Archive for August, 2008

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Sins of the Solar Empire to get micro ‘expansions’

Sunday, August 31st, 2008

Stardock Software/Ironclad Games’ top Strategy title Sins of the Solar Empire is expected to see new expansion packs later this year.

While expansion packs for  a RTS game might not be particularly note worthy, Stardock’s delivery and phrasing is.  While the traditional route has been to release a boxed, brick and mortar storefront version, Stardock is stepping out on a bit of a ledge here, and offering the new content as ‘Micro-Expansions’.  This new content will be made available via the company’s digital distribution platform: Impulse.  The first of these expansions, titled Entrenchment, will be made available at Impulse for $10 later this year.

If these ‘expansions’ sound a whole lot like ‘transactions’ you’re not alone.  While typical microtransactions may involve clothing or weapons for players, content in itself is a form of a microtransaction.  Interesting to note that Stardock shys away from the word itself and cloaks it under the term expansion.

Entrenchment’s new features will add “a Starbase defense platform for each race, turret upgrades for each race to make them more powerful and a Subspace Inhibitor platform that will slow enemy ships within its range.”

Ironclad is also working on two additional add-ons for players.  “one of which adds new diplomacy features to the game and another that will add new technologies and ships.”
At present, neither Ironclad of Stardock have given exact release dates for these ‘expansions’.

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Klei Entertainment CEO Jamie Cheng on Free to Play

Saturday, August 30th, 2008

While working the AI interface for Relic Entertainment’s Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War was good enough for Jamie Cheng, there was something missing.  Something perhaps like…your own company?

Jamie Cheng now sits in the drivers seat of Klei Entertainment and has released his own original downloadable games including Eets on PC and Xbox Live Arcade, and helped Metanet develop N+ for Xbox Live Arcade.  And while these accomplishments are impressive in their own right, it’s Cheng’s recent deal with top free-to-play publisher Nexon that is starting to make big waves.  Described as an “online arena combat game”, Sugar Rush seems to have a bright future ahead of it.

But it seems as though Klei didn’t  initially start out to build free-to-plays.  “While I was at Relic, I decided I was going to make my own game on my own time, so I got some friends together,” says Cheng.  The ragtag team rented out a basement and started work on a 2D puzzle game, Eets.

Working on Eets as a labor of love, Cheng says, “I never really intended to sell it, I just wanted to see what we could do.”   Luckily other members of his team saw the financial potential in the game an spurred Cheng on.  “I used all the savings I had at the time, then I used borrowed money from my brother, then I started using government money after that.”

In 2006, Eets was released on PC and the followup Eets: Chowdown later arrived on Xbox Live Arcade.
Speaking to the recent deal with Nexon Cheng says, “We didn’t start working with Nexon because we were afraid of taking risks, or because we wanted the money. We felt Nexon really felt they wanted to do the right thing for a North American free-to-play game. We are their first North American free-to-play game.”

While Cheng’s titles are hits in the hands of gamers, it’s his take on free-to-play that makes a boatload of sense.  He’s quick to admit that most people tend to see free-to-play titles as those of inferior quality to paid titles.  Not reaching any further than a keyboard, Cheng points out a number of other free services that we use everday – Those that we do NOT expect a diminished level of quality and service.  Gmail, Facebook and Craigslist are all free, and yet we don’t give any of these products the cold shoulder.  Cheng also points to the music industry as an example.  Radiohead recently gave away it’s most recent album, and charged only for concerts.  Along this avenue, the classic of all classics: Woodstock, was a free concert that drew revenue from other streams such as merchandising.

Speaking of alternative revenue streams,  Cheng spotlights the two leaders in the free-to-play arena: Microtransactions and in game advertising.  “Yes, we do have advertising. No, we don’t force it right in front of your face and force it on you,” Cheng says. “What we want to do is incorporate advertising right into the games and make it enhance the experience.”

Cheng does however stress that microtransactions that radically unbalance a game are a bad thing.  “If you sell a stronger sword, people are going to be pissed off,” he says.  Along the Radiohead line, Cheng illustrates a common concert factor.  If you go to the concert and enjoy it, you’re very likely to stop at the TShirt booth on your way out and pick up an ‘exclusive’ concert tour TShirt.  Not only as proof that you were there, but also as a way to become more involved with a subject you like.  The same is true for microtransactions.  In regards to the in-game advertising vs. microtransactions, Cheng admits that his current setup is “heavily weighted” in favor of microtransactions.  “You have to have a huge amount of volume before advertising becomes a large part of your revenue,” Cheng says.

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YUGs in Mexico worth $1 Billion by 2010

Friday, August 29th, 2008

YUGs?  YUGs.  YUGs!  Ok, I’ll be honest; I didn’t know what it meant either.  YUGs refers to a massively growing market in Mexico.  Young Unmarried Gamers.

According to a recent report from Research and Markets Ltd., Mexican YUGs could account for a $1 billion industry by 2010.  While Mexico is traditionally a market caught up in piracy, report lead analyst Phung Pham say, “There is a booming gamer population and despite problems with piracy, a substantial level of legitimate business.”

In Mexico it’s commonplace for young adults to remain with their parents until they get married.  This equates to a large population living at home while still making oodles of deposable cash.  One would think that this money would be stuffed away into a savings account, but hey…these young unmarried professionals aren’t any different from the rest of us, and want to have a bit of fun as well.  In other words, large amounts of non-rent paying 20 something’s are dumping lots of money into video games.
Studies show that only a decade ago the average age of marriage in Mexico for women was 20, and men 23.  Fast-forward to 2008, and these statistics have changed rapidly.  The average age for women is now at 25, and men at 28.

Capitalizing on this trend, independent developers like Xibalba Studios are offering the YUGs exactly what they want: bilingual pixel goodness.  Whether or not they follow the already existing Asian free-to-play model, remains to be seen, but given the target audience it would be the most appropriate choice.  With low entry costs and a huge market, Mexico might be the up and coming hot spot to watch.

About Xibalba Studios:

Xibalba Studios is an independent company with a global vision devoted to create games that are original, innovative, and above all fun by using the latest gaming technology to achieve the highest quality standards.

Founded on November 15th 2004 in the city of Monterrey (Mexico), Xibalba Studios’ goal is to become one of the leading developers of 3D casual games in the world.

Even before starting Xibalba Studios, the team already had the experience and recognition of the industry by participating in the development of nine games and having been nominated twice at the Independent Games Festival.

Xibalba created a small tech demo called Space Monkey in 2004 to test the game engine that was developed in-house.

After that, we created a prototype based on an ancient Mayan ball game.

Recently we have been working for a little over a year on a new project that will be announced soon.

We are located in the Northeast part of Mexico, in the city of San Pedro Garza GarcÍa, N.L. which is part of the metro area of Monterrey.

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GOA to bring new micro transaction game from Petroglyph Studios to Europe

Thursday, August 28th, 2008

True Games Interactive announced yesterday that it’s signed an exclusive deal with GOA, the gaming unit of Orange, to exclusively publish, distribute and operate their upcoming title from Petroglyph Studios.
Back in April of this year, True Games announced that it had partnered with Petroglyph on an upcoming free-to-play, microtransaction based game for the PC.  GOA will work the launch and operations of the European market, while True Games Interactive will handle the North American market.  True Games is also currently in negotiations with partners in Asian markets.

“When we partnered with Petroglyph our pledge to them was that we would make their game a global sensation and that we would work with only the highest quality partners like GOA to help support it,” said Jeff Lujan, Founder and Chairman of True Games Interactive. “Traditionally worldwide partners license a game after it’s been completed, but we are working across the globe to locate partners who can contribute to design direction and adapt the game for cultural tastes in each territory for a true worldwide launch.”

GOA’s no stranger to the market, currently operating one of the largest casual gaming portals in Europe, along with publishing EA/Mythic’s Dark Age of Camelot, and ramping up for the soon to launch EA/Mythic – Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning in Europe.

“GOA’s products are only the highest quality, highly anticipated products in the online gaming category and that is why Petroglyph and True Games’ project is such a perfect fit. We are confident that our audience will be very enthusiastic about this game and that it will be a major title,” said Ghislaine Le Rhun, Executive Director of GOA.

If the name Petroglyph is ringing more than one bell, you’re on the right track.  In addition to winning awards for their Star Wars: Empire At War and Universe At War series, Petroglyph Studios members played key roles in creating the classic ‘Command and Conquer’ series while at Westwood Studios.  Petroglyph Studios partnered earlier this year with True Games to bring their first microtransaction based title to the PC platform.

While details about the actual game itself are scant, both companies indicated that they are close to making a major announcement regarding the fully features of this up and coming hot potato.  Stay Tuned.

“Whenever we approach a potential partner for this exciting new game their eyes immediately light up,” said Bob Drobish, CEO of True Games. “With Petroglyph’s pedigree and their loyal following of fans we are sure this product will be a worldwide success–it is just a matter of choosing the right partners– and we couldn’t be more certain of our partnership with GOA.”

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Battlefield Heroes ‘Already Out’

Wednesday, August 27th, 2008

We got our first look at EA’s free-to-play ‘Battlefield Heroes’ last week at the Games Convention in Leipzig.  While I’ll admit, I didn’t spend as much time with the game as I’d like, I did return the next day to sit down with BH again the next day – a clear signal that EA is doing something right, as I was/am already addicted to this seemingly simple game.

There’s been a whole lot of noise over the past few days regarding BH, with everyone from gamespy to arstechnica to wired has written about the ‘already out’ Battlefield Heroes.  While this comes to a surprise to some, if you think about it, it really shouldn’t.  Since Battlefield Heroes is a free to play title, what exactly is EA selling?  In essence, for now at least, EA is selling only advertising space.  So in theory, they could release the product at any point in time with as little or as great fanfare as they so choose.  Producer Ben Cousins says that the game is essential “already out”, but has been a steady ramp up and release in bits and pieces.  The ‘official’ pomp and circumstance release is slated for the end of 2008 when all the facebook style social networking features will be implemented.

What does this mean for EA’s first foray into the free to play space?  By slowly releasing bits and pieces and letting more and more players in without calling the product ‘officially’ released, EA is playing it safe.  Not a bad move when you’re testing the waters of an unknown/unaccepted business model.  Let’s think of the BH ‘beta’ along the lines of Gmail and Flickr.  Google’s Gmail is still technically in beta, but grew virally by allowing one user to invite a number of other users.  Battlefield Heroes is following more or less the same path as Gmail (sans the ‘a friend can invite you in’ factor), Facebook, and Wikipedia.  That is to say – viral marketing.

While more and more reviews and thoughts and opinions are released surrounding Battlefield Heroes, there are a few key phrases that stick out: Fun, Addictive, Back for more.  In the untested Western waters of free-to-play, microtransaction, and in-game advertising world, this is music to our ears.

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Austin GDC 2008 Keynote Speakers finalized

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008

The official Keynote Speaker schedule has been released by the Austin Game Developers Conference.  Speakers include: Lane Merrifeld of the Penguin Club, Mel Guymon of Lively by Google, Sony Audio Manager Jason Page, and noted novelist and futurist Bruce Sterling.

The Austin GDC is geared towards online space, sound development and game writing.  Some of the hot topics at this years conference with be focused on the increasing cross over between MMOs, social networks, and virtual worlds, and developers looking to exchange ideas and share best practices.  We’re expecting the spotlight to shine brightly on the growing trend of already established and up and coming game studios seeking new ground in the monetization of the MMO space.  Both players are exploring models which optimize microtranscations versus the traditional subscription model, and/or a mixture of both.  Of course fatfoogoo’s CEO Martin Herdina will be present to speak to any and all regarding our software packages that allow developers to get up and running within weeks.

The Austin GDC takes place in Austin, Texas from September 15-17.  Conference goers wanting to cash in on the early bird pricing should register at austingdc.net on or before August 27th.  In addition to Merrifeld, Guymon, Page, and Sterling, other top speaker slots are:
Harvey Smith, Game Director of Arkane Studios
Game Career Seminar Keynote: Luckiest People Alive

Gene Endrody, Founder of Maid Marian Entertainment
Making a Web-Based MMO in Your Attic with Shockwave

Bob Moore, Game Designer of Multiverse
Designing for Players Sociability

Rich Vogel, Co-Studio Director of Bioware and John Donham, Co-Founder & VP of Production at Metaplace.com
How to Manage Your Online Business During Growth and Decline

Blake Commagere, Independent Developer of “Zombies, Vampires, Werewolves and Slayers”
Why Are Games That Suck So Popular on Social Networks?

Michael Steele, Executive Consultant, and Corey Bridges, Co-founder of Multiverse
Social Networks and Virtual Worlds: A Shared Future?

Elan Lee, Founder/Chief Designer of Fourth Wall Studios
ARGs: Fake Websites, Invented Stories, Automated Phone Calls and Other Methods to Earn the Trust of a Community

Eric Zimmerman, Chief Design Officer of Gamelab
Easy is F& #@ing Hard: Game Design Fundamentals for Mass-Market Games

Min Kim, Director of Games Operations Nexon America Inc.
From Development to Launch: the Keys to Building a Successful Free-to-Play MMO

Again, members of the fatfoogoo team will be present in Austin.  If you’d like to schedule a time to speak with any of us about what we do, and what we can do for you, please get in touch via our contact page.

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Three top VC’s weigh in: Free to play the way to go

Monday, August 25th, 2008

Wagner James Au from Gigaom recently talked with three top VC’s about the gaming industry.  His goal?  To find out what the people with the money are looking at, and where this rapidly changing economy is headed.

The quick and dirty shakes out like so: Free or alternate funded games (i.e. microtransactions, in game advertisement, etc.) are poised for explosive growth, and a top-to-bottom transformation of how games are played, developed, and deployed.  One VC in particular takes an alternate look at the casual gaming market and predicts an imminent backlash.

Mitch Lasky of Benchmark Capital (Second Life, Gaia Online, Red 5, Vivox, Riot Games and JAMDAT) says in an email to Wagner, “I’m sensing that we are on the verge of a casual games backlash.  The space is so ridiculously over-funded, the barriers to entry are so low, and the media models require such high traffic to generate meaningful revenue, that I think there has to be a shake-out. I think the sites with traffic, like MiniClip, will benefit, because everybody is going to be buying referrals from them.”

While Lasky gives credit where credit is due, he also sees top beneficiaries of the non-casual gaming market as middlemare producers.  “I read a recent analyst report that showed almost 90 MMO’s, virtual worlds and online game services scheduled to come to market in the next 18 months,” he said. All that activity is “going to benefit the platform companies — we’ve been seeing tremendous customer growth at Vivox, for example, which provides high quality voice services to online games.”

Speaking to non-casual games, Lasky also added, “I’m increasingly interested in more gamer-oriented online games, not based on subscription billing models. Our investment in Riot Games grew out of this thinking. We’ve seen strong evidence that this combination works in the Chinese and Korean markets, but it’s been slow to take off here. It is going to take the right game to unlock this market, but it could be huge.”

Lightspeed Venture Partners Managing Director Jeremy Liew confirms Lasky’s opinion about the rise of free-to-play.  He’s predicting a massive shift away from the subscription model, echoing developments in Asia.

“Free-to-play gaming and virtual worlds (monetized through up-sold virtual goods and subscriptions) are gaining increasing traction in the West,” he said in an email. “Companies like K2, Nexon, Gaia, Habbo, Neopets, Runescape/Jagex, Gameforge, Eve/CCP and Bigpoint all doing revenues now in the tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars. But gaming, like media, is not a winner-take-all business, and there are many up and coming companies building free to play experiences and growing fast.”

In Liew’s view, companies that can help with player acquisition, billing, fraud and player management/game mastering are those poised to profit the most.

Liew’s not only in his thinking, as Susan Wu a former VC at Charles River Ventures agrees.  “With the death of retail and the greater accessibility of games in the hands of an order of magnitude larger audience, free to play with some premium components becomes the most logical conclusion. Then of course with alternate billing models comes alternate payment systems.”

Wu is now in the drivers seat at what she terms “a groundbreaking, stealthy new online gaming company.”   While Wu’s no newcomer to the party, she sites Susan Choe’s Outspark, Acclaim, and Nabeel Hyatt’s Conduit Labs (Loud Croud) as projects she’s followed closely, and sees them as integral parts of a netwide transformation.

While Wu notes that the web has always been changing, she’s quite surprised at the rapid pace of change, particularly accelerated by the acceptance of social networks as entertainment platforms.

In addition to this acceptance, technological innovations and game development abilities have jumpstarted this change.  With flash becoming a viable platform for games (think iPhone), and even industry giant Blizzard producing hardcore games (and likewise devoted followers) despite super flashy graphics.  Wu also takes a step back to view a psychological factor as game industry driver.  “With social relationships as primary catalysts for game playing; we’re moving back to the playground where games reinforce and create social bonds.”

So while one VC sees an impending backlash verging on the horizon, all three separately agree that the age of subscription is a dying breed, with free to play titles gaining more and more ground each day.  As Lasky points out, with over 90 MMO’s, virtual worlds, and online game services coming to market within the next 18 months, this is bound to become an increasingly competitive space.  Bringing the product to market quickly and effectively may be the winning strategy for developers.  Wouldn’t it be a shame for them to have a great title, but be weighed down by their own development of primary and secondary economies?  Enter stage right…..fatfoogoo.

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Atari and Codemasters launch legal assault on gamers

Sunday, August 24th, 2008

In a moment of true WTF?, Atari and Codemasters have launched an unprecedented assault on illegal downloads, requiring thousands of users to cough up £300 to settle out of court.

The suit comes from a consortium including Atari, Codemasters, Topware Interactive, Reality Pump and Techland.  These firms have appointed Davenport Lyons to serve papers to approximately 25,000 UK residents.

Perhaps the taste of fresh blood in Topware’s mouth spurred the action?  Isabella Barwinska was recently ordered by the London Patents County Court to fork over £16,000 to Topware for illegally sharing a copy of Dream Pinball 3D.

A quick Google of Davenport Lyons reveals that this type of legal bullying seems to be their specialty.  The companies’ history is peppered with threats against private individuals.  Obviously, their muscle has worked in the past, and we’ve got another strong example on our hands of Lyon’s ‘Send a bunch of letters out, scare the heck outta people, get them to cough up the cash, sign a letter of guilt, and walk away wealthy’ tactics.  Clearly, they’re not spending a lot of time in the courtroom.

A bit more digging reveals that Davenport Lyons seems to be sourcing it’s data from Logistep – an anti piracy tracking company based in Switzerland.  Logistep uses a number of methods to distill their data from peer-to-peer file sharing services, and claims that they can pinpoint which user has been sharing what with other users.

Logistep’s methods have been raising more than a few eyebrows in Europe for a while now.  They’ve stood accused of violating the law in their pursuit of pirates by initiating meaningless criminal cases against sharers and then consequently dropping said cases once ISPs have released personal data about their customers.

Logistep isn’t just making bad blood in the land of chocolate and watches.  A French lawyer working with Logistep was recently banned from the practice of law for 6 months due to the exact same behavior as the Atari/Codemasters suit.  These letters demanded 400 euro from supposed sharers.  Sadly, it didn’t end at that, as the letters also included a few sentences implicating that the failure to pay this fee and the subsequent court appearance (and costs) would number in the hundreds of thousands of Euros.  It didn’t take a French judge long to smell ‘extortion’ in the courtroom.

On a side note, and just some food for thought – How many times have you personally used an open wi-fi connection?  If Logistep can ‘supposedly’ pinpoint a user based on IP address, how can they ensure that that user has their wi-fi password protected?

If all seems quiet on the Western front, you’re not alone.  All top tier publishers are staying as far away from this as possible.  Interesting to note that the best games are certainly those that have a higher probability of being pirated.  Neither Electronic Arts, Activision Blizzard, Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo have given these actions a thumbs up.  In fact, EA’s Peter Moore stated, “I’m not a huge fan of trying to punish your consumer.  Albeit these people have clearly stolen intellectual property, I think there are better ways of resolving this within our power as developers and publishers.”

Illegal file sharing and piracy has, and will continue to be a hot debate.  The music industry has already been down this road and failed.  Not only did they fail, they created their own stew to simmer in (read: PR nightmare).  Instead of promoting the non-piracy of music, the lawsuits and threats had the exact opposite effect, with record industry executives looking like dinosaurs that clearly didn’t understand their consumer.  In fact, this bullying technique backfired so strongly, that the main instigator, the RIAA, had their own website hacked back in January.

Did these threats and lawsuits recoup lost money?  Did it stop piracy?  Of course not.  The only method currently chipping away at music piracy is the emergence of convenience-based outlets, Apple’s iTunes being the flagship example.  By utilizing this microtransaction model, iTunes is beating pirates at their own game by giving willing, paying customers access to what they want, when they want it at a reasonable price.

What makes this entire scenario rather odd is that both Codemasters and Atari are embracing the ultimate anti-piracy: free-to-play.  Codemaster’s works with Lord of the Rings Online, Archlord and others demonstrate that they have their finger on the right pulse, and aren’t afraid to step outside the box when it comes to free-to-play, microtransaction based models.

Atari’s new management have made it very clear that they are focusing a majority of their efforts on online opportunities.

Sadly, it’s actions like this that set the entire gaming industry back a few years when it comes to mainstream acceptance and proliferation.  One would think that taking a look at the recent history books alone would be enough proof for these publishers to say ‘Hmm…do we really want to open this can of worms…and in this manner?’

On the other side of the coin, stories like this only make David Perry’s drum beat all the louder.

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Wanted: Free to play, bringing more viewers to the box office

Saturday, August 23rd, 2008

The action thriller Wanted staring Angelia Jolie and Morgan Freeman premiered in Europe yesterday.  Its US premier two months ago was accompanied by the launch of Swedish Developer Stillfront’s Wanted free to play MMO.

While the launch of an accompanying game with film is nothing new, this FIG (Fan Immersion Game) marks the growing popularity in such projects.  Film studios are watching the numbers, with some video game sales reaching into the millions that previously only summer blockbusters could achieve.  It’s also recently been speculated that the two media are in a dead heat horserace, with one detracting from the other.

The Wanted MMO differs slightly from other FIGs in that it’s based on a  completely free-to-play model.  Rather than launched as a parallel revenue maker, this FIG seeks to draw more and more people into the entire Wanted experience, and therefore drive traffic to box offices.  Stillfront is a FIG specialist, and explained in their press release announcing the game:

“Fan Immersion Games (FIGs) are casual, massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) that are free to play yet also include opportunities for players to buy advantages and premium accounts using micro transactions payable via SMS messages and credit cards. These games deliver high fan engagement through their story-driven design and community elements.

According to the Casual Games Association, the North American online casual games market is estimated to reach $690 million with worldwide revenue of over $1.5 billion. DFC Intelligence states that the worldwide online games market is forecasted to reach $13 billion in 2011.”

Adding a bit of icing to the cake for the European market, the Wanted game was officially ported to the iPhone allowing viewers to bring their new MMO (and associated microtransactions) along for the ride.  In addition to utilizing the iPhone’s tilt function navigation, the mobile edition has in game benefits for players that log on regularly.  While this may only be speculation, logging in on a mobile platform has the ability to be seen by others (think train, bus, subway, etc.) and adds to the potential viral marketing aspect.

Free to play, microtransaction based models are coming at consumers left, right and center with a grain of resistance in the Western Market.  While EA’s doing a good job of breaking down the walls of acceptance with it’s highly anticipated top tier title Battlefield Heroes, perhaps bringing the concept to users via a ‘backdoor’ aka FIG, in combination with high profile pc or console based games might just be the winning recipe?

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Runes of Magic: Looks like WoW, Plays like WoW, must be WoW right? Wrong.

Friday, August 22nd, 2008

While the Leipzig Games Convention verged on a multimedia overload for yours truly at times, there were a number of outstanding exhibits and displays for every class of gamer.

Along with our sister site, MMOScene.de, we got a chance to sit down with the folks at Frogster, the German language publishers of Runes of Magic for a demo.

I’d already seen the display booth out on the floor, and noticed a number of folks giving Runes a first go.  There was no line to get a shot at the game, but I was hard pressed to find a free terminal even after looping around the hall a few times.  In other words: Runes accomplished exactly what they set out to do: put a number of opportunities out on the floor, and watch the masses flood in.  On a side note, I did notice that not all of the game text has been fully translated from Chinese, so unless you read/speak Mandarin, there’s still a few elements missing from gameplay.

Back at the Frogster camp, I got a much better view of the game, storylines, and concepts.  Upon logging into the test server, the Warcraft similarities aren’t hidden.  The game was first created in Taiwan, and the developers fully admit that they played WoW as a source of inspiration.  Clearly, a LOT of WoW.  That said, there are some noticeable differences that should plant Runes of Magic firmly on it’s own branch of the WoW concept based MMOs.  In fact, some of these differences have the ‘ooo…I liked that bit in WoW, and hey…that’s cool that I don’t have to do that to get that, etc.” factor.  Off to a good start, Runes of Magic combines the best of a number of various MMOs, and seeks to become the premier free-to-play MMO out there.

Some highlights of these differences include:

Updates!  Frogster was very proud (rightfully so) of their planned update rollout schedule.  In order to keep players constantly motivated and delving into new areas of the game, Runes of Magic plans on rolling out new content every 3 to 4 months.  And not just in the way of a patch upgrade that might fix some pixel shading.  These planned updates will include new classes and races, along with new areas to explore.

Tha roof, tha roof, tha roof is on fire!  Runes of Magic features player housing.  While this is nothing new to the MMO world, Runes of Magic again borrows the best elements from a number of other titles.  You’ve got your standard fair: store your extra items that you just can’t seem to part with, hang those hard won trophies, and display your bad@$$ weapons.  You house will grow in size according to your level, and you can invite friends over to ye old homestead for a frosty cold one, while discussing the next days battleplans.

Rune, rune moon.  Ok, runes aren’t actually dependant on the moon in any way, but it made for a nice rhyme.  The rune system is Runes of Magic’s standout feature.  We all battle long and hard fought hours to obtain ‘omg, that’s wicked awesome!’ looking gear, and rightfully so, like to flaunt it occasionally.  But what happens when you score a better piece of gear, but to be honest, just looks plain ugly with your current pimpage?  S’no problemo:  grab a rune and channel the powers of this gear into it.  You can then attach this powered rune to your current gear.  There’s also the possibility to combine more than one rune and attach it to your current gear.  The system is NOT however fool proof.  The system works in such a way that the higher ratings the stripped ‘runed’ gear has, the higher the likelihood of a failed channeling.  In other words…if you want to look mac daddy and keep your current gear but attach runes, you run the risk of actually losing the advantages obtained by this new gear if the channeling fails.  A roll of the dice if you will.

Wear me!  This one is clearly inspired by an add-on that I currently use, and it built into the cosmos add-on package for WoW.  Runes of Magic allows players to place dress forms in their house and equip them with specific armor sets.  This comes in might handy for those that are swapping classes or functions on a regular basis.  For example, you might play a secondary healer on a raid, while dpsing while playing solo.  Instead of digging through mountains of bags and storage slots to suit up in the right gear, a quick trip back home and a visit to your ‘healing’ dummy would allow you with one click to take off your current dps gear, and fully equip healing gear.  Neato!

Got a grudge?  My Guild can kick your Guild’s #&%!  Runes of Magic also allows players to declare guild wars, thereby allowing everything from your back alley skirmish right on up to full blown instanced stronghold wars, where warring guilds can fight for rank points and treasures stored in each others castles.

Serve this buddy!  A unique an interesting play concept, Runes of Magic developers are still ironing out the wrinkles on this one, but eventually we’ll see full server vs. server action.  PVP players on one server will battle PVP players on another server in a neutral battleground for honor.

All in all, Frogster and Runes of Magic had an excellent outing at the Games Convention, filling up play terminals and generating plenty of buzz.  While the comparisons to World of Warcraft are inevitable, the designers and developers have successfully managed to take bits and pieces of a number of successful MMO’s and toss them all into one pot.  Putting the entire package on a free-to-play, microtransaction based model, Runes of Magic has certainly set the stage for success.  Note to self: keep a keen eye on this one, as with a number of free-to-plays hitting the North American shores shortly, Runes of Magic could possibly be a strong player in gaining overall acceptance in the Western market.

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