WCG 2008 is on. The Cyber Game Festival will be held in Cologne, Germany this year and the Philippine contingent better make it to the finals this time. Spent the whole afternoon at City Kart Racing to attend the press launch of the 2008 World Cyber Games, and of course some kart racing.
Archive for the 'PC Gaming' Category
This could be the first locally produced movie about PC gaming — RAN Online, The Movie. This was revealed yesterday during e-Games’ Domination II gaming party at the SMX Convention Center.
Is this industry dying or just become more narrow? Sound cards nowadays are mostly built into the motherboard (brand comes to mind is Realtek) and they’re already good enough with some having 5.1 surround sound while others have up to 8 channels.
On November 10, 2007, the Globe Broadband Tournament of Champions will hold its final match for the best RAN Online players across the country.
Continue reading ‘Tournament of Champions for Online Gamers & Cosplayers’
Never in the history of Microsoft that they had generated this much excitement over a release of a product (well, maybe the launch of Windows 95 was comparable).
Still the launching of Halo 3 for the XBox 360 breaks all previous records the Redmond-based company had.
HP is promoting its new kick-ass gaming PC called the BlackBird 002. From the outside, it’s looks like an alien casing of sorts but the inside reveals a whole enchilada of geeky goodness.
See specs and pictures after the jump.
GigaOm links to a list of the Top 10 Revenue Models for Free To Play Games and illustrates seven ways to make money from MMOs.
I’m not really familiar with all of these business models but here are some very interesting figures from them:
While shopping for a gaming console last week-end, I asked around the mall how much the big 3 were selling for. The Sony PS3 is now at Php32,000+; the Nintendo Wii at Php16,000+ and the Microsoft XBox 360 at Php19,000+. The bundle comes with controls and several games. These prices are way cheaper than what they used to be early this year.
What I specifically noticed was the absence of XBox 360 consoles in several shops and when I asked one of the sales ladies, she explained that the XBox 360 were pulled out by Microsoft because of defective motherboards. Apparently, she says a lot of customers return their units because of such defects. That’s weird because several friends I know who has the console have had them for months without much problem.
I searched online for any cases related to this but the only ones I’ve stumbled into are the old issues. There aren’t any in recent months. The wikipedia entry for XBox 360 does not mention anything.
Is it possible these units are the really old ones? Anybody else who has an XBox 360 knows about this? I haven’t asked the shops in GreenHills though if they have the same issues.
Been playing this new strategy flash game called Desktop Tower Defense. It’s similar to the Warcraft 3 Tower Defense custom games we used to play before though this one is basically a really simple version.
The Desktop Tower Defense is basically a strategy game where you set up numerous tower defenses in order to protect your desktop from invading critters. You spend gold by creating a combination of any 6 types of towers and you gain gold by destroying the critters.
It’s totally addicting. My highest score is 2,258 playing the normal mode. Here are the maps I built. You can play it too and add your scores to my group scoreboard (group name: yugatech). 
According to GigaOm, World of Warcraft holds the record in their Top 10 Most Popular MMOs. The complete list includes the following:
1. World of Warcraft - 8.5 million subscribers (released 2004)
2. Habbo Hotel - 7.5 million active users (released 2000)
3. RuneScape - 5 million active users (released 2001)
4. Club Penguin - 4 million active users (released 2006)
5. Webkinz - 3.8 million active users (released 2005)
6. Gaia Online - 2 million active users (released 2003)
7. Guild Wars - 2 million active users (released 2005)
8. Puzzle Pirates - 1.5 million active users (released 2003)
9. Lineage I/II - 1 million subscribers (released 1998)
10. Second Life - 500,000 active users (released 2003)
Aside from World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, and Second Life I haven’t heard of the other MMOs. I know Gaia Online but it’s supposed to be a message board or forum (practically the world’s largest message board according to BigBoards with 7,838,975 members).
Guild Wars seems to be doing good here in the Philippines but I wonder why Ragnarok Online isn’t on the list?
The last time I played Magic: The Gathering was way back in college. I was also playing the PC version to practice using other colors I don’t normally use (Blue and White cards). I don’t have cards of my own so I usually borrow from friends or make up a deck from hand-me downs. Those cards were so expensive back then.
That was almost a decade ago. Today, I found an old copy of the PC game from my old archives. Been playing all night.
On another note, check out BBN’s new blog, Vista Pinas, just hot off the press and authored by Eugene Villar (more familiar to us here as vaes). It’s practically the geek’s way to travel the Philippines.
A link from here led me to the Tantra website which calls for interested Tantra bloggers to join the community:
Bloggers Wanted
Are you into Tantra and blogging? Then, you’re exactly what we’re looking for! Share with us snippets of your gaming life and we’ll proudly spotlight them in the new TantraBlogs section.
Interested? Just email samples of your blogs to marketing@tantra.com.ph with the subject heading “TANTRA BLOGS”. Chosen bloggers will be contacted for additional details.
I’m not sure if this is a paid gig or just an open invitation to contribute but by the wording of it looks to me like it’s just for guest bloggers.
Worth a try if you’re into Tantra though.
Just read this news from Inq7.net about “Level-Up! surrenders to underground economy“.
Almost all online virual games such as World of Warcraft (WoW), Ragnarok Online and Second Life suffer from such massive violations. Blizzard responds by banning tens of thousands of accounts caught cheating the system. Level-up! gave in to the mafia and reasons out that:
…online game community has become so organic and so diverse that it would be hard to control people from going beyond the bounds of game rules. It’s not cheating anymore because everyone is doing it already and it’s becoming beneficial for everyone.
This is according to Level-Up! Chief Operating Officer Sheila Paul. Nice one! *hehehe*
What she may have meant there was since everyone is doing it and cashing in on the system, why exert more effort to curb it and spend money when they could join the crowd and possibly increase sales. *heh*
[tags]mmorpg, online games, levelup[/tags]
Imagine playing a network game of Warcraft 3 without a mouse and keyboard? Well, this demo video of a PhD study by Edward Tse (BSc, MSc of Interactions Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary) shows it all using a combination of speech and gesture commands:
See video demo here.
Interaction on a digital table supports face to face collaboration with the added benefits of digital displays (e.g., real time updates, access to the Internet and rich satellite imagery). Core features of my work include rich whole handed bimanual gestures, speech and gesture input, and multi user interaction.
Application areas include tabletop gaming, military command and control, air traffic control and hospital emergency rooms.
Really cool invention. Reminds me of Tom Cruise in the movie Minority Report (2002). It’s not just for computer gaming but a whole plethora of other fields of discipline as well.
Nevertheless, I’d love to try playing Warcraft with that myself. 
[tags]rpg, games, warcraft, blizzard, inventions[/tags]
I rekindled my love, err… addiction, with Warcraft and the whole gang (DOTA Online). For the past several days, I’ve been up whole night playing Warcraft with my brother until we couldn’t bear the early morning sun.
And yes, I get really frustrated with my brother who doesn’t know how the whole art of playing Warcraft from the hero class, abilities, special powers, to Sun Tzu’s Art of War. Nevertheless, we’ve managed to suceed at finishing a scenario after numerous re-starts, combination of heroes and the save-and-reload strategy.
The thing is, I don’t give up so easily yet my brother always say “if only”, which is not an excuse for me by the way. That attitude has drag us to playing over and over again for the the same game in days until we completed the quest.
I remember last night’s topic over at GMA 7’s Debate with Mare and Pare about the lack of classrooms and government budget that causes lower english proficiency among elementary and high school students. Oscar Orbos aptly countered it by saying that if we look for faults somewhere else, we won’t find any solution. We should “make do” with whatever we have and give the best we can.
Ok, I digress…
Anyway, once this addiction is satisfied (hopefully soon), I’ll quit using my gaming PC and start working on long delayed projects.
Apologies to those who are affected in one way or another. Am I still missing a reply to your emails?
I’ve been hearing a lot about game Spore (still in development) from Wil Harris at TWiT. It was recently shown on E3 from the people who also developed The Sims and Sim City.
The premise is simple: take a single-cell organism, then evolve it and modify it all the way up the point where its resultant civilisation takes it up into space. Then, colonise space, form alliances, terraform new planets, and enter a whole new game.
This is the kind of game that when you sit and start playing, you’ll totally forget about the time. Reminds me of the days when Diablo just came out (there was also this custom game on WarCraft entitled “Garden of War” which got me fighting with 8 PC clans all at one — took me hours and hours to successfully finish the scene). Oh, the overnight sessions with my room-mates PC. That’s one reason I wouldn’t install any sort of game on my existing desktop — might give in to the temptation.
[tags]pc games, spore, mmporg, evolution[/tags]
My favorite RPG will be hitting the big screen anytime soon. That’s a big WoW!
Warner Brothers-based Legendary Pictures has picked up film rights to adapt the popular fantasy video game franchise World of Warcraft and will develop the project with game publisher Blizzard Entertainment, which is owned by Vivendi.
Expect some huge actions akin to the Battle of Helm’s Deep in Lord of the Rings.
read more | digg story
[tags]wow, warcraft, movies, rpg, gaming, blizzard, pc gaming, computer games[/tags]
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Tantra is a form of RPG. By infusing an oriental storyline and element to it, the game presents a fresh approach to the popular genre. The characters in the game are subservient to a certain god (the 3 major gods) with their abilities and skills highly dependent on the characteristics of that god. Tantra also has four chakra points and three different ranks to choose from.
All of the three gods in Tantra possesses antagonistic relationships over the subcontinent of India. The game revolves around the exploit of the three gods and the events within the eight tribes of the humans. Each player chooses one major God at the start of the game. Characters with different gods play the game together. Upon reaching a pre-determined level, the players then engage in a battle royale at certain places in the game.