When you first said you learned JCL, COBOL and C, I thought you were going to say you went to college back in the 80s. However, your first job was in .Net? Were you in college for over 10 years, or was your college really behind?

To me, reading that Team Ninja was making Metroid was the biggest news. Don't forget that the main guy of Team Ninja left. I believe he was the reason behind the polish of the games. There were rumors a lot of the people at Team Ninja were going to leave with him, but I never heard anything else about that.

A TW sales rep called me yesterday asking if I wanted to upgrade to cable. I told her I was waiting until summer to see how this new tier thing pans out. She flat denied it and claimed she never heard of it. Despite all the facts I gave her, she didn't budge, but she did end the call pretty quickly.

I agree that point balance is important in this type of game. Urban Legions and KoL, as others have mentioned, are the two other ones, and they do a great job handling turns. While LoZ uses a turn for every action, one Urban Legions' turn consists of moving, and all the fighting and stuff that happens with it, which can be pretty lengthy if you enter a big event or dungeon. I even found the free play to last about an hour or two a day if you are not just grinding, which the game doesn't really require (except for a couple of the leaderboards).

As mentioned in other posts, the trend tends to be that more money can be made from ads than subscriptions. However, it is good to have both as many people hate ads.

I suggest they just yank that band-aid off and start up their paid service. Sure, people will scream, and leave. However, that is no reason to deter others from coming. How would you react if someone said 'Game X sucks because they make you pay, and it used to be free'. Most wouldn't care and try it out.

When my friend and I launched UrbanLegions.net, we made sure our beta/free period was short. Like your friends, the game is fully playable as free, but you don't have ads and get more features if you subscribe. However, just from past experience, like reading this article, when it comes to money, you have to embrace your revenue setup from the start, before you start getting a big following.

I really hope they are not closing their arcade in Akihabara. All my friends are amazed when I describe how thriving the arcades are in Japan. The bigger ones are usually comprised of about three or four stories, each with a different genre or games (fighting, shooters, etc). They are always busy, and it is an amazing feeling I haven't seen since the old days of Aladin's Castle. This news really saddens me.

-Phil
UrbanLegions.net - Online Super Hero Text-based RPG

I agree. I have a 7800GTX and an AMD64, and the game runs incredibly well on medium-high settings. The only frame rate problems I come into, and it isn't that bad, is when I have like 60 people on the screen at once during a RvR battle, which are fun as hell. Drivers, drivers, drivers!

-Phil
Urban Legions - Awesome Online Text-based Super Hero RPG!
www.UrbanLegions.net