The Seventh Dragon

Site: http://dragon.bg-time.com/


The Seventh Dragon is a browser based strategy MMO set in a vast, fantasy world of Asan. The game allow players to choose from three races, each with own unique set of units and specialties. Players can recruit heroes to battle for them against other players.
Construct your castle and buildings, produce resources, hire heroes and armies, equip them and conquer!

Races
Players can select between three playable races – Human, Elf or Undead. Each race has seven different unit types and the units get stronger after some time.
Humans – they worship light. Their units are Spearman, Archer, Griffin, Bishop, Swordsman, Knight and Angel.
Elves – they worship nature. Their units are Kentauros, Leprechaun, Elf Guard, Pegasus, Dryad, Unicorn and Green dragon.
Undead – their units are Skeleton, Zombie, Ghost, Vampire, Lich, Dark Knight and Dragon Zombie.
There are two more races listed on the official site but when I created my account they weren’t available for players. The two races are Devil and Neutral, each of them has seven different types of units.

Buildings
In The Seventh Dragon players can construct and upgrade buildings like Command Center, Warehouse, Tavern, Guildhall, Farmland and more. Buildings take some time to be constructed and only one building can be constructed at a time. The higher the level the longer its construction time is.

Quests and Help
The MMO has quite helping introducing tutorial-quests with in-game reward. Later in game, there is a quest-mission for defeating the Devil boss Kaberos and send him back to hell.

Heroes
Fighting, collecting and hunting can be accomplished only by dispatched heroes. The abilities of a hero affect the units. Heroes can be recruited from a Tavern. Higher level Tavern will offer more heroes of a time. Heroes level up from battles with Devil Castles, Monsters or other Players.

New players have protection against external attacks for nine days.

Yea, the idea behind the game units and development of the castles looks very similar to Heroes of Might and Magic series.

DarkZero Review of AI War

My views of indie games have forever been altered. When was the last
time you played an indie game that contained the amount of content of
several retail games? If you have ever played and enjoyed Sins of a
Solar Empire but cried because you couldn’t play it on a laptop or that
the scale just wasn’t grand enough for you, then you should pick up AI
War – Fleet Command right now.

- Derek
Duncan, DarkZero

Aion Review

Site: http://uk.aiononline.com/

Aion is a fantasy MMORPG released by NCSoft. It features a vast and detailed fantasy world with incredible sceneries, odd creatures and great adventures.



Races / Factions
Aion world has two playable factions – Elyos and Asmodians.
The Elyos are bright people or the good ones. They are bright and beautiful people living in a bright and beautiful world. Their country is known as Elysea and their capital city is called Sanctum.
The Asmodians are the opposite of the Elyos, dark characters from a dark world. They are the “bad” guys if you like how it sounds. Their skin is pale or dusky and their eyes have a strange glow. Their world is called Asmodae and their capital city is Pandaemonium.




Classes
There are four primary classes at the game – Warrior, Mage, Scout and Priest. At level 10 players can choose a specialization. Warriors can become Gladiators (skilled with many different weapons) or Templars (use sword and shield combination and chants). Scouts can become Rangers (skilled with bow) or Assassins. Mages become Spirit Masters (summoners) or Sorcerer. Priest becomes Cleric (healer and resurrector, can be useful in melee battle with mice and shield) and Chanter (Buffer).



World / Story / Lore
The world of Aion is a devastated planet called Atreia. After a cataclysm Atreia was broken in half. Players start as inhabitants of their chosen world and don’t meet players from other fractions until they enter the abyss.



The Abyss
After spending some time leveling players can enter and fight in the Abyss. The Abyss is a PvP zone, where players must fight players from the opposite fraction. Players receive special points called Abyss Points for defeating players from the other race. The Abyss rank of the player is calculated according to these Abyss Points. Also special weapons and armors can be purchased with them.
The guild or clan equivalent in Aion is called Legion. Legions can control special fortresses in the Abyss. The control over a fortress is obtained after a siege war (mass PvP war) where players fight against another players or NPC characters.



Specifics
You can’t really experience PvP or dungeon fight until level 25-30. Also you have a quest story line and the quests are very important for your character development.










Places and beautiful sceneries:






The trailer:

Aion

This is the new Aion trailer released recently by NCSoft. It is titled ‘Vision’ and shows some features that are not currently available in the popular MMO.
The description at the official site says “Take a glimpse into Atreia’s future with the Aion Vision Trailer!”.
Some of the features shown at the trailer are impressive weather system with snow, light chance, etc, house building, mounts and an underwater town.

Thanksgiving Special! 25% Off Arcen Titles

In celebration of the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US, we're having
our first multi-product discount sale on our site!   Enter code BLLR0018P to get a 25% discount on all games
bought directly from Arcen through 11/30/2009.  This means that you can
pick up AI War: Fleet
Command for $14.99 USD, and/or preorder AI War: The
Zenith Remnant for $7.49 USD!  If you live outside the US, never
fear, the discount is equivalent in every currency.  Note:  If you want
to buy both together, simply click the purchase
link on the first page, then go to the second
page and click the purchase link, and both will be in your shopping
cart together.



The Zenith
Remnant is the first expansion pack to Arcen's hit space-based
"grand strategic 4X tower defense RTS" game, and is currently in beta.
 The full version of the expansion is expected to be released in the
second week of January, but players who who preorder and want early
access are free to download the beta from our forums at any time.
 Players who want to first try a demo of the expansion beta can also
download that from the forums.  The Zenith Remnant will include around
115 new ships, at least four new map styles, a new neutral AI faction
(the Zenith aliens), and lots and lots of gameplay-expanding new
mechanics and content.



You can also preorder the expansion at Stardock's Impulse, although people who
preorder via Impulse will not have access to the beta until next week
-- our fault on that, not Stardock's.  Mea culpa!  Preorders are also
planned with many of our other distribution partners, but those will
mostly not kick off until closer to official release on those platforms
(so, early January, most likely).  We are aiming to have a simultaneous
official release of the expansion on all outlets that currently carry AI
War.



In the coming month, also keep your eyes out for more information,
including screenshots and/or concept art, about Arcen's next two titles.
 The first is an untitled casual puzzle game with a fresh and fun new
mechanic, and the second is a tower defense game called A Valley Without
Wind (yes, the tower defense genre is super crowded, but we have our
own take on the whole affair that we think you'll find quite different
from the glut of others out there -- more info on that within the next
month, but it's very exciting!).  For those who have been eagerly
awaiting our puzzle/adventure/zombie survival game Alden Ridge, please
note that that title is now slated for 2011.  It's still coming, and
we're still excited about it, but that one needs more time in the cooker
to really do it justice.



Stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks!

Neverland Online

Site: http://neverland.hithere.com/

Neverland Online is a 2D, browser MMORPG. The game is set in a persistent fantasy world, players can do many things like catching monster and making them pets, leveling up, crafting, PVP and so on. The game is fully fledged MMORPG despite the fact that it doesn’t need an installation.

 

 

Neverland Online has several playable classes and many skills. Available classes are Ranger, Assassin, Elementalist and Taoist.

The game graphics are beautiful, peaceful and enjoyable.

Playing Neverland Online is refreshing and relaxing. It is an ideal solution for people searching for not engaging and lightweight mass game.

Neverland Online Guide

Wonderland Online - upcoming expansion

 

IGG announced Wonderland Online expansion will be available soon.

Wonderland Online 5.0 – Glory of the Empire will add several fun features to the popular MMORPG. Here is a short preview:


Marriage System
Marriages seem to be very popular among the gamers. With the new expansion players can enjoy a stylish wedding, wear cool wedding dress and so on. (What is so cool about weddings anyway?)

New Maps
The new expansion will bring several new territories including Rome and Persia. Of course you ought to see Caesar and the other new NPCs. The new maps come with new Bosses like the Cyclops, a Winged Bull and other mythic creatures.

Next version will add two new human friends – Shizune and Hayate who will accompany you in your jurneys.

AceGamez Review of AI War

[I]f you love realistic, complex and thorough space-based real time
strategies, purchase this game
right now as it is an aspiring space commander's dream.

- Tom
Clark, AceGamez

The Claw - Google Wave with Chris Park

The Claw
has recently conducted a massive Google
Wave interview
with Chris Park about AI War, other upcoming Arcen titles, Chris's
design philosphy and
inspirations, and the future for Arcen Games in general.



Read The Interview

Design Right: Demon's Souls

ABSTRACT
AI War
designer/programmer Chris Park takes a look at games other than his own
in his new feature "Design Right."  The goal of this new feature is not
to review games, but rather to look at other game designs and what they
do right.  First up is the surprisingly popular PS3 game Demon's Souls. 
DS has gotten almost universal praise from reviewers, has sold well and
has been popular with a good number of players, and has drawn criticism
and disbelief from a smaller group of players.  Chris takes a look at
the mechanics to analyze why those people who like it do, since it seems
like such an unlikely candidate to be so massively popular on the
surface -- brutal difficulty and simple combat do not often a great game
make, but there's something special here.

Design Right: Demon's Souls

Rakion

Site: http://rakion.softnyx.net/

Rakion: Chaos Force is a free-to play, real-time, online strategy-action game in a fantasy world. The game is developed by the South Korean Softnyx. Rakion is somewhat similar to most FPS or TPS with its game style. Rakion has many features similar to the classic MMORPG games like leveling up and experience gaining, summons, character customization and upgrades.



Summons / Cell System
Players can summon creatures using their CP (Cell Points). There are several types of summons and each of them has different specialties.

Transformations / Chaos System
In special circumstances players can transform their characters into different and powerful creatures. Most of the times you need to kill a number of monsters to transform. After the transformation your character becomes very strong, fights with new movements and groups of monsters aren’t an obstacle any more.

Classes
Available classes are Swordsman, Archer, Mage Blacksmith and Ninja. The Swordsman and the Blacksmith are melee characters capable of taking and making enormous amounts of damage. They are relatively easy for newbie players. For the short time I played this game till now I took a liking of the ninja. With multiple surikens thrown at a time and fast movements, it is quite a formidable damage dealer.

Screenshots

Gaming Nexus Review of AI War

For me, it’s a rare thing indeed for a game to move from total
obscurity to a fixed place on my hard drive in
the course of a handful of days... [AI War] is just brimming with
innovative twists on the 4X-style RTS.

- Tyler
Sager, Gaming Nexus

Forum un-down #6

A poll/discussion was started to talk about how to handle the forum situation. Please add your two cents to the poll/discussion or comment on this blog post. :)

Grand Fantasia

Site: http://grandfantasia.aeriagames.com/


Grand Fantasia is a free-to-play, fantasy MMORPG licensed by Aeria Games. The games offers many innovative and cool features like customizable characters and spites, many different mounts, PVP combat, dungeons, bosses, romance system, guilds and so on.



The game is currently in a Closed Beta state of development and it accepts requests for it.



Grand Fantasia has four class trees and eight classes total. New players start as Novice and at level 5 they can select their specialization. The eight classes are Wizard, Necromancer, Sage, Cleric, Assassin, Warrior, Berserker and Ranger.

Quality family entertainment...

So what's up in the Free Gamer world?
Hot news is that the project formerly called Portalized (featured a long time ago on FreeGamer) is now really open-source and renamed Pseudoform! It's still more of a tech-demo, but check this video out:

Pseudoform video

Or even more videos on the Pseudoform website!

More bloody family entertainment

If you are a fan of real quality entertainment and not afraid of a retro look and this might excite you:

Hypertension Trailer

It is an upcoming remake of Monolith Software's 1997 hit Blood! Personally I think it was by far the greatest FPS of it's time, with a wicked sense of humor... but many people were put off by its bad successor Blood2.

So what's cool about Hypertension? It's based on the updated GPL Doom engine EDGE and is coming to Win/Linus/Mac/Dreamcast and GP2X probably as a FOSS indy title. Here is a nice interview, explaining what it is all about and which features are added (f.e. live action video sequences). So if you have not played Blood, this is definitely worth the wait if you aren't afraid of the retro look. (Remark: The Blood game media was released by Monolith for use but not under an FOSS license).


EDIT: It has come to our attention that Hypertension is illegally using the Blood art assets, which were only granted for use to the Transfusion project by the original Developer.

But I need a blood transfusion NOW!

Ok ok! calm down, help is already there:

Transfusion video

Transfusion is a great FOSS remake of Blood, too. It is based on the Dark Places engine, a much updated Quake 1 engine also used by the Nexuiz game (Which released a new version lately too). It is fully 3D and much of the media has been replaced with real models, but after finishing a more or less playable multiplayer version, development sadly stopped.

Hint: Updating it to a newer Dark Places version or turning it into a Nexuiz mod is probably not a lot of work, and the game is already a lot of fun! Personally I would love to see someone reactivate this project!

Dragon Oath

European Site: http://tlbb.eu.changyou.com/
American Site: http://do.us.changyou.com/

Dragon Oath is a Chinese martial arts MMORPG developed by ChangYou.com and Sohu. It was first released in China and now its English version is in a pre-closed beta state of development. The game is free to play and download.



The game has nine classes Lotus Order, Minstrel, Royalty, Voodoo, Shaolin, Pyromancer, Assassin, Beggars Alliance and Taoist.



Dragon Oath offers constant running events in game. Players can participate in Lucky Bingo, Chess Challenge, Imperial Test and much more.



Players can form guilds and alliances, fight guild wars and build their own cities.
Dragon Oath offers many pets with different looks and abilities but obtaining a pet is not that easy. Players can travel to the Pet Island in order to capture a pet. The pets themselves can be strong and deadly and the Pet Island is guarded by powerful guardians.
There are man other promising features in the game – Wedding System, Master-Disciple Relation, Mounts and much more.

Warsow

Site: http://www.warsow.net/
Status: Free

Warsow is an open-source, online FPS. The game is centered more at the gameplay and less at the graphics. The graphics are made intentionally plain and clear. The gameworld is the meeting point of the cartoon characters with the cyberpunk city.

Gameplay
Warsow is fast and when I say fast I mean really fast. New players may have difficulties at the beginning. Even veteran FPS players need some time to grasp the style and the speed. Despite that fact, the game is quite fun with many adrenaline bursts and hearth beat situations.
Online players tend to be way too good and merciless for newcomers like me. Combining series of movements and jumps with the fast speed of the game brings unique experience and excitement.

My rating: 9 from 10.
If you are Quake series fan, you will like this one too!

How-to play
Simply download the game from the official website - http://www.warsow.net/?page=download. It is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

Warsow official trailer:


Screenshots:

Three Moves Ahead Episode 37 -- Chris Park and AI War: Fleet Command

Three Moves Ahead is the official podcast of Flash of Steel, and
commonly features really high quality discussion of strategy games for
hardcore gamers, and interviews with industry giants -- Brad Wardell,
Soren Johnson, and others.  Episode 37 features Troy Goodfellow and Tom
Chick talking with Chris Park, the lead designer of AI War about the
state of the game, how some of its more unique aspects came about, and
what is planned for the future.  There's also a fairly good bit of
discussion of launching a new indie game and how that went for AI War,
in addition to the more design-related discussions.

Listen To the Podcast

Big Download Review of AI War

AI War is, quite simply, the best experience you could have with
co-op or single-player real-time strategy in this or any year. It
combines grand strategy with emergent AI to form an excellent game
perfect for parties and multiplayer. It is easily worth double the price
that the developer is selling it at, and anyone with any affinity or
taste for strategy games should not miss it. It may be daunting at
first, but an excellent tutorial and amazing gameplay mechanics
alleviate this into a game that almost anyone can - and should - play.

- James
Murff, Big Download

Blender Game Competition 2010

Dear diary...ermm readers *hust*... this is my first post on this blog so please be gentle with me! I am sort of helping out now and then since qudobup is busy with other stuff. Beeing a forum regular I had to help out of course, even if I might not have the time to post that often.

Ok now to the really important stuff: Blender (everyones favorite GPL 3D modeling application) also has a build in game engine. And what would be nicer than having a nice competition for game creation?

Here is a video of one of the winners from last year (not open-source!):

DukDuk gameplay

So why not join in that get a chunk of the $500 prize?

Why Blender game engine (BGE)?

Wasn't the game engine always the stepchild of the project? Slow, bloated and buggy?
Well things change, and with this years open game project Yo Frankie! things have taken a leap towards greatness!
Speed has been greatly improved, physics are completely integrated and you can do great eyecandy with the OpenGL 2.0 GLSL shaders (here are some more features).
And things look even better with the upcoming Blender 2.5.

Getting started with the BGE

So what can the BGE actually do for aspiring FOSS game developers? Well it is a "game-maker" for grown-ups... so if you want to make games and not learn how to become the the next John Carmack (tm) the BGE is for you. On a low level you need no programming at all, much can be done with the "logic blocks". And for more ambitious projects the BGE is fully scriptable with Python (which is one of the easiest and most comfortable programming languages).

And did I mention that games created are completely multi platform? Linux and MacOSX ports are just one click away!
A good first step would be to head over to blenderartists.com and surf a bit on their game engine sub-forums. There you will find free (some GPL or PD even if the license is not always 100% clear) templates (f.e. FPS or network) and many great tutorials.

And most people there will freely share their .blend files with you which include all art assets, scripts and so on in neat package (open them in Blender, press "p" and the game starts). However not all of it is really licensed in a FOSS way, but at least you can use these as great tutorials. Overall one could say that this is a great way of distributing the "source" of complete FOSS games (code, art, music etc).

Other sites worth noting are GameBlender and maybe the new Blender Games. And of course for all your Blender news: Blender Nation!

So my excuses for these more game development related news... but you will find some nice games to play (done in Blender) in the many links I provided :p
But next time there will be more traditional gaming news!

Update: Some seriously nice eye candy!

This was just released and looks really nice!

Atmospheric scattering made in BGE

Head over to the Blenderartists thread for more info (and .blend download!).
Oh and yes you are free to use it in your own projects!