Travia needs a bold leader, Travia needs a just leader! Fight for humanity or fight each other!
Erebus: Travia Reborn Trailer
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Monthly Archives: April 2010
SUN Memoirs of the Shadow
When it is time for the fallen souls to arise from their deserted bodies, a lost child from demon lineage, shall return. The spirits of the damned will find you.
Erebus: Travia Reborn Interview: One Mean God At Your Service
Erebus: Travia Reborn Interview: One Mean God At Your Service
Questions by: Vincent Haoson
Answered by: Ben Berens, Associate Producer for Erebus
Mixing action and RPG isn’t anything new in the online gaming scene. There have been games that promised action-based mmorpg fun, which turn out to be hit and miss in terms of delivering the promise. There seems however another contender in the action-mmorpg department, Erebus.
The game has just finished its 1st CBT and we got a chance to talk to the people behind the game just before they launch their 2nd CBT. So here’s the scoop!
OnRPG: I read that you guys just finished the 1st CBT of the game, so what were the biggest problems you faced during the CBT?
We were lucky to have a very smooth CBT that concluded with very few major issues. Most of the players asked for gameplay related changes, such as more quests at certain level ranges due to a lack of ways to get exp other than grinding, and a tutorial to help explain how to play the game. So for CBT2 we’ve gone back and added additional early level quests to the game. We’ve also altered the way skill progression works, and made a tutorial since the game could be confusing to people who have never played an action-RPG before.
OnRPG: How has the player support of the game been during its CBT? Did it meet your expectations?
Our player support has been great so far. The players have been very active in giving us valuable feedback on the forums and in the surveys. A lot of this feedback has led to direct changes in-game that the players will soon see in CBT2. We are enjoying the rapidly growing community.. They’ve even already built a fan-run wiki!
OnRPG: Erebus is supposed to be an MMO Action-RPG, what action elements are present in Erebus?
The game is an action game built with an RPG wrapper. In the game, you choose your hero from different classes, earn rewards, learn new skills, and will enjoy lots more classical RPG elements. The thing that makes Erebus an action game, though, is that the combat is in real time. There are a lot of different monsters and enemies to fight in the game, too, so you’ll never be far from the action.
The action is present in both PvP and PvE elements, too. In PvP there are going to be a ton of modes players can participate in, and PvE is going to feature not only monsters to kill in the general map, but also instance dungeons and other fun surprises.
OnRPG: What do you think is Erebus’ edge against other action MMORPGs out right now? Why do you think so?
I think there are a couple of parts of Erebus that really give it an edge over other action MMORPGs. The first one is the story. We worked with a professional author (Jake Forbes) to make something really original. The next thing is the action has a classic isometric look, but the skills all have nice looking special effects, and they’ve been optimized well together. This allows the game to work on lower end machines and netbooks while at the same time looking good on faster rigs.
The PvP is really a ton of fun as well, and there are all sorts of ways people can participate from dueling other players while out hunting to conquering villages and battling other guilds. (People can get a taste of that in the next Closed Beta Test.) If PvP isn’t your thing, then the instanced dungeons and randomized drops and monster spawns in the world will offer more action than most games out. And of course, the very best part, is that Erebus is completely free to play.
OnRPG: What Erebus’ game features do you think will players love? Why do you think so?
I think players will enjoy the story, action, and multiplayer aspects, including guild warfare and village conquering. The various types of PvP and PKing should be a big hit, and also all of the dungeons with global spawn bosses, rare monsters that drop cash shop items, and the loot drops and item customization.
OnRPG: Are the job classes in Erebus race locked? Does it have to do with the game’s lore?
Currently, the job classes are race locked. This does have to do with the game’s lore, in which essentially different races developed different skills, and these skills are closely guarded secrets. However, that isn’t to say that classes may not be able to learn something new in the future…
OnRPG: What was the most used job class by players during the CBT? Why do you think they prefer using that class among the other one’s available?
Most players chose to be warriors simply because it was the most familiar to them and they want a huge sword. However, quite a bit of players chose to play as a cleric with their blend of combat and healing abilities. Each class has its own strengths and weaknesses, though. Players will have to choose for themselves, or try all the classes!
OnRPG: Is Erebus more of a skill focused game or does it give importance on a character’s stat allocation?
Erebus places importance on both skills and stats. The player can actually choose what skills to learn, and can allocate skill points towards different skills. Additionally, stat allocation plays a big part of the customization. Certain weapons and items you may find while playing can only be used if your strength, agility, and other stats meet a certain level. But it’s open to the player to change stats on their characters, so they can experiment and get the hero the way they like.
OnRPG: What PvP features are present in Erebus? Does the game also give importance to PVPing?
Erebus will have multiple ways to engage your friends and enemies in PvP. Players will be able to participate in open field PK, individual and party duels, various guild battles, massive faction wars and also casual arena PvP. More features are in development that will integrate PvP into the storyline and give players incentives to group up in their parties, guilds, and factions. There will be multiple PvP only maps, and most of the maps allow PKing at higher levels as well
OnRPG: How huge is the game’s bestiary? And Where did you base the monsters you use in the game?
The bestiary is well over 100 general types monsters, not including boss monsters and some other surprises. The list is also always going to be growing as the game moves forward and new content is continually added.
The monsters in the game are based on former girlfriends.
OnRPG: The game seems to use a mix of bright colored animation and sprites in a dark backdrop do you think this is a good mix for the game?
I think the bright animations give a great contrast to the game and give that awe factor to players when they use them. It also really puts the emphasis on the player’s character, as they’re this bright beacon of hope (for whichever faction they side with) in an otherwise dark world.
OnRPG: How will the game’s story affect the way future updates will be added to Erebus?
We are working on weaving in more of the back story to future updates. The story can open up in a number of directions. What will be really fun for us is that users themselves will help determine the end game, so we can continue to craft the story accordingly. Mainly, we want people to enjoy this as much as we do!
OnRPG: What other game features will you be including for the upcoming 2nd CBT?
The most anticipated feature being brought into the 2nd CBT is the Guild System. With it will come options for guild battle including map takeovers and some other new guild incentives. We will also bring in another map for players to explore, and a few instance dungeons/quests built completely for this new version of the game. Players will be able to participate in these quests to learn more about the story of Erebus and also have the opportunity to find some unique, rare items.
OnRPG: What are the things that you will be keeping an eye on in Erebus’ 2nd CBT?
For CBT2, we want to look more at the balancing between the classes and the overall experience of the players. We want to make sure that the players returning from CBT1 are having a good time at the higher levels, and that the lower level players are enjoying the changes that were made as well. Of course, we will continue to review the feedback from our players and make appropriate changes based on that.
We’re also going to be continuing our evaluation of the level curve, as I want to make this game fully accessible to new players. This involves not only adjusting exp rates, but also adding a new tutorial, new content and new quests to relevant areas to improve the players’ leveling experience.
OnRPG: What’s in store for Erebus players in the succeeding months?
Lots! We currently have tons of enhancements to the game in development that will both make it much easier for the players to play the game, and add a lot of new content for players to explore. Players can definitely look forward to new maps and instance dungeons/quests as well as a few more features that will enhance the PvP system.
OnRPG: Thank you for your time!
You’re quite welcome! Great chatting with you!
Kingdom Heroes on Kingdom War, Global PVP, City Conquests and More!
Kingdom Heroes on Kingdom War, Global PVP, City Conquests and More!
City conquest, guild warfare, player ships, siege engines, combat mounts, NPC troops – all these features, and more, come together on an epic scale during a “Kingdom War.” For those unfamiliar with Kingdom Heroes, a “Kingdom War” is a recurring, global, player-versus-player (PvP) event where guilds and factions battle for control of cities, villages, ports, strongholds, and territory. The results of a war can have potential ramifications for the entire game world – realigning boundaries, shifting control of resources, altering faction economies, and tipping the scale of power from one kingdom to another.
Imagine, for a moment, riding towards a major port city in the distance. Your guildmates, along with an entire legion of NPC soldiers, march at your side, guarding your flanks. As your army approaches the massive, fortified walls of the city, the fog begins to clear… and past the tattered banners along the citadel, you catch sight of the enemy on patrol.
Kingdom Heroes combat mounts
Suddenly, an alarm sounds – you’ve been spotted! The city guards hurdle towards their posts and fire off a barrage of burning arrows and projectiles at you. You fight through the flames, mowing down a squad of straggling defenders on your way to the gate. Your remaining guildmates aren’t able to push their way through. They bunker down and call out their ballistae and catapults.
The enemy spies the siege weaponry at their door and summons their defenses to the gate. You’ve drawn them away from the coast – the plan is working! You give the signal and a fleet of ships, manned by an allied guild, darts out from the fog, laying waste to the unmanned ships stationed at the docks.
This is just a sample of one of numerous situations that can take place during a Kingdom War. There are a variety of territory types that players can capture in the game, and each point of interest is vulnerable to different approaches. When sizing up the competition and planning an attack, the most astute commanders will have to take into account the strength and specialization of a particular city’s defenses, its terrain and surroundings, the reputation of the guild in control of it, the overall power of its affiliated faction, guild alliances, and a host of other variables.
While there’s nothing stopping you and your buddies from rampaging through Kingdom Heroes, attacking everything in sight, you may want to keep a close eye on alliances, events, battle reports, and the ever evolving political landscape of your chosen server. Why’s that, you say? The Taiwanese version of Kingdom Heroes is full of guilds plotting with and against each other on private message boards, planning their strategies before every Kingdom War. If you want to run with the best of them, you better prepare accordingly and bring your “A” game when the time arrives.
So, you may be wondering – apart from expanding your empire, what’s the advantage of capturing points of interest and participating in a Kingdom War? Although we aren’t ready to completely spill the beans on this particular topic just yet, we can say that there are a number of mechanics constantly in play that offer players plenty of incentive to go out and make war; among these are battle merits and spoils from the taxation of territory.
In Kingdom Wars, merits are earned when one player defeats another player affiliated with a rival faction (provided the player is above level 10). Multiple players can team up and ambush other players (along with soldiers, ships, and siege weapons), but only the player who initiates the attack will earn credit. Players that kill higher-level players and have lower death counts will receive even greater rewards. The more merits a player has, the higher his/her rank within a faction.
Face your enemy faction
Once a guild comes into possession of a player city, the leader can become its administrator. Apart from city building, upgrades, resource management, and investing in defenses, an administrator can set salaries for his/her guild members. These salaries are earned from taxes that are levied on NPC merchants operating within a territory. As a result, some cities – locations that are frequented by the most players (e.g. ports, towns at major junctions, villages bordering faction capitals, etc.) are more valuable than others. Of course, there’s always a danger that if a greedy administrator is overzealous in taxing his/her city merchants, players will travel elsewhere to purchase their goods.
Trebuchet siege weapons
In previous developer blogs, we’ve discussed player ships and non-playable character (NPC) soldiers. Although both of these features can play an important role in city conquest, siege engines are far better suited for the task. There are a handful of siege weapon types in the game (e.g. ballistae, catapults, battering rams, etc.), each with their own specialties. Some are built for mobility and rapid assault, some are better suited for close combat, and a couple others are unmatched in terms of their sheer amount of firepower. All are virtually indispensible if you want to effectively break through a powerful city’s defenses and breach their walls.
Are you ready to take up arms for your empire? You can make your mark on the world when Kingdom Heroes begins Closed Beta in late Spring 2010. To be among the first to sign up for an early glimpse of the game, visit the official website.
Alliance of Valiant Arms Review: EU vs NRF
Alliance of Valiant Arms Review: EU vs NRF
By Mohammad Abubakr (Abubakr), OnRPG Journalist
Alliance of Valiant Arms or AVA is a great looking massively multiplayer first person shooter (MMOFPS). The game features many elements you will recognize if you have played any other FPS but it also offers many unique features that will make you want to give it a try. AVA will requires you and your team to use good amount of strategy. You cannot just run towards your enemy expecting to take the whole team down.
When I started my first match, I noticed that the graphics looked great compared to other free MMOFPS games. The maps are detailed and show that the developers spent a great deal of time designing them. The weapons are also very detailed and the lighting on them makes them look even better! Keep in mind that the graphics will look much better when playing, so please do not judge them just from my screenshots.
There are however some problems with the graphics. I was not able to change each setting manually! I was only able to change my resolution and the gamma. There are radio buttons, which allow you to manually change the settings, but I was not able to change from automatic to manual. After doing some configuration file modifications the manual box did get highlighted, but I still did not see any options. There is a logo about Nvidia so maybe we ATI users cannot change the graphics.
Sniped!
The sound is not so bad. The guns sound pretty realistic and the music is alright. Many of you will like it more than me because I do not listen to music. The grenades sound very realistic. You can feel the vibration and the echo when they explode. There is a radio function you can use to give your team commands or just warn them of incoming enemies. Your character will actually automatically do these commands when needed.
Unlike most free FPS games there are three classes you can easily switch between based on what you feel like playing. These are the sniper, point man and the rifleman. The sniper is my favourite class because they do a lot of damage from long range with amazing accuracy. The downside is that he does not shoot very fast.
The point man is the opposite of the sniper. He is the master of close range with very high movement speed and uses SMGs and knives. He is not very good at range though. Finally, the rifleman is a balance of the two. He uses rifles and is the master of grenades.
Game Modes
AVA has quite a few game modes to offer that will keep you entertained. Many of these are available in other FPS games but there are some that are unique. You really cannot make all your game modes unique in an FPS because they will almost always involve you or your team killing the enemies using guns and rifles and playing in at least a few standard modes. This game does however change the names around to make their game modes a bit unique.
The first game mode I will be talking about is Annihilation. Annihilation is played just like your typical team death match mode. There are two teams who will keep on killing each other until the target amount of kills or points has been reached. The team to reach this first will be the winner.
There is however a small twist. When you kill a player, they will drop dog-tags. Pickup three of these and you will get bonus points! To make it a bit harder, your-dog tags will reset to zero when you die. You need to get a triple kill streak, run to the body, which usually means getting in open fire, and loot the dog tags. Not that easy for a beginner.
Another game mode many of you will be familiar with is Demolition, which is usually known as Search and Destroy. Most FPS gamers will know that the aim of this mode is to plant C4 on one of the various points or to annihilate the other team. In AVA, EU (Europe) will be the one attacking and planting the C4 while NRF (Neo Russian Federation) will try and kill the EU team or defuse the bomb. There is no respawning until the round ends.
Convoy is another game mode. This mode plays like Capture the Flag. EU has to transport an object to the target area to win while NRF tries to stop them. You can also just kill the opposing team to win. Once again there is no respawning until the end of the round.
Now come the more unique game modes. Prison Break is one of my favourite modes in AVA and has just been released recently. If you ever played a game like Left 4 Dead or any game where you survive waves of zombies, you will like this mode. Instead of zombies you will have to fight off escaped prisoners or fugitives. You will see huge amounts of them running towards you. To make it a bit fair they can only use melee. There are some harder to defeat fugitives you can fight which will randomly spawn at times. One of these types is the swift fugitive who runs very fast, making sure you have a challenge. To make it even harder you cannot respawn! When your whole team dies, you lose.
Fighting Fugitives
While you are killing all these enemies you will be burning a lot of ammo. You can find ammo and health packs by killing fugitives. They will randomly drop.
To win in Prison Break you have to kill all fugitives for round one. In round two you have to activate four controllers to open the gates and in round three you use C4 to demolish the four controllers and open the gate to the helipad. While doing all this there will still be waves of prisoners coming. This sure is one big jail.
The last game mode AVA has to offer is Escort. This is another one of my favourite modes because it reminds me of payload in Team Fortress 2. EU is in charge of escorting a tank to specific points while NRF must defend. To move the tank you simply stand beside it. NRF has areas where they can get RPGs (anti tank rocket launchers) to take down the tanks and stop them from moving any further. EU can repair the tanks when they have been damaged and use the machine gun to mow down enemies. If you fail to reach the specific points before the time ends you will fail.
Customizing and Maps
When creating your character you do not get many options to change your character’s features. You will simply choose what face you want, name your character and start playing the game. You are only able to create male characters; I have not seen any female characters while playing this game.
There are quite a few guns to choose from for each of the classes. To make it even better, you can customize them! You are able to add on items like scopes or silencers to change your weapon to suit your play style.
This game features ten maps unique from each other to offer you some variety so you will not be doing the same thing and applying the same strategies all day.
Very nice lighting on the armour. Also shows how you can use your environment to make strategies.
My Experience
I really enjoyed playing this game as it features great graphics with very fun gameplay. The game was very easy to learn and get used to as I play a lot of FPS games. I enjoyed playing Escort because I love TF2 and this game reminded me a lot of payload in TF2 where you must push a cart to the points.
There were some problems with lag but it rarely happened. I did not experience the community too much because people did not talk a lot. I believe adding a voice chat function will encourage people to talk more and come up with strategies.
Conclusion
To conclude, AVA is a great FPS game that is definitely worth checking out. I can guarantee it will keep you occupied for a while with its great graphics and gameplay. A little work to fix the lag, allow easier changing of graphics, and maybe implementing voice chat will make AVA a great free FPS game.
Pros:
– Good graphics
– Weapons are customizable
– You are able to do offers from Ijji to get free CS items.
– Easy to learn but will take time to master.
– A lot of competition (There are even tournaments for those who are really good)
– Unique modes
– A lot of servers to choose from; never wait to play the game.
– A lot of ranks to keep you busy.
Cons:
– You might face problems changing graphic options.
– The community did not seem to talk too much. (Might be different for everyone, maybe I picked the wrong rooms)
– Some lag issues but they rarely occur.
Hockey Dash
Hockey Dash is a fast-paced sports game that combines ice hockey and street hockey. It takes the energy and tension of ice hockey and utilizes them in fast-paced street hockey to form a strategic hockey game that requires skill and decisive plays to conquer your opponents. A competitive, extreme action oriented Hockey Game.
Three different positions to choose from:
– Forward, Defense and Center
– Invite all your buddies and play together.
– Completely Free to download, Free to play
– Forward, Defense and Center
– Invite all your buddies and play together.
– Completely Free to download, Free to play
Regnum New Character Design
Some time ago Regnum released its new character design. Just take a look when they put the old and the new side by side and see which one creates the better result.
Pushing The Limits: Extending Lifespans
Pushing The Limits: Extending Lifespans
By Kei Beneza (dividelife), OnRPG Journalist
There comes a time in every MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online Games) player’s life when the idea of grinding and PVP becomes momentarily unbearable. Daily quests, interacting with guild mates, continuous raiding annoy the hell out of you due to their repetitive nature. When a player explores a game thoroughly, to a point where there’s nothing left to do, you can’t help but want to extend the game’s lifespan by providing a series of gimmicks that will help it seem brand new— or in a way, just different. This is where idea of roleplay, and other player-based features kick in. By that I mean a roleplaying server does not really differ from the rest. The only difference between the RP ones and the regular servers is its player base.
Roleplay: The base
When extending the limits, this is perhaps the farthest you will get. Roleplaying encourages people to completely personify their characters in the game; filling in information regarding their toon’s likes, dislikes, as well as their own personality. When you think about it, were these games actually designed to promote this form of usage? And if it does, does it actually help prolong the game’s replayability? For the roleplayers’ that would be a big yes. Unlike the average login-and-level playstyle, roleplaying takes players through a whole new form of immersion, giving them responsibilities and duties that literally turn the game into another dimension where players live their pseudo-second life.
Does it help?
Yes it does! Not only does it help people make use of the lore and the rich history of the game,it also helps lure in the hardcore players who have been there before the digital auto calculating stat points. In order to prove this theory, we’ve created a character in one of the roleplaying servers provided by World of Warcraft. Surprisingly, most of these people have become too immersed, with an orc talking like your average school bully.
“Crush you now!!!! Gark crush all!!!!”
Unlike your regular PVE or PVP server, people in this realm level slow. Being the regular player that I am, I asked around to find out why these people seem to enjoy moving around at a lower level. According to them (during our off-game interview), the essence of the game is the experience (not the one that levels you up) attained through your adventures. It will take you a long time to get to level 80 with all the drama in store for you, so it’s best that you enjoy the storyline and enrich your character’s timeline.
Game machinima: Illegal Danish
Effects on the game
To be honest, the game felt a lot different after I struggled through the lands of Azeroth with this playstyle. It literally felt like I was surrounded by living, breathing creatures from the game, like the whole game became NPCs that interacted in the most advanced manner. Certain “Classes” are also born through this mode, like: beggars, apprentices (the RP form of Noob), wanderers, etc. It really gives players a form of individuality, allowing them to act their part as characters of the game. The scenario literally felt like an adventure with you as the main character (in your own perspective). Taking enemy bases felt much more rewarding than it used to be, with confetti, and of course… the JUSTICE of planting our banner to state that the territory was now ours.
Wait! That’s not right!
Roleplaying does not only break the game’s linearity but most of its rules as well. As you may know, WoW is a story about 2 factions in the depths of war. Technically, this means that these two factions are not capable of working together, the same way they cannot understand each other. While working on a quest with an RP (roleplay) buddy, we were ambushed by a group of raiders from the enemy faction. Usually, we would be dead one second after being spotted; instead, these players took their time and performed actions like “looks at you” and “laughs at you”. Aware of how far we would have to walk to get back to our soon to be corpses, we tried our luck by communicating with the group. After a series of begging and kneeling, the raiders declared a truce and left us in peace. WHAT THE HELL? Soon after that, the group would just wave every time we passrd each other, telling some of their allies to leave us alone. Cross-faction allies? Weird.
Certain problems
Even though it’s an RP server, one of the biggest problems on this side of the game is the players who don’t seem to know where they are. Some players on the server were not roleplaying, which made some of the players a bit conscious (I mean it’s really geeky to RP to begin with). Some talked the same way they would in real life, greeting us with “Yo!” and “sup?”. We try our best to stay in character, but it just felt silly to interact with someone who’s not playing the same way we were.
Trading Gold
Love blooms: Wow… that’s extreme
Believe it or not, players actually RP love in the game. While moving through the ruins of the Eastern Plaguelands, I stumbled across a part of the area where two of my faction members were roleplaying a love-scene as I watched from afar. The two were slowly undressing their characters as I watched. Meanwhile in real life, I couldn’t help but laugh at what I saw… but if the show must go on, I just executed a line (“my apologies… have you seen a human around here?”) and went on my merry way. LOL! I’ve also heard about a server that has their very own bordello in the game. This by far is a feature that’s out of the game’s capabilities, but if you know your medieval history, you’ll see that your Tailoring and Blacksmithing aren’t the only things that can earn you gold LOLOL!
Rundown
It was fun, really. I actually found myself logging in more often than before, as I was given duties and responsibilities to uphold in my new RP guild. It really is a bit more extreme than usual, but with that given taste, it’s definitely something that will get you hooked further. Love, war, interaction, everything seems different when you look at it through a roleplayer’s eyes. The lore is richer, and the objectives aren’t that linear. When things are getting dull… all it needs is your personal touch, I suppose. 😉
City of Heroes Review: Welcome to Paragon City!
City of Heroes Review: Welcome to Paragon City!
Jonathan (Ardy) Doyle, OnRPG Journalist
Paragon, for those of you who may or may not know, is the setting of City of Heroes. The neighboring Rogue Isles (Étoile Isles), which are far less scenic and twice as dangerous, is where you’ll find yourself if ever you fancy a City of Villains.
City of Hero Issues
Both have been my virtual home for well over five years now and I love my city as only a geek can. I have battled demons and gods. Fought with, beside and as an alien. I’ve smashed robot hordes and controlled them, put down zombie invasions and raised my own mob of the undead. I have been the length and breadth of the two cities and still more awaits me.
What about the game you say? Well in a pure technology sense City of Heroes is a game facing its sixth birthday this coming April 28th. Six years on and we have had 16 Issues (http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Issues) with another on the way and one Expand-alone game, also with another on the way. Every issue brings something new to the table and with Issue 17, if you’ve passed the City Of (CoX) titles up because they’re showing a few visual wrinkles here and there, you’ll be happy to know I17 brings Ultra Mode for graphics.
Hamidon Raid
The game is always adding, always innovating with its dedicated team and always offering us something more. 16 issues on and with two sides to choose from, good and evil, Paragon and the Rogue Isles are finally getting shades of grey to compliment the shinier graphics. Going Rogue (which launches this July) is another expansion to the core game and will open up an alternate world. Without going too deep into the lore, as I could talk your ear off on that, Praetoria represents new content; new challenges and a new alignment system that will let you make a villain of your hero or vice versa with stops in between the two poles.
Further to that CoX also offers Booster packs (RRP $10) that give you even more options in the character creator as well as the occasional extra emote or power. They’re always fun to have but by no mean necessary.
Sharp suit, sharp sword
The Test
No proper review nowadays can be made of the CoX games without mentioning Champions Online and here is as good a point as any. Both games (CoH and CoV) were made by Cryptic Studios before they sold the IP to NCSoft in November of 2007 and went on to create Champions. While their new system is different, many of the lessons and in fact entire art pieces can be seen in Champions Online. It is less City of Heroes 2 and more of a distant cousin. The character creator everyone raves about was tried in City of Heroes first and in my opinion it stands up to the test of time. Each new issue brings something more for it, from the upcoming animated tails, to the previously released colour and weapon customizations and all the other added bits and pieces you will receive from events, missions and boosters. The character creator is always growing, always adding to itself and always making more things possible. Think it up, give it a shot and tell us how it went.
Want to give it a go? Easily done, just pop over to the site www.cityofheroes.com and sign yourself up for a trial account. Once you’re in, just pick your side, your archetype (and there are two “Epic” ATs reserved for people who have hit the level cap, this is being changed to level 20 in I17) and pick your power sets. After that, let your imagination go wild. If you want to be a bulky armored bruiser or a slender sexy pistol packing babe or anything and everything in between, you go right ahead and whip it up. Come on into the City and start your career. Don’t think you’ll be stuck with the one look or only a handful of options either. Every character gets at least four costume slots (unlocked every 10 levels from level 20) and every account gets 12 character slots per server. You can even purchase or earn (via the veteran badges) more server slots up to a maximum of 36. So far five costumes per hero is the limit and I know people who would sell someone’s right arm to buy more. After you’ve got your fancy outfit and your fancier powers, it’s time to do whatever it is you wanted to do. Heroic heroes? Dastardly villains? Whatever you want.
A villain dressed to kill
Eventually though, a day may come when you’ve run through all the given content. Maybe battling time travelling fascist Nazis doesn’t appeal to you. Or perhaps you’re not in the mood to fight a giant unicellular world devourer. Maybe you just can’t bring yourself to jump into the future to battle signature Heroes and Villains or cope with the idea of sealing a great evil beneath a volcano. If this happens, worry not for CoX has yet another trick up its sleeve. Architect Entertainment (AE) missions brought in with Issue 15 allows for user created content. Do you want to stop saving the world and write about how you came to rule it? Do you want to immortalize that comic book idea you’ve had for years and see people play it out? The Architect system allows you to handcraft mission arcs for anyone to play with custom groups and dialogue. Once again, if you can dream it up, they’re doing their best to let you play it out.
Conclusion
I could go on at length about milestones in your career, veteran rewards and how they improve your life as you keep playing and on and on about Praetoria, the latest powersets and what it all means for me let alone you, but I won’t right now. Why you may ask? Well this is just a review and for that I’m looking back, even when there is plenty to look forward to. Six years have almost passed for the game. Six years of innovation, change, additions, improvements, reimaging and expansion. So in this reviewer’s opinion, with all that has gone before and everything that is yet to come, why don’t you come and visit the City of Tomorrow? Look me up and I’ll show you my virtual world, my super powered slice of life and how the first Superheroes and Super villains are faring after all this time.
Notes:
– Ardua is an avid City of Player and can typically be found on the Virtue server saving lives, robbing banks or just hanging out with people. His global is @Ardua and you all welcome to say hey. Anyone for Jello?
– Screenshots are all personal shots of Ardy doing Ardy things in City of Heroes and City of Villains.
– All rights go to Cryptic Studios, Paragon Studios and NCSoft etc so on and so forth with the legalese.
Sharp suit, Sharp sword.
Pictured: Villain in the Isles, dressed to kill. Literally.
When you level up, you explode with the Plume of Awesome.
Pictured: How to deal with thugs.
Masthead Studios Announces Delay for upcoming MMORPG Earthrise Release
Masthead Studios Announces Delay for upcoming MMORPG Earthrise Release
Earlier this week, in the form of a creative and elaborate stunt that claimed the Earthrise development team was viciously destroyed by a Jaberwokie, Masthead Studios announced that the release of their upcoming MMORPG Earthrise has been pushed back from their original projection of Q2 2010. In addition to this news, the new estimation date for game release is scheduled for the fall of 2010.
The Masthead development team has been working diligently to produce a unique and entertaining game for MMO players, and in an effort to reduce the amount of issues that typically plague a new game as soon as it hits the market, the team has decided to spend some extra time perfecting performance and weaving a tapestry of lore that is sure to enthrall and entrance even the most novice of MMO players.
Select beta applicants should keep an eye out for the release of beta keys in the near future, and everyone should look forward to the appearance of the delayed, yet highly anticipated combat video!
Very exciting things are to come, so stay tuned!
