Hello there. You know, I needed a little time-out so I thought that it would be great to spread my experience from another games for you.
Well, my online gaming experience (not only text-based games) is quite big. I’ve started with an old game “Fate Lords” (also made by Lithuanian programmer, then it was “Playteq”, “America’s Army”, “Street maniacs” - another Lithuanian product, “Macropoly” - and another one ;) (still existent, but not that popular as it was), “Hobowars”, “RaceD”, “RaceD2″, “Trackmania”, “CritticAge”, “Andatura”, “Hattrick”, “rFactor”, “WarRock”… I could continue, but I think thats a big list already.

Introduction
Let’s get things clear: this post is about online games advantages and disadvantages based on my own experience. As well, at the end of the post you will find some updates on Mad For Speed progress.
I’d like to take my chance and tell you, that this is just my own opinion, it may differ from the one you have, but discussions are a great way to find the best solution.
Let us begin…

Playteq
This game gets to be first talked about, because if not this game - it’s possible that there wouldn’t be Mad For Speed (read About MFS for more information).
This game is all about strategy. It does not require you to sit online all the day to be in the top as it is turn based, so you use your turns and then wait. Having a turn based time system is a positive thing, as you get a more competitive gameplay. However that is not as realistic as real-time system.
In this game you’ll find good balance of marketing and fighting (depending on what server you choose), on the other hand, after some time you see game being very static and you slowly get bored. The game is on active development and open for players for a long time. Lets wish them good luck, but it looks like their popularity have reached the bottom.

Street Maniac
Well, that was a simple game, but this was the best part of it. Simple website design, no special options, nor adjustments of cars, so all of the players could climb to the top, however that required you to be online as long as you can. The simplicity is same as static gameplay - it’s boring and as a consequence the started loosing its popularity. It was closed and the second version was started to develop, however we did not see it started.

Macropoly
Macropoly = Monopoly? Well, that is almost right. Simple, but nice graphics, Monopoly style - you buy buildings, roll a dice and move through the city. Same logic - other player steps on your building and gets to pay some amount of money (depending on the type and level of the building), after some time you ca buy a better car, as it use less fuel, so you can travel more in one day. As well you can exchange real life money to fuel.
It’s a pity that this game got too modified, now other players can destroy your buildings and after such huge modifications it got wasted. Only few players are still playing it.

RaceD, RaceD2
Online racing game classic. It was one of the best I’ve played ever. Still it had a lot of negative aspects.
The biggest advantage of the game was it’s simplicity to start playing, a big list of vehicles, possability to train drivers, get their attitude changed, but still, you’ve had to be online for a lot of time to get you to the top. Donators got to much of an advantage, that made the game less attractive. Then it had extreme modified, adding damage and police with different levels. Thats interesting, but you are gaining way less money, than you should for a normal playing, so upgrading your car and advancing in levels became too difficult.

Hattrick
Hattrick is a great football (not the american one :P) manager. Why it is so played? Thats because it is translated in to most of the languages, every country got it’s own league with real city names, changing weather conditions, increasing and dropping player skills, player and coach transfers, arena upgrades, fans even much more. One of it’s great functions - HT-Live where you can watch (or actualy, read) the game ir real time. Game reports are quite dynamic (at least 3-5 sentences for the same action in Lithuanian language), a lot of ways to achieve the top possitions. But still, 1-2 years of gameplay and you get bored as you know all the possible scenarios of the actions, even the addons don’t get you interested.
Oh yeah, addons… Thats a great thing. They’ve got their own protocol where they serve xml so any programmer (most of them write in Java) can make so kind of program for the game. One of the examples: HO (Hattric Organizer). Various statistics, numbers and helpers and much more. Those kind of tools make the game more realistic and attractive.

Maby after some time I’ll continue my overview as I’d like to tell you about HoboWars, CritticAge and Andatura.

Part of the conclusions. Mad For Speed progress
So you see how much of the experience we’ve got (not to mention Skyrulers thoughts on these games). Yes, we are playing them and taking notes. Thats why we don’t want to start Mad For Speed to early.
We know there are people waiting for this, but we still know that most of the players that would join in beta stage, after some time would leave and never come back. We’d like to offer as interesting Beta as possible in as short period of time as we can.
Skyruler has almost finished our modular system structure and is preparing a little surprise for all of you ;)
Now we should move faster to our Beta release ;)
Hope you’ve had a good time reading this post, got some interesting information.
Soon you’ll find second part of teh overview in here. See you next time.
Bye