It’s finally here!

The developers have emerged from beneath the mountain of feedback gained during the beta, and FunOrb’s latest offering, Kickabout League, is ready for everyone to play.

Kickabout League is a very ambitious project for FunOrb, using lots of new technology to bring you our first, fully real-time, online multiplayer game in the browser. On the surface, it’s five-a-side football, but at heart has more in common with arcade games than any real sport.

Customise your team, choose your kit, buy a pitch and get ready for action. The game also contains an online auction system allowing you to trade footballers with other FunOrb players. When you’re prepared, head to the multiplayer lobby to pummel, dodge and foul your opponents to win games and work your way to the top of the Diamond Division!

A fundamental limitation of real-time online interaction is that lag will always affect gameplay. This is mainly caused by the distance between the server and your computer. During the game, you can monitor your connection by pointing your cursor at the “lag-o-meter” bars next to player names in the bottom-right corner of the screen. A number below 150ms is recommended for the best experience; if this number gets above 200ms, things will start to deteriorate and your character will jump around other players’ screens.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll do our best to minimise this problem and improve the game in any way we can. Please leave lots of juicy feedback on the forums and, as always…have fun!

Mod Zeph
FunOrb Developer

In other news…

We’ve also added some in-game items to Orb Downloads, in the form of the beach and street surface packs and 11 different kits!

While we’re putting the finishing touches to Kickabout League, why not check out a video preview of the game in action on Jagex’s official YouTube channel. You can access our channel by clicking here.

You can view the video below:

Jagex have recently started a stand-alone site for the hit FunOrb game ‘Arcanists’. You can find this site at www.arcanists.com.

Although it doesn’t appear that the site is fully finished yet, the assumption is that Jagex will make a news-post about the new site soon. Take a look at the image below.

A screenshot of the Arcanists.com website

Discuss this story on the forums.

The long-awaited Achievement upgrade is here! There are a lot of things that have changed in the Achievements module, but most of these are hidden in our back-end servers. What you will see in the games is the following:

* Global Achievements* - These are Achievements that can be gained across all of FunOrb, rather than just from an individual game - Show Me the Icons is awarded for a total of 50 Achievements, for example. These are relatively limited at the moment and we will be adding more to these over the course of the year.
* “The Wall” – A single web page that shows icons of all the Achievements you’ve managed to accrue.
* More Arcanists Achievements – We’ve added a load of new Achievements to Arcanists for you to test your skills on, so get playing and have a go.
* More Brick-a-Brac Achievements – As we’ve updated Brick-a-Brac recently, we thought additional Achievements for the new level set would be appreciated, so here they are.

So, there you are, lots of new Achievements for you to get cracking on with. Let us know what you think. Other games will be having Achievements added over the coming weeks. As for our next release? Well, a certain sporting title might be just around the corner…

Mod Korpz
Head of FunOrb

We want to take this opportunity to thank all our players for their votes, which have helped get Jagex games studio shortlisted as one of the top UK developers in the Golden Joystick Awards. It’s really touching to see Jagex recognised in this way by our players and the wider gaming community, and we are delighted that so many of you have voted for us. Given our other awards, it looks like we are going to need a larger trophy cabinet soon! :)

If you don’t know anything about the awards and still want to show your support for Jagex, you can do so by visiting the Golden Joystick website at www.goldenjoystick.com and clicking on the UK Developer of the Year listing on the “Vote Now” page. We recommend that you un-tick the preference boxes if you don’t want to be contacted by the organisers or any third parties, as nobody likes spam.

So once again our sincere thanks for all your support, and, naturally, all credit goes to our fabulous players. :)

Take care, and have fun!

Mod MMG and Andrew

Vote for Jagex here!

The summer’s almost here and so are the FunOrb Olympics! Do you think you’re an all-rounder when it comes to FunOrb games? Are you prepared to pit your strengths against FunOrb’s best athletes? Do you and your friends think you are gold medal standard at Arcanists or Armies of Gielinor? If you’ve answered yes to any of these questions, then the FunOrb Olympics are the place for you.

We’ll have single-player events for you to compete in, such as Bouncedown, Orb Defence and Zombie Dawn, and separate three- to six-player team competitions in Arcanists and Armies of Gielinor. We’ll have the greatest FunOrb players competing for those elusive gold medals, so make sure you’re there.

The FunOrb Olympics will be starting towards the end of July – more info coming soon! In the meantime, check out the FunOrb Olympics threads in the Jagex Events & Competitions forum.

Extra time is over and the whistle’s been blown on the Kickabout League beta. It’s now time for us to have a bit of a post-match discussion to see where we can improve our game.

A big thanks to everyone who participated in the beta, and who provided feedback – it’s been a big success and we’ve received some very useful comments. This will allow us to give the game some additional polish, and iron out some bugs, before the full launch of the game in the (hopefully) near future.

Mod Korpz
Head of FunOrb

In a first for FunOrb, we have decided to release a beta version of one of our games. The game we’ve chosen, Kickabout League, has been in development for a year, and has been a major endeavour for us. The beta version is available to FunOrb members. To play Kickabout League please choose one of the following servers: our European server or our U.S.A. server. For stress-testing purposes, we recommend starting on the U.S.A. server.

The key information on the Beta is:

* Any member can take part in the Beta simply by playing the game.
* If you have any feedback on the beta version, a Kickabout League feedback thread has been set up in the Members Only Forums (quick find code 44-45-21-30010).
* The servers will be shut down no later than Friday, and may go up and down without warning as we fix issues during that time.
* The Beta will be shut down on Friday 12th June at around 15.00 UK time (GMT+01.00). The game will not be available to play after that time.
* All game data from the Beta will be reset before the game is fully launched.
* Achievements, ratings, orb points, orb coins and orb downloads relating to Kickabout League have all been disabled.
* The full version of the game will launch a few weeks after the Beta has closed, depending on how much development work is required.

We’ve decided to launch the game in a closed beta in order to stress-test the servers, and to get some usage data before we put the game live. Kickabout League is a real first for us, providing real-time, browser-based gameplay on the Java platform. The real-time nature of the game means that it is dependent on an adequate internet connection, and lag may cause some unusual behaviour in the game. This is likely to be intentional on our part, though, as the server adjusts the client’s game state to compensate for lag.

This may mean you notice things like the ball or players teleporting around a little, and we would like to know how this affects your enjoyment of the game. The more feedback we’re able to receive on any potential issues, the better the final game will be, so please be sure to post your comments in the Members Only Forums, where we have a special sticky called ‘Kickabout Beta - Feedback’ (quick find code 44-45-21-30010).

As always, and above all else…

Have fun ;-)

Mod Korpz

We’ve updated our Orb Downloads today by adding a number of new wallpapers. These feature our current titles, including Arcanists and Zombie Dawn, as well as some of our future games, such as Pirate Empires and Dungeon Assault II. So have your Orb Coins at the ready and click here to log in and start downloading.

This is certainly interesting news - the new Orb Downloads include downloads of future game related media. Let us know what you think on our forums.

We’re pleased to announce that our Estonian and Lithuanian players can now pay for membership of FunOrb or RuneScape by SMS. This means that you can purchase or renew membership using your mobile telephone. We know this is something that many Estonian and Lithuanian players have been waiting for, so we’re happy to be able to offer this service. If you’re an Estonian or Lithuanian free player and want to know more about the benefits of membership, click here.

The following networks in Estonia support PayBySMS:

* Elisa
* EMT
* Tele2

The following networks in Lithuania support PayBySMS:

* Bite
* Omnitel
* Tele2

We’re continuing to look into ways of making alternative payment methods available in other countries, and as soon as we’re able to offer these services, we’ll let you know.