The Pixel Mine Portal is a downloadable client that allows you to play a number of online multiplayer games including MMORPGs like Ashen Empires, Dransik and Secondhand Lands. The fourth game, Fireteam Reloaded, is a 2D isometric tactical shooter currently in beta testing. Pixel Mine plans to add around three to four games each year, most of which are from independent developers.

About Ashen Empires and Dransik

Ashen Empires from Iron Will Games is an isometric fantasy-themed MMORPG that was based off of an older MMORPG called Dransik, which is 2D and based on the Ultima V Engine. The two games are known for their lax PvP rules and cult status. In addition to the purely open-ended character progression system and a myriad of combat customization options, players can take up a variety tradeskills like fishing and cooking, as well as in-depth ones, such as farming and construction. Ashen Empires has been around for 5+ years.

Dransik (Now known as Dransik Classic) was developed by Asylumsoft Inc. whose lead developer was Lothgar, who is now working on a couple of new games, Elderlands and Stygian Worlds. When Dransik successfully reached critical mass in the late 90’s and early 00’s, it went fully commercial. However, a free to play side-project called Dransik Iso had begun, which was the earliest version of Ashen Empires, and has since flourished into a content-rich universe.

About Fireteam Reloaded: Gameplay Clip

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It was announced today that the former CEO of TIGA, Fred Hasson, will become the Executive Director of RedBedlam, developers of the indie MMO set during the Roman Empire, Roma Victor.

In addition to continuing the development and expansion of the game, RedBedlam has plans to take Roma Victor to a new full-fledged commercial level in order to increase its overall exposure in the realm of persistent online games.

Roma Victor is a massively multiplayer online game with no subscription fee that features real-time combat and player-driven elements. It was in development for 5 years prior to being released in 2006.

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The latest Fallen Earth Question(s) of the Week has been posted over at their official forums where the developers answer questions asked by fans on a weekly basis.

New details reveal that clans will require 10,000 chips (the currency used in Fallen Earth) and a minimum of 10 members to establish. Clan leaders will be able to create up to 10 custom ranks with customizable permissions for each rank. Permissions include the privilege to invite/kick and promote/demote members, access to the clan vault, the ability to accept or reject clan war challenges, etc.

Clans will be able to engage in “clan wars”, whereby clans challenge each other to a formal war in which they can mutually agree on the rules, location and the amount wagered for rewards.

More questions are answered in the thread. For a chance to have your questions answered in future weeks, post here.

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Star Vault, an independent game company from Sweden, has announced the development of Mortal Online, a first-person massively multiplayer online game utilizing Unreal Engine 3 that’s scheduled for release in Summer of 2009. Mortal Online is one of the few upcoming sandbox/player-driven MMOGs that’s boldly deviating from the standard conventions of mainstream MMOGs by providing players the freedom of unrestricted environments and open-ended gameplay.

Combat in Mortal Online is entirely twitch-based and in real-time. Players will be able to interact with others and their surroundings however they wish with no restrictions, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be consequences for unlawful actions. In a open-ended world, players will be able to play a limitless number of roles and experience an unpredictable, immersive universe.

Most of the innovation and progression in the MMO industry seem to be coming out of Europe if you examine such titles as EVE Online, Earthrise, Darkfall Online and now Mortal Online, which are all very similar in their design approach, valuing player-freedom and player-driven elements above all else. Many fans are even going so far as to say that Mortal Online will eclipse Darkfall Online, as both are fantasy themed and share the same principles and design philosophy, even though both games are still in development. Darkfall has also come a long way since it was first announced.

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News broke out yesterday when the game client source code of EVE Online was leaked via torrent and first made available on The Pirate Bay. The torrent included a chat transcript between the leaker and a CCP representative. Apparently, the leaker was concerned about the rampant abuse of bots and scripts in EVE online and was attempting to coerce CCP into taking stricter action regarding the issue. CCP is obviously not happy about the incident and is censoring the forums of any mention of the situation. Here’s a partial excerpt of the transcript:

[20:44] <Abuser> Could you certainly say me what your programmers did to secure clientside from exploiting Eve?
[20:44] <Abuser> what’s certainly
[20:45] <Abuser> I don’t have anything against content makers - their ideas are good, really good
[20:45] <Abuser> I have full eve sourcecode, so you know what’s did, and what’s not;)
[20:46] <Abuser> From all security i saw - were ROLE permissions for logins with priviliges higher than usual player, and some minor things in relation to prevent some remote service calls (some with potentially bad payload)
[20:46] <Abuser> nothing else
[20:47] <Abuser> is that called “programmers working on security”?
[20:47] <[IA]Morpheus> Are you cruising for a job or something?
[20:47] <Abuser> Nah
[20:47] <Abuser> neither job, neither anything else
[20:47] <Abuser> you may think of in such direction
[20:48] <Abuser> Digging the situation to uncover the truth
[20:49] <Abuser> You may compare me to fox mulder from x-files series
[20:49] <Abuser> it’s the best description of why i do this
[20:49] <[IA]Morpheus> Ah, well, nice to meet you Mr Mulder.
[20:50] <Abuser> So… would you like to answer what AWESOME ccp programmers did in relation to client/server security (at least for client?)
[20:51] <[IA]Morpheus> No, we won’t respond to blackmail. If you think we don’t care or aren’t working on improving security you are sadly mistaken

Word has it that CCP is also seeding the torrent themselves and monitoring IPs to ban any that match active EVE accounts.

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At this year’s ION Game Conference 2008 (formerly known as OGDC, Online Game Developers Conference), taking place in Seattle at the Marriott Waterfront Hotel from May 13th to May 15th, such figures in the online gaming industry as Craig Sherman, CEO of Gaia Online, Scott Jennings, Lead Designer at NCSoft and Hermann Peterscheck, Producer of Jumpgate Evolution at NetDevil are among the hundred or so business leaders scheduled to speak at the conference.

The ION Game Conference is an annual event where game developers and industry personnel come together to celebrate and discuss the evolution of online gaming, ranging from the overview of the latest business and product developments to in-depth analyses of player psychology and in-game economic systems.

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If you’re not already aware, players are welcome to participate in the second phase of closed beta testing for Magic World Online, which began last week. Registrations are open to anyone and there will no longer be any server wipes, so your character will remain all throughout testing and into the official launch of the game.

Magic World Online is a free-to-play (F2P) fantasy-based MMORPG with an isometric view, reminiscent of Diablo. One of MWO’s unique aspects is the ability to stream webcam video in-game, allowing players to see the person behind each character. You’ll also be able to automate mundane actions in the game to avoid unnecessary repetition using a sophisticated artificial intelligence system.

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Mungo Creations has recently opened up a preview of its social networking web service MMOSocial, a gaming community portal that allows members to connect with other MMO gamers, write blogs, post messages, upload content, make friends and manage guilds/clans, for instance, scheduling in-game events and raids. The site is still in beta testing stages.

“MMOSocial will build on more than the common communication layers that anchor many community sites today, such as forums and generically embodied social sites. We are bringing a modular extension to the Massively Multiplayer Online services industry that will grow to feature advanced custom components or add-ons, and in return boost the experience for gamers and guilds. In this way, gamers will remain engrossed as allies and enemies that are similarly found within each style of massively multiplayer games such as World of Warcraft World of Warcraft Friends, Lord of the Rings Online, and upcoming titles such as Age of Conan Age of Conan Friends and Warhammer Online Warhammer Online Friends.” - Thomas Gobuzas, Co-Founder of MMOSocial

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Freaky Creatures is a hybrid between an action figure toy-line with collectible card game elements and a persistent online multiplayer game that’s being developed by Abandon Interactive Entertainment. Players wanting to get into the game will be required to purchase a starter pack that includes a USB device which contains the game installation, two unique Freaky Creatures figures and their virtual counterparts, 50 parts, 20 powers and 4 objects, all of which are randomly generated and used to customize your creatures and their lairs, as well as special in-game cards that provide various abilities and advantages.

There will also be booster packs available for additional creatures and accessories. As an incentive to keep dishing out money for these packs, an 11th creature will be unlocked after the initial 10 creatures available at launch are collected. The company will regularly release 10 new creatures every several months or so. The online experience generally involves raising and managing your creatures, traveling to different lands, interacting with other players by battling or teaming up with them and entering competitions. In order to have full access to the persistent online world, a monthly subscription of $5.99 will be needed.

The combat system takes the traditional turn-based strategy route where the outcome of battles are determined by statistics, powers, timing and tactics. You can use special cards that come with the packs to increase your creature’s effectiveness during battles. Since Freaky Creatures is designed to be cross-platform, you can access and play the game with a mobile phone. You can learn more by heading to the site and signing up for the newsletter and beta. Be sure to also check out the hidden gameplay video.

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A new Flash-based social MMO produced by FlowPlay, titled ourWorld, is the latest addition to the long list of current virtual worlds available on the web, as the game enters public beta for the first time. Unlike traditional virtual worlds, however, ourWorld provides a guided experience, level-based progression, emphasis on player-cooperation and fascinating virtual jobs, such as bartending, which earn you salaries paid in ourWorld’s in-game currency called “Flow”.

ourWorld tries to appeal to all audiences by incorporating popular casual games, chatting, clothing from real-life designers and interactive areas that promote social activity, including a YouTube video theatre, a coffee shop and a dance club.

“We created ourWorld to bridge the gap between casual gaming and social media. The casual games landscape is changing and gamers are looking for a deeper, more social experience than what is largely available today. Through ourWorld, gamers will have a single destination to enjoy the most popular online titles, plus experience their other preferred forms of online activities in a community environment.” - Derrick Morton, co-founder and CEO of FlowPlay

ourWorld will be free-to-play, with optional access to premium items, environments and levels for a monthly subscription of $5.99.

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Many Disney fans and casual gamers are disappointed that the popular free online MMO, Virtual Magic Kingdom is getting its plug pulled after only 3 years of existence. Initially, the game was created to temporarily promote Disneyland’s 50th Anniversary, but due to its popularity, Disney decided to keep the game running, even after the events of the celebration had ended.

Virtual Magic Kingdom is a Shockwave game developed by the Sulake Corporation, the same company behind the creation of Habbo Hotel. VMK is a virtual representation of the Disneyland and Magic Kingdom theme parks, and it contains locales and attractions based on their real life counterparts. As with Habbo Hotel, players can socialize, play games, customize their avatar and personal spaces and use in-game currency in a family-friendly atmosphere.

The community has come together to campaign for the preservation of the game, the majority of which is even willing to pay subscription fee if it means keeping VMK alive. The demographic who are most devastated by the untimely announcement are parents and their young kids who enjoy spending time playing VMK together and visiting the theme parts to complete RL quests for in-game rewards. A website has also been spawned regarding VMK’s closure where people can voice their concerns and find out what they can do to help petition against Disney’s decision to close the game.

“In the time since we’ve launched VMK, we’ve seen many players come and go, and we’re hoping you will graduate from VMK too – in particular, to games like Pirates of the Caribbean Online, Disney’s ToonTown Online, Club Penguin and the upcoming Fairies and Cars online virtual worlds. We think you’ll find you enjoy those just as much as VMK – if not more.” - Seth “Yavn” Mendelsohn, producer of VMK.

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Ubisoft announced at the end of 2007 that Heroes of Might and Magic Kingdoms, a web-based massively multiplayer online strategy game, was set to launch in Spring this year. The launch is quickly approaching, but there’s still some time left to sign up for a chance to get into the action early.

“Thousands of players will be able to rule their virtual kingdoms, lead gigantic armies against each other, master the trades or create legendary heroes. The game requires no download or installation, only an Internet connection. In addition, players can play at their own pace; from 10 minutes to multiple-hour sessions.” - Ubisoft

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It’s been announced that the Undead will be the sixth and latest faction to be joining the Brotherhood forces in the MMORTS, SAGA. The Brotherhood currently consists of the Dark Elves and Orcs. Their opposition, the forces of Order, is made up of Dwarves, Elves and Giants. The new faction will add over 20 unique unit types.

The majority of the background story and timing for the Undead faction’s arrival will be determined by player-driven events. The release of the expansion is entirely dependent on how soon players will be able to complete the quests and objectives required to liberate Goth Azul from the Underworld, who will unleash his Undead minions into the world of SAGA. As this goes on, new units will also be unlocked for the current five factions.

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The sequel to TrackMania Nations, a free online racing game with gravity defying tracks and stunts, TrackMania Nations Forever, will be available as a free download starting on April 16th, 2008.

TrackMania Nations launched two years ago and instantly became an online phenomenon. It has been downloaded and installed on 30 million computers with 4 million accounts created.

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The original trailer:

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Manga Fighter is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online third-person shooter with cel-shaded graphics and anime-inspired visuals that’s currently celebrating its grand opening with special events and contests.

The game offers a unique take on online shooters with stylized cartoon characters, non-lethal weapons and an action-oriented experience without the blood and violence, perfect for younger generations.

“We are huge fans of other MMO shooter games,” said YJ Jin, Producer of Manga Fighter. “But we’re tired of gory, violent and gruesome games. With Manga Fighter, we’ve created something fun– yet non-violent– so that gamers of all ages can jump in and have a great time.”

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Go have yourself a look at the latest trailer to be released, showcasing the game mechanics of Tennis, one of the many sports that players can engage in while taking part in the first multisports MMO, Empire of Sports. The game is now already just a few weeks into its private launch which began late in March. For instructions on how to sign-up and become a VIP tester, click here.

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Aeria Games has recently acquired the license for Stone Age 2, a casual 2D MMORPG developed by a Japanese company called DigiPark Inc., to make the prehistoric-themed game available for western audiences. This is Aeria Games’ seventh title in their free online games lineup.

Stone Age 2 revolves around an in-depth pet system where players can own up to 5 dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures that all live with them in their customizable den (player housing). All pets require consistent maintenance in order to keep their happiness levels adequate or they will react negatively, for instance, throwing out their owners belongings that are kept in the den. They must be nurtured, taught, encouraged and disciplined as owners watch them learn and grow. Players will even be able keep tabs on their pets via mobile phone and monitor activity inside the game using fixed in-game cameras that the player sets up.

The Stone Age franchise has over 11 million registered users worldwide and has generated over $260 million in a span of six years.

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Fallen Earth has 5 new screenshots up and the latest weekly questions thread posted on their forum. It’s sad to hear that the infamous digger gun has been scrapped. A lot of people were looking forward to being able to manipulate the environment by digging man holes for cover, booby traps and various other purposes with the high-tech digger gun, which can be seen in the following video.

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Cryptic Studios answers some additional fan questions for Champions Online this week with their latest edition of Ask Cryptic. Some of the positive news includes less emphasis on instanced missions than what were found in CoX (City of Heroes/Villains). Instanced areas, instead, will be reserved for villain bosses and the like. The majority of missions in CoX took place in semi-randomly generated instanced areas that were generally lacking in variety. However, that may change in Champions Online by making them fewer and farther in between, rather than the standard template. Standard missions will take place in persistent environments, akin to WoW.

Major villains in Champions Online will have interesting background stories and feature well thought-out missions and dialog to help make each of their personalities more distinguished. Furthermore, each major villain will have something unique about them that players will be required to exploit in order to defeat them. They call this their “Shtick” and I give big ups to Cryptic Studios for this throwback to the boss fights of old school gaming.

Character creation this time around will offer a lot more variety and customization options. In addition to the thousands of costume pieces and selections, you’ll be able to tweak body shapes, tones and definitions. Even bone structures can be manipulated. CoX was known to feature a robust character creation system and Champions Online should be expected to take it to a new level.

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Man, the guys behind Earthrise never seem to decline any interview requests from the media. Every week, they’re being featured in an exclusive interview, podcast or dev chat. It’s not exactly a bad thing, it’s actually admirable how they’re able to juggle between media relations and game development when the game has a release date of sometime in 2009 and it was just announced a few months ago. Stratics put together a recent interview with the CEO of the game’s development company and lead designer of Earthrise, and will be hosting the second House of Commons chat with Masthead Studios on Thursday April 17 at 4pm EST, 9pm GMT, 10pm CET. It’ll taking place in #StraticsHoC of irc.stratics.com port 6668. Simply connect using an IRC client to participate. Here’s the transcript of the last Earthrise HoC chat. The latest QOTW (Question of the Week) was also posted over at their forums discussing storyline missions and faction standings.

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To summarize, Associate Producer Tasos explains that Darkfall is feature complete and that professional testers are already beta testing the game. Their general belief on beta testing is that it should be a process to aid the developers in making their product as stable as possible, not to promote some other artificial agenda, like marketing the game. MMO betas these days are like red carpet premiers and sneak peaks, rather than legitimate stages in development. When it comes time for public play testing, that’s when they’ll be looking for players, not testers, to simulate and optimize the experience of the retail version.

“Darkfall testing simply consists of testing each and every feature of the game and all associated features in a pyramid structure. It’s not the same as testing a railroad, linear game. There’s no path to follow, Darkfall is a sandbox game and we have to make allowances for numerous combinations of occurrences. Take the closest Darkfall comes to anything scripted: even in quests there is no instancing and there are more than one ways to complete it including PvP ways. There is no single set of actions and the end justifies the means.”

Due to the non-linearity of Darkfall, testing tends to be more unpredictable than other MMOGs, part of which has to do with the artificial intelligence of NPCs. The game doesn’t really distinguish between a player and an NPC. For instance, NPCs aren’t just stationary fodder for players to progressively grind. They roam, level up and live their lives just like any player character would. They’ll even engage in combat with other NPCs.

Aventurine S.A. are fully aware of the criticism surrounding their game and are confident when they say that they’re going to offer even more than what they’ve promised.

For the full diary in which Tasos talks more about the state of the game, click here. For previous diaries, click here.

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Vogster Entertainment announced in late 2006 that it had licensed Unreal Engine 3 to develop a mysterious next generation massively multiplayer online game for multiple platforms titled CrimeCraft.

Over the course of this year, more details on the game continue to unveil and so far, Vogster describes CrimeCraft as a third-person shooter game that takes place in a modern megapolis in which players will take part in political, economic and social lives, as they’re able to operate businesses, engage in commerce and face the consequences of confrontations with crime syndicates and government agencies.

AI, in particular, will be advanced in order to allow the dynamics of an ever-evolving persistent megapolis that’s constantly changing. Real-estate, shops, warehouses, banks, productions and vehicles can all be owned and either fought for or diplomatically acquired. It’s been confirmed that CrimeCraft will be available for the PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 sometime in the second quarter of 2009, as well as completely free to download and play.

Apparently, the game is free to play because it’s actually a pseudo-MMO in the likes of Guild Wars and Hellgate: London. Realms can support up to 4,500 players, but only 16 players can play together in instanced missions, matches and other activities. This comes somewhat as a disappointment considering the amount and depth of gameplay features Vogster has planned, which would be especially exciting in a true massively multiplayer environment. Even then, this could end up being a legitimate competitor to Realtime World’s All Points Bulletin.

You can checkout some of the latest screenshots of the game right here.

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After selling the license of their Fallout franchise to Bethesda Softworks (the company behind the Elderscrolls series) and in addition to working on sequels to Earthworm Jim, Dark Alliance, Descent and MDK, Interplay Entertainment is currently seeking funding for a new Fallout MMO title, as the original licensing deal with Bethesda allows them to retain special privileges to develop a massively multiplayer game based on the Fallout series.

Interplay is also on the lookout for some new talent for their in-house studios and it’ll be interesting to see the company back in top form after their semi-hiatus. However, one has to wonder if fans of the post-apocalyptic franchise won’t be spoiled by Bethesda’s Fallout 3 by the time Interplay’s Fallout MMO is out, as it’s already known to become a surefire success due to its adaptation to the Oblivion engine and people would expect the Fallout MMO to simply be an online version of that, but that probably won’t be the case unless Bethesda gets involved with the project.

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