“Atlantica Online is a strategy RPG—although players create their own character, they also hire ‘mercenaries’ up to a maximum of eight to take part in turn-based tactical battles. The game is set in an alternate reality mixing real world locations with fantasy and steampunk, and includes a variety of community features such as the ability to control towns and a player driven economy.”

I go into detail on this in the article, but Atlantica Online is an MMO with truly gorgeous art and truly rank “Kill X, Collect Y” level design. Korean MMORPGs, eh?

“In eRepublik, users become the citizen of a nation, based on those in the real world, and take part in a simulation of the real world’s economic and political spheres. Players can take jobs, working their way up to own companies and corporations, get involved in wars between citizen-run countries, and even become president.”

eRepublik is a really neat idea completely undone by implementation.

“In Travian, users create a village on a randomly assigned plot of land, where they must use local resources to develop their village in the aim of eventually creating a world wonder before the end of a set amount of time.

Players can attack and trade with other player-owned villages.”

More (nearly) forgotten interviews:

Interview: Simutronics’ Harris On HeroEngine’s Place In The Old Republic
Interview: Ido Mazursky, CEO, Shidonni

“Audition is an online ‘MMO’ version of dancing games like Dance Dance Revolution. In the title, players create rooms or join other players, select music and then ‘dance’ along with it using directional keyboard commands. Players compete with each other to be the best dancer to receive rewards, and can otherwise socialize with other players.”

As usual with Worlds In Motion, I’ve completely forgotten to remember to link all of the interviews I’ve done for the site here. So here are the most recent batch:

Interview: Metaverse Mod Squad On The Place of An “Avatar Staffing Solution”
Interview: Jonathan Belliss, Product Manager For Perfect World International
Interview: Dean Cheshire, Head of Production, 10VOX
Interview: Avni Rambhia, Technological Evangelist at Arxan
Interview: Victoria Pearson, Asylum Entertainment
Interview: Sam Glassenberg, CEO, Funtactix
Interview: Jack Buser On PlayStation Home’s Community Focus
Interview: Paul Thind, CBO, Outspark

“Trukz is a largely text based game where players create a driver, buy a truck and earn money by hauling loads from real-life cities around the world. Cities have distinct supplies and demands, and with cash earned players can buy upgrade and new trucks. Players have to deal with issues such as fatigue, gas prices and weather, and players can cooperate with other drivers by joining ‘companies’ and talk to other players via ‘CB Radio.’”

I liked Trukz – even if I did manage to misspell it “Truckz” for most of the week I was playing it. I would even continue to play it if it wasn’t so demanding on time. My character is now hideously in debt thanks to continually delivering late, so that’s that, I guess.

“NeoPets is, essentially, an online ‘virtual pe’” simulation, where players take care of pets by buying them food, toys, clothes, and other accessories using a virtual currency called Neopoints, which can be raised by playing games and other methods. Players can interact with each other through in-game mail, discussion boards and groups.”

I tried to be positive about NeoPets, oh goodness, I tried, but I hated every second of using it. It’s easily my least favourite virtual world/social network yet.

“Wizard101 is an online virtual world with a 3D client. The title allows users to customize outfits and accessories for their wizard avatars, play puzzles and mini-games, adopt magical pets, and learn from seven different schools of magic – collecting cards, which can then use to engage in card duels alongside and against other players.”

It’s been a while since I’ve linked any actual games journalism on this site, but I’ve been pretty busy with behind the scenes stuff and (in particular) my current task of editing Worlds In Motion – where, actually, I’ve done several interviews recently:

Interview: GMG Entertainment On Pre-paid Cards’ Potential In Retail
Interview: Koinup’s Pierluigi Casolari On Social Networks for Virtual Worlds
Interview: Tandem Games On The Microtransaction Model For Web-Based MMOs
Interview: Lazaro Fuentes On The Green Latina Themes Of Hip Chicas

“In Urban Dead, players create a character, either a zombie or a survivor (and if a survivor, from a number of classes, including consumers, firemen and army privates) and is dropped into the city of Malton either to cause as much destruction as possible (as a zombie) or to survive by an means possible — most usually by banding together with other players in barricaded buildings (if a player.) Players have a limited number of action points each day, but are forewarned that even if they have run out of action points, the rest of the world goes on around them, while they ’sleep’.”

I really liked Urban Dead – until I spent weeks as a corpse waiting to be resurrected, that is. Once that happened the shine basically wore off. I still think it’s a remarkably fun virtual world, but I think that it’s unfairly weighted towards the undead – that you can’t kill them permanently (even with a headshot!) makes it less interesting as a massive simulation of a zombie infested city than it could otherwise be.

“In Ikariam, users create a town on a randomly assigned island. On their island are up to 15 other players, plus a sawmill and a unique resource. The aim of the game is for the player to create the largest and most prosperous city by accumulating resources through production, trade or warfare, and developing new technologies and buildings as a result.”

I really liked Ikariam. I liked it so much that I was playing it constantly, just slowly improving my cities and civilization in aim of… what?

Which is why I stopped playing. I couldn’t see any “end-game” or point where I’d feel a great satisfaction (you can continue to improve your cities to a near infinite degree) so I just deleted my account straight away – after finishing this article, of course.

I do almost wish I’d come to that realisation before finishing the article, though. Because it kind of strikes at a classic MMO problem – they want to keep you playing, so how do they make sure you are rewarded enough, but not enough (or too little) that you stop playing?

With Ikariam specifically, I think the problem is a flaw deep in the design – it either needs to be possible to destroy cities or to reach a point where they are completed and expansion is the only option. I imagine they don’t allow players to destroy cities as then especially powerful players could run roughshod over new players, but the difficulty of balancing that would have led to a richer game, I think. The other option (ability to “complete” cities) seems too likely to make a lot of players stop playing once they’d “completed” their first city unless resources were much harder to come by, which could possibly make the game even less rewarding!

MMO designers – I don’t envy them.

“In Virtual MTV, users choose a generic avatar to start with and select the brand they (at least initially) wish to explore. Each of the brands is an MTV reality property — such as ’soap opera’ The Hills or car modification show Pimp My Ride — and the user can take part in an experience tightly related to the concept of the show. So in Virtual The Hills users are expected to socialize, care about their appearance, and can create and sell items. In Virtual Pimp My Ride, users can play games and perform challenges to earn vMTV ‘bucks’ to spend on customizing their car.”

I think little to nothing of Virtual MTV, but this article is remarkable for the fact that I admit publicly that I’ve seen nearly every episode of The Hills. Can my career survive such a shocking revelation?

Plus, an interview:

Interview: Henrique Olifiers on Jagex’s Procedurally Generated MMO, RuneScape HD