Travianer Dorfleben- An opinion

It's been a week since Travians officially and finally closed its operations. The game just fizzled out of existence, like it was never there, kept alive only by a few videos, a few pictures, and some fond (and not so fond) memories held by former players. Travian Games has closed its game, offering players to instead try out their new game, Miramagia, which some of us wouldn't even touch considering we were still miffed with the company regarding how they treated Travians. But, surprisingly, a new game rather similar to Travians, but graphically superior, is on the horizon: Travianer Dorfleben.

Travianer Dorfleben is a fan made game based on Travians. So far, little information has been released regarding the game, save for the fact that, graphically, it resembles Travians while at the same time surpasses it by being far more detailed. So far, the game isn't even on the Beta stage yet; it's still being developed.

Not much else is known about the project, aside from the fact that it IS approved of by Travian Games, it will NOT be commercialized, and it will be run by the fans of Travians. What this means is that the game is for fans, BY fans.

I for one think this is a GOOD thing, because the game is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a labor of love. This is a group of people working out of their own pocket to somewhat revive, and improve, a game that they had emotionally invested in. This is a game that will never make them a dime, and not to sound cynical, but it might never break the one thousand players total mark. The Facebook page where the game is being announced has 500 members total, myself included. And this is a non commercial work, so I don't see any money being poured into advertising. The game will have to depend on good word of mouth just to get any recognition.

So, why? Why bother making the game? As I said before, it's a labor or love. It's a game made by fans, because they want their favorite game to, one way or another, keep on living. Because they saw the wasted potential that Travian Games did not.

One thing that I'll forever criticize Travian Games of doing is that they did not listen to their player base. When the players asked for more missions, Travian Games gave them a night and day cycle (which, according to my sources, was already produced by a third party programmer.) When the players kept asking for new missions, Travian Games gave them new furniture sets to buy, which were already designed by many fans of the game. And when the game started dying, Travian Games played the fiddle as Rome burned. All the players wanted was content of value, something to keep them playing, and TG failed them. Miserably.

But now, Travianer Dorfleben is being run by those very same fans. And best of all, since it won't be a commercial game, it truly will be Free to Play! No more need to spend real money on the game, the game will be free!

I'm of the opinion that, when the game launches, even if the game won't be popular, it will at least be good. Who knows? It might be even better than the original! All the evidence seems to point towards that notion!

Edutainment (Done Wrong)- Captain Novolin

Edutainment: entertainment that educates, or a work that both entertains AND teaches at the same time. Edutainment is a staple of development, and in fact might be one of the most effective teaching tool available. Works of edutainment require a LOT of skill and dedication, as well as expertise in not just the art of entertainment, but the science of teaching as well. Edutainment, then, becomes a hybrid of science and art, a work whose value is measured not just in its artistic merit, but on its educational effectiveness as well. Films, television, music, even video games can be venues for edutainment, and today we look at a game that absolutely failed at its job to both educate AND entertain: Captain Novolin.

A good compliment I can give the game is that the box art reflects the game's spirit.

Nina's Death- Harvest Moon A Wonderful Life

Harvest Moon is that series of games where you can just sit back, relax, and play to your heart's content without needing any violence, sexuality, double entendres, or any vulgarity. It is safe, clean family fun. But once in a while, this series does something that hits the player hard. Today's blog entry seeks to analyze one of the sadder moments in the franchise: the death of Nina in Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life.

Yes, this game IS as cute as the box suggests.

Games I'm planning

Due to reasons of health, and that tomorrow is my birthday, there will not be a new blog entry today, save for some news...

First off, recall that RPG I mentioned earlier this month? Well, I've recently downloaded RPG Maker 2003, so now I officially have something that can help me make the game! I am currently experimenting on how to make games on this software, and have so far managed to do the following:

1-Make a map
2-Make a dungeon
3-Make a town
4-Make a boss battle
5-Make a cutscene

All that in under 24 hours. However, I have much, much, MUCH to learn, including the following:

1-Make custom sprites
2-Make an introductory movie
3-Make a shop
4-Add in custom music

Among millions of other things. I am a quick learner, but I am also a man who wants to do a good job. So, don't expect the game to come out any time soon...

That said, don't despair just yet. I AM learning, and doing so with much eagerness. This is quite fun for me, and it's something I've wanted to do a while now! I've even got a couple of games I'm interested in making, but so far these are just "pies in the sky" dreams, for now. Here's a quick run down on a few RPG's I'm interested in making:

1- An RPG starring a group of five heroes, heavily based on the Super Sentai and Power Rangers franchises. This one will be making a lot of use of Character Transformation, as can be guessed.

2- A horror game in the style of Uri's games like Mermaid Swamp or The Crooked Man, about a man who goes to the mountains of San Sebastian, Puerto Rico, and find a ghost woman with worms coming out of her mouth. I intend to release it in Spanish and English if it's ever made. The man does his research on the ghost, and finds that his town has a forgotten history. Themes I want to touch are History, Revenge, the Paranormal, traditions, among others.

I apologize for not having a blog entry today, but again, I am feeling under the weather. Hopefully I'll have something by Tuesday.

Online Toxicity- How to be an Asshole on League of Legends

The following is satire. It is meant to shed a light on the unacceptable behavior that many online game players partake in, particularly in League of Legends. DO NOT do anything this list tells you to do. Do the OPPOSITE of what this list tells you to do. This list does NOT reflect how I really feel, it reflects the exact opposite. Again, this is SATIRE.

You know what I'm sick and tired of seeing online? I'm sick and tired of seeing people be courteous to each other even after they completely screwed up my winning streak. I am tired as hell of the guy who lost us the game asking for forgiveness in lobby. I am sick of having to share credit with my support or my jungler for MY kills, even if the jungler applied the crowd control needed for me to get the kill and the support gave me heals and buffs whenever the enemy got lucky and managed to gang up on me. I am sick and tired of having to deal with junglers who don't gank for me whenever I ORDER them to. Do you feel like I do? Then here's a few quick tips on how to get the right attitude on League of Legends!

Lakeview Cabin- A Quick Analysis

Lakeview Cabin is a free to play Flash Game hosted on Newgrounds as well as Gamejolt. In it, you play a red haired man who's in a woodland cabin on an island in the middle of a lake, most likely enjoying a well earned vacation. A little beer, a little fresh air, some peace and quite, and a nearby topless beach frequented by nubile women, what more can a man ask for? Well, how about not being attacked by a vengeful zombie?

Goodbye, Travians

I meant to leave this blog entry for the 25th of July, but I feel like this is as good a time as any. On the day of July 25, 2014, Travians will close its operations.

Travians was a browser game, free to play (but with some premium content for people willing to pay for it), and somewhat addicting...at first. The meat of the game has always been chatting and sharing with other players, playing mini games with them, having battles, and so forth. Players were encouraged to make friends in game, to trade with them, and have fun. It was a community driven game.

I started playing Travians on the summer of 2009, five years ago. It was my first MMO experience, and it was my gateway to Internet culture. Way back then, the game was PACKED. It was not unusual to see over a thousand players at the same time, all online. The game was a whole year old by that time, so that may explain why it was so popular at the time. I met plenty of people in the game, two of which I still communicate with to this day.

Travians was more than just a chat room with a game attached; there's also a mission based game in there. Your character (one per account) lives up to 111 days (and no, not in game days, I mean Real Life days), and once day 111 comes and goes, your character dies, bringing forth a new generation for your character. Think of it like "levels", and your character goes up a "level" every 111 days. These "levels" are called Generation, abbreviated in game as gen. My character lived to gen 10, and if I had played consistently in 2012, I'd be gen 13.

The game gives you missions from gens 1 to 3. That means you are given a year to finish the game's missions. What happens if you pass a generation without finishing the missions? Well...no penalty! The game just pretends that you passed the mission! Not like it mattered, because the only thing the missions were good for was advancing the story; there were no other rewards, at all. Although this was a huge flaw in the game, the missions were entertaining...at first. More on this later.

Between missions, you were encouraged to chat with friends. There were no less than 12 different chat rooms on the main hud, with many more individual chat rooms per player AND player's house AND guild house! And there were also several chat rooms for the clubs as well! The game really heavily emphasized friendships and inter player communication!

I met a lot of friends there, and no one I wish I had never met. The game was there for me when I needed someone to talk to. The game was there to entertain me on many lonely days and nights. I once stayed up to 5 AM playing the game! I have some great memories from this game...

But the game died out a long time ago. When once there were almost a thousand players online, there were suddenly 250 people online. And then 150 people online at a time. And then...80 people. Of 1650 accounts, only 80 would be online at a time. What happened? Why did the player base shrink so badly?

One of the game's biggest flaws was the fact that, after gen 3 there was NOTHING to do. Every day you came online, it'd be the same thing: you collected resources, you sold resources, you would chat with friends if they were online, you would attend community actions. Lather, rinse, repeat. Every day. Many, many players would delete their accounts due to the absolute boredom brought upon them by this horrid routine. I have had many friends abandon the game because of this.

There were no new missions added to the game until about late 2012, but by then it was too little, too late. A good chunk of the player base was gone, and those that stayed had no interest in the new missions anyway. By then, the game was more of a chore for most players, with many simply ignoring the rest of the game and simply focusing on community actions. That's what happened to me.

And then one day, I stopped caring.

The game held many memories for me, both good and bad. But for a long time, it was nothing but the bad memories that came to me every time I logged on. It was the memories of friends who never bothered to say goodbye, of drama, of sleepless nights where I needed a friend most and no one was online. And other memories too, that I'd rather not write about here, sorry.

So I stopped logging in. There were days where I'd think about deleting my account, but I never got around to it. I would log in again, play a while, and then I'd log out. And it was like that for a long time.

And then one day, I got the message. On June 15, I logged in, and read that in one month, the game was closing, for good. I guess the message hit me harder than expected. I have spent a few days just thinking about everything, you know? About how life changes, and how sometimes these changes are good, and sometimes these changes are not so good on the surface.

A few days before, on June 11, I had to put my dog down. I had that dog for 15 years, which makes that most of my life. I knew it was coming, for a long time I knew. And then, boom. It happened. It had to happen. The dog was no longer walking, confined to his little bed, wetting himself, whining every minute or so. It was way more painful than expected, and I expected a lot of emotional pain.

Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you like that, you know? You never know when what you thought would always be there, will go away. I had that dog for 15 years. I've played Travians for five years. And next month, both will be little more than a memory.

But I'm not angry, or sad, or even nostalgic. Yes, I'll miss them both, but my memories are still in my heart. let me share some about Travians.

Christmas 2009, I got up extra early to play with my present, Disgaea 3. While I gave my little brother a turn at the PS3, I logged onto Travians and just spent the whole morning chatting, having fun. I will always remember that Christmas.

August 2010, a friend of mine had died. She and I would chat in the game every day, just talking, sharing stories, joking around. She was 15 at the time. Kate was her name. To this day I remember the absolute shock I felt hearing the news.

I am thankful for my time with Travians. I met good people, had some good times, some not so good times, and some fun moments that will live on in my heart. I welcome change, even if it doesn't seem like the change is good.

There is nothing left to do, but to say goodbye. It is often said that the most painful words in the English language are "good bye", and make no mistake, these words have destroyed countless hearts. But to me, maybe these words can act as a release, as a way to close a chapter of our lives in order to start a new one. So, good bye.

Good bye, Travians.

Primal Rage- Did it deserve to become a franchise?

Way back in 1994, there were two very big fighting games that were leading the Silver Age of the Video Game Arcade: Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat. During this time, fighting games were being released left and right by companies looking to get a slice of that pie. Some games were good, like Virtua Fighter, while others were, well, pure garbage, like Tattooed Assassins. During this year, Atari released a game that did absolutely nothing new of importance, save show how much damage combos did, and allow mini games to occur during a match. And this game was called Primal Rage. Plans were made for a sequel, but it never came to be. Today I ask the question: did the game deserve better than a single title? Did Primal Rage deserve to become a franchise?

Left to Right: Talon, Sauron, Chaos, Armadon, Diablo, Blizzard, Vertigo

The Case for a New Darkstalkers Game

Darkstalkers is one of those franchises that has its fans, but isn't the household name it deserves to be. It's a series of fighting games starring a collection of B-Movie horror icons such as a Frankenstein's Monster, a Vampire, a Succubus, a Creature from the Black Lagoon, a Yeti, a Werewolf, an Alien, among others. The first game was released in 1994 in what was the first years of the Golden Age of the 2D Fighter, when companies like Capcom, Midway, and SNK were releasing genre defining titles like Art of Fighting, Street Fighter 2, and Mortal Kombat. Sadly, this franchise, unlike Street Fighter, has been mostly ignored by Capcom since 1997, the last time a NEW game was released for the franchise. Since then, the only use Capcom has made of the franchise was to use some of its characters in their many, many spinoffs, or re-releasing the older games on consoles. Today, however, I'd like to enumerate a few quick reasons why Capcom should make a Darkstalkers 4. I'll start off with the less important reasons and lead up to the most important one.

"Tom Clancy's Bonestorm"- A rebuttal

So on Thursday, I wrote a blog entry decrying the undue harassment that Samantha Allen had received following her critique of Giant Bomb's decision to hire another white guy. Today, however, I put aside that in order to critique a writing of hers, named "Tom Clancy's Bonestorm 2014, and why video game titles need to grow up". Why do I do this? Because I believe in debate, I believe in civil discourse, and also, because I believe she deserves to see that whatever criticism she gets is well warranted. This blog entry will contain her original writing uncensored, copy pasted directly from a link that will be provided at the end of this paragraph, with a break between paragraphs to offer my rebuttal. Anything she originally wrote will be in bold, and my rebuttal will be written beneath that. The following is done for educational and critical purposes, and thus is protected under copyright law. Her original work can be found here: http://www.polygon.com/2014/6/27/5841360/the-problem-with-game-names

On Samantha Allen and Online Harassment.

So today I was in Tumblr, just minding my own business, when I come across a blog with this screen capture:

Stay classy

Samantha Allen is an online writer who specializes in feminist topics and media, kind of like Anita Sarkeesian, except without a Kickstarter that gained 150K bucks for a 12 part video series that has only released four videos thus far. I took to her website, read a few of her articles, and to be honest, I was not impressed. Her writing style is to the point, but a good look at how she titles her articles makes it clear that she's not here to open up our minds to new ideas so much as she aims to shove her ideas into our heads. That, however, is merely my opinion and impression, and because I believe in letting other people make up their own minds, I offer this link which contains links to several of her writings:   http://samanthaleighallen.wordpress.com/games-writing/

So on June 30th, Samantha Allen wrote a tweet expressing disappointment in Giant Bomb hiring yet another white guy as a writer. Giant Bomb is an online gaming site that hosts game reviews, editorials, and such. Let's take a good look at that picture above: a feminist is expressing disappointment in a video game website hiring someone she does not approve of due to the color of his skin, and we have someone else asking her an honest question: what if the white guy was the most qualified?

Just for fun- An RPG With a Gay Lead!

A few months ago, I was watching the then latest episode of Game Theory, and it said that LGBT representation in gaming is, well...crap. It seems that for every game with a positive representation of LGBT people, there are 10 games with negative representation, and for every 1 game with any LGBT representation (good or bad), there's 55 games without it. For example, Poison from Final Fight has to be the most well known transsexual in video games (though FAR from being the only one) and not only is she a villain, she's just one of many, many mooks for you to beat up. Another example is "Shemale Bop" in Grand Theft Auto V, which, like most media, makes transsexuals and transvestites into little more than a joke. Anyway, my point is, we need better representation of LGBT's in gaming, and today, I am here to propose we make a game that does just that.


Here's my idea. We make an RPG, because this genre is the one that allows for the best storytelling, and that just happens to be my specialty. Anyway, here's the short synopsis: You have two characters, the hero and his boyfriend. The boyfriend happens to be a martial arts expert and is teaching the hero all about some skills. The boyfriend gets called by the mayor of their city to go to the local cave and deal with a monster, so he takes the hero along to test his skills. This is the tutorial dungeon, and the boss is a monster with about 300 health.