Monthly Archives: July 2009

Runes of Magic: French And Spanish Closed Beta Launched

Following on from successes already achieved, Runes of Magic now reaches another milestone with the start of its French and Spanish closed beta version. French and Spanish players now have the opportunity to explore the multi award winning fantasy online game world of Runes of Magic in their own languages on two new high-end servers. Accompanying the beta start the official website is now available in Spanish and French, too. French players can find their channel at runesofmagic.com/fr/ , while Spaniards can surf over to runesofmagic.com/es/. New online adventurers can immediately register there for the closed beta to set up a character in their own language version. Players who are already registered can do this without any restrictions using their previous account.

The French and Spanish language closed beta phase is set to run until the end of July 2009 under current plans. Following a comprehensive update of the version, including a deletion of the beta characters, the open beta will begin subsequently. Frogster will be shortly announcing an exact date. In the following change-over to the release version Frogster will not perform another ‘character wipe’. This will allow players to carry over their characters from the open beta into the launch version. The release version will officially go live in France and Spain in September including the comprehensive new content of Runes of Magic ‘Chapter II – the Elven Prophecy’. Runes of Magic already counts more than 1,400,000 registered players worldwide up to now.

Runes Of Magic

Priston Tale: A Full Month Of Events

Wicked Interactive today announced that it will launch a series of summer events for Yedang Online’s popular MMORPG, Priston Tale. Players of Priston Tale can participate in the Summer Events beginning July 1st by going pt1.subagames.com.
The Summer Events will consist of seven unique events during the month of July. Each of the events will begin on each Tuesday in July and will last for two weeks each. Priston Tale players will also receive increased experience rates throughout the month of July.
“We are excited to launch the Priston Tale Summer Events,” said Garvin Yeung, CEO of Wicked Interactive.  “We hope that our players will enjoy and take advantage of the free fireworks and other great events we have lined up while they enjoy their summer playing Priston Tale.”
Event #1: Free Fireworks
The Summer Events will kick off by lighting up the night skies with free fireworks for all players of Priston Tale beginning July 1st to celebrate Canada Day, Independence Day in the U.S. and the beginning of summer.
Event #2: “Wanted”: Morif
Once the best alchemist in the known world, Morif is now a wanted criminal. Morif turned his back on humankind in search of adventure but kept the secret of perfect item aging to himself. The nations of Priston viewed this as an act of ridicule and have ordered a warrant for the capture of Morif – dead or alive. Players can hunt down Morif and be rewarded with Sheltom forces and Sheltoms (which are used for upgrading weapons and skills).
Event #3: Nine and Tail Amulet
Priston Tale players are sent on a quest to help Praya, an assassin from a distant land. They need to find a pair of Amulets: the Nine Amulet and the Tail Amulet. When combined together, the Amulets form the seal of the love Praya once shared with the monster, Ninefox.
Generous rewards are offered in exchange for these valuables.
Event #4: Summer Ball Sports
The monsters are out to play – sports, that is! Hunt monsters from all over Priston Land to steal their ball. New items will include Beach Balls, Soccer Balls, Volleyballs and more. Players can activate these items to reveal their true worth.
Event #5: Mini Monsters
Miniature versions of monsters will be appearing at select areas of the Priston world!
Event #6: Summer Experience
Experience needed to level up characters will be increased by 50% on the weekends beginning July 3rd and again on July 18th. This will be followed by a month long Summer Experience Event starting again on July 28th and moving into August. Players are invited to take this chance to join the highest ranks of Priston Tale society!
Event #7: Ice Cream
After all, you can’t truly enjoy summer without ice cream!

Priston Tale

Bounty Bay Online Colony Expansion In French

The race for the colonies is on. With immediate effect, the comprehensive colony expansion is available for players of the French version of Bounty Bay Online. Following on from the English and German versions, French-speaking players can now establish their own colonies with settlements and harbours in the historical explorer world. Once they have succeeded in a demanding series of group quests, guild leaders will receive a colony foundation stone for their efforts, entitling their guild to take over one of a total of 33 coastal territories. Along with the outside appearance of the colony, the ruling guild can also define its future development. In this way colony guilds can create for themselves an individual retreat with a profitable trading centre, military harbour, industrial harbour, or raw material store. Through expanding and upgrading their colony town all of the guild members will benefit from gaining better character attributes, such as better endurance for their ships, raised regeneration rates, increased movement abilities for their ships, or improved defence values of their land characters. However, a guild will also need to supply its colony towns with considerable resources. 

There is also a practical improvement concerning the sea-faring online role play game’s trading system. It’s now possible for players to make a systematic search of all vending stalls for specific items within the game zone. This lets players compare prices in a relaxed way in order to find the best deal. An automatic route functions to find non player characters, important buildings or coordinates simplifies navigation to fixed defined points in the game world.  Moreover there is also a new auto-heal function which is of much practical use in combat.

The free add-on is close on 300 MB in size and installs automatically as the game launches. Existing accounts and characters can continue to be used without any limitation.


Bounty Bay Online

Spellborn Going Through Re-Development

Acclaim Games announces the re-development of their recent MMORPG The Chronicles of Spellborn which was released in February, 2009. The development is planned to carry into 2010 and will include several enhancements and changes to the current game. The enhancements and development of the new model will be carried through a joint venture between Spellborn NV and the development studio of Frogster Asia Co. Ltd. based in Seoul, the Korean studio bringing its expertise in the field of free-to-play and micro-transactions.
 
After the re-development, the current subscription model will be switched to a free-to-play system supported by micro-transactions. This will open the world of Spellborn to all players and give them a chance to experience the rich lore and game-play in its entirety.
 
Players who are currently playing the game will be able to continue playing the game in its current form via the subscription service. At the point where the new version is released, any unused subscriptions will be credited to their accounts.

Spellborn

Fiesta Online US Review: Hilarious Marriage System

By Kei Beneza (Dividelife), Onrpg writer

Fiesta online is a cute Anime style Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG). The characters are cell shaded and would sometimes resemble real anime characters with their corresponding fashion sense. Fiesta Online’s storyline revolves around the land of Isya, where the Humans and elves band together to drive away the evil gods that threaten the Goddess of Hope, Teva. Not much of a storyline there, but these guides often leave the rest up to you. Open ended storylines are good for MMOs since it helps users build their own personal relationship with the game. Anyway, just because it’s cute doesn’t completely make it for kids. Let’s see what this game has to offer shall we?

Too basic! Where are the cool names?

Fiesta online is in serious need of more classes in my opinion. The ingame classes, namely: Fighter, Mage, Cleric and Archer have their own individual play style. This however, is not a remedy for lacking more classes. It simply means that finding people who share the same class as you would most likely be probable. Well, at least you won’t have a hard time looking for specific members for your party (so I guess that’s a good thing).

You start out by picking your class which will eventually determine your race. Races are rather fixed in this game so it would depend on what classes you picked. The gender option however can still be tweaked (thankfully) so people can play characters that share their gender. The game lacks options when it comes to changing your character’s appearance. Each character would probably get around 3 hairstyles and faces to choose from. Not to worry though, since the game caters an in game parlor where the rest of the other hairstyles are kept. It may seem a bit pricy but then again, getting to look different from the others is definitely worth paying for.

The Cool Stuff

Ever had one of those moments when it almost seems impossible to get a group up and running? Fiesta online has a unique instance system where instead of finding a group, you’ll end up signing up for a scheduled raid called Kingdom Quests. This is a lot more fun than walking around the town or spamming LFGs or LFMs in world chat. This lets you do things while waiting for your que to join the raid. These dungeons are instanced and requires massive teamwork to conquer. Boss battles are really nice and would feel quite similar to retail MMO bosses. I guess it shows to prove that Pay to Play MMOs aren’t always better than Free to Play ones. There are tons of Kingdom Quest schedules to go around so you don’t really have to worry about not getting a shot. Aside from Kingdom Quests, Other Raid Dungeons can also be found in the world map. So many Dungeons, so little time. Why not start leveling now so you can join in and have fun?

Better Start Grinding

Hold your horses! This game is not really a grinding game (or at some point it isn’t). After countless updates, Fiesta online managed to give players a series of quests that’ll pretty much kill the existing grind meta. I hate grinding, but I guess it’s all about preference since most people actually enjoy killing monsters over and over again. In game quests aren’t grind orders either. Sometimes, you’ll be forced to gather items that are scattered in the world of Isya. No you don’t really have to grind monsters to get these items either, although some quests might require you to do so. It’s quite refreshing to see a game or rather, a Free to Play MMO play like retail games. Fiesta online has outdone itself and pretty much most of the free to play MMOSs out there when it comes to features and gameplay.

Marriage for Buffs

Unlike most games, Marriage is actually quite beneficial here. In order to get hitched, the two lovers must first purchase a wedding ring (which costs a lot) and invite thirty guests for their wedding ceremony. Once both players have made their vows, they will instantly get a special wedding pet along with a couple of buffs that’s sure to make them last FOREVER.

Marriage in Fiesta US

Marriage in Fiesta Online

Both players will gain the ability to summon their spouse from any given distance. Once together, the wedding buff will take effect and both players gain a five percent increase to all their stats. Not too bad eh? If you feel like you’re not ready to be married, then be prepared to spend a lot of ingame cash because divorcing your marriage would cost you A LOT (and I mean A LOT).

Visuals and Sounds

like I said, the characters look like Anime characters; more or less comparable to the likes of Mabinogi and Rose online. The sounds blend quite well with the visuals. The sounds would probably remind you of Anime BGMs when the characters are entering a town of some sort. The spells are nicely detailed but doesn’t quite fit the cuteness of the characters. I guess that means that you shouldn’t judge them just because they’re all cute and tiny. The background looks a bit empty since the view distance (even when set at max) doesn’t quite pick up enemies and textures from afar. The background detail isn’t that good either, but the ambiance and background color justifies that matter. Fiesta online is a world of pastel colors and brightly shaded structures. This does bring the game to life but would sometimes be a bit too bright unless adjustments are made.

The verdict

Fiesta Online? Yeah I’d play it. The system alone makes this game stand out among its F2P Brethren. The spells and effects look nice and greatly compliment the characters’ features. Armor tends to look the same since people often end up getting the same thing. I think that’s a rather big flaw for any MMO since people would often want to be different from the rest. The marriage system is hilarious. In fact, I think I’d want to get married now in order to get the Power of Love buff. Dungeon Systems rock especially the kingdom quests. This game is a blessing to F2P players who want to experience the goodness of retail.


Pros:
– Anime characters are quite appealing
– Dungeon system is retail-like (even better)
– Unique system

The Bad:
– Sounds get a bit repetitive since you’d often get tired of hearing it over and over again
– The game’s lack of armor designs
– The game’s obvious lack of classes and character creation.  

Rumble Fighter Europe

Rumble Fighter is a free to play action MMO focused on fighting.Team up with your friends and fight other players!
 
Features:
 
* Customisable – change your character’s appearance and choose his/her fighting style and techniques
* Solo or Team – choose to battle alone or join forces with friends
* Easy to learn – casual and fun gameplay makes Rumble Fighter easy to understand and fun to play
* Hardcore Gamer or Casual Fighter – Rumble Fighter is exciting for players of all abilities, from the “Casual” to the “Hardcore”
* Rich graphics – Rumble Fighter’s custom-built graphics engine uses cell shading techniques and pre-rendered global illumination map textures, creating vibrant rich imagery inspired by Comic Book style
* Upgrade with “Astros” – use in-game points known as Carats or buy OGPlanet’s universal cyber currency Astros to further customise your characters and buy new techniques, weapons and other items