Monthly Archives: April 2009

GodsWar Online: Open Beta Starts on April 9th

The official team of GodsWar Online is proud to announce the launch of the Open Beta test at 10:00am April 9th EDT (GMT-4).
 
Over the past few months, they have been busy updating GodsWar Online constantly, from version 1.0.188 to the latest version 1.0.202, and working hard to tackle the various problems that popped up as well as adjusting the games balance and environment.
 
For the Open Beta they will be using version 1.0.203. The latest version features a brand-new pet system and their Easter event. In the meantime, a new server, as well as all the celebratory events that go with it, will be released.
 
In addition, the developers are continuing to improve the game with new functions and new systems, such as the upcoming Constellation System.

Silkroad: get ready for Easter celebration

Joymax, an independent developer and publisher of interactive entertainment for the global market, today announced the launch of an Easter celebration in fantasy MMORPG Silkroad Online. From April 8 through April 28, players will receive extra EXP and have the opportunity to win valuable in-game items by collecting rare Easter eggs.
 
Players can hunt and slay monsters in Silkroad Online for a chance to receive randomly-dropped eggs, which may be traded in for reward items including Grade-B Devil’s Spirits, Berserker Regeneration Potions, Alchemic Stones, and Subscription Cards. In addition, players will receive 20 percent bonus experience throughout the Easter event.

Rakion: get ready for a bloody Easter

CLAN WAR
War returns to Rakion… it’s time for clans to stand and fight!
Be one of the first to experience the new Clan Battle system in Rakion. Reach the top ranking, collect clan experience points to buy exclusive items in the clan shop, and make your clan proud!
Quest for the Top Clan (Event)
Win as many games with your clan as you can to reach the top! During this event, the top 3 clans will be selected after the Weekly Clan Ranking update. These clans’ top 10 contributors will be selected by their Member Exp (m-exp) and will also receive prizes.
Period: 4/06/09 ~ 5/11/09
Prize Dates: 4/13, 4/20, 4/27, 5/4, 5/11
 
CLAN WAR EVENT
The Clan War Experience
 
Have you experienced the glories of clan war? Write your review and submit it to Rakion Mail Q&A. Reviews will be posted for voting by all Rakion users, and only one winner will be chosen.
 
Period
Submission: 4/20/09 ~ 4/27/09
Voting: 4/30/09 ~ 05/06/09
Prize: 50000 Cash and 1 Trial Stat Buff
Join the Clan War and rise to the top!

Atlantica Online trailer

Atlantica Online is a strategic turn-based MMORPG that combines innovative combat with character/party development and city/country management. Players take on the quest to destroy the Oriharukon, a powerful energy sensor from the lost civilization of Atlantis that survived and is now endangering humanity. This journey will take players around the globe to locations like the Great Wall of China and the pyramids of Egypt where they will come face-to-face with monsters ripped from history and lore, such as the ruthless Egyptian Pharaoh Khufu and Dracula.

Eve Online Review: Still Unmatched

By Ben Lamb (BGLamb), Onrpg writer

For 6 years now, Eve has held a special place in the field of MMOs. Set apart from the rest of the pack in many ways, it has remained an oddity that nobody has yet managed to replicate. Offering a larger degree of freedom than most, it has attracted and repelled gamers in equal measures. An almost impenetrable interface and extraordinarily steep learning curve hide what might be the deepest and most rewarding RPG on the market today.
 
Running on one gigantic server, CCP games has just released a major (free) expansion last month, so there’s never been a better time to break in to this breakthrough RPG.

 

Graphics

Graphically, Eve is like a stunningly beautiful but incredibly demanding schizophrenic; alternately making your soul weep at its beauty and your eyes bleed at its confounding minutia. To maintain its incredible integrity, the process of piloting a starship through even the most basic manoeuvres necessarily involves a multitude of menus and a plethora of displays, all fighting for your screen space. As you drift through the stars, however, you will quickly get used to turning all of these off for a moment, to press your face against the windscreen of your craft and gaze at the beautifully serene starscapes.

Gameplay

Sitting at the opposite end of the spectrum from Warcraft, Eve is notorious for throwing players in at the deep end. Eve’s galaxy is as vast and varied as the styles of play it encourages, and there’s nobody to hold your hand and guide you through it piece by piece like most MMOs. The entire galaxy of 5000 solar systems is available to explore right from your very first day, and with no Character Level to speak of, there’s nothing to stop you exploring every inch of it.
 
Eve employs a ‘passive’ skill training system, where your skills will level up in the direction of your choosing regardless of what you do or how much you play. You can train your combat skills while you make money by mining, or just turn the game off and continue training while you’re eating dinner. This doesn’t mean that veteran characters will necessarily have the advantage however, as the player’s skill in piloting a spaceship matters far more than a character’s skill points.
 
With no twitch element to proceedings, and the dense and complicated interface Eve certainly attracts a very select audience and has earned the nickname “Excel Online”. Eve’s player-base has consistently grown since its birth however, something matched by almost no other MMO. Even Warcraft seems to have hit its peak.

PvP

Due to the lack of Character Levels and Experience Points, the PvP in Eve is a singularly thrilling experience. When forming up a fleet, every ship counts, whether you’ve been there one day or 5 years. The scale of the ships is truly astounding, with the largest capitol ships stretching over 18 kilometres. For a new player there is nothing more satisfying than zipping close to one in a tiny frigate and jamming their engines or targeting systems while your team-mates in Battleships pummel away at them with projectile turrets and beam weapons.
 
The unique role of the Fleet Commander is also something that few will have experienced before, and is something that really takes the combat to a level above other MMOs. It is the job of the FC to organise the fleet (of perhaps 200+ players) into wings and squadrons and then issue orders over a headset. Calling out primary and secondary targets, ordering his Recon and Sniper wings into position and choosing the right targets for the Electronic Warfare squadron to hamper, the job of the FC is a more demanding role than I have previously seen anywhere in computer gaming.

The ‘Apocrypha’ Expansion

The producers of Eve Online, CCP games have an innovative business model that provides players with the client and all subsequent updates completely free. They see their development as funded by the subscriptions of their players. The most recent expansion (there have been 11 previously) has focused on features both for new players and old.
 
For the new players, there has been an overhaul of what they call the NPE (New Player Experience). This has been in direct response to the overwhelmingly difficult learning curve. New players are now guided much more slowly through the large numbers of skills and concepts they will need to understand, and give many more rewards and incentives along the way.
 
The main focus of the expansion is the much talked about wormholes. These randomly spawning rifts in space are the doorways to 2500 new star-systems, full of radical technology and slumbering ancients. This has given the developers an excuse to update the enemy AI which, to be honest, is rather disappointing.
 
The main benefit of these wormholes, however, is one of exploration. Despite the size of known space, Eve’s single-server model means that the exciting, valuable and dangerous territory at the fringe of the galaxy is pretty much all fortified by the huge player-run alliances. During Eve’s infancy, one of the unique thrills of the game was exploring these vast regions and laying stake to a patch, then trying to defend it when anyone else came prying.
 
The new wormholes will open and close randomly, sometimes granting players a temporary doorway into these new, uncharted areas. With no travel links between these new star systems, navigation is difficult and there is no telling if you will find your way home should your entry wormhole collapse. There is also a difficulty in bringing large ships through the gateways, which leaves players with a very exciting, if scary, opportunity to band together in a small group and lay claim to one of these new planets.

Summary

Eve is definitely not for everyone. If you want something easy, or instantly rewarding then you would be very disappointed in what Eve has to offer. If, however, you’ve pwned all your friends at all of those MMOs for kids and want something to really get your teeth into, then Eve is the place where all the hardcore end up.
 
Whether you want to build yourself the ultimate pirate ship and lurk in the dark corners of space where strength is the law, or hone your 1337 spreadsheeting skillz, commanding a fleet of 200 other players over your headset, the universe is yours for the taking, any way you choose.

Aeria: have fun or get refunded

For the month of April, Aeria Games guarantees that gamers will have fun playing any of their premier titles, or they will receive a refund of their Aeria Points.

Throughout April players can purchase Aeria Points which they may then spend in the Item Malls of any of their titles. Purchasable items include costumes, custom pets and consumables which will increase the amount of experience gained while leveling. In the month of April if players do not have the most fun they possibly can, Aeria Games will give that player up to a 5,000 Aeria Point refund.

Players must do the following to obtain their refund:

* All AP purchases between April 1st and April 30th up to 5000AP will be eligible for a refund.

When filling out the contact form the subject must be “Fun Month Rebate” and the category must also be “Fun Month Rebate.”

The rebate request must be made between May 1st and May 10th.

The refund is only for item mall purchases made with Aeria Points.
Purchases made with Bonus Aeria Points are not eligible to be refunded.

Maximum refund amount is 5000AP.

This is just another example of Aeria Games commitment to offering the highest quality Free-to-Play MMOs along with the best gaming experience a player can possibly have.

Galaxy Online: Development Direction

What types of hero will you be? This is probably one of the first questions players will answer when playing most of MMORPGs. However, Galaxy Online does not provide players class options. At the beginning, most players incline to develop their galaxies comprehensively, ending up constructing almost all available types of buildings. The problem is whether you can balance your resource yield and consumption. The universe is enormous, but players are never alone. Joining corps and having a specific role will take you and your fraction closer to the victory. Here Galaxy Online experts hint you the possible directions of career development.


Farmers

“Farmers” only build industrial infrastructures. They work hard to produce resources (alum, gas and people). Usually 80% or more of the resources they exploit are transported to “Military Engineers”.

Military Engineers
“Military Engineers” are dedicated to studying science and warship construction. They must substantially produce high science points to support hull and module’s study. Also they excel at warship design, spending time on researching the best warship they can form from the available hulls and modules. The battleships they build are delivered to “Soldiers”.


Soldiers

“Soldiers” are masters of warships, capable of arranging fleets to the most fearsome array. They recruit and train Spell and Super commanders. Their superior strategic abilities will cause enemies the worst destruction while protecting their allies from tremendous attack.

Stay in the same vicinity, use communication, coordinate attacks and ability use, and have a strategy. Good teamwork is probably the most important factor for success. It takes time and practice to develop, but it’s worth working on.

Stargate Worlds in doubt?

Gateworld.net just published an interview with Stargate Executive Producer, Brad Wright, and asked him about the state of Stargate Worlds MMO. The answer seems to be quite pessimistic about it:

“We don’t know,” Wright told GateWorld, regarding the future of Stargate Worlds. “It’s a shame. If it doesn’t happen – and, let’s be honest, it should be happening now if it was happening. It’s a shame. It’s a terrible shame.

“They had an opportunity and they got our support, and they obviously had significant funding, and it didn’t happen. It’s kind of a drag for the fans and the time that we invested – what little of it there really was, in comparison to what they did – was still a shame that it was wasted, because it should have happened.”

Will there ever be a Stargate MMO? Time will tell.

(source: Gateworld.net)

The Warlords: Lucky Draw Event

The close-beta phase of the Warlords is scheduled to end on April 24th. After the close-beta test, players can preserve their characters and their accounts.

To revive the militarism tradition of the Manchu, the Qing Court will grant a special honor to those brave warriors of the empire. On April 21st, 5 lucky adventurers will be randomly drawn out from those above level 70, and be rewarded a one-week Medallion respectively.

There still are 2 weeks left for you to practice your Kungfu skills. Hurry up. Try your best to win the emperor’s interest.

Luminary: Rise of the GoonZu trailer

Luminary: Rise of the GoonZu is a free-to-play MMORPG that incorporates real-world politics and economics. Players are citizens of the Luminary world who not only battle monsters, but engage in the production of new goods, trade commodities, stocks, real estate, and even hire NPCs. Additionally, a player can become the pinnacle of success, the “GoonZu”, by being elected by his gaming peers.