GEWar
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| GEWar | |
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| Developer(s) | Mickey Mellen |
| Publisher(s) | Netstunt Holland |
| Release date(s) | Beta Testing |
| Genre(s) | MMORPG, War game |
| Mode(s) | Multiplayer |
| Platform(s) | Web, Google Earth |
| System requirements | Google Earth, Web browser |
GEWar, short for Google Earth War, is a free-to-play Browser-based Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game. It was created in August 2005 by Micky Mellen (the owner of Google Earth Hacks as a way to show the power of Google Earth. In December 2005 the game was sold to Lukas Vries and moved to its own servers.
Over 1000 real cities are shown on Google Earth's globe as polygons. Players can occupy these cities if unoccupied (conditions allowing) or, using their self-reared armies or nuclear weapons, attack other players that are currently occupying them. Each city has a value, roughly its real-world population. The higher the total value of a players cities, the higher their position on the Top Players list.
The currency in the game is known as geos. Players earn geos by collecting jewels scattered around the world, by building resources such as oil wells, investing on the stock market or by playing in the casino. In addition, players can deposit their geos into the game's bank, which has the benefit of a relatively high interest rate (lower interest for higher savers to make the game more equal). Players can also join Alliances, in which they share a message board and help each other take cities. Players not in alliances often find it extremely difficult as large alliances can be very intimidating.
The owners of GEWar keep the site free of advertisments to all players. This means that the site has no income and is expensive to run. So the owners invented a donation system. The idea was to give donators no really big advantage but a few small things that would make it worthwhile for them. One reason many members to donate is so they can test the 'new version' - a complete rewrite of the GEWar code which should make the game run faster. In addition there are many new features on this version. The game will eventually come to the main GEWar site but currently has many bugs.
On the 12th December 2006 it launched an RPG, Role Playing Game, in its Forums. The Forums add and extra peice to the keep and make it a unique community. The Forums are a place of battles, discussions, news and humour.
