Web Puzzles

Evony Combat Tips: Defeating Another Player or NPC

When preparing to do battle in Evony, countless gamers unfortunately put very little consideration into what their plan of attack is or how they expect to win. Not surprisingly, these players are seldom victorious and lack what's necessary to every become an Evony world power. By dedicating some time to prepare for your attack, you can save yourself a significant amount of trouble that would normally arise and can greatly increase your chances of victory.

Choosing the Right Target

The first task when preparing for combat is simply to choose an appropriate valley to attack. This is an extremely vital stage of preparation, and should not be neglected. For one thing, you must decide upon a target whose protection isn't so great that there is no way you could possibly win. If you decide to attack a level ten NPC, for instance, you must have a powerful army or else there is no chance that you will possibly be able to win.

It’s also necessary to avoid choosing a very low leveled city, however, as the plunder simply will not be worth the losses. Not only will you likely lose more units than the amount of plunder that you gain, but you will also be sacrificing precious time that could be better spent attacking more worthy enemies.

Scout Your Enemy Before Attacking

Another imperative stage of preparation is scouting your enemy before attacking them. Numerous players often skip this step, presuming it is not important, while in reality, it is one of the most significant things you can do to increase your chances of victory. If you don’t spend time scouting your opponent before attacking them, you will have no idea what units their army is made of, and have very little assurance of coming out victorious. Thus, spending the time to scout out your opponent is also critical for success.

Using the Scout Report to Assemble Your Army

Next, put together your army accordingly, based on what the scout report revealed about your opponent's defenses. Most players simply assemble as many total units as they can and attack each different target with the exact same arrangement of troops, putting very little thought into whether or not their troops correspond well with the opponent's defenses.

 
For example, if you are attacking an enemy NPC city who does not have any trebuchets, an excellent idea would be to bring ballista. If you're attacking a city that contains a huge number of abatis, a good tactic would be to hold back your cavalry and replace them with other types of units. Using your cavalry may slightly increase your strength, but you will forfeit so many cavalry to the abatis, you will definitely lose too many to ever justify such a decision. Regrettably, most players neglect to consider these things when attacking, and their success suffers considerably because of it.

Deploying for Battle

Lastly, dismiss your units in waves. Sending off your army in waves works much better than sending a massive force just one time, and should be the approach you use for best results. Also, make sure to bring plenty of transports in order to bring back resources to your city. Few things are worse than putting forth the time and effort to defeat a city, only to have the resources stolen by another gamer because you neglected to bring ample transports.

Conclusion

By spending time planning out your attacks, you' will notice that you become significantly more successful during Evony combat.

Facebook's FarmVille Tips

FarmVille was designed to be a social game so that folks would reach out to friends and even make some new friends through game play. There are a lot of benefits in getting friends and not–yet–friends to start up in the areas around one's farm. This makes it easier to expand the business part of the farm and eventually own more land.

There are a lot of forums and blogs out there filled with folks literally begging for neighbors to join their community. Most of those people looking for neighbors will usually offer gifts, or the promise of future gifts in exchange for becoming a neighbor. Another way to get neighbors is to just ask those players who are on the same level. Remember, the better the level of neighbors, the better the gifts.

Get More Money Faster in FarmVille

One of the tricks to leveling faster in FarmVille is to keep the FarmVille–money flowing. While setting aside some money for expenses, use as much money as possible to plow, plant, and harvest the good coin–producing crops as soon as money gets low. There are places online that provide tables listing the best coin-producing crops.

For example, "Super Berries" harvest in just two hours and sell for 100 coins. These berries are very rare, but do occasionally pop up in the game. Look for other pop–ups that will show up when visiting neighbors farms asking about weeding or some other job which needs doing. It's not glamorous work, but it keeps the cash coming in.

More Money Acquiring and Leveling Up Tips

Hay bales get 5 XP each so buy as many as possible. Delete those bales and then buy more to get the Pack Rat Ribbon. Get an Architect Blue Ribbon by building as many restrooms as possible. Focus on buying horses, ducks, rabbits, and goats which get 50 coins each. The highest yielding trees are Banana, Passion Fruit, and Pomegranate bringing in 100 coins each.

In the early stages of FarmVille, crops definitely offer the best return on experience points. However, as the game progresses with more gifts and friends acquired, try and get more valuable animals as gifts from neighbors and friends. Chocolate milk from a brown cow or wool from sheep does not go bad like other crops. This is especially useful for people who are busy and may not be able to visit the farm for a time.

Levels in FarmVille–Field Hands to World Fair Champ

The first level in FarmVille is the lowly Field Hand at level 1–0XP. There are many, many levels in the game including Livestock Lord, Jolly Rancher, Green Giant, Killer Tiller, Old Mc–Who, and Farming Virtuoso. The top level which is World Fair Champ is at level 70 and requires over 4.3 million experience points.

There are some time consuming tasks in FarmVille can be automated. Plowing, seeding, and harvesting hundreds of squares can be boring and make the old arthritis kick in early. If players can't be on the farm regularly, it makes sense to automate some of these tasks in order to keep crops from being wasted. Look online for some free FarmVille scripts like Extreme FarmVille Manager or Farm Helper.

Of course, for those who want to take FarmVille to a whole new level, take a look at the FarmVille Secrets Guide available online. This guide takes a walkthrough of the entire game through all the different levels showing which animals are best buys at various levels, which crops to plant and when, and how to become a rich farmer faster.

Be careful of any offers from others or websites that may offer game cheats or hacks of FarmVille. The game was designed to engross players in the particulars and intricacies of real–time online farming. Remember that if any cheats are used, Facebook may place a ban on any or all online Facebook games.

Best Free Online Games

This list is just a start, the amount of free online games out there at the moment is rising everyday and it's hard to know where to start. Hopefully this quick guide to some of the best free online games should make it easier to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Robin Hood - Shoot Them Arrows In Bow Man

Draw back the bow, choose the right strength and angle, and fill the opponent full of arrows before they do the same in Bow Man. That said, there is also a range of extra options you can select when the novelty begins to wear off like sticking a wall inbetween the two duellists, each extra option making the game require even more precision in each shot. More addictive than one might imagine.

Alien Arena - First Person Shooter Fun

Like fast paced deathmatches? Alien Arena is the game for that. This game combines some of the very best aspects of such games as Quake III and Unreal Tournament and wraps them up with a retro alien theme, while adding tons of original ideas to make the game quite unique. Very addictive. This game requires a download and install, but it's free and online.

Line Rider - The Art Of Sledding

Line Rider is a bona fide net game phenomenon. Players control a little sledder that dutifully goes for the gusto, no matter how much peril is placed in his path. Don't expect instant magic though, take the time to learn the tricks of track building in Line Rider. Build ramps, or increasingly hard to follow lines which gracefully curve around but never quite kill the sledder. Time will fly playing this one.

The Last Stand - Zombie Killing Action

A mix of Resident Evil and Defend Your Castle, The Last Stand delivers on both gore and strategy. As each day passes the player will have to repair their damaged defenses from the horde of zombies the night before. Players will find increasingly bigger and more powerful weapons at their disposal as progress is made through the game. 'Bloody' good fun.

Tetris - Needs No Introduction

Never heard of Tetris? Leave the page right now. Seriously though, Tetris is one of the world's best known games ever. Arrange the blocks of different shapes and sizes as they fall to complete lines. Sounds simple? Once the speed ramps up it becomes an intense game. The Tetris effect is a well-known mental illness because people can't resist it's addictive nature and have played the game for so long. This is a warning.

Plenty More Free Online Games To See

As aforementioned, these are just a few of the highlights to what's on offer. With a library of games which grows everyday, free online games prove that they still own the net when it comes to out favourite pastime. Just don't play them at work!

Free Online Hacking Games

The world of a hacker has always been a subject of fascination for many gamers. While many films and TV shows have glorified the role of the mysterious code warrior few video games have tried to approach this role in a realistic manner.

There are some free online hacking games worth playing, games that try to emulate the feel of being a hacker, constantly roaming the Internet looking for the next opportunity for a big score and always looking over one's shoulder for signs of pursuit.

The Hacker Project

The Hacker Project pits players against the evil mega corporations that dominate a distant future. Through the use of viruses, password crackers, IP tracers and other forms of malicious software players siphon funds and secrets as they search to gain more power for themselves and remove it from the mega corporations.


New players are guided through the basics of the game and their first few missions by a helpful online AI tutor named Lisa. Lisa will explain what all of the menu options mean and how to crack and login to your first system in order to earn your first few HPD (Hacker Project Dollars). Lisa can be turned off in the account options menu once the player has a feel for the game.

Each player starts off with their own basic Gateway which is what is used to connect to the world wide network. As HPD are earned by completing missions and running various viruses, players in the Hacker Project can upgrade their gateway with better CPU, Memory, Hard Drive and Bandwidth. Many tasks in the Hacker Project take several minutes, if not hours, to complete so upgrading your system to reduce that time becomes crucial for being competitive.

The game resets periodically once enough players have worked together to initiate a doomsday attack on the world network, destroying not only the mega corporations infrastructure but the hacker's machines as well.

Cypher

Cypher is an online hacking game that features a turn based format. Currently in its beta stages, Cypher allows the player to assume the role of a hacker and compete in a virtual world where they perform missions and compete against others in multi-player missions. The user starts off with a basic system that they upgrade by purchasing modules bought with credits. Credits are earned by completing missions and programming warez.


As players complete missions and earn experience, they can also gain levels which allows them to increase various skills. These skills enhance a players ability to hack by either making them faster, harder to detect, or even giving them the ability to program their own hacking software. Missions can be run multiple times, with each attempt costing the user a set number of turns.

Like many online games, Cyper uses a "turns" and "tick" system. Each mission run in the game costs the player a number of turns. Once all turns are expended the player cannot perform any more missions until their turns replenish. During the current round of beta players start off with 5000 turns and 2 new turns are awarded every "tick", which is currently set at 2 minutes.

Cypher also features Multi Player Missions where users all compete to see who can perform a hack the fastest. Awards are payed out based on how well the user did in the competition. Multi-player missions lock the player out of other missions until the end of the current tick.

Finally, the game also includes a virtual console, adding even further depth to the hacking experience. Players can use this console to run various commands to inspect their nodes, other players, and access the game worlds virtual Internet. The console commands can be tricky, so newer players are encouraged to read the wiki on how to use the console and on the game concepts in general.

SlaveHack

SlaveHack is a free online hacking game played entirely through a web browser. The player attempts to hack into servers and make them into slaves. Once a server has been hacked the player game install various forms of viruses that will make money over time. These include things like mass emailers and cracked software. These slaves continue to make money for the player until another player removes them or the server resets its IP address.


While hacking into other systems the player has to be mindful of his actions because other players might be attempting to hack into the same system. Players are free to attempt to hack each other, but it requires that one player has the other player's IP address. Whenever a player hacks into a server or performs actions on that server, the log file is updated with the player's IP address. Therefore players must always remember to edit or delete log files when hacking otherwise their IP address will become known and they will be attacked by other players.

Players hack into other machines using various cracking programs and attempt to protect their own machines with firewalls, waterwalls, etc. The player always has to be vigilant, there is always another player out there who would have no qualms with logging into your own personal server and installing a virus deleting all the software you spent days acquiring.

The SlaveHack online hacking game also features a "riddle trail" which is a set of clues left around on various servers leading the user along on a mini quest. Following the riddle trail can lead the user to better software that can be obtained by normal means. The riddles take the form of fairly simple math, logic, or word puzzles.

Conclusion

Online hacking games are mostly developed by lovers of the genre working independently of large development studios. These games allow players to support the game through donations which often also give the player additional advantages in the game. Without the voluntary support of the players, these games could not survive, so player who find themselves spending several hours a week logging in and playing should consider donating to help keep the games alive.

Lord of the Rings Online: Stats

 As with many of the systems in Lord of the Rings Online (LotRO), the character mechanics are different from many other games. While this brings a sense of newness to the system, it can be difficult for many new players to understand. With the game going free-to-play this autumn, it is important for new players to have a basic understanding of these systems before they are confronted with them.

Where is the Heath Bar?

In most MMOs a character has a heath bar and a bar that governs special abilities. These two bars go up and down as you play, and few people even think about them. In Lord of the Rings Online, they have the bars as well, but the terminology and reasoning is a little different.

The green bar displays your character’s Morale. In most games, if this bar drops to zero the character dies and respawns, but this isn’t the case in LotRO. When it reaches zero, the character is so overwhelmed by the forces against them that they retreat to a safe location. While the distinction is minor, it does fit into the world as a whole. Since this bar governs emotions, Minstrels are able to ‘heal’ by singing songs that raise your spirits.

The blue bar is your character’s Power. This represents your character’s force of will and ability to go beyond simple combat. This is the pool that characters use to fuel their skills and special abilities.

Character Stats

Lord of the Rings Online does away with many of the standard conventions of MMO classes and gets rid of standard attributes such as strength or dexterity. Instead, it uses a system that fits in tightly with the lore that existed before the game. In many cases, the stat may seem similar to one from another game, like Might being similar to a strength attribute, but when you look at it also governs things that would traditionally be in other areas.

Each of the following stats represent a character’s physical, mental or emotional wellbeing:

• Might: This stat governs additional damage with physical attacks as well as your ability to block and parry. High Might will also allow a character to mitigate damage from common sources (any weapon or attack that has ‘(Common)’ written after its damage).
• Agility: Agility determines how often you hit and critical in combat. It also governs your ability to evade and parry blows and increases your ranged damage.
• Vitality: This determines your bonus Morale, and how quickly your Morale regenerates out of combat. It increases your mitigation of Shadow and Fire damage and your Wound, Poison and Disease resistance.
• Will: This stat governs your Power bar. It determines your bonus Power and how quickly your Power regenerates when not in combat. It also influences your Fear resistance.
• Fate: Fate affects your Morale and Power regeneration while in combat and your critical chance with Tactical skills. A Tactical skill is generally a combat skill that is not a physical attack, such as a magic attack, healing power or buff.

Jumbles of Stats

In many cases, people will focus on one or two stats to the exclusion of others. While this isn’t necessarily a bad way to go, by understanding the different stats and how they work together, it is possible to make a more powerful character. For a new player, knowing exactly what Fate does and why Morale is important will help smooth out their starting experience.

For more information on statistics in Lord of the Rings Online, check out the Lorebook. Look at these for more information on the class system or traits and deeds.

Farm Town: Beginner Tips and Tricks

From the time of its inception, Farm Town has continued to reign as the most popular, and possibly the most enjoyable, game on Facebook. The game first appeared back in June of 2009, and at the time held the spot of the fourth most played game on Facebook.

By July, the game had already gotten 14,000,000 users, and reached the number one spot of all Facebook games. Today, few people are able to resist the temptation of attempting to develop a prosperous, successful farm.

Farm Town Gameplay

To play Farm Town, one begins by creating an avatar, and then is granted a free area of land to build on. The farmer must plow, plant, and harvest crops if they hope to bring in money, which is then spent on more seeds, in addition to tools, buildings, or other obscure features. As one’s farm continues to grow, you are able to go over to the real estate office and upgrade your farm in order to make it larger. Through gaining experience points, you can also increase your farm’s level.

To encourage cooperation with other users, the creators have added countless incentives to connect with your Facebook friends. For instance, it is actually less expensive to hire a friend to plow your fields and harvest your crops, and you gain a large bonus if you carry out the work of someone else's farm. Additionally, it is possible to donate free gifts to other farmers, and they are able to return the favor. This acts as a simple method to get free items that would normally be extremely expensive, and you actually gain experience points from it.


Experience points are one of the most intriguing, and often disgruntling, features of the game, but are essential to the gameplay. To acquire experience points, one must spend sufficient time visiting friends, harvesting crops, establishing new buildings, or sending gifts. Because experience is what allows you to advance to higher Farm Town levels, many users regularly choose experience points or levels to judge each other’s farms. If you want to build a more impressive farm than your friends, make sure to gain as many experience points as you can.

Along with experience points, gaining money is also an essential objective of Farm Town. To gain money, you must trade your crops. Conversely, you can travel to the marketplace and find someone to pay you to harvest or plant crops for them. Irrespective of what farm you are at, selling crops acts as the central tactic to acquire cash and is the main element of the game.

Conclusion

On the whole, Farm Town is a very thrilling free game. Although it often becomes tricky at times, the thrill of producing a thriving, wealthy farm is definitely worth it in the long run. If you haven’t looked into Farm Town by now, you’re definitely missing out on one of the highest quality free games on the internet.

Resident Evil Outbreak

Long before Resident Evil 5 allowed players to team up online and fight the waves of undead, two lesser known, but equally celebrated games tried online Resident Evil first, six years before the fact. On the PlayStation 2 no less.

The premise was unique too. Instead of being an overpowered, heavily armed, combat trained character, players were instead cast into the role of one of eight everyday ordinary citizens as they try to escape the nightmare engulfing their home town of Raccoon City.

The concept of melee weapons was introduced alongside the usual fare, and these titles were also the first implementation of the real time inventory screen, just like Resident Evil 5.

But despite the completely different format and premise, the segmented scenarios nestle right into the main timeline, and a couple even expand upon events seen in the main series. Familiar and new faces alike appear, and new enemies not seen before prowl the streets and local public venues.

The Nightmare Begins

The games begin as the eight playable characters are working and celebrating at J's Bar. There's Cindy Lennox the friendly waitress brining drinks to everybody. Kevin Ryman, who failed entry to the city's S.T.A.R.S. task force tries to drink his troubles away, while down the bar, Mark Wilkins tries to forget his Vietnam flashbacks so he can be a better security officer.


Meanwhile, Yoko Suzuki, the mysteriously silent Japanese girl, pecks away furiously on her laptop. Alyssa Ashcroft, the hard nosed reporter, hopes she'll get the next big scoop. Nearby, George Hamilton, the surgeon, is trying to drink away his divorce.

David King, the silent plumber, wants to talk to no one, while Jim Chapman takes a break from operating the subway to immerse himself in another puzzle magazine.
Unknown to all of them however, is the events that started Resident Evil 2 and 3 are happing right below them, and it isn't long before all hell breaks loose.

Another interesting aspect of this series, was the fact that all players started with a "Virus gauge". This chronicles their slow infection, unless attacked by an enemy which speeds it up. Once this reaches 100%, it's game over.

Online play did not support voice chat, as developers felt it would ruin the mood. (Xbox Live is an indication of the juvenile behavior they tried to avoid). Instead, through a combination of button presses and analog stick commands, the characters could call to each other for help, items, and conversation through an ad-lib system. This system, while designed to simulate casual conversation about the mess their in, also provides clues if you're stuck.

The New Enemy

One of the interesting aspects of the online play in these titles, is that the monsters aren't the only ones to worry about. Players are cast into groups of four, and have complete freedom to ditch their partners, or kill them in Friendly Fire mode. Leaving a partner to die online will see them rise as a zombie that player can control, seeking revenge for being wronged. It was an interesting concept at the time.


The monsters themselves run the gamut as well. From the standbys of zombies, skinless Lickers and the reptilian/humanoid Hunters, to new creatures such as giant Scissor Worm insects, and the never before seen mutation between zombie and Licker.

One boss is a giant organic mass that digests others, even a Tyrant unit from Resident Evil 2, into it's form to become stronger.

Scavenger Hunt

The final, and best aspect, was the replay-ability factor. Every one of the ten released scenarios had a massive checklist that needed to be completed, as well as hundreds of "SP Items". These items were divided into groups of forty for each scenario (twenty for the scenario and twenty for the characters), and were randomly generated in one of two sets of predefined locations.

Completing the checklists required playing through the scenarios as every character more than once, as each scenario had a randomly occurring personal experience for each of the characters. Alyssa would have flashbacks in the abandoned hospital, Kevin could converse with fellow officers at the station, Jim would see a fellow employee be pulled into the ceiling of the subway's restroom, and more.

Even the difficulty would change what happened in the game. An example would be the first scenario. On easy mode, Mark's friend Bob stays behind. On normal mode, Bob makes it to the roof with them and kills himself. On hard mode Bob comes back as a zombie.

Completing the checklists, finding SP Items, and clearing all the difficulties would unlock Gallery items and award points to buy these items. Selections included watching in-game movies, alternate costumes, concept art, sound tests, and bios about the locations.

There was also the insanely hard "Nightmare" mode, the single player "Lone Wolf" mode that eliminated the other three CPUs, "Infinite" mode for infinite ammo, and "Friendly Fire" where players could actually harm their teammates.

The biggest aspect was the majority of the gallery was other characters to play as. Every NPC encountered, and even some who were not due to development issues, were playable, all in varying states of health and possessing different inventories. They all followed a template of one of the eight main characters, but the second game actually gave them voices of their own during the ad-lib process.

A Nightmare Unfulfilled

Between the two games, only ten of the original proposed twenty scenarios made it to light. Others would've included the docks, a sleepy motel, Umbrella Corporation's downtown headquarters, and possibly the local military base.


Sadly, the last of the servers supporting these games were shut down in 2007. Unless avid players host their own, these can no longer be played online.

These games should not be forgotten. Their over ambitiousness for the PlayStation 2 laid the groundwork for most of what we see today in Resident Evil 5. The presentation mixed up the boring status quo at the time, and the wealth of random variables kept players coming back for more in an unprecedented level of replayability.