Monthly Archives: May 2009

Next Blizzard MMO Based on New IP

Blizzard community manager Zarhym on the World of Warcraft forums posted the following update regarding the new Blizzard MMO which is currently under development:
“We have nothing to advertise for the new MMO because it’s a shell of a game thus far. We’ve already stated it’ll be a brand new franchise, which means the lore, art, and game play are being developed entirely from scratch. It’s an overwhelming process, but a process through which we excel. Our track record supports this”

City of Heroes Goes Rogue with New Expansion Pack

NCsoft®, the world’s premier publisher and developer of massively multiplayer online games (MMOs), and Paragon Studios, the developer of City of Heroes®, today announced the development of City of Heroes Going Rogue, the first major expansion for the City of Heroes franchise since the launch of City of Villains® in 2005. As the name implies, Going Rogue will blur the line between heroes and villains in the first and longest-running super-powered comic book MMO game.
 
In the Going Rogue expansion, hero and villain characters will become immersed in the new parallel universe known as Praetoria, which is governed by Tyrant, the evil incarnation of the game’s main protagonist, Statesman. As gamers search for Tyrant and the rest of his Praetorian guard, implacable foes and fierce resistance will arise to face them from all sides, causing heroes and villains alike to question their loyalties.
 
City of Heroes Going Rogue will introduce a new alignment system that helps players explore the shades of gray that lie between good and evil. For the first time, hero characters can become villains and vice versa, enabling hero archetypes to cross over to the Rogue Isles and villain archetypes to experience Paragon City. Clearly marked missions, in addition to behaviors and decisions made by the player, will move a hero’s or villain’s moral compass, which could eventually change the hero’s or villain’s alignment. Going Rogue will also introduce two primary new fictional characters representative of this alignment shift in the game’s lore: Maelstrom, a pistol-wielding hero gone rogue, and Desdemona, a demon-summoning villain who has been redeemed.
 
“City of Heroes has brought a fresh new perspective to the MMO stage with its foray into the super-powered hero comic book genre, and we are excited to present gamers with even more innovative content in Going Rogue,” said Brian Clayton, general manager and executive producer at Paragon Studios. “For years, players could choose between playing as a hero or a villain. Now we will present a third, malleable path where players can be affected by the results of their actions, enabling them to further develop, unveil new perspectives, and overcome new challenges.”
 
NCsoft will share more details on Going Rogue in the coming months. The game is currently in development by NCsoft’s Paragon Studios, the City of Heroes development team that most recently launched the ground-breaking Mission Architect system. The launch of Mission Architect sets a significant milestone for City of Heroes as the first MMO to allow players to create user-generated content. City of Heroes has and continues to set new standards among its MMO peers and player community with its engaging and approachable comic book-inspired universe theme and consistent delivery of concepts that break the standard MMO mold.

Jade Dynasty Gameplay Trailer

Jade Dynasty is a free MMORPG and it’s the English-based version of Zhu Xian, one of China’s most popular Free-To-Play games. Based on the popular internet novel, also titled “Zhu Xian,” “Jade Dynasty” features a unique martial arts style game play wrapped in a huge, evolving game world. Watch this video to enter this fantasy world!

Alganon: Xanjuix Karr City trailer

The fourth video for the upcoming MMORPG Alganon has arrived! The first two focused on the continents of Ardonya and Harraja, taking you through expansive areas from Asheran Forest to Xanjuis Plains. The third video focused on the great city of Asheran on the continent of Ardonya. Today we take you on a brief tour of Xanjuix Karr, the capital and major trading center of Harraja. Watch it now!

Dark Orbit review: Kicking Butt in Outer Space

By Vincent Haoson (Vincenthaoson), Onrpg writer
 
Dark Orbit is a space shooter MMO from BBgames that puts you in the seat of a pilot working for one of the three biggest mining companies in the universe. It’s your job as the company’s pilot to search space for the resources and materials that would keep your company at the top.
 

The Company you work for

There are three big companies that are vying for power in Dark Orbit. They are namely the, Mars Mining Operations, The Earth Industry Corporation and the Venus Resource Unlimited.
 
The three companies serve as identification in the game and have no actual gameplay use save the starting area per company. The starting ships, credits, quests and items are all the same regardless of where you start off. The three companies serve as the story-telling medium that you the game uses to set off the mood.
 

Game Features and Gameplay

Dark Orbit’s most appealing feature is that the game can be played right off the browser. You don’t have to download or install any client. Your browser just needs to have Flash installed on it and you’re all ready to go.
 
You control your ship via mouse while the weapons systems can either be controlled through the mouse or the keyboard. Your weapons vary from lasers to missiles and you have to stock up on them every time you go into the game.
 
You start of in whatever spawn area your company sends you to and you have to go through various portals as you travel along space. You will be facing NPC spaceships in your travel that serves as this game’s enemies. There are also boxes that are scattered in the map that would either give you ammo, credits, parts or resources.
 
Besides the usual NPC monster attacking your ship there are players that do PK as well. So it’s better to stick to safe areas as you continue your journey in Dark Orbit.
 
There’s also a unique system that in Dark Orbit, it’s the jackpot system. In the jackpot system the money which is collected in a map will be pooled into one big pot.  To get the pot you have to win a Jackpot battle that is held, you need to register first before you can join. The one who’s left alive wins the pot.
 
The game also has quests, they cycle around either eliminating certain NPC ships, escorting other friendly NPC ships, resettling colonies, rescuing ships and collecting a certain amount of resource for the company. Quests rewards you experience points and credits as well and serves as an alternative goal as you play Dark Orbit.
 

Conclusion

For a browser MMO that’s running on flash, I must say that Dark Orbit has its core gameplay pegged. The controls are not that complicated that anyone can immediately pick it up, plus everything is self explanatory and that if you still find yourself trying to figure things out the FAQ and the help guide are stocked with the things you need to know.
 
Dark Orbit is a good example of an MMO that maximizes the potential it has as MMO space shooter with the limited technology it uses. However, this is already a common case with most browser based MMOs these days so it may be that you have stumbled into a game that’s like this one.
 
The game is fast paced for a browser game. This is fitting for a MMO space shooter. The game’s got the core gameplay down unlike other browser space shooter games where it has other elements that are not even part of the game concept.
 
Quests in Dark Orbit also help out as another reason for playing the game. If you get tired of harvesting resources and eliminating NPC monsters for level and experience the quests or jobs from your company is the one for you. Of course as your level increases in the game the difficulty the quests increase as well.
 
Of course it must be expected that there are aspects of the game that doesn’t go quite well with Dark Orbit. For example, the BGM of the game, for the first few hours of game time the BGM can be quite exciting. However there is a lack of variation on the music that is why it’s highly possible that you would eventually just turn down the music.
 
Another problem I see in Dark Orbit is the abuse of the high level players. You would often see bigger ships being bullies as you travel the different maps in the game. This doesn’t fare well for the whole community especially to those who have just begun playing, though of course this should be expected as the game does center on being the best.
 
The game’s other problem is the lack of loot protection. Everything that is dropped in Dark Orbit is free for all even if the kill we yours, this is very irritating especially for those who are not used to this kind of gameplay.
 
Overall, Dark Orbit is one of those browser games that is fun to play for the first few times but eventually gets boring as you progress. The game itself doesn’t give you much of anything besides blasting ships to smithereens or collecting resources for your company, that gets tiring fast especially if you’d want a richer gaming atmosphere to play on.
 
If you are after a MMO space shooter that is fast-paced with no downloads require, you should try Dark Orbit, the game does deliver what I promises, however, if you’d like your space shooter to have more substance then I might suggest you try other games out there.
 
Pros
– The game is fast paced for a browser game
– The maps size are just right, they’re not that small nor that big
– Quests give you an objective besides pk-ing
Cons
– BGM becomes irritating after hearing it over and over
– High level characters usually abuse and pk players even the low level ones
– There is no item lock for drops, other people can easily steal your loot

Jade Dynasty

Jade Dynasty is one of the earlier free-to-play eastern MMOs to settle in North America. Featuring a unique martial arts system, based on the popular novel Zhu Xian, Jade Dynasty offers a wide variety of features and in-depth game systems.

Delve into a system where choices between good and evil begin to shape your game play experience as you obtain different skills, items and ultimately, a story that is unique to every player. Among the many great features, the classless character progression system allows you to focus on the skills you desire to create the ultimate warrior.

Features:

Diverse Skillsets: Instead of classes, players may choose their skills by choosing a faction. Between two races (Human and Athan) there are over ten factions, each with a specialized skillset to focus your talents.

Clans and Alliances: Join with other players in small group guilds called clans and work together with other clans in alliances to participate in large scale battles and more.

Ascension: Chase down immortality with the ascension system, which lets you ‘rebirth’ yourself and choose a new faction to champion.

WWII Warfare New Server

Bitcomet.com is pleased to announce that the highly anticipated new server of WWII Warfare: 1940 – has officially released at 00:00, May 12, 2009.
To celebrate the launch of the latest update and new server available to the most popular World War II MMORPG, Bitcomet.com presents an amazing new theme that reveals the allied power. Also, they bring a high quality server that can support thousands of players to play in the server 1940.
The game has also received a significant technical update today to include VIP Account Services and player Referral Program(union.playcomet.com).
The VIP Account Services – which are available to all new and current WWII players – include
1. All resource output will increase by 10%
2.All units’ consumption will reduce by 20%.
3.VIP players can search more targets that can be reached.
4.Players can collect and add 30 players’ information.
And much more
all of which go live from today. No matter old and new players, they can create a new character to play in the Server 1940. At the same tiem, they are going to prepare much more surprises to players, which are available right now.
 
The player Referral Program allows current players and incoming players or media partners to invite friends to enjoy a free bonus service of the game. More importantly, it allows players to make real USD. For more please visit union.playcomet.com

12 Sky 2 Europe: New Content

MAYN Interactive Pte Ltd., publisher of the highly anticipated title “Twelve Sky 2 – Rise of the Sky Clan” is set to release a patch  to bring in many new features into the game on May 12th, 2009. “The new features implemented during this patch signify our commitment to continuous improvements for our title Twelve Sky 2 – Rise of the Sky Clan”, said Raymond Gunawan, Sales & Marketing Director of MAYN Interactive. “Here at MAYN, we strive to ensure that our players are always entertained through new contents and events.
New maps
For all those gamers out there we’ve got a bunch of absolutely new maps specially in store for you! One of the more exciting ones is the introduction of The Labyrinth. Available only on every Monday, Thursday and Saturday, The Labyrinth is an instant dungeon where only the first one hundred players are allowed in at 9pm GMT and start their battle with brand new bigger boss monsters! Indulge in the amazing musical fanfare never heard before, as well as new terrains and graphics never seen before. Before you can even start on your adventure, you must first possess the Temple of Fiends key that you can obtain from other mobs. Bigger mobs mean more drops, so what are you waiting for?!
 
The much awaited “Heavenly Garden” map is now available! Beware, though, as this map is crawling with high-level monsters. You can expect to battle the Goblin Chieftain, Bloody Smasher, Celestial King and Smiling Buddha.
 
“Four Realms Island” and “Eight Symbols Island” maps are now available too. These premium zone secret maps were previously unavailable to our guests. Now, each Clan – Dragon, Snake and Tiger – will have their own individual maps! Once we have released our cash item mall, where you can purchase the portal to enter these premium zones, players can start venturing into these unexplored lands to kill monsters that they have never faced before.
New pets
The pet system in TwelveSky 2 has always been a highlight for the players. Following the original four pets that we have, we are now introducing five brand new species of pets that give players special buffs and additional experience boost during battle. Every pet grants you a different buff and they will grow stronger if you feed them their favorite food. So go ahead and own one now!
Other Features
The disciple system will also be fully enabled in this patch. High level players are now able to accept low level players as disciples. However, each master can only accept one student under his mentorship. Merits will be rewarded to the master when his disciple obtains experience. Disciples will also gain additional experience during monster hunting.
New skills with the likes of “Iron skin” and “Tenon’s Prayer” are also introduced into the game. These are new skills that players can obtain from monsters to enhance their game experience. “Iron skin” allows players to increase their defenses for a period of time. “Tenon’s Prayer” allows players to improve their luck for a short period of time. This means that they will have a higher success rate if they choose to upgrade or enhance their gears.
We will be releasing patches in the future that will see more exciting game content being introduced for our guests.
Till then, happy grinding!

Conquer Online: New Expansion

Since it was initially released in 2003, Conquer Online has entered its 6th anniversary. As one of the longer-lasting MMOs, CO has been blessed with a vast and talented player community. To keep our community thriving and vibrant, the TQ team is constantly updating new features, and during the development, we have been paying close attention to the community’s opinions. Your suggestions are collected via survey questionnaires, forums, and the customer service team.
In 2008, with the entrance of the expansion “New Dynasty”, a string of new content has been presented to the community. The new “Ninja” class, new items, Equipment Bonus Quests Series, various PK Wars, etc. Most design ideas for these features came from players’ suggestions and ideas. Moreover, we modified the anti-virus system of the game client, and initiated an anti-bot campaign to try and help keep a secure and balanced gaming environment. We have sorted out the major implemented suggestions.
With the contributions of our players, the New Dynasty has been a great success. This just encourages the TQ team to keep updating the game, and to make CO into fabulous game that is by the players, for the players. These upcoming features were also designed according to the demand of the community, and have been combined into the CO 2009 expansion, Raiding Clans. In the expansion, you can go visit the fun CO carnival, take on dramatic quests written by community members, and experience other surprising content which will be unveiled soon!
Players, prepare yourselves! Now is the time to utilize your talents to customize your adventure!