Yearly Archives: 2008

Angels Online: Item Mall Grand Opening

It has been two months since the Open Beta Testing of Angels Online (ao.igg.com) and the in-game Item Mall has also been in trial run for more than a month.

Today the AO team is happy to announce that he item prices of Item Mall have been slightly adjusted to stabilize the in-game economy. Meanwhile, they also bring up a Valentine’s Day Group Photo Event with big rewards.

For more information please visit the official site at:
http://ao.igg.com/news/news.php?aid=508

http://ao.igg.com/news/news.php?aid=513

SONY ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT SPREADS THE LOVE

SONY ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT SPREADS THE LOVE
THIS VALENTINE’S DAY
Online Titles to Host Variety of In-Game Valentine’s Day Events
Including EverQuest® II’s Erollisi Day

WHAT:

Sony Online Entertainment is showing its love for the players this week by hosting a variety of in-game events themed around Valentine’s Day.

EverQuest® II will be romancing players throughout the annual week long Erollisi Day celebration honoring the goddess of love, Erollisi Marr. Players will be able to present each other with virtual Erollisi roses, enjoy heart shaped cookies and sip love potions. Also during this holiday, players may discover love notes or message candies when they kill mobs throughout the online world of Norrath.

Other in-game events are as follows:

  • Vanguard: Saga of Heroes®: The world of Telonhas caught the love bug and it is spreading Valentine’s cheer among the citizens with city decorations that give players candies and treats. These aren’t just any treats, eat one of these candies and you will experience temporary Valentines buffs! 
  • EverQuest® Online Adventures™: The adventurers of Norrath will be celebrating Valentine’s Day by seeking out a GM who will provide them with a unique holiday quest available to all.

 

  • Planetside®: Players who log in February 12-14 will receive a special ball-and-chain merit. Also, the dummy NPCs that fill the virtual shooting range now feature names such as: It’s Not You It’s Me and Ice Queen.

WHEN:

Erollisi Day and Valentine’s Day events are scheduled to take place the week of February 12th – 19th. Exact days vary by title.

WHERE:

For all EverQuest II Erollisi Day information log onto www.everquest2.com and for all other titles log onto www.station.com for more information.

Tales of Pirates: Valentine’s Day Events

As you know, Valentine’s Day is almost here, so Tales of Pirates (http://top.igg.com/) will offer their players a chance to find their Mr Right or Miss Right, and hold a series of captivating events.
In-Game Events:
Event 1: A Date on Valentine’s Day
By finishing a series of Valentine’s Day quests, Players will find their Mr Right or Miss Right.

Event 2: Lover’s Gift
By finishing a series of quests, players will obtain some special gifts.

Item Mall Event
Gifts from the Item Mall on Valentine’s Day
From Feb 1 to Feb 14, players will be able to redeem the heart shapes of I, LOVE and U from In-Game Item Mall. There is no limit to redeeming these shapes.

Forum Event:
Valentine’s Day Screenshot Contest & Video Contest
From Feb 1st to Feb 20th; players can submit some interesting and romantic screenshots in our corresponding section of the ToP forums, and then they will have a chance to obtain some fancy gifts.

For more information about the event visit at: http://top.igg.com/atc/love.

Honey Overflows in Elf Online

Honey Overflows in Elf Online
The Valentine’s Day is on the corner. We should say, honey happiness goes to all the lovers. It’s an unparalleled time and atmosphere for pillow whisper and sweet words.

At the very time, please don’t feel reluctant to join the Valentine’s Day event held by Elf Online (http://elf.happymmo.com/), which will add more romantic air and savor to the fall-in-loves. On the Valentine’s Day, couples who team up to the flea market will receive mysterious gifts from the GM. Don’t let this chance for upgrading affection goes by. Wish you a wonderful festival. See you in game.

More information about Elf Online please visit http://elf.happymmo.com/ Official forum http://forum.happymmo.com/

Zu Online 1.4.06 Update Note Preview

The new version 1.4.06 of Zu Online (http://zu.igg.com) will be released in late February, and the new contents will be available for our players after the update. The patch was made according to players’ creative suggestions and will make the game more balanced. We greatly appreciate your patience during the time it took to get this patch to you. Some of the major features include:

1. Little Sky will open to players.
2. The cost of daily events has been reduced
3. The cost of senior pet eggs has been reduced
4. The protection level for newbies will be raised to 60
5. We’ve prolonged the Sinuous Maze event.
6. The speed of Vigor Restoration from killing monsters has been increased.
7. The drop rate of yellow monsters has been increased.
8. The chance to obtain Mystic Stone from the Fortune Casket has been increased
9. Players will be able to control the Lead Pillar after level 61.
10. We’ve added 3 new item categories in the Item Mall (Advanced Items, Pet Food, Limited Items)
11. Fixed the Moonmaiden’s talent ‘Reinforced Phoenix’s Force’.
12. Added the Summoner’s skill book ‘Greater Minion-healing’ to the store.
13. Added the item ‘Boss-calling Stone’ to the Item Mall, so players can use it to summon a boss (excluding the Crystal Dragon) near the spawn place for bosses.
14. Adjusted the schedule for daily events.

The Zu team will continue to provide our players with innovative games and the best gaming experience possible. In appreciation for your enthusiasm, we once again wish you good luck in your adventures in Zu Online.

Angels Online: Screenshot Contest to celebrate ValentineÂ’s Day

To celebrate the upcoming Valentine’s Day, Angels Online (ao.igg.com) from IGG is brining us a Screenshot Contest with big rewards.

Event Duration: Feb, 2nd(EST) to Feb, 16th (EST)

Event reward: Each winner will get an Intensified Inlay Lucky Bag.
(Open the bag will get one of the following things randomly: Enhanced Hammer, or Advanced Piercing Hammer and various gems.)

Event Location: AO Media Overview (photo)
Notes:
1. Unrelated or indecent posts will be deleted.
2. The winner list, the time to redeem rewards, and how to redeem rewards will be announced 3 days after the end of the event.

For detailed event rules, please visit us at: http://ao.igg.com/news/news.php?aid=497

Open beta phase starts on February 14th!

Ready to enter the arena with all your friends? On February 14th Infinity Online will start its open beta phase so that all GameTribe players will be able to join the fight!

Discover the hack and slash taste of Infinity Online!
Choose the arena, enter the fray with your favourite warrior and lead your guards against other players or side by side with your friends in the cooperative mode.

The game will offer you several updates such as:

  • New Guards
  • New characters: Alexia and Kain
  • New missions and PVP maps
  • New armor sets and items in the shop

 

Seal Online Review

by Benny Bray

While this may be pegged as a typical cartoony style MMO, it has some features within the game that separate it from the others. Some of it you may or may not enjoy, it really depends on how you stand on the art styling and layout of this game. It might be a simple point and click game but there are a few simple things about it that require some pre-game guide reading on their forums. Those that like to do other things besides combat can take a break and do some fishing or if you want to craft items you’ll be able to make a numerous amount of them if you so choose to, you’ll just have to see how for yourself. If that doesn’t suit you then you can spend some time in pvp or player versus player and even have your own pet you can evolve into a variety of things. There are several aspects of the game that I took a look at.

First things first I’m going to point out some of the things about the graphics and controls, even being cartoony isn’t quite enough to cover up for the bits that stick out the most. While zoomed in characters, creatures, NPC’s and objects alike are fairly "sketchy" making the pixeled edges stand out noticeably. On the plus side everything else is done quite well aside from dirt and grass being graphically defined but it’s not particularly expected from a free to play game, let only a cartoony one. Now about the controls, while being a typical point and click game combos are added in as well making use of the A, S, and D keys in different sequences for added damage and even some rather silly names to them. One of my niches though is the camera, controlled by the right mouse button and the mouse wheel it can get quite annoying trying to get it to face just the right way or distance you want it to. Most everything else is typically controlled through some form of Alt and a key or the quickslots ranging through F1 to F8.

Now about the first part of the interface, this part to be honest is basically the reason for players enjoying Seal Online, in which it involves the party system, friends list and pet system. Now the interesting bit about Seal Online is their speed party system in which a player can simply click and search through a list of formed parties by name, the party leader, the area, and how many members it allows plus how the exp rate is distributed. Another thing is the party leaders ability to be able to summon fellow party members to their area which is quite convenient until one becomes lvl 30 in which a fee is implied to the person wishing to be summoned. While there may not be an option for the leader to promote someone else to leader, all they have to do is leave the party and rejoin making the next name in the party become the leader then request to be summoned. The friends list also provides much convience in itself, allowing you to see who is or is not online and with a few clicks gives information about the player including their current level, class and what area they are in. You may also create different groups in your friends list if you wanted to separate them for whatever your reason may be. As for pets it’s about as simple as clicking your pet when it says it’s hungry and feeding it any assorted item you don’t need in your inventory though usually it will specify what food it wants which if fed it will make it grow twice as fast. Evolving is quite complicated but is also interesting as you can throw in different ingredients for the evolution and end up with who knows what sort of pet next.

This second part of the interface involves the guild system and the quests that are available throughout the game, which can be said have some big turndowns to them regardless of how useful they may seem at first. The guild system is much like the friends list only simply providing the same amount of information to the different people that are currently in the guild with their levels, classes, and current areas. The bad part of the guild system is if you leave or are expelled from a guild there is a 3 day waiting period to be able to join another guild, and in the case of people accidently being invited then expelled they have no choice but to wait out the 3 days. Now for the quests each providing exp some with fame and others with exp, fame and even rare items, while this may seem good at first there’s just one detail, they are all collection based. That’s right, all of the quests in the entirety of this game are collection based in some way, not a single kill x monster x amount of times to be found. Though really it might seem the same, collection based killing usually requires killing the monsters at a larger amount than the number of the item needed.

Combat is a section in itself, being based off the players attack speed or aspd, the player attacks either fast or slow accordingly. While it is a point and click game later on in the game you’ll soon find out that’ll you’ll be heading your mouse or fingers over to the hotkeys and carefully watching your hp(health points) and ap(ability points). Interesting enough each useable item and skill has it’s own speed, meaning that there is some delay between using them but it is not always specific since it depends upon the power of the item or skill. Some powerful potions have enough of a delay between using them that it makes the player cautious about how many enemies they try to take on at once. As for skills a player has to pay attention to how much ap the skill takes out when they use it so as to not run out or they may end up in a bad situation if they can’t use their skills to escape from it. This is no expection for pvp either, basically you must choose your opponents wisely as someone with faster attack speed or faster skill speed will most likely end up with you dead. Exp rate is also adjusted accordingly, sure high level monsters give a lot of exp but you’ll most likely die a lot, while a good party in a lower level area will provide with equally as much exp at a safer situation.

Now for the classes, one thing that caught my attention right off the bat was having the choice to start as a beginner class if you were unsure of what you wanted to play as or pick one of the main classes if you did while giving you a full introduction to the game. While this may be a good option there are some niches about each class that don’t truly give the player full control over what style they want to play. You can play as a Beginner up to level 10 at least, Warrior, Knight, Craftsman, Priest, Mage or a Jester. Warrior and Knight are obviously the melee classes while Mage and Jester are the ranged classes, Priest and Craftsman being somewhere in-between. There are significant differences to the Warrior and the Knight, Warriors are more of a one on one based class while the Knight is more suited to using area of effect skills both with large amount of defense and hp. Mages and Jesters have their obvious differences, Mages being elemental spell based while the Jester can throw darts or use a combo of skills. The Priest can be suited to a pure healer and supportive class or a player can forgo some of that effectiveness in turn for the ability to melee. Cratsman is in about the same situation either having to focus on crafting or melee skills individually. All this being said sadly there are very few ways each class can be made, good Warriors and Knight stats only involve some form of adding strength and agility along with very little vitality making a literal "tank" with even more hp impossible. Mages are stuck using some form of intelligence and wisdom, while Jester uses either pure intelligence or some form of strength and agility. Priest and Craftsman are perhaps the most confusing, being that it opts for using strength, agility, luck and wisdom in some form of manner for their individual melee skills or supportive skills.

As for the classes skills, each of the separate classes seems to have skills taken from their opposite side only to be unused. Warriors have area of effect skills but no where as near as good as a Knights, Knights have one on one skills but no where as good as a Warriors. Mages can use either ice or fire skills both with their advantages and disadvantages depending upon what monsters your going to be fighting. While Jesters have their choice of throwing darts or using comboing skills they tend to be very expensive. Priests and Craftsman have their mix of skills that can lead to much confusion, should you choose the melee skills but not be quite as effective as a Warrior or Knight? Or should you choose the supportive skills and be required to spend fairly large amounts of cegel the games currency? What’s interesting though is that sleeping, selling, trading, upgrading, pvp and fishing are skills you learn from NPC’s though you spend no sp or skill points in acquiring them, and you can even manual fish using your mouse which can be both fun and provide you with good items.

In the end if all of this seems confusing, disappointing or your thinking it’s not really your type game, I would definitely recommend it as something to try regardless of how you stand on cartoony MMO’s such as this one. Sure some might claim this as "grindy" but this game is only grindy when your not playing it right, get some friends or just find a good party and you’ll be having fun for hours on end. No game is perfect and this is no exception, so if your bored of whatever your playing and you can’t seem to find something to occupy your time this is definitely a good choice.

ValentineÂ’s day update: new contents to come !

After the adventures with the lovely pets in the World of the Kunlun Mirror, GameTribe is planning your next epic experience with new higher level maps and quests and the special Valentine’s day celebration!

The new hot features that we are preparing for you are:

  • Valentine’s day quest: a very special event to enjoy playing with your sweetheart
  • 4 new higher level maps and quests to raise your character up to level 40-45
  • Job quests new episodes (lvl 40) to master your class
  • Goodie bag: take a chance to get a random item from the marvelous goodie bag! You might find in them even some very rare items such as Valentine’s day Heart Crown. But hurry up, goodie bags will be available only for a short time!

 

These new contents of DOMO will be released on February 13th.