Thursday, August 23, 2007

Browser-based MMORPGs

Last week a friend of mine gave me the latest copy of PC Gamer to read. I came across an article on Omerta, a browser-based gangster MMORPG set in the 1930s. I gave it a go and it was quite fun. Bit of a bad move on my part though!

After voting for the game I found masses of these things. I started playing Bulfleet - a space empire game that is reminiscent of the classic 'Supremacy' game that those of you who had a Commodore 64 or Amiga might fondly remember. Boy, the amount of hours I wasted on that game, and I never did manage to win the 32 planet game. Oh well.

I didn't stop there. I am now also playing Imperia Online, which is similar in scope to Bulfleet, but is set in Medieval times. I like the resource gathering and empire building techniques in both of these games.

The latest one that I am completely hooked on is Gladiatus. This one is different from the rest in that it is more like an RPG in which you play a Gladiator and you train, fight, and adventure. Its not a resource/builder game.

If you want something to waste a few enjoyable days on then I would take a look at one of these. The best thing is that they are free.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Back to Rolemaster

Well, we have been playing Rolemaster for at least 6 weeks now. Boy have we been having fun. At the start of this session, Johns character got a magical bow that was reminiscent of the one that you saw the Ranger with in the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon. That was a bit of a mistake on Nige's part. It totally unbalanced the game and we just walked through the following adventure. The next week it was nerfed!

The first mission that we undertook was to investigate what looked to be an abandoned keep in the desert. It wasn't quite abandoned. It was fully of undead. That caused lots of fun for us. It was during this adventure that my Nightblade decided that he was good at detecting traps, and that if he couldn't detect one, instead of telling his fellow party members that he coudln't find one, he categorically stated that there wasn't one there. This went fine for the first few times, and then bam! We set off a trap. Oops.

One of the most memorable encounters in the keep was when we opened a door and there was a room full of weapons in racks - obviously an armoury. Willies character detected a blanket magic field over the room. We threw an object in the room and one of the weapons animated and flew towards the door through which we had threw the object. It was easily dodged. Willie then crouched down and waved a staff or similar object into the room above his head. Another weapon flew through the open doorway aiming for the point where the tip of the staff entered the room. This task was repeated numerous times until the entire armoury was emptied. Nige's masterpiece encounter was ruined - absolutely no challenge to us whatsoever. Well, let me just say that this triumph on our part was to cost us dearly in later weeks when Nige wreaked his vengeance on our characters. Oh well, that will teach us to be smart!

In a later mission, we were travelling through a forest and my Nightblade was scouting ahead. I came across some fire elementals setting fire to the trees. It was at this point that my Pyromania kicked in and I just stood there watching these absolutely enchanting creatures torch everything in site. The rest of the party caught up and defeated the creatures and then put the fires out, to Corvuses disgust and sadness.