(no subject)
I've read about the burgeoning online gaming market, and by that I don't mean MMORPGs like World of Warcraft or Everquest. I don't really mean Bejeweled either. I've been hearing about other games that are free to play, but are subsidized in some fashion, either by advertising or by selling bonuses to players who are willing to pay for a little extra while the game remains free to everyone else.
At work, Gladiatus has become all the rage (probably against our better judgment since we're supposed to be, you know, working). The game is simple at it's core. You are a gladiator, and you can do quests and stuff to get money and gear to improve yourself in the gladitorial arena. When you beat another player, you take a percentage of their money. Losing costs you nothing but time, and you can only improve your standing in the ladder by beating people above you.
What makes it a nifty game is that it's low commitment. Quests take 10, 20, or 30 minutes of real time to complete during which you can't fight in the arena, clean the stables (another way to make cash), or much of anything else. It's enforced downtime. Similarly, there is a 15 minute enforced break between matches. Basically, the game prevents the player from getting too engrossed and clicking away at boxes all day.
Often time we joke about leaving our gladiators in the stables for several hours because while we're at meetings, lunch, or anything else, our gladiators are earning money so when we come back we can buy stuff for them. And the inter-office skirmishes are funny since we can battle each other or pick on other gladiators with funny names (dancealot's going down!). The game even has a guild function and you'll find Gladiators of Disney is current ranked #25 on Server 1. (I'm sure it really hurts to be beaten down by someone who works at Disney. I took out a guy who's in the US Marines guild. ^^)
Aside from that, I decided to go a little more ambitious and try one of those free to play MMORPGs. I'm not always for the cutesy anime games, but I saw Flyff, and the funny name (short of Fly For Fun) must've hit me at just the right moment because I decided that was the one I've give a shot to.
I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting, but it wasn't what I got. The game is pretty clean, there are actually quests to do instead of being a pure whomp on enemies, and there were no ads to be seen anywhere. Apparently they're entirely subsized by players purchasing items in their cash shop, but those items can be resold in the game world so in theory anybody could get it. While I would have an issue in a game where I paid a monthly fee, if I saw other players getting more for paying more, I don't see it being much of a problem with Flyff, because arguably if you're playing for free you get what you pay for.
Flyff has some of the worst traits of an MMO though. Being that it's free I'm sure the audience that plays it is a lot younger (don't need parents' credit card) and it's fairly unregulated. I logged on and as a role-player I was fairly horrified to see people running around in a fantasy RPG setting with names like "sexychick" or "JKRP00." The majority of the names did not bother with capitalization, and RP servers? Forget it. "lawls" "wut" and "u" were commonly heard everywhere. Granted, there are people who do that in other MMOs too, but this was beyond anything I'd ever seen in World of Warcraft (my only commercial MMO experience).
One thing I did like though, that reminded me of Phantasy Star Online, was the multiculturalism. All languages play on the same set of servers. Most people spoke English, and because I'm reluctant to party with random people who toss me random invites, I decided I wouldn't join any groups unless they at least talked to me first. Oddly enough, the first person who tossed me an invite AFTER talking to me, was not an English speaker. He asked, "Que eres nivel?" "21," I replied. We were about the same level, so we grouped up.
And boy was it rough. I understood what he'd asked me (what's your level?), but my Spanish is pretty dang rusty, he was making typos and simplifying phrases (natural for an online game), and I couldn't type out accent marks from memory. At one point I told him "I'm sorry. My Spanish is bad." and he replied "How?" which earned me a good real life chuckle. I guess my bad grammar is perfectly fine in the world of the internet.
It seems my memories of high school Spanish were better than his knowledge of English, because even though he asked me one question in English, we went back into Spanish for the rest of our time as a group. I was playing as a healer so it was rather amusing getting to type out "Ayuda me!" (Help me!) because I was getting whacked by a monster. Well, it wasn't amusing that I died one of those times, but I was getting a kick out of being able to communicate in another language. (And besides, "Ayuda me!" is one of those phrases you have to learn in class because it's supposed to be useful.)
The only problem is that my Spanish is the weakest out of the three languages I've studied, and because of that every time I wanted to say something, the words would come to me first in German, then possibly in Japanese, and finally I'd get to Spanish. It was still fun though.
I don't know how long this game will keep me entertained, but as a cultural exercise that was a fun experience. It kind of makes me wish more games allowed international play.
At work, Gladiatus has become all the rage (probably against our better judgment since we're supposed to be, you know, working). The game is simple at it's core. You are a gladiator, and you can do quests and stuff to get money and gear to improve yourself in the gladitorial arena. When you beat another player, you take a percentage of their money. Losing costs you nothing but time, and you can only improve your standing in the ladder by beating people above you.
What makes it a nifty game is that it's low commitment. Quests take 10, 20, or 30 minutes of real time to complete during which you can't fight in the arena, clean the stables (another way to make cash), or much of anything else. It's enforced downtime. Similarly, there is a 15 minute enforced break between matches. Basically, the game prevents the player from getting too engrossed and clicking away at boxes all day.
Often time we joke about leaving our gladiators in the stables for several hours because while we're at meetings, lunch, or anything else, our gladiators are earning money so when we come back we can buy stuff for them. And the inter-office skirmishes are funny since we can battle each other or pick on other gladiators with funny names (dancealot's going down!). The game even has a guild function and you'll find Gladiators of Disney is current ranked #25 on Server 1. (I'm sure it really hurts to be beaten down by someone who works at Disney. I took out a guy who's in the US Marines guild. ^^)
Aside from that, I decided to go a little more ambitious and try one of those free to play MMORPGs. I'm not always for the cutesy anime games, but I saw Flyff, and the funny name (short of Fly For Fun) must've hit me at just the right moment because I decided that was the one I've give a shot to.
I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting, but it wasn't what I got. The game is pretty clean, there are actually quests to do instead of being a pure whomp on enemies, and there were no ads to be seen anywhere. Apparently they're entirely subsized by players purchasing items in their cash shop, but those items can be resold in the game world so in theory anybody could get it. While I would have an issue in a game where I paid a monthly fee, if I saw other players getting more for paying more, I don't see it being much of a problem with Flyff, because arguably if you're playing for free you get what you pay for.
Flyff has some of the worst traits of an MMO though. Being that it's free I'm sure the audience that plays it is a lot younger (don't need parents' credit card) and it's fairly unregulated. I logged on and as a role-player I was fairly horrified to see people running around in a fantasy RPG setting with names like "sexychick" or "JKRP00." The majority of the names did not bother with capitalization, and RP servers? Forget it. "lawls" "wut" and "u" were commonly heard everywhere. Granted, there are people who do that in other MMOs too, but this was beyond anything I'd ever seen in World of Warcraft (my only commercial MMO experience).
One thing I did like though, that reminded me of Phantasy Star Online, was the multiculturalism. All languages play on the same set of servers. Most people spoke English, and because I'm reluctant to party with random people who toss me random invites, I decided I wouldn't join any groups unless they at least talked to me first. Oddly enough, the first person who tossed me an invite AFTER talking to me, was not an English speaker. He asked, "Que eres nivel?" "21," I replied. We were about the same level, so we grouped up.
And boy was it rough. I understood what he'd asked me (what's your level?), but my Spanish is pretty dang rusty, he was making typos and simplifying phrases (natural for an online game), and I couldn't type out accent marks from memory. At one point I told him "I'm sorry. My Spanish is bad." and he replied "How?" which earned me a good real life chuckle. I guess my bad grammar is perfectly fine in the world of the internet.
It seems my memories of high school Spanish were better than his knowledge of English, because even though he asked me one question in English, we went back into Spanish for the rest of our time as a group. I was playing as a healer so it was rather amusing getting to type out "Ayuda me!" (Help me!) because I was getting whacked by a monster. Well, it wasn't amusing that I died one of those times, but I was getting a kick out of being able to communicate in another language. (And besides, "Ayuda me!" is one of those phrases you have to learn in class because it's supposed to be useful.)
The only problem is that my Spanish is the weakest out of the three languages I've studied, and because of that every time I wanted to say something, the words would come to me first in German, then possibly in Japanese, and finally I'd get to Spanish. It was still fun though.
I don't know how long this game will keep me entertained, but as a cultural exercise that was a fun experience. It kind of makes me wish more games allowed international play.