Do you remember Ultima?

Yes Indeed!

Our old friend Ultima makes a return, in the guise of a browser strategy game.

For those who are too young to remember, Ultima was an 80's game that introduced many of the RPG elements that today we take for granted. The game spanned over 10 sequels, all improving upon the original formula. It met great success in the United States, but somewhat of a mixed reaction over here in Europe. Until we heard no more about Ultima or a new sequel for quite a long time.

Electronic Arts, having the IP to this game lying around somewhere in their archives, must have thought that they could make some money out of it, contracted it to a third party who had a finished game already, gave it a new paint job, and here we are with Lord of Ultima.

The first impression is that it looks like any other medieval browser game that I played before. First I am greeted by a good-looking lady who wants to view, ahem, my mighty dominion. She guides me through the tutorial, gives me gifts and leaves me to expand my army and fortune.

So far so good. Lord of Ultima has the looks, and follows the formula of other well-established browser strategy games, but I will reserve my judgement until I have played it for a few more days. So I'll leave you with an image of my humble land of Brittania.

Why The Old Republic Will Not Beat Warcraft

Star Wars: The Old Republic (TOR) was officially released around two weeks ago, and although it has a huge following from Star Wars fans and curious users alike, I believe that it does not do enough to dethrone World of Warcraft (WOW) as the current MMO champion.

Here are my reasons why I think that TOR will be just another has been:

1. The system requirements for TOR are larger than those for WOW, so people with older rigs have no other choice than to play WOW since it practically works on anything. And most importantly, TOR does not look that much different from WOW to justify its higher requirements. By contrast, games such as Conan and Rift, to name a couple, do have higher requirements than WOW, but the end result is that they look much better so it is an understandable trade off.
2. It is too similar to WOW for my tastes. My opinion is that if you want to lure users away from a competitor en masse, you must provide somewhat of a better experience other than a different universe.
3. When you compare how much copies of Skyrim I sold from my website to the number of TOR sales, there is no competition as Skyrim was immensely more popular than Star Wars. Truth be told, you can also buy TOR digitally from the dedicated website, but I would still pretend more sales of boxed copies. And the website for the game's online store does not work properly on my browser (Chrome).
4. There are two opposing factions to choose from with four classes each. It should be enough for a starter, but still when comparing the numbers with other games...
5. It seems that the budget for this game's development was around $150 million. That is a lot of money, and if the game does not monetize soon, I suspect that it will be simply shut down. Currently playing TOR costs around the same as WOW.
6. WOW has been adding additional races in its line-up to counter the multi-ethnic character choices from the Star Wars universe. So it all depends if you want to be a panda or a character that looks like Yoda.
7. Obviously, WOW has a head start and has been refining the gameplay for all those years in order to make it more appealing. That is why TOR has to do much more in order to beat the competition.
8. [edit] WOW also gives you a totally free game if you subscribe for the next year. And it's not just your usual free game, but none less than Diablo 3, one of the most anticipated games of 2012.

Although my thoughts may sound negative, I want to say that Star Wars: The Old Republic is still a good game and you can do much worse than checking it out. However it still has not convinced me that it is going to be the World of Warcraft killer. Next please...

Giant Imagination is here

I wrote about Glitch a while back, and now it is out for everyone to play. It was difficult back then to describe how the game works, and it is still difficult now after having played it for a while. So here is a little introductory tutorial:



Glitch takes place inside the imagination of giants, so don't expect any serious or realistic stuff. This game is wacky just like that. For example, Farek (my online persona) is currently learning Soil Appreciation II. This will presumably make him better at digging soil patches and tending the land, and plants will love him all the more for it.

What this game certainly does is that it lowers the entry level for those who have never played an MMO before. Glitch holds your hand like it was your mama and explains every little detail and the reason why it is there, at least at the start of the game until you get used to how these things work. It also connects to your Facebook account to meet your friends, so that definitely makes it different than yer usual MMO. I would say that it will become popular with children (although I am not sure about the educational value of some of the stuff, like milking butterflies), to those adults (mostly female) that like to play social games, and the hardcore gamers will also give it a try to see just what it is (although I am sure that they will be the first to return to their usual stuff).

To summarize, Glitch offers something novel, and is very approachable for newcomers, but for the rest of us, where are the fights, the bosses and raids with the epic drops? Having said that, Glitch is still worth a try.

If you are getting all excited to play, a word of warning; after having signed up on the game's website, I received the invite link after around 36 hours, after which I could start setting up my character. So do plan ahead well before you want to rush in and start playing the game.

Join the Smite beta

Smite is a MOBA game (think League of Legends) which has the usual gameplay mechanics, but viewed from a different perspective, i.e. behind the back of your godly avatar. The game was unveiled to the public very recently, it will be free-to-play and deliver good-quality HD graphics (which may make the game unsuitable for some older systems).

Will it be any fun? I think that it will depend on the players to make each battle interesting, but the game is showing a lot of potential already.



The game is still a long way off, but you can still register for beta by visiting the Smite website.

Why Runescape keeps growing

MMORPG.com has posted a 2 page interview with Jagex's Ash Bridges and Chihiro Yamada by Adam Tingle. In my opinion, following Runescape's 10 year anniversary and the Clan Citadels expansion, this interview explains why Runescape is just as popular as it was when it had no or few competing browser-based MMOs. The message that we get is that the players are the most important asset to the Runescape world, and Jagex continues to build stuff around them.

The NASA MMO

I've just heard that NASA (you know, the american space agency) has commissioned a company way back in 2009 to develop an online persistent space traveling game based on the real solar system and set in the year 2035. As I read through the related news, one thing immediately sprang to mind; this is going to be really boring, at least for us gamers. Come on, how much fun could we have whilst simulating a trip to the planet Mars whilst trying to protect our on-screen personas from radiation. Wouldn't it be better to add some space pirates, political intrigue, trading and the odd space-fight into the equation. That would make a great game.

Heroes of Newerth is Now Free to Play

Another online game has gone free to play, this time it is Heroes of Newerth. It can be described as an MMORTS where two factions battle each other in order to break down the opposing faction's defences. And obviously, each side's fortune depends heavily upon its heroes. The free players can only compete against each other, using about a fifth of the game's available heroes. The free account can be later upgraded to a paid version, where you can play with the big boys too.