World of World of Warcraft?!

Saw this in the news and I wonder if it's real? Anyone knows? Afternote: Ok, just found out that these folks are satirists. Well, guess I didn't know that earlier. Sorry.

World of World of Warcraft allows Warcraft gamers to do what they like to do more than anything else in life, which is, play Warcraft.

'Warcraft' Sequel Lets Gamers Play A Character Playing 'Warcraft'

Simple Review of Smallworlds - New Virtual World

With all the rage about interactive social virtual worlds, there are a number of such developments around the (actual) world. One relatively recent development is the SmallWorlds by Outsmart based in New Zealand.

Small Worlds is flash based and that is a big advantage for players since it eliminates the need to download a few hundred megabytes of client files. Moreover, with a flash based platform, a player can enter the world using any other computer and not be restricted to the computer with the client software.

So yes I joined Small Worlds (currently still in beta stage) and it is fun! Firstly, the tutorial or beginning 'missions' are relatively easy, and that smooth out the learning curve drastically compared to say, 2nd Life. A player can have his own pets, and house right from the start with options to re-decor the wall and floor tiles. Game mechanics is easy, including the basic navigation and inventory management. One could also customise the avatar features and dressing with multiple options.

The interesting part of the Small Worlds is that it allows for interaction with other Web 2.0 applications, e.g. a player could get a 'photoframe' to hang on his wall that displays his 'flickr' photos. Players could also link to music applications in the Small Worlds that allow for playing of their song tracks in common area like the Small World Cue Room. I understand that there is also the TV gadget that could be used to link to Youtube, which allows for multiple people to watch 'TV' Youtube together, as well as message board linked to Twitter. So I went in, and played some pool games with a UK player. The games applications like Pool, Checkers, Chess...etc are already available in the common rooms.

The game makes it easy to learn how to interact with these applications by creating quest 'missions that requires players to interact with each other via the games. After playing the pool game with another another player, I 'completed' the mission, which grants tokens that I can use, for example to buy furniture. Other than tokens there are 'gold coins' options which I guess will be bought using real life currency.

There are a number of other 'missions' available, including 'shopping' quests that introduce the basic concepts of items purchase and manipulation.

Below is a pic of the Mary's Antique shop where a player could do some shopping. I bought some chairs, table, candles and a vase of flowers. Guess my house still looks quite empty for now. I want the TV and message board, so ok it's time to complete more quests / missions in Small Worlds.

Related post
- Smallworlds application in Facebook
- Update about Smallworlds

Canyon Defense on MiniClip

I read about this game Canyon Defense on one of the blogs aggregator and decided to give it a try. It is a wonderful flash based game for a short 15 mins play. The game is hosted on Miniclip and has a short learning curve for those impatient peeps like me.

The basic mission of the game is to protect your people (i.e. lives) by building weapons around the path used by the invaders. Weapons come in different forms, and could be used against ground or air based enemies. After each wave of enemies, you would be rewarded with more gold that could be used to buy better or more weapons. New weapons and buildings are also unlocked along the way for more options, e.g. a new goo gun that slows down the enemy. As the game progress, you could purchase special buildings that allow for 'missiles' (area effect bombing) or 'walls' (obstructions) as benefits.

There are three maps for the player to choose from, and each map has three different difficulties (in terms of attack waves). Here's a few pics of the game in progress. The only thing I don't like about the game is the background music, a tad too noisy I feel.

See also:
- Bomba by Nitrome - Miniclip Flash Game

Ban from accessing Slashdot?!

I was browsing the websites, including Slashdot, when I realised that I'm banned from Slashdot!?

Here's what it says:

...due to script flooding that originated from your network or ip address -- or this IP might have been used to post comments designed to break web browser rendering. Or you crawled us with a rude robot, especially one that doesn't understand RFCs very well.

If you feel that this is unwarranted, feel free to include your IP address (165.21.154.114) in the subject of an email, and we will examine why there is a ban. If you fail to include the IP address (again, in the subject!), then your message will be deleted and ignored. I mean come on, we're good, we're not psychic.

If you think your IP number is different from 165.21.154.114, tell us both.

If you are using a browser with some kind of add-on that crawls or caches pages for you, tell us what it is.

Since you can't read the FAQ because you're banned, here's the relevant portion:

The strange thing is that my IP address should start from 220.XXX.XXX.XXX and not 165 as described. So weird. I did a Google search of the 165 IP address and 'ban' and it seems this address was banned once back in 2005. Here's a pic of the page:

MyMiniCity Mechanics & Pictures

Now that my city has reached population of 100, there are more games mechanics that I have to be aware of . After a couple of search I found a fair bit of information, and surprisingly the info is mainly in chinese and japanese. I guess a lot of players are from China, Taiwan, and Japan. I would use my city name "scraze" as the illustration. For other players, please replace the 'scraze' with the correct city name.

Here's what I could gather from these blogs and sites. Seems like there are 6 milestones. Once a city hits population of 50, there will be unemployment. With this milestone, another option of factory creation would appear, for the player to create factory. This is done via clicking the original url with a'/ind/' behind. For example, instead of 'scraze.myminicity.com', the person should enter 'scraze.myminicity.com/ind/'. Without factory there will be unemployment. Once unemployment hits certain figures, the people will leave the city. Each factory can create jobs for 3 population. Here's a picture of some factory

Once the city hits 100 population, there is need for better transportation. With more population, the 'transport' indicator would slowly drop from 100%. Thus another option would appear, where people can enter 'scraze.myminicity.com/tra' to increase the transport facility. Each facility can provide good transport for 10 population.

When the city reaches 300 population, there is need for social security, else the crime rate would increase from zero onwards. So the fourth option is security, where players click scraze.myminicity.com/sec/ to improve the security features. Each feature can help to decrease crime rate for a further growth of 15 population.

The fifth milestone is parks and recreational facilities. This comes about when the population hits 500, and the url to click would be scraze.myminicity.com/env/. I have seen some parks in other cities which are quite interesting. Here's a list of the different indicators, which could be iewed on the webpage itself.

The last stage is the commercial stage, where there is need for commercial investments. By pressing 'scraze.myminicity.com/com', commercial buildings could be built. So there will be high rise features in the cities. Commercial building can also help to decrease unemployment rates.

While it is a simple game, there is satisfaction in seeing it grow, especially when the buildings upgrade themselves to become something else. It's a pity there is no option to rotate the city, else there would be more fun to look at the city from various angles. Here's a picture of how a small yellow church could grow to become something nicer.

Other than the factory figures, I couldn't verify other figures accurately yet. Nonetheless, the purpose of the game is to have fun, so the mechanics need not be so detailed I guess. It seems after the commercial stage, there is chances of 'accidents' e.g. chemical factory explosion, happening. Well if it happens I guess I would update it here. Not sure at what stage would I decide to let the city stagnant, since to grow a city beyond 1,000 population takes a fair bit of effort. :)

Lone Wolf & Other Books Available Free Online!

Long before the emergence of virtual worlds, many of us had played in make believe worlds framed by books like Advanced Dungeon & Dragons and other Role-Playing Games book. Among the more successful ones include those Lone Wolf books by Joe Dever. I personally have played the whole Lone Wolf series till book 12, as well as the 'World of Lone Wolf', Freeway Warrior and 1 or 2 Combat Heroes books. I still have a number of these books packed away somewhere in storage boxes.

So in part nostalgic, in part curiosity, I visited the Project Aon site when I heard that they are putting all Lone Wolf books online, and for free!

It seems Joe Dever has given his permission to re-work all the books onto online version. I tried the 1st book "Flight from the Dark", and I must say the experience is not bad. There is a Java script of the character sheet, which makes updating of items easy. The script also include a combat function, so no more need to 'point the tip of the pencil' at the random number page of the book. For those who want to run everything online concurrently, the Project Aon team also provided a 'StatsKeeper" program that displayed the character sheet on the left while the player plays the game using the right panel. Cool!

The Project Aon team took on this role when they realised that the books are no longer published, and ever since then there is a renewed interest in Lone Wolf. Perhaps there is limited publication of the books, but I can still find a number of these books in the second hand bookstores. Moreover, I think the Lone Wolf game may be made as an online MMORPG soon, based on news that Joe Dever is working with Ksatria Gameworks on the project.

MyMinicity reaching 51 population

After 7 days of play, MyMinicity has reached a population of 51. The rate of growth is nothing great, but along the way I discover a few things. Here's a gif of the different screen-shots I took. Gif was created using online gifninja. The gameplay is very simple, and I guess that's what attracted people. With each population growth you could see little changes on the map that is quite interesting. (afternote: blogger doesnt support direct gif file upload so i break it into a few jpeg files.)

Firstly, those tools I recommended earlier could be used to grow the village by 1 population each. This is because these tools will 'query' the website about the statistics, and thus contribute to 1 population. Thus I've searched around, and also found this Japanese website which does comparison of two cities, and could be used to grow the population as well. Just key in the name of the two cities at the bottom of the site will do.

Secondly is that once the city hits population above 50, there are other options available for growing industry, transport...etc. I only have the option of industry so far. Once I reach other options, I'll do an update of what each means. :)