuff costs a lot of money. When I spent the first half of my life as a drummer, I was known as the "duct tape drummer" because I used it for everything from bandages to kick drum holders. I could achieve what I wanted at a fraction of the price mainly because I wasn't worried about how my drum kit looked or how new my gear was. I bring that same mentality to my gaming. This column was born out of the need for gaming-on-the-cheap and more mobility, and today I wanted to give you two examples of how this mentality works in my life. Remember, the ultimate goal here is to have fun, and I have had more fun since I started this column than I have had in a long, long time. Click past the cut and let me show you some new ways to game!
MMObility: Fifty games for the mobile lifestyle
I like lists. Lists help keep my candy-coated brain functioning. I see so many games, devices, and developers that I need to write things down periodically or become lost. Not so long ago I made a list of 25 games for your shiny new laptop, but I wanted to update it with other devices as well. I'd like to clarify the devices I have, though, especially since it was brought to my attention that a lot of players use laptops as their primary gaming machines. When I refer to a laptop, it is far from a gaming machine and could not run games like EverQuest II or Age of Conan. So here are some stats: I have an HTC Inspire, an iPhone 3GS, an iPad, a Phenom Triple-core PC desktop with an Nvidia 9800 card, six gigs of ram and onboard sound. My laptop is an HP G62 with an AMD Athlon II P340 dual core processor, three gigs of ram and an AMD graphics chip built in. I also have a more powerful gaming PC, but that is often referred to as "the wife's machine" around here, and it is so packed with her items that I rarely touch it. So most of these games can be run on their native devices, and if they are meant for PC, probably on netbooks as well. When I'm playing on netbooks, resolution is often the major issue. Some games just will not fit on the tiny screens without some slight modding. Anyway, click past the cut to see the list. The first 11 are my favorites, the ones that I play often, if not every day. The rest are in no particular order, so keep that in mind as well. Remember that this year is going to be an incredible one for mobile, thanks to the new games I found at E3. So this list will change!
MMObility: Just how mobile was E3?
E3 is a massive, loud conglomeration of lights, people, and stress. I spent most of my time there walking from one end to another, trying to find a certain booth or meeting room. Luckily for me, I am in pretty good shape and felt just fine the entire time, despite the fact that I had little to eat, and worse yet, little water. At home I drink water non-stop... no soda, no coffee. Still, it was a blast. Working like that really makes a tiny reporter like yours truly feel wonderful. Conversations with developers can be very, very interesting if games are what you love. And there were games. A ton of games. A bunch. A lot. Even then, I knew the feeling that was coming over me, the familiar feeling of stumbling into a toy store or comic shop to look for goodies. I was in hog heaven but needed to find my particular fix. I needed indie, tiny or strange games. Games that ran on a toaster but worked well, browser games that would impress me, or phone games that would continue to destroy the idea that immersive, fun gameplay cannot be done on a portable device. Did I find what I was looking for? Oh, hell yes I did. Click past the cut and I will tell you all about it.
MMObility: As I pack these devices for E3
As I sit here waiting for a fresh reinstall of Windows Vista on one of my desktop PCs, I decided to take stock of all of the equipment currently in my nerd life. It's funny that when you have access to more devices, habits start to form around those devices. My morning ritual is typically to get up, start up the laptop, and prepare breakfast while it readies. Then I sit down and poke around on Twitter, check email, or catch up on different blog sites. Sometimes I will make a cup of tea and sit in the stoop of the backdoor with my iPad, waiting for my wife to get up. Over time I have discovered that some devices work better for certain tasks than others. For example, I prefer to write my articles on my basic laptop, but I prefer to finalize them with photos and re-editing on my desktop. I now would rather check my email and Twitter on my iPad (I got my wife's old one when she moved up to an iPad 2) and would rather use my iPhone for music than my HTC: Inspire. It's odd, what a mix of devices I have now... but how inconvenient. So I wanted to go over a few comparisons between all of the devices and talk about what I might find at E3 next week. Click past the cut!
MMObility: Travians and socializing on any device
Last week I told you a little bit about Travians, a neat little mobile- and browser-based game brought to us by the same good people who brought us Travian. (Notice the singular title of Travian, the island-based MMORTS.) I was intrigued as soon as I saw it mainly because it looked like it was doing something different: creating a mostly non-combat experience that is so very rare in today's market. I had also a lot of experience with Travian before, and despite not enjoying some of the aspects of the game, I enjoyed playing with friends. I hoped that Travians would allow a player to insert a single avatar into the greater world of Travian islands, and that's sort of what you do. If you have played The Sims before, you'll have a basic idea about the what you have to do in Travians. You must point your little person to the bathroom, aim him toward a food source, and even tuck him into bed. Your character won't die or wet the floor if you don't perform successfully, but he will lose some ability to gain experience and other points. If you have enjoyed a conversation while in an online game, found yourself crafting away an evening, or spent a great deal of time decorating your virtual home, you'll have a basic idea about the optional activities in Travians. Click past the cut and I'll tell you more! %Gallery-124785%
MMObility: Three new games for your browser or smartphone
Welcome once again to your weekly source for all things mobile, portable, browser and handheld. Some weeks I want to discuss something deeper, something that really gets our blood boiling and our gears cranking. It seems as though there are many of you who think that mobile technology as it is now is going to stay as it is for a long time. With that presumption comes a sort of dismissal of the mobile market as nothing more than a toy right now. To clear up some of the confusion, I want to note that my love for mobile games and devices has almost nothing to do with the technology that exists now. Sure, I love my HTC Inspire and my iPhone. My wife uses her iPad so much (and she's a PC gamer, too) that we need to get her an iPad 2 just for the increased usability. She has an iPhone 4, and I also have a basic laptop that we use the heck out of. It's easy to see that mobility means a lot to us. Even with all the wonderful technology that exists now, I am turned on by the stuff that will exist soon. Mark my words. And then there are weeks like this one, a rough one of migraines, PC issues (another reason I like mobile) and other real-life stuff. So instead of diving into a deep discussion about the meaning of the term MMO or how to pick the best portable device, I decided to just show you three new games that have caught my eye. Click past the cut and check them out!
MMObility: The constants of the console
Once again I find myself envious of the console gamer lifestyle. If you think about it even for a bit, you can see how they almost have the best of all gaming worlds. Most popular console titles support some version of multiplayer that can simulate an MMO. Granted, players don't have access to potentially thousands of players at once and all that "massive" entails, but if we are even mildly honest, we'd admit that a great many MMO players spend their time in an instanced dungeon with the same handful of people, most of the time. A console is also portable and standard. If you buy a console game, you pretty much know it will run on your system. Sure, there are hiccups here and there, but those would be generally the same hiccups that all players would have. The games are made for the console, not the other way around. My jealousy has begun to affect how I play -- I am starting to find ways to step further and further away from the standard PC setup, and hopefully I will never utter the words "upgrade my PC" again. Browser-based and portable gaming are much like the console market. Let's discuss how so and why this really makes me feel good. Click past the cut!
MMObility: Fleck highlights the possibilities of ARGs
Earlier in the week, Massively posted some news about a new alternate reality game called Fleck. Being the ever-curious roving gaming reporter that I am, I immediately checked it out. I found a game -- sort of -- that reminded me of FarmVille with a hefty dash of Parallel Kingdoms and a smidge of the whimsical Glitch. None of those is a bad thing, which is the good news. The bad news is that Fleck does not go as far as I would like... yet. This means that as more and more games like Fleck come out (and they will), we will continue to see improvements on the genre. Could alternate reality games really become successful? Is it realistic to assume that one day we will see ARGs become the most popular type of massive gaming? I think it's possible. Very possible. But let's talk about it past the cut.
MMObility: Order and Chaos online bring potential to the market
As soon as I saw the trailer for Order and Chaos Online, I knew it would at least sell very well initially. Would the World of Warcraft-clone (note the first-time use of the phrase I normally despise) also sell beyond its three months of free time given out with the client purchase? Would players really want to subscribe to a game that is a simple clone of one of the most accessible MMOs in existence? I think they would, simply because it is a mobile version. The mobile market should have taught us these lessons already. It is a market of different players -- and play sessions -- than we might be familiar with when sitting down in front of our PCs. It doesn't need to be a seperate beast, however, and it can be enjoyed as an extension of the standard PC market. In fact, call me a convert. I paid for and downloaded Order and Chaos Online as soon as I could. Will I sub past the initial three free months? I don't know, but let me tell you why I think the game and the company matter.
MMObility: Survival on a desert island
We've all played that age-old game of pondering what we might take with us on an endless trip to a desert island. What music would you bring? Whom would you bring with you? What food would you bring, if you could choose only one food? I've recently been thinking about this old game again, mainly because of my obsession with portability and all-in-one devices. Which device would I bring with me to that island, if I had to choose? (Let's forget the fact that I could just make a call or otherwise contact the authorities to rescue me off the island!) The ultimate question is this: Which MMO would I bring installed on that device? Or, going a bit further, which apps or other downloads would I include? Once I started asking, my fantasy turned into somewhat of a challenge to myself: Could I survive a week without any access to a desktop at all? Could I write, play, and otherwise continue to do my job with only a pocket-sized device? Join me past the cut and let's see what I might include on this trip.
MMObility: A handful of games for your portables
To be honest, there are not nearly as many true MMOs available for your iPhone or Android device as I would like. It's a new market, of course, and the number of offerings is growing, but typically a lot of the MMO gaming you will be doing on your phone will be through your browser. This isn't a bad thing when you consider the quality of many of the browser games out there, but more MMOs cannot come quickly enough. So when I find one that I like, I would like to tell as many people as I can. And when I find more than that, I have to say something about all of them. Normally I would do a report on each game individually, but in this case, I have not had as much time with each game to give a full and decent report. It will be up to you, fair reader, to investigate these games with me. Don't worry -- they won't cost you much at all. Click past the cut and let's take a look!
MMObility: Mobile MMO predictions
My job is so dependent on my knowing current trends and being up on all the latest titles. I also try to have a good idea about what might be coming. Really, it's not that hard to get a grasp on future trends; one trip to the mall to witness wild packs of 10-year-old girls, all running around gossip-texting on their own iPhones, provides all the evidence to show that mobility and personalization are going to be having a very good decade. Anyone who is reading this column is probably familiar with the constant upward swing of technology. Peek into any MMO gamer's closet and you will likely find scores of gaming PC parts stacked up amongst retail game boxes (for some reason, we keep those). Over the years, your average MMO gamer will spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on the hobby. Now the mobile market is following that trend, sort of. Instead of requiring a constant upgrade of individual parts, mobile manufacturers simply require a new purchase of the latest all-in-one device. Some of these devices are good and some bad, but everyone will have one in the next 10 years. If you don't think so, compare the price, power and number of decent PCs now to 10 years ago. Then compare the number of mobile devices in the world from just four years ago to the number right now. Click past the cut and let's see if we can come up with some interesting predictions.
MMObility: Illyriad, a kingdom in your pocket
There are a lot of city-building, army-amassing, crop-growing RTS-style games in the browser market. Heck, I will wager that they probably make up about 70 percent of the games I come across while researching (my fancy word for lurking through game sites). The genre works really well in a browser, though, so I can see the appeal of making such a game. Of course, as in any popular genre, you will have your duds. After seeing my billionth army-builder, I have to say that I'm just not really interested that much anymore. It takes a unique one to grab my eye. In comes Illyriad. It looks pretty similar to other RTS-style browser MMOs, and it plays similarly as well. Something about it was different, though, and I just couldn't put my finger on it. The hand-drawn art was a nice touch, and the world truly felt large, but there was something else. Join me past the cut as I examine what it was. I also fired off some questions to the developer, Stormcrow, to get his take on the game's success.
MMObility: The quiet brilliance of Die2Nite
It's rare to find a game that does something with design that makes me think, "Huh... why hasn't anyone else thought of that?" There are a few cases, of course -- the Wurm Onlines, the Spellborns -- but they do not happen often enough. In the world of browser and mobile gaming, the chances of finding something that really tickles your design fancy are even lower. After all, this is a market of RTS games galore and embedded worlds for younger players. So when I found Die2Nite, I was very excited. It took me a while to warm up to the game and the idea (I'm sick of zombies, too), but once I got into it, I found some brilliant design. Keeping things simple is a rarity in games these days. Click past the cut where I'll discuss how Die2Nite creates atmosphere, tension, and a wonderful gaming environment with just a few icons and a browser.
MMObility: Introduction to the column and a look at Ministry of War
Browsers are not what they used to be. These days, we do so much through our browsers that we do not even notice their ease of use, and we trust them to be entertaining, informative and user-friendly. Browser gaming has come a long, long way as well. It doesn't take but a single run-in with any one of the more fantastic titles out there to see just how much can be done within the confines of your favorite web tool. Not all of our options are text-based or boring. Fully realized 3-D worlds are yours for the taking, as is some of the most clever design in gaming today. I am glad to bring you this new column to cover the world of browser-based gaming, in the hopes that I can speak to those players who might not be able to afford a state-of-the-art gaming machine. This column is squarely aimed at the basic laptop or netbook crowd -- those college students, working mothers and fathers with little time, or even players who are in medical situations that prevent them from owning the latest piece of hardware. Don't worry; it won't be a non-stop parade of repetitive Facebook games. I aim to push that image firmly to the side, replacing it instead with a picture of gaming bliss. Click past the cut and let's get started!
