Monthly Archives: June

Coobico’s main USP is to offer true multiplayer-citybuilding, where settlements are not instanced (something that rarely has been done yet, no?), which poses the challenge of settlements rampantly growing. The game therefore offers two strong incentives to counter urban sprawl: first, we lately threw a settlers’ need for community into the mix—townies will get unhappy if their next neighbors are settled too far away (remember to keep your villagers happy to keep them from leaving your city). What’s more, we gave the mechanism of initial building-costs a slight nudge—up until now construction costs would depend on a land-value which was calculated according to the specific location of a new construction-site. However, this game-mechanism was prone cheating (if such land-value is transfered between server and client). It’s now put on the scrap heap and replaced with a dynamic cost which depends on the distance of a new building from your initial town-hall. This will encourage a tighter and more circular layout of settlements, while still allowing for more peculiar and outstretched types of villages (which are just going to be a slightly bit more expensive).

In my humble opinion software-patents are something evil; they get in the way of great, universally valid interfaces and cut down on healthy competition. Now, Robert Bloomfield at Terra Nova recently reported about several software-patents filed in the US in the general field of MMOs and virtual economies, sigh…
Both commenters and Samuel Weis of the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) critically note that patents will not be issued in the case of prior art, but I am not so optimistic; during the past two years, especially both the Friendster- and Jaipuria-patents in the field of socnets demonstrated that very dominant patents will be issued all the same, blatantly in the face of prior art which already existed years ago. Let’s see how things are going to work out, keep fingers crossed…

After re-thinking the process of harvesting resources, presently a few new sprites were needed to represent natural deposits of rock, wood and metal (from left to right). Take a look at the new natural formations, which are going to be scattered all over the island.

Clockwork Knights belong to the taller and more dangerous breed of Q-Bots. Their internal clockwork relentlessly drives them forward, albeit void of purpose. Their main weapon is a steam-powered laser-visor which can devastate whole structures with a few glances. Clockwork Knights are thus a dreaded sight to settlers, fortunately they are spotted seldom.

Rumor has it that certain Clockwork Knights could be successfully caught and re-programmed.

While talking about taverns, we might as well introduce the innkeeper, who is always eager to buy fish, game or wild mushrooms to support the food-supply for the according settlement.

A tavern should be build early in every settlement as it provides important support for its neighborhood (besides the booze): it increases both the stats of food-supply and community of the according village, which in term influence NPC-happiness.
Food is provided by either building farms or taverns, or by just continually foraging (or shopping, for that matter) for fish, game, wild mushrooms and so on yourself. Community-value is raised by both building a tavern as a communal hang-out and by placing NPC-structures not too far away from each other.

This is the arsenal, one of the unique buildings on Qubus’ Island. It is part of the old harbor-city at the southern shore (so far dubbed Takama Port as a working title). For the first time players will be introduced to the arsenal during the tutorial-level which requires a player to fix a damaged bridge at the marina. Later, during the game, the arsenal is essential for a few quests during which deliveries need to be fetched for local innkeepers or merchants from Takama Port.

Yesterday SOE announced that it would like to herald a second spring for its classic MMORPG Everquest: according to Kotaku, SOE promoted “new program called “Living Legacy,“ through which EQ subscribers with inactive accounts who left with all their bills in order can come back from now until the end of July - totally for free.
Returning players also get the EverQuest II: Rise of Kunark compilation plus bonus items at no cost, and they can keep it all if they convert to a paying subscription”

While Everquest was always a noteworthy MMO and a lot of gamers still associate quite a few happy memories with EQ (according to commenters), it is obvious that Everquests popularity plateaued and declined in the past 4 years or so, and eventually was superseded by WoW.

Will Everquest then be able to compete with concurrent titles like WoW and AoC by just riding on a wave of nostalgia? Probably not with a subscription based business model. In contrast to micropayment-driven MMOs which can more easily co-exist, subs-based online worlds anyhow are somewhat squeezing each other out of the market, as players are likely to max out the time they spend on a single title to get the most of their monthly payment.