Forbes has an article on virtual goods featuring chief ohai Susan, who explains why they’re a valuable commodity people are willing to pay for: They help us symbolically express how we feel about each other, and show off our own place in the world. Or as she puts it there: “It’s about relationship building, and things like rank and status.” Also, big ups to City of Eternals player and CoE Wikia fansite editor Greg, who tells Forbes about our community’s passion for buying items to pimp up their vampire cribs.
Everyone here at ohai is pretty excited about the iPad, just announced today. Apple has an incredible track record of opening up entirely new markets with simple and elegant consumer devices. And since our whole mission at ohai is about bringing World of Warcraft-caliber MMOs to as broad of an audience as possible, we’re going to be making full use of these new platforms. MMOs haven’t gained much traction in iPhone’s App Store, but we think the iPad’s big screen and interface will make them much more accessible. Full-scale MMOs on your touchscreen personal device, anywhere and everywhere? Awesome!
What’s all this mean for City of Eternals and other ohai MMOs we’re cooking up? Stay tuned, we think you’ll be as psyched as we are!
Original Jobs and iPad photo (before Batty-fication) by Ryan Anson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images.
Gratifying media coverage of City of Eternals and ohai: “So far it’s working,” reports TechCrunch Internet guru Michael Arrington. “I do believe that this is the beginning of a new wave of social gaming.” Over at the influential VentureBeat, Dean Takahashi observes, “Ohai has a real opportunity… City of Eternals can tap into the growing popular interest in the romance, action and dark humor of vampires.” Stay tuned for more!
We’ve been building out the core technology for about a year now. City of Eternals went into production about 9 months ago, incorporating a few design elements from our early social games from 2007, and from our even earlier work developing the world’s very first MMOs back in the 1990s. I’m proud to say that ohai team members were leading innovators and developers of text-based MUDs and large scale game franchises such as Everquest, Everquest 2, PlanetSide, Asheron’s Call, Star Wars Galaxies, Second Life, Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Second Life and Free Realms. I’m honored to be working with this fantastic team.
With City of Eternals, we’re taking social games and MMOs to their next stage of evolution: An action-filled, web-based experience with 3D graphics playable not just within Facebook, but anywhere on the web, starting with CityofEternals.com, and soon, anywhere you can host the game’s Flash client, such as blogs and social network pages.
In New Valencia, your vampire will battle powerful monsters, uncover mysteries and secrets, and earn a place among many rival vampire Houses fighting to control this secret society of Immortals. But that’s just the start: Fall in love with a fellow Vampire, lead your own personal coven (which we call your “House”), customize your home and avatar look, and much more. Choose the way you want to play a Vampire! Over the next few months, we’ll continue adding features and new content, so our world can better reflect the big diverse culture of the bloodthirsty undead.
Our game is still growing and improving, and we’d love your feedback to make it better. Meantime, look for me in New Valencia — my avatar is also named Susan, a Vampire dressed in hot red boots (I wish I had these in real life!) If you spot me, please say hello.
This is just ohai’s first MMO, by the way, with many more of all varieties to come. Meanwhile, see you in the City of Eternals!
Last week, the supernatural spirit of Halloween swept into the ohai offices early, casting a wicked spell which transmogrified the entire staff into blood-speckled vampires. (That, or marketing ohai Julia cast a bag of drugstore vampire teeth at us, we’re not quite sure.) In any case, here’s a brief and gory look at some of the team who help make City of Eternals possible:
Your vampires include chief technical ohai Don, posing with his equally vampiric son; team content trio Franky, John, and Philip, sporting hiphop Vampire styles; Jill in white, showing us her best “Chinese vampire” pose; product guy Sean in red shirt and shades; James in motorcycle jacket, unsuccessfully attempting “rebel Vampire” look; Chris in white T-shirt; Brian in black trench coat; Albert feasting from a blood IV; Randy in suave turtleneck; and finally, successfully swinging a sexy 60’s librarian vampire look, the chief instigator of all this office mayhem, marketing ohai Julia.
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Our game is still growing and improving, and we’d love your feedback to make it better. Meantime, look for me in New Valencia — my avatar is also named Susan, a Vampire dressed in hot red boots (I wish I had these in real life!) If you spot me, please say hello.