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Perfect Ten: My mobile MMO experiment, part 1
I'm often mystified that we haven't seen or heard much about MMOs on mobile devices. You'd think that with such a massive potential audience that studios would be racing to bust this market wide open, but whether it's the limitations of such devices (size, lack of input) or some stigma against developing "serious" games for app stores, we've seen remarkably few of them over the past few years. I've grown increasingly curious what MMOs, if any, might be out there for my tablet and smartphone. Practically every list I've read begins with both Order & Chaos Online and the Spacetime Studio games (both strong entries) and then quickly peters out with titles that nobody writing those lists have ever played. Search engine inquiries are helpful with that, I assume. So I decided that I'd undertake an experiment. I would scour the internet and app store for 10 MMOs that have come at least slightly recommended by some list maker, sample them, and see if they compelled me to play more. Will any of these 10 prove to be interesting enough to stay on my phone after this series is done? Find out as I start with the first five of the bunch...
Arcane Legends infographic reveals 15 million installs
Arcane Legends has recently released on Amazon's appstore, and to celebrate this milestone Spacetime Studios created an infographic of all of the other milestones that the game has hit over the past two years. Prepare yourself, for big numbers are coming your way: Arcane Legends has clocked 15 million installs, 365 million play sessions, 140 million play hours, and over 7.5 billion creatures slain. But if you need spiffy graphics and real-world comparisons, you'll be best served by checking out the lengthy infographic after the break. [Source: Spacetime Studios press release]
Arcane Legends announces The Dragon Enclave expansion
Spacetime Studios has just announced the newest expansion for its most recent browser-and-mobile MMO, Arcane Legends. The new update, which launches today and brings the game's total number of expansions to five, will lift the level cap to 41 and introduce a brand-new island with new dungeons, bosses, daily quests, currency, gear, and crafted items. Enjoy the new screenies and video below! [Source: Spacetime Studios press release]
MMObility: Exploring the confusing world of mobile MMOs
The mobile MMO market has sort of come to a standstill, at least in the Western market. There are always new or incoming mobile titles that are MMO-like and even a handful of new fully fledged MMOs, but most of the ones I come across are either relative copies of current games or blatant repeats of current designs. There's just not much that is new coming to the table right now. It's a bit depressing because mobile devices are perfect delivery systems for massively multiplayer gaming, and yet so many developers are cutting down standard MMO design to fit into the mobile world. What I would like to suggest is a rethinking of MMOs for mobile. I'd like to see developers stop with the idea that mobile players are gaming the same way they do on a console or PC. Instead, I'd like to suggest that developers get to know how players interact with mobile devices and how that affects how and how long they play. Mobile MMOs should behave differently, but not so differently that they are no longer MMOs. There are many different types of games you will find when you search for "MMORPG" on Google Play or the App market. Most of them are not MMORPGs, however.
Massively's Third Annual Frindie Awards
It's time once again for me to throw out my awards for the best of free-to-play, indie, and oddball MMOs, a real niche-within-a-niche. It might seem that I am assigned many of these titles as though I were some modern day Mikey, but the truth is that I get a huge thrill out of finding a new game but get even more of a thrill when I realize that no one is covering it. I had to really think hard about the criteria for the awards this year, mainly because "indie" is quickly becoming one of those often hard-to-define words, alongside "MMORPG" and "free-to-play." Fortunately, I think I know it when I see it. I kept my choices to games that I have actually played this year. I wanted to avoid games that appear to be really cool. If you want a more broad batch of prizes, check out Massively's best of awards. (Side note: I voted for Defiance as my game of the year.) These awards are for games that are being created on a shoestring or independent of massive budgets. Some of them are connected to some money, of course, but instead of trying to define "indie," I will only repeat: You'll know it when you see it.
MMObility: Battle Command is similar in a good way
Spacetime Studi.. er I mean Spacetime Games has been branching out lately. This time, they are working on a new way to kill hours with your mobile device. Instead of controlling a literal avatar by pressing on-screen buttons, the company's newer titles will have you building defenses and raising mighty armies to smash your enemies. To keep with tradition, they have found a working formula in the form of Battle Dragons. I enjoyed the game before but now that I see Battle Command, essentially a re-skin of the dragon-based former title, I wonder if a switch of graphics will make a difference? It sort of does. I liked the "tower-defense-in-reverse" mechanic of Battle Dragons but it is pretty cutesy. Battle Command puts you in command on miniature, futuristic armies instead and I have to admit to getting into it a bit more because of the switch. It's still the same game as Battle Dragons, though. Is that a bad thing?
Spacetime debuts Battle Command strategy MMO
Spacetime has a new MMO out that isn't saddled with the "Legends" moniker. The studio, which is now called Spacetime Games, announced the release of Battle Command for Android devices. Unlike Spacetime's previous games, Battle Command skews away from an RPG and toward a city-building RTS. Players will develop a futuristic base, pump out an army, and fight both the computer and other players in offensive and defensive campaigns. Alliances can be forged as well, linking players together in economic and militaristic support. The free-to-play title is currently available on Google Play.
MMObility: Battle Dragons and Tiny Tycoons make for light fun
This week I would like to mention two titles that only recently came across my desk, Battle Dragons by well-known mobile MMO developer Spacetime Games and Tiny Tycoons, a semi-social, real-world game that is published by The Tap Lab. Which is possibly the cutest company name, ever. Both games shine a light on the current mobile market, even though they do not represent every genre that is popular on mobile devices right now. Both games show off just how well-made many mobile games can be and both design's help illustrate why mobile gaming has gained such a large piece of the gaming pie. We'll start with Battle Dragons, the more MMO-like game of the two. Perhaps because it was created by a studio that has dominated the mobile MMO space for the last several years, Battle Dragons works perfectly on a mobile device.
Spacetime Studios celebrates 260 million play sessions with massive infographic
Spacetime Studios, creator of mobile online titles Arcane Legends, Pocket Legends, and Star Legends, just announced a big milestone: The studio's games have seen over 260 million play sessions to date. To celebrate this feat, Spacetime put together a huge infographic packed with interesting figures related to its games and the community of players who support them. According to the numbers, players have killed over six billion enemies, completed over 25 million quests, and formed over 13 million parties. They've consumed over 16 million potions and elixirs and opened enough treasure chests to provide one for every person in New York City. Perhaps most importantly, Spacetime's games have been downloaded over 20 million times. It's all right there in the infographic, featured after the break. [Source: Spacetime Studios press release]
MMObility: Avabel Online is almost everything I dislike about mobile MMOs
The mobile MMO market is still so young and underdeveloped that it seems unfair to judge it too harshly. Calling it devoid of quality content is sort of like describing the dark days of early graphical MMOs, a time filled with games that were nothing but a grind wrapped in what we thought was a pretty package. In hindsight, those three-day waits and incredibly tedious levels were "fun" only when we consider that they were all we had to choose from. The mobile market is about 80% crap as it is right now; this is true. I say that as someone who is a massive fan of the platform. For what it's worth, the rest of the standard MMO market is around 80% crap as well, but there are a lot more titles to choose from. Mobile has its star titles and wonderful developers, but when a game like Avabel Online pops up, I cringe at the possibility that an entire generation of gamers might grow up on such tedium.
MMObility: Fifteen fun free MMORPGs for your tablet or smartphone
Mobile MMORPGs are still hard to come by. Sure, there are a ton of pseudo-MMOs and developers who claim to have created an MMO, but the fact is that persistence -- a key to defining what an MMO is -- is often gone from many of these games. I want to be able to log out of the game while the rest of the digital world goes on without me. Or better yet, and in the case of most MMORTS titles, I want to log out of the game and continue to have an effect on the world through trades, wars, or the fallout of diplomacy. Even though the market is often bare, there are still quite a few MMOs out there. Many of them are fun as well! I know, I know, I am making it seem as though the smartphone or tablet MMO market is empty of all content, but the truth is that for its age, it's doing very well. There are more and more coming out all of the time, and hopefully I'll be there to cover them. In the meanwhile, enjoy a list of the specific titles that rest on my Nexus 7 3G tablet, just waiting to be played anywhere and any time!
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...
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.
Arcane Legends gets a new expansion, with a new exclusive item from TUAW
Spacetime Studios is releasing an update for its latest mobile MMO this afternoon, called Arcane Legends, and not only will you get access to a bunch of new content, but TUAW has an exclusive item for you to download in the game. The expansion is called Kraken Isles, and contains all sorts of fun new content to play with, from new areas to new armor sets, a level cap raise, lots of pirate-y action and a reset of the leaderboards so you can keep battling for the top place. But that's not all -- in addition to the new expansion, TUAW has a promo code for the game that will nab you an exclusive item based on your class. To get it for free, all you have to do is obviously download and start up the app (it's free), create your character, and then play through the introductory area. Once you reach the first multiplayer section (called the town of Windmoore), you just open up the chat pane and then type in "/promocode tuawkraken" (without the quote marks), and you'll get your free item! Pretty cool. Spacetime has been doing a great job on these MMOs for years, and the latest Arcane Legends release looks like no exception. If you haven't jumped in to play the game yet, definitely give it a download, and be sure to grab your free item from TUAW, too! Update: One quick note: The exclusive item won't go live until the expansion does, which we're told will be later on this afternoon. So check back then if the code doesn't work yet.
Arcane Legends adds capture the flag
It's the popular sport of summer camps everywhere, and now capture the flag is coming to mobile devices. Spacetime Studios is introducing the game into Arcane Legends as the first step toward a larger PvP offering. Capture the flag takes place in a 4v4 arena and comes complete with achievements, titles, and leaderboards. Spacetime has plans to add more PvP modes and maps in the future. The studio said that Arcane Legends has been downloaded more than four million times to date. [Source: Spacetime Studios press release]
Free for All: The second annual Frindie Awards
It's time once again for the Frindie Awards, my attempt to shine some light on the best indie, browser-based, free-to-play, and unusual MMOs that are all-too-often ignored by press -- and players. This one is for the little guys! Well, mostly. It's also for those games that seem to have passed under the collective radar of Massively readers or that seem to be very misunderstood. Picking the winners this year is just as hard as it was last year, maybe even harder. 2012 was an incredible year for MMOs, so I would rather have just put together an article that highlights every single favorite. In the end, it's more helpful to make myself pick out a winner. It's a rare thing for some of these games to even receive a nod on a major website, something I still can't figure out. Either way, it's best to think of all of the MMOs on this list as my favorites from 2012. Anyway, let's get to the awards!
Pocket Legends adds Paladin and Ranger classes
Three's company no longer; Spacetime Studios is adding two new classes to its smash hit Pocket Legends, bringing up the grand total of available characters to five. The new classes to be included in today's update are the Vixen Ranger and the Rhino Paladin. The Ranger looks to be a dual-wielding fighter while the Paladin is geared out as a classic tank. The new classes aren't the only things being added today. The update has a new level 76 red dragon to defeat, additional dungeons, a heroic instance, a 3v3 capture-the-flag map, more options for existing classes' skills, and the game's Winterfest holiday event. [Source: Spacetime Studios press release]
Arcane Legends arrives on iOS
Arcane Legends' staggered rollout crossed a major barrier today, as Spacetime Studios' newest title got approved for the Apple app store and released for iOS. It's currently available as a free download with in-app purchases. This makes it the fourth MMO in Spacetime's Legends series. Massively's Beau recently took some time to sit down with the MMO and suss out whether it has that Spacetime charm. We've also seen Arcane Legends' short cinematic trailer. The game launched a couple of weeks ago for both Android and Chrome. Spacetime reports that to date, Arcane Legends has accumulated more than two million downloads. To celebrate the iOS launch of the game, the studio posted a few new screenshots of the game, which you can check out in the gallery below! [Source: Spacetime Studios press release]%Gallery-170781%
Free for All: Arcane Legends is more than Pocket Legends 2.0
Spacetime Studios' newest title, Arcane Legends, which just launched officially yesterday, didn't quite excite me at first. This was before I had played the game or really caught a glimpse of any in-game artwork, but after three titles, I'd been wondering whether Spacetime could change its tune a bit. The last three titles have been basically the same game, albeit set in different genres and universes. First we were given Pocket Legends, a fantasy dungeon-crawler that surprised us with how much content and fun was to be had inside. Then we got Star Legends, a sci-fi version with a few tweaks. Next up came Dark Legends, a vampire-themed modern adventure that introduced us to action-based combat with a more "adult" tone. It's not that all of the previous titles were no fun to play. Instead, each one offers a smooth experience that's easy to jump into and sometimes hard to put down. But each one felt a bit more like a variant on a previous model, a build-up to something more finalized and slick. Is Arcane Legends that better product? Did it take three tries to finally get things right in the Legends line? %Gallery-170781%
MMObility: Free-to-play and mobile at GDC Online, part 2
Let's continue my look at how free-to-play and mobile gaming showed at GDC Online this year. If you missed the first part, you can check it out in my last Free for All column. There was so much to cover that I had to wrap it into a two-parter. I truly think this was the best mobile showing since I first went to GDC Online four years ago, so be sure to check out all of the games I mention. Mobile is growing, as is free-to-play, and it couldn't be more obvious than when we get to witness so many good games being developed. If I have anything to do with it, I will be playing these games ASAP. That means that you get to read what I think about them, and you get to play along as well!
