Yearly Archives: 2008

Twelve Sky 2 Classic

Twelve Sky 2 Classic celebrates the return of the fast-paced martial arts MMORPG set in Ancient China! This game focuses on the battle between three clans – with the emergence of a fourth clan – as they battle for supremacy. Players begin by swearing their loyalty to one of the three factions before they are thrown into an age-old war.

The game’s three Factions are:
Noble Dragon – Armed with swords, blades, and marbles, these warriors believe strength lies within balance.
Royal Serpent – With swiftness and grace, this clan fights with katanas, double blades, and lutes.
Grand Tiger – Power is all that matters. These warriors choose to use spears, light blades, and scepters.

Features:

Full on Enhancements: This updated version of Twelve Sky 2 discards old, inefficient features and enhances various PvE/PvP features to keep users excited.

Fair and Balanced: With tight and well-balanced game contents, Twelve Sky 2 Classic is great for both beginners and MMORPG experts.

Improved item system: Item drops and item upgrade chances have been fully reanalyzed to keep the value of items optimized..

Angels Online: Christmas Events Preview

Christmas and the season of giving have finally arrived! IGG wants to give something back to their players for their continued support, so the Angels Online team will be holding plenty of in-game events. Now, the AO team is giving a brief introduction concerning the events details.

Event I: Fortune Block
It’s said that a [Sorcerer] has come to the Angel Lyceum from a distant, mysterious oriental country. He can contact the Gods via two half-moon Fortune Blocks. Many players were fascinated by this and went to inquire about their luck from this Sorcerer. Directed by the Gods, the Sorcerer said that players can obtain various rewards if they bring the [Fortune Blocks] and play a mini game.

Apart from those affluent rewards, all players have a chance to obtain Mystic Tickets which can be used to exchange for various items.

Event II: Exchange for Christmas Dreams
After you have made many wishes for your friends and family, don’t forget to make a wish for yourself when the New Year bell rings. In order to celebrate Christmas and give players something back for their continued support, the GMs in Angels Online would like to help players fulfill three dreams. Hurry and collect all the required items and then you can make your dreams come true!

Event III: Christmas Wishes
How amazing it is to see your skill level and character level rising so fast! But are they all on the up? Christmas is fast approaching and snowflakes are dancing everywhere in the Angel Lyceum. Hurry and make your wishes and you may obtain a Christmas gift from the GMs.

Conquer Online Interview: The Ninja

Questions by Vincent Haoson, Onrpg Writer
Answered by Pan Deng, Chief Designer, TQ Digital

With the year reaching its end, Conquer Online of TQ Digital will serve its final year-end treat for their community, with an inclusion of a new job class: the ninja. To get the scoop with what’s going on in Conquer Online, and more of the new ninja job class, Onrpg got a chance to talk to Pan Deng, the Chief Designer of TQ Digital.

Onrpg: With the game already in its 5th year, how is Conquer faring now?

TQ: Conquer is still going strong, with a stable and loyal Player base plus newcomers, too. Opening European servers helped a lot. Now we have almost 80 servers with 300,000 active users online daily.

Onrpg: What’s the difference between Conquer Online before 2.0 and now?

TQ: Basically, the difference between Conquer 1.0 and 2.0 is one of complexity and variation. Before, there wasn’t as much variety of weapons, character classes, quests, events, or towns to visit. Now there is much more for a player to do, and thus, it caters to a wider audience.

Onrpg: Can you give us a brief background behind Conquer Online? Of its story and how it is now progressing.

TQ: Conquer doesn’t have an in-depth back-story, as such. The most important game history is made by the players through guild wars, PvP tournaments and each character’s rise to power. The many patches and updates have affected these conflicts, causing revolutions and counter-revolutions to occur, while weeding out the exploiters and game abusers. The New Dynasty expansion is the first time in which storyline, not rule changes, will have an effect on the game experience –we have a new character class, the ninja.

Onrpg: What makes CO different from other MMOs of the same genre?

TQ: The one unique thing about Conquer, and all TQ Digital games, is battle power. It’s an overall rating of how powerful your character is. This can determine whether you win or lose, fight or flee.

Second, we have a huge worldwide community. Players from different parts of the planet can connect to any sever, unlike other large commercialized games which read and restrict IP addresses according to location.

Onrpg: How do you keep the game community happy and vibrant?

TQ: We have regular special events for all the major festivals, both western and traditional Chinese. Through these special events, our players can experience vivid Chinese culture and traditions.

We also hold offline and online competitions, allowing players to use their skills at art, writing, forum scouring, or general knowledge to win in-game items that typically need to be purchased. This lets the non-paying Player base follow close at the tails of the paying players.

Onrpg: How do you keep track of the game’s progress if you have almost 80 servers online? Do you also include player’s support to keep track of it all?

TQ: We have around 30 people ready to chat live with players in several different languages. Moreover, we just released customer service center, where players can manage their account issues and report server problems. To protect players from account hacking, we also provide the itemlock function which enables players to bind precious items and wealth to their characters.

As for keeping track of the game’s progress, we have to constantly release patches and updates to oil the game’s inner gears. We also do server maintenance once or twice a week on each server. Yeah, it’s a big job.

Onrpg: Can you give us a brief explanation of the new ninja class that will be included in CO?

TQ: Conceptually, our ninja is an expert of stealth, inspired by popular Japanese culture such as manga and anime, but not historical accuracy. Relying on agility and reflexes, ninjas frown upon the use of heavy armors. The Ninja is the second of Conquer’s dual-wielding classes, with high attack, low defense stats.
Stylistically, the ninja has been transformed and blended with the colorful Chinese palette of Conquer, to make a stronger impression on our audience.

Onrpg: What reasons did you have for including the ninja class?

TQ: From a game balance point of view, our goal was to add a new physical damage dealer to game’s class roster –one that could go toe-to-toe with the already dominant Trojan class in PvP. Also, the new class needed to be unique, in both skills and strategies. Again, ninjas seemed to fit the build, and were the logical choice.

Onrpg: What kind of skills would players expect from ninjas? Can you give an example of the skill?

TQ: Well, ninjas are going to have lots of assassination-type attacks. Strikes that do massive damage in a split second, or disable enemies, or prevent them from healing themselves. The ninja is going to be a high damage-per-second shocker, but won’t be able to hold up in a fight when outnumbered. They will have extremely poor stamina and health.

As for skills, they will have a number of already documented skills, which fall into two categories: XP Skills, which build up and then are released; Stamina skills, which can be used at any time so long as there is enough stamina.
XP skills include a Shuriken Vortex and Fatal Strike, while stamina skills include a Toxic Cloud attack, Poisoned Star, Flyer’s Bane and Counter-kill. But there are more skills yet to come.

Onrpg: What’s in store for CO in the future?

TQ: The future will see continued support for our players and more attention to details such as new quests new maps & mosters, and more challenging Trans-server PvP and PK tournaments. With a Player base this strong, we are dedicated to listening and helping realize the dreams of our players.

Click here to watch the Conquer Online Ninja Video!

Runes of Magic: pets and mounts introduced!

Frogster reveals information to mounts and pets in Runes of Magic shortly before the start of the open beta.

Mounts not only allow for faster travelling, but they also are a status symbol for every Runes of Magic player. They can be rent for a period of time from merchants for ingame currency. This feature is accessible for players right from character level one. Amongst others permanent mounts for lifetime are available at the item shop.

Due to a large selection of pets, collectors will get their money’s worth in Runes of Magic. Besides goblins, cats and wolves, exotic pets like a small Grim Reaper are following the players at every turn in the vast game world. But the following also is essential: the little companions can only rarely be found in the loot of defeated enemies. Impatient players can use the item-shop, where they can buy pets and mounts for either a trial period or their whole life.

In the future Frogster plans additional features for their pets. Already in development are companions that can assist players in battles, cast beneficial magic spells on players and can even fight in special arenas against each other. Frogster also plans to introduce mounted combat in one of the upcoming patches: players can fight on horseback against monsters, as well as human opponents.

Asheron’s Call Interview

Questions by Vincent Haoson, Onrpg writer
Answered by Dave Javier, Producer for Asheron’s Call

Last August, people at Asheron’s Call celebrated its ground breaking 100th content update of the game. Players got to experience new features in the game such as the PvP land control and the secret societies that enriched the whole AC experience for new and old players alike. We at Onrpg had the chance to talk to Asheron’s Call and got the lowdown on what’s happening with the game 3 months after its 100th content update.

Onrpg: It has been three months since you released your milestone 100th content update, Ancient Powers. How do you feel about reaching this, and how are you dealing with the changes the update caused?

Javier: We felt a great deal of satisfaction at having completed such an ambitious project. We put together the features and content for the 100th Update without expanding the size of our team and while maintaining the monthly content updates that our community expects. We’d been designing and developing all that content for a year beforehand, so it felt like the culmination of a long and often difficult process.

At the same time, we knew that the massive changes we implemented, especially adding an extra level to our highly complex loot system and adding the next tier of magic spells, would be hard to balance even in the most optimal conditions. We expected that some things wouldn’t work quite as expected when it’s out of testing and it gets into the hands of our players, so we knew that there would be a few months of tweaking and balancing to follow. The important thing, we felt, was to show a commitment to incorporating player feedback to make sure that the wide system changes end up where they should be.

Onrpg: What were the things you considered when you thought of the game play changes that were included in Ancient Powers?

Javier: One thing we wanted to do was to do something fun and interesting for the players who have been loyally and passionately supporting this game for eight or nine years. A lot of these players had maxed out in level and were looking for something new to do. We wanted to implement the land control system that we’d been forced to cut from the Throne of Destiny expansion pack in 2005, and we also wanted to expand upon that idea to make sure there was something there for all players, not just players interested in fighting over land. The secret societies and their rank advancement system, along with the treasure and magic upgrades, were part of a comprehensive effort to have something for all play styles.

Onrpg: What was the overall impact to the players after the alterations the 100th content update did to Dereth?

Javier: Players now have a lot of options on how to spend their time in Dereth. The 100th Update changes gave them meaningful hunting options: seeking keys and shards to get access to our new high-level chests, questing to advance in rank within their societies, hunting and trading for the supplies to craft the new tier of spell scrolls, or fighting each other for control of the black markets.

Onrpg: What are your plans for the Black Market in the succeeding updates? Will you include more unique items to be sold?

Javier: The Black Markets are part of a larger effort we’ve been making to add alternate currency mechanics to the game. A year before the 100th Update, we experimented by adding a new mechanic to our very popular Colosseum dungeon (where player groups can take on successively stronger waves of creatures to see how long they can hold out) by rewarding players with coins, spendable for special Colosseum-only prizes. We added a similar token trade-in mechanic to our high-level hunting ground in the Empyrean Graveyard, which has also been very popular with our players, and to the Olthoi-overrun hunting area in the northwest of Dereth.

The Black Markets don’t quite function the same way with an alternate currency, but the concept of exclusive rewards is similar. We’re committed, long-term, to continuing to develop more unique items for the Black Markets and all the alternate currency vendors in Asheron’s Call.

Onrpg: Will the actions taken by societies be important in the story arc in the succeeding updates of Asheron’s Call?

Javier: While server divergence (maintaining different content across our nine server worlds) limits the ways in which societies can affect our ongoing storyline, we do have very meaningful plans for our secret societies. The Societies will prominently feature in our plotlines and fiction as motivating factors, and we plan to give players ways to publicly earn glory for their society in-game. After several storylines that hinged on conflicts between the kingdoms of humans on Dereth, we expect the secret societies to be the prime political factors in the Asheron’s Call storyline for a while.

Onrpg: With content updates reaching the hundreds, is it possible that new players would find it hard to take part in the whole Asheron’s Call experience, and what steps has Turbine taken in taking new players into account?

Javier: It’s true that the vast amount of content that we’ve added over the last nine years of content development can be a bit daunting to a first-time player. To a certain extent, we rely on one of our most enduring and beloved features, our allegiance system, to serve as a resource for new players. No other game in the MMO genre has such a robust system connecting chains of patrons to vassals, and our older players are incentivized to take new players under their wing and show them around the world.

That being said, we recognize that we as developers should do our own part to help new players navigate the rich and intricate content available to them in Asheron’s Call, so we have a set of features planned for the upcoming year to address this concern. Unfortunately that is as specific as we can get at this point.

Onrpg: What’s your response to some players who say that Ancient Powers lacked any new materials for characters who are level 180 and below, that the new content update only caters to those who are long time players and that it could serve as a problem for newbies?

Javier: The easy response is that we have over nine years of content in the game already for new players and players below level 180. We recognized with the 100th Update that our highest-level players needed some new and interesting things to do, because a lot of them have been around for six or seven years or more, so it made a certain amount of thematic sense to target the 100th Update at people who’ve been there and steadily advancing their characters through the previous 99 updates.

But even though the 100th Update was focused on high-level players, we never forgot newer and lower-level players. Over the last few years, we have made a regular policy of revisiting older and lower-level dungeons and quests to make them more interesting and more rewarding to the players they were intended for. There’s a certain amount of “loot inflation” that is inevitable with almost any MMO, and some of the dungeons and quests that were developed for retail or during the first few years of content development had fallen behind in terms of loot, challenge, and compelling experience. So we’ve been steadily upgrading those for the benefit of new and low-level players.

Onrpg: What’s in store for Asheron’s Call in the future?

Javier: Somewhat related to the previous question, we recognize that the 100th Update was primarily of interest to high-level players. While we felt that that was the smartest thing to do with our resources for that year, we realize that it can’t all be about the high-level players, and you can expect the next year to bring updates and features that players of all levels will benefit from and enjoy.

While we must again avoid commentary on specific features, you can expect the Asheron’s Call team in 2009 to address the needs and interests of low-level and new players. And, of course, we’ll continue with our regular updates and the episodic content that continues to set the industry standard for storytelling and rich world-building.

Dragonica Europe

Dragonica is the first 3D side-scrolling MMORPG! Set in the realm of magic and dragons, our story begins in a great war which ended the harmonious living of all creatures in Dragotaka. The conflict separated them into two sides; The Nobles, led by the Dragon Lord and the Minions, led by the Dark Lord, Elga.

Over the years, the Nobles managed to restore balance and peace by defeating the Minions. However, Elga discovered the power of sorcery and summoned all kinds of monsters which helped her invade half of the world. The Dragon Lord now calls upon brave heroes to train and become elite warriors. Together, you aim to end Elga’s evildoing once and for all.

Game Features
Supported by a full 3D system, Dragonica provides more diverse and dynamic action by having maps with the Depth and Turn concept. Players cannot only move sideways but can move up and down as well.

Combat System
Try and mix up your attack combination to see which will end up perfect with the humorous skills available. Chain consecutive hits also give you additional experience which is very critical to steady leveling.

Pet System
Dragonica offers cute and adorable pets that not only assist you in battle but can also be used as a transport. Pets evolve through time and show various facial expressions.

Conquer Online: second guild war

Attention players,
The 2nd Super Guild War is coming. In the gallant Super Guild War, you will stand side-by-side with your guild-mates to confront the challenge from other opponent guilds, fighting for glory and the spoils of war!

Duration: Dec. 13th, 2008 – Jan. 11th, 2009

The Super Guild War contest consists of five guild wars, one in each week. Each time the guild win a guild war, the guild leader will gain a Lord Token. The leader will be awarded a variety of special prizes and CPs depending on how many Lord Tokens you receive!

1 Lord Token = A bronze prize and 3000 CPs
2 Lord Tokens = A silver prize and 6000 CPs
3 Lord Tokens = A gold prize and 20000 CPs
The bronze, silver and gold prizes are equippable talismans. (untradable)

A bronze prize: +HP 900, +MP 900
A silver prize: +HP 1200, +MP 1200
A gold prize: +HP 1500, +MP 1500, +Physical Attack 1000, +Magic Attack 1000, +Physical Defense 1000

Project Powder Preview: Realistic Snowboarding

Project Powder Preview: Realistic Snowboarding
By Joshua Temblett, Onrpg Journalist
 

Project Powder (PP) is the latest game from the young and successful publisher Outspark, who have already delivered two well received games, Secrets of the Solstice and Fiesta, both of which were MMORPGs. The company is now shifting their attention onto a genre that is not so saturated, the online sport scene. This area of online gaming has been slowly, but surely, growing with a variety of titles, from fantasy football to tennis. PP aims to provide an alternative to going outside, getting out your snowboard and ridding down massive hills, with its “realistic” and captivating approach to the sport of snowboarding.
 

The backdrop to this game is simple, if not a little politically correct. It’s 2146 AD and after the human race’s continuous use of fossil fuels the polar ice caps melt and winter no longer exists. After a century of not seeing snow, winter sports have become a thing of the past and are seen as “myths”. A breakthrough discovery, though, enables the human race to branch out to other planets (particularly snowy ones) and, yes you guessed it, snowboard. Yes, it’s silly, but then again, it offers you something new, right?

 
The storyline also includes a reason for the huge jumps being available to you in the game, saying that because these planets lack gravity, it enables the snowboarder to fly for long periods of time and land safely after jumping from heights of around 300 ft. When you boot up this title you are given a choice of three distinct characters, Max, Ross and Beth. What character you choose doesn’t really matter though, as the only difference between the characters is their appearance. Due to its interesting difference I would like to see the story branch out a bit more and maybe see more of a relationship established between the characters, however since there is no “Story Mode” and these two things are no doubt just being used a premise, there isn’t really much of a point.

 
Graphics

Graphically, Project Powder is definitely something to talk about. Whilst they may not the best graphics ever seen, they definitely hold up a candle to many Free MMO’s as they have style (with a mix of anime and realism) and suit the overall feel of the game. If you have a lower end spec computer though, beware as this game does require some mid range specs to play it properly. The character models are incredibly realistic, you’ll be amazed as your avatar slides around the course just as real snowboarders do; there is nothing cooler than seeing your character buckle, after a series of successful tricks, as they land back on the slope from a large group. There are some minor graphical flaws however these can be easily overlooked due to the amazing environments the game presents you with.

 

Levelling

This being a free-to-play online game, you’d expect some sort of levelling system. This is indeed the case. The more races you do, the more experience and money you earn. As you level up you learn more tricks and are able to achieve a higher trick score. Your hard earned cash can be used to buy better looking clothes, accessories and snowboards which make your character look cooler. The money is generally very hard to earn and it can be a bit of a pain saving up for the items, then again there aren’t really any “must have” items and they don’t really do much other than raise your stats by a bit (if not at all). For a game about snowboarding, speed is an important factor, and Project Powder achieves this well with speed lines and your tracks being heavily emphasized during gaming to show just how fast you’re going. To add to this there is a boost opinion (with your character being harder to control when you use it, due to his or her speed) and if you press the “↑” button then your character will go faster. The game generally feels fast and fun.

 

There are three modes of play, Race, Battle and Coin. The Race Mode is when boarders compete with each other to reach the bottom of the course first, Battle mode is just a more glorified Race mode but with items which can slow your opponent down. Coin mode is when racers must fight to get the most coins, with whether or not you get to the bottom in time being irrelevant.

 

The latter mode is definitely the most fun, as it requires you to think quickly to avoid negative coins (that reduce your points) and to get the coins that give out the most points. The mode also requires a lot of skill as in order to get a lot of points you are required to do tricks in the right place in order to get to the biggest booty. The gameplay is fun (if not that rewarding) and it will generally suck you in with its addictive take of the activity. PP is one of those games you can lose hours playing as you get so absorbed into it.

 

Music

The music is “different” and contains many dance and rap songs. Some of these are lacklustre however most do well to compliment the fast and furious gameplay. The sound effects aren’t the best, however they get the job done. Some of them are very annoying though (especially the sound effect when you hit the coins) however the sound of your character hitting the snow after a high jump does add to the game’s distinctive feel.

 

Gameplay

Project Powder is a fun, charming title that, whilst it may not grab your attention for hours on end (depending on whether it’s your cup of time or not) is fun whilst it lasts. It’s one of those games you can play for a minute or two before getting back to work but at the same time contains enough gameplay to last you a little while. Whilst it’s still in Open Beta, it’ll be interesting to see how this game grows and what new features are added. I’d say, take it for a ride and see how well the game fits with you, it may be your thing, it may not, but for a couple of hours it can certainly give you some entertainment.

 

Runes of Magic is ending the closed beta with an epic battle

The closed beta phase of Runes of Magic ended on December 10th with a bang. Hundreds of players fought against the conjured up darkness, but it was all in vain: the server went offline until the start of the open beta with the death of all player characters.
Controlled by the community managers Mike Kiefer and Jörg Koonen, the final event of several days duration started on Sunday with the first signs of imminence. In the following days constantly growing hordes of monsters brought mischief over the world of Taborea. Hundreds of adventurers formed battle groups to defend their game world.

In a long and final battle against the community manager’s evil twin avatars in the Ystra Highlands, the decision fell late Wednesday night in favor of the forces of darkness. “We are pleased how well the event was accepted by our community”, Mike Kiefer resumed following the event. “The high attendance confirmed that relying on special ingame events in the future is the way to go.”

Even though the forces of evil were victorious for the time being, the chance for revenge is soon to come: The servers that went offline directly following the end of the event will be back online at the open beta start on Monday, December 15th. From Monday on all interested players are invited to participate in the final phase before the release in the first quarter of 2009.
Check out the new screenshots clicking here!