A massive multi-player on-line version of the popular property board game MONOPOLY has been launched today.
Monopoly City Streets has been developed by Hasbro, the US toy and games manufacturer who produces the conventional board version of MONOPOLY (as well as other games) here in Waterford, Ireland's oldest city.
The free on-line game uses Google Maps or the open source Open Street Map as its playing board.
Hasbro says that it will be "the biggest game of Monopoly of all times" and will allow players to purchase "almost any street in the world".
The goal of the game, like in the conventional board version, is to earn money on property and become the richest person playing.
New players will receive three million Monopoly-Dollars when they start, and then they are free to build their virtual empire. In theory, every street in the world is available for purchase.
Once a player has taken control of a street, he is - like in the board game version - able to charge rent and build new virtual properties. Streets can also be sold or traded with other players.
In a change to the original board game, Hasbro has introduced new chance cards for the on-line version.
They will allow players to "sabotage" neighbouring rivals by building rubbish dumps, prisons or wind farms on their property, in order to reduce the rent value of their neighbours.
Players can only remove a hazard by bulldozing it off their property, again through the use of chance cards.
The on-line game, which was started today, will run for a little under five months and close on January 31st, 2010.
In case you are interested to become a player, I hope you have some patience.
As it could be expected, the first few hours after the launch have been frantic and - as also could be expected - the system's servers went down very soon, being overwhelmed by the interest of people from all around the world who want to sign up and play.
Most people who went to the official website of the game - www.monopolycitystreets.com - today received the following message:
The free on-line game uses Google Maps or the open source Open Street Map as its playing board.
Hasbro says that it will be "the biggest game of Monopoly of all times" and will allow players to purchase "almost any street in the world".
The goal of the game, like in the conventional board version, is to earn money on property and become the richest person playing.
New players will receive three million Monopoly-Dollars when they start, and then they are free to build their virtual empire. In theory, every street in the world is available for purchase.
Once a player has taken control of a street, he is - like in the board game version - able to charge rent and build new virtual properties. Streets can also be sold or traded with other players.
In a change to the original board game, Hasbro has introduced new chance cards for the on-line version.
They will allow players to "sabotage" neighbouring rivals by building rubbish dumps, prisons or wind farms on their property, in order to reduce the rent value of their neighbours.
Players can only remove a hazard by bulldozing it off their property, again through the use of chance cards.
The on-line game, which was started today, will run for a little under five months and close on January 31st, 2010.
In case you are interested to become a player, I hope you have some patience.
As it could be expected, the first few hours after the launch have been frantic and - as also could be expected - the system's servers went down very soon, being overwhelmed by the interest of people from all around the world who want to sign up and play.
Most people who went to the official website of the game - www.monopolycitystreets.com - today received the following message:
We anticipated an opening rush when we launched the Monopoly City Streets online game, but the first few hours have surpassed even our greatest expectations.
The registration is slow due to the overwhelming response. Our servers are on fire! Thanks for everyone’s interest and patience - please keep trying.
We are in the process of increasing our firepower and expect to be running more smoothly within the next several hours.
Thanks for your patience as we work as fast as we can to resolve this and get everyone playing and trading on Monopoly City Streets.
Personally I would have neither the time for such a massive game, nor am I a particular fan of MONOPOLY. But if you are and want to join in, I wish you the best of luck!
The Emerald Islander
The Emerald Islander
1 comment:
Great, I think it’s a great idea. I always loved to play Monopoly when I was a kid and would love to try in online.
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