Koram announced that they have baked a new game based on the Greek mythology named Mythopolis.

I started playing the game today and my first impression is :
Is Mythopolis a new game or just Three Kingdom online with new clothes ?

The same game really ?

Just when starting the game you get to chose your zodiac sign (equal region in TKO), your city (which is the equivalent of the kingdom)

If we break down each city with there TKO kingdom we got

Athen = Wei Sparta = Shu Troy = Wu

The units are the same it just that the name has changed.

Mytho

TKO

Oasis are the same except the unit defending are mystical creature instead of yellow turban

Building are the same there name have changed and the tech tree is a little different.

Mytho

TKO

The concept of placing your building is the same too. This list can goes on and on, it’s kind of normal since the game seem to be built on the same game engine. Let check what’s different for fun

New and Improved – Top things that have changed compared to TKO

1- New interface

Mythopolis arrive with a brand new interface, easier to manage, faster access to yours heroes and less cluttered than the one from TKO.

2- New quest section

There a brand new quest section and its much easier to understand than the one from tko,
Quest are grouped in category and each category you can complete a group of quest from that category, they are even bonus when you complete a certain group of quest that let you can give a gift to your facebook friend. More information on that on the Mythopolis forum : Quest System

3-New heroes management

Instead of having to go the the unintuitive left menu for hero quest, you directly access all quest and feature related to the hero directly via your hero menu.
So the training labyrinth (tower of trial), the zodiac (faction map), stadium (arena) , meet your hero (previously in the governor house in tko) are all the same place so you won`t forget anything about heroes, how many times did I forget to meet my heroes for the extra xp.

4- They made a little cleanup

The messengers are gone, I’m not sure if we should be happy about it but it give the casual player more chance against hardcore player.
There no more daily quest, quiz, book of heroes and faction quest. Which is good for those who can’t log everyday, The one I really happy about is that they removed the book of heroes, it was really annoying having to go to your governor house get the name and paste it in the quest section every hours.

5- Facebook

They made a huge facebook integration, quests that ask you to invite your friend for bonus, gift for your friend when you complete a group of quest and ask your friend for help to accelerate your construction.
While the concept is great, something I actually felt that I was harassing my friend, even facebook blocked the games because I was posting too much stuff with it.
More information on the forum: Facebook Special Interactive Function

Other thing they left out

There seem to be no King of the hill, no emperor road and no escort guardian.
They are probably replaced by something else that we have yet to discover.

MYTHOPOLIS might be pretty much a Three Kingdoms online clone with a greek setting, but the new and improved interface, the cleanup might make the game worth it and give a new experience.

Did I miss anything in the new section ?
So what are you though about the change ?

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 ran on another interesting article about farmville today. Cultivated Play: Farmville from the blog media common.

My favorite part : “Again: if Farmville is laborious to play and aesthetically boring, why are so many people playing it?”

Read the article if you want the awnser but for me I’ve stopped playing farmville a while ago. Still don’t understand somebody willing to pay 1400$ for this game or even get fired for playing it, but it seem that the social aspect of it is really waht drive this addiction.

So go ahead and read it here : Cultivated Play: Farmville

It seem that farmville hit the news again when a kid spent around 625 pound (1400$). When the parent found out they tried to ask for a refund and zynga didn’t want to give anything back.

Should Zynga pay something back ? When something like that happen with cloth or material goods you can exchange back what was bought. But where the line with virtual good ? Should Zynga remove the virtual good from the kid acount and give some of the money back?

What your opinion on that ? The full article here.

Game can be addictive sometime and sometime you just can’t stop playing. I remember having to login at work to lauch my troop in tribal war so the troop will arrive at the same time my allies sent them. (note that’s not on my current job at least …) Or waking up durring the night in King of Chaos so I could use my cash so nobody would steal it. It seem that someone have done even worse, he played farmville during a town council and got fired for it. You can read some more of it here

It’s not the first time that we hear these kind of story, WoW was probably one of the game that really mess up poeple, like on this forum thread :

“World of Warcraft stole a year of my life and ironically got me fired from Gamestop. It will take over your life, and just one month ago, I got out of the addiction.” -PsiRedEye22

They’re even employer that instruct their recruiter to screen any world of Warcraft players.  Note, it was just on recruiters if you dig up a little, but still should you have to tell your playing online game to your employer. Here the original article at f13.net. The thread point out that online game might have the reversed effect, it might actually help you get a job like here or that it helps you learn about leadership and project management skill (more here).

Did some of you got the same problem? Tell us your story.