Ohai's unnamed Flash MMO project was finally revealed today. City of Eternals is a freemium Flash MMO users log into with their Twitter or Facebook accounts. The game's theme is vampires and gothic monsters, possibly intended to exploit the popularity of the Twilight series of books and films. The game has been in closed beta for two months, with 10,000 playing an average of 65 minutes per day distributed across an average of 10 logins.
Where Ohai hopes to set City of Eternals apart is by making it a "real" MMORPG with a 2D graphical virtual world for avatars to interact in. While there are many vampire-themed games already available on Facebook, like Vampire Wars, most of them are simple text RPGs cast quickly and cheaply from the "mafia game" mold. Users will accept missions and fight enemies to level up and acquire more in-game items. They can also spend the game's RMT virtual currency, the Ohai, to acquire special virtual goods.
Ohai will not be incorporating ad offers into its virtual economy, according to statements may by founder and CEO Susan Wu to TechCrunch. Instead the economy will be strictly cash-only, with users only obtaining Ohais either through in-game giveaways or through direct purchase. Users can buy while playing at the City of Eternals website. City of Eternals can also be freely embedded into webpages like other Flash apps, allowing users to potentially play and pay for Ohais from anywhere online.
City of Eternals does not yet have a Facebook page, but Ohai staffers promise one is forthcoming. Ohai also has an iPhone client for the game in development. The experience for the iPhone version won't be "exactly the same," but will allow users to interact with friends who are also playing. The core City of Eternals game itself was created over the course of 9 months by a staff of roughly 12 developers (including only 3 engineers). The entire game was created in Adobe Flash 3D.
Ohai plans to develop its true Flash MMOGs at the breakneck pace of social game development. The company plans to begin development on a new title next month, using tools created during the creation of City of Eternals. Ohai hopes to have this second game completed much more quickly than its first effort. If any company is going to be able to compete with Zynga for output quantity or quality on Facebook, Ohai may be it.
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