Filed under: Rise and Shiny

Rise and Shiny recap: Global Agenda

by Beau Hindman Aug 29th 2010 at 4:00PM

Filed under: Sci-fi, Screenshots, Video, Events, in-game, Reviews, Opinion, Hands-on, MMOFPS, Global Agenda, Humor, Rise and Shiny

PvP is a funny thing. Essentially, it is a glorified game of tag. There are variations on the theme, of course: freeze tag, Marco Polo, or Hide-and-Seek. Most of us have had the pleasure of spending a summer evening playing it with our friends. I know that when we played it, we added the dimension of The Woods (as they were known) and all that hiding in those woods on a dark summer evening implies. It was intense, I remember. Once, I hid under a pile of leaves for 40 minutes, scared out of my mind, while my buddy tried to find me.

Good PvP can be like that, but bad PvP can ruin your evening. Bad PvP, like a rainstorm during a campout, usually ends with one or more participants taking the event way too seriously. But when you spend a few hours in good PvP, running around shooting at strangers, throwing mines at each other and getting shot down by automated turrets, your heart will race and you will realize that you have had a smile on your face most of the time.

Global Agenda has that effect on me, like a good game of tag.

Rise and Shiny recap: Alganon

by Beau Hindman Aug 22nd 2010 at 10:00AM

Filed under: Fantasy, Galleries, Screenshots, Video, Events, in-game, Reviews, PvE, Opinion, Free-to-play, Hands-on, Casual, Alganon, Rise and Shiny

We have all heard of the controversy surrounding Alganon. Essentially, it breaks down into a few basic points: it is a "WoW clone," and it is being run by Derek Smart, a say-it-like-you-mean-it development bad-boy. Many claim he looks for negative attention and enjoys arguing with players. To be blunt, I don't care what people think about Derek Smart. I have said it before: I actually believe that he reacts to negative attention the way other developers wish they could. I don't keep track of his battles, though; I keep track of what he has done in gaming. All I know is that before he was with Alganon, I did not enjoy the game. After he became involved, the game got better.

Concerning the "WoW-clone" issue: If I had a gold piece for every time I've heard that, I could afford that incredible level 50 mount! (*snort*) If I took a moment to break down all games that have similarities to WoW, this article would be much, much longer than it needs to be. WoW was successful, and the industry takes cues from success. WoW took its own cues from other games before that. Still, does Alganon take more from WoW than, say, Lord of the Rings Online?

Read on, and let's discuss it.

Rise and Shiny recap: A Tale in the Desert V

by Beau Hindman Aug 15th 2010 at 12:00PM

Filed under: Historical, Real life, Video, A Tale in the Desert, Events, in-game, Reviews, Hands-on, Casual, Rise and Shiny

A Tale in the Desert V is a non-combat crafting paradise. That might sound a little strange, but the developers encourage players to work together to accomplish bigger and better things, making them feel as though they are part of a community. I have tried the game at different times over the years but never really became more than a visitor. I was glad to be given the opportunity to check it out, but even after a week I still feel like I have barely scratched the surface. I have emerged from the tutorial a smarter citizen, but I know that around the corner, greater challenges wait.

The game is not without its flaws, however, although many of the issues might fade as systems and controls become more apparent. Still, I found myself a little frustrated when the game asked me to sit and literally watch grass grow. I did it, though, and found an odd game, filled with mysteries. In a good way, of course.

Rise and Shiny recap: Zentia

by Beau Hindman Aug 8th 2010 at 4:00PM

Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, Video, Events, in-game, Reviews, Free-to-play, Hands-on, Casual, Kids, Family, Rise and Shiny

Each week Rise and Shiny asks you to download and try a different free-to-play, indie or unusual game, chosen by me, Beau Hindman. Some of the games will be far out of your gaming comfort zone, and some will pleasantly surprise you. We will meet each Tuesday and Friday night at 9 p.m. EDT (8 p.m. CDT), followed by this column the Sunday after. I welcome any suggestions for games, either in the comments or at beau@massively.com or Twitter me @Beau_Hindman.

It's hard for a game to strike a perfect balance of fun and challenge. In fact, I'd say it's the result of otherworldly forces as much as it is the hard work of the developer. Many of the greatest games I have ever played are a conglomerate of many factors that were beyond the control of the artists, writers and producers who first crafted the world. Sometimes, the crew must simply hope that its ship floats, and that it happens to set her to sail just as the weather is perfect.

Then a game like ChangYou's Zentia comes along, a game that has all the wonderful qualities I am looking for -- as the result of some very smart, specific design choices made by some very creative people. Sure, I discovered the game on accident (I wasn't actively looking for a game the day Zentia fell into my lap), but the game has obviously been crafted with precision and care.

If you'd like to read up on some of the details of the game, you can check out our E3 coverage here, or read an article of mine here. Also, you can get your closed beta key here. Otherwise, see me after the break, and be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments section!

Rise and Shiny recap: Dream of Mirror Online

by Beau Hindman Aug 1st 2010 at 10:00AM

Filed under: Fantasy, Screenshots, Video, Events, in-game, Reviews, Free-to-play, Hands-on, Dream of Mirror Online, Casual, Humor, Kids, Rise and Shiny

Each week Rise and Shiny asks you to download and try a different free-to-play, indie or unusual game, chosen by me, Beau Hindman. Some of the games will be far out of your gaming comfort zone, and some will pleasantly surprise you. We will meet each Tuesday and Friday night at 9 p.m. EDT (8 p.m. CDT), followed by this column the Sunday after. I welcome any suggestions for games, either in the comments or at beau@massively.com or Twitter me @Beau_Hindman.

At some point in his life, every man has to attempt to grow a beard. I am not talking about a finely chisled goatee, or one of those odd looking Robin Hood-type deals. I am talking about a full beard, a substantial mound of hair rooted in our face -- an escape-attempt by the very testosterone that makes us a man in the first place. I knew I had a chance this time when, after suggesting to my wife what I would attempt, she only shrugged. Normally she pulls on any scruff that pops out of my chin and says, "You look homeless. Shave."

As you grow this beard, there will be times when you will be very conscious of it.

When you first step out of the shower
When you are eating and food falls into it
When you are playing MMORPGs

Some MMOs are better suited to a beard: EVE Online, for example. EverQuest II will feel all right. World of Warcraft? Only while PvPing. If you're like me, though, and spend most of your time within balloon-bright cartoon-fests like Dream of Mirror Online, then you might be surprised at how it feels while playing bearded .

Rise and Shiny recap: Istaria

by Beau Hindman Jul 25th 2010 at 10:00AM

Filed under: Fantasy, Sci-fi, Events, in-game, Reviews, Free-to-play, Browser, Casual, Family, Rise and Shiny

Each week Rise and Shiny asks you to download and try a different free-to-play, indie or unusual game, chosen by me, Beau Hindman. Some of the games will be far out of your gaming comfort zone, and some will pleasantly surprise you. We will meet each Tuesday and Friday night at 9 p.m. EDT (8 p.m. CDT), followed by this column the Sunday after. I welcome any suggestions for games, either in the comments or at beau@massively.com.

Istaria: Chronicles of the Gifted is not a new game, by any means. You probably remember it being called Horizons. I have tried this game probably several times over the last few years. Despite having a decent enough time with each attempt, I never had as much fun as I have during this last week of playing. Let this advice stick: give a game several chances, if you can. Don't let a developer's financial woes dissuade you from giving it a go again. Most of the time you can try it again without spending a dime.

I'm glad I returned to Istaria. Everything seemed to click for me, more than it did before. It could be that I never took the time to really get to know the quests or the abilities my character gained, and it could be that I played mostly solo during that time. Over this last week I adventured with an elf and a few dragons, and found a world, game, and community that was pretty darn inviting.

Rise and Shiny recap: Mytheon

by Beau Hindman Jul 18th 2010 at 10:00AM

Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, Video, Events, in-game, Opinion, Hands-on, Humor, Mytheon, Rise and Shiny

Each week Rise and Shiny asks you to download and try a different free-to-play, indie or unusual game, chosen by me, Beau Hindman. Some of the games will be far out of your gaming comfort zone, and some will pleasantly surprise you. We will meet each Tuesday and Friday night at 9 p.m. EDT (8 p.m. CDT time) followed by this column the Sunday after. I welcome any suggestions for games, either in the comments or at beau@massively.com.

I'm a simple man. I need a strong cup of coffee in the morning, walks with my two dogs, a kiss from my wife -- and giants. Lots of giants. Mytheon is a perfect game for a simple man like me. It installs easily and the controls are basic. It is by no means perfect, but I am not sure that it is trying to be. Like me, it's simple. It wants you to control miniature armies of centaurs, cyclopses and skeletons, and it wants you to kill things while controlling that army.

See? Simple.

Rise and Shiny recap: AdventureQuest Worlds

by Beau Hindman Jul 11th 2010 at 1:00PM

Filed under: Free-to-play, Browser, Kids, Family, Rise and Shiny

Each week Rise and Shiny asks you to download and try a different free-to-play game, chosen by me, Beau Hindman. Some of the games will be far out of your gaming comfort zone, and some will pleasantly surprise you. We will meet each Tuesday and Friday night at 8 PM Central time, followed by this column the Sunday after. I welcome any suggestions for games, either in the comments or at beau@massively.com.

Making games for younger players has to be a very difficult undertaking. Think about today's informed youth, especially compared to my generation. When I was 13, I made forts and had BB gun fights, but modern 13-year-olds carry cell phones in their pockets and have constant access to the internet. Gaming is winning out, though, by being provided with a massive (and growing) audience of willing players.

When you are making a game for this savvy audience, you had better have all your digital ducks in a row. AdventureQuest Worlds is designed well enough to satisfy a large range of age groups and levels of experience, and for that, Artix Entertainment should be proud. Still, there is plenty that could be changed about the game to make it even more friendly.

Rise and Shiny recap: Sacred Seasons 2

by Beau Hindman Jul 4th 2010 at 4:00PM

Filed under: Trailers, Events, in-game, Reviews, Free-to-play, Browser, Rise and Shiny

Each week Rise and Shiny asks you to download and try a different free-to-play game, chosen by me, Beau Hindman. Some of the games will be far out of your gaming comfort zone, and some will pleasantly surprise you. We will meet each Tuesday and Friday night at 8 PM Central time, followed by this column the Sunday after. I welcome any suggestions for games, either in the comments or at beau@massively.com.

There seems to be some confusion as to what the point of this column is. Just to clarify, my job with this column is to act like an actual newbie, to find small or unusual games, and to report on my findings after one week of play. While this might seem a bit harsh, I am very upfront about my intentions and think that the experience that a new player would have within a week of play is not only valid, but one of the most important times for a player. Unfortunately, this means that sometimes I will play a game in ways it was never intended, or I will review a game without knowing what might come further down the road. I generally stay away from the game's website and only gather information from the offerings in-world.

This means that, when I do find amazing games, they have done a darn fine job. This can also mean that, as in the case of Sacred Seasons 2, I stumble across a game that is very much in development.

Rise and Shiny recap: Pandora Saga

by Beau Hindman Jun 26th 2010 at 3:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Events, in-game, Opinion, Free-to-play, Hands-on, Rise and Shiny

Each week Rise and Shiny asks you to download and try a different free-to-play game, chosen by me, Beau Hindman. Some of the games will be far out of your gaming comfort zone, and some will pleasantly surprise you. We will meet each Tuesday and Friday night at 8 PM Central time, followed by this column the Saturday after. I welcome any suggestions for games, either in the comments or at beau at massively dot com.

Pandora Saga is a great looking game, for sure. The very first thing I thought upon logging in was "This looks like Final Fantasy XI ramped up." Perhaps it all falls under some kind of overseas sub-genre of Anime-esque entertainment, featuring one giant race, one cute race and a couple regular ole' races. Frankly, I have never been a fan of Anime and can actually stomach the more "realistic" stuff less than the cutesy, giant-headed style, so Pandora Saga took some getting used to.

Once I did, though, I found a pretty stout game that would work well for someone that has the time to dedicate themselves to one game. Even then, I think that a strong guild is must, being that many quests require a good deal of murdering. Come to think of it, this game is a lot like FFXI.

Rise and Shiny recap: Hello Kitty Online

by Beau Hindman Jun 19th 2010 at 3:00PM

Filed under: Events, in-game, Reviews, Opinion, Free-to-play, Casual, Hello Kitty Online, Kids, Family, Rise and Shiny

Each week Rise and Shiny asks you to download and try a different free-to-play game, chosen by me, Beau Hindman. Some of the games will be far out of your gaming comfort zone, and some will pleasantly surprise you. We will meet each Tuesday and Friday night at 8 PM Central time, followed by this column the Saturday after. I welcome any suggestions for games, either in the comments or at beau at massively dot com.

This week I asked my readers to man (or woman) up and download Hello Kitty Online by Sanrio Digital. I'm a firm believer in the old saying "Looks can be deceiving" and have tried to keep that in mind as I look for games. After all, what is the difference between fluffy pink and white bunnies and giant robots that throw hissy fits? In fact, if I were to ask my readers what makes up the difference between a game like Hello Kitty Online and a game like Lord of the Rings Online, they might only shrug and say "C'mon, Beau, you can see the difference."

Remember, though, that we can still pull emotions out of cartoon characters just like we can out of more realistic ones, and it has been shown that many moviegoers actually feel more connected to stylized characters over super-realistic representations. I wonder if Hello Kitty Online can inspire the same strong emotions that a hardcore raider feels?

Rise and Shiny recap: Craft of Gods

by Beau Hindman Jun 12th 2010 at 3:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Events, in-game, Reviews, Opinion, Hands-on, Rise and Shiny

Each week Rise and Shiny asks you to download and try a different free-to-play game, chosen by me, Beau Hindman. Some of the games will be far out of your gaming comfort zone, and some will pleasantly surprise you. We will meet each Tuesday and Friday night at 8 PM Central time, followed by this column the Saturday after. I welcome any suggestions for games, either in the comments or at beau at massively dot com.

This week I asked you to take a look at Craft of Gods, an independent game from Kalicanthus Entertaintment. At first glance I was excited to try it, given that it promised a lot of what I normally value in an MMORPG. I usually ask my readers to try a free-to-play game, but the 10-day free trial would provide us with enough time to get a good grip on what the game has to offer.

I warn you, though, this review will not be pretty. I really wish it could be, being that my independent run has been so haphazard as of late, but this game was pushed out much too early and it shows. Read on!

Rise and Shiny recap: Eternal Lands

by Beau Hindman Jun 5th 2010 at 3:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Events, in-game, Reviews, Opinion, Free-to-play, Rise and Shiny

Each week Rise and Shiny asks you to download and try a different free-to-play game, decided by me, Beau Hindman. Some of the games will be far out of your gaming comfort zone, and some will pleasantly surprise you. We will meet each Tuesday and Friday night at 8 PM Central time, followed by this column the Saturday after. I welcome any suggestions for games, either in the comments or at beau at massively dot com.

As someone that prefers digging through old forum posts, little-read blogs and strange Twitter links to find odd independent games over downloading the latest mega-game, I have to be able to tolerate a lot of bad design. Design is everything, especially in gaming. Gameplay matters nothing if no one wants to look your way, and independent games could take a few cues on design from the mainstream. It's the same way with music and movies.

As I have been playing Eternal Lands over this last week, I couldn't help but feel I was visiting some kind of weekend project, (which may indeed be the case.) I decided to use the music and movie industry as an example to highlight the issues with this very rough-around-the-edges indie MMORPG.

Rise and Shiny recap: Earth Eternal

by Beau Hindman May 29th 2010 at 5:00PM

Filed under: Betas, Reviews, Free-to-play, Browser, Hands-on, Casual, Rise and Shiny

Each week Rise and Shiny asks you to download and try a different free-to-play game, chosen by me, Beau Hindman. Some of the games will be far out of your gaming comfort zone, and some will pleasantly surprise you. We will meet each Tuesday and Friday night at 8 PM Central time, with a recap column on Saturday. I welcome any suggestions for games, either in the comments or at beau at massively dot com.

I have been a fan of Earth Eternal since participating in the very unplayable closed beta, but never really got far beyond the first few levels. Lately, though, I have fallen in love with the toy-like nature of the game; it's bright, shiny and plastic. It can run on a netbook (I know, I ran it on mine) and looks pretty good considering the low hardware requirements needed to run it. While I have to admit being initially turned off by the "furry" nature of the game, I later found the community to be almost completely helpful and friendly. I'm glad I decided to take a deeper look at the game over the last week.

Rise and Shiny Recap: Face of Mankind

by Beau Hindman May 22nd 2010 at 7:00PM

Filed under: Events, in-game, PvP, Opinion, Humor, Rise and Shiny

There is always someone better than you. You can practice your jumping, your strafing and your abilities, but there will always be another player who will take you down. The goal of PvP in any MMO is not to avoid dying, but to avoid dying more than your opponent.
Death is but a pause in combat. This might sound like a cool "Peace is just preparation for war!" type of saying, but I mean it literally. In every PvP-centric game I have played, death is just a slap on the wrist. Players can take your loot or sit on your corpse, but otherwise you pop up seconds later, no worse for the wear. While games like EVE Online and Face of Mankind try to make death more "deathy," it really only makes me concentrate on the fact that I am playing a game. If you want me to fear something, to feel real excitement, make death something that I regret.
PvPers have potty mouths. PvP game developers would never want to police their chat or do anything so carebearish, for fear that their playerbase would go find a game in which they could use all the naughty words they wanted to. I am not sure I understand why it is hardcore, or even cool, to allow players to use the names and language they do, but so be it. I have said naughty things in my life, too, but be warned if you have virgin ears that a PvP game will test your patience.

Massively Features

Events Calendar

Name	Date
Dragon*Con	Sep 3-6, 2010
PAX Prime	Sep 3-5, 2010
Clone Wars Adventures Launch	Sep 15, 2010
Final Fantasy XIV Launch	Sep 30, 2010
GDC Online	Oct 5-8, 2010
LEGO Universe Launch	Oct 26, 2010
DCUO Launch	Nov 2, 2010

Massively Staff

Name	Title
Shawn Schuster	Editor-in-Chief
Seraphina Brennan	Senior Editor
Brianna Royce	West Coast Editor
Dan O'Halloran	Features Coordinator
Brendan Drain	Contributing Editor
Eliot Lefebvre	Contributing Editor
Jef Reahard	Contributing Editor
Justin Olivetti	Contributing Editor
Krystalle Voecks	Contributing Editor
Rubi Bayer	Contributing Editor
Tateru Nino	Contributing Editor
Beau Hindman	Columnist
Edward Marshall	Columnist
Greg Waller	Columnist
Jeremy Stratton	Columnist
Larry Everett	Columnist
MJ Guthrie	Columnist
Patrick Mackey	Columnist
Ryan Greene	Columnist
Lisa Poisso	Columnist