If you were waiting for the second coming of Free Realms, Palia ain’t it. But, if you hate adventuring and love gathering and crafting in your MMO of choice, you might just find a new home in Palia, the new social MMO from Singularity 6.
There’s a Rift Beta event this weekend, and that’s about all you’ll ever hear of the beta from this site at least. To call their license agreement secretive would be an understatement. In Rift, you start out dead, and then are sent into the past to, I guess, prevent the events that led to your death from occurring, or something. Best let them explain it: Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the survivors from the desolate future of Telara have resurrected champions and sent them into the past to prevent the dystopia caused by the Bloodstorm and the blindly faithful Guardians. Join the techno-magical Defiant in their fight to change the course of history! ...
Sean E asked me why I wasn’t playing Dungeons and Dragons Online. I hear DDO and I think “hey, another fantasy MMO with wizards and stuff”. Why add a twenty-first to the twenty I already play or have played? And who has that kind of time? I guess it depends on who you play with; in an MMO, it’s more about the company you keep than the merits of the game. ...
The hissing of steam and rattling pipes greets me when I step onto Elymia’s weather-worn docks. It seems ages since I was last here, though it’s only been a month. So many things have changed since I’ve been gone from Mindfuse Games’ Gatheryn. Gatheryn is still, at its heart, a minigame portal, but in the past month they (seem to have) added many more games that are integrated into the world – weaving AKA Bejeweled, clockwork assembly line (where you shoot parts onto a twisting, meandering conveyer belt) etc. These games may have been in Gatheryn previously, with me just not FINDING them, and this is my main issue with Gatheryn as it trundles along toward release – it’s fun to explore the city and the docks, and sometime later, the lands beyond – but if you mean to sit down and play some of the minigames upon which the economy depends, you have to tediously run around and find them. ...
I’ve gotten a bunch of emails telling about updates et al to a lot of games. Rather than write an article about each one, or ignoring them entirely, I thought I’d just combine them into a single post. Windstorm Studios, brainchild of ex-Age of Empires and Halo Wars dev Dusty Monk, has just released two bits of concept art from his unannounced evil giant super death robot massacre game, Citizen Kabuto. Just kidding. The cries on everyone’s lips, where is Ultraman? … still just kidding. Check out the awesome art and bug him for more info! ...
Is Gatheryn in open beta or not? Massively says not yet, but following Merry and Pippin’s example, I showed up where I wasn’t invited because they couldn’t keep me away. Picture above is from the docks, where it’s clear they haven’t invented automated rust scrapers and hull painters in Elymia as of yet. In news of the OTHER upcoming superhero game, Massively also has screens of SOE’s DC Universe Online. This fast-paced, arcade-ish actioner looks to be the evil twin to Champions Online’s more traditional quest-based offering. ...
The Elymian Isles are a fabled land of peace and industry, where clockwork creations stamp noisily through the cobblestone streets while the populace engages in sundry pasttimes of strategy and skill to earn the silver coin of the realm. It’s steampunk, it’s minigames, it’s Gatheryn, the casual MMO from newcomers Mindfuse. Gatheryn went open beta yesterday to very little fanfare, but I got the news through Twitter and they couldn’t keep me away. I’ve been looking forward to playing this game since I heard about it nearly a year ago. Steampunk and minigames? Yes! ...
Working on a first impressions piece about Mabinogi. Will keep the self-flagellation to a minimum but really, I only do it because it feels good when I stop. On to the blogs! Are persistent henchmen the new groups? Syp thinks they might be. Star Wars: The Old Republic will have them (echoing the party you gathered in Knights of the Old Republic). Guild Wars has their henchmen. EverQuest has their mecenaries. Star Trek Online has their bridge crew. Have MMOs truly come full circle back to their single player, you+your crew of helpers, roots? Is it truly not worth the trouble anymore to be part of a group that includes other living people? ...
After the disappointment of finding out that Atlus’ NeoSteam wasn’t actually very (if at all) Steampunk, it was wonderful to come home today to find that somewhat more authentically Steampunk MMO Gatheryn has entered closed beta! Full details below, but be warned: They are going to ask you about your favorite Steampunk books…! Greetings! Some time ago, you expressed your interest in Gatheryn, a new steampunk-themed casual MMO from Mindfuse Games. We appreciate your enthusiasm, and we would like to thank you for your patience as Gatheryn draws closer to release! ...
Link has been fixed. SORRY! Ars Technica has a more detailed look at Gatheryn than I’ve seen anywhere else (including at Gatheryn’s site!). Gatheryn is a Steampunk based game, set in an alternate history where the Information Age and the Industrial Revolution collided – cyberpunk set in the Victorian/Edwardian era. Gatheryn’s gameplay should be familiar to players of Puzzle Pirates, Neopets and other casual MMOs of that ilk. There is no combat, no kill ten rats and no dying. You complete your missions, quests, crafting and so on solely through minigames, which are said to be Steampunk versions of the top 50 web games. ...