Online Campaigns

Having so much enjoyed the online dimension of my favorite WWII flight simulator, IL 46, I have finally dipped into the world of serious MMPORGS (mega multi player organised rampaging gaming scenarios).

I have joined two games, Rennaissance Kingdoms (medieval role play) and Ogame (space empire building). They both allow one to join and play for free, although both offer further advantages to players who contribute real dosh to the moderators. As I don't like paying for anything online (the internet wants to be free!), we'll see how it goes.

In honour of the occassion I have created a new collection of links on the sidebar to the left. I will now have to think a bit about my 'category' tags for my posts as, till now, I have been using 'online' as a tag for my flight sims only.

Ogame: My friend, Robbo, put me onto this game. He has been playing it for many many months now. It is a huge intergalactic strategic empire building game, subdivided into a number of 'universes'. Each universe is a discreet game, composed of thousands of players partaking in the struggle for supremacy. It is run from germany, I think, and has a huge following of german players.

I have just started my tilt at the iridium throne and at am present busy developing the planet Aardv Ark to the point where it can build space ships and reach for the stars. Aardv Aark is a fairly innocious planet, the tenth in System 494 in Universe 31. At present I am juggling the development of Metal and crystal mines, deuterium ('deut') production facilities and solar power plants. The accumulation of resources happens slowly over 'realtime', and one can only build or upgrade one facility at a time.

To build anything but basic production facilities (eg level 1 metal mine, basic research facilities) requires you to have built certain other buildings first. At the moment I don't have to worry about that too much, as the only requirement I have for all buildings of immediate interest is the accumulation of sufficient metal, crystals and deut. So I'm presently operating at a fairly base level of resource production and accumulation. There's a world of scientific advances, space travel, intestellar trade and combat and the intercinine politics of alliances and war to navigate in the future. I'll let you know how it goes.

Rennaissance Kingdoms: I came across this whilst surfing, on my second wave of search results into the shores of realtime reality. I've always been interested in medieval and rennaissance history, and I've been a role play gameer for decades. In my rpgs, I've had a particular intertest in low level adventures and adventurers, and the mundanities of my characters' everyday lives. If you take the 'tour' fromthe homepage I've provided a link for, you can see why it is , therefore that I was drawn to give this particular game a go.

This game originates in france and, although not as big as Ogame, still seems to always have at least several hundred players online at any particualar time. It is a bit more commerically oriented I suspect, but we will see how it goes.

For the moment, I am a loinclothed Scottish lad working for my keep in the mines near the new village of Whithorn in the County of Galloway. The only noteable I have ever seen is a candidate for the village mayorship who always seems to be in the tavern where I go with my uncouth accent to purchase bread. My present goals are to earn enough to stay well fed, become properly clothed, seek absolution and venture forth towards the distant centre of civilisation (I am thinking Edinburgh).

IL46: I have flown about five more sorties in the last two nights (realtime). All have occurred in daylight. All ended in grief as I wheeled once too often for one too many attacking dives against targets against which I'd not cleaned up efficiently on my previous runs. In all of them I sustained too much damage from AA fire to do anything but crash. Only twice did I manage to safely bail out (albeit, into captivity). My next step advance in this game will be psychological, knowing when to say 'enough is enough'.