Toontown MMO Back: Toontown Rewritten

By Bixyl Shuftan


Some readers may remember when the Newser wrote about the Disney multiplayer online game "Toontown" in September 2013. The overall plot was the cartoon town's inhabitants fighting using jokes and gags against corporate robots trying to take over their home. The article was done as something of a farewell salute as the comany had decided to shut down the game that month. But as cartoon fans would tell you, the cancellation of a show isn't necessarily the end. Fans of the MMO have created private servers of the game. The most popular of which is "Toontown Rewritten."

The FAQ page of the game's website states that the development of the game was announced the day the original Toontown was closed, "for the past month, a band of players known as the 'Toontown Rewritten Team' had been working on the possibility to keep Toontown alive." By the end of October, the game was ready for a small number of alpha testers. At first, the game was just a shadow of the original. But over time, the development team worked on it.  In a few ways, it's gone beyond the original, notably the addition of two more species of cartoon animals, deer and gators.

So how can a game exist when someone else owns the copyright? The game is completely free to play, all expenses paid for by the development team, as well as their time contributed done so for free. This way they avoid cease-and-desist orders. The team says they won't even accept donations. They did say there are several ways to help them out, such as joining online Toontown communities, attending their real-life ToonFest convention, or just playing the game.

So what would happen to them if Disney changed it's mind and brought back the original Toontown? The Toontown Rewritten team states that's their ultimate goal, "Toontown deserves a team of full-time employees who can give the game the love it deserves, and we absolutely want that to happen!"

I've had no experience with the original game, but playing the fan made version, it ran smoothly. A few of the other players had rather generic names such as "Green Dog," but it was still fun clobbering the bots, and doing little games to earn jellybeans, the game currency, to buy more squirt flowers and pies as ammo, and within an hour had gotten a player-owned house and a crack at the fishing game.

Currently, the game boasts over 1,400,000 registered players. For those wanting to play, head to https://www.toontownrewritten.com , register an account, agree to the terms of service, download the launcher, create a character, then step into Toontown and join their deziens as they fight the cogs with a pie in the face and try to have a little fun.

Sources: Wikipedia, toontownrewritten.com

Bixyl Shuftan

The Prometheus Grid.

By Bixyl Shuftan

Besides Second Life, there's a number of much smaller virtual worlds. Inworldz and Avination are the best known, but there are others with just a few people and high hopes for future growth. Among the new ones is a grid named Prometheus. The name comes from the prequel to the "Aliens" movie.

Being sent an invitation, I was able to access the world through the OS version of Firestorm. One can also use versions of Singularity and Kokua. Starting out, I was in a basic "Ruth" avatar with a grey shirt and red trousers. Shortly thereafter, I was sent a teleport request to a huge platform over Angel Island by someone calling herself "Central Linden," one of the staff. When I asked about the name, I was told it was done as a tribute to Linden Lab. Prometheus has no affiliation with the owners of Second Life in any way. She handed me a furry feline avatar, which she told me had been copied and transfered from Second Life with the content creator's permission.

Chatting with Central, she told me this was the third version of the Grid, the previous two ruined. Pictures and patterns can be uploaded for free by those on the world, "We're technically ready now. Just need more people and more SIMs." As of now, there are four sims currently operational on the grid: Angel Island, Prometheus, Tail Raisers and Luna Lobo, "We're currently working on more Linden regions and people can buy SIMs." The number of people who are on is also small, about sixteen as of the writing of this article.

Stepping down from the skybox later, there was a build on ground level, named the "Emerald Temple."  In the other three, there wasn't much built at the moment. The Tail Raisers sim is for a club to be build in the near future for "inter-personal actions between players and staff in a relaxed atmosphere." At least one of the sims was in Skybox mode, in which I planted a tree, then used my limited building skills to make a small cubic shelter and a table.

Those interested in getting on can contact Central Linden or Artisan Sunspot via Skype. One can find a page about the grid here.

Bixyl Shuftan

*Update* Less than two weeks after this article was written, one of the staff informed the Newser that Prometheus was offline, possibly for good. 

What’s Happening In High Fidelity?

By DrFran Babcock

   If you haven’t yet heard, High Fidelity, or HiFi, is a virtual world that was started a little over a year ago by Philip Rosedale, creator of Second Life and Linden Lab. I have been an Alpha tester since about a month into the opening for Alpha, and in this time there has been a lot of change.

Why Another Virtual World?

There is an answer, in case you were asking yourself this very question. HiFi is Philip’s dream for creating a world that has few of the main problems that dogged SL. The first of these is scaling. I can recall, back in 2006, when SL was the darling of the media. I remember getting my Nissan car in world, and being courted by IBM. Coke, etc. Why aren’t all these companies still in SL? It seems as if it would be a good place to market. However, consider that one video of a cat singing gets more hits than SL could ever muster. You see, each sim in SL can only hold about 50 maximum before performance starts to dip, and that’s not the kind of numbers that attract business. With High Fidelity, each resident can manage their own domain—essentially, a server (it can be your own computer) that runs a world. The size of this world is enormous, and it doesn’t put a stress on any central space that is going to have to bear the stress. Each of us can be the masters of our own worlds, and the scaling is infinite.

   The second issue that has always been a goal for Philip Rosedale is to reduce latency. In SL, performers always have to deal with a lag if they are playing together, so that group work suffers timing problems. The goal of HiFi is to create a place where a resident in California can jam live with a resident in the UK…without any delay in the sound reaching the listener. 

   I have been to concerts in HiFi where this is happening, and it’s a completely jaw-dropping experience. In addition, the sound is spatial. As you move around the level changes based on where you are—just like in first life. There have been times when a few people jammed, and I felt as if I was in a concert hall.

But, Can I Look Pretty?

   When I try to “recruit” people for HiFi, my girlfriends often ask: “When can I look pretty?” The avatars at this point, are still quite primitive, as you can see in the picture of me here. However, what’s amazing, is that everything that is coming is being built to accommodate immersive movement. Facial expressions and body and hand movements all add to the feeling that “you are there.” As HiFi Alpha Tester @Judas says: “You haven’t experienced a virtual world until you have reached out and touched someone and they smiled back at you. It really, for me, is a game changer.” 

   The pretty is coming. It’s important to remember that this is still alpha.

Interested In Joining?

Come see what’s happening in High Fidelity Alpha. The sign up page can be found here: https://highfidelity.com/
 
  Some basic info:
·  There is no money system yet.
·  There is a marketplace, and everything is free.
·  The scripting is done in JavaScript.
·  It’s Alpha; it’s going to be crude.

·  I will keep letting you know about High Fidelity, and you can join when you are ready.

See you there.

  --
Fran

Gaming News: WoW Tokens, Star Wars Galaxies Jedi Hunt Idea, and Antilia No Longer an MMO

By Bixyl Shuftan

While the Newser and Second Life blogs have covered lots of events in Second Life, there's been no shortage of things going on with some of the games we like.

"World of Warcraft" has continued to develop, with a new Blackrock Dungeon. But what's gotten more chatter is the release of something new: the WoW token. The tokens are intended as "an in-game item that allows players to simply and securely exchange gold and game time between each other." In other words, an alternative to buying WoW gold from third party services, which has always been against the rules and could get players suspended or banned.

WoW tokens are purchased from the ingame store for $20 US dollars ($25 Australian Dollars), up to a total of ten over a 30 day period. They can then be sold on the auction house for gold. Once bought from the auction house, they can be redeemed for 30 days of game time.

The tokens were first up for sale on April 6. They were initially valued at the Auction House for 30,000 gold. Demand caused the price to rise for the first few hours. Then the value plummeted to 22,405 gold, a drop of more then 25%. People wondered if it would continue, but the slide halted, going through smaller rises and declines. There was a limit to the number of tokens which could be purchased from the Auction House, but Blizzard soon raised it.

Sources: PC Gamer, Blizzard,

For fans of Star Wars, the MMO aimed at them is "The Old Republic." Before that, there was "Star Wars Galaxies," which was released in 2003 and continued to December 2011. Among those involved in the design was Ralph Koster. In his blog, he recently talked about one of the challenges in the game: jedi characters. Jedi have access to all kinds of powers, but the trouble is "by comparison, everyone else sucks." There was also another issue, in the time perios of the movies, the Empire was hunting down anyone with the potential to be one. So Ralph had a "crazy idea." If people wanted to have the potential to be a Jedi, let them, but there would be a catch. 

You see, the moment you used Force powers within view of anything or anyone Imperial, or indeed any player, they could report you to the Empire. To Darth Vader’s Death Squadron in fact. And that generated someone to come after you. After first, just lowly Stormtroopers. Eventually, cooler characters, such as some of the bounty hunters like IG-88. Eventually, really cool ones like Boba Fett or fan favorite Mara Jade.

These would be brutal fights. Odds are you’d just die. So hiding and training very carefully would be essential. But it wouldn’t matter, of course. As you advanced, your powers would get “noisier” and cooler. You wouldn’t be able to resist using Force Lightning in a crowd, or equipping your lightsaber in view of some Imperials. And eventually, after Boba Fett and Mara Jade and everyone else had failed, well, that would be when Darth Vader himself bestirred himself to take care of the little problem.

And you would die. It would be rigged.

And you didn't just die. You'd have to start over with a new Level 1 character, as the old was was permanently dead, aka "permadeath."

Another idea was how these players would develop their Jedi powers, what Koster called "security through obscurity." When created, a different set of actions was determined for what it would take for them to progress. Anyone could become a Jedi, but how to become one would be less than clear. The intention was to limit the number of players whom would actually finish these quests to become a Jedi, making them rare but powerful, like they were in the stories.

But as it turned out, neither plan left the drawing board. The idea of  "permadeath" made the designers nervous, and there just wasn't enough time. The game was to be released in June 2003, and so they just didn't have the time to develop this idea.

Hat Tip: Hamlet Au

A few readers have mentioned Antilia, a fantasy MMO in development with all furred races. Despite some Kickstarters, efforts to raise cash to help develop the game have been less than successful. So after some years of the game still in alpha, the team has decided to bite the bullet. It was announced that they will not be making the game an MORPG, at least for now.

"We've come to the conclusion that we really want to get something out there with Antillia. What we're going to have to do to make that happen is find a way to make the project simpler. ... The easiest way to do that is to cut out the massive multiplayer online portion." (video link)

The good news, there will still be a multiplayer option. And they haven't completely given up on the idea of an MMO. They'll just have to wait until they have the money, and resources, to develop Antilia to that.

Source: Antilia 

Bixyl Shuftan

Game Review: Wildstar's Open Beta

By Nydia Tungsten

I was able to start playing "Wildstar" a few months ago, but stopped since it had so many quest glitches in it. It was in beta and I understood that, but they did have a few too many for me to enjoy it at that time so I stopped playing for a while. Just this past weekend, they had the open beta before release like "Elder Scrolls Online" did BUT, unlike ESO, Wildstar had fixed all the quest glitches that still plagued ESO when they were about to release.

As the main story line goes, you are trying to either take the planet from a bunch of rabble or defend your home from the evil empire, depending on which side you chose. It is kind of like another game where you have two sides vying for control of a world and I am sure most of you have played one (WOW or SWTOR for example) but the characters are more animated “Cutesy” if you will, not that it’s a bad thing, I LIKE the way my character looks, but I saw a few comments about them being too “Cartoonish” so it is all in personal taste.

You need to choose a race and path i.e. Hunter, engineer, etc., etc. and depending on your class depends on the type of solo quests you get. But most are the generic quests everyone gets i.e. kill this many such and such or rescue that many of those whatever.

But the scripting is done with a definite lean towards “cutesy” so some of the “Hard core” gamers may not like it, but over all I enjoyed my experience with it and I give it a thumbs up.

REMEMBER if you have a game you would like to see reviewed please drop us a line and let me know I would love to try it and if it is a multiplayer, maybe try it with you.

Until next time …GAME ON!

Here are a few game trailers let me know what you think.

Meet the Dominion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FhB3iYv4Ng

Meet the Exiles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn8648VGMKM

Dirty Little Secrets https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs_X4AzJtK8

Nydia Tungsten

Image Credit: Gamepressure, MMORPG, Gamebreaker

Editors Note: I gave the game a try with one character of each faction: an Aurin stalker (ninjalike) settler, and a Chua engineer scientist. I ended up playing for quite a while. I also give it my thumbs up. Unfortunately, I couldn't take a single screenshot of my progress.

High Fidelity Alpha

By DrFran Babcock

Philip Rosedale is a genius and a visionary. Every day in Second Life™ is a wonder to me. Even more, there has been nothing to rival this virtual world in over ten years! I am so grateful to Second Life™, because it has brought me friends around the world, the wonder of creativity, and even the chance to do other things I love such as writing. I still marvel daily at the gift of this world of miracles, big and small. Have I gushed enough for you? If not, hold on while I tell you about my experience with High Fidelity.

What is High Fidelity?

High Fidelity, or HiFi is the newest brainchild of Philip Rosedale, and represents his plans for a new virtual world that is meant to improve upon and fix those things in SL that were problems for him, and many residents. If you go to the website (https://highfidelity.io ) the big quote on the home page is: “If it doesn’t hurt to think about it, we’re not going to try it.” Some of the things that will be addressed are latency, which relates to speed and lag. By speeding up the communications and musical interactions between avatars interactions will become more lifelike. If you have ever dealt with the pause between a performer finishing a song and your clapping in appreciation, you will like this. I remember Grace McDunnough (SL live performer) telling me how she had to wait a few beats after she finished a song before she responded to the audience, because they might still be hearing and seeing the end of the song. If the High Fidelity interface can make that response immediate, people will feel as if a true human connection has been made. 

Builders will be happy to hear that user-created content will be a feature. The unit of building is called a voxel, and it is a cube that can be scaled to any size to create a whole that will be capable of being complex and edited by others. Philip also wants avatars to be able to make facial expressions, and connect with other avatars. I know that most folks thought he was crazy when he envisioned Second Life™, so I bet he can pull this all off with his team.

My Experience in High Fidelity

I was thrilled when I found I had been accepted for the alpha opening of High Fidelity. I am not a coder, not a super content builder, and not a geek, but I told the team in my application, that they needed ordinary folks like me to assess the learning curve, and see what the new-user experience was like. I had a lot of trouble creating an account, but the team were very patient with me. I logged in finally when all of the meet-ups had concluded, and most of the content was missing. My huge “aha” moment came when I looked at the cute little robot that represented my brand new, un-customized avatar, and I smiled. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the avatar smile back at me! What I was really looking at was me, as viewed through the camera on my Mac. I hadn’t noticed that the red light on the camera was lit, and that my facial expressions were being recorded.

So, this is alpha, and it’s pretty primitive, but I am a fan, and I am in for the ride. I will take you all along with me.

Phil recently addressed the Silicon Valley Virtual Reality Meetup, and demonstrated the current progress with his huge and ambitious project. Jo Yardley, of Berlin 1920s fame covered the meeting on her blog (Philip’s presentation starts at about 42 minutes into the video): (http://joyardley.wordpress.com/2014/04/07/hifiprogress/). Watch this video, because  you may be amazed.

DrFran Babcock