Yearly Archives: 2011

Nadirim Announces Commercial Release

Nadirim Announces Commercial Release

 

 

Twisted Tribes has announced the launch of their Arabian-themed fantasy MMORPG, Nadirim, featuring magical quests, djinn wars, and a slew of mythical creatures to you to team up with friends and take down. The game features a distinct turn-based strategic gameplay and PvP all within the comfort of your browser.

 

 

Nadirim promises players will be captivated by their story based on the tales of 1001 Arabian Nights along with hand-drawn graphics, cultural music, and tactics gameplay that will challenge your skills as a general.

 

 

“Nadirim gives players an unforgettable experience. That was always our main goal with the game and that is our mission as a company.” Said Balazs Sipocz, Twisted Tribe’s CEO. “Nadirim is magic in the making!”

 

 

Beginning with just a small weapon and some basic armor, players are challenged to roam the empire of Nadirim, customizing their hero and joining up with other players to combat the spreading darkness of the Jin. As the eternal sunshine begins to fade, the darkness grows stronger and will challenge players to darker and more devilish monsters.

 

 

Twisted Tribe also promises the first expansion is on the way! Versions of the game besides English are also planned and on the way soon. Come back later this week as OnRPG sends Proxzor in to give this game an updated review.

The Chosen Online: Politically Driven PvP

The Chosen Online: Politically Driven PvP

By Remko Molenaar (Proxzor), OnRPG Journalist

 


The Chosen Online is a free to play MMORPG currently developed and published by Snail Games USA. Snail Games is one of the premier developers of MMO browser game and is quite known from the titles such as Ministry of War and Heroes of Gaia. After visiting their beautiful website I decided to try out The Chosen and to let you know my thoughts about this newly made game.

 

 

Before you get to make your character you get the choice between a variety of Dynasties. Since the game is in a Chinese setting you must choose your dynasty carefully, because you will fight alongside the dynasty that you pick. When seeing the choice of dynasties I saw all of them holding different weapons and I figured only one class per dynasty is available. I was however wrong and was surprised that every dynasty was able to choose every class that is currently available in the game. There are currently five dynasties available and in every dynasty you get the choice between six classes. Each Dynasty can elect one king and fights weekly for the title of ‘The Chosen’. I went with the Qin Dynasty since the character in the picture was holding a bow and I wanted to play with an archer type of class.

 

 

After making my character I got into the game. Luckily a fisherman saved my character in a horrible accident and I was one of the few that managed to get out alive. The Fishermen  and other village representatives taught me various stuff like how I could choose my attributes and upgrade my skills. After learning a lot from these wise men I went up on my first mission to kill five monkeys. The quest taught me another really helpful feature which is the ‘Auto Combat’ feature. Like you have already guessed, this feature allows you to make some dinner, eat it, watch a movie and be a higher level when you come back. The Auto Combat system however doesn’t pick up drops so if you get some really good loot it will just drop on the ground and eventually disappear. I guess there has to be some balance to encourage players to actually grind sometimes after all.

 

 

After walking around and doing some quests I found another helpful feature that has been put in the game. If you receive a quest or anything else with any NPC’s named in them and the text is green plus underlined. You can click on the name and your character will automatically walk to the NPC. While walking my way over to some of the NPC’s I had to visit I noticed there is no way to change your camera. This is a serious let down for me because it is quite hard to look around and to find your way when you have only one view possible. I seriously hope I am wrong and there is an option somewhere but after trying most of the buttons on my keyboard and even facebashing it I came to the conclusion there is simply none. I did however find a function that should’ve let me right click to change the camera but it did nothing at the time. During a press event, Dizzy was told that this feature is still something in the works so I guess a future patch will include it. There is also no option to check the controls and thus there is no way to customize them to your liking.

 

 

Battle to be Chosen

The Chosen Online’s main focus is the power struggle between the dynasties. Every dynasty lives in its own bubble world separated from the others. These worlds are essentially the same maps and monsters. However once a week they collide in epic wars between dynasties to decide if there will be a new Chosen crowned. To become The Chosen you must first be selected by your dynasty peers to be Emperor. And once you are emperor you can then assign roles of nobility to your friends as a reward for their support in getting you into the position.

 

 

The position of Emperor is quite stressful because you are expected to lead your entire mini-server into combat weekly, all the while fending off coups from competing guilds in your dynasty that seek the title of Emperor for themselves. This unique political system is simple yet effective in making players feel a deep connection to their dynasty and a type of nationalistic pride when fending off their rivals in the weekly wars.

 

 

Speaking of the weekly wars, these wars are truly dynasty versus dynasty battles. While the glory may reside in the high level players clashing on the battlefield, everyone in the dynasty is a valuable tool towards achieving victory. Outside of the max level clashes, you will witness low level players pushing supply carts to aid their side in gaining buffs or building massive NPCs that fight for your cause. Then you will see medium leveled players defending these caravans from other equal level players who would be useless in the main battle but are vital to success due to this side venture. In the end the nation that is victorious must then face off against all other nations and emerge victorious to gain the title of The Chosen for their emperor for a week. Needless to say, the crowning of a Chosen is a rare event.

 

 

Gameplay

The game is fairly simple and doesn’t require much time invested to learn your way around. You left click targets to target them and right click to attack. If you have set your skills in one of the available skill bars you can easily click or press the corresponding button to do one of your abilities. Talking about abilities, each class can easily put their skill points into different skills to either level up the current skills you have or to unlock new ones. The Skill tree is fairly the same like in any other MMO game you have ever seen before and most of the skills are unlocked at a special level.

 

 

There are 5 abilities players can choose from that each have different helpful stats for every playable class. The Power stat will increase your health points and physical damage, the Agility stat increases your dodge and weapon accuracy, the Int stat will increase your mana and magical attack damage, spirit will gives you bonuses to dodge magical attacks and your magic defense and willpower will get higher, and the Con stat also increases your health points and some other similar stats. Players will also be able to choose different titles to precede their name to give them something to show their status in society.

 

 

Graphics

The Chosen is somewhat of a nice looking 2D game but sometimes I did feel the textures got stretched a little bit. This isn’t however really a ruining factor but just a critical view that in my opinion could be done better. To play this game made by Snail Games you would need the following system requirements:

 

Minimum Requirements:

OS: Windows XP or Vista 32

CPU: Intel Pentium 4 class processor or AMD Athlon XP, at 1.5 GHz or faster

RAM: 512MB of RAM or more

HDD: 5 GB Free Space

Graphics Card: GeForce FX class or ATI Radeon 9600 with 128MB of dedicated VRAM or better

 

Recommended Specification:

OS: Windows XP/ 2000 / Vista

CPU:Intel Pentium 4 Class Processor Dual Core at 2.0 GHz or faster

RAM: 1GB of RAM or more

HDD: 1.8 GB of HDD space, plus additional for new game content

Graphics Card: GeForce XT Class with 256MB of dedicated VRAM or better

 

 

If you have no idea what kind of computer rig you are running or simply aren’t really into computer specifications and you only worry if your computer works. I’d say everyone with a computer that has been bought in the last seven to six years is easily able to play this game just fine.

 

 

Conclusion

The Chosen is a really fun game to try out because it offers a variety of different classes that you can play with five dynasties. With each class offering a variety of skill trees to go down, and hundreds of levels to progress through, you can spend a long time building the best character you can be. The game isn’t bad looking either and doesn’t require a top notch computer to play. If you are really into the Chinese culture and want to experience an intense politically driven PvP game, I think The Chosen Online has what you’re looking for.

Microvolts Holiday Special Update Lands This Week

Microvolts Holiday Special Update Lands This Week

 

 

Rock Hippo Productions announced today it will launch a fun-filled holiday update for the popular cartoon style third-person shooter, MicroVolts, beginning December 16th.   Santa’s sleigh will bring a sack full of holiday accessories, weapons and a slew of holiday events for players who’ve made the naughty OR nice list this year.

 

 

Making MicroVolts merry and bright, the upcoming Holiday Special Update will gift players with a variety of cool new holiday items including new Holiday Costume Bundles for Naomi and C.H.I.P that will have players rockin’ around the battlefield.  In addition to the Santa-size sack full of holiday accessories and weapons, MicroVolts is also hosting a 12 Days of Christmas event and a Deck the Walls wallpaper contest!  This seasonal contest will give players a glimpse at some of the all-new content coming up in the next update!

 

 

“The Holiday season is a time for fun and giving and we wanted to share that spirit with our loyal community,” said Howard He, President and CEO of Rock Hippo Productions.  “We invite new recruits and current MicroVolters alike to come check out all of the holiday fun starting this Friday!”

Drakensang Announces Norlande Expansion in Time for Christmas

Drakensang Announces Norlande Expansion in time for Christmas

 

 

Earlier today Big Point announced a massive content update coming to its hit fantasy dungeon explorer, Drakensang Online. This update will feature a massive new map, new class, and the promise of even greater customization.

 

 

The Norlande expansion will take players through dozens of new maps, each filled with new quests to tackle some of the strongest bosses and legions of enemies players have seen. Of course with great bosses you can be sure of new equipment to deck out your character in celebration of your victories.

 

 

The Ranger class will also be released. The rangers are agile ranged fighters that pack a powerful punch. Along with the rangers though will be a new skill system for all classes which should make quickly using the skill you want to easier, improving gameplay overall.

 

 

In addition to the promise of the Norlande expansion, Big Point announced that they will be doubling the number of available skills for each class in the coming months. This will coincide with the release of end-game skill trees to provide veteran players the chance to individualize their character’s play style.

CivWorld: Competitively Expensive

CivWorld: Competitively Expensive

By Jerrico Tan (JetSet), OnRPG Journalist


CivWorld is an online multiplayer game made by Firaxis and conceived by the Civilization series creator, Sid Meier himself. But in contrast to the Civilization series, CivWorld invades popular social network Facebook to provide players with an all-new town-building experience.

 

 

At first, most fans of the series may have unsettling impressions about CivWorld. Civilization is well known for having its well executed 4X elements (exploitation, exploration, expansion, extermination) while CivWorld is just all about exploiting resources in your little piece of land to win eras and battles. Secondly, players need to cooperate with others as a civilization group instead of being the king of all nations. But prejudice aside, the brand new systems and features of this unique Civilization game could still convince players to visit the game on a daily basis.

 

 

Gameplay


 

CivWorld is a game that can be won and completed, unlike many popular Facebook games today. The game ends after completing all eras, which begins from the Stone Age and ends in the Galactic Age. Each era ends when one of the four winning conditions is met namely: cultural, economic, science and domination. The civilization that wins the current era receives fame points and once the game comes to an end, the player with the most points will be declared the overall winner.

 

 

Players start off with an independent town where they build houses for their workers who would eventually harvest all the resources in their land. Great town planning is important for their house’s efficiency in gathering resources. For example, a cornfield’s harvest rating depends on how many cornfields are adjacent to its place.

 



Independent players could also join one of eight established civilization groups. By joining a civ group, all of the members’ current technologies and wonders are shared with the other members. Technologies are policies that give certain bonuses to the whole group and could even unlock historic wonders that passively generate gold. There is also a chatbox in the game where players could interact and coordinate their strategies (something more Facebook games could really use)

 

 

Resource gathering is highly crucial in winning an era. Each resource type helps your civ group discover technologies and wonders that could help them win one of the era’s winning conditions. Obtaining them comes in many ways. The fastest way to gather them is to play the game’s resource mini-games which consist of a maze game for gathering science, a portrait puzzle game for gathering culture; and a caravan road game that rewards the best puzzle solver a fair amount of gold. The game also has a market where you can use gold to buy all sorts of resource types and army units.

 


 

Another way to win an era is to dominate other civ groups. You can use gold to buy military units in the market and use them to invade other civs. Battles take hours to start so that defending civ members could prep up their defenses. Successful invasions are definitely rewarding while winning an invasion battle steals all of the loser’s wonders and all its learned technologies.

 


 

There is also a special currency in the game called CivBucks that you can buy with real money. This exclusive form of cash offers players with privileges and purchases. You can use Civbucks to buy Gold that can be used in buying soldiers, resources in the market and even extra puzzle moves for the minigames.

 

 

With all these features mentioned, CivWorld builds up a browser game like no other. Its complex and persistent environment would undoubtedly have you visit the game often. However, the greatest frustration that I have experienced in the game is the great gap that they have produced between cash players and non-paying ones. Paying real money for resource items and military units to invade civ groups would definitely speed you up in winning eras. And through that, CivWorld turned out to be a place where only the big spenders could last.

 

 

Conclusion

To sum it all up, CivWorld is a very simple yet entertaining game that’s still able to give players that sense of fulfillment after playing it. It might not work as much for non-paying players but if you’re willing to pay up real money for petty rewards, then this game might just be for you.

 

Graphics 3.5

Controls 3.5

Features 4.0

Customization 3.5

Community 3.0