About the Sentinel
The OrbMore Sentinel is a center for editorials, reviews, and mixed thoughts on updates and trends of Jagex games. Writers from the community of OrbMore create content for this newspaper-like setting. Almost like a blog, you can see articles from past months and authors. Want to become a reporter for the Orbmore Sentinel? Send a private message to an administrator on the forums to see what you can do to apply.
Written by Myst King on the date of June 4, 2010
Is Jagex bored of Funorb?
Recently I have been thinking about this and have come to the conclusion they very well might be.
When Funorb first burst onto the scene it was some thing new and fresh. An interesting 2nd child for Jagex while it also went back to the Gower's personal roots in small games.
The baby's first year was slow but I though very enjoyable. Arcanists was a huge success and lobbies were full. Jagex seemed keen to promote the better community Funorb had.
Community management thrived in such a smaller and friendlier atmosphere and the new idea of Jmod clans were hugely successful.
Then the updates seemed to dry up. Jagex seeing the success of Arcanists believed all we wanted were huge games. Games that took a long time to make. This path took them into territory where a single game failing would flush away over 6 months of developer time.
We heard news of updates to come in the future. Updates we still don't have.
Funorb central was scrapped. developer diaries stopped. Jagex muted itself.
Months without any knowledge of what was going on seemed incredulous for a company that 6 months ago was promoting itself as more open than ever.
the only pillars standing strong in Jagex seemed to be the community management mods who unfortunately never seemed to be able to tell us anything.
So where are we now?
Well the former head of Funorb has left. All the games can be played at Jagex instead of Funorb.
Has Jagex stopped caring? Is the lure of newer and exciting things too tempting? Will Funorb continue or be forced to sit int the shadows of Runescape, War of Legends and later Stellar dawn?
The recent expansion into the iPhone seems to support this also. 2 developers work full time now on a machine very few of us have. 2 may not sound like many but Funorb needs these talented people. 2 is the number it took to create kickabout league. Its double the number to develop Arcanists!
So leave a reply, agreeing or not, about what you think Jagex thinks of its awkward middle child.
By Myst King
Written by Dor Min on the date of May 30, 2010
Mod Korpz
Gameplay: The gameplay with this one varies greatly over the levels. When it was first released, a lot of the levels were quite fun and simple. There were still a few that not many people enjoyed playing, but overall it was good fun. However, as people started to get further in the game, they found a lot of levels were much greater in size, and many required performing the same set of simple tasks over and over again. However, one of the last levels was a return to the simple and enjoyable style of the early game, and it’s a shame this game was removed from the site before anyone had a chance to get to the next one.
4/5
Replay Value: As with gameplay, the replay value varies greatly between the levels. Personally, I could play some of the earlier levels over and over again, but the later ones just don’t appeal to me that much. Of course, as always, there are people who, for some reason I do not understand, enjoy these higher levels.
3/5
Achievements: Ah, achievements. Not a lot to cover on this, since the game has everything from
Good Learner to
Creature of Habit. The good ones do balance out the bad ones, but eventually you’ll run out of fun or easy ones to achieve and be left with the stupidity of
Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
3/5
Music + Sounds: The sounds used in this game are very realistic and work well with the actions they go with. I am not sure about the game’s music, though.
3/5
Graphics: The graphics, on the other hand, are amazing. Completely realistic and incredibly high definition.
5/5
Other Comments: This game certainly has the best and the worst of FunOrb, and it’s such a shame to see him go just as it was getting good again.
Written by Kizd on the date of May 14, 2010
Yes! Zanaris has new graphics. They sure are awesome! If you compare Zanaris to the rest of the not yet updated world, they are not quite as detailed or as focused. Jagex has stated that they have planned an Draynor update to be released during the Summer. Perhaps that update will incorporate these details into them.
If you need another example, you can view this new detail at Daemonheim. Inside a dungeon, especially the themes after frozen, the graphics are amazing.
The main point of me writing this, is that Jagex is improving a lot with their visuals and we may get to see more in RuneScape and possibly FunOrb. How awesome would it be to see a new addition to FunOrb with these types of visuals? Imagine an in-depth 3D game arriving at FunOrb, or a top down game like Kickabout League, Crazy Crystals, and Ace of Skies. Speaking of Ace of Skies, the graphics represented in that game are very stunning also. I hope we get to see this in more that just RuneScape!
Written by PaulMoore12 on the date of May 10, 2010
Recently it seems that Jagex have been focusing more on porting FunOrb games to the iPhone and currently have two games on the mobile platform, Bouncedown and StarCannon. All you have to do is look at the FunOrb home page and all you see is StarCannon. StarCannon for the iPhone, StarCannon free weekend and even StarCannon for iPhone update. Oh but it doesn't stop there three out of four of the recent news articles has been out the iPhone games. The third being "Get insider info on Jagex's iPhone games!"...
OK, It's great that Jagex are expanding there products across many platforms but what there players at FunOrb really want are more games not iPhone games. They recently held a insider info session on twitter about there iPhone games, but we want to know more about the future of FunOrb than the future of the iPhone and it's already thriving market that we have all heard about on the news.
Well since they have already done the session I can't change there minds but can only influence the future, which probably will not happen... So I will continue with something else. During the session on twitter several people brought up the topic of a RuneScape lobby application, well Jagex didn't give a definite answer to this question but instead dodged it by saying they were looking to 'investigate' the possibility of a RuneScape application. They also mentioned during this short 'tweet', that "Time and resource could be an issue though". Of course it will be an issue if your taking developers away from FunOrb to put your efforts into an iPhone game instead of making new FunOrb games.
It also seems that someone decided if they would be releasing more iPhone games in the future... That should be a rhetorical question, of course they are. They haven't stretched there FunOrb team out far enough yet so expect to see more iPhone games soon and longer waiting times for your FunOrb games. Keep your eyes glued to jagex.com as they said, or even funorb.com as we all know they love to decorate their page with nice little iPhone game news instead of what FunOrb was intended for.
I do know for definite that there are going to be more FunOrb games ported to the iPhone, yes they can bring another challenge for the player that has completed them on FunOrb. Yes they will be fun but at what cost? We are going to see less FunOrb games, and more ported games instead? If we are try to balance out your resources maybe, 99 developers to FunOrb and 1 to the iPhone? That seems like a reasonable ratio that would make every FunOrb player satisfied.
Jagex also stated that they would be looking into other mobile platforms such as Andriod, and some others. So we now know from the insider session that we will be getting even more mobile games and less FunOrb games. Although there is no firm plans set down for other mobile platforms you can be sure that there soon will be. This further outlines the problem with FunOrb... Is FunOrb dying? Or is Jagex just neglecting it?
The approval process for getting a game onto the iPhone market is fairly rigorous and has delayed the process of getting the games onto the iPhone. With delays comes extra costs and with extra costs comes less money to develop FunOrb games. I am not saying the iPhone games are bad, far from it. The games are fairly good in my humble opinion. I do not want Jagex to abandon there effort to make games on the iPhone but instead to keep their focus on where it should be and that is at FunOrb. Where there large majority of players of these games reside, not everyone at FunOrb owns an iPhone and this deprives them of games that they are entitled to when paying for there membership.
Written by Myst King on the date of May 6, 2010
So you want to be the very best?
Like no-one ever was?
Then your like me! And similarly to me i expect you want to as little work on grinding those achievements.
So here i present the greatest grinding guide to those of a slothful disposition.
Arcanists:
Every young wizard needs two things. Wands and damage.
Damage is easy, just run up to people and megaboulder at point blank. Nothing can go wrong! (Not a guarantee)
As for wands, well i hear theres a lot of em at the bottom of the water. Go ahead and jump in, it works honest.
Armies of Gielinor:
Everyone loves loads and loads of runes right?
Sure ya do! And the best way to get them is to utterly crush your opponents.
I would recommend using the best trinkets so that every time you win you get enough runes to buy more trinkets! Soon enough all your trinket won runes will be spent on trinkets so that the weaker units will be come trinket powered to fight the non-trinket stronger people with trinket prestige trinket lol trinket KBD trinket trinket...
Bachelor Fridge:
So you need the best food fighters but can't be bothered to find what to feed them? Don't worry, I'm sure if you wait long enough Jagex will make microtransactions available on this game
After all thats what everyone wants right?
Deko Bloko:
Remember to stack your shapes for M-m-m-m-massive attacko!
Dungeon Assault:
Ok heres my plan. Firstly you need to map out your sleep patterns over a night. Then wire loads of buttons to your bed so when you turn in your sleep you push the buttons. Then map the buttons to make a dungeon raid.
Surely the only sure fire way to get creature of habit while asleep!
Kickabout League:
Remember folks you don't have to win a game to get experience. And lets be honest the only way real footballers got so good was to stand on a pitch for endless hours doing nothing.
Steel Sentinels:
The best way to win at SS is to go for the sentinels players weakness. Insulting their robot. Call their Bertha fat, claim artillery is for noobs, say how stupid their Hurricane looks. They usually go off and cry about it leaving all the solorite to you
Zombie dawn multiplayer:
This doesn't need a guide as the zombie do all the work for you. Send em flying everywhere then sit back and have a nice cooling drink.
Thank you for reading and remember to follow these guidelines to truly master Funorb.
(Disclaimer: Neither Myst King or orbmore claims responsibility of you getting owned, muted, banned, losing the game or any other mental or physical trauma)
((Double disclaimer: This is a non-serious humour article.)
By Myst King
Written by Kizd on the date of May 1, 2010
Lately, myself and many others have been observing an increasing amount of updates causing RuneScape to become more similar to World of Warcraft and other online MMO’s.
Let’s start with the HP update. Before this update, RuneScape was one of the few if not only MMO where you hit in numbers such as 10, 20, 30, etc. In my experience with other MMOs, you generally hit higher than 1000 on average. Now with the new ‘Constitution’ you may not hit in the 1000s, but it sure is a lot closer than 10.
Now this new skill. “Dungeoneering”. The skill is strikingly similar to raids in other games. You go through the rooms, solving puzzles and fighting monsters. You pick up keys to open future doors. And at the end you fight a final boss that takes a special strategy to defeat. You even have “parties”. Parties, or “Guilds” or a large part in other MMOs.
Next, they have added voices to a few NPCs. I have to say I do like this, but that doesn’t mean it it doesn’t relate to other games. In many games I have played, the NPCs and your character have voice actors. This is the only of the updates in question that I can say may not be geared towards making RuneScape alike to other MMOs.
Lastly, a new quest-start system. I started the new quest (Buyers and Cellars) to find that that a box opened up saying what I needed for the quest, what monsters I have to fight, what the reward is, and a quest start confirmation. Many other MMOs have this quest-start interface. I wanted to see this again, but I found that this new quest is the only one that has this. This could possible be because the quest itself branches into other sub-quests, but on the other hand, it could be the start of something.
Written by Myst King on the date of April 26, 2010
"Unbalanced!"
"Nerf needed now jamflax!"
"You messed up my tactic!!!"
"Everyone just uses that!"
These words seem to stalk every "strategy" game on funorb. Never an update goes by where a certain item is claimed to be game-breaking. When released these tactics get spread around quickly, catching like wildfire until it seems everyone is using the best tactic.
Its not long after this that people begin to complain. When everyone is using the perfect setup the game get boring and stagnant. Eventually counter tactics are made but to most its just the same opponents every game.
So how do people find the golden set up so fast.
First we need to see just how many setups we can create.
Arcanist full book combinations: 31044058215401400000
This huge number of possibilities does translate to the relative diversity of Arcanists.In all of Funorbs multiplayers you do generaly see a mixture whether that be seas books, cogs, or liches.
Now for Armies of Gielinor:
The 6 gods can be arranged into 20 sets. A lot less options to Arcanists but its more the ways the units in the gods are used, so i still see a lot of versatility (aside of course from everyone using Guthix ;))
Finally for this article I will examine the combinations available in zombie dawn multi.
816 powerup possibilities
816 Trait possibilities
332520 Full combinations
This adds a lot of scope to the game. more than Aog but less than Arcanists.
Unlike arcanists however the powerups are more balanced. Should you get some points for new abilities or use ones to help you win?
So in conclusion I would say this. Jagex say how there are so many combinations of abilities in a Game but the facts will say, unless the abilities are balanced, the one true tactic will be found and the game will become stagnant.
100 balanced setups will easily beat 1000000 poorly designed ones.
Have some thoughts about combinatiosn and balancing? I would love to hear them in comments below.
Thanks for reading,
Myst King
Written by 19118219 on the date of April 24, 2010
12 days ago, the much-hyped new 2010 skill was released: Dungeoneering. It didn't seem to match the expectations of the community though.
As usual, there were many rants all over the forums. These argued that the new skill was really just a complex new activity. The arguments have died down a bit. The arguments included:
it can't be trained outside Daemonheim.
it has no use outside Daemonheim.
training involves other skills.
At first I agreed. Isn't this a co-op Stealing Creation? Jagex compared the "skill" to Slayer, and that made sense to me too:
it can't be trained unless you are assigned a task
it has no use other than to kill more/better monsters
training involves other skills
Other players cited Construction as another example. Hunter too. Yes, these skills do have benefits for training. Slayer is profitable, Construction provides useful resources and teleports, Hunter is VERY profitable. However, Dungeoneering was supposed to have its own benefits too, in the form of the rewards.
The prices mean that you don't get anything for the lower levels, but doesn't this apply to Construction too? Portal Chambers can only be built at Level 50, by which time you could have spent a good half million on the skill. Chapels are useful Prayer training, but only with Incense burners, which require Level 61. The price of a good altar, or even the amount you spent getting that high, could buy you thousands of bones.
I think these complaints would die down after a while. Jagex has plans for a big Dungeoneering update soon too, I believe, much like the second Summoning batch shortly after the release of the skill.
Written by Lord Eyrie on the date of April 23, 2010
When OrbMore was still under development, me, Tetra and Papeh were members of a RuneScape fansite, so we knew each other a bit. When Tetra & Papeh decided to create a FunOrb fansite, I was asked to make an awards code, and I even received an account with full administrator access for the OrbMore forums. However, due to my inactivity on the internet at that time, I never actually coded anything, and I probably never even logged in on that account.
Later, I started playing FunOrb and of course, I joined OrbMore. Soon, I thought of the awards code I was once asked to make, and I finally coded it. It was used on the forums and the first few awards were handed out, but after a few days it was already removed. Reason: it was way too hard to give awards to anyone, which made it hard to keep up with the members that were supposed to receive awards: it was terribly impractical.
On 25 August 2009, this idea was brought up again by Tetra, this time called the “achievements system”. It was to be written in PHP and be fully automated, which is a very big task. Pretty much every staff member helped out, and in a month’s time, some scripts had been written, some hints were spread on the forums, and some achievements (with images!) had been invented. However, after 29 September, the topic randomly died.
Eventually, it was revived, on 17 April 2010, when I coded a more admin-friendly awards system which was introduced a bit before the Shattered Plans event that night. It all went very fast that day: from having nothing in the morning till having it all set up in the evening. Now, a lot of OrbMorons have quite a few awards already, some updates have already been made, and it looks like the awards system will have a splendid future.
Written by Tetra Iink on the date of December 4, 2009
Bouncedown for the iPhone was released on the 3
rd December 2009 as more of a testing project, but is there more to it?
Is it really
just a testing project, or is it going to become another method of gathering new members? The iPhone/iTouch have a large market... A very large one, in fact. Over 1 million iPhones were bought on the weekend of its release. Expanding into the iPhone/iTouch apps could be a great move for Jagex, but what will happen about costs, because they certainly won't be able to check for people with membership, so will they charge people to download the app? Is this actually just another money-making scheme by Jagex?
I managed to convince a friend of mine who doesn't play FunOrb to download the app, and he said that the game is quite amusing. He also took the screenshot featured in this article for me. But will he continue to play it? Who knows?
But back to the point, will Jagex charge people to download these apps? They could even make it so that you can download the app for free, but you must log in with your Jagex credentials, which will check if you are a member or not. But surely that would be too much hard work?
What do you think? Why not leave a comment below? :)
