Today I logged in to DarkLife to see a disturbing message from the coder, Bram (aka. Mark Busch in game). The post describes how we’ve had $400us stolen from our main ‘account’ holding our cash in Second Life for the DarkLife game. (more…)
All posts in category Games
DarkLife hacked, $400us stolen
Posted by TinyPirate on February 25, 2007
https://tinypirate.com/2007/02/25/darklife-hacked-400us-stolen/
DarkLife, DarkLife, DarkLife!
I feel there’s an echo in here! Again, we’re pushing to get DarkLife updated to the next version, with a complete rebuild of the sim in Second Life. This time we might be able to do it though, Bram has his code about right and Crash and Logan seem keen on getting things squared away. We have most of the art ready, and we have what looks to be a good contractor available should we need someone to do some emergency building or texturing.
Phew! Fingers crossed we’ll have something more to report, as well as the new web page, in the next couple of weeks.
Posted by TinyPirate on February 3, 2007
https://tinypirate.com/2007/02/03/darklife-darklife-darklife/
DarkLife hires content creators!
DarkLife is currently looking for artists and builders to rebuild around 3/4 of the sim for the next version of DarkLife. I wrote up a post about our request for tenders and I hope we get a few quality submissions! I think the chance to get paid for the work and the great publicty it presents artists should be a good draw. DarkLife gets a lot of coverage out there in the world so the boost to ones portfolio should not be underestimated!
Posted by TinyPirate on September 26, 2006
https://tinypirate.com/2006/09/26/darklife-hires-content-creators/
We’re Moving!
The ANZAC corporation is leaving Omist, a region in EVE Online. Most of us haven’t liked it much and it was always only going to be a temporary home. We’ve managed to secure a deal with Ascendant Frontier, a large alliance that controls our own home region of Paragon Soul, and so for many of us we’re returning ‘home’. We expect there will be some heavy PVP in the corporation’s future, Ascendant has a few enemies, but we’re not worried, we love a good bash! I made a poster to celebrate.
Posted by TinyPirate on September 2, 2006
https://tinypirate.com/2006/09/02/were-moving/
The $12,000us EVE Online Scam
** Correction – Make that around $100,000us! **
An EVE Online player recently was outed as having scammed the community of 790 billion isk (isk stands for Inter-Stellar Kredits). This works out at nearly $12,000us (you can pay for a month of EVE Online, $15us, for 100m isk). The player set up a ‘bank’ where other players would invest cash to be used on highly expensive but highly profitable building and market speculation. Whether or not the player started with good intentions is currently debated, but the end result was that the player simply walked of with hundreds of peoples isk. This is entirely legal in EVE, which is one of the reasons I really like the game. You do have to consider your actions carefully, there’s no one in game to hold your hand! You can read more about this over at EVE Network News (on their forums, Rumor Mill section, login required) and their podcast has a 15 minute ‘confession’ from the player involved. Very fun and interesting listening!
Posted by TinyPirate on August 22, 2006
https://tinypirate.com/2006/08/22/the-12000us-eve-online-scam/
Death of a Carrier
Tonight the Corporation I am in in EVE (ANZAC Alliance) got together to hunt and kill an enemy carrier. It died in around a minute, a great achievement for our corp and we achieved total surprise on our enemy. Click to check out a couple of photos of the carrier fight and the fleet!
Posted by TinyPirate on August 19, 2006
https://tinypirate.com/2006/08/19/death-of-a-carrier/
Pretty EVE Online
I found this image the other day when I was surfing through my EVE screenshots directory. Must of been me and some chums heading off to a complex in EVE Online (EVE’s version of a dungeon). I thought it was quite a nice shot really and so I trimmed it up a bit and put it online. Enjoy!
Posted by TinyPirate on August 14, 2006
https://tinypirate.com/2006/08/14/pretty-eve-online/
Images and EVE Online
There’s something about EVE Online which lends itself to making pretty EVE pictures. Consequently I’ve redone my sig (as I am flying a battleship now, and I made some protest posters. The posters are about the very high taxes the residents of Omist region pay to the ruling Lokta Vectra alliance. Taxes they pay for very little benefit as far as I can tell!
Posted by TinyPirate on August 13, 2006
https://tinypirate.com/2006/08/13/images-and-eve-online/
PoxNora – fun new game
I’ve been putting a bit of time into PoxNora, a fun collectible, turn-based, tactical fantasy game for the PC. Right now it’s in open beta (go sign up and play!) and the small team behind it have done a fantastic job.
The core idea behind it is the player buys booster packs of ‘runes’ (like cards in Magic: The Gathering) and then by selecting twenty of these builds a deck to play against other people with. The game is played out on a small battlefield where your creature runes are moved around and spell runes are cast, effecting play.
‘Nora’, the power to cast your runes, is gathered at the start of each turn from your home ‘shrine’ and also from wild ‘nora fonts’ the players can capture. The battles usually last around 30 minutes and end up a lot of fun. Once the battle is over (won by destroying the enemy’s shrine), your creature runes get experience points to spend to upgrade stats and abilities.
While the game is in beta you can sign up and play with the basic free deck as well as spend $50 worth of credit on game boosters. From my play it would seem that you would need to spend around $40 to $50 when the game goes live (August) in order to have a competitive deck. That being said, the game will also allow you to trade runes, so you could spend less and trade to the sort of deck you want.
I encourage everyone to go have a look. It’s web and Java-based and very straight forward. Have a look at their Getting Started information and take it from there. Lets support independent developers working on neat games.
Posted by TinyPirate on July 19, 2006
https://tinypirate.com/2006/07/19/poxnora-fun-new-game/
Project Entropia’s clever marketing tricks
Last year the BBC reported that a gamer bought an island in the online world of Project Entropia for $26,500us. Three weeks ago a space station in Project Entropia reportedly sold for $100,000us. And while the press and online gaming gliterati marveled, one question sat unasked and unanswered. Was this all real?
A poster on the Battlefrontforum I frequent provided the answer. Some good Googling from him produced a link showing that Jon Jacobs, the purported purchaser of said space station, is in fact the US Spokesperson for Project Entropia. His role in working on Project Entropia includes:
US strategic relations as well as, business development, marketing and content acquisition
Apparently there were some questions raised on the Project Entropia forum about the whole deal, but very little sensible debate was entered in to, with fanboys shouting down most serious comment. At worst the fans concluded that the circumstances of the sale were a little dodgy.
More curiously, the item itself was sold when the servers were down (the items get sold only when the station is up usually) and one poster comments others were ‘disappointed’ not to have had a chance to bid due to the server status. What’s more, $100,000? A nicely round, eye-catching, newsworthy number if you ask me…
Furthermore, you would think a company so flush with rich customers wouldn’t have to scratch for cash, yet Mind Ark, the developers seem to be doing just that with the Google Ads they have at the bottom of every forum post. Frankly, I smell a rat. A cunning rat, but a fish non the less.
Posted by TinyPirate on November 10, 2005
https://tinypirate.com/2005/11/10/project-entropias-clever-marketing-tricks/
Get my book from O’Reilly!
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@TinyPirate 