Wind Slayer, 2D Side-Scrolling MMORPG Enters Open-Beta It’s kind of cool that MMOs are taking on new forms of uniqueness and originality. The next MMO in the line-up of today’s MMO news happens to be Wind Slayer, a side-scrolling RPG by Outspark Games. And starting today, players can partake in the open-beta, complete with special events and player-versus-player battles.
Featuring six classes, a large world to explore with various locales, PVP battles with up to 20 players and free-to-play events, Wind Slayer isn’t a bad sounding game, on paper. There are supposedly hundreds of quests to partake in and tons of items to acquire. You know the standard-fare MMORPG stuff.
What is unique about this game, though, is that during its open-beta there are plenty of events scheduled to take place for this game. You can check out the event schedule below or visit the Official Wind Slayer Website for more information about the game.
• February 4-10 “Second Chance Event”: Play and reach Level 10 by February 10th and receive a rare Ancient Necklace.
• February 4-10 “Race to Level 25”: Play and reach Level 25 by February 10th and receive a powerful class-specific weapon.
• February 4-24 “Month of Love”: Create a new Wind Slayer character in the month of February and receive five free Love Potions.
• February 7-8 “Weekend Slayer”: Log onto Wind Slayer on either day between 12:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m. PST and receive a free set of Ancient Earrings – just for logging in!
• February 13 “Slayer Tournament”: Build a team of four to compete in Wind Slayer’s first tournament for a chance to win a class-specific weapon. Tournament sign up is on the Wind Slayer forums February 9-12.
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10:11 AM |
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Electronic Arts (EA) has announced plans to release The Sims 3 for multiple platforms this summer. A release date has also been set: June 2, 2009.
The latest iteration of EA and Maxis’ hugely popular simulated life game, The Sims 3 lets you customize and create a virtual person, or Sim. You help them go about their life as they make friends, follow career paths, acquire wealth, get a home, decorate it and all the other things a real person is likely to do.
New to The Sims 3 is the ability to choose up to five traits to create individual personalities. New design tools have been developed that let you extensively customize the appearance of your Sims, affecting their shape and size, facial features, skin tone, hair color and style, eye shape and color, clothing and accessories.
A new “seamless” neighborhood environment has been created that lets your Sims roam to neighbor’s homes and explore their surroundings, stroll downtown to hang out with friends, go to the park and more. Inside their homes, you can more extensively customize the Sims’ environment, changing colors and patterns of decor, floor coverings, wall coverings, shirts, sofas, window shades and more.
The game also features goal-oriented gameplay that has you trying to reach short- or long-term objectives you want your Sim to pursue. You can create and edit your own movies as you capture gameplay moments, and an online community will be introduced that will enable you to show off your Sims, get bonus content and more.
The release date seems to contradict earlier reports from EA published in mid-2008 that the Sims 3 would be out in February, 2009. But this is also the first specific indication the public has received that The Sims 3 will be available for the Mac and iPhone.
Interestingly, this is the first The Sims announcement from EA not connected to long-time Mac development partner Aspyr Media. Since 2007, EA has published titles for the Mac itself, relying on TransGaming’s Cider technology to bring forth Mac versions of its games for Intel-based Mac systems. Last year’s release of Spore, the virtual life game from Sims creator Will Wright, marked the first time EA released Mac and PC versions of a game on the same day and date, and in the same package.
The latest iteration of EA and Maxis’ hugely popular simulated life game, The Sims 3 lets you customize and create a virtual person, or Sim. You help them go about their life as they make friends, follow career paths, acquire wealth, get a home, decorate it and all the other things a real person is likely to do.
New to The Sims 3 is the ability to choose up to five traits to create individual personalities. New design tools have been developed that let you extensively customize the appearance of your Sims, affecting their shape and size, facial features, skin tone, hair color and style, eye shape and color, clothing and accessories.
A new “seamless” neighborhood environment has been created that lets your Sims roam to neighbor’s homes and explore their surroundings, stroll downtown to hang out with friends, go to the park and more. Inside their homes, you can more extensively customize the Sims’ environment, changing colors and patterns of decor, floor coverings, wall coverings, shirts, sofas, window shades and more.
The game also features goal-oriented gameplay that has you trying to reach short- or long-term objectives you want your Sim to pursue. You can create and edit your own movies as you capture gameplay moments, and an online community will be introduced that will enable you to show off your Sims, get bonus content and more.
The release date seems to contradict earlier reports from EA published in mid-2008 that the Sims 3 would be out in February, 2009. But this is also the first specific indication the public has received that The Sims 3 will be available for the Mac and iPhone.
Interestingly, this is the first The Sims announcement from EA not connected to long-time Mac development partner Aspyr Media. Since 2007, EA has published titles for the Mac itself, relying on TransGaming’s Cider technology to bring forth Mac versions of its games for Intel-based Mac systems. Last year’s release of Spore, the virtual life game from Sims creator Will Wright, marked the first time EA released Mac and PC versions of a game on the same day and date, and in the same package.
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10:09 AM |
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Different countries all have their own set of laws, and this time round gamers in Australia will receive the short end of the stick especially if they're knee deep in MMORPGs including World of Warcraft. If you reside down under, any video game that does not have an Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) rating is not carried on store shelves, and the same applies to games with a MA15+ rating (suitable for children 15 and up) and above - unfortunately for many, a wide range of MMORPGs including World of Warcraft fall under this category. Guess a little nudge-nudge, wink-wink is now required for folks living in Down Under to get their WoW and MMORPG fix at stores.
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10:08 AM |
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Avatars don't need health care, but the people at the keyboard do. That's why a Chicago marketer, who previously worked on the Budweiser "Wassup" campaign, organized a hearing on health care policy for then-President-elect Obama in Second Life.
Susanna Matukas, a Chicago-based freelancer in marketing and advertising, signed up on the Obama transition site, change.gov, after the election. She learned, through that site, that the office of the president-elect was looking for citizens to organize hearings on how the U.S. health care policy should be changed. The reports would then be submitted, including photos and video, to the office of the president-elect.
She decided to hold hearings in Second Life, to allow people to access the meeting who might not be able to make it to a real-life event. "We had people that participated who are suffering from chronic illness, or who have child care issues, or who are traveling on business and can't necessarily participate in a three-hour meeting in their community," said Matukas, who goes by the name "Siri Vita" in Second Life. The Second Life hearing was one of thousands held across the U.S. on health care issues
People telling their story in Second Life included a woman from Omaha, Neb., with a double problem: her health care provider won't pay for treatments for her rare genetic disorder, and she has an autistic son who needs $40,000 annually in therapy. Also speaking out was an Indiana cancer survivor who spoke of the limited medical choices in her area, and a Denver resident with multiple sclerosis who runs Virtual Ability, an area for disabled people in Second Life.
Now that Obama is president, Matukas also is trying to convince the administration to put an official White House presence in Second Life. "They're very active in new media -- Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, they're everywhere." she said. "I think it's a logical next step for them and it'll provide them the kind of outreach platform they're looking for. I mean, the Pope is on Facebook, so why can't Obama jump to the next level and come to Second Life?" The Pope has 30,000 fans on Facebook,
Matukas is a board member of Peace Train Charitable Trust, a real-life not-for-profit that collaborates in Second Life with organizations that work for human rights, poverty, and peace initiatives. Peace Train is part of a broad culture of real-life political action in Second Life; organizations for both parties were active in SL during the recent presidential campaign. And activists recently used Second Life to protest Israel's Gaza attacks.
In her professional life, Matukas worked at DDB, managing Anheuser-Busch brands, which is where she worked on the "Wassup" campaign. She is more good-natured about people saying "Wassup!" to her than I would be in her position.
If the Obama campaign comes to Second Life it can visit H&R Block's virtual offices to get a little help with their taxes. Matukas's report on the Second Life hearings landed on the desk of Tom Daschle, who was then Obama's nominee for secretary of health and human services, but who withdrew his nomination Tuesday after it was revealed that he failed to pay taxes.
Susanna Matukas, a Chicago-based freelancer in marketing and advertising, signed up on the Obama transition site, change.gov, after the election. She learned, through that site, that the office of the president-elect was looking for citizens to organize hearings on how the U.S. health care policy should be changed. The reports would then be submitted, including photos and video, to the office of the president-elect.
She decided to hold hearings in Second Life, to allow people to access the meeting who might not be able to make it to a real-life event. "We had people that participated who are suffering from chronic illness, or who have child care issues, or who are traveling on business and can't necessarily participate in a three-hour meeting in their community," said Matukas, who goes by the name "Siri Vita" in Second Life. The Second Life hearing was one of thousands held across the U.S. on health care issues
People telling their story in Second Life included a woman from Omaha, Neb., with a double problem: her health care provider won't pay for treatments for her rare genetic disorder, and she has an autistic son who needs $40,000 annually in therapy. Also speaking out was an Indiana cancer survivor who spoke of the limited medical choices in her area, and a Denver resident with multiple sclerosis who runs Virtual Ability, an area for disabled people in Second Life.
Now that Obama is president, Matukas also is trying to convince the administration to put an official White House presence in Second Life. "They're very active in new media -- Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, they're everywhere." she said. "I think it's a logical next step for them and it'll provide them the kind of outreach platform they're looking for. I mean, the Pope is on Facebook, so why can't Obama jump to the next level and come to Second Life?" The Pope has 30,000 fans on Facebook,
Matukas is a board member of Peace Train Charitable Trust, a real-life not-for-profit that collaborates in Second Life with organizations that work for human rights, poverty, and peace initiatives. Peace Train is part of a broad culture of real-life political action in Second Life; organizations for both parties were active in SL during the recent presidential campaign. And activists recently used Second Life to protest Israel's Gaza attacks.
In her professional life, Matukas worked at DDB, managing Anheuser-Busch brands, which is where she worked on the "Wassup" campaign. She is more good-natured about people saying "Wassup!" to her than I would be in her position.
If the Obama campaign comes to Second Life it can visit H&R Block's virtual offices to get a little help with their taxes. Matukas's report on the Second Life hearings landed on the desk of Tom Daschle, who was then Obama's nominee for secretary of health and human services, but who withdrew his nomination Tuesday after it was revealed that he failed to pay taxes.
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10:07 AM |
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Corporate Planners Unlimited announced today that it was expanding its Virtualis Convention and Learning Center in Second Life due to increased demand. The specific expansion is to add in parcels of land to support events for hundreds of visitors, but President and Creative Director Dan Parks is seeing a growth in the business of hosting virtual events and meetings overall.
"When we first started, most of the people who contacted us were techies or the person in charge of a meeting who was not necessarily a professional, but had been given the directions that budgets had been cut. Now the phone calls I'm getting are mostly from IT people and CFOs. The last five phone calls I've had were from the CFOs' office, which is a really telling sign of what's going on with our economy," commented Parks.
Parks has hosted 15 events in Virtualis since its grand opening in May of last year for a variety of clients, including, recently, Trend Micro. Parks points to the event as an example of the creative options that Second Life affords and he says set it apart from other environments for meetins like Unisfair or ON24.
In the 2-day event [video above], attendees visited the standard sessions and networking events, but also went on team-building exercises like sky diving and treasure hunts. When Trend Micro returns for their next planned meeting, attendees will fly into a giant CPU for the opening reception.
"It's so much more of a creative environment. One of the things I was very conscious of when creating this is that I didn't want to take jobs away from meeting planners. I don't want to be negative about any of these environments because I think they're going to all be very important in the way we do business. But with Second Life the meeting planner is still very involved because everything can be branded and customized. There are literally thousands of decisions to be made, and it mirrors the real world in a lot of ways," said Parks.
It is, often, about business, though. Parks and his team are currently working on an event for an organization with an over ten-years-old physical event for 300 attendees and exhibitors. The group is keeping the physical event, but wanted to cut custs by taking the exhibits virtual. Instead of showing off booths for four days, exhibitors will now have virtual booths keyed to automatically notify the companies when visitors drop by over a month. The savings, say Parks, amount to knocking $175,000 off the budget.
"They can accomplish a lot of the same functions. All the exposure the exhibitors would have gotten, they'll still get. But instead of shipping in booths and equipment, reserving hotels, taking up space, they can scrap all of that," he explained. "And the cost factor they have for us is about 5%."
The costs for each event vary based on the level of customization, training, and assistance required, but are overall still cheaper than physical events. Organizations across the board are looking to cut costs and turning to virtual events, but so are some providers.
Parks says he is in talks with a hotel chain about providing virtual events and meeting spaces as an alternative to their physical events business. One option is to duplicate all of the hotel's breakout rooms. If a client wants to expand from their initial space and meet up with others for small sessions and the hotel doesn't have space to accomodate them all, the experience can be re-created from attendees' hotel rooms or a computer bank provided by the hotel.
"We're finding applications and ways of blending the virtual and real world to criss cross in both directions," said Parks.
It seems to be a need. Parks, who is a co-founder of MeCo, the Meetings Community network of 2,500 meetings professionals, says that professional events organizations and companies are beginning to promote virtual alternatives. It makes sense: the more physical events planners can be involved in the virtual side of things, the less market share they stand to lose in the economic downturn. At a recent event in Chicago, said Parks, a professional event company brought a group of representatives, including those from 7-8 Fortune 100 companies, into Second Life for a tour. Parks says he himself has conducted between 400 and 500 tours of Virtualis for organizations looking for virtual events solutions.
With the fiscal crunch keeping travel and meetings budgets down, he expects more people to look at virtual events as an alternative.
"When this started, this was all an experiment for me. I had no idea the world was going to turn the way it did last year. I thought we had a window of a couple years to play with this. I no longer do," he said. "I thought I was way ahead of the curve. Now I think everyone is catching up."
"When we first started, most of the people who contacted us were techies or the person in charge of a meeting who was not necessarily a professional, but had been given the directions that budgets had been cut. Now the phone calls I'm getting are mostly from IT people and CFOs. The last five phone calls I've had were from the CFOs' office, which is a really telling sign of what's going on with our economy," commented Parks.
Parks has hosted 15 events in Virtualis since its grand opening in May of last year for a variety of clients, including, recently, Trend Micro. Parks points to the event as an example of the creative options that Second Life affords and he says set it apart from other environments for meetins like Unisfair or ON24.
In the 2-day event [video above], attendees visited the standard sessions and networking events, but also went on team-building exercises like sky diving and treasure hunts. When Trend Micro returns for their next planned meeting, attendees will fly into a giant CPU for the opening reception.
"It's so much more of a creative environment. One of the things I was very conscious of when creating this is that I didn't want to take jobs away from meeting planners. I don't want to be negative about any of these environments because I think they're going to all be very important in the way we do business. But with Second Life the meeting planner is still very involved because everything can be branded and customized. There are literally thousands of decisions to be made, and it mirrors the real world in a lot of ways," said Parks.
It is, often, about business, though. Parks and his team are currently working on an event for an organization with an over ten-years-old physical event for 300 attendees and exhibitors. The group is keeping the physical event, but wanted to cut custs by taking the exhibits virtual. Instead of showing off booths for four days, exhibitors will now have virtual booths keyed to automatically notify the companies when visitors drop by over a month. The savings, say Parks, amount to knocking $175,000 off the budget.
"They can accomplish a lot of the same functions. All the exposure the exhibitors would have gotten, they'll still get. But instead of shipping in booths and equipment, reserving hotels, taking up space, they can scrap all of that," he explained. "And the cost factor they have for us is about 5%."
The costs for each event vary based on the level of customization, training, and assistance required, but are overall still cheaper than physical events. Organizations across the board are looking to cut costs and turning to virtual events, but so are some providers.
Parks says he is in talks with a hotel chain about providing virtual events and meeting spaces as an alternative to their physical events business. One option is to duplicate all of the hotel's breakout rooms. If a client wants to expand from their initial space and meet up with others for small sessions and the hotel doesn't have space to accomodate them all, the experience can be re-created from attendees' hotel rooms or a computer bank provided by the hotel.
"We're finding applications and ways of blending the virtual and real world to criss cross in both directions," said Parks.
It seems to be a need. Parks, who is a co-founder of MeCo, the Meetings Community network of 2,500 meetings professionals, says that professional events organizations and companies are beginning to promote virtual alternatives. It makes sense: the more physical events planners can be involved in the virtual side of things, the less market share they stand to lose in the economic downturn. At a recent event in Chicago, said Parks, a professional event company brought a group of representatives, including those from 7-8 Fortune 100 companies, into Second Life for a tour. Parks says he himself has conducted between 400 and 500 tours of Virtualis for organizations looking for virtual events solutions.
With the fiscal crunch keeping travel and meetings budgets down, he expects more people to look at virtual events as an alternative.
"When this started, this was all an experiment for me. I had no idea the world was going to turn the way it did last year. I thought we had a window of a couple years to play with this. I no longer do," he said. "I thought I was way ahead of the curve. Now I think everyone is catching up."
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10:04 AM |
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The Trade Promotion Management Associates (TPMA) (www.tpmaww.com) today hosted the industry's first Virtual Workshop on Second Life, with 160 registered attendees from manufacturing, retail, industry analyst firms, media and service provider companies. The event focused on ways that consumer goods manufacturers and retailers can collaborate in today's economy to ensure, as one speaker, Blake Watts of Plan4Demand, put it, "win-win-win situations for the retailer, manufacturer and consumer."
"We were extremely pleased with the level of interaction, attendance and discussion during our Second Life conference today," said TPMA CEO Diane Berry. "It was a truly immersive experience and our attendees stayed for the entire three hour session -- much longer than most traditional webinars. Our speakers stimulated important discussions about how both retailers and manufacturers can and should capture market share during the current economy, place the consumer at the center of their businesses, and collaborate for the best interest of both trading partners."
Workshop speakers included these trade promotion experts:
Peter Eschenburg of Hitachi Consulting discussed the importance of building trust between the retailer and manufacturer to facilitate collaboration, and that this can be done though issues and processes, advocacy (of your trading partner), disclosure (of information), and access (to the right individuals).
Harris Fogel of O4, a TPMA Advisory Board member, noted that it is just as important to collaborate internally as it is externally with trading partners. "Find the interdependencies within your organizations," he told manufacturers in the audience, "as well as with your trading partners. Where does your business intersect with that of your trading partner? Understand the goals and objectives that you both have -- internally and externally."
Jim Nadler of afterBOT said that customer centricity, "must inform every decision that a retailer makes. They must all be in the interest of the consumer. If we do the right thing for the consumer, it will be the right thing for the retailer, and in the end, it will be the right thing for the supplier community."
Tom Strubel of Oracle noted that, "demand driven customer centric strategies will provide the power to sell more with less -- particularly in the extreme economic conditions we are facing today."
Phil Conner of IAB Solutions said that manufacturers and retailers must be, "uncommon in their thinking. Don't think in a transactional manner, but one that is systemic. Loyal customers are the greatest asset and the cost of replacing one is arguably 100 times the cost of replacing a great employee."
Lauren Robinette of Cisco said that channel promotion spend in the downturn requires close examination of the types of products a company markets and the buyers they market to. She noted that "learn and earn" strategies for more complex products that require explanation at the point of sale can be a strategic way to spend trade dollars to ensure higher sell-through.
Armen Najarian of DemandTec exhorted manufacturers not to cut their trade spend-to-sales ratios, as cutting back would be a tough sell to retailers who have suffered from increases in commodity costs that they have been unable to pass on to the consumer. Rather, he recommended that trade promotion practitioners, "shift tactics, from volume incentives to performance-based promotions."
Chris Wiesen of SAP said that tough times are when, "good companies separate themselves from the pack. Visibility into promotions and promotional effectiveness will help these companies eliminate programs that aren't working, and focus their dollars on those that work well."
"This was a great event," said Bob Houk, Executive Director of TPMA and the moderator of the panel discussions. "Our panelists presented great content, and the content was delivered in an environment that was itself a learning experience for both the speakers and the attendees. And," he added, "it was a lot of fun."
"We were extremely pleased with the level of interaction, attendance and discussion during our Second Life conference today," said TPMA CEO Diane Berry. "It was a truly immersive experience and our attendees stayed for the entire three hour session -- much longer than most traditional webinars. Our speakers stimulated important discussions about how both retailers and manufacturers can and should capture market share during the current economy, place the consumer at the center of their businesses, and collaborate for the best interest of both trading partners."
Workshop speakers included these trade promotion experts:
Peter Eschenburg of Hitachi Consulting discussed the importance of building trust between the retailer and manufacturer to facilitate collaboration, and that this can be done though issues and processes, advocacy (of your trading partner), disclosure (of information), and access (to the right individuals).
Harris Fogel of O4, a TPMA Advisory Board member, noted that it is just as important to collaborate internally as it is externally with trading partners. "Find the interdependencies within your organizations," he told manufacturers in the audience, "as well as with your trading partners. Where does your business intersect with that of your trading partner? Understand the goals and objectives that you both have -- internally and externally."
Jim Nadler of afterBOT said that customer centricity, "must inform every decision that a retailer makes. They must all be in the interest of the consumer. If we do the right thing for the consumer, it will be the right thing for the retailer, and in the end, it will be the right thing for the supplier community."
Tom Strubel of Oracle noted that, "demand driven customer centric strategies will provide the power to sell more with less -- particularly in the extreme economic conditions we are facing today."
Phil Conner of IAB Solutions said that manufacturers and retailers must be, "uncommon in their thinking. Don't think in a transactional manner, but one that is systemic. Loyal customers are the greatest asset and the cost of replacing one is arguably 100 times the cost of replacing a great employee."
Lauren Robinette of Cisco said that channel promotion spend in the downturn requires close examination of the types of products a company markets and the buyers they market to. She noted that "learn and earn" strategies for more complex products that require explanation at the point of sale can be a strategic way to spend trade dollars to ensure higher sell-through.
Armen Najarian of DemandTec exhorted manufacturers not to cut their trade spend-to-sales ratios, as cutting back would be a tough sell to retailers who have suffered from increases in commodity costs that they have been unable to pass on to the consumer. Rather, he recommended that trade promotion practitioners, "shift tactics, from volume incentives to performance-based promotions."
Chris Wiesen of SAP said that tough times are when, "good companies separate themselves from the pack. Visibility into promotions and promotional effectiveness will help these companies eliminate programs that aren't working, and focus their dollars on those that work well."
"This was a great event," said Bob Houk, Executive Director of TPMA and the moderator of the panel discussions. "Our panelists presented great content, and the content was delivered in an environment that was itself a learning experience for both the speakers and the attendees. And," he added, "it was a lot of fun."
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