Slashdot Mirror

almostdead writes "CNET has just put up a story about what it thinks are the best online flash games of all time. These include titles like Line Rider, Bejeweled, Desktop Tower Defense and Portal, all of which I enjoy playing a lot. But my thirst for free games is peaking at the moment, probably due to an incredibly boring job and lack of imagination. Can you suggest any more good free games online?" Two words: Puzzle Pirates.

ringbarer writes "The disappointingly mismanaged MMO Star Wars Galaxies has hit another low. The Japanese translation of the game has barely managed to reach its first Birthday, and now it's been canceled. A Rough translation is available, but the original untranslated news can be found here." I'm not entirely sure, but it seems as though players who've paid beyond the end of December will have their accounts transferred to a US/EU server if they're so inclined. Otherwise they'll have their money refunded. Apparently money isn't something SOE is smarting for, at the AGC this past week President John Smedley announced that they'll be releasing what is essentially a free MMOG, with no monthly fee. Speaking of free, the always excellent Puzzle Pirates is essentially doing the same thing. They're also doing some crackerjack Halloween Events tonight, if you're interested in some swashing and some buckling. Dark Age of Camelot's events for today's holiday sound pretty neat too.

ringbarer writes "The disappointingly mismanaged MMO Star Wars Galaxies has hit another low. The Japanese translation of the game has barely managed to reach its first Birthday, and now it's been canceled. A Rough translation is available, but the original untranslated news can be found here." I'm not entirely sure, but it seems as though players who've paid beyond the end of December will have their accounts transferred to a US/EU server if they're so inclined. Otherwise they'll have their money refunded. Apparently money isn't something SOE is smarting for, at the AGC this past week President John Smedley announced that they'll be releasing what is essentially a free MMOG, with no monthly fee. Speaking of free, the always excellent Puzzle Pirates is essentially doing the same thing. They're also doing some crackerjack Halloween Events tonight, if you're interested in some swashing and some buckling. Dark Age of Camelot's events for today's holiday sound pretty neat too.

Puzzle Pirates (the boxed version) launches next week across the country, and in preparation Warcry has a rundown on the different games you'll find on the high seas. From the article: "Swordfighting: Swordfighting is the noble art of Pirate combat. Clear blades of the same type to strike blows upon your enemy. Swordfights can range from individual challenges to the great battles between Pirate crews that occur at sea during boarding. " When the cap'n says to team up on a scurvy dog, ye best hop to it!

As mentioned previously on Slashdot Games, Puzzle Pirates is gearing up for a retail release. To increase interest in pre-sales of the boxed edition, preorders between now and April 7th are entered into a bootytacular promotion. From the post: "In order to encourage you, we're offering this week, for all pre-orders placed before April 7th only, the chance to win one of the following - A Lifetime Account to play Puzzle Pirates to infinity and beyond, A Gold Ship, custom named cutter of your choice!, A bonus pack of cards, Signed by the Ringers!, A very rare Ye Win! T-Shirt of beta tourney days!, An Island named for YOU! in the next ocean!"

TheSpoom writes "Three Rings, developers of Puzzle Pirates, a recently mentioned MMORPG, has released their Java game toolkit (a.k.a. Narya) under the GPL and are providing free hosting for games developed in it on GameGardens. Want to create your own multiplayer puzzle game? This might be a great way to get started."

Ubisoft announced this morning that they have come to an agreement with 3 Rings Design to publish Puzzle Pirates in retail stores. This exciting news couldn't come for a better game, winner of the IGF 2004 Technical Excellence and Audience Awards for Online games. From the Puzzle Pirates site: "Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates is an online game in which you play a Pirate character in an ocean world. Hundreds of your fellow player Pirates swarm these Isles and Sea-lanes. For Pirates who love acronyms, Puzzle Pirates is an massively multi-player online roleplaying game, or mmoarrrrpg." Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates is available for Demo on PC/Mac/Linux.

Elonka writes "The Online Games SIG of the IGDA has released the latest in a series of White Papers on the online computer gaming industry. The 2004 Persistent Worlds White Paper (80-page, 457K pdf) had several contributors from across the industry, and gives general "developer to developer" advice, covering everything from a quick overview of major products, to design considerations on multiplayer gameplay and dealing with online communities, to technical considerations, to some stats about the international marketplace, including the rapidly-growing Asian market. Editors included Daniel James of Three Rings Design, makers of Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates, and Gordon Walton, VP and Executive Producer at Sony Online and presenter of the Ten Reasons You Don't Want to Make a Massively Multiplayer Game talk at the 2003 Game Developers Conference."

Thanks to Frictionless Insight for its article recounting the proceedings of the 2004 Game Developers Choice and Independent Games Festival Awards, which were held last night in San Jose. Multiple GDC Award winners included Call Of Duty and Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time, and Savage: The Battle for Newerth won the IGF independent game award, with Oasis triumphing in the Web/downloadable category. Among the highlights: "When the Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates team moved to the stage to accept the [IGF Web/Downloadable Audience Choice] award, dressed as buccaneers, they basked in the most thunderous applause of the night", and the piece also notes that "...the audience was [almost equally] vocal when HK-47 (from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic) took the award for [GDC] Original Game Character of the Year." There's further coverage of the events over at GameSpy.

Thanks to the IGF website for revealing their list of nominees for the 2004 Independent Games Festival awards, which have been running since 1998 "to encourage innovation in game development and to recognize the best independent game developers." The finalists in the 'Open Category' include everything from "blend of puzzle and action" Fuzzee Teevee, budgeted at a mere $10,000, to the $1-1.5 million "FPS and RTS [hybrid]" Savage: The Battle For Newerth. The 'Web/Downloadable' category also has some interesting entries, from seeing "two possessed cue-balls duke it out in realtime battle" courtesy of Kung-Fu Chess follow-up Billiard Boxing, to recently-featured "puzzle-based massively multi-player online roleplaying game" Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates.

Spuggy writes "Ahoy mates! Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates (originally mentioned a few months back on Slashdot Games) now has an official launch date of December 8th, 2003 - it's available in Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X flavors, and has been playable in Beta form for a while now. For those of you who have still not tried the game out, Puzzle Pirates is an interesting marriage of several puzzle games and aspects of a MMORPG; but instead of your typical hack & slash of EverQuest, you perform various single/multiplayer 2D puzzles to power your boat, craft various goods in the game, and even fight your fellow players and a series of NPC Brigand boats who threaten your voyages across the ocean!"

Spuggy writes "Ahoy mates! Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates (originally mentioned a few months back on Slashdot Games) now has an official launch date of December 8th, 2003 - it's available in Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X flavors, and has been playable in Beta form for a while now. For those of you who have still not tried the game out, Puzzle Pirates is an interesting marriage of several puzzle games and aspects of a MMORPG; but instead of your typical hack & slash of EverQuest, you perform various single/multiplayer 2D puzzles to power your boat, craft various goods in the game, and even fight your fellow players and a series of NPC Brigand boats who threaten your voyages across the ocean!"

Thanks to Skotos for their column discussing whether MMORPGs are sometimes too complex for the average gamers. The writer suggests: "Often, I just want to sit down and do something simple and fun. Yet, the structure of most MMOGs doesn't accommodate this", and goes on to illustrate this, arguing "It seems like many MMOGs lately are tending more toward 'have fun doing your tax forms online while paying for it.'" The piece also discusses boredom: "How many MMOGs have the ability to mine/farm/fish/collect wood? How many are there in which this is NOT just a repetitive clicking of the mouse based on the computer response?", and putatively suggests a solution of "play[ing] Tetris to mine faster", coincidentally implemented by the recently launched Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates.

Thanks to IGN PC for their hands-on preview of Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates, the unique-looking massively multiplayer puzzle RPG from Three Rings Design for Windows and Linux. According to the article, "For anyone who ever wasted hours playing Tetris or Bejeweled, this is the game that takes that style of entertainment to the next level", and the concept of playing puzzle games to win money and buy property in this "quirky persistent state world", currently in open Beta, is discussed enthusiastically - the screenshots on the official site seem about right for those puzzle game freaks looking for a little social contact and eye patches with their puzzlin'.

Thanks to IGN PC for their hands-on preview of Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates, the unique-looking massively multiplayer puzzle RPG from Three Rings Design for Windows and Linux. According to the article, "For anyone who ever wasted hours playing Tetris or Bejeweled, this is the game that takes that style of entertainment to the next level", and the concept of playing puzzle games to win money and buy property in this "quirky persistent state world", currently in open Beta, is discussed enthusiastically - the screenshots on the official site seem about right for those puzzle game freaks looking for a little social contact and eye patches with their puzzlin'.