I just came across this article about Zynga CEO that knew he was scamming user on mafia war and farmville but didn’t care at the time. The article was written in october 2009 and you can see the evolution of fix and ban that zynga have got for there game since the article from techcrunch.

The best part is probably the quote from the zynga ceo found in this article.

“I did every horrible thing in the book just to get revenues,” -Mark Pincus

There a lot of game that use to have these stupids offers, I never bothered to check them except when it was just an offer that say “check that website”, you click and then got the money.

Here the techcrunch article and all the update if you want to know more about this.

Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem Of Hell

I came across a make over of the super mario bros game a while ago, it’s call super mario crossover from Exploding Rabbit.

You probably already founded it but if you don`t you should try it here. I must tell you that it’s really hard to play on a keyboard. I really need to found my gamepad somewhere.

My favorite character so far is simon with is double jump and is axe that destroy bricks. Mario look really boring compare to the other caracter … 😛

For those who had tried which character is your favorite ?

There a survey on Koramgame forum about if the Emperor’s Road should still be in the game and how to make it more accessible.

Personaly I haven’t be able to grab a state capital or else give a shot at the emperor road. The main problem I see from the two server I’ve played it’s that usally a strong league came up, then when the empreor road start they grab most of the state capital and then attack the other league to grab the other state capital. Once that’s done on of there member who willing to put a lot of cash into gold acheive the rank of generalissimo and grab luo yang, and then the whole league concentrate on helping him build the imperal palace and clearing the other league that remain alive.

Note that the feature is cool but maybe it should be more accesible.

Here the link to the survey : http://forum.koramgame.com/viewthread.php?tid=10084&extra=page%3D1

I founded something fun today you can play nes game from your browser at http://benfirshman.com/projects/jsnes/ it’s seem that the best browser to play is chrome 3 acording to this article.

Note that this is not really new since you can play NES in facebook, but it’s always fun to play those old NES game.

For those living in a cave or that didn’t go on google today, google has a new doodle and it’s to celebrate pac-man 30th birthday. You can actually play the game from the doodle which is pretty awesome.

Someone have attacked a weaker league member and you want to strike back or someone have taxed your league and you want them to pay.

The first mistake new league leader make is usually to throw the name of the attacker in a league message. What happen its that people usually don’t do anything about it or attack in an unplanned, disorganized way making it easy for the defender to dodge most of the blow.

Planning a attack on one player.

If he’s stronger than most of your player but smaller than your league and he league don’t care about him you can probably taking out in 2 wave.

1-List the cities of the player

Post the list of the player you want to strike on the league forum if you have one or by sending a league message.

Each player pick a city and , if you league is small and many player attack one city a leader for the attack should be name and he will coordinate the attack with other players assign to this city.

It could be a good idea to use the legion system to coordinate an attack, assigning the leader of an attack has a legion leader and put all the members that are helping him in his legion.

2-Pick a time for the clearing wave and the second wave

This we give an idea for the league member to plan how and when they are going to deploy there troop.

Note that players that are to far should focus on sending only troop with high movement rate.

Why ? because if the members are to far, it will give a hint to the player that you are attacking and will give him enough time to message his league mate to send support and maybe to attack the attacker before the actual attack hit, stealing if food which may kill some troop if its food consumption is negative.

3-the actual attack

1st the clearing wave

Like explained in a previous article, separating your strike in wave can help to increase the efficiency of your troop.

This wave consist mostly of inf/cav with some ram and maybe demo

The goal is to take is troop and resources out and do some damage so he wont be able to have support

2nd the demo/loby wave

Still Consist mostly of inf/cav with some ram but with a lot of demo

The goal is to paralyze him by destroying all is granary, warehouse and farmland.

Without any of these his city food will be in the red he will have to destroy his building in order to rebuild farmland. More info on how to use your demolisher here.

If you’re planning to attack him with lobbyist be sure to strike a sub city and that the annexe is destroy. You can always try to steal the city in one sweep with the help of your league mate using this tactic.

Planning an attack on many player

Probably the best way is the list all the player you want to  attack and there city.

Then you proceed like we discuss for attacking one player, Your member could pick many enemies member to strike if he’s really strong or your member may regroup in team to strike a specific player and each sub team take care of an enemy.

From what I saw taking the county is a good tactic because they are easier to pick than normal city since once you kill all the troop you get the city and all troop from your league mate will become support troop.

Another tactic that seems to work well, focus on the strong player of the league, it usually demoralized the other player of the league and they might quit too.

Tell me about your tactic you’ve used to take down other player or league. Did I forgot some other strategy that worked well with your league ?

"In battles, as verbal communication cannot be heard clearly, cymbals and drums are used as commands" As visual communication and eye contact are hampered, banners and flags are used as signals. Now the purpose of using cymbals, drums, flags and banners is to draw attention of the troops and focus them for combat under the direction of the commander. Once the troops are united as one body, the courageous ones will not advance forward by themselves and the cowardly ones will not retreat by themselves. This is the art of directing larges forces in battles. – Chapter Seven, Sun Tzu Art of War

In war good, communication with your troops, allies and even enemies his the key.

In most games MMO browser-based strategy game (like Three kingdom online, tribal war and travian) they have these feature built in.

If your a veteran player you can probably skips that part for other the advantage and disadvantage of each method will be explained.

In game feature

In game message

All these game have in game message, the quickest way to got a player whatever he his online or the next time he login.

It help you to find out if the user is still active, if he doesn’t answer after a few days or week you can presume he’s out.

The main advantage of this is that it’s quick and you’re almost sure the other player will read it next time he play.

The disadvantage is that entrusted player may read your message.

League message

Same thing has above but use by leadership and elite members of a league or tribes to send a message to the mass.

While it’s great to reach all your members, if there a spy in your league he might be able to read it and like normal message entrusted member can read it to.

Chat

Some of these game have in game chat, it’s great to talk directly to your peer, but you must be aware of the issues each room have.

From TKO chat here are the different room and how to use them.

World

Everybody on the server see it, so don’t tell sensitive info or information about what time it is or if it’s day or night, because other player might use this to attack you when your asleep or working.

League

Like the league message all your league member see this, beware of spy.

Private

Standard – One on one chat, note that you might be speaking to an entrust not the real player.

Internal forum

They work differently depending on the game, but like the league message, all league member see it (accept officer sub-forum). That some of them (like tribal war tribe forum) someone with an entrust can see it.

External to the game communication that might be useful.

External forum

The external forum solves most of the issues player with an entrust, only the player who registered can access it.

It can be useful to coordinate with ally too, an ally can have is own section of a forum and each tribes/leagues can share a section forum.

The main disadvantage is that you lose most of the feature of the in game forum, like writing the coordinate wills create a link directly to the in game location, this don’t work with an external forum.

IRC

You can always set up a IRC channel for you league. The advantage is that user can access it even if they’re not logged to the game and you can have control over who can be in the channel with a bot.

IM

Instant massaging can be useful specially the conference or group chat, you can talk to your buddy evens if they are not online (which can be annoying too if they are always poking you when the see you online).

Collaboration systems

like google wave, wiziq

I honestly haven’t planned anything with google wave but I did with wiziq and it really cool, you can have a draw  board and put the map on it and plan the attack and have a visual representation of the situation. It takes some effort to setup though but it might worth it.

Does any of you have use other method of communication to plan an attack or to plot something with your allies ?

It’s not a web browser game but is a really nice desktop game.

Is you want to play a really nice free mech game try Armored Legion. It’s play directly from your browser and you can buy gun and everything.

Here there links :

Mechwarrior 4

Armored Legion

A Interview on gamasutra really caught my attention it’s about The Rise of Free-To-Play At EA

EA have a brand new game that inspired from game like tribal war and travian but set in the world of ultima (Lord of Ultima) and gamasutra interviwing Ben Cousins general manager of Electronic Arts’ new free-to-play team

I really like that it takes on game I’ve played like tribal war, travian (TKO is kind of a travian asian style), why people play and don’t play evony (one of the reason he says Is actually why I don’t play). The part I liked the most is when he talk about how the small shops are scared that EA is entering the free to play with a somewhat big development team (5-6 peoples 10 month).

I think I will give a shot to there game, I just hope It’s not another time sink like TKO, Tirbal war and countless others… Here the complete article called : Interview: The Rise of Free-To-Play At EA