Here’s an interesting MMORPG development: City of Heroes is going to add a system in which players will be able to generate content which other players will be able to then experience. Actually, content is too broad a word most likely: it seems limited to the creation of missions (which are basically dungeons with storylines), not artwork or anything of that nature.

This is (as I sort of already said…) an interesting development in the MMORPG field. I can imagine a lot of extremely interesting things that players could do with this sort of thing, assuming, of course, that the developers make the tools powerful enough.

Read the rest of this entry »

Drocketville is starting to look more interesting. If you look closely, you’ll see that there are a few industry-type buildings (though not really very many compared to the number of houses.) There’s also a police station. What would be really cool would be if there would be a supermarket and a couple of gas stations… Ah well.

Read the rest of this entry »

And 200 too, actually, as I forgot to post a picture of that milestone. Here it is at population 200:

Read the rest of this entry »

I subscribe to a whole lot of political newsletters, both Republican and Democratic. Today I got an email from the McCain campaign asking me to take a survey on “Critical Issues”. I’ve heard of push-polling before, but this breaks a record, I think. Some of the funniest questions in the poll:

Do you feel the U.S. Tax code should be made simpler and fairer?
Should “pork-barrel” spending be completely eliminated?
Should America surrender in Iraq regardless of the consequences in the Middle East?
Do you believe we should set a public date for withdrawing from Iraq even if it undermines our troops in the field?
Should we appoint judges who will interpret the law instead of liberal activists who will make new laws from the bench?
Do you think we should work to give parents with children trapped in failing schools more choices to help their children have a better future?
Should the Victory 2008 program be focused on turning out the Republican vote and registering 2 million new Republican voters?

Full survey below the fold:

Read the rest of this entry »

My fancy new Bluetooth keyboard. I got it today. I actually got it free, through Microsoft Live Search Club.  It wasn’t the keyboard they originally had up as a redemption item – it was an older model, I believe, but that went out of stock.  I originally ordered it back in January, and contacted them earlier this month after the 12 week waiting period had passed.  Today I got this in the mail.

Read the rest of this entry »

Drocketville has now hit a population of 100. Actually, its up to a population of 186, but this is the 100 person update/screenshot, since I’m keeping a record of its growth. The reason it’s growing so fast all of a sudden is because I signed up for a link exchange program (This one here). The way it works is that, once you sign up, you click other people’s links (many of them for other MyMiniCitys, some for other similar pyramid-scheme websites.) Each click gives you credits, which you then spend by having your link displayed for others to click.

Read the rest of this entry »

Naturalchemist is a game I discovered via an ad displayed on MyMiniCity. It is, in fact, made by the same people, Motion-Twin, a french company that seems to specialize in web-based games. Most of them are still only available in French, but they’ve made a few of their games available in English (and other languages.) Naturalchemist is one of these games.

Naturalchemist – you know, how do you pronounce that anyway? All I can really come up with is sort of slurring the two words together. Anyway, Naturalchemist is a web-based game that has two parts. The first part is a Flash game in which a pair of alchemical items (potions, feather, apples, eyeballs, etc) drop from the top of the screen. Your goal is to match 3 or more like items. What makes this interesting is that when a match is made, the items are transmuted into an item of the next higher level. Three orange potions become a purple potion, three purple potions become a feather, and so on.

Read the rest of this entry »

Drocketville hit a population of 50 today. Its rather interesting comparing the changes in the city between a population of 25 and 50, seeing small houses become larger and dirt roads get paved. I plan to continue taking screenshots of the city at probably population 75 and 100, and probably every 50 past then.

I’ve been thinking about writing a series of reviews of casual games lately, and I thought I’d start with a game so casual, I’m not really sure if it qualifies as a game. Possibly more of a viral marketing campaign. I’m speaking of MyMiniCity.com, a site where you can ‘build’ a Simcity-like city via nothing more than spamming forums with links.

Read the rest of this entry »

For the past month or so, I’ve been playing Lord of the Rings Online. Its not really a terribly deep game – hit things with a sword until they die, take their loot, repeat – but I’ve been having fun so far. Its a rather casual game. Well, so far, at least. World of Warcraft promised to be casual too, at low levels, but it lied… So far, though, I’ve been doing fairly well in LOTRO just playing off and on solo.

In some ways, the game manages to combine some of the aspects of WoW that I like (in that its virtually a clone, mechanic-wise) with some of the aspects of UO, specifically the ‘real world’ feeling.

Read the rest of this entry »