| OP-ED: Why Ignoring Achievements Was the Smartest Thing I Ever Did Posted: 03 Mar 2012 03:49 AM PST  Like many others, I have both loved and hated Achievements and Trophies at different points in time. I now sit at a point where I care about them far less than I have in the past, and I could not be more thankful for that. The PlayStation Blog today published a list of the most Platinum’d games on PlayStation 3. Platinum Trophies, contained within many but not all games, are handed out for earning every Trophy a game has to offer. The difficulty and amount of time required to earn a Platinum varies from game to game; generally speaking it’s a fairly significant accomplishment to earn one. I’ve never managed to pick one up myself, though that is due in part to playing most multiplatform games on Xbox 360 and PC. Trophies were introduced to the PlayStation Network in mid-2008, more than a year and a half after the PS3 was launched. Although some of the games released prior to then were patched to include support for Trophies, not all of them were, and those which were did not retroactively award Trophies for what you had already completed. If you wanted to pick up Trophies in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, you had to start over from scratch even if you had already met every Trophy requirement. The lack of Trophies right out of the gate is part of why I was never as invested in them as I was Achievements, and it also means an asterisk needs to be placed on the PlayStation Blog’s list — I suspect if Trophies were available at launch, Drake’s Fortune would have placed more highly in the top ten. Instead Assassin’s Creed II was the game with the most frequently-achieved Platinum. Keep in mind this doesn’t mean it has the highest ratio of Platinum owners to players — other games might be easier to Platinum but were played less than those on the list. As astutely noted on the blog, the top ten consists of a fairly strong selection of older games, many of which are single-player-focused both in terms of the games themselves and their Trophies. That isn’t surprising as people are more likely to want to spend an extended amount of time with a good game, and being single-player in nature will generally make it easier to grind your way to 100 percent completion. There was a time where I’d be taking notes and setting out to Platinum these games myself, assuming I hadn’t already done so. When the Xbox 360 was launched Achievements were neat but insignificant; part of that was a lack of people to compare Achievements with, and the other part was the lame Achievements in the launch window games I played. I still remember the (lack of) excitement when I picked up a first down in Madden NFL 06, defeated each of the Blacklist members in Need for Speed: Most Wanted, and scored 50 points in NBA 2K6 en route to 100-percenting all three games. Over time developers became more creative with their implementation of Achievements (with exceptions, as Earth Defense Force 2017‘s could not have been more dull) and I became more and more addicted. Having that little notification pop up and my Gamerscore increase was immensely gratifying. I was constantly looking forward to the next milestone, even going out of my way to ensure I’d cross barriers like 10,000 Gamerscore by earning a more meaningful Achievement (more than once involving Kobe Bryant and the latest NBA 2K game). This was fine for a time; particularly when it came to sports games, it gave me something to aim for beyond ending up with the higher score at the end of the game. The extra challenge of having to ensure I scored a certain number of points with a certain player, for example, encouraged me to try out teams I never would have touched if it were left up to me. But over time this grew to become an obsession. It goes without saying that, in the big picture, it cannot in any way compare with the detrimental effects of becoming addicted to gambling, alcohol, or drugs. It was, however, messing with the way I played games. I already had a propensity for trying to collect every worthless in-game item I could; combine that with my hyper-competitiveness — no ****ing way am I going to let a friend have a higher Gamerscore than me — and it led to what I can now see was a colossal waste of time.
One thing I wasted time on was playing games I would not have otherwise. Looking over my Xbox Live activity from years ago I can see numerous games I was playing purely for the Achievements: MLB 2K7 (I could have been playing the Trophy-less, but far superior MLB 07), Halo 2 on PC (it played much better on consoles but, as an Xbox 1 game, lacked Achievements), and TNA Impact (a game worthy of a wrestling company that would go on to put its championship on a guy with pending drug charges) stand out. Thankfully I had the good sense to not bother trying to get anything out of Yaris. Even when I was spending time with the games I’d play regardless of Achievements, I was not playing them as I normally would. It’s one thing to play as a team I wouldn’t touch otherwise in an NBA game, but I was playing games in a systematic way that stripped out much of the fun. Many times I would consult a guide on how to unlock Achievements and work my way from one to the next, largely ignoring anything that would not contribute to my Gamerscore. And that included things I would find fun, like driving aimlessly in Grand Theft Auto IV — they suddenly felt incredibly pointless, as if Gamerscore were the only and only purpose of playing games. It even made me less interested in playing games on other platforms, a scenario I’m sure Microsoft was perfectly happy with. I do think Achievements and Trophies offer some benefit to gamers, especially those who might not purchase many games throughout the year. They provide additional things for players to do that can help to extend the life and replayability of a game. It’s also just fun to have an accomplishment be recognized with a pleasant noise and a pop-up notification. After an extended period of being Achievement-obsessed, I reached a point where my urge to unlock them was outweighed by the sheer ridiculousness of what I was doing. I do still enjoy picking up Achievements as I play, but the pursuit of them is no longer a priority, let alone my top one. From time to time I may sneak a peek at a game’s Achievement list to see if there is anything fun to do. Aside from those occasions, though, I’m happy to pretend all Achievements are hidden until I unlock them through random luck. This has been one of the few benefits of having less time to play games; Achievement-hunting would have to come at the expense of playing many of the games I’d like to spend my time with, and I wasn’t going to let that happen. It was an experience, to be sure, but I’m happy that I’m now in a position where I can look at a list like the one the PlayStation Blog released for what it is: an interesting set of data, not a challenge. [Trophies image courtesy of PlayStation Blog.]
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| Weekend Deals: Fable III, Max Payne, and Deus Ex Posted: 03 Mar 2012 01:28 AM PST 
Steam has slashed the price of Fable III and all of its downloadable content by 66%, bringing the price of the game down to $16.99. Things are quiet on Steam otherwise this week aside from the usual pre-order discounts and a sale on Cogs ($3.40). Both Amazon’s download service and GamersGate have several King’s Bounty games on sale. All things aside, Amazon looks like the way to go as its prices are lower — the Platinum Edition is just $4.99. Amazon also has its usual discounts on newer PC downloads; NBA 2K12 was added this week and is only $23.99. With all of the press about Max Payne 3 this week, the first two Max Payne games have been put on sale at both Impulse and Direct2Drive. The bundle of the two games looks like the way to go — at less than $4 there’s a good deal of entertainment to be had from both games, even if the story is a bit crazy. Read on for a look at this week’s deals. Feel free to point out any that were missed in the comments below. Amazon- NBA 2K12 (PC download) — $23.99 (from $29.99)
- Dead Island (PC download) — $39.99 (from $49.99)
- Deus Ex: Human Revolution — $39.99 (from $49.99)
- Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine (PC download) — $39.99 (from $49.99)
- A Game of Thrones: Genesis (PC download) — $31.99 (from $39.99)
- Driver: San Francisco (PC download) — $39.99 (from $49.99)
- King’s Bounty: Platinum Edition (PC download) — $4.99 (from $34.99)
- King’s Bounty: Game of the Year Edition (PC download) — $4.19 (from $29.99)
- King’s Bounty: Crossworld (PC download) — $2.79 (from $14.99)
- King’s Bounty: Armored Princess (PC download) — $3.49 (from $24.99)
- King’s Bounty: The Legend (PC download) — $1.39 (from $9.99)
- Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine (360/PS3) — $39.99 (from $59.99)
Direct2Drive- Max Payne Collection — $3.75 (from $14.99)
- Max Payne — $5.05 (from $14.95)
- Max Payne 2 — $3.35 (from $9.95)
- Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare — $14.95 (from $29.99)
- World in Conflict Gold Edition — $7.95 (from $19.95)
- Mercenaries 2 — $3.95 (from $9.95)
- Crysis — $11.95 (from $29.95)
- Disciples III: Renaissance and Resurrection — $34.95 (from $44.95)
GamersGate- King’s Bounty Platinum Edition — $11.88 (from $34.95)
- King’s Bounty Crossworlds Game of the Year Edition — $10.18 (from $29.95)
- King’s Bounty: The Legend — $2.50 (from $9.99)
- King’s Bounty: Armored Princess — $4.99 (from $19.95)
- Hector: Badge of Carnage – full series — $13.97 (from $19.95)
GameStop- Mortal Kombat — $39.99 (from $59.99)
Good Old Games- Select Activision games — up to 50% off
Impulse- Max Payne bundle — $3.74 (from $14.99)
- Max Payne — $3.39 (from $9.99)
- Max Payne 2 — $3.39 (from $9.99)
- Deus Ex: Human Revolution — $33.33 (from $49.99)
- Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity — $9.97 (from $19.95)
- Eufloria — $9.99 (from $19.99)
- Elemental: War of Magic — $19.97 (from $39.95)
- gShift — $4.99 (from $9.99)
- Haegemonia: Legion of Iron — $4.99 (from $9.99)
Steam- Fable III — $16.99 (from $49.99)
- Fable III DLC — 66% off
- Cogs — $3.40 (from $9.99)
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| Spirit Tales Posted: 02 Mar 2012 09:46 PM PST 
[Closed Beta signup] Known as Glory Destiny Online in Asia, I first played the game a few months back on the Taiwanese server (link) when the camera view is still fixed =.=”’ Luckily, the North American server hosted by Koram Games now comes with a free 360 degrees angle view among other updates. Is this yet another anime type of grinder from the Taiwanese developer, X-Legend, creators of Eden Eternal and Grand Fantasia?
Both unfortunately and fortunately, there is still the standard template of grinding and quest grinding. But looking past these, Spirit Tales’ graphics and design made me feel… soothed, perhaps due to the really cute characters and colorful landscapes. Leveling is not really hard, with quests giving generous amount of experience points and mobs not amazingly hard to slay. I will usually moan about how most online games’ atmosphere is depressing with the color schemes (think post-apocalyptic style), which eventually led me to think twice before logging in for a 2nd time. With the media account provided, I managed to get to level 30 within 3 days, playing only after my office hours. This is with the aid of a couple of cash shop items of course. Seeing that Closed Beta 1′s level cap is at 40, players should have no problem hitting the 30s within a week or so. Players should take note that while traveling, stay on a lookout for the boss monsters roaming. The mini-bosses usually will be moving around, while the much rarer and harder world bosses stay stagnant at a spot. Below is an example of a world boss (Morphing Lizard), which I wouldn’t dare touch without a group. 
Slaying both types of bosses will add to your achievement records, with certain ones giving players new titles with different stat boosts, ranging from healing bonus, magic cast speed bonus and more. It is therefore important to check out which type of boss you are looking at before engaging it solo, like Rambo. No point dying when it could be avoided!
Instanced dungeons begin near level 20, and going into the first one without a level 20 group is almost equivalent to suicide. The mobs does more damage, have more health points and the mini-bosses are incredibly hard to kill. Even if I soloed the first dungeon at level 30, tons of pots were needed along with a weapon which was bumped up to +6. Pretty straightforward, but then again, the overall game design didn’t make me feel a chore running through them.
Crafting is similarly easy as well, as new items will open up once a certain level is reached, while gathering the rare material is the real chore starting at level 30 weapons… The good thing is, different classes will need different materials, hence trading will make this process much faster. 
Controls can be both easy to use while frustrating for some. Skills are now activated by clicking on the corresponding macro numbers, followed by a right mouse click to activate them. There are already a couple of games out there using this control scheme, but long-time MMO players who are used to the traditional WoW layout (select monster, click skill number to activate) will have to adjust to it. Another thing, there is no jumping in the game, with spacebar activating the transformation which will boost damage, defense etc among other stats.
The pet system is simple, but effectively designed. Players can capture certain mobs as pets and equip them with pet items. 2 can be activated at any time, with 1 merged with the players for bonus stats, which differs from pet to pet. The merged pet will gain experience and level up normally as the attacking one during combat. Fancy visiting a NPC to complete or to start a quest but finding the location empty? It means mobs have taken over the town or area! At specific locations across the maps, there will be this Totem Pole in which a group of mobs on certain times attack. This group can be easily spotted as they will walk from somewhere in the map to the Totem Poles. If a pole is destroyed (message will be sent out to players in same map), the important NPCs will disappear until the pole is destroyed again to its original state. And you will need to slay the group of mobs of course, which is rather easy and reward players with items via mail. 
I did not have the chance to go through the PvP systems, but there will be large-scale guild battles and PvP arenas in Spirit Tales. Yes, those cute things will be out for opposing players’ throats. And the gallery of costumes is simply head-turning to say the least. Having looked at the Taiwanese server recently again, I must say players will certainly be tempted to spend some cash to doll up their characters.
  
This is not all, as the mount system coming at level 40 will give players more headaches which to choose! Hopefully this Blue Dragon from the Taiwanese server will be made available soon…
All in all, Spirit Tales does not have any ground-breaking or industry-stunning features, but it will certainly draw in a crowd, most probably a sizable female fan-base as well given the game’s extremely cute-ish charm. If time permits, I will certainly play this again once it goes live. For the rest, Closed Beta is arriving on March 15th at 6:00 PM (PST) until March 26th. Signup now!
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| OP-ED: Staying Shepard: Character Consistency Within Mass Effect Posted: 02 Mar 2012 03:42 PM PST  Though it’s not advertised as such, Mass Effect may be the most successful episodic series ever made. Since we saw the last Half-Life episode, BioWare’s entire space trilogy has played out over three successful installments, each one refining the flaws of the past. Of course, Mass Effect is a bit different than Half-Life in that you play a character wholly defined by your own choices; Shepard’s status as a no-nonsense renegade or a peaceful paragon hinges on countless player decisions both critical and trivial throughout the games. From the very first Mass Effect onwards, many of these decisions have taken root in its two sequels. When you factor in the sheer amount of lore, back story, and character arcs contained within the series, the typical two-year break between games leaves players with a lot of information to store within their brains. But most importantly, how are we supposed to remember who this Shepard guy/gal is supposed to be? Thanks to the binary good/evil option that’s been a core mechanic since the first game, most players of Mass Effect craft the morality of their personal Shepard with one of these options in mind, since the middle ground often proves unremarkable. But Mass Effect 2 didn’t necessarily carry over each player’s respective Shepard personality from the first game; even when importing a save containing a renegade or paragon distinction, the sequel’s morality meter only wavers a bit from its initial neutral state. Ignoring Shepard’s history of benevolence or cruelty may give players a fresh start on changing their ways, but the world won’t reflect Shepard’s new outlook. A former full-on paragon in ME1 may decide to go total renegade after Shepard’s resurrection in part 2, but with no reaction from the greater world around him. BioWare’s take on morality is reductive out of necessity, but the clean slate approach at the beginning of each game gives us a protagonist who’s granted the right to be inconsistent from chapter to chapter for the convenience of the player (especially those who haven’t been carrying their original character through the sequels). Functionally, the morality meter acts as a way to measure Shepard’s acts, many of which change the fate of certain characters drastically throughout the trilogy. This feature goes from interesting to troublesome, though, when you consider the amount of knowledge each Mass Effect hands the player. In the case of a book or movie series, catching up with previous installments in anticipation of the newest one can be a timesink, but at least it’s an achievable timesink. Preparing yourself for the final installment in the Mass Effect trilogy, however, amounts to a much taller order. Yes, each game features a text-based recap and a glossary full of more information than you ever wanted to know about the Mass Effect universe, but it’s much more difficult to absorb this vital information (and the nuance behind it) by reading out-of-context Cliff’s Notes. The alternative involves plowing through dozens upon of hours of content, and not with the same enthusiasm as the first time around. BioWare should be commended for building a series of games with such a tight continuity reining in their massive world, but such an ambitious project comes with strings attached. Even a series with a budget and fan base as large as mass Effect’s doesn’t have the resources to craft a universe that responds dynamically to a changing personality. And in the case of keeping the player informed of their past actions, the series as a whole could do a much better job; Shen Mue 2, for example, gave players a 90-minute movie recapping the events of the first one, all for a game locked down onto a completely linear path. BioWare might not have to go that far — and the amount of story permutations makes a single recap movie impossible — but their admirable adherence to consistency is often undercut by the limited capacity of the human mind.
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| The Overworld is Actually a Dungeon in Skyward Sword Posted: 02 Mar 2012 01:26 PM PST Once upon a time, getting about in a Zelda game was such a clear-cut process. You had your dungeons (anywhere from four to 12, depending) and you had the overworld that linked them all together. Aside from the occasional spin-off (Four Swords Adventures was broken into levels, and Majora’s Mask centered around the hub of Clock Town), that’s how it always worked. You’d wander around, maybe poke into a cave for a Heart Piece, clear away some scrub, fight some bad guys, and eventually work your way to the next subterranean puzzle labyrinth. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is mixing things up, and — for the first eight hours of the game, at least — the results are pretty great. Skyward Sword’s design makes the distinction between overworld and underworld much muddier than in past games. Perhaps that’s appropriate, since this adventure divides its world into three layers rather than the usual two. Above the dungeons, you have the overworld; meanwhile, above it all is the realm of Skyloft, best described as an aerial take on Wind Waker’s sea. At the heart of Skyloft is a large city held aloft by (one assumes) ancient magic or technology or something, but the skies are littered with floating islands, and Link travels between them on the back of a huge red bird.
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| Eve Online to launch in Japan on the 28th March Posted: 02 Mar 2012 09:42 AM PST CCP, the world-beating independent Internet spaceships developer, has today confirmed the release date of the Japanese release of Eve Online as 28th March. The localized client will open up the Eve universe to Japanese players in their native language, allowing them to play alongside the many thousands of fellow Excel MMO fans on CCP's 'single shard' Tranquility server. The news follows CCP's recent announcement to distribute EVE Online in mainland China. While the Icelandic developer will continue to offer 'gameplay related customer support' to their Japanese players, Japanese gaming firm Nexon will take care of billing and local marketing. "With Eve Online, CCP has created a gaming experience like no other," said Seung-Woo Choi, CEO of Nexon. "We're confident that the Japanese version will attract legions of new players ready to take their part in the endlessly unfolding drama of the Eve universe." In other space-related spreadsheet news, CCP has announced their next Eve expansion, Inferno. While little is currently known about the forthcoming update, it is thought CCP will be addressing Low Security space and Faction Warfare – two key aspects of Eve's otherwise impressive repertoire still in need of development.
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| The 1UP Community on Mass Effect 2 Posted: 02 Mar 2012 03:35 AM PST 
We’ve had plenty to say this week about Mass Effect 2 as we’ve dissected the game through blog posts, retrospectives, and critical analysis. But we’re not the only ones who love the game and want to see how Commander Shepard’s tale comes to an end — you do, too. Today, we’re highlighting your thoughts on BioWare’s RPG smash. DackDavros
What a fascinating game. Part RPG, part shooter, part adventure game, part bizarre dating/friend making sim. This game does not manage to reach that holy grail a lot of developers seem obsessed with; making you cry. In fact, it doesn’t even come close. It does, however, take the most decisive step toward emotional investment in video-game characters I’ve witnessed for some time. I was on the edge of my seat during the final mission, where all of your planning, efforts and preparation come together in a beautifully designed set of tasks where, just for a little while, I was able to completely suspend my disbelief and ignore the finely tuned, precision code driving the whole experience. DrKunkenstein
Mass Effect 2′s take on story was interesting and finally resolved these issues for me. Instead of having some great monstrous enemy looming on the horizon that I must stop before they destroy everything, ME2 changed the focus to the preparation, not the conflict. In fact, the conflict in ME2 wasn’t apocalyptic. Instead of trying to create this super imposed threat that everyone should be afraid of, BioWare opted to take a step back, centralize the narrative around a smaller conflict that wasn’t so impending. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, BioWare created a situation in which it suddenly made sense for everyone else to not know about what was going on. xWhackoJacko
Going through and talking to all the characters, developing the story, assembling a team, and always being on edge with Cerberus and the enemy is great. But what really stood out like I said, is the combat. It?s actually a 3rd person shooter now. When you aim, and your cross hairs are on an enemy?s head; it hits. When you use biotics or tech skills on an enemy in your cross hairs, they hit. That alone is great. But they also added an array of new Heavy Weapons and guns, tons of upgrades, and make a great use of the duck and cover style of game. Waiting for enemies to take breaks from spraying at you with all they got, then popping out from a corner and blowing there face off with a Heavy Pistol will never get old. It?s a very rewarding system. E_baybee
Mass Effect 2 is without a doubt a better game in nearly every aspect. The gunplay is far more advanced, introducing ridiculous amounts of new weapons and ways to use them and their ammo. The biotic abilities are actually useful, making Shepard feel like even more of a badass as he casts a shockwave to send half a dozen enemies flying over the sides of a bridge. The dialogue trees are more relevant and greatly affect how society reacts to Shepard, and even make fierce “lava scars” form on his face with every hard-ass decision. My only problem with the game is its lack of random side quests. The loyalty quests were interesting enough, but I really miss being able to walk around the Citadel (what the hell happened to being able to explore that place, anyway?) and pick up random jobs to perform throughout the galaxy. I enjoyed being the guy who did other people’s dirty work, but that aspect of Mass Effect seems to have been minimized for its sequel. Crazycanadian
Where did the sense of exploration and discovery go? Yeah, the Mako bogged gameplay down in ME1, but that was because there were too many empty planets to explore with the same cut and paste missions. One of the most memorable parts of ME1 came from the simple amazement at discovering a hovering orb that brought up a text box containing a vignette. Most people probably never found it, or simply glossed over it, but for that moment I felt like I discovered something no one else had. Any sense of discovery or exploration is gone in ME2. Instead, we get planet scanning and the occasional cut and paste mission without the exploration. I think Bioware overcorrected the original issue and in my opinion made it worse.
Brandon Jonely’s Long-Form Review
“There’s one mission in particular that sums up all these improvements to gameplay and atmosphere. I was on a derelict ship, and it felt almost like a survival shooter, zombies, creepy music, everything. I was running flat-out, shotgunning enemies as I went, and every once in a while I would get mobbed and die. Then you run into a boss, which has a ranged attack and a ton of health. It steadily moves towards you, acting like a ticking clock spelling your death if you don’t kill it as soon as you can. It’s a really cool sequence, and I wish the game did that kind of thing more often.” Montreal Mack’s Long-Form Review
“The only thing that keeps me enthralled with ME 2 is the story itself and not the gameplay. The battles are frantic and challenging.The games AI will keep you on your toes.Enemies take a bit longer to take down as well. If your an action gamer ME 2 is very solid.Sadly most action gamers will breeze through the game instead of taking their time and enjoying the great story and all it has to offer.” MisterFrodo17′s Impressions
“If I could use a word to describe Mass Effect 2, it would be… awesome. I know I sound like a fanboy when I say it, but for me, Mass Effect 2 has been one awesome time. Do I like everything about the game? No. I do have my quarrels with it, but there’s so much about it that I like that I can’t help but love the game. As I’ve said, I’ve spent about 25 hours with it so far, and there’s still some things I need to do before the finale. Honestly, I want to play it right now, this minute. So far it’s captured me on a thrill ride of galactic proportions, and I can’t get enough.” Wes Fenlon Takes Both Sides
“But with Mass Effect 2, Bioware may have, for the first time, created a game that plays just as well as it lays out a feast of roleplaying possibilities. In practically every way, it?s an improvement on its predecessor. Streamlined, fast-paced, in some ways simplified. And while I?d definitely play it over the original in a heartbeat, there are still a few elements I miss from the first Mass Effect.” DrKunkenstein on the Completionist Perspective
“A lot of times, grinding becomes synonimous with compeleting a game. At some point on my first and therefore flagship play through, I just want to keep going with the main story in omission of all else. And why shouldn’t I? All of the side content is tacked on and exists to supplement the main story. Dragon Age, for example. In my oppinion the side content was just boring as hell. No one cared one bit that the world was ending, they just wanted a bunch of random, boring crap. I completed all of the content in Dragon Age in 52 hours, without rushing. However, it was on the “completionist” run. My flagship run only did a few side things here and there because once I started doing side qeusts the game just became another completionist marathon.” Jason Slavin’s Contrarian Perspective
“One of the main criticisms, if you look around, is that ME2 has a “weak main story” and I understand how that’s justified. How to word this without spoilers… You go through the whole game trying to understand/stop these certain things from harvesting whole colonies of human beings. You never know why they’re being harvested until the end. Sounds like an okay idea, but upon finding out (and it was a worthwhile reveal) I couldn’t help but wish they’d have told me earlier so I’d have had even more motivation to stop them throughout act 2.”
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| 5 Korean MMOs which announced closure in February Posted: 02 Mar 2012 03:35 AM PST 
Well, apparently Lime Odyssey is not the only victim in the rather competitive online gaming market over in Korea. But still, let’s stick to Lime Odyssey first. According to the latest reports, Sirius Entertainment, the developer, will indeed be continuing to make progress on the game for the overseas markets. The game has been signed to Thailand (commercial phase now), North America, China, Taiwan and Japan. Let’s hope the reports are right!
Requiem Online, also known as Requiem: Alive or Requiem: Memento Mori, will be closing the Korean server on 7th March. The Korean players’ database have been shifted to the North American server since the announcement in early February (link). The good? Both the Korean and North American servers are under Gravity Games. The bad? How many Korean gamers who slog hours a day in a game will actually read English? 
Vertigo Games’ Black Shot, an online first-person shooter, will be closing some 30th March. After operating for 5 years, it proved no match for other titles of the similar genre, mainly Sudden Attack. Black Shot will apparently still be continued to be developed for the South East Asian server under Garena (link).
The other 2 lesser known online games are the Korean servers for O2Jam (closure date not confirmed yet) and Katamari Damacy Online, based on the popular Japanese console title. Not a good month for Korean games I guess, as the government continues to devise plans to clamp down on gaming addiction and slapping tighter rules for PC Bang, the term for internet gaming cafes in the country.
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| VVVVVV 3DS Port Set for Release Later This Year Posted: 02 Mar 2012 01:33 AM PST Excellent 2D indie platformer VVVVVV is headed to the 3DS eShop. Publisher Nicalis announced today it had reached a deal with designer Terry Cavanagh to bring the unusually-titled game to Nintendo’s latest handheld. It was originally released on computers in 2010, making a name for itself with its old-school gameplay and soundtrack, composed by Magnus Pålsson. It’s a fairly straightforward platformer where you’re able to reverse gravity in order to navigate the environment. The 3DS version, which is coming to the eShop later this year, will feature the obligatory 3D support you’d expect, new levels, a real-time map on the bottom screen, and “future content updates.” A price wasn’t announced; it currently costs $4.99 on Steam and at one point could be had for as little as one penny as a part of the Humble Indie Bundle earlier this year. Indiecade attendees will get to try a preview version described as “near-complete” this weekend. 
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| OP-ED: Zynga Wise to Expand to Its Own Platform Posted: 01 Mar 2012 03:33 PM PST  Zynga today revealed plans for the Zynga Platform and Zynga.com, details of which we first learned about this past October. Put simply, Zynga’s new website will grant players access to a number of games available on Facebook while providing additional features that could make playing much more pleasant. Playing games on Zynga.com — when it launches later this month CastleVille, Words With Friends, Zynga Poker, CityVille, and Hidden Chronicles will be playable — will require a Facebook account and purchases will be made using Facebook Credits thanks to a deal Zynga has with Facebook running through 2015. That means Facebook isn’t being abandoned as a home for Zynga games; this is merely an alternative (and a potentially more attractive one at that) for playing the company’s games. Any progress you’ve made in CastleVille or any other game will be present when playing on the Zynga Platform as it is not a separate instance of the game being run on Zynga’s website. Offering a new website to play the games on is in and of itself insignificant. While the listing for CastleVille on Zynga’s website directs you to Facebook itself, FarmVille can be played at farmville.com by logging into your Facebook account. Make no mistake: if you hate Zynga’s games, the new platform will not change your mind. But what makes playing on Zynga.com interesting is the way rules can be bent, particularly those involving how you interact with other players. Rather than only having your friends to answer your requests — whether you’re asking for a cow, some extra energy, or whatever else — other players you have not directly connected with can now respond to them, and vice versa. As pictured above, located on the right side of the screen is a news feed that reacts immediately to your inputs. In other words, you don’t have to leave the game to accept, for example, a gift of energy someone has sent you; you can see it on the side of the screen, click it, and have it immediately added to your energy stockpile. (You can also immediately chat with other users from here.) Alongside a tab for your Zynga.com “zFriends” is one for “Everybody,” enabling you to see a stream of requests from everyone else playing the same game as you on Zynga.com. Other players you don’t know may decide to help you out, and you’ll be free to do so yourself with all of these favors being tracked on your profile. That may sound insignificant, but anyone who has tried to play a social game only to become frustrated they don’t have enough friends playing to meet all of their in-game needs will immediately see the benefit of this. No longer do you need to rely on pestering friends to send you what you require. This alone could help not only player retention, but also encourage players to spend real-world money in the game. By ensuring players aren’t prevented from playing simply because they are not friends with a sufficient number of fellow Zynga game players, they could end up more deeply invested and therefore more likely to make a purchase. I’m not sure I’d be inclined to do so myself, but having a much larger pool of players to help me and play alongside certainly won’t hurt the chances of me dabbling in some microtransactions. Unfortunately there is no way to avoid sending requests to your Facebook feed in addition to zFriends. Although your Facebook friends won’t need to act as your lone supplier any longer, they will still be pestered with your requests. The reasoning for that is simple — if you only bothered zFriends who already play games on Zynga.com, that would eliminate a major source of luring in new players. After all, social game makers don’t build requests into their games just to bug your non-game-playing friends; they want to attract those people into giving their game a try. With the site’s launch, Zynga should enjoy a new way of bringing in additional players, and that is through the hosting of third-party games. The launch lineup may consist solely of some of the company’s top games, but there are plans to add games from external developers, including Mob Science, Row Sham Bow and Sava Transmedia, to the site. These developers will be able to enjoy the exposure of being featured alongside Zynga’s massively successful titles, and should Zynga work out deals to bring other big-name social games to the platform, its own games could benefit from the extra eyeballs third parties bring with them. The launch of the Zynga Platform is an incredibly smart move on Zynga’s part. It isn’t breaking off its ties with Facebook (which, as a result of the Facebook Credits contract mentioned above, it legally can’t do anyway) but is testing the waters of operating on its own. If it turns out players are uninterested in having their games kept separate from Facebook, it hasn’t burned that bridge and people can continue playing games on Facebook. On the other hand, in a few years if Zynga.com proves to be the more popular destination for playing games, the company can feel more comfortable that it is not entirely reliant on Facebook, as it currently is. Remember, in filing for an IPO last year the company revealed “a substantial majority” of its revenue in 2008, 2009, and 2010 “was generated from players who accessed our games through Facebook.” It was also noted, “To date, we have derived substantially all of our revenue and acquired substantially all of our players through Facebook. We expect to continue to derive a substantial portion of our revenue and to acquire a substantial portion of our players from the Facebook platform for the foreseeable future.” Anything Zynga can do to make it less dependent on Facebook would be a good thing in the eyes of investors, as evidenced by its stock price jumping up nearly 10 percent today. Whether the launch of Zynga.com actually turns out to be a success is hard to predict — I know I’ll give CastleVille and CityVille another try to see if zFriends prevent me from losing interest after a few weeks — but for a company inextricably linked to Facebook for the time being, it’s a move in the right direction.
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Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Dr. Derek Smart is hard at work on the MMO interview circuit lately, and his sit-down with Massively a couple of weeks ago was only the beginning. The head honcho of Quest Online and 3000AD recently checked in with Rock, Paper, Shotgun to talk up the merits of his Line of Defense MMOFPS. He also had a few choice words for genre competitors like CCP's upcoming EVE Online sidequel.
