Yearly Archives: 2007

ACCLAIMED COMPOSER KEVIN RIEPL SCORES WEBZENÂ’S MMOFPS HUXLEY

SEOUL, South Korea and LOS ANGELES – Oct. 2, 2007 – Huxley, the highly anticipated twitch-action massively multiplayer online first-person shooting (MMOFPS) game, now has a dramatic orchestral soundtrack to compliment the game’s creative and immersive post-apocalyptic storyline and intense game play.  Global online entertainment company Webzen, Inc. (NASDAQ: WZEN) announced today that acclaimed composer Kevin Riepl has scored the soundtrack for the upcoming sci-fi adventure.

A renowned musical composer for multiple entertainment genres, Riepl’s previous videogame credits include the commercial blockbuster Gears of War, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game City of Villains and the first-person shooters Unreal Championship 2 and Unreal Tournament 2004, among many others.

“I am really proud to have the opportunity to work on Huxley, an awesome game with a lot of different themes and influences that required a gripping soundtrack,” said Riepl.  “The music will bring players closer to the game in every aspect of Huxley – from the large and relatively peaceful cities to the immersive player-versus environment quests and the intense player-versus-player massive battles.”

The Huxley score, composed by Riepl, was recorded by the 80-piece Hollywood Studio Symphony at Warner Bros. Studios over a two-day period.  The game’s soundtrack features 25 tracks, each unique to the style and feel of various maps, battles and even the game’s two distinct cities where players will congregate, socialize, trade items and prepare before entering Huxley’s epic battles.

“We can now add immersive and dramatic music to the creative multi-cultural art style, compelling Unreal Engine 3.0 graphics and unique game design as some of the many ways that Huxley is sure to resonate with players,” said Kijong “KJ” Kang, producer, Webzen, Inc. “Kevin captured the exact musical feel we wanted Huxley players to experience while unfolding the epic story and engaging in the game’s fierce battles.”

Produced by Webzen’s H-Studio, Huxley is the first massively multiplayer online (MMO) game to combine the twitch-based fast-action gameplay of a first person shooter (FPS) with the cerebral character development of an MMO to deliver an intense and exciting online entertainment experience of a complete MMOFPS.  Players will be drawn into the genre-bending game play, riveting cinematic graphics and intricate setting of Huxley, where they will choose between two races, Sapiens or Alternatives and struggle to obtain a powerful energy source while fighting endless battles against the Hybrids, a mysterious third group born of the two races.

Currently in development for gamers across multiple global markets, Huxley is in closed beta testing in Korea.  The game is slated for release in North America in 2008.  For more information, please check out http://www.webzengames.com/huxley.

For more information on Kevin Riepl Music: http://kevinriepl.com.

Everquest 2 Full Review

Recently, Sony Online Entertainment was kind enough to set me up with a copy of EverQuest 2: Echoes of Faydwer.  Not only does this contain the latest expansion, but the boxed copy of this and their upcoming expansion contain all the prior expansions as well as the original edition of the game.  This is great because it means that new players can just jump right in without being concerned about picking up a whole bunch of expansions.  For most games I write about at Onrpg.com I spend about 40 hours in game before penning a review.  Currently, I have logged in over 300 hours on EQ2 and still have not experienced everything this game has to offer.  As such, I apologize to all of our readers for such a delay in getting a review done but I wanted to be as fair and thorough as possible.  This also causes a dilemma as the new expansion launches in November, but the wait will be well worth it.

The first thing I need to comment on is the sheer variety of play styles SOE has given players of EverQuest 2.  As of right now, there are 14 races and a whopping 24 classes to play. Your choice of race will determine which classes you have access to…but not in a bad way.  There are an almost even number of good, neutral and evil races to choose from, and most of the classes are neutral by nature.  Any class that is alignment restricted has a counterpart.  Necromancers are countered by Conjurers, Shadowknights by Paladins, Coercers by Illusionists, etc.  There are differences between these classes, but neither could be classified as “better” than its counterpart.  If you really want to be able to play an evil race with a good class there is a series of quests in the game that will allow you to betray your city and join the other.  On top of all this, none of the classes feels like a duplicate of another and they all have their strong points that they bring to a group.  Make no mistake, while you CAN solo your way to the maximum level, you will find that a group is much safer and efficient.  On top of the number of races and classes available, there are nine different crafting professions to choose from, 11 if you count the two sub-professions that Echoes of Faydwer added.  While the best endgame gear is not crafted, some of the best gear for leveling comes from crafters, but more on that later.

Once in game, the graphics will straight up blow anyone away.  They are without a doubt the best in any MMORPG to date and still beat out most of the titles being launched in the near future.  Even the wings on the monsters AND on the players that have them flutter.  If you have a high-end machine that can crank out the very high or ultimate settings, prepare to have your breath taken away.  Some may question the art direction for the game, but I personally feel that the art fits the world and conveys the story they are trying to tell so I have no problems with it.  Spells and combat arts (their term for skills) all have wonderful particle effects that really helped me feel like I was in the world for the first time ever in a video game.  The environments are all very well done and one of the most rewarding experiences is flying on a griffon in the areas that have them and just looking at the scenery and mobs below.  There is little doubt in my mind that they intend on tweaking the graphical engine more as expansions come out to incorporate even more as our machines catch up to their capabilities.

The sound in EverQuest 2 more than fit the bill.  Everything has a unique noise it makes, even weapons.  Even your character can change the way they sound by choosing from three different voices.  Never did it feel like any sound effects or music were out of place and in times served to get me even more absorbed into the world that they have laid out.  My primary character was a Shadowknight, and as such I could hear when I blocked something with my shield or when I slashed and connected with my sword.  Not enough games put the attention that is needed on sound for if they did, they would have succeeded much like SOE did with EQ2.

Unlike many online games, EverQuest 2 has a pretty damn good community.  No matter how hard a company tries, there will always be a percentage of jerks around.  Thankfully, the community takes care of these people themselves and they do not become a major problem or distraction.  Other than the typical channels that pretty much every MMORPG has, there are also a lot of unexpected ones that really do a good job at directing people to certain places for what they desire.  Looking for a group?  Check the channel that fits your level as they go up by 10s (1-9, 10-19, 20-29, etc.).  Need something crafted, or have questions about crafting?  Depending on your alignment you can join Good_Crafting or Evil_Crafting.  There are even channels for your specific class as well to ask questions or discuss your abilities with.  All this is in a quick and easy to use chat options menu.  If you are looking for a PvP community, servers exist for that and the same goes for role playing.  This helps keep the community on all servers fairly constant.

What really impressed me was the gameplay.  As I stated earlier, there are just a ridiculous amount of ways to play EQ2, and that is furthered by the addition of Alternate Advancement points that can be used to add more skills to your disposal.  The crafting used to be overly difficult, but they have made it a bit simpler and a lot more rewarding.  One can go around the lands, gather materials and every now and then come across a rare resource which is used in crafting very powerful armors and weapons, or used to create very powerful spell books and combat art potions (do not ask me why fighters learn skills from potions) to bolster the strength of the user.  With the latest expansion, players can also create adornments to add additional bonuses to their gear, making them even more powerful than they were.  They could also choose to instead create little mechanical devices that serve a variety of purposes, including assisting in combat.  One great part of the game is the mixture of instances for a single group or for raid groups (of up to 24 people), and contested areas that players have to compete against others for the rights to fight named (boss) mobs.  This helps to ensure that the endgame is never boring.  It was by far the most refreshing experience I have had yet with any MMORPG.

One of the only issues that I had with EverQuest 2 is performance.  Unless you have a really powerful machine, you cannot run the game on high graphics settings.  To give you an idea of how much of a resource hog the game is, I run an Athlon 64 x2 5200+, 2 gigs of RAM and a Radeon x1950 Pro 512mb card and I can only run the game on “very high” at around 25 frames per second when soloing or in a group.  When I go and raid, I have to drop the game to the lowest settings unless I want the game to grind to a halt.  This is no doubt due to the highly advanced graphics engine they created for the game two years ago and continues to hold up well.  Minimal problem, as EverQuest 2 is directed at the crowd that is most likely to have advanced machines, but a bit troublesome for those who are not as fortunate.

All in all, I have nothing but the highest praise for this game.  Having played at least 200 MMORPGs over the last 8 years, and this is by far the best game I have played EVER.  Sure, there are some tweaks they could make here and there to truly make it a perfect game, but nothing that is damaging to any of the important aspects of the game.  While you have to buy the game, and expansions, and then pay a monthly fee on top of it all, it is the only game at this time that I can say is worth your hard earned money.

Tabula Rasa Character Cloning System Feature Available

Tabula Rasa Character Cloning System Feature Available

"I think we have all had that moment when you are so busy you just wish you could clone yourself.  I know as we get closer to launch, a few clones of the development team would be a welcome addition.  But that’s not the kind of cloning I want to talk about.  Though the Medic class can create a temporary clone to fight alongside them, the actual Character Cloning System™ in Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa is a bit different.  It is a way for players to save their progress with a character so they can try new classes and new builds without having to start over.” – Paul Sage, Lead Designer.

We have included a feature article created by Paul Sage, the lead designer on Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa that highlights the Character Cloning System. Included with the article are three hi-res screenshots that help illustrate the cloning system as well as seven more new screenshots of the game. To download this material, please visit NCsoft’s large media FTP site, and navigate to the Tabula Rasa folder and you will find the feature in a folder called "Tabula Rasa / Cloning Feature Sept 27 07." 

The Tabula Rasa Character Cloning System feature contains the following:

    • 3 high-res screenshots that highlight the character cloning system
    • 7 high-res Tabula Rasa screenshots
    • 1 article describing character cloning system featured in Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa

Twelve Sky Load Test this Saturday – Prizes for Lucky Participants!

This Sunday Aeria Games will be conducting a large stress test of the Twelve Sky beta server. For this large event we would like to invite as many players to participate as possible!

 

To participate, players are encouraged to do the following:

1. Create an account at Aeria Games
http://www.aeriagames.com

2. Download the Twelve Sky beta client
http://12-sky.aeriagames.com/

 

The stress test will take place on Sunday, September 29 from 12-3 PM PST.
Prizes will be awarded to a few lucky participants. They will include…

 

Top Prize:
$75 gift certificate for Best Buy
2000 Aeria Points (AP)
Twelve Sky Poster

Two Other Winners Will Each Receive:
1000 Aeria Points (AP)
Twelve Sky Poster

Shadow of Legend Version 0.3.0.0 Released

Irvine, CA. September 23, 2007. Mobile applications developer, SmartCell Technology, announced today its release of Shadow of Legend: Darkness of Underworld version 0.3.0.0, the second major update since the game went into closed beta back in April. This highly anticipated release introduces significant improvements made from the previous versions, making it an immediate overnight success. The day after version 0.3.0.0’s release, hundreds of new members signed up to play the game, many giving it warm commendations for the improvements.

Shadow of legend is the world’s first High-Performance, Cross-platform MMORPG targeting mobile devices and PCs. SOL is the next generation in online gaming, and it features:

• Seamlessly shared MMORPG experience on PDAs, Smartphones, and PCs
• Multiple races, classes, and professions across a vast virtual fantasy world
• A beautiful and rich environment coupled with an engrossing storyline
• Adventure, quest, mount, trade, auction, banking, crafting
• Live chat, grouping, and guild activities
• Free to download and free to play

Unlike current mobile games on the market, Shadow of Legend is a ground-breaking innovation for the mobile gaming industry that offers complex game play, quality graphics, and the flexibility of playing anytime, anywhere. This is made possible by the company’s propriety mobile platform technology – HCM Technology, shorthand for High-performance, Cross-platform Mobile Technology.

Since the beta release in April, Shadow of Legend has embraced incredible enthusiasm and support from players all around the world. Valuable feedback is pouring in, forum discussions are upbeat, and the contests are highly competitive. The latest version, version 0.3.1.0 boasts 17 maps, 300 quests, 4 races, 4 classes, and 10 professions. Many more features are being planned on the horizon. Gamers are welcome to join the SOL community at: http://www.shadowoflegend.com/web1/web/bbs/topic.aspx?topic_id=595, where they can learn more about how they can start playing Shadow of Legend.

About SmartCell Technology, LLC

SmartCell Technology, LLC, headquartered in Irvine, CA, with a research and development center in Shanghai, China, is a leading developer of mobile platform technology, mobile applications, and mobile online gaming solutions. More information about SmartCell Technology, LLC and its products can be found at http://www.smartcell.com. More information about Shadow of Legend can be found at http://www.shadowoflegend.com.

Tales of Pirates Spring Town Chapter

Grab FREE iPod Touch to click here (http://top.igg.com/triple) and paste the code (onrpgcom). Spring Town Chapter is one of the new expansions of Tales of Pirates (http://top.igg.com). In this new chapter, many new contents could be enjoyed by players, including the new islands, new mazes, new storylines, and above all, the splendid ToP Chinatown!

Here in this well-designed chapter, players could find:
1. Three complete new lands – Spring Island, Summer Island and Autumn Island.
2. A new City – the Chinese architecture-styled Spring Town.
3. Over a dozen NPCs with strong eastern-flavored appearance.
4. Lots of new monsters, and among them, the most conspicuous is the ferocious Black Dragon.
5. New mazes and new cool items – brave pirates could obtain top-level weapons or armors by defeating the monsters in the mazes.
6. And also, lots of new story quests are waiting for the pirates to accomplish!

You could head over to the website at http://top.igg.com for more details on the interesting contents.

Unusual Angle Review of Voyage Century

Grab free iPod Touch, keep eyes on Triple Surprise event (http://top.igg.com/triple).Voyage Century Online. What are the unusual features of this MMORPG? What we think of VCO first may be its ornate, aesthetic, and 3D graphics. And more gamers may pay close attention to its marine trade, spells, naval battles, battlegrounds, flagships, boss grade monsters, gears, etc.

However, if we attempt to look over VCO from a sideward or hidden angle, we may find some indiscoverable unusual features of VCO.

High-key guild battles
Guild war is not scarce in online games. However the form of guild contest for hegemony in VCO is quite rarely seen. There ever broke out a large-scale battle that affected the whole server in almost every server of VCO, which lead to the hegemony of a strong guild and then the stable situation of the server.

The situation is quite particular, but it is able to stimulate all the guilds’ battling enthusiasm to the peak. However, it is very difficult to win other player’s recognition in VCO. It is time to make mental preparations for the guild hegemony in VCO if you want to challenge the peak of VCO.

Pirate group is very popular
Pirates are always very popular in VCO, especially after the <Pirates of the Caribbean> came up. The player can choose to be a Pirate in any phase of the adventure in VCO. And a higher-level Pirate would be stronger. Besides, the one-day earning obtained by using the Pirate’s unique ability–Disposal of Stolen Goods 4 may even be on a par with the richest trade caravan.
What’s more, Pirates possess a unique class feature–blackmail. Pirates possess the privilege to blackmail the non-pirate players on open sea. Surely, the non-pirate player has the right to refuse the Pirate’s blackmail. But it usually leads to a fierce fight. The Pirates will never feel tiresome to blackmail other players. After all, if a Pirate does not rob, can he be called Pirate? That’s why the new comers of VCO always pay close attention to the matters concerned about acting as a Pirate.
For more about VCO, please visit the official site: http://vc.igg.com.

Zu Online: Top 5 Male Preview

IGG reveals the description and shots of the top five male NPCs in their upcoming MMORPG – Zu Online (http://zu.igg.com).

1. Flight Guardian
He resides in North Temple, looks quite young, and holds the Staff of Dragon.

2. Guardian Monk
He resides in Desert City, is very strong, and holds a huge vajra. There is a magic wheel on his back.

3. Qingyan
He resides in Holy City, wears a hat and cyan robe, and looks handsome.

4. Tianyu Hound Herder
He resides in Northern Ice Field, usually wears hide, and holds a lash. He is good at animal language.

5. Snow Anchoret
He resides in Northern Ice Field wearing coir raincoat with snow. He often rides on the Tibetan Antelope. There is a big flag on his back.

For more information please visit http://zu.igg.com/news/newscon.php?aid=158