Having just stepped off a plane from San Fran yesterday, today I get back on one and head to Australia via Singapore. I think I'm going to gain a whole day, or lose one, or something equally brain-boggling.
And so, I leave you with Travian to puzzle over. It's got 75,000 active players, it's a web-based resource management MMOG - and it's only been live a few months!
Suttree hit something on the nose here: Web MMOGs have a massive advantage over their more flowery 3D cousins: flippability. You can work and play at the same time, with no alt-tabbing. No memory switching. IM's won't interrupt much. Email can be read. Oh, and no download, of course.
Expect to see many, many more of these web-mogs in the years to come.
Web-mog! I thank you. You heard it here first.
*runs*
Blimey, it's all a bit non-stop for you lately Alice. Still, just wait until that horrible stressful holiday in Australia is over and you can get back to blighty for a nice cup of tea.
I like web-mogs, especially as I was recently considered for lead designer at one of the biggest. This whole buying of plastic-wrapped, plastic-boxed, plastic-coated aluminium from shops that are only open a few hours a day seems a bit antiquated for the online world.
Posted by: Seb Potter | March 27, 2006 at 17:10
Looks like the village in Asterix:
http://gb.asterix.com/index.html
Posted by: Joost Schuur | March 27, 2006 at 19:48
So, Settlers meets Planetarion then?
This type of game is hardly new! And what's worse, they generally really really really benefit the players that can afford to spare lots of time to play them.. I'm not convinced that you're going to get much community out of them if you're just a lay-person as well.
Posted by: Shard | March 27, 2006 at 20:34
Travian is alright. It doesn't really suck up much time because it takes long times to save up resources and build things.
It's definetly in my schedule like checking email. It's hardly a "game" at all. But I have attacked other villages and been attacked. It's neat. I guess.
Posted by: Justin | March 28, 2006 at 03:08
Wow your coming to sunny Australia nice, you gotta post some of your Aussie adventure pics here to keep your Aussie readers happy :)
Thanks
Posted by: Pete G | March 28, 2006 at 08:37
Travian is ok, if you want to sign up i suggest you register on server 5 (it's the newest and the players are not that high yet)
also check the forum of travian, you will find some basic strategies to get you started
Posted by: barkayal | March 28, 2006 at 10:37
If you're coming to Melbourne, there's lots of ultra-fun and ultra-smart game related art exhibits on at the moment thanks to our Next Wave festival. Check out the gameslab at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image if you have a chance.
Posted by: Christian McCrea | March 28, 2006 at 10:58
Thanks Christian, I am - will be sure to look that up.
Pete G: I need a new camera.. but I'll fix that!
Posted by: Alice | March 29, 2006 at 22:33
I /was/ enjoying Travian until a group of racists took over my alliance and kicked me out for being an Untermensch.
Posted by: Chris | April 06, 2006 at 19:28
Thanks for the link. After playing it, I captured the many hours I'd spent playing it as a review:
http://ianslife.livejournal.com/2719.html
(In summary: winning still requires you to sacrifice your real life.)
Posted by: Ian M | August 18, 2006 at 13:44
Thanks for pointing me at this; I'm finding it fascinating, and it's literally just a tab in my browser.
Posted by: Drew Shiel | September 05, 2006 at 14:21
I have been looking for sites like this for a long time. Thank you!i
Posted by: Helga | July 16, 2007 at 16:21
You have built a good website7
Posted by: sveta | July 17, 2007 at 05:16
You have built a good websiteo
Posted by: Bush | October 15, 2007 at 08:44
You may have sitters while you are still active.
You may have a dual account, meaning that multiple people share the same account. This is okay as long as none of those people have or play another account on the same server.
Unless your playing as a team its pointless to play the game the top players are all teams
The advantage of spending real world money ends up pointless unless you plan to spend hundreds of dollars as the others playing as a team does not run out of their advantage
You can confirm this with Taranis Super Administrator on the games forums http://forum.travian.us
Posted by: clint | May 29, 2008 at 22:38
Thank you for your wonderful comments! I hope you enjoy our game. If you haven't signed up already please join us below! Have fun and welcome to the world of Travian.
http://www.travian.co.uk/?uc=ukx_14953
Hellfire
Posted by: Hellfire | June 06, 2008 at 23:06