To all Alicia Online fans out there! I have been able to contact Alicia Online developers and asked them if there are any plans to bring Alicia Online to Western market and release an English version of the game. And i received an answer! There is a good news and a bad news for all of us. Read the rest of the post to learn more about what are the news about Alicia Online English release! Note that this post is never than the one previously called “current state of an English release” (i had to rename it in order for both posts to make sense).

THIS POST IS OUTDATED. HEAD ON TO 
ALICIA ONLINE: NEWS ABOUT ENGLISH RELEASE (AS OF MARCH 2012)

*INTERMISSION"*

I’ve decided to create Alicia Online Wiki site for all of us to share information about Alicia. Just finished setting it up yesterday, and it’s pretty much empty right now (except for the guides i have in this blog, they were copied over to Wiki), so I’m asking everyone to please come and join me at Alicia Online Wiki site and help fill it up! If you have anything to share, post it!

 

I wrote to Alicia Online developers via their support ticket system using Google.Translate for English > Korean translation. My message stated that there are fans of Alicia Online around Western internets, that there are people, who don’t speak Korean and have very little information about the game, but still want to play it and are waiting for English release. I asked if NTreev has any plans for releasing Alicia Online outside of Korea and asked them to consider releasing Alicia in English.

I copy the original text of NTreev answer here in case someone speaks Korean and can translate it for me better than i was able to do it with software translation :)

안녕하세요. 반갑습니다.
앨리샤에 대한 관심과 사랑 감사의 말씀 드립니다.
앨리샤가 정식 오픈되었지만 아직도 미숙한 점이 많습니다.
일본에는 앨리샤가 출시 예정이지만, 다른 해외에서의 게임 서비스는 아직 미정입니다.
해외 앨리샤 게임 서비스에 대한 계획은 아직 없지만 좀 더 발전된 모습을 선보인 후 해외에 진출하도록 고려하겠습니다.
다시 한번 앨리샤에 대한 깊은 관심과 뜨거운 사랑 감사드리며 최대한 빠른시일내에 좋은 소식 보내드리겠습니다.
Thank you. From GM AnimalKing

Rough translation:

Hello. Nice to meet you.
Thanks for the interest and love for Alicia.
Alicia is formally released, but many points [of the game] are still unfinished. 
Alicia will be released in Japan, but gaming services in other countries are still in suspense/undecided.
Before we will consider an advance to other countries more of the game features need to be further developed and released first.
Again thanks for love and concern for Alicia, we will send any good news as soon as possible.
Thank you. From GM AnimalKing

So, this is it. They are working on Japanese release and they are thinking about other countries, but in the current state (July 2011) they think the game is not developed enough for Western market. After they make more stuff and get it all more polished, they will think of other countries.

Makes sense to me. Western audience wouldn’t tolerate an unfinished and unpolished game as happened with some projects recently released to public. NTreev wants to make a good shot at it and won’t rush things. This is the good news. Let Korean and Japanese players test out all the bugs and rough patches. The bad news is that we’ll have to wait an undefined amount of time while they are doing it and until NTreev considers the game polished enough.

In the meantime, you can play in Korean version of Alicia Online. Visit these posts to learn more on how to do that:
How to register an account in a Korean game – finding KSSN (Korean Social Security Number)
How to register an account for Alicia Online – step-by-step walkthrough
How to download Alicia Online – step-by-step walkthrough

And some new screenshots for those who don’t yet play:

 

A list of other posts about Alicia Online can be found here:
Alicia Online: Fresh News, Tips and All You Wanted to Know

Read more...

A lot of game companies have summer sales right now and some keep sending you their offers all over the year, like Lord of the Rings Online keeps sending me those messages about a “new” sale of skill books or something similar, over and over. As a “victim” of the latest sale on Steam i assume that any of you could have bought stuff because of some sale letters you got in the past. Maybe even when it turned out to be not the best idea to spent any money – when you gave it a thought some time after paying, that’s it. Some people even buy a lot of stuff for “free to play” games and then count pennies until their next salary. So, why is this happening? And it’s not only about the game companies – ever had any acquaintance who spent money on “earn money from home” or “generate pin-point traffic” scams? Scammers and salespeople know a special thing about your brain and they know how to use it to make you pay before you even think. And here is how it works.

To understand the inner workings of things we must first find out about the basics, the fundamental stuff, before we proceed any further. There are techniques used in advertising to affect people's consciousness and lead them to make a sale, but the most basic and fundamental thing here is not the techniques, but our own brains. Because, if our brains didn't worked the way they do, no technique would be effective. And if you'll be aware of the techniques but not of your own reaction, you still will be vulnerable to them. So, we'll begin with the basics - we'll look into our brains. And what kind of special stuff is hidden inside of them?

Our Stone Age brains

When you're making a decision about something it's your brain's work to determine if you need to make it and what will happen if you either proceed doing something or just stop right there. It’s called “making a decision”, and if you need to buy something, you first have to make that decision, right? There are different parts responsible for different actions, decisions included, but, as some scientists determined our brain haven't changed at least in last 50,000 years - which means it's nowhere near having anything to respond to the rapid changes we humans saw in last 100 of years. Which in turn means, that we have no special part of the brain to handle the financial decisions for us - our brain is just not wired for this exact task, so it has to adapt and use what it has at hand. How does it affects anything?

Let’s assume you’re an ancient human living somewhere in African savanna, and you see an opportunity - a tree heavy with fruits. In this case, the best decision would be to grab as much as you can and as fast as possible, before something comes to eat you or another human steals the fruits from you. That’s a “grab and run” strategy, so to say, and the decision would be based on fear and greed, with no rational thinking involved. But you’re no ancient African inhabitant, and the opportunity you see is not the tree with fruits but a Steam sale. The thing is, there is no difference!

Your brain would not respond any differently in case of both situations i described here. Every one of us have a very ancient systems engraved into us, they helped countless generations to survive, but now they're getting in the way of making an informed decision you'll need in order to control your financial relations with outer world. I’m speaking about The Danger and The Reward systems here.

The System Shock

I will not bore you with the physical details of which parts of the brain both systems affect (you can happily Google it if you’re curious), we just need to know what is the outcome of them working. The Danger system activates when feel a threat to our survival and it affects our whole body – ever felt your hands getting wet or shaking when you was going to answer a question as a student, or your hearth racing when you tried to talk to an attractive girl/boy? That’s it, the Danger system at work. It’s not aware you’re not going to be eaten by a mountain lion and it prepares you to fight or run for your life by injecting a handful of hormones into your system. And even if you can’t feel any of the physical consequences, it doesn’t means the Danger system is not doing its work by clouding your mind with hormones. No time to think, it says, forget the thinking, it’s time to act!

Another system affecting us is the Reward system. It works by releasing dopamine – the “hormone of happiness” – to stimulated us for going after something desirable. It’s part of the system that makes us want what is good and avoid what is bad, like poisons and rotten meat. Be it a tasty food or a new job, the Reward system makes you happy about getting it. It also works when you’re buying something, and it’s not necessarily rewards you for doing a *really* useful thing. How would it know otherwise? No one ate you so far, you’re healthy, not hungry or cold, not having a conflict with other humans and not feeling guilty - therefore, what you did was just fine. That’s why some people are called “shopaholics” – they feel good about buying stuff and then lose any control of the behavior.

Both of these systems can work without you being aware of it, affecting your decisions and thoughts. And this is what all of the known human sales technologies exploit.

The final countdown

So, when you see a sale going on, your brain jumps at it like it’s a fruit tree in deep unknowns of the ancient Africa. As you consider the opportunity the Danger system pumps you with hormones and encourages you to act right now, no thinking involved. Because 50,000 years ago if a human being was thinking too long if it should run from a saber-tooth or not – it would be inevitable eaten by the animal, thus not leaving any children to bear its DNA to the never generations. And so you act.

You proceed with buying something, probably justifying the transaction with thoughts like “it’s a sale, i get XX % off, blah blah blah”. And you feel good for some time because the Reward system makes sure you feel that way. It’s only a while later you see you probably didn’t need that thing you bought and there was a better investment for your money. OR you’re not getting anything, but tempted to act, maybe still struggling with your inner self. In that case “the ad people” come to the rescue – the rescue of the sale, that’s it. There are many techniques to get into people’s mind and make it do all the work.

For example, to evoke a sense of necessity and impress a lack of time simultaneously, to make your Danger system go wild and make you jump at the sale right away. By the way, this is why supermarkets arrange little cheap stuff like bubble-gums and batteries around the place where queue of buyers forms to pay and exit the shop. There’s a higher chance of you getting something cheap and small on the way out, and you’ll probably grab something because your Reward system will jump like a happy puppy.

I myself have some games i bought off sales and then haven’t touched them for a whole year. The same goes for food – i think how cool it would be to eat a particular something, bring it home and then forget about it lying in the fridge until stumbling at it when it’s already spoiled. And this is when i know how all of this stuff is working! On the bright side, it could be much worse if i didn’t – at least i don’t grab at those last-time-at-the-supermarket gums and batteries!

So, watch your actions and don’t act out right away, while your Danger and Reward systems are pushing you into a sale. Oh, and the ad techniques i mentioned? Rest assured: we’ll be discussing them in another post, to get you armed against the contemporary market.

Read more...

You’ve probably never played Vanguard (or if you did – you don’t play anymore), but you definitely heard about it. I’ve met people on Twitter and over the Internets who said they’d play - but because the game was such a big fail it’s “not playable”, and why even try, when “there’s no one in there?”. There’s an initiative by Vanguard players to bring new people into the game, so i wanted to write this post for quite some time now – to debunk some common myths formed around Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, and to let people know not only that it’s a great game, but also why it’s worth playing after all the bad stuff you might have heard. So, read on and let me open your eyes :)

Myth Number 1: No one plays Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. Why should i play or what would i do, there’s no one in there and the game is deserted!

Not true.
That’s the most farfetched of them all, scaring potential players away each day. First, Vanguard is NOT deserted, there ARE players. Lots of players. Well, not these “lots” like in WoW or RIFT, but to say “no one plays Vanguard” would be like saying “no one uses Linux” – there probably aren’t as many people as in Microsoft users camp, but Linux fans would certainly be enraged by a statement of their nonexistence. Yes, the player base of Vanguard is tiny compared to other games, but there are active players and the world is not empty. There are even people who go to SOE convention every year!

If it’s not true, then why this myth has been created in the first place?
There’s two reasons for that. Initially, when Vanguard was launched it has a lot of servers, but as its player base was declining, the servers got more and more under-populated, so that’s where it came from. But it happened several years ago, actually, and since then the servers undergo several merges, so right now there’s only two Vanguard servers. To address the low population issue, most of the players moved to Telon server, so that’s where you should go.

Another reason for that? 
Vanguard world is HUGE. Not like “huge” huge, but like “OMG it’s fucking GIANT!” huge. It has 3 continents, and the capital city of one of them – New Targonor - is one of the biggest cities ever built in an online game. This city alone could house one of RIFT’s whole zones, and it’s just one city on one continent, with many more places to go! Now, as i already said Vanguard doesn’t have a population of RIFT, and being much-much-much bigger with less people around makes population thin and stretched. It’s possible to go alone for a long while if you really get into the wilds, for example, in many of the low-level zones where other players don’t have any business after they finished their first 10-12 levels.

The bright side
What’s good in a game that is not populated as much as other games? There’s a hell less of a crowd in it!
- Did you ever waited in a zone for a quest mob to spawn and found someone else snatched it from right under your nose, so you’ll have to wait even more?
- Did you even ran to a resource node and got attacked by a mob before you managed to harvest it - just to find out some jerk jumped out of nowhere and got your iron/wood/whatever while you were keeping that mob’s aggro safely away from him? 
- Did you ever switched off common chat channels because there’s a new moron or a troll shouting some dumb crap each five minutes to drive you nuts?
- Oh, and did you ever got ripped off by this rude guy who went questing with you, got you killed by some stupid actions he made and then took all the cool stuff while you were recovering? And he probably made a troll face at you, too.

The bright side of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is that it’s free from almost all of these downsides. No one will snatch a quest mob or a resource node from under your nose, you won’t have to turn off common chat and it’s very unlikely that you’ll encounter a rude jerk around Vanguard. Why?

Because Vanguard community is not as big as other games! There’s no anonymity of a big player base where people can act like total jerks to other players and get away with that because there’s plenty of other players, still unaware of one’s jerkiness. No way for a rude jerk or a troll to keep going around in Vanguard, sooner or later people will shun him and let others know not to deal with a certain player. Hell, Vanguard “old-timers” are still telling this scary story how a whole continent of players along with a GM gathered to chase a certain very nasty guy who annoyed everyone. In my opinion, RIFT certainly could use that kind of stuff!

So, the first myth debunked. I wanted to do them all in one post, but turns out it would be too much text, so there will be a chain of posts, i believe. Let your friends know about this and let me know if you have any questions regarding Vanguard!

Read the next post in the series:

“Should I Play Vanguard In 2011?” Yes, And Here’s Why: Vanguard Myths Debunked – Myth №2: Vanguard is not upgraded and there is no new content

Read more...

I just couldn’t walk past this - it’s not so often when a development team from my country announces an online game! So, the deal is: Deep Black Online has been announced by Biart Studio (based in Moscow, Russia). These guys like to make games about diving and underwater (I’m already starting to love them) and are using their own engine with full 3D support. Deep Black Online is a F2P sci-fi session-based shooter game that will let you combat in all manners of environment – the land, the underwater and the air – using more than 30 types of sci-fi weapons at launch, but we can safely double that because each weapon is said to have different modes for land and water. “Our company focuses on underwater themes in games and we are planning to demonstrate the full potential of Deep Black franchise in our MMOTPS project” said Konstantin Popov, Biart Studio´s CEO.

Deep Black Online beta testing will start in the Q4, 2012 and the game based on a single-player game Deep Black taking place in the same universe. Don’t make a mistake of mixing up both games, like some MMO news sites did – Deep Black is a single-player game, and Deep Black Online is not.

Deep Black will be released on PC, PS3 and Xbox360 in summer, 2011. Deep Black Online release date is unknown now, but we do know that both game share the same engine, so it’s possible to speculate how Deep Black Online will look like based on Deep Black’s screenshots and video:

 

Read more...