KH2 New Trailer

Rumour : BigWorld games licensing in China - The 9 & Netease

from the Busy day in the East dept.

In what appears to be some significant licensing to-ing and fro-ing, we may be able to shortly confirm the following :

1) Netease (NTES) is publishing the BigWorld-powered 'Tianxia 2' in Taiwan through BigWorld licensee, Userjoy.
2) Userjoy themselves are publishing BigWorld-powered Kingdom Heroes II in mainland China through The9.

All of this is assumption and inference at the moment - stay tuned for confirmations.

Jobs : Position openings at BW licensee - 38 Studios

from the Work in the USA dept.

38 Studios

• Project Art Director. Timonium, MD. (USA)
• Senior PS3 Programmer. Timonium, MD. (USA)
• Graphics Engineer. Timonium, MD. (USA)

Opinion : Seeking Alpha - NetEase: Reasons Behind TX2's Success

from the We've only just begun dept.

Seeking Alpha offers up some initial observations surrounding the strong debut of Netease's BigWorld powered title, Tian Xia 2:

TX2 reached 245K PCU during first week of open beta. NetEase's 3D game Tian Xia II (TX2) reached 245000 Peak Concurrent Users (PCU) on September 26, according to my tracking in the chart below. This represents a 32% increase from 185000 on September 19, the day before TX2's open beta. During this 7-day period, TX2's server capacity expanded 36% to 53 server groups. These two data points (32% and 36%) show that TX2's usage level has increased at a similar pace to server additions, and indicate the game's strong ability to attract new users.

Sydney turns red

from the A little off topic but worth a look dept.

BigWorld principal R&D is based in normally sunny Sydney, though we also have offices in the US, Japan, China and Europe. If Sydney-siders at the office are a bit weirded out today, it may be because a massive roiling cloud of red dust has spread across the NSW capital -

38 Studios remarks on Storytelling at AGDC

from the Skip to the End dept

Gamasutra has some AGDC coverage of Steve Danuser from 38 Studios, one of the writers for Curt Schilling's upcoming BigWorld powered title, talks about some of the difficulties in writing for online :

"No one wants to read in MMOs. As much as writers want to think their quest prose is for the ages, reading is not a popular activity in online gaming. The genre is a bad fit for classic storytelling. The strength of the MMO genre is that it is a social medium, a communal experience with a shared narrative.

Giving players the tools to create their own story experiences within that narrative is what keeps them coming back to a game. Both directors firmly believe that MMO writers should be leveraging the strengths of both the medium and the playerbase far more than they do right now." - Gamasutra

More over at the article

Twinity blogged : Sun Festival

from the Others like to play also dept.

From the Twinity Monitor, a Twinity focused virtual world blog site, comes news of a recent mini-festival in the Singapore segment of the Twinity universe. Check out the other articles over at the blog.

Review : Tianxia II by Netease

from the Better reviewed than Dead dept.

After posting some very solid numbers for Tianxia 2 over the weekend, let's head over to MMO Culture to check out Cinderboy's review of this Netease's title :

TianXia 2 is one of the typical oriental fantasy MMORPG churned out from China, but its the really refined graphics, questing and simplicity which really captivated me. The game was actually in Beta a few years back, but I suppose the company, Netease, had to do some financial shifting to acquire the rights for WoW China, hence the long delay for this game. In case you are wondering, WoW China's chaos is soon to end in the coming weeks. Here's my short journey so far as one of the 8 clans available, the pure magic damage clan.

For more on the game, fantastic screenshots and detailed opinion, head over to MMO Culture.

Netease - TX2 strong results for open beta

from the Gather Stats dept

Tian Xia II (TX2) had a strong open beta debut. NetEase (NTES) launched the open beta testing of its 3D game TX2 on Sunday, September 20. According to my tracking in the chart below, TX2 reached 227500 Peak Concurrent Users (PCU) on Sunday, surging 24% from 185000 in Saturday. During the peak time of Sunday, TX2's overall server utilization rate was about 90%, indicating that average popularity per server remained high despite the aggressive expansion of total capacity from 35 to 51 servers (up 46%) since last Friday.

With thanks to Seeking Alpha.

INTC,IBM,NTES,NTES NetEase.com Buys Blade Servers for Tianxia II

INTC,IBM,NTES,NTES NetEase.com Buys Blade Servers for Tianxia II

NetEase.com Inc. (Nasdaq: NTES) lately purchased BladeCenter HS22 blade servers from IBM for the operation of its heavyweight 3D online game Tianxia II.

BladeCenter HS22 adopts Xeon 5500 processors made by Intel Corporation (Nasdaq: INTC; SEHK: 4335). It is redesigned on the basis of former BladeCenter servers, adding many new functions. Analysts believe that BladeCenter HS22 has been the most advanced and strongest game server by far.

NetEase.com spent tens of millions of Chinese yuan for the purchase, showing its great confidence in Tianxia II, which is going to start an open beta test on September 20, 2009.

NetEase.com is a leading online game developer and operator as well as Internet portal. It is currently operating online games such as Fantasy Westward Journey, Westward Journey Online II, Heroes of Tang Dynasty, and Westward Journey 3.

In the second quarter of 2009, the company got gross profits of CNY 692 million or USD 101 million. Its revenues from online game services hit CNY 872 million or USD 128 million. By June 30, its total assets reached CNY 7.4 billion or USD 1.1 billion.

Austin Game Developers Conference on next week

from the Stop by and see us dept.

Twinity launches music event ahead of real world album

from the You just missed it dept

Twinity - Berlin and now Singapore friendly Virtual World this week previewed Indie powerhouse duo Kilowatt and Vanek's upcoming (September 11 release) album.

Indie Tuesday: KiloWatts & Vanek Exclusive Sneak Preview of the New Album

Indie Tuesday special! The new album “Focus and Flow” by KiloWatts & Vanek will be presented in Twinity two days before the official release! Bring your best dancing moves as Peter Vanek will be live on site with his avatar and won’t only answer your questions, but also wants to trip the light fantastic!

Listen today to new songs by KiloWatts & Vanek – exclusively in Twinity! The American-Belgian duo melds James Watt’s electronic visions with Peter Vanek’s talent as a songwriter. The result is a bunch of surprisingly complex and enchanting songs which are good for dancing or dreaming – or best both at the same time! The new album will officially be released on Friday, 11 September through motor.digital and Dependent.

With thanks and props to the Twinity Blog.

Netease - Genesis: Journey to the West gameplay trailer

from the Not that Genesis, the Other One dept

Grandia Online commercial service start!

冒険活劇オンラインRPG『グランディア オンライン』が2009年8月26日より正式サービスを開始した。

　『グランディア オンライン』は、家庭用ゲームシリーズ累計販売本数200万本を超える『グランディア』シリーズの最新作。基本プレイ無料(アイテム課金方式)のオンラインゲームで、強力な連携・コンボ攻撃ができる「アルティメット アクション バトル システム」、精霊石を装着して装備品を自分好みにカスタマイズできる「精霊石システム」、50種類以上存在する称号をプレイヤーキャラクターにつけて個性を持たせることが可能な「称号システム」などが特徴となっている。正式サービス開始に伴い、ゲーム内ショップ「GRANDIA MALL」で購入できる課金アイテム「プレミアムアイテム」や、ランダムでゲーム内アイテムが当たる抽選くじ「グラオンくじ」も利用できるようになる。

　そして正式サービス開始を記念して、キャンペーンがスタート！　キャンペーン期間中、『グランディア オンライン』のゲームアカウントを登録するだけで、プレミアムアイテムを購入できるShop Poinが1,000ポイント分プレゼントされる“1,000Shop Point プレゼント！ おトクに始めちゃおうキャンペーン!!”など4つのキャンペーンが8月26日よりスタートする。イベントの詳細は、『グランディア オンライン』公式サイトの更新をチェックしよう。

Grandia Onlne official site:
http://www.grandiaonline.jp/

A preview of extended web and social network capability inside BigWorld 2.0

Austin Game Developers Conference is on in two weeks

from the Come see us at the show dept.

BigWorld will be previewing Bigworld Technology 2.0 at AGDC in Austin in mid-September, showcasing a slew of new features and capabilities.

38 Studios' Curt Schilling interviewed by Boston Globe

from the Older post but interesting dept.



38 Studios' famous founder and recently departed CEO Brett Close talk to the Boston Globe about the labor and challenges involved in raising capital for a massive online IP and gaming studio.

"Creating a massively multiplayer game can take several years and is akin to designing an alternate universe. It involves lots of artwork, animation, and software programming. While a feature film might have two or three hours of music written for it, for instance, a team of composers at 38 Studios is writing 80 hours of music to accompany every possible game scenario. Additionally, the environments and characters are sketched first, then built in the computer as 3-D digital objects. Then, there must be testing. WoW was in development for five years."

Link to The Boston Globe

Netease to Open Beta TX2 today, China - stats/analysis

from the Over in the East dept

On August 26, NetEase (NTES) will release the open beta version of Tian Xia II (TX2), one of its in-house developed 3D games. The open beta will be officially launched on September 20, accompanied by a large-scale advertising campaign. This article discusses TX2's 4Q09 outlook and potential risks, and shows the game's recent trends of Peak and Average Concurrent Users (PCU and ACU).

TX2's PCU will be substantially boosted by aggressive advertising. TX2 is the focus of NetEase's advertising campaign in the second half of 2009, and more than RMB 100 million ($14.6 million) will be allocated to TX2's promotion, according to reports by Sina and Nanfang Daily. My tracking shows TX2 has already reached 160K PCU without much advertising (see chart below). I estimate the heavy advertising surrounding the open beta will propel TX2's PCU to at least 250K in 4Q09.

TX2 players' spending and stickiness will increase significantly. The huge size of TX2's open beta patch (1G - larger than many single games) indicates rich new contents will be added. Currently, TX2's revenues rely heavily on four systems/features: Treasure Box, Soul Pearl (Yuan Hun Zhu), Dresses, and Riding Animals. I believe the open beta version's abundant new contents will diversify TX2's revenue sources, and boost players' spending to a higher level in 4Q09. In addition, the large amount of new contents will increase players' stickiness in 4Q09 because they are likely to spend much time on exploring new maps, tasks, instances (Fu Ben), etc.

TX2 still faces potential risks. Although TX2's game design significantly imitates World of Warcraft (WoW), its skill system, task system, and profession balance still have a long way to go compared with WoW. I believe the open beta version will only partially solve this problem, and a lot of additional R&D efforts are required to improve TX2 after it enters open beta. Although aggressive advertising will boost TX2's PCU in the near term, such PCU levels will not be sustainable if NetEase's R&D efforts on TX2 fail to keep up with the growth in concurrent users.

Thanks to Seeking Alpha.

Germany's Gamigo signs Interzone Futebol for Europe - also Gamescon trailer

from the Kick Stuff dept

Interzone's 11-a-side MMO footy game signed by gamigo

gamigo AG and Interzone Entertainment have announced that Futebol will be released in German and English by the end of this year, with French, Spanish, Turkish and Polish language versions following in 2010. Futebol is an online game which features team-based multiplayer matches, with every character on the pitch (playing field) controlled by a different player, including goalkeepers who, until now, have always been AI-controlled. During the match, players will improve their skills and unlock new skills and moves. Players will also improve their personal rankings and their team's rankings, earn money through salary or sponsorship, and customize their character at creation, during game play, and by buying virtual items from Interzone's online store. A trailer is now locally mirrored.

BigWorld @ GDC/GamesCom Cologne 2009 next week

from the Will you be There? dept.

Contact details here.