It’s official!

Version 8 for FlyFF Philippines will patch today, July 25, 2007. To support this, we just finished a mini-presscon at the Mandarin Hotel over lunch.

Joining us for the launch of FlyFF Version 8 were our friends from the media. We also took this opportunity to introduce the advances of Level Up in the field of “Advergaming” with particular attention to Nescafe Quests we did for FlyFF.

Joining us for the event were Level UP COO Pet Syling, Brand Manager for FlyFF Wudie “GM Atma” Morales, New Media Director JC Medina, Marketing Director Jake San Diego, “Game Boss” (LUI COO) Ben Colayco, and yours truly.

(Left to Right): Ben Colayco, JC Medina, Pet Syling and Wudie Morales

More after the jump…

WHAT’S NEW WITH V8

Flyff v8, called “Heroes’ Rising” promises to get players even more engaged with challenging quests and all new adventures in crisp 3D animation and excellent graphics. The new patch comes with new game mechanics for the player vs player (PvP), duel system, and Guild War scenarios. This allows Flyffers to acquire some serious G’s in this patch. Wudie Morales, Flyff’s youthful Brand Manager (and known to FlyFFers as the popular GM Atma) says that “With Flyff version 8, Level Up is able to deliver overall gaming enhancements that will surely delight the inner child as well as the competitive player in everyone”.

GM ATMA – Wudie Morales

Some Dragon museum mechanics have been revised to be more challenging and to shell out more fulfilling rewards. The guild wars have become doubly intense as battle duration can now reach a maximum of 30 minutes. Each guild can also be resurrected up to six times which is twice more than the previous version. After half an hour of all out war, the victorious guild can enjoy ten guild war boxes containing rare items that improve their characters’ XP.

Be sure to check out the official website for FlyFF Philippines for more details

ADVERGAMING

During the presscon, we presented the company’s new media innovation dubbed as advergaming – a non-traditional advertising platform featured and carried by Level Up!’s market-leading game titles such as Ragnarok, Freestyle Online and Flyff.

Speaking before the media at the launch of Level Up’s Flyff V8, JC Medina, director for New Media of Level Up! Philippines, articulated the company’s plan of educating more companies about the benefits of targeting the rapidly growing market of online gamers. “We are glad that other companies are now recognizing the power of online games to tap into the youth market. We try to work with our partners so that we can personalize the level of interaction between their brand and our brands.” Medina said.

Medina also explained the mechanics as well as the major differences that set this new media innovation apart from traditional mediums such as TV, radio, print and billboards. With advergaming and in-game advertising, brands and their products can be made to look like they are actually integrated in the game. The brands that have already invested in Level Up!’s advergaming were customized to suit the setting and the over-all theme of their chosen game title.

Level Up International COO Ben Colayco also explained the phenomenon of the merger of non-game brands with games both here and abroad. “If you look at the business models of big online companies such as Yahoo and Google, most of their profits come from advertising. So, there’s nothing wrong with companies such as ours to explore this new opportunity. I’m excited about our initial forays into this field and I’m sure that the potential for growth will be huge.” Colayco said.

Meanwhile, our COO, Pet Syling who gave the opening remarks, welcomed our guests and told them that we are also celebrating our 5th year anniversary as a company as well as giving a primer on online games and MMORPGs.

Thanks to all our media friends who attended and thanks to our events team led by Joie B and for Patrick Pulumbarit (our jack-of-all-trades) for the cool pics!

Seeya inside V8!

GM T

PS. I’ll try to see if I can post the video of the V8 trailer today… ciao