<-125x125 Button - right->Every once in a while the scientific community feels obliged to enter the taboo gaming territory and run studies demonstrating the absolute obvious for the sake of scientific argumentation. Today’s piece comes via Associated Press and tells us just how time consuming online role playing games can be, changing the user’s life patterns into less sleep, work and social activities in favor of more game time. At least we’re one step closer to unveiling the truth as out academic researcher states that games have great “enthrallment” potential instead of the overused term of addictive qualities. The study was published in the October issue of the journal Cyberpsychology & Behavior.

Syracuse University psychology professor Joshua Smith tested the gaming habits of 100 student volunteers, as they were presented with different role playing games to try while randomly divided into four test groups. While the laws of psychological experiments are clearly stated in the deontology books, I believe a gamer’s perspective on the matter could have improved the accuracy of the final result. At the moment there are no hard cover books to explain what 12 year old gamers have known for a long time from experience. Do you agree that games spread over significantly different release dates, platforms and popularity pools have the same impact on perfect test subjects? Then let’s take a look at the contenders.

One group played on token machines at a local arcade, having to taint their gaming sessions with the social pressures of an open real life environment. The second group played “Gauntlet: Dark Legacy”, a 1999 hack and slash console RPG for Playstation 2, having access to personalized time frames while playing the game in the comfort of their own homes. The third group got down and dirty playing Diablo 2 on computers (first released in 2000), with access to multiplayer online features. The last group played the “Dark Age of Camelot” MMORPG, exclusively online role playing game which was released in 2001.

The way I see it arcade games have a greater appeal casual gamers, due to the low amount of time involved in playing the game from start to end. Things turn hardcore more often in the role playing computer world. While the Playstation 2 title was a good one, its success was nowhere close to the incredible hype that drove Diablo 2 players to keep gaming years after the release. Professor Smith also disregards the fact that the MMORPG scene was in its infancy in the 2000’s and games didn’t fully have the addictive stimuli of recent day titles. Dark Age of Camelot had and still has a good number of fans, yet it’s nothing compared to the millions of users locked in similar modern MMORPGs.

One month of testing showed revealed the fourth group having the highest amount of time spent inside the game, more than twice as much as the Diablo 2 group. The first two categories weren’t even close, proving once more the poor choice in selecting similarly effective gaming incentives. Joshua Smith concluded that Dark Age of Camelot players reported significantly lower health and poorer sleep patterns. Gaming also interfered more with their studies and social lives. Looking on the bright side, group four had a lot of fun playing the game and even said they made many new friends within the virtual realms. So there you have it, online gaming is better than any other type, a hard truth many non-academic devotees have experienced for years.

Developer Zoetrope Interactive and publisher Lighthouse Entertainment just released a demo version for Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder, their upcoming quest/adventure thriller due for retail by Halloween 2007. With a short yet powerful introduction by the words of horror master H. P. Lovecraft, I wonder who can resist the temptation of a quick sneak peek. “Men of broader intellect know that there is no sharp distinction betwixt the real and the unreal.”

Read on for an abyssal journey at the edges of human comprehension.

Story

<-125x125 Button - right->The story unfolds as you take up the job of a police detective investigating the murder of a wealthy man involved in the occult. Highly experienced private eye Loath Nolder is the prime suspect and it’s your to confront your idol and learn the truth. It seems Loath Nolder abandoned his last case five years ago and mysteriously disappeared. Some say he was seen on several exotic locations, pursuing shamans and sorcerers when suddenly he makes another appearance here. Your quest begins in an old mansion shrouded in the rumors of old. There is talk about its elder inhabitants, things that linger in the depths of nightmares, as the nearby building predates the rest of the village by several hundred years.

Concept and Gameplay

Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder is a 360 degree point and click photographic experience that relies on your ability to discover hidden niches and combine clues in order to advance the game plot. Rich textures and surreal ambient music make up for an in depth experience, while hunting for your next clues. I had no problems completely submerging myself into the eerie game world and starting to feel, act and think as my character would. At several points throughout the game you can see cut scenes depicting your avatar voicing out his fears and ideas, in a continuous motion which hardly ever makes the transition uncomfortable. For instance, while entering the last room available in the demo I found myself stuck in a dark room, nowhere to go and with the flashlight fading. It was then that my character started panicking and tried to run back the way he came once the musty cave walls began to shake menacingly. The graphics and overall feeling are consistent with the whole of Lovecraftian lore. Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder is filled with mysterious creatures powered by our imagination and a seed of the uncanny.

In the beginning puzzles aren’t that hard to decipher. Not too hard, not too shallow, there’s mind candy for everyone with extra focus on the storyline and less on mind twisting dead ends. At some point, I had to combine five clues to set up a complex symbol, acting like a key. I was intrigued at first as to why won’t my contraption work, but it soon became apparent I wasn’t using the information provided by all of them. In this regard there is a subtle sense of achievement that drives the player to delve deeper into the game.

Some events are scripted so that you need to fulfill certain prerequisites before triggering them. You can tell there is another room beneath the floor when you knock on the wall and then again on the floor, noticing the difference in echo. Only then can you push the wooden cabinet away and pull the rug off to discover a secret passage. In the same fashion, you’ll be able to pick up a flashlight once your advance will be halted by the impenetrable darkness of a distant room.

All alone in a haunted mansion, down in a cave below, it’s only a matter of time until the next step will be your last. I find the demo ending quite intriguing, on par with the Lovecraftian ethos where nightmare-breed creatures come to life and devour the very mind which created them. I can’t wait to see more when the full game gets released.

Sound and Graphics

This fully single player experience wouldn’t be the same without the flurry of dark ambient sounds capes designed to infiltrate your soul and prepare it for the great fear to come. Effective to the very last note, I felt right at home stepping in the shoes of our intrepid detective, exploring every corner of this imposing mansion. It’s not so much about the music as it is about the 3D sound positioning and the vivid surprises which wait at every turn. I particularly enjoyed the ruff cut cave textures which simulate reality very effective, contrasting the clean and highly detailed images from the well lighted rooms above. Darkness and shadows will often enough play tricks on your vision. Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder lives up to 2007 standards and you won’t feel wronged in your choice by the visual elements at no time during gameplay.

Conclusion

I’m glad that a game such as Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder still surfaces the gaming world, because quests and adventure games are a dying breed. Such rare bird is not to be ignored regardless of your current gaming affiliations. I for one am a bit nostalgic and will enjoy the title to its fullest. Its crippling dark atmosphere, the strong Lovecraft references coupled with complex mind candy and a good storyline provide great value for your money. Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder is scheduled to be the first in a series of three installments, ready for release this Halloween. Until then, I suggest you take a most enlightening look at the demo and see if you share my opinions.

On Friday, CPP, the owner of the massive online multiplayer game
EVE Online, made public the fact that they have discovered a security breach.



<-234x60 Half Banner - left->The game went offline, while the team of experts was trying to fix the anomaly founded in the database, which indicated an exploit.
Jon Horodal, CPP chief operating officer, declared that "What we discovered was an indication that one of our databases was being accessed through a security breach. While some may feel that such a drastic reaction was not warranted, it is always our approach to err on the side of caution in order to protect the players."



After a short period of time, the security breach problem has been solved and things went back to normal.
The company announced that no personal information or credit card numbers were exposed.

There are some rumors though, saying that one of the CCP database administrators was a victim of a keylogger, fact denied by the CPP.
Steven Davis, CEO of game security company SecurePlay believes that "The most likely scenario is that the Eve operational team has a live Internet connection and that a worm or other tool was used to access the game database."

This is not the first time EVE Online is implicated in a security scandal.
It happened previously, in 2006, when an insider was accused of giving confidential information to players.

On the Global Gaming Expo website, EuroTouch Interactive is announced to come with a stunning presentation for the gaming sector, more exactly the Z-Dome.



<-125x125 Button - left->The Z-Dome is a projection screen in a sphere shape, 8 foot tall, a simulator that can show you games and movies 180 degrees around you.
The device has touch screen controls at the bottom, speakers in its base, while the projector is situated in the back.
The key here is the software used, which takes PCs input and transforms it to fit the round area.

Wanna have one of these?
It is easy if you live in the US.
You can order one from EuroTouch and they’ll deliver at your door the package containing the projector, the screen, shipping and hand-holding.
But you got to have a lot of money for that because it costs $19,000.



Global Gaming Expo(G2E) is the most acclaimed event of the year for the gaming industry.
Taking place each November in Las Vegas, in partnership with the American Gaming Association, the event gathers the biggest gaming executives, industry professionals, and buyers, to share the newest products, trends and ideas.

In the mainstream gaming world the MMORPG is a treacherous mistress, acting like a double edged blade which strikes mercilessly where she once healed a woe. Publishers often prioritize financial gains over the creation of sublime beauty and the fight for popularity raises a heavy toll; the scene quickly becomes saturated by numerous weak and unpolished releases. There is also a hint of hope, a prophecy of redemption to bring promise to the lost. Being developed by NHN Games studios, one of the biggest names in the Korean MMO scene, ArchLord set out to be a strong pretender to the throne of online role playing goodness. The title is free to download and free to play at the moment. Codemasters handles publishing and distribution rights for the western lands with a world wide release on August 17, 2006. ArchLord - false prophet or redeemer? Find out for yourselves in the following review.

Story

The history of the magical continent of Chantra is long and detailed, available for anyone to read on the official site. Tens of pages unfold the story of the land, way too much for anyone to grasp after just one reading session. Unfortunately the game sees only a small fraction implemented into its quests and NPCs rarely talk about game lore.

Gameplay

<-250x250 Square - left->The number of characters you can sustain at any one given time on a single server is limited to three. Humans, orcs and Moon Elves fight for the title of ArchLord, with predetermined class and gender options. The eight archetypes are race specific incarnations of the warrior, the bowman and the spellcaster. Thus Humans can be male archers and knights, or female mages. Orcs are male berserkers and hunters or female sorceresses. The moon Elves are exclusively female to play, sharing their love for rangers and elementalists. As far as appearance customization is concerned, players can change the haircuts and faces of their avatars but nothing more. I found the whole process to be quite limiting in terms of freedom in role playing and class availability. Classes act pretty much on the same principle and no dedicated healers are in sight.

Fresh to the city of Golundo, this stranger set out to make a name for himself and Berserker Orcs everywhere. Surprisingly there are no quests to be had yet, something that only adds to the frustration that you can’t scroll through NPC text. I guess ArchLord is based on a highly intuitive interface where you have to guess both quests and storyline. I was a bit disappointed to learn that my first skills can be acquired at level 4, so off I went, trying to persuade unsuspecting critters to level me up. Stat-wise you have hit points and mana points, complimented by strength, agility, intelligence, wisdom, charisma and power. Unfortunately there are no tool-tips for any of them so my interpretation could be subjective at best. Skills are bought from trainers and feature different ranks that increase in power with level. Each skill costs mana so a warrior type would eventually take a hit in effectiveness due to the lack of a higher mana pool. There are potions to supplement this shortcoming. At least one out of three monsters will drop either a health of mana potion, being the game’s way of minimizing downtime.

Quests aren’t basically imply killing off a specific number of creatures bearing the same description or hunting drop able items via grinding. It bothers me that players need to place extra clicks to start, acknowledge, and finish quests. I find the “you’ve just accepted a quest” textbox to be highly useless, hinting that developers think quests to be something incredibly rare events that deserve 1000% of our attention. As I said, they are neither epic nor complex and the rewards are not worth the time involved in completing them. At least that’s the case for the first few levels of the game. Overall, ArchLord is the kind of game where you need to grind creatures for hours and hours in order to advance.

Funny enough, the text for adding a character to either your friend list or ignore list is the same. On occasion you won’t be able to tell the difference, especially when lag hits and that click might have gone either way, but you know what they say, love is just as strong as hate. Speaking of which, playing in a party will probably get you to express either of them. The main advantage of playing in groups is that buffs get automatically shared between characters. Since fighting monsters is usually a passive act that does not require a lot of micro and skill usage, buffs and equipment is what you’ll desire for quick boosts of power. Creeps are usually displaced over small areas, thus a party could successfully take over a spawning place and grind there for hours and hours. I always disliked the idea that I have to race the 10 other players in the vicinity for my next kill. This basically encourages people to camp spawning spots without switching areas and exploring the game world. I feel this takes away from the fun of playing a MMO, being a hit in gameplay.

The controls are cold stiff. Movement is based upon the W-S-A-D cross that controls forward and backward movement along with turning around. Although you can customize the keyboard mapping, the lack of strafing is notable. Be advised that you can zoom in and out with the mouse wheel, yet you can’t mouse-look and it’s of the utmost importance. The camera often enough changes the point of view into disturbing angles when turning and or running up a hill. Further camera view adjustments are made by using the arrow keys. Up to now you need three free hands to operate the 8 keys and the mouse at the same time, in order to properly guide your character on the adventure map. Avatars frequently change direction for no apparent reason and stop for a second in doing so, thus movement feels mechanical, somewhat as if you were experiencing lags. Although characters can fall small distances, from higher ground, they can’t jump and you’ll soon enough find yourself stuck in a rather insignificant obstacle like a wooden fence, or behind a house and the nearby hill. I can’t help but wonder how such horrible pathing will affect the seemingly fast and furious world of PvP. I can’t imagine how extensive PvP will be carried out as long as you can’t dodge, close in for the kill or run away for a strategic advantage.

Concept

ArchLord aims to impress through one fundamental difference that will shape both PvP and the in-game social structure of guilds. NHN developers have a great plot twist in mind. One player will be able to control the ArchLord, a supreme being able to directly influence through power the social workings of the land. Not only does he receive a full set of impressive new armor, he also has a giant arsenal of unique weapons at his disposal. Throw in the mix a fire breathing dragon for a flying mount and you pretty much have the cool factor covered, with major bragging rights. In addition, he can use all of his new found powers to impose a specific vision over the lands, including a tax rate over each player. It’s quite a responsibility; therefore developers prepared a special event in order to choose the most suitable characters for such a task, a continuous power struggle that gathers the six most influential guilds each month and pairs them in a game mode similar to castle siege.

In a timed battle, defenders are enclosed in a heavily fortified stronghold, while attackers have various siege engines at their disposal. Should the gates fall, the attackers must secure three out of the five objectives in order to take control of the castle. Only three guilds will remain, having to battle it out in a last-man-standing scenario. Each guild has an appointed ArchLord candidate who will eventually take charge of this destiny should his mates win the confrontation. Of course, losing guilds may very well challenge the power of the ArchLord head on in all-out war, but this may be harder than anticipated, considering the extensive list of powers available to the ruler. The ArchLord can summon up to 20 monsters or three powerful knights to aid him in battle, can change the weather and has access to very powerful spells.

Sound and Video

The music was recorded with help from the godly London Symphony Orchestra. I am not qualified to test such a claim, yet I can tell you that regarding musical composition, tracks lack the details and finesse compelling developers to use such finely attuned music weavers. None the less, music fits great with the environment, saving face in front of other various shortcomings. Voices are not that impressive though, as they see limited use and lack the undeniable immersion qualities of extensive professional voice acting.

For a next generation MMORPG ArchLord has quite outdated graphics. The poor geometry of the landscape design leads to a lot of rough edges, visible even on full detail and higher resolution settings. I’m not saying there are no complex buildings and special places that look good; I’m just observing that starting cities and the surrounding areas have a simple look about them. Trees are so far apart that one can’t be sure it we deal with a hill, plain, mountain or forest. Grass and tree branches both receive the same unnatural feel.

Multiplayer

Fighting for the ArchLord title has the potential to bind players together in a cooperative effort, or break alliances through into competitive skirmishes in grand acts of betrayal. I can’t say team PvP is frantic, even though NHN wishes to stage monthly worldwide events where players can bash themselves out in a controlled environment. Incentives to take battles out in the open lie solely within self motivation, because the game system punishes you for non-consensual PvP. Heavy healing potion usage is common, as PvP dominance follows the better geared characters when uncanny critical hits rank above human skill and timing. You can attack other players anytime after level 6 if you so desire. Throughout the world special creatures are to be encountered, whereas PvE cooperation is required. Characters can band together in parties and eliminate such powerful foes, for greater loot and experience rewards. I can’t say ArchLord is that massive in terms of player interaction; you will trade others for rare item drops, but that’s as far as player interaction goes.

Conclusion

The overall feeling of the game seems to be lacking, due to the poor implementation of otherwise generous concepts. For instance, emotes aren’t that bombastic in terms of character animation and speech is often enough childish. Coupled with repetitive gameplay, difficult control scheme and average graphics, I can’t help wondering what happened to the great PvP hype during beta testing. Starting January 4, 2007 Codemasters removed the standard monthly charge, turning ArchLord into a free to play enterprise, with in-game buffs available for real money. You can see for yourselves and experience ArchLord along with its first expansion Season of Siege now, through the official website.