Monthly Archives: September 2009

Free Realms: Next Big Thing in MMOs

By Kei Beneza (Dividelife), OnRPG Journalist

If you’re looking for the next big thing in MMO history, then this is it. Free Realms, a new MMO developed by Sony Online Entertainment has made its mark as one of the most Unique MMORPGs ever made. Free Realms takes players through a whole new experience as they uncover hidden places, play mini games, and do quests. First of all, Free Realms isn’t only an MMO game but a social network as well. This game is probably the first MMO that makes combat optional. Yes, that’s right! Combat is completely optional for there are more ways to level up your character than just quests and grinding.

Free Realms would probably be an MMO gamer’s idea of having a good time. Aside from having its own ingame Trading Card Game (TCG), the game lets you watch or host in game events like live concert streaming and destruction derby racing (yeah… it has an ingame racing game). Now if that’s not role playing at its finest, then I don’t know what is. 

Wait… You’re confusing me…. what are the characters?

Much like any other MMORPG, you’ll start off by creating your first character. I was rather impressed by the game’s variety of faces and hairstyles. It’s almost like you can actually make a character than looks like you. You’ll also end up picking one of two races (human or pixie). After creating your name and fixing your features, you’re ready to go. 

Unlike other MMOs, Free realms lets you switch your class anytime in the game. This means that you wont ever have to stick with one class for the rest of that character’s lifespan. You can be a Ninja, Explorer, Chef, Brawler, Archer, Miner, Mailman, Wizard, Pet trainer or even a demolition derby driver (no it doesn’t end there). As you can see, some classes don’t compliment your combat skills but rather your fantasy life. Since combat is optional, the game lets you secure a purpose while doing what your desired class does best. There are lots of things to do in the game. Being a renowned Chef and an Indiana Jones persona is merely just a part of it.

Just bum around and level up

Yes, combat is indeed optional which is why you should stick with your class’ task in order to level him up. Leveling up isn’t so hard here since combat is not only optional but instanced as well. This means that you have to go to secluded part of the map in order to fight monsters. Like I said, the game is not only an MMORPG but a social network as well. If I must explain, the game is pretty much like Facebook on steroids. Don’t ever think that everything else is boring compared to combat. Bumping cars with other drivers and playing card games could get you deep into the game as well. I guess it’s all about preferences, and this game lets you switch when bored.

Beautiful World of Free Realms

The combat system is similar to that of any other MMO. You’ll basically get a bunch of hotkeys assigned to their corresponding skill. Combat experience is also gained in the traditional way so PVE lovers can do what they do best. The game also has a bunch of quests to keep you busy, so I guess the combat system doesn’t fully rely on grinding after all.

Ok ok! But what about the armor?!

Haha! Here’s the good bit. Instead of buying armors, your equipment levels up with you. No need to worry though, cause they change their color, shapes and sizes once leveled further. You’ll be surprised to see your vintage Ninja armor turn into that of Dead or Alive’s Hayabusa as you level it further.

Visuals and sounds

The visuals are rather cartoony but is not too shabby. I guess this game doesn’t quite blend with the graphic war, cause the style they use seems rather timeless. You wouldn’t criticize a game’s graphics, you know that it was meant to be that way (or something like that). The background looks a lot WoW being taken over by Walt Disney, giving it a rather happy and wholesome feel. The interface looks a bit console-ish for an MMO. If you’ve played Final Fantasy games then you’re bound to see some familiar features. Since the game provides more than just combat, other HUDS and systems are implemented differently. I mean, who would want hot keys when playing Trading card games or racing right? I guess they pretty much got what they wanted, Free realms is indeed a world of its own.

Free Realms City

The music and soundeffects are awesome and really enhances the mood. Whether it’s a hard hitting duel or a drive to explore, the music is sure to boost your in game experience. The sound effects are quite superb. You’ll often hear a lot of grunts and battle shouts as weapons clash in battle.

I guess there’s no PVP

No not really… Free realms also has a duel system if ever you’re in a drive to prove that you’re better than the rest. Whack it out and cleave all you want. Combat does look pretty satisfying regardless of it being optional. I dont know if racing can be considered as PVP but it does feel good when you outrun em.

The verdict

Free realms is an all-in-one game, and there’s no doubt about that. You’re basically taken into another world where you can meet with your friends or meet new ones. If this is not the next big thing in MMO history then probably it can work as the next big thing in Social networking. Since the game is quite wholesome, violence has been toned down. It doesn’t really matter though since the game pretty much delivers the satisfaction of combat even without the blood and gore. If you’re looking for a game that can take you out of your everyday MMO life, then I suggest you give this a shot. Mark my words… you wont regret it.


The Good:
– Excellent character creation
– Wide variety of features
– Good graphics and sounds
– Tons of gaming modes to fit your desired gameplay.

The Bad:
– Not much PVP (but then again, this isn’t one of those games)
– Definitely not for the hardcore players (debatable)
– Could use more races
– Changing classes anytime is good. But that removes a player’s specialty or individuality for that matter.

Atlantica Online Enters Europe

Atlantica Online will be published in Europe, in the German language, with a closed beta starting today. Extensive efforts in localization and support have been underway for several months leading up to the German launch. Ndoors looks forward to entering the European landscape and has long-term plans to eventually provide service for additional languages.
 
In the past twelve months, Atlantica Online has successfully expanded from Korea into North America, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, and China. With the addition of Europe, Ndoors will soon be operating globally.
 
“Players around the world have embraced the accessibility and uniqueness of Atlantica Online,” said Peter Kang, CEO of Ndoors Interactive. “The gameplay has proven to be universally enjoyed and we look forward to tailoring additional releases and content for European players.”
Atlantica Online - Original Painting

Mytheon: new details on the three main character classes.

Upcoming online multiplayer action-strategy game Mytheon announced details and new images of the three unique character classes; the Warcaster, Elementalist and Eidolon.
 
WARCASTER:
Foolish are those who face the battalion of the Warcaster: commander of minions and soldiers.  The Warcaster’s vigilant devotion to the Companion Stones has designated him with the utmost Power over those who possess mere knowledge.  When these stones are in the hands of the Warcaster, kindred strength does not lie in numbers.Under his constraint, the Companion Stones conspire together, bestowing vital enhancements to stats and abilities.  The Warcaster’s ability is often put to the test when allied with or faced against an Elementalist, whose area effect spells can cause massacre with a single burst.
Should there be one fortunate enough to weaken the Warcaster, he must then usher cross-class healing stones or potions to maintain long-term survival.  With creatures bowing to his every bid, the gods will soon face a worthy challenger.
 
ELEMENTALIST:
Torn between their obedience to the High Priestess Pythia, who presides over the Oracle of Apollo, and their obligation to the peril of mankind, the Elementalists made the fateful decision to abandon their posts in the Temple at Delphi to aid humanity’s fight against the gods.  A natural prudence to the preservation of the world has blessed the Elementalists with powers to wield the building blocks of nature.
The Elementalists bear the ability to shatter grounds, steer lightning, combust flames, and stir calm waters.  Subtle strikers from afar, the Elementalists benefit from combining the elemental Spells that they command.  Relying on Mytheon energy, they face the decision (perhaps ‘challenge’ instead of decision) to strike precisely or not to strike at all.  Elementalists prefer to fight their own battles instead of relying on companions to guard them.  They utilize the elemental tools such as the lightning rod for added attack and defense power.  Enemies should not know an Elementalist is in battle.until they notice a flash flood headed directly towards them a split second before their demise. 
 
EIDOLON:
Egyptian scholars strive to discover alignment between the earth and the heavens by finding correlations between the ordinary and the extraordinary.  How ordinary men created such extraordinary pyramids, we shall never know.  Perhaps this battle for mankind implored the souls of the Eidolons, whom Amon Ra had created to spy on Greece.  
The Eidolons possess the capacity to gain enhancements and abilities by utilizing the power of all stone types.  After learning of their power, they agreed to help the Greeks fight their gods so that they could return with their stones and help the people of Egypt.  They spend sleepless nights studying their stones in order to have the perfect combination to cause destruction upon foes while rejuvenating injured allies.  The Eidolons can master the ordinary powers of the stones easily.but releasing potentially extraordinary power is the ultimate challenge.

Mytheon - Male Elementalist blowing things up

Mytheon - Male Eidolon unleashing the power of stones on his foes

Mytheon - Male Warcaster Commanding his Minions

Karos Online: Details revealed on the ‘Fletta’ Game Mechanics

NHN revealed today more details about the Fletta game mechanics in its upcoming MMORPG Karos Online. The first phase of Karos Online’s closed beta took place last weekend, generating a lot of interest and participation from the community. Pleased with the game’s initial reception and feedback, NHN have confirmed that they intend to adapt the game in line with player requests as much as possible.
 
The dates of additional Closed Beta Weekend events will be announced shortly, and players possessing an access code for any Closed Beta Weekend may continue to play in future phases. Karos Online is scheduled to be released in English in Q4 2009, with versions in German and Turkish to follow later.

Gameplay in Karos Online is centered around the concept of Fletta, the magical energy which underpins the world of Asmara. To prevent Malyx, the Lord of Darkness, from hoarding all the Fletta for himself and casting a curse of darkness over the world, the five races on Asmara have banded together against him, constantly battling his forces for domination of the Fletta supply. Fletta has many uses in the game, and is available in two main forms:

1. Fletta Points, representing a character’s personal store of Fletta energy, accumulates when killing monsters in Karos Online, and can be used in several ways. It can be
– Spent to raise helpful character attributes; this allows additional development of characters alongside the game’s traditional levelling
– Kept (up to the level limit) to provide a boost to Experience Points
– Used to cast very powerful skills at higher levels
– Donated to designated NPCs in each region for access to local items and bonuses

2. Fletta Gem items are special weapons and armours that adapt in stats, appearance and level based on the wearer’s level and class. These are very valuable pieces that effectively level up with your character! These items can be crafted by specific NPCs from Fletta Gem Shards that players can find during gathering activities such as mining and fishing. Fletta Gem items come in six different quality grades, and can be upgraded through enchanting. Player guilds can battle for control over the Mines where Fletta Gem Shards can be found, and these Mines may change hands every 4-7 days.

Karos Online

MapleStory opens Monster Carnival and Back-To-School Special Events

MapleStory has a couple of new events that have just begun. Released this week to MapleStory is the Monster Carnival 2, a return of a very popular quest based event in which parties enter and hunt monsters the opposing team has summoned. The payoff of Monster Carnival is a trove of rewards including coins and medals. This event is currently underway and will continue indefinitely.
 
Also coming live this week is the Mu Lung Dojo challenge. At the Mu Lung Dojo, players can take on top fighters and earn a set of five belts and 32 metals.  Additionally, there is a series of back-to-school events that have gone live including:
Alphabet Gathering: Defeat monsters and collect the letters they drop to spell words which bring great rewards.
Cassandra’s Special Alphabet Gift: Reporting to this NPC upon login will earn players letters. In some cases, very rare letters.
The Great MapleStory book drive: Help a student retrieve her books from monsters who tore them from her and receive letters or other valuable items.
Back-to-School Sale: There is a 30 percent off sale on necessary school items such as notebooks, pencils and prep-school uniforms.

Maple Story - The End of the Mu Lung Dojo

The Warlords: Upcoming events in September!

Players of The Warlords can look forward to the following exciting in-game events in September:
 
Storm Temple
The government is about to transfer a large amount of food to the front line troops as supplies. Now the goods are stored in the Storm Temple. Somehow the information was leaked to the White Lotus Cult, who will probably set an ambush before the foods are transferred. You have to protect the supplies from being robbed.
Estimated Duration: Sep. 4th Sep. 9th
Prizes: Purity Pellet Double EXP Brew Revival Pill Pack Senzu Pill Rage Gem
 
Divine Stick
The Liangshan Heroes are recruiting buyers to collect weapons for them now. Go and do them this favor. You will be handsomely rewarded after the job is done!
Estimated Duration: Sep. 18th Sep. 23rd
Prizes: Purity Pellet Double EXP Brew Revival Pill Pack Senzu Pill Rage Gem

The Warlords - Big PBAoE!

Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited, Head Start Begins

First Premium Free to Play MMO Opens to Select Players

Turbine, Inc. announced today that Dungeons & Dragons Online:  Eberron Unlimited (DDO Unlimited), the premium free-to-play massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG), is now live for all current and former subscribers as well as recent participants in the closed beta. DDO Unlimited introduces an innovative new pricing model that allows players to download and play for free, purchasing adventure packs, items, and account services a la carte from the new DDO Store, or to subscribe to get unlimited access to all of the game’s content.

DDO Unlimited raises the level cap, introduces a new player class, adds major new content and makes the game free to play for everyone.  The new DDO Unlimited delivers heart-pounding gameplay featuring the industry’s best combat system, a massive world with state-of-the-art graphics and gameplay, and a rich set of features that until now could only be found in premium subscription-based MMOs.

Dungeons and Dragons

Astrowars Review: Yep Another Space Game

By Vincent Haoson (Vincenthaoson), OnRPG Journalist

Astrowars puts you in the seat of a commander of a planet. As its head, it is your responsibility to develop and create an empire that will dominate space with an iron fist or become a strong, peace-seeking nation.

Earning Resources

First and foremost, Astrowars, as most browser-based games out there is a resource centered game. The important resources that you need to harvest in the game for survival are: population, science, production and culture points.

As a resource centered game you have to properly allocate which resource needs to go first and so forth. Everything is balanced if you started playing the game using the default choice for newbies. However, players have the option of getting a ‘race’ for their starting game. The races, unlike the default newbie accounts have more freedom in choosing what they will start with. This gives the veteran players a more adjustable gaming style.

Gameplay

Using the resources you earn, your goal is to reach 500 points or more, once you do reach the required amount of points a seven day countdown will be announced server wide. During this period you need to keep yourself from dropping below 500. If it does drop within the seven day countdown the clock resets and you would need to reach 500 points again. If you do get to maintain your points from dropping below 500 you win the game and Astrowars starts a new round.

Astrowars Resources

With this in mind, you generally get the idea that the game is more of a ‘you against the world’ thing. You turn into a walking target once you hit 500 points and you need to outsmart, outmaneuver and out play everyone who wants to get to the top.

The competitive nature of the game makes up for the lack of anything visual found in the interface. However, it gets tiring if you all you see are texts whenever you log into the game. This affects the game’s longevity especially if you would find a game that has the same concept but has more graphics.

The advantage the game has compared to other more graphic heavy browser games is that the game loads faster and you immediately see what you do because the game auto refreshes whenever you do something. At first glance this seems to be a faulty feature of the game however if you play long enough you will see that the auto refresh feature smoothens out the transition per actions you take without causing much delay.

Alliances

Trying to maintain 500 points for seven days is in fact a hard thing to do especially if everyone online wants a shot at it. Unless you have the ultimate strategy that would keep you from losing chunks of points within the seven day time period then it would seem to be an impossible goal.

The game does have an alternative way of winning and its through an alliance. Your alliance must keep 470 points once the countdown starts to win. This gives alliances a more important role in the gameplay unlike in other browser-games where an alliance would only serve as a community tool rather than being an integral part of the game feature. Astrowars is also a strategic MMO that is why the alliance has an alternate feature where you can contact each other which serves as a strategic tool as well. Alliances reduce the paranoia factor whenever you interact and share because you are part of a group that has the same goals in mind.

The problem about the Alliance system is that the communication feature is not happening in real time. Unless you go out of the game and communicate through a third party messenger there would be a lag time in-between alliance communications. A lot can happen in that time and maybe the info you would be giving or receiving may be important to your alliance’s strategy.

Leveling in Astrowars

Game Guides

The best feature the game has is that it has a very helpful wiki page. What’s more is that it’s integrated into the game interface that you will immediately be transported to the page where the information is found regarding a certain aspect of the game. The drawback to this is that the click does not open another tab or window whenever you click on it, therefore making you press back whenever you click a help link instead of being able to read the guide while doing it in-game in real time.

Another drawback to the links is that you do not exactly see if the link you are going to click in the game is a help guide or an in-game feature. There are no warnings or texts that say you are being transported into a help page, what you get is your cursor changes into a link and that’s that. For new players this would be the biggest problem they would have to face in the game aside from the lack of any visuals. Everything goes on smoothly once you get the hang of the interface.

Conclusion

The first thing you would notice once you start playing Astrowars is that the game concept is very similar to a new browser-based MMO, Galaxy Online. The idea of having your own planet, nurturing and developing the technology your planet has smells all to Galaxy Online. However, you cannot say that Astrowars is an exact Galaxy Online clone, even if the two games have similar game concepts. They are different with each other in a lot of aspects. Astrowars is faster-paced and is more of a strategic MMO whereas Galaxy Online has a more ‘RPG’ feel to it. You would not necessarily get tired of playing the game because the rounds refresh whenever someone gets to survive seven days while maintaining a 500 point cap or that an alliance gets to win. If you are more of a numbers and strategic type of player then I can say that Astrowars is the game for you, the game won’t eat away a lot of your time unlike other browser-based games out there. It’s a straight-up strategy space game.

Pros:
– The game goes fast forward when you reach the start of the countdown
– The game has a very huge game guide database and really helps new players
– The interface is simple and you the game load time is fast.

Cons:
– The game starts on slow and you need to each 500 points before things become exciting
– The interface is bland especially to those who are used to browser based games that have pictures
– You’d have to cycle through the guides as you play. 

Heroes of Newerth

 

Heroes of Newerth is a room based game designed in the likeness of the popular Warcraft III map, Defense of the Ancients. With a simple control scheme, point and click with customisable hotkeys, players team up and choose from a roster of over 40 heroes. Earn gold from killing enemy units to buy more powerful items to make your hero stronger, all the better unleash destruction upon the enemy.
 It uses it’s own engine, the K2 Engine, which was used for previous S2 games as well, Savage and Savage 2.  You start you out in a lobby where you join a room, and then the game commences when the room leader starts the game. Games can be played with 5 people per team, but there are modes for less people as well.

 

Product Review: Catapult/ Trebuchet

Written by: Mohammed Afzal (MageMoa), Onrpg writer

Hurl and burn!!!

A long, long time ago we didn’t have tanks, guns and grenades. We used swords, hammers, axes, and bows to kill each other. Humans found out that these ancient weapons would not be enough to defend themselves against their opponents so they started to use the nature (fire, forests, waters etc..) to keep their enemies away. The problem they faced was that these elements could not be used directly against their opponents in the middle of a war. They started to develop a new kind of weapon which could be used to fire rocks, burning oil and boulders over long distances. A weapon so powerful that it could break through walls; The catapult and trebuchet, two wooden war engines, were found.

Virtual wars

Many MMORPGs decided to make good use of these medieval weapons. Age of Conan is one of them. Age of Conan has the unique feature to build a town together with your guild mates and defend it with catapults etc.. You have to ride these catapults yourself, but keep in mind that they are slow and pretty easy to break down.  

Trebuchet

Another game that uses catapults is Guild Wars. You can find these catapults in several missions and they could be a great advantage against your enemies.

Savage 2 has, in my opinion, the greatest trebuchet you can find in the MMO industry; The Steambuchet. This steambuchet might be slow, but it can deal severe damage to your opponent’s buildings.

Your own war engine

There is nothing as great as your own war engine. There are several places on the internet where you can buy your own, miniature, catapult or trebuchet. These small engines could be used to fire small stones or other small objects, but you could also use them to annoy your little brother with balls of paper or you could pour a little water in them and wake your parents with it!

These little things are basically awesome and I would recommend you all to try them out!

Do you want to buy your own? Go to http://www.thinkgeek.com/ and order your own masterpiece!

Catapult