Yearly Archives: 2009

Land Of Destiny

Land of Destiny (LoD) is a real time strategy game, which is played online together with thousands of other players. After registration you start with a small tent somewhere on the game world. Next to your tent there is a pile of resources, this is necessary to start building your village. In your tent you can recruit peasants, they will take a place as workers in your new buildings. Land of Destiny has a wide variety of resources, this is one of features which make LoD interesting and different compared to other browser games.

Florensia Pits Player vs. Pirate with New PvP Battlegrounds

Burda:ic, a leading publisher of online games worldwide, announced this week that war has broken out between the Royal Army and the Pirates of popular free-to-play MMORPG Florensia! Two existing in-game maps have been converted from standard adventuring areas into new player vs. player (PvP) War Zones for level 40 and above: the Hidden Port in the Pirates of the Black Dragon Base and the Rainbow Highland on Chester Island. Additionally, an all-new War Zone map, the Lava Plateau, is now available on Magnel Island.
 
Buccaneers beware, you’ll need a keen eye and fast fingers upon arrival to these new areas, as players are free to attack anything that moves… even if that happens to be a fellow adventurer. It’s every man, soldier, and pirate for himself on these battlegrounds, and it’s up to each player to decide his or her own fate. Help the Royal Army clear the areas of monsters and earn a boost in the ranks. Kill other players, and the Pirates are sure to take notice.
 
A war is brewing on the high seas of Florensia, and these new PvP War Zones are just a taste of the seafaring adventure and mayhem on the horizon!

Neo Steam: Early Beta Access Deadline

The exclusive Early Access Beta is just around the corner for Atlus Online’s fantasy-steampunk, massively multiplayer online role-playing game Neo Steam: The Shattered Continent, and time is running out to sign up. Everyone who registers on the portal by May 20 will be eligible for a spot in the Early Access Beta, which begins on May 21. Those who do not sign up in time will have to wait for Open Beta.
                                                                                          
Atlus Online, a daily destination for community-focused gaming and interactive entertainment, will also run various promotions throughout the beta stages, giving away prizes and exclusive in-game items for Neo Steam: The Shattered Continent.
 
“Time flies! We are quickly approaching the launch of Neo Steam: The Shattered Continent, and we want to make sure all of our loyal fans have a chance to see the game before the big unveiling,” says Tyler Kim, Head of the Online Division, Atlus U.S.A., Inc. “The game has evolved into something great, and we encourage players to see how our hard work has paid off.”
 
Neo Steam: The Shattered Continent, Atlus Online’s first massively multiplayer online role-playing game, transports players to a world where two nations battle over a precious resource called Neo Steam. From the onset, customization is key to each player’s experience, where they can choose which nation to join and select from a number of specialized classes. As players battle to expand their nation’s resources and protect their borders from invasion, they must learn to harness steam technology to upgrade their equipment, learn new abilities, and progress in their chosen class. Adding to the immersive aspect of the fantasy-steampunk world, the game also features various forms of steam-based machines and vehicles for faster in-game traveling.

Dragonica Europe Closed Beta Opens to Everyone

The free arcade style 3D side-scrolling MMORPG Dragonica has been online for Europe during its Closed Beta for less than a week at the gpotato.eu gaming portal, with the official release planned for June 2009. In order to perform server tests and allow all users to take part in the CBT Community Events, the gPotato Team have decided to open the servers to all gPotato.eu users for a 4 days Stress Test beginning on the 19th of May.
 
For the first time in western countries, the highly anticipated action MMORPG Dragonica has been made available to a selected amount of players for the European Beta Test on the 13th of May. Since then, many events, such as Combo Challenge or Screenshot Contest, have been lead by the gPotato Community Team, and many more are planned for the coming days.
 
All gPotato.eu users will be able to participate in the upcoming events, as the gPotato Team opens Dragonica to the public for a 4 days Stress Test leading to the end of the beta test on Friday the 22nd. During these four days, users will be able to discover the colorful world of Dragotaka and the action-paced gameplay of Dragonica. All beta users who reach level 20 before the end of the tests will be able to reserve their character name and receive rewards at the official launch of the game next month.
 
In order to have access to the Dragonica Stress Test, just create a free account on the gpotato.eu gaming portal, download the game from the official Dragonica website, and play!

Freesky Online: 3 Military Development Directions

Freesky Online is a strategy-oriented web game that challenges players to found and then build up Empire. If players want to stand out in the future, they must have solid goals for development and clear plans about how to achieve these goals. We’ve talked about Economic development before, so today were going to be discussing the details of the other primary development strategy, strong militaristic development.
 
Money Then Military
Although this is a very common development strategy, the differences here are in the details. The only major drawback is the obviously insufficient military power of your Empire when its in its most crucial growth stage. Selling large amounts of resources is one way to stimulate the development of the economy in the short term, while you prepare to quickly build the military when the time is right. Because you’ll be focused on stockpiling resources to fund a military buildup that hasn’t happened yet, this can be a confusing and sometimes effective way of staying one step ahead of your enemies in the region.  
 
Secret Strike
This means of development takes one part of the previous strategy and moves it front and center. Forget trying to jump start the economy. Forget about the mind games. Just stockpile every military resource and airship you can get your hands on, keep it secret til you’re ready and then launch a pre-emptive (surprise) attack on an enemy of your choice. This method can be devastating, and with good size Armies taking only a day or two to build, very effective. However, because it relies on secrecy and surprise, it usually can’t be used more than a few times before someone pre-emptively attacks you, so as a long term strategy, it’s not quite as useful.
 
Keep Your (Potential) Enemies Close
This is a very flexible development direction, because how you develop depends on what your Alliance needs. If there are many economic-oriented players in this alliance, then you’re probably going to be the muscle, and quickly developing a strong military is essential in order to protect them from danger. Remember, they got the funds you need to keep the airship production lines humming, and you have the protection they need so they don’t get mugged by a hostile army. Just make sure you let them know that they need you a lot more than you need them.
 
With certain items, you can take control of a war with ease. If military-oriented players use these kinds of items, enemies might even mistake them for an economy-oriented Empire and make the mistake of picking a fight. Then, you got them right where you want them…

Fiesta, SoS and Project Powder Update

Solstice: The Housing System is coming out this week! It’s finally time to design your own pad. Invite guests, show off your designing skills and taste, and hang out with your friends. There will be over twenty items of furniture that you can either purchase with SparkCash or through in-game quests, to help you with this process.
 
Fiesta: The next phase in the Job Class Tree is being released this week as well, the Prestige Class. Players who reach 100 will be able to choose between two different paths depending on their current class. For example fighters who reach level 100 will be able to choose between the Gladiator or the Knight class, the Gladiator specializing in raw power and damage while the Knight specializing in defense and protecting the party.
 
Project Powder: Lots of new content is being added to Project Powder weekly including premium and non premium gear. Also, this Wednesday, a new map is going to be ready to play, Oblivion Part3, which is full of fast paced action and tricky short cuts.

Damoria Review: Convenience At Its Best

By Rick Charbs (Jammart), Onrpg writer
 
Damoria is a simplistic strategy browser based MMORPG. Set in a medieval theme, one must expect castles, knights, kings, cavaliers, and the like!  It was developed by Damoria GmbH in 2008, and later published by BigPoint. Damoria has been in constant growth and expansion since then, with an active player base of 66 000! This is most likely due to the fact that the game is available in 16 languages; it truly is accessible to everyone (namely European countries). Being a mixed game of text based ideals and graphics for embellishment, Damoria earns its wide respect (not to mention addictive nature) in the browser based game world.
 

General Gameplay

The main goal of any Damoria player is to put together your own army and equip them with weapons made from raw materials that you gather on your own terms; this game is all about resource management. With this army, you are then charged with the mission of conquering your neighbours and work your way up to world domination!
Damoria provides you with many different buildings at your disposition. Some of the possible units you can create in terms of building are: construction offices, hiding place, quarry, dwellings, storage, military training area, sawmill, barracks, walls, marketplace, tournament field, stables, laboratory, senate, and many more. As you can see, there are some pretty unique building features in Damoria that you won’t see elsewhere (with a large emphasis on the senate).
Seeing as you have these wide ranged possibilities for building on land, you have to manage your village with precision in order to allow it to expand and develop further.  With that in mind, you also have to pay attention for enemy attacks and guard your castle. You have the option to ally with friends, which is highly recommended, in order to conquer others much more efficiently.
As a resource management game, Damoria has various mining, finance, and army building features. Create catapults, swords, bows, and arrows with materials you’ve gathered in the mines and in the woods. As they would say: “Here you will find everything your little conqueror heart desires.” Once you are set in your own land, you basically have the decision of fortifying your village further or take action against others to fight for the biggest castle, or better yet, the largest kingdom. That being said, this game is also very interactive. Not only can you fight other people real-time, you can trade with them as well. Trading is practically mandatory, at least within your own market, as it is the only consistent source of resource sharing.
 

Graphics and Sound

Damoria has a healthy mixture of text based components and graphical aspects to aid its performance. The interface and concept art is very inviting; however the game’s graphics are only mediocre, which is expected for a game solely played in your internet browser. There is nothing to complain about though, unless you find text based games revolting. As far as I know, there is no sound component to Damoria. Seeing as it is a very casual game, sound is not quite necessary, as you can just play your own media during your gameplay. This was most definitely not an issue for me!
 

Personal Recommendation

Generally not enjoying strategy based games, I come from a biased point of view. I found the combat and general gameplay to be rather dull, as you have to wait between resource gathering, money making, battling, etc. Sometimes the queues are pretty long, and leave you without much to do in-game. This resulted in me browsing forums, talking to friends, and listening to music while waiting (which is not a bad thing, however I was looking to play a game and not other things). Another factor that turned me off from this game was the fact my computer is not so speedy, and takes time to open new pages. Seeing as you have to open a new page every time you make an action in Damoria, one can only imagine how long it took me to get the game going.

Without that biased look on the game in mind, for a strategy browser based MMO, Damoria seems to have a lot to offer. It has a great community of a large variety of cultures, and many players to compete against. Those being pretty major positive aspects of the game, I also fished out a pretty negative one, being the dependence on real cash to get your army going. It is really complicated and difficult to start off your kingdom without gold, and the Damoria team kicks in with their offer of gold for real life cash to get your out of your goldless misery! It is understandable that they need revenue, although I think it could be done in a different way as to be plausible by everyone.
Damoria is a very casual game that is extremely convenient to play. All you have to do is open up your web browser, login, and you’re set to play. I can see it to be very enjoyable if you do enjoy playing strategy/tactical games, let alone MMOS, and don’t mind wandering elsewhere while your army builds and your resources grow. Happy gaming!
Pros
-Varied Community
-Unique units for a strategy game
-Very convenient to play
 
Cons
-Absence of sound
-Real cash for in-game gold renders gameplay almost effortless
-Complicated at first, there is a slight learning curve

War Rock Review: Ready to War Rock?!

Are you ready to rock?! ARE YOU READY TO WAR ROCK?!
By Kei Beneza (Dividelife), Onrpg writer

 

Gosh, this sure brings back memories. Remember Counterstrike and Battlefield? I remember the epic feeling of having to throw the grenade that wiped out my enemies. Good news guys, you no longer have to dwell in nostalgia cause War Rock wont let that EPIC feeling die! Now who said that all MMOs have to be RPGs…? Quick! Where are the guns?!

 

War Rock is an online game that brings you the old-school feeling of having to use existing military weapons to slay your opponents. War Rock’s graphic capability isn’t that good when compared to the most up to date shooters. You’re basically stuck with models with the same graphic detail as those of Counterstrike and other early FPS games. This on the other hand doesn’t serve as a problem since the game’s low spec compatibility makes it easier for most PCs to run the game. The sounds are just awesome, with BOOMs and BAMs that would spark up your old ‘gunny’ desires that probably died a few years back. I could say that the game is pretty much something you must have on your PC since FPSes are quite helpful when yearning for a game that won’t last you for hours (that would depend on you though).

 

I said, where are the guns?

The guns are nicely made and rendered like your average MMO games. Their responsiveness and balance are also quite similar to that of Counterstrike. You’ll start off with a small variety of guns which will expand as you unlock more. You can purchase them by spending your hard-earned Dinar (or in game currency) that you acquired throughout the game. There are also some items that you can loan for a price (cash). Although it might suck to return it when your lease time runs out, these premium guns are loaded and would greatly enhance your performance (or maybe it just feels epic). This may be considered as premium whoring since paying for stuff may give you an advantage over your enemies who are playing it for free (Cash > Skill).

 

More Than CounterStrike? Definitely!

If you think War rock is nothing more than a counterstrike remake, then you’re dead wrong. This game shares a nice set of game modes that remove the linearity of the game. Close Quarters Combat missions (commonly-known-as CQC) for example is your regular “Plant the bomb” scenario, while Battle Group mode brings you in the middle of an all-out-war where you can ride tanks and aircrafts to further decimate your opponents. If you’re tired of playing Rambo then why not try to take it up a couple of notches?

 

Whether it’s on land, water or air, War Rock’s gameplay is sure to put you on the edge of your seats with an array of stunning vehicles that would do more than satisfy your cravings for action. As you can see, War Rock offers you more than just guns, this game is pretty much the whole package! Humvees, Fighter Planes, YOU NAME IT! Nothing screams “War!” better that this game.

 

“War Rock has pretty much captured the good aspect of all the FPSes we know and love, condensing them into a solid brew of action and mayhem.” You can find more information about the battle conditions here.

 

Classes

Unlike old FPSes, War Rock gives you a chance to further define your role in the battlefield by picking between a group of 5 classes: Heavy Trooper, Sniper, Medic, Engineer, and Assault. Make sure you maintain a good balance of characters in your group since this may actually work up to your advantage.  You can always change your class during your respawn time when you feel like using another character.

 

Yep… definitely still MMO-ish

Of course no MMO would be complete without characters leveling up, and War Rock is no exception. Leveling up allows you to unlock more features like guns and other stuff that would further compliment your performance. You can gain experience points either by killing or functioning the role of your class. A healer, for example, will gain experience by healing his teammates as they continue to fight throughout the game. This by far is an excellent way of telling people that everything can’t be acquired through GRINDING kills (lol).

 

BANG BANG BANG!

The sounds greatly emphasize what this game is all about. Hearing each gun’s unique firing sound kinda gives you a feeling of how hard the bullet might hit. This, of course is good since it gives you a better feel of the game and you pretty much wouldn’t want to play a game with guns that technically blurts off the same sound every time you fire them. The variety of sounds can even work up to your tactical advantage since you know what type of gun your opponents are using. Hearing the sound of sniper rifles can inform you that your opponents may have a sniper among them. It IS a lot better than poking your head out just to see if they have one anyway. 

 

Tanks and aircrafts also give off their own respective BOOMS, giving players a good grasp of the ambiance. War rock’s sound is definitely one of the things that make it good, no doubt about that. Enhancing a player’s experience as they continue to battle it out till the end. 

 

The Verdict

First of all, I’d like to say that the sudden revival of our oldschool FPS meta is reason enough to put confetti all over this game. The game’s different game modes are all quite exquisite and would probably get you playing for a couple of hours. Since the game is mainly based on PVP, the replay value is quite high being that every session serves as a different challenge. Trying out different guns as you progress throughout the game makes leveling-up something to look forward to.

 

The in game vehicles are quite appealing, and although the graphics aren’t as good as some of the most up to date games, it’s the gameplay that truly brought in the adrenaline of WAR. The game is called War Rock, and may I say that the name itself pretty much defines what this game is all about. It’s a war…. that rocks…

 

Pros:
– Fast paced action
– Excellent sounds
– Vintage functioning.

 

Cons: 
– The graphics are a bit old
– Characters look a bit pixelated
– Too old-school perhaps.