Neverwinter showcases the devastating damage and trickery of the rogue.
Monthly Archives: March 2013
Soldier Front 2 Bringing Jaw-Dropping Team Warfare to North America
Soldier Front 2 Bringing Jaw-Dropping Team Warfare to North America

Explosive, realistic and intense firefights are on the horizon—don’t be caught unaware! Aeria Games, a leading global publisher of free-to-play online games, has launched the teaser site and official trailer for Soldier Front 2, a new state-of-the-art massively multiplayer online first-person shooter (MMOFPS).
Aeria Games currently publishes the original Soldier Front, which has garnered a very large and active community since its inception. Soldier Front 2 aims to build on that even more, featuring gorgeous graphics running on the Unreal Engine 3, a diversity of strategic team combat modes, and an unprecedented level of realism. The game also has an expertly designed learning curve, making it easy for beginners to learn while maintaining a high level of competition for veteran players.
One of Soldier Front 2’s defining characteristics is the sheer amount of variety in gameplay, progression, and customization. A large amount of team combat modes, including a unique MOBA-style scenario, provide many options for players to mix up their experiences between matches. There is also an intense co-op mode pitting players against waves of encroaching aliens.

“Aeria is always looking to expand its player base with the best free-to-play games on the market, and Soldier Front 2 is a prime example of that,” said Tom Nichols, Director of Publishing, Aeria Games. “This is an exceptional first-person shooter for new and experienced players alike, and sets a very high standard for graphical quality and competitive gameplay in the MMOFPS genre.”
An achievement system is built into the game for the players who love completing optional objectives to rack up achievement points. In addition, weapons and gear can be customized as players progress further in the game to alter their appearance, allowing players to further distinguish themselves on the battlefield.
Soldier Front 2 will be free to download, and like all Aeria Games titles, will be free-to-play. Players can sign up for closed beta now at http://soldierfront2.aeriagames.com. Stay on top of game updates and exclusive events on Soldier Front 2’s Facebook page.
S.K.I.L.L. – Special Force 2
S.K.I.L.L. – Special Force 2 (formerly known as Soldier Front 2) seeks to build on its predecessor, Soldier Front, offering amazing graphics, a diversity of combat modes, realism, and an improved learning curve. Suit up and head out to war in competitive and cooperative scenarios, customize weapons, and earn achievements to prove your stuff on the battlefield.
Features
Gameplay Variety: A large variety of team combat modes, including a MOBA-style scenario, plus co-op modes await.
Achievements: An extensive achievement system lets players earn achievement points through completing optional objectives.
Extensive Gear Customization: Weapons and gear can be customized as players progress, to alter their appearance on the battlefield.
Shores of Hazeron  The Future of Gaming, Today
Shores of Hazeron – The Future of Gaming, Today
By Jordan Hall (ApocaRUFF), OnRPG Journalist
Shores of Hazeron is an MMO that can be best described as a MMO4x. That is eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate. The game has everything a sci-fi fan could want, everything a civilization creation fan could want and everything a space simulator fan could want. Ok, maybe not everything, but it comes damn near close. Developed by Software Engineering, Inc, the main developer goes by the name Haxus.
Shores of Hazeron has been out for a few years, and I personally have been playing off and on for a year or so. As far as I could find, the game is mostly, if not totally, developed by Haxus. This is the reason that the game is still in an Alpha state and uses very bad graphics and a clunky UI, from my understanding. Despite its status, it offers a ton of features with more promised for the future.
Playing God
Shores of Hazeron begins with you starting your own empire or joining an already existing empire. When you make your own empire, you start by choosing what kind of government it has. This ranges from theocracy, to monarchy, to democracy, to anarchy. The type you choose will determine how people gain office in your empire. You can also choose how people can join your faction, such as by invitation only. You end this part of the empire creation by choosing a name and uploading a flag.
After you have your government set up, you get taken to the species creation screen. This is where, much like in Spore, you design your own species. This can range from a griffon that can fly, to a tiny frog man that can jump super high, to ants, or just normal humans. You are given a lot of freedom to choose how your race looks and what kinds of things it can do. You can even choose what kind of diet your species has, such as omnivore. This was the part of the game that hooked me.
Once you are done designing your species, you are put on your own randomly generated planet, in your own randomly generated solar system, within the bigger galaxy that is filled with other players. The worlds, the habitable ones at least, are populated with randomly generated monsters. This means you get some horribly terrifying creatures. One of my all-time favorites were the giant scorpion-elephant-butterfly monsters. It just looked disgusting. One neat feature is that the creatures on your world will act like you would expect. Herbivores go around eating planets and carnivores will attack the herbivores and omnivores. And you.
A New Empire, a New Beginning
At this point in the game, you have to build everything manually. Later on, once you have some citizens, they will do all the hard labor for you. For now though, you will need to take out your knife, kill your tutorial guide and butcher his carcass to make yourself a flag to start your first city. After listening to what he has to say first, of course (not). From there, you will need to build and design your city from scratch. Things such as farms for food, roads for transportation, apartments for housing, machine shops for machining parts, or a cantina to entertain your citizens.
Some things will require other things to be made before they can in turn be made, due to part requirements. An example of this is producing plastic, which itself is just a building block for more advanced stuff. To make plastic you will need to find a spawn of oil and put a well on it. Then you will need to find a spawn of ore and put a mine on it. Then you would need to make a smelter to turn that ore in to metal. From there you would need a machine shop to turn the metal into shovels. Once you have shovels, you can now actually use your well to get the oil from the spawn. Once you get the oil, you then would need a refinery to turn it into petrochemicals. And then finally you can use a plastics factory to turn the petrochemicals into plastic.
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Launching Yourself into the Space Age
Eventually, you will get your first rocket made and will be able to launch in to space and set up a moon colony that will allow you to gain access to the resources you need for more advanced stardrives, and therefore better ships and even worm hole travel. This is when the game really begins to shine. It goes from a city builder into an empire builder. You will begin maintaining colonies, worlds, systems and even sectors of space.
I will go ahead and say this now, the graphics in Shores of Hazeron are bad. Haxus has not worried about them and I do not know when, or even if, he plans to. The models of creatures, NPCs and players are poor and the textures are not very detailed. There is no collision except when it comes to space ships. The plus side to this is that the game is not very resource intensive. But I have got to say, the solar bodies look stunning in the night sky.
One of my favorite things in the game is the ship designing. You design your space ships from scratch using the out-of-game and in-game design studios. You are limited to using squares and triangles, but this is more than enough for people to create some amazing ships. From giant sail boats, to your favorite Star Trek ship. Personally, in the past I’ve designed a ship themed after a ship from Stargate SG-1.
Combat and Commanding a Ship
Like most games, Shores of Hazeron has combat. The means for this are wide in variety. From melee weapons with crude leather armor to modern firearms with advanced super armors. You can build a missile base, or a laser tower to protect your towns from any threats from above. You can take to the skies in your fighter and take down an enemy, or command your own star ship and do battle in space. You could completely avoid it all together and just order your crew and soldiers to do it all for you from safety. You are given a lot of choices.
What I was most interested in, and what I assume others would be, is the space ship piloting and commanding. Ships, just like in the TV shows and movies, have multiple stations that need to be filled. From gunners, to engineers, to navigation officers and pilots. There are a lot of roles to fill. You can either fill these roles with friends, and work together to navigate the stars and fight your enemies, or you can fill them with NPCs if you lack friends. Also, unlike in TV, the game uses realistic Newtonian physics.
Piloting a ship with friends is fun, but one ship can’t do much. Thankfully, you can completely fill ships with NPC crews and give them orders via the comm. This means you and your friends could be in one ship together and have a group of NPC ships supporting you, or you can have your friends commanding their own ships. Heck, you could just let NPCs control every ship if you like and not worry about taking a step off the ground. Also, remember, these are all ships that you or other players designed.
Combat isn’t the only thing you can do with ships, either. You can build cargo ships for trade, or sensor ships to find resource-rich planets. As you advance through the technology levels, you will gain access to more and more ship technology, such as teleporters, shields and med bays. Eventually, you will gain access to warp drives. As you progress further, so does the effectiveness of your technology. You will need to find higher quality resources to be able to produce the higher technology levels.
I would also like to state that Shores of Hazeron has mostly seamless space-to-atmosphere flight. What I mean by mostly is that sometimes you will get a 2 second lag spike when you get close enough to a planet for it to load all the stuff on it. Otherwise, you can just fly right in, as long as you make sure you aren’t going so fast that you will burn up in the atmosphere. I think this is a feature that a lot of people will like; I know I loved it.
Conclusion
Shores of Hazeron offers you a lot. It has a lot of promise and a lot of planned features to be added in the future. Of course, being developed by an extremely small team and being in an alpha state, the game can be buggy and the graphics are horrid. If you love civilization and empire building games, along with sci-fi and space simulators, you will most likely be able to see past the bad graphics and be able to gaze into the beauty of all the potential the game offers. If you want a new kind of gaming experience, I suggest you check out Shores of Hazeron. It is currently completely free and it has a small download.
UPDATE
Since the posting of this article, Shores of Hazeron has gone through a slight graphics enhancement. This only effects the planets, and the city planning, but the change it provides is phenomenal. The terrain looks so much better that it’s something you can only see to understand. Of course, this is just a change to the planets themselves, everything else – textures and models – are still the same as it was previously. Haxus, the owner and developer of Shores of Hazeron, has been adding a lot to the game lately and this is just a scratch on the surface.
Also, please follow this tutorial PDF if you find that you are lost and confused. It is very detailed and is easy to follow.
Shores of Hazeron
Shores of Hazeron is an MMO that can be best described as a MMO4x. That is eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate. The game has everything a sci-fi fan could want, everything a civilization creation fan could want and everything a space simulator fan could want. Developed by Software Engineering, Inc, the main developer goes by the name Haxus.
Features
Build Your World: From your government style to your flag to your townships, customize everything about how your empire runs.
Build your species: Experience ultimate freedom as you piece together your alien race as you choose.
Explore the Universe: No invisible walls here! Visit other players worlds, interact, recruit crewmates, and more as your starfleet goes where no MMO has gone before!
OnRPG Shotgun News 3/19: Neverwinter, Runes of Magic, SOE, and More!
OnRPG Shotgun News 3/19: Neverwinter, Runes of Magic, SOE, and More!
By Shannon Doyle (Leliah), OnRPG Elder Scribe
Neverwinter Closed Beta Weekend
The final closed beta weekend for Neverwinter is nearly here. This weekend players taking part can expect to see Neverwinter’s PvP system and two new zones. In addition the level cap will be raised to 50 and the Great Weapon Fighter class will be available. Have a look at the new montage video for the Trickster Rogue.
Canadian Videogame Awards Announces Finalists
The Canadian Videogames awards has announced the nominations for 2013. It includes a whole lot of nominations for Assassin’s Creed III and Far Cry 3. The ones we’re really interested in are the nominations for The Secret World and MechWarrior Online. The Secret World is up for Best Social/Casual game while MechWarrior Online is up for Best Technology, and Best Downloadable Game. The awards will be held on April 20th at Fan Expo Vancouver.
Runes of Magic Celebrates 4th Birthday
Runes of Magic is celebrating it’s fourth birthday this week in a big way! From the 19th to the 26th players can look forward to bonuses in XP/TP and drop rates. There will be event quests to take part in and community events galore. Have a look at the official website for all the details of the events taking place.
SOE Forum Change Incoming
Anyone who goes on the forums of an SOE game may have noticed that the forums are slowly, one by one changing. Now a big change is coming as they switch to completely new forums. Players will have to register for new names. But if someone steals your name you’ll have two weeks to get it back just by emailing the forum admin.
Kings and Legends Ascends with a Major Update
Kings and Legends Ascends with a Major Update
Kings and Legends, the unique card-based, free2play browser title, today announced it will launch a major new content update coming later this month. The action-packed tactical trading card game which pits players against each other and the invaders of Silver Heron Ridge will unveil the new Ascension update, complete with a variety of improvements and updates including new booster packs, an all-new reward system, and character mounts!
“We have so many exciting things coming up for our players, and we know that this announcement will set our forums abuzz with talk about the sought after cards that are coming soon!” said Ronja Niklasson, Game Director on Kings and Legends. “If you haven’t already jumped into the fast-paced action, it is a perfect time to join so you can be part of the fray when the amazing new update hits.”
The card-battling game will kick the action up a notch with one of the new features being an all-new PvE Mode known as the Ascension Tower, where users have 7 days to advance to the highest level possible through dynamic and changing scenarios and secure awesome rewards every week. What’s more, the update will introduce many new Human and Elf cards, as well as new booster packs. These new cards will feature entirely new abilities adding a new tactical advantage and challenge to the game. Players can get a sneak peak at these exciting new cards on the Kings and Legends Facebook page and forum in the lead up to the launch so all players should be on the look out!
Players should also stay tuned for the details on upcoming tournaments in April. Multiple tournaments will take place every day and feature fabulous prizes for both guilds and individual players!
OnRPG Shotgun News 3/18: Origins of Malu, FireFall, Priston Tale 2, and GW2
OnRPG Shotgun News 3/18: Origins of Malu, FireFall, Priston Tale 2, and GW2
By Shannon Doyle (Leliah), OnRPG Elder Scribe
GW2 Deal of the Day 3/18: Transmutation Stones
Firefall Gets a New Progression System
The end of this week will see a new progression system for Firefall, and now there’s a dev blog which explains all the troubles that came with the last progression system, how they’re fixing it and a bit more in between. The biggest changes to come are a new flatter access to battleframes. Each frame will have it’s own progression tree and you’ll be able to level each uniquely.
Origins of Malu Player Housing
A new video has emerged on Youtube from early beta Origins of Malu. It shows how player housing is constructed. The UI is almost certainly going to change, but the almost 9 minute long video gives players an idea of what it will be like.
Priston Tale 2 Shutting Down
After nearly three years of service it has been announced that Priston Tale 2 would be shutting down on March 25. The official notice says that they were unable to maintain a large enough audience to sustain itself. Players are encouraged to make the move over to The Aurora World. All GK currency will be transferred, players will be able to link their accounts to get GK and other rewards, players with level 50 characters in PT2 will receive a special gift, and finally clan leaders will be able to reserve clan names in The Aurora World.
Victory: Age of Racing – A Race Against Time
Victory: Age of Racing – A Race Against Time
Written by Remko Molenaar (Proxzor) OnRPG Journalist
Racing games aren’t wildly popular among the many gamers on all platforms. Victory: Age of Racing takes a stab at capturing the small group that bleeds adrenaline and needs their racing fix from time to time. Fans of the Formule One series are especially likely to be pulled in. Me as an average viewer of the Formule One, and a big fan of cars, I can proudly say that I have almost played any racing game ever released, and I wasn’t about to miss my chance to try Victory. And the fact that this game even has an intriguing backstory made it impossible to resist.
From the moment that you start up the game, you are immediately thrown into the immense story that I personally like a lot. The world has changed, the people agreed to make things more automated and thus there was no need for cars anymore. People simply let them drive by computer controlled cars, but in the shadows, the big fans of racing and the always fanatic drivers have been aching to get something going. You are one of them, and when illegal racing in the underworld is finally introduced again, you are ready to build up your first vehicle to participate in these races.
Unlike many other race games, Victory: Age of Racing goes more in–depth, and when you first start off you are given the job to build up your first racing car. With having only a rookie license available to you, you are given the model of a car that reminds me of the really early race cars of the Formule One. I cannot really remember the name of the type of car, and I feel ashamed as an average Formule One viewer, but let’s just call it the hotdog with wheels; anyone will know what I speak of with that. Unfortunately the choices are very limited when choosing the parts for your first riding hotdog. There is only a select few available unless you feel like spending real money on the premium parts. When you are done with the parts, you can also give your new ride some awesome decals and paint. Unfortunately the choices are yet again very limited and you are only given the choice between a select few. When I was done with the paint, it was time to head on out and give it a test ride. Now before you do that, I would advise you to head into the options menu since there are many options that you can turn on and off which are heavily dependent of your racing style. There is also a driver assistance option, but since I have faith in my own set driving skills, I turned them off without even thinking about the benefits.
Unfortunately, going for a test ride was harder than I expected. You see, there are actually three types of ways that you can join a race. The first one is the Matchmaking option, that tries to match you with people around your own level so you are given a fair battle. Unfortunately though, everytime I tried to play the game, I have almost seen no one online and it took me quite a while to get a game going. Another option is the Game Lobby, and so far I have only seen empty ones so I didn’t really get to try those at all. And the last one is the Events option, this one sounds like a lot of fun, but I haven’t seen anyone actually participating in those, even though they give special bonuses, and they actually let you compete with 99 other players which is a lot of fun for any competitive racer. Unfortunately, if you are alone in your session, you cannot give your car a spin on your own, there always has to be someone in your lobby to battle it up against and with the current population it makes it quite a hassle. Luckily there is also the single player option which lets you do hot lap challenges to beat the time of yourself and other players.
When I had finally managed to get myself into a game, I can’t say I really liked the graphics at all. When you start up the game, you are shown a fancy trailer that looks quite good, and when you feast your eyes on the menus for the first time, you simply expect the trailer level of graphics to be there, but instead they are quite simple and basic. The game itself is absolutely not bad looking at all, but the game is very plain, and there is just this empty atmosphere in the environment that doesn’t do it any favors. Toggling the numerous graphics options in the menu didn’t seem to help in a noticeable way.
The gameplay on the other hand, really takes a while to master, and even then you will make a lot of mistakes on the different tracks that you encounter. Every corner can be taken different, either with more speed, or with the use of the hand brake. You’ll constantly find yourself micromanaging every action to cut corners and save time. When I finally got the grips of the game, I tried to beat the world record on some of the tracks, and I must say that these were quite hard to get even close to. Doing your lap perfectly without going off the track is quite hard, but trying to go as fast as possible to beat one of the records seems nearly impossible to do, especially with only a rookie vehicle.
Conclusion
While it might look great on the outside, don’t let your expectations get too high or you’ll end up disappointed. My expectations might have been too high for a MMORacingGame, but I didn’t find the game interesting at all due to the plain and boring looking race tracks and graphics. And the amount of people playing the game isn’t helping and adding to the game either. If you are a big fan of racing games, and like a high learning curve towards getting around the track perfectly, then Victory Age of Racing is definitely a worthy game of your needs. Just don’t expect to be riding around a Valhalla of beautiful tracks.
Vindictus March Update
Vindictus offers an update of March events and a look at Kai’s new weapon.


















