ivucica blog

Title means “AI in flightsims”. The article was previously posted on incorrect blog since it was written in Croatian. You can now find it on “…pa to radi!!!: AI u letačkim simulacijama“.

A shipment of CDs with Russian edition of The Legend of Crystal Valley has just arrived in Cateia! LoCV is published by Akella, and that’s so awesome.

Akella’s site about LoCV is here.

Now, if only they didn’t put outdated screenies on the cover …

Iron Roses, the adventure game by Cateia Games that marked the last few months of my work-life, has went through the QA, and was released by Sandlot Games today! Yip-yip hurray!

Check out the game, and go buy it!

First one to figure out what is this shot from Galactic Civilization parodying gets a cookie. As long as you leave a comment and come pick it up in Zagreb, that is.

When it first appeared on OtFans under the name of Phobos Online back in May 2007, this game has attracted a lot of attention. Many players today probably don’t know that the game’s history (under the name of The Last Myth) stretches back to May 2005, and Internet Wayback Machine testifies to that. Game is actively developed by the team that today bears name Myth Entertainment. Today we bring you an exclusive preview of current version of Phobos, sent right from the desktop of lead programmer and team leader, Robbert de Vries.

One of the rare Tibia-inspired project that are not based on components from OpenTibia, and one of the oldest, Phobos contains a large amount of graphics and a large dedicated team of artists, community managers and storywriters led by the Robbert de Vries, known under alias of ZeroCoolz, as a programmer.

Initial team members and project founders were ZeroCoolz, Xaar and Urmel. In July 2005, Mezzy or Torbjørn joined the project as the first storywriter. As the time passed, staff members changed, and one of the first to leave was Urmel.

August 6th 2005

August 8th. 2005

They were not shaken by competition from today rarely mentioned Saga and Emnia Online, which have died in the meantime, nor by Zezenia, which was recently revived through unholy necromantic experiments. Through 2006, the project leaders thought about ending the project, but it continued nevertheless.

October 16th 2005

In May 2007, a major public test occurred in which numerous fans of OpenTibia participated, thanks to an announcement on OtFans.net forums. This was not the first public test, but it was the first one that was conducted under the new name of the MMORPG, then called Phobos Online. The team retained the old team name, The Last Myth. Many people came to know Phobos Online at this point, and they actually looked forward to it. Today the game is known simply as Phobos, without the suffix Online.

March 5th 2007 (sneak preview)

What is interesting in Phobos is the large set of graphics which are in the same perspective as in Tibia, but have a completely different feeling. It is best described as the feeling that player has when playing Quake II after playing Unreal Tournament ’99 (disregard the quality of graphics; this sentence refers to atmosphere, not quality). The quality of graphics is also astonishing for an amateur project. Official team site lists a dozen artists working on the project.

January 3rd 2008

So one of the questions that we asked was where did they get so many talented artists, since the graphics will definitely mean the difference between success and failure in an MMORPG? “In the beginning, we’ve been searching for the artists at Tibia.de, and later on they came to us”, Robbert said.

What is the most important reason for developing your own game? “I think that the most important reason for developing your own game is to be able to have something of your own”, Robbert said. He added: “It is great to have the ability to put your ideas into a game and seeing other to enjoy them.”

When asked why didn’t they use Tibia or OpenTibia like numerous people do (claiming they are creating completely new MMORPGs, when they are not) he answers: “The most important reason for developing your own software is being able to create whatever you want without having any limitations due to using software created by others.”

Main menu, featuring great painting by Wasker

Benefits of not depending on other people’s closed source clients (such as Tibia) is visible as soon as you log in. Account and character creation is very straightforward, done through the client interface. There is no need to visit any website; just run the client, click a few buttons and enjoy the game.

Built in account creation interface, along with character manager

First thing you’ll notice when you log in is that spells assigned to hotkeys can be visible in the spellbar on the left side at all times, a welcome change from “another game we know”. Spell and manabar are larger and moved on the bottom of the screen, like most RPGs do. Also, chat and game messages are separated, to make chat easier without cluttering the user interface.

Initial screen

Moving around works as expected, using the arrow keys or by clicking around. Controls are not the same, however. To use an object, you’ll have to learn to right-click instead of ctrl+clicking. Ctrl+click is now used to look around. Skill status is placed inside the main game view, and can be easily closed when not needed.

Skill screen and an opened container

Attacking is also done by a simple right click. Note that there are no health bars on the creatures; you can still determine their health by looking at the color of their name. This is by design; to quote Robbert: “health bars suck! ”

Fighting with creatures

It is worth noting that Phobos had a dedicated user interface for trading with NPCs many months before Tibia did. However, the mechanics are a bit different. Player first right clicks on desired item to “split” it. This means that for example, from 23 bread pieces offered by NPC player desires only four. Then the player presses OK and chooses the destination container where to drop the bread. If player does not have enough money, the trade is refused.

Trading

Changing outfit is simple – ctrl+right click!

Outfit changing; you can rotate the character using arrows

All of these things are what players could see already. What you have not seen already may be the weather effects! That’s right. “In Tibia, it never rains…” Well, in Phobos, it rains a lot!

Weather

Set of spells in Phobos is impressive and rather carefully designed. Within the cool hotkeys interface, each spell has a dedicated icon. To choose a spell you right click on the desired hotkey slot and choose from the list of learned spells.

Various spells

Hopefully we’ll all meet in Phobos soon!

Cave

Crossing a bridge with an advanced character. Note spellbar on the left side

Creatures and an NPC on screen

Fighting with a bear

Spell “Soul fire” killed numerous maggots

Zezenia is a project that began back in 2005, during the golden age of Tibia-related development, when not only much server development was done, but also projects such as Phobos, Zezenia, OTClient and The Outcast began. Developed by the individual known to the mortals only as K-Zodron, this game is the only Tibia-inspired game currently open for players. Like Phobos, it is not based upon OpenTibia.

Main menu, done by Narzerus

All account management is done on the main game site.

Temple

Changing outfit

Destination marker

Moving is done by clicking or by pressing arrow keys. It is quite fast even at the start, which makes playing the game in the beginning more enjoyable than in other games. Combat against creeps lurking beneath the city is also fun, since it takes very little time to kill one. However, a warning to a new player: Leaving the city is possible but dangerous at low levels.

Combat against goblin, moments before death

Speaking of death, dying is not very painful. It brings only 1% experience loss, and only 1% loss chance for an item, making the player more careless and making the game more enjoyable. CipSoft’s attitude is that high death penalty is important for the game; that’s what caused the author of these lines to fear when his character was killed by the goblin. High penalty destroys fun. Zezenia does not have a significant death penalty — this makes it more fun.

Trading step 1

Trading step 2

Since this is the only currently available Tibia-like game, and because it is a fast paced alternative, it is recommended and guaranteed to provide a lot of fun to any Tibia and OpenTibia player.

Exclusive: Changes for Zezenia 2.2

This update is bound to come soon. Some exclusive shots:

New login screen

New shop window