The Settlers Online
''The Settlers Online'' (known as ''The Settlers Online: Castle Empire'' in the United States) is a freemium, online browser-based version inspired by '' The Settlers''. A beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; grc, βῆτα, bē̂ta or ell, βήτα, víta) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Modern Greek, it represents the voiced labiod ... version of the game was released in Germany, Russia, and North America on October 22, 2010, with the final build released worldwide on September 19, 2011. In the game, the player has to build a city, defeat bandit camps and complete quests to earn XP and level up, unlocking different new buildings, mines and soldiers. References External links * * ''The Guides by so-wiki'' 2011 video games 4X video games Browser games Browser-based multiplayer online games Free-to-play video games Strategy video games The Settlers Blue Byte games Vide ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Blue Byte
Ubisoft Blue Byte GmbH (Blue Byte until 2017) is a German video game holding company owned by Ubisoft. It was founded in October 1988 by Thomas Hertzler and Lothar Schmitt as a developer and was best known for developing the '' Anno'' and ''The Settlers'' series. The studio was acquired by Ubisoft in 2001. Related Designs was merged into Blue Byte in 2013, and a third studio in Berlin was established in 2018. Since 2019, Ubisoft Blue Byte acts as the parent company of Ubisoft's three German studios, which became branded as Ubisoft Düsseldorf, Ubisoft Mainz and Ubisoft Berlin. By 2020, the "Blue Byte" name was phased out. History Foundation and first games (1988–1993) In 1988, Thomas Hertzler and Lothar Schmitt left Rainbow Arts, a German video game developer, and founded their own, Blue Byte, in October that year. To do so, Hertzler and Schmitt used a starting capital of 10,000 Deutsche Mark borrowed from Hertzler's parents and established an office in the attic of Hertz ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ubisoft
Ubisoft Entertainment SA (; ; formerly Ubi Soft Entertainment SA) is a French video game publisher headquartered in Saint-Mandé with development studios across the world. Its video game franchises include '' Assassin's Creed'', ''Far Cry'', ''For Honor'', '' Just Dance'', '' Prince of Persia'', ''Rabbids'', ''Rayman'', ''Tom Clancy's'', and ''Watch Dogs''. History Origins and first decade (1986–1996) By the 1980s, the Guillemot family had established themselves as a support business for farmers in the Brittany province of France and other regions, including into the United Kingdom. The five sons of the family – Christian, Claude, Gérard, Michel, and Yves – helped with the company's sales, distribution, accounting, and management with their parents before university. All 5 gained business experience while at university, which they brought back to the family business after graduating. The brothers came up with the idea of diversification to sell other products of use ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Freemium
Freemium, a portmanteau of the words "free" and "premium," is a pricing strategy by which a basic product or service is provided free of charge, but money (a premium) is charged for additional features, services, or virtual (online) or physical (offline) goods that expand the functionality of the free version of the software. This business model has been used in the software industry since the 1980s. A subset of this model used by the video game industry is called free-to-play. Origin The business model has been in use for software since the 1980s. The term ''freemium'' to describe this model appears to have been created only much later, in response to a 2006 blog post by venture capitalist Fred Wilson summarizing the model:Give your service away for free, possibly ad supported but maybe not, acquire a lot of customers very efficiently through word of mouth, referral networks, organic search marketing, etc., then offer premium-priced value-added services or an enhanced version o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Settlers (1993 Video Game)
''The Settlers'' (german: Die Siedler) is a city-building video game with real-time strategy elements, developed and published by Blue Byte Software. Released in Germany for Amiga in June 1993, and in the United Kingdom in November, it is the first game in ''The Settlers'' series. In 1994, Blue Byte and Massive Development ported the game to DOS. Blue Byte published the DOS version in Europe under its original title in May, but in North America, it was published in December by SSI as ''Serf City: Life is Feudal''. In 2018, the game was re-released for Microsoft Windows as ''The Settlers: History Edition''. The game is set in a medieval ''milieu'', and controlled via a point and click interface, with the primary goal on each map being to build a settlement with a functioning economy, producing sufficient military units so as to conquer rival territories, ultimately gaining control of the entire map. To achieve this end, the player must engage in economic micromanagement, const ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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GameSpot
''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition to the information produced by ''GameSpot'' staff, the site also allows users to write their own reviews, blogs, and post on the site's forums. It has been owned by Fandom, Inc. since October 2022. In 2004, ''GameSpot'' won "Best Gaming Website" as chosen by the viewers in Spike TV's second ''Video Game Award Show'', and has won Webby Awards several times. The domain ''gamespot.com'' attracted at least 60 million visitors annually by October 2008 according to a Compete.com study. History In January 1996, Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein quit their positions at IDG and founded SpotMedia Communications. SpotMedia then launched ''GameSpot'' on May 1, 1996. Originally, ''GameSpot'' focused solely on personal computer games, so a sis ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Software Release Life Cycle
A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help improve the software or fix software bugs still present in the software. There are several models for such a life cycle. A common method is that suggested by Microsoft, which divides software development into five phases: Pre-alpha, Alpha, Beta, Release candidate, and Stable. Pre-alpha refers to all activities performed during the software project before formal testing. The alpha phase generally begins when the software is feature complete but likely to contain several known or unknown bugs. The beta phase generally begins when the software is deemed feature complete, yet likely to contain several known or unknown bugs. Software in the production phase will generally have many more bugs in it than completed software, as well as speed/performan ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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VG24/7
''VG247'' is a video game blog published in the United Kingdom, founded in February 2008 by industry veteran Patrick Garratt. In 2009, CNET ranked it as the third best gaming blog in the world. History Founded in collaboration on 1 February 2008 between games journalist Patrick Garratt and Eurogamer Network, ''VG247'' was set up to be a news-only blog, the first of its kind in the UK to have a specialist games blog found among the likes of American sites '' Kotaku'' and ''Joystiq''. At launch, ''VG247'' did not review video games and focused instead on news, interviews, and previews. Garratt was the only staff member at the time of launch, although grew in time with the addition of contributors Mike Bowden and Nathan Grayson. In early 2009, the site relaunched itself, rebranding from ''videogaming247.com'' to ''VG247''; at the same time the site changed its primary url to ''www.vg247.com'', and launched a new site design, with improved features, and staff. The site added addi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Experience Point
An experience point (often abbreviated as exp or XP) is a unit of measurement used in some tabletop role-playing games (RPGs) and role-playing video games to quantify a player character's life experience and progression through the game. Experience points are generally awarded for the completion of missions, overcoming obstacles and opponents, and successful role-playing. In many RPGs, characters start as fairly weak and untrained. When a sufficient amount of experience is obtained, the character "levels up", achieving the next stage of character development. Such an event usually increases the character's statistics, such as maximum health, magic and strength, and may permit the character to acquire new abilities or improve existing ones. Levelling up may also give the character access to more challenging areas or items. In some role-playing games, particularly those derived from ''Dungeons & Dragons'', experience points are used to improve characters in discrete experience l ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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2011 Video Games
Numerous video games were released in 2011. Many awards went to games such as '' Batman: Arkham City'', ''Portal 2'', '' The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim'', '' The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword'' and '' Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception''. 2011 also marked the worldwide release of the Nintendo 3DS. Critically acclaimed titles Metacritic (MC) and GameRankings (GR) are aggregators of video game journalism reviews. Events Hardware releases The list of game-related hardware released in 2011 in North America. Series with new entries Series with new installments in 2011 include ''Ace Combat'', ''Assassin's Creed'', '' Batman: Arkham'', ''Battlefield'', ''Call of Duty'', ''Call of Juarez'', '' Cities XL'', ''Crysis'', ''Dead Space'', ''Deus Ex'', ''Dragon Age'', '' Driver'', ''Duke Nukem'', ''Dynasty Warriors'', ''The Elder Scrolls'', ''F.E.A.R'', ''Forza Motorsport'', '' Gears of War'', ''Infamous'', ''Killzone'', ''The Legend of Zelda'', ''LittleBigPlanet'', '' Mario Kart'', '' Modern ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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4X Video Games
4X (abbreviation of ''Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate'') is a subgenre of strategy-based computer and board games, and include both turn-based and real-time strategy titles. The gameplay involves building an empire. Emphasis is placed upon economic and technological development, as well as a range of military and non-military routes to supremacy. The earliest 4X games borrowed ideas from board games and 1970s text-based computer games. The first 4X computer games were turn-based, but real-time 4X games are common. Many 4X computer games were published in the mid-1990s, but were later outsold by other types of strategy games. Sid Meier's ''Civilization'' is an important example from this formative era, and popularized the level of detail that later became a staple of the genre. In the new millennium, several 4X releases have become critically and commercially successful. In the board (and card) game domain, 4X is less of a distinct genre, in part because of the practica ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Browser Games
A browser game or a "flash game" is a video game that is played via the internet using a web browser. They are mostly free-to-play and can be single-player or multiplayer. Some browser games are also available as mobile apps, PC games, or on consoles. For users, the advantage of the browser version is not having to install the game; the browser automatically downloads the necessary content from the game's website. However, the browser version may have fewer features or inferior graphics compared to the others, which are usually native apps. The front end of a browser game is what runs in the user's browser. It is implemented with the standard web technologies of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and WebAssembly. In addition, WebGL enables more sophisticated graphics. On the back end, numerous server technologies can be used. In the past, many games were created with Adobe Flash, but they can no longer be played in the major browsers, such as Google Chrome, Safari, and Firefox due to Adob ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Browser-based Multiplayer Online Games
A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection. History In earlier computing models like client-server, the processing load for the application was shared between code on the server and code installed on each client locally. In other words, an application had its own pre-compiled client program which served as its user interface and had to be separately installed on each user's personal computer. An upgrade to the server-side code of the application would typically also require an upgrade to the client-side code installed on each user workstation, adding to the support cost and decreasing productivity. In addition, both the client and server components of the application were usually tightly bound to a particular computer architecture and operating system and porting them to others was often prohibitively expensive for all but the large ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |