TKO Server Release/Merge Dates

XuSheng had some time on his hand and decided to make a list of all the merge and the time before they merged. That can be useful to know how long will your server will merge.

Seem that the fastest was 5 month after opening (s37) and the longest time was 23 month (U10) and 18 month (s1). Almost 2 year before a merge I’m surprise people were still playing the U10 server.

Check out XuSheng thread for the complete list: http://forum.koramgame.com/thread-80950-1-1.html

Multiserver Battle

MSB recently finished and there been some talk about how MSB is boring because two big league just join together, you can read the whole forum thread for more info. Note that since the Gladiator have disbanded their league that might be different next time.

Forum thread: http://forum.koramgame.com/thread-81863-1-1.html

New server

There a new server up S87, check out the related thread: forum.koramgame.com/thread-82026-1-1.html

I did a quick check around the web to find nice new and upcoming mobile game. Here a quick list :

Sonic the Hedgehog (2.99$)

Sega made a new sonic game for iOs and android, it’s not free (2.99$) but it worth a look if you’re a fan of the franchise. Check out the full review at Inside social game here. (Full Review)

Defense Technica (free/0.99$)

Defense Technica despite having a really weird name is a full flesh out 3d tower defense like there is a million of them. The graphic are actually really nice for the ipad.  Where you put your turret is on predefine spot on the map and you use your tower or barricade to bloc some path from your enemies. You check  the video they made, it’s awesome and will give you a idea of the gameplay. (Full Review)

Kingturn rpg (free)

Kingturn is a nice tactical RPG that look a little like final fantasy tactic (that I’ve talked recently) you move each turn your troops and you can cast spell. From the prologue campaign you have access to a few class, the main character is Nicolette a mage and her follower are warriors, archers, a paladin, a trickster, and summoner. From the enemy you meet you already know that there is more class available has you will progress (knight, wizard, thief, etc)

The prologue campaign is free and the full campaign can be unlocked for $4.99.

(Full Review)

Other notable game that I didn’t have time to play

Warhammer Quest (4.99$) – Full Review from Indie Game

Mansion Run (0.99$) – Full Review from Indie Game

Upcoming

Plant vs zombie 2 (free)

While there is no shortage of zombie game (link to previous post), plant vs zombie was a fresh take on the tower defense and zombie genre at the time it came out. The formula might seems a bit rehash but since I’ve liked the original game I will probably give a shot to this one too.

It seems that it will be free with in-game purchase and it’s come out on the july 18th.

If you liked the original you should definitely check it out when its out.

Related news :

Touch arcade review : Plant vs zombie 2: it’s about time

MCV Uk : Plant vs zombie 2: Free to play

Terraria (?.?? $)

I love terraria, it’s like a 2d minecraft game with boss. I’m very happy to know that there is a mobile version of the game coming. If you’re fan of this game or you just want to try it on mobile, you will only have to wait until this summer to get a grip on the mobile version.

Related news:

Touch arcade: 2d Minecraft Terraria out on mobile this summer

MSV Uk: Terraria hit mobile device this summer

It’s been awhile I haven’t done any weekly update, here what caught my eye in the last month.

Browser game

Mashup of scrabble + simcity = verbocity

Here a game with a really cool concept it puts together the word game genre (like scrabble) and the city building genre (like simcity). You build buildings which cover an area and you get the letter under the area. To build another building you must have the letter to build the given building. If you want to build a “house” you must have all the letter in the word house.

And there is a little  extra twist you must balance between population, job and fun (recreational) building to get extra value for your town.

So far here are the word I’ve found :

House, hut, park, mine, factory, stadium, arena, statue, tower, skyscraper, condo, zoo, pub, bar, club, museum, court, barrack, field, townhall, dump.

Link to the game : Verbocity

Related : Spell ‘tower’ and more in SimCity and Scrabble mashup VerboCity

Scrounger: another Zombie game

Another zombie game that caught my eye with his retro style.

The game play is actually really fun even though the controls are squishy and that you sometime was ammo for no reason. You got from room to room collecting ammo and food. You can shoot the zombie but there is more zombie than ammo so it’s better  to run from them most of the time. You clear an area when you collect everything or kill all the zombie.

Link to the game : Scrounger

Related : Scrounger, if starvation or fatigue doesn’t kill you, the zombies will

Final Fantasy mobile news

Not browser related since I’ve already wrote about final fantasy tactics in the past there some new here.

There’s an update for final fantasy tactic, new graphic, new animation, support for the iCloud and it’s half off woohoo 🙂

Click here for more info from toucharcade

Another Free final fantasy tactic is out in japan on iOs, we don’t know if there will be a release elsewhere in the world but I hope it will.

It seems it has the race and class from Final Fantasy tactic Advance 2 on the DS, which I’ve loved, but the combat system seems much simpler missing the tactical advantage of moving around the terrain and going behind your enemy back.
You can check out the trailer :

Finally if you are a Fan of the final fantasy series there a talk next week (june 11th 2013) about the future of the franchise.

More info here on MCV

Has a Final Fantasy  fan you can check the development of game The Black Tower, a final fantasy nod that have a similar combat system to Final Fantasy 7

World of Tank: from free to play to free to win

Wargaming the maker of Word of tank, has made a announcement that it won’t give in game advantage making the game “more equal” for paying/non-paying user.

From the article :

“Free-to-play games have the challenge of being sometimes viewed as low quality, and we want World of Tanks to serve as proof that a quality and balanced free-to-play game is possible. However, breaking down deeply-rooted stereotypes is no easy task.”

Check out the full article on Gamasutra

You start with no staff at all but don’t worry, it’s probably better that way. Staff cost a lot of money and their salaries go up pretty quickly too. So I wouldn’t recommend going to the market either since the market is flooded with applicant and a staff member with a 100 attribute cost a whopping sometime 90-100k.

Instead check out the weekly applicant that come to the arena for a job, they are usually not as good than the one on the market (sometime their stats are mostly garbage) but they don’t cost the premium of staff on the market. You can train him in order to become better.

The staff member effectiveness is increased via your installation so incompetent lecturer with good installation may be the same has a good (but pricey) lecturer in bad installation. Since installation cost less and can always be downgrade for money, focus on the installation before the staff.

After 6-7 season our employees will skill will have greatly increased and so is their salary.

The salary seems to increase with the year in your organization and the number of points in each attribute. (I’m not sure but double check the forum) Note that has the attributes grow so grow the salary exponentially meaning that a staffer with a  high attribute and a low one (let say 100/0) will cost sometime 10 time the cost of a staffer with balanced attribute (like 50/50)

you can see in this image a coach with 30 point less cost 3 times less too.

The takeaway point here is focus on recruiting cheap staff and train both attribute equally. Has your team grows and the money come in you will be able to pays those big salaries later.

The player you start with are pretty bad, but they’re a good thing they got pretty bad salaries too. You might be tempted to go on the market and blow you money on 2 or 3 super star, but that completely useless since you don’t have decent player to complement them and a the arena to hold the thousand of fan to see them play.

before :

After :

Ok so what should you look for in you player ? You should check the quality of the attribute not the attribute itself. The quality of the attribute is the innate ability of the player to progress that attribute, the bigger the value the more responsive the player will be to training.

The takeaway point here is :

Quality of the attribute = good progress of the value of the attribute when you train.

Value of the attribute = good performance in game

Note that each position have there main attribute and their secondary one that depends on the position, they are all in the guide so go check the guide.

Now that you looked at you player, you should keep them for now. Once you start recruiting decent player in the academy you can get rid of bad one (by terminating their contract, not renewing it or placing it on the market).

If you want to recruit on the market that the subject of a whole other post but keep this in mind for now :

1- you are not making any money, start focusing on upgrading your arena first (more about this in a next post)

2- be careful the market is oversaturated with player that are not well balanced but have a big salary because of their over inflated overall

3- you need to wait 11 days (have 11 points to be a novice manager) to be able to bids on players.

4- do not exceed 40 players there a penalty for having too many player and you need the extra money now.

OK, Ok guys! I’m going to write a quick guide on ppm because I made the mistake of not reading the guide when I started and now my team finance is a mess. If you’re like me the first thing you did when you started playing it goes look at your players and go around the interface a bit. So before going anywhere read the official ppm guide here, it contains all the basic you need to know about the game.

I don’t know why but I had a hard time finding where the guide was, I was easier to find it via google go figure.

Note take time to read the faq and rules just to be sure you won’t make the mistake of naming your team an inappropriate name or trolling the forum.

I promise guys, that’s the last time I’ll use that image

You start with no staff, a few player (enough for 3-4 line) and a very small arena.

Don’t worry Rome wasn’t build in a day and so is your team of super stars.

In the next coming part of the guide, we will talk about the three cornerstones of your team:  your players, your staff and your arena

Most say that they’re not more important that one or another, the player need the staff and the arena to train, take care of injury and play, the staff need the arena infrastructure to do its work and the arena need the staff to be taken care of, finally these player wills bring the crowds, glory and cash that goes with it to pays all this nice mix.

Part 2: Players

Part 3: Staff

Part 4: Arena

You guys know I like good hockey manager game, I’ve already talked about Cyberpuck and Senior Hockey League.

I’ve been playing for a while another hockey manager called power play manager. It’s probably one the best hockey manager that don’t use real player (NHL) out there.

Powerplay Manager puts you in charge of your very own hockey team, not only as General Manager, but as Coach, assistant coach and president all wrapped into a single user-account. Your goal; to battle it out in leagues against other people just like you to gain promotion to high leagues, more rewards and better team growth.

What I really liked about this game is that you have to manage and build your teams infrastructure, including arena, staff and economic stability and train your team and work to win your local league, where you play against other users just like you. Most game (like cyberpuck and shl) tend to focus on the train your team and win game part but Powerplay hockey manager really shine in the way you can customize (if you have the money) your arena the way you want, recruit staff, build better infrastructure to increase the training of your team and staff. You can even customize your team shirt, puck if you pay for the pro pack.

I’m not very good at the game, the fact that it’s yet another game I have to login everyday unfortunately drive me off it. I try to login and play from time to time not to lose the team (after 30 day they cancel your team). I’ll try to come up with some guide, meanwhile you can access the one they made in game it’s give you the basic.