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Games you can play!

Savitha Kaushik

The new online game, Ragnarok Online, hopes to create a new community of youth, who interact with each other both online and offline.

If you thought blogging was the biggest and latest form of online social interaction in present times, think again.

Now, there Ìs online gaming, where you can lead a whole new parallel life and accomplish missions at any point in the day or night. This is no game where you slay a few monsters, move up the levels, score a few points, to get an anti-climactic, ëGame Overí message.

If Managing Director, levelupgames.com, Venkataraman Mallikarjunan is to be believed, Ragnarok Online is a game that is hoped to become very popular with the youth in a country where the young are fed on a constant dose of cricket and moviesî.

The online gameís biggest USP is that here one can choose to become the characters; so you are not manipulating characters; you become one yourself and actually live that life!

This Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) as it is called is based on the best-selling Korean novel by Myung Jim Lee and has a taste of Norse mythology.

According to Mallikarjunan of the Philippines-based company with its Indian headquarters in Mumbai, ìOnline gaming is like the next telecom business. In India, though it is still at the nascent stage of developmentî.

The game, he says has been launched in four Indian cities as of now, and launches are being planned other across major cities. And it seems to have caught on, thanks to the interactive element. ìA lot of girls play it as they are excited by the social aspect,î he points out.

Accordingly, there is chatting, offline communities, guilds, weekly events and so on. The game can appeal to different people at different levels, Mallikarjunan says, pointing out that the target group is 10-25 age group. He cites the example of a 12-year-old in Chennai, who claims to have learnt English thanks to Ragnarok Online.

So, what is the biggest challenge vis-á-vis other players in the market? ìThe gaming market is very young here, so thereís not much competition. The biggest challenge would be in ensuring that the content is right,î he says.

Brave new world of Rune Midgard

As one logs on to the virtual world of Rune Midgard, which is the virtual world of Ragnarok Online, one can spot cities like Prontera, Geffen, Alberta. One can log on; start a conversation, party-up with other players and accomplish quests. You could also create a character, and be that character. You could be the Acolyte, Archer, Mage, Merchant, for instance. Then, there is trading. If you want to buy a sword, just pay 100 zeny (Rune currency) and it could be yours!

ìThis is one game you would give a U certificate to,î says Muralikrishnan. There is no gore here at all, unlike some popular games. The game CD which is to be installed before logging on to the Internet will not be priced high, the MD of Ragnarok says. ìWe also plan to add an Indian flavour to the game in the future,î he adds.

So, what are you waiting for? Log on and bash up the Fabres and the Roda Frogs. Plus, form real relationships online. Life could indeed be fun in Rune Midgard!