Mural Paintings at Cebu

May 22, 2008 · Filed Under Level Up, MMORPG News, Contests, MMOments, Events, Marketing · 2 Comments

This is a wonderful project led by our Sales team in cooperation with the local goverment of Cebu city.

They “reclaimed” a long, plain brick wall and gathered the brightest young artists and gamers to put their creativity to work.

The result is an awesome and artistic rendition of game art, all shining with color and adorned with key values. Who says that gaming and social responsibility doesn’t mix? Check out more of the murals here

Well, this Saturday, May 24, 2008, a lot of key Level Up officials will be at Cebu City for the judging, awarding and grand EB for all participants and Level Up gamers. We have cool activities planned and great prizes up for grabs.

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JC and Codamon on SNS

May 21, 2008 · Filed Under Level Up, Infotech, Videos, Gaming, Events, Marketing · 2 Comments

Recently, our New Media team headed by JC Medina, New Media Director and our Editor-in-Chief, the one and only “Lord of the Blogs”, Kevin Codamon participated in the Philippine SNS conference held at the Hotel Intercon, Makati.

Our New Media team is responsible for all the advergaming that you see inside the game, Coke, Nestle, Jollibee and many more have been our partners. They’ve been hard at work to get more partners and introduce to traditional “brick-and-mortar” companies the value of online communities.

Meanwhile, reporter Alex Villafania of Inquirer interviewed the two head honchos to find out more about their take on SNS and of course, UGC (user generated content) and how it fits into gaming and our communities.

The video interview link after the jump.

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Saving Money on Printer Ink

May 19, 2008 · Filed Under Infotech, Gadgets · 3 Comments

These days, printers (the hardware) are a “dime a dozen”. Why? Because the real business of manufacturers are to sell the “consumables”. By that, I mean - ink.

Just recently, I’ve been consuming my own ink for my personal printer really fast. But now, there are alternatives to saving money on printer ink.

The first, and obvious thing, is to have your ink cartridges refilled. Although this is the fast and easy way, the life of your “head” and toner cartridge is limited and often does not give the same quality output.

Fortunately, there are other options. Learn more after the jump.

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Best Feature of MMORPGs?

May 19, 2008 · Filed Under Musings, Online, Marketing · 16 Comments

A lot of online gaming companies are banging their heads to come up with new and innovative features for the latest MMORPGs. No one wants to be another “cookie cutter” or another WoW clone.

Let’s face it. A lot of MMORPGs out there look the same. Except for a new “theme”, new monsters, or some subtle changes in gameplay, it’s not that all different. Go to a quest, kill a monster, get good item, level up. This evil cycle repeats itself ad nauseum.

Some games spend advertising money to harp about the better graphics and how real the light and shadows are. But do the real gamers care?

Meanwhile, I decided to come up with an informal poll on which features of a game would make one play. The choice is yours…

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Gran Turismo 5 Prologue

May 18, 2008 · Filed Under General, Videos, Gaming · 4 Comments

Alright. This is a DEMO game for the full-featured Gran Turismo 5 slated for next year, 2009.

But, boy oh boy! Wipe that drool off your cheek after watching the full trailer below. Gran Turismo 5 is a sight to behold! Bring this video back a couple of years (even just into the ’90’s) and you’d swear you were watching REAL CARS! Man, it’s THAT good!

Woot!

Trailer vid after the jump

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Managing Virtual Economies

May 17, 2008 · Filed Under Musings, MMOments, Online, Marketing · 6 Comments

Part of managing an online game is keeping track of the economy within the delicate ecosystem of an MMORPG.

This means close monitoring of both supply, demand and the number of rare items in a given server. Fail to this, and the economy will falter. A game with a super-inflated economy will lose players faster than you can say “dupe”.

How do you monitor economies?

Hit jump to find out.

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FlyFF v11 Now Online

May 16, 2008 · Filed Under Level Up, MMORPG News, Flyff · 2 Comments

After a looong downtime last Wednesday, May 14, we finally managed to launch FlyFF’s newest patch episode - FlyFF Version 11 Destination: Azria.

Thanks to the efforts of FlyFF Brand Manager, GM Atma, Community Manager GM Kumiko and the rest of the FlyFF team, Destination Azria is now up and running in the commercial server. Well done! Great work, guys! We also got an official website for this latest episode.

Destination Azria features the snow-clad map, Azria with better monsters, drops and EXP. Getting to Azria requires you to purchase a ticket. Tickets are available at the item shop for P90.00 (7 days) and P160.00 (15 days).

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Skipping the Meeting?

May 15, 2008 · Filed Under Musings, Marketing · 1 Comment

One of my favorite business authors and blogger, Seth Godin had a cool and short post about meetings.

Seth says that we should skip a meeting a day for two weeks and see what happens.

Come to think about it, I have around 2 to 4 meetings a day on the average. Only when I’m done can I get back to doing work and reading my mail. I’m not saying that meetings should’t be done. Let’s just pick out the really important ones and keep it short.

Perhaps this ad might open your eyes…

Gotta end this post now. I have to rush - to a meeting. Lol.

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Youtube is Not Alone

May 14, 2008 · Filed Under Videos · 4 Comments

Alright, quick! Tell me, without going through google or opening a new tab, 5 other websites that are LIKE youtube.com?

Hard? For some, perhaps.

But if you think youtube is the only one out there (obviously it’s not), think again.

There are other (lesser known) websites that offer video uploads, streaming and services. One of the more ambitious projects yet is Yahoo’s Live (I kinda like the name. *snicker*) which offers live streaming of videos in your own channel. Kinda like youtube on steroids. That service is currently on beta.

Anyways, I’ve come up with a short list of other video-sharing websites for you to try. Who knows? You might find other, funny and scandalous videos out there.

That list after the jump.

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Level Up Summer Outing 2008

May 13, 2008 · Filed Under Level Up, Events · Comment

Last Thursday and Friday (May 8 and 9), the entire crew of Level Up went to our yearly summer outing at the Blue Coral beach resort in San Juan, Batangas.

It was a chance for us to unwind, take a break and NOT talk about work for at least 2 days. Everyone had a blast. The resort and the beach was great, the food was fantastic and the activities were… wild!

Thanks to the great efforts of the organizing committee led by our HR team (headed by our new senior HR manager, Joyce), the outing was a memorable and fun one. Yes, if success is defined by downing a LOT of beer kegs before midnight, then that’s one for the record books.