Now that hurdle has been passed, however, the game faces a larger one – longevity. Does the game have what it takes to last? I think so, and here’s why.

There’s A Story

This point is simultaneously the most shocking and most predictable – shocking because MMOs generally don’t have a good story, but predictable because this is a Bioware game, and that’s what the studio is known for.

All MMOs have a story, of course. The problem is that it’s generally not interesting. Each character in your typical MMO goes through the same story events, and the outcome is the same no matter what you do. Players catch on to this quickly, and stop caring. Questing becomes a grind.

With SW:TOR, it’s different. You have choices, and sometimes they’re difficult. What you choose not only impacts your collection of light or dark side points, but also can change plot points further down the road. There are still some boring side-quests, but the main quests are interesting and well written.

Better yet, every single class has its own story, and all the dialogue is voice-acted. Some players will probably re-roll constantly just to see the outcome of each separate tale.

Your Computer Can Play It

I won’t lie. SW:TOR is not a pretty game. It has a style that feels very Star Wars, but the graphics are technically quite simple. Polygon counts are low, texture resolutions are low, and even at its highest settings it looks like a game from several years ago.

That’s a bummer. Fortunately for Bioware and Electronic Arts, it doesn’t matter. People might check out a game for its graphics, but they don’t stay for them.  And for a game like this, which is supposed to draw a dedicated audience, it’s more important to make sure that potential fans can play the game.

If you have a system with a discrete video card that was built within the last three years, you can probably play this game at medium to high detail. If it was built in the last five years, you can probably play at least on low. In the long run this will be to the game’s advantage.

Crafting Doesn’t Suck

Crafting is one of those things that are supposed to keep players engaged in the end-game, but rarely succeeds in doing so. Why? Because crafting isn’t fun. And why isn’t crafting fun? Because you have to stop doing everything else.

SW:TOR solves this problem with companions. Players gain their first companion at an early level, and will gain more over time. One companion can be deployed with the player to help in combat, but the rest stay back at the ship. Using an interface window, they can be tasked with all matter of crafting missions, building your overall crafting skill while you continue to quest, PvP, or trade on the auction house.

I’ll admit this is a cynical solution. Bioware recognized that sitting around and crafting isn’t fun, so rather than finding a way to make it fun, they simply made sure that players don’t have to sit around to do it. Still, it’s effective and opens up a new line of progression that many players simply don’t have the patience to pursue in other games.

There’s A Lot Of Things To Do

It’s a good thing that you don’t have to sit around in your ship to craft, because there are plenty of other fun things to do in the game.

I’ve already gone over the story and its related questing, which can keep players occupied for hundreds of hours. Beyond that, there’s PvP, which is a lot of fun and can be entered by level 10.

Unlike most MMOs, this game does not involve PvP brackets. Instead, low-level players are simply given comparable stats (but not comparable skills) to higher-level players.  The result of this is that you can enjoy the arenas at any time without feeling insignificant. And since there is a large pool of players trying to enter an arena, you spend less time waiting.

There’s also raiding, of course, which is still a bit up in the air (not enough people have played it yet) but looks promising. And then there are the space combat missions, fun Starfox-like diversions that let players get their pew-pew on. The space combat quests are daily, and the rewards great.

It’s Star Wars!

Yep. It’s Star Wars.

That’s an important point. Not only because it brings in a lot of players at first, but also because it makes the game easy to remember. From this point on the game is “that Star Wars MMO,” which means that people looking for some sci-fi multiplayer action are likely to check it out.

World of Warcraft has recently been grasping at straws with its racial choices, choosing Pandas for its latest expansion. It’s hard to see Star Wars ever being in a similar situation. There’s the Wookies, the Rodian, the Bothans, the Mon Calamari – the list goes on and on.

Each new expansion will provide the chance to continue individual characters stories, as well – something Bioware already has experience doing with its Mass Effect and Dragon Age games.

Conclusion

Bioware has crafted another hit, and in typical style, have succeeded in a way that’s different from what many thought necessary. Rather than revamping MMO combat (a common complaint among old-school MMO players), Bioware has kept the combat familiar and molded everything else to its own preferences.  The result is a game that I think people will be enjoying for many, many years to come.

When network gaming came out and became wildly popular along with the Internet itself, the late night gaming episodes increased in frequency.

However, as I’ve gotten older and the kids and job have become more demanding and time consuming, those late-night episodes eventually faded away into a distant memory.

But I must admit, there are times when I discover yet another game – another highly addictive, networked game – when I am brought back to my heyday college years of binge-gaming and lots of caffeine. Recently, I stumbled across just such a tank war game called BZFlag, and I had to share.

A Strategic Tank Battle

I first caught wind of BZFlag in Tim’s article on open source games. Tim didn’t actually write about it, but one of the readers briefly mentioned, and I quote, “bzflag rules!!!”

Once I downloaded and installed BZFlag, I realized why the excitement. It is a really cool tank war game.

BZFlag stands for Battle Zone capture the Flag. It’s a 3D tank battle game that’s fast paced and at times pretty intense. There is no single-player game – it’s all about team-match network gaming. Some of the games may be set up as one huge team against a second huge team in a classic capture the flag game. Other games are set up in smaller teams – much more intense.

From what I can tell, there are lots of active game servers almost always available, with plenty of players available.

My favorite part of the game is just how much information is on the screen at once in a pretty cool heads-up display. There are a lot of controls, which take a little bit of time to get used to…it took me a while to realize why all of the other players were flying around whenever I tried to shoot them – you can jump with the Tab key!

The HUD display has the real-time scoreboard in the upper left corner, status updates at the top, team scores at the upper right, a scrolling kill roll at the bottom, and most importantly – the radar at the lower left. The radar is the area of the screen you’re going to want to watch the most often, because it’s where you can aim your shots to ricochet off walls to destroy the enemy tanks. Trust me – it’s a lot harder than it sounds, as you can see from the screenshot below.

That’s the screen you’ll see when you get destroyed – I saw it more often than not. Some of these folks have gotten really good. At first you’ll want to try to get up close and personal and blast tanks away like a first-person shooter. Most of the time the enemy tank will launch itself into the air before you can do anything.

After a while, you’ll see that the real art of this game is carefully planning your shots so that it cuts off the path of the enemy tank when he or she least expects it. Or bouncing your shot off a wall nearby and blasting the tank from behind. Getting the knack of jumping helps too. Here I am soaring over the battlefield after some dude tried to blast me.

Another helpful tactic is shooting through the barrier/shield doors (enemy bullets can’t get through, but yours can), and taking pot shots at the enemy tanks through the slots in the walls, like the one I’m peeking through in the screenshot below.

Most of the strategy of this game takes place in that little radar window at the lower left. In the screenshot below, you can see my tank in the center of the screen against a square wall. If you look closely, you can see where my shots (just little specks on the radar) went through the openings in the walls, bounced off the corner wall, and headed for the red cluster of enemy tanks. The goal is to outsmart them before they outsmart you.

Is BZFlag worthy of being called one of the most popular open source tank war games ever? I’m not sure about that, but I do know that it’s very easy to get addicted to it. I was informed by my wife that I had been playing the game for three hours (it felt like 30 minutes). That’s the sign of a great game.

Give BZFlag a shot (get it?) and let us know what you think. Is it fun, or do you find it boring? What’s you’re take? Give your feedback in the comments section below.

Here at MakeUseOf, we’ve already thrown nine websites that ought to help enhance your Minecraft at you. This time, I’m here to give you a step-by-step walk-through on how to get ModLoader up and running smoothly.

ModLoader was made by Risugami with hopes to make the process of installing Minecraft mods much simpler. It achieves just that. After installing ModLoader manually, you’ll only have to save the archived files of each new mod that you want to install in a specific folder. No more annoying editing of minecraft.jar!

Windows

The first step is to go and download ModLoader by clicking here. Open the archive and do nothing more.

What you’ll want to do next is go to your Windows Start Menu, go to Run, and input “%appdata%”. This should bring up your applications data folder. From there, go to “.minecraft” and then navigate into “bin”.

You then need to open minecraft.jar with WinRAR or 7zip, or whatever other archiving program you use. From there, you want to drag and drop the files from the ModLoader archive into the minecraft.jar archive.

You can just drag all of the files from the one archive into another. Make sure not to drag them into a folder, but into the “bin” folder root. A window asking if you want to extract may come up and you’ll want to proceed if it does.

After that, there is a folder called “META-INF” in the root of this archive. Delete that entire folder. This is important and necessary.

Macintosh

1. Go to “Applications” then “Utilities” and open the terminal.

2. Type in the following:

cd ~
mkdir mctmp
cd mctmp
jar xf ~/Library/Application\ Support/minecraft/bin/minecraft.jar

3. Away from the terminal now, you’ll want to copy all files into the “mctmp” directory

4. Back in the terminal, type the following:

rm META-INF/MOJANG_C.*
jar uf ~/Library/Application\ Support/minecraft/bin/minecraft.jar ./
cd ..
rm -rf mctmp

Now you’re all done. Instead of having to do a similar procedure every time you want to try out a mod, you now only have to save the mod’s archive in the “mods” folder. This folder is located at “%appdata%/.minecraft/mods”.

Let’s try it out using Rei’s Minimap mod. Simply download and save the archive in the “mods” directory.

From there, well, you’re done. Start up Minecraft and let’s see what we’ve got.

Surely enough, we’ve managed to install a whole new capability by just saving a file into a certain directory. ModLoader handles all the rest of the work for us.

ModLoader is compatible with almost every single mod out there. There isn’t a complete list, but you can find a good bunch to start with at the mod’s official forum thread.

One thing to note is that ModLoader will require reinstallation if you’ve upgraded your Minecraft. What’s awesome is that your mods that have been installed using ModLoader won’t, however. ModLoader is a very useful tool that should make the process of installing mods simple and quick for even the most novice of users.

If you’re just browsing through this post and you’ve yet to pick up Minecraft, here’s why you should. Here are even more reasons, as of recent! If you need help finding the perfect multiplayer server to play on, check out this post.

Drop me a line in the comments and let me know how ModLoader has been working out for you. Leave me any questions or concerns and I’ll be sure to follow up.

It could take forever to go through each individual website of every MMO you may be interested in to check out screenshots and gameplay. However, I’m here to share five MMO directories that I’ve had plenty of luck with in narrowing doing the choices.

These directories do all the work for you and present the most enjoyable, sustainable, and free games to the user. All you’ve got to do is make the decision on which to play or download.

Free MMORPG List

Despite the name, Free MMORPG List features much more than just massively-multiplayer online roleplaying games. It’s first on the list because it’s probably my favorite. The site features categories for free, action, strategy (or RTS), kids, simulation, sports, browser-based, and social games. The site features 28 pages of games in total with a dozen of games displayed per page. The listing of each game offers a high-quality description, screenshot, and immediate links to download and visit the game’s official website.

What MMORPG

If you’re specifically searching for a MMORPG, What MMORPG is the absolute best resource you’re going to find online. What MMORPG takes this MMO genre and breaks it down into subgenres of fantasy, horror, modern, space, superhero, historical, racing, and so many more.

You can also narrow games down to their cost (free included), their play style (PvE vs. PvP), their developer, and their artistic style (2D, 3D, etc.). This is a very extensive resource. Game listing pages also include ratings of every game, contributed by players like yourself.

F2P Games

F2P Games is 100% dedicated to bringing you MMOs that are completely free. This directory also separates free browser-based games. F2P Games also includes a very interactive and informative forum where you can go to get all the latest user-contributed F2P news.

This directory contains a little over 100 games for you to choose from. It’s got a simple list style: not as descriptive as the rest in this list, but you can browse and choose what you want quickly.

MMO Games.com

This directory has the benefit of having one of the better eye-pleasing designs compared to the rest. Not much sets MMO Games.com apart from the rest, but they do have specific categories for mobile and Facebook games.

The site features MMOs in general with a slight bias towards the MMORPG genre.

TIGdb

The Indie Game Database is a lot different from the previous directories we’ve mentioned. This website currently features 757 games, all created by indie developers. Not all of them are free and not all of them are MMO. You will be able to narrow down your selection using their filters though.

This directory is really cool and unique and a refreshing change from the rest. I managed to find one of my favorite indie games ever, Altitude, using this very website.

We’ve wrote before on MMO Hut, a similar directory. We’ve also whipped up a nice little article showing you three of the very best MMOs to try out. Got any more suggestions on where we can go to find these games, or fun and free MMOs in specific? Share them with us in the comments!

However, the game is complicated. There is a lot to it, and I cannot tell you how many players I have seen completely whipped off the map because they didn’t think before they acted. It is easy to get over-excited and just want to jump in feet first, but this game is a marathon, not a sprint. You need to take everything slow and steady. Fear not, brave new soldier, armed with these tips, I will make sure you are ready to take on the world of Lord of Ultima.

Join A Good Alliance

This is crucial. As soon as you get to the part of the game where you are going to war, an alliance will help you in so many ways. Do not join just any alliance though – look around and find an organized alliance with leadership and a plan in place.

Not only will an alliance be able to lend support if you come under duress, but they will also be able to offer tips to help with developing your empire. The higher-level members of the alliance will have previously been in the position of a newer player, and they will be happy to offer you some tricks of the trade to speed up your advancement.

Being in an alliance will also make the game more fun once you are ready to start fighting because it will give you people to attack and a reason to attack them. The larger alliances are always at war with someone, and it is very satisfying to be able to take part in large battles.

Do Not Build A Castle Too Soon

This is the single most important tip that anyone can possibly give you while playing Lord of Ultima. Building your castle is what allows you to attack other players, but it also allows you to be attacked. I understand you want to get involved in the actual wars and battles, but if you castle before you have proper defenses in order, I can guarantee that you will be destroyed, and you will have to start over from square one. Either way, you can have your resources taken, whether you have a castle or not, so playing good defense is always wise.

It takes commitment; you are going to have to play for a long time, maybe more than a month. You should not castle any sooner than your third city. You will need to have at least ten thousand soldiers available for defense, and you really should make sure you are in a strong alliance that can lend support. It might seem crazy to play a game for over a month without engaging in combat, but I can promise one thing; if you castle a city too soon, starting over and doing it the right way a second time will take even longer.

Use A City Planner

Before you jump in and start building a city, take the time to use a city planner. You are only allowed a limited number of buildings, so you need make them count. A city planner allows you to accomplish this. With the city planner, you will know exactly how you are going to lay out your city before you even start.

Efficiency is paramount in this game, and having a good plan for your city will help a lot. In addition, if you are in an alliance you can ask one of the more experienced players to look at your plan and give you some tips and make some improvements. Overall, they are an incredibly valuable resource.

Check Out Some Lord Of Ultima Websites

Lord Of Ultima Wiki

This is a great resource with almost every piece of information on the game imaginable. They offer everything from the history of the game to recruitment time for units. They also have many useful tips and tricks to help get your city off the ground.

Lord Of Ultima Strategy

This is a fantastic Lord of Ultima site. They have a wealth of information for new players, and players who have been around for a while. Read their articles and become much more informed on how to play this massive game.

Lord Of Ultima Forums

The Lord of Ultima forums are a great place to interact with other players and learn what they do to improve. You can also use the forums to help find a solid alliance.

Conclusion

If you are just getting into Lord of Ultima, these tips will help you get your empire off the ground. Let me say this one more time; do not castle too soon. I cannot say that enough. Another last-minute tip is to have fun! This is a game, and the most important part of any game is to have lots of fun and enjoy!

You may be worried if your computer is ready for it. Thankfully, the system specifications are mild, so you may not need to upgrade your PC – but there are other steps you may need to take to prepare your PC.

Clean Up Your Hard Drive – Or Buy A Solid State Drive

MMOs typically are not hard on your processor or video card, and will run on most hardware made within the last five years. Storage capacity can sometimes be a problem however, because of the massive size of these games. World of Warcraft now weighs in at over 20GB, so it would not be unusual if Star Wars: The Old Republic was of a similar size.

Upgrading your hard drive is one possibility, but as we recently reported, hard drive prices have risen significantly because of flooding in Thailand. This means your best bet is to clean up your current drive. Obviously, you can do that by deleting old files that you don’t need. You can also usually save several gigabytes by turning off hibernate, emptying your recycle bin, and deleting temporary files.

Another, much more expensive choice is to buy a solid state drive, as production of the memory chips they use is not impacted by the flooding. A 64GB Crucial M4 can now be had for about $110, and will nicely fit both your operating system and SW: TOR. Besides the space for the game, you will also receive a nice decrease in load times.

Buy A Second Monitor

Playing an MMO is about knowledge as much as it is skill. If you don’t know the best skills, the best character builds, and the best items, even an excellent player will be behind the curve.

Finding this information in the game usually isn’t possible, however. It wouldn’t be very sporting for the game to tell you the best way to play it.  There are many websites that solve this, but alt-tabbing out of the game is an annoyance. Hence, the second monitor.

It’s possible to buy a 20 inch monitor for under $100, which isn’t bad. But if you’re really on a budget, you can pick up a monitor at a second-hand shop for about $20 or $30.

Beef Up Your Network Connection

Network connectivity is another important part of playing a MMO. A moment of lag at the wrong time, or a disconnection, can seriously disrupt the gaming experience of both you and your group.

Purchasing a faster connection from your ISP will obviously help, but you may still run into problems if you connect over wireless, particularly the older 802.11g standard. Upgrading to 802.11n will be reduce or eliminate signal issues and periods of lag because of the standard’s higher bandwidth and better range. However, both your computer and your router need to support 802.11 in order to use it.

Another alternative is powerline networking. This technology makes it possible to connect your PC directly to your router via Ethernet by piggy-backing on your existing electrical wires in your apartment or home. It provides high bandwidth and, more importantly, an extremely reliable connection that won’t suffer from the lag peaks and occasional disconnects that can make wireless a poor choice for gamers.

Conclusion

Hyped up for SW:TOR? Feel free to share your own tips on how to prepare for the game in the comments. It won’t be long until the release, so now is the time to get ready, or put a few gaming-related items on your wishlist. Who knows – Santa might just be a Star Wars fan as well.

Image Credit: Andreas.com

I do need to stress that you should NOT try this at work, lest you lose the rest of your day to Glitch – and possibly your job! Once you get started you’ll lose track of time and the hours will just fly by. Watch out!

Get Your Invite

Although Glitch has launched, they’re still only allowing a few people in at a time. MakeUseOf has 50 fast-track invites for you here and once you’re in you can fast-track a handful of your friends via Facebook. If you miss out on the fast-track invites, you can join in the regular queue here. If you’re really lucky one of your Facebook friends might fast-track you.

Get Playing

Sign up via email or Facebook, then dress up your avatar and get Glitching! The Glitch introduction is pretty self-explanatory and ensures you know all the basics for getting around the game and interacting with the things around you. Within a few minutes, you’ll be exploring and learning more about this weird world.

What’s The Point?

Well, whatever you want it to be. You might choose to make money through gardening skills or alchemy. You might want to buy a fancy house, try all the quests you can or you might decide you want to help build new streets for people to use.

The game will evolve for you as you play, with the aim being to provide infinite game-play for everyone. It’s a non-violent, somewhat co-operative and imaginative game.

It’s all fun and games, really. That is, until we work out what the Giants have in store for us.

A Glitch Tour

There’s so many great things to see and do in Glitch that it’s perhaps best if I just show you around a little. Throughout this article are some screenshots of some of the more interesting situations and various locations.

Extras

The Glitch API has been open during beta testing and has resulted in some great add-ons and applications for players outside the Glitch game itself. For instance, there is a Glitch HQ iOS application which lets players chat and gain new skills while they’re not currently playing the game.

Premium Features

Glitch is free for all players, but if you want some fancy premium features you can certainly pay for the privilege. Buying credits or subscribing will give you credits for neat clothing, teleportation tokens and other cool stuff.

Similar Games

You might be thinking this sounds a little like WOW, Minecraft or even Second Life. In some ways, you’d be right. All of these are massively multi-player online games which strive for infinite game-play. But, at the heart of each of these is a slightly different focus and a very different game. If you’ve enjoyed any of these other games, you should definitely give Glitch a go.

What do you love about Glitch?

Hesitantly, I purchased the game, and I’ve ultimately discovered that it is one of the best games I’ve ever played, and yes, that is even with the Creepers and the skeletons. However, there are several ways to enhance your Mojang-sponsored experience, so you should take a glance at a few of these online Minecraft communities.

Minecraft Forums

It’s a forum, and it’s Minecraft. That’s about as simply as the Minecraft Forums can be explained, and here, you will find a vast pool of user-generated knowledge that relates completely to the voxel-fueled game. Seeing that this is an official game resource, one of the cool features about the forums is that Notch himself (the creator) reads up on them.

r/Minecraft

Reddit seems to have a little something for everybody, and yes, that includes Minecraft lovers. Reddit’s r/Minecraft serves as a basic place to discuss all things Minecraft and whatever else Mojang has going on. Another Notch-related feature is that readers can be updated on his tweets even if Twitter is blocked at their location (like at work). The moderators of the reddit simply keep people updated on them through text posts.

Planet Minecraft

The world of Minecraft is as large as a planet itself, so the name of Planet Minecraft is incredibly fitting. At this fan site, you will find pretty much the coolest stuff that pertains to the block-building game. From the moment that you hit the landing page, you will be introduced to new textures for your worlds, skins for characters, and even mods for the game itself.

One thing you might like – that is, if you are into MMOs – is the list of servers that Planet Minecraft provides for multiplayer action. Furthermore, the site displays a great deal of Minecraft artwork.

Minecraft Workbench

The Minecraft Workbench is a lot like Planet Minecraft in that it provides an excellent assortment of texture packs, mods, and skins (as stated on the Minecraft website itself). Unlike Planet Minecraft, it focuses more on the elements of playing the game rather than the creations within it, but it does still provide a community aspect and a Minecraft server.

In addition to all of this, the site produces a YouTube channel and also includes a database of all the elements within the game.

CraftHub

CraftHub is without a doubt one of the bravest things I’ve seen in a while – an entire publication devoted to Minecraft? Come on. Well, these guys took the risk and created a blog that highlights everything in the world relating to Minecraft, and they do it incredibly well. Check out the blog for some really cool Minecraft news and creations, and if you can, be sure to visit their own server.

The Shaft

Much like CraftHub, I was surprised at how someone could produce a podcast only about Minecraft, but sure enough, it has been done. The Shaft updates weekly every Sunday at 3pm CST with “tips, stories, and the latest news and updates” about the Mojang creation. Besides the podcast, The Shaft is home to a dedicated 45-slot Minecraft server.

Minecraftopia

Minecraftopia is a cleanly displayed manual recommended by Notch himself that provides detailed information on every single thing relating to Minecraft. Furthermore, like most of these communities, the site also includes an area to download mods, skins, and textures for the game. Using the provided servers, you will discover many other users to play with, and the site also offers several how-to articles.

World of Minecraft

When I first saw World of Minecraft, I was a little prejudiced. The site didn’t have any fancy Creeper-themed artwork, there were no Minecraft logos on the site, and all in all, it looked like just a basic forum that anyone could have made. However, I was very surprised when I saw how active this community was. One of the great things about this community is that anyone can start their own realm (their own designated area) on the WOM-hosted server for free with options to upgrade as time goes on.

The Minecraft Museum

The Minecraft Museum provides a great deal of similar material to CraftHub in that it provides block artwork provided by users.  The website originally started out as a manually-published blog, but now, everything is run on a automatic system. One of the cool things about the Minecraft Museum is that its early days coordinated with the early days of Minecraft itself, so you will be privileged to see some pictures of what the game used to look like.

As a final note, keep in mind that the Minecraft Museum only accepts images captured on a licensed version of Minecraft.

Conclusion

Hopefully, you’ll find at least something with these nine websites to enhance your Minecraft experience. If anything, you’ll be able to find other people to play with or some great ideas to try out.

What other Minecraft communities do you use? Have you found anything cool using the ones mentioned?

Image Credit: Minecraft Wiki