Yearly Archives: 2009

Dragonica Europe Preview: The story of Dragotaka

By Mohammed Afzal (MageMoa), Onrpg writer
Dragonica, published by Barunson Interactive, hosted by Iahgames and soon by Gpotato EU, is the first 3D sidescroller in the world of MMORPGs. Dragonica is a MMORPG from the newest generation of games. The game offers us horizontal, but also vertical movements in a side scrolling view. Other than that, we can find ourselves in a world full of action, flashy skills and great graphics. The game has been tested in three countries so far and after Iahgames, Gpotato Europe decided to host the European version of Dragonica, which’s Closed Beta will be held from May 13th until May 22nd.   Before the Closed Beta of Dragonica EU gets released, we of Onrpg had been given the opportunity to test the game and write a preview.

Introduction

Unique from the beginning is how I would describe Dragonica. From the first moments in the game until the last second before you log out, you will notice a great sphere full of uniqueness. It all starts at the character creation window. After you log in, you will notice a dragon standing in a forest, watching your characters. There are four character spots, which means that you can try every class without having to delete your characters or create a new account.
 
The character creation of the game is also decent. You will be able to pick a hairstyle from the many available ones, select one of the beautiful hair colors and one of the amazing faces. And then, it is time to choose a class! You will be able to choose between four classes; Warrior, Magician, Archer and Thief. But as I have explained before, the game is a one of a kind, which means that there is more. There are two job advancements for every class with two different ways to choose, which means that there is a total of twenty different jobs! Let me explain all the classes for you:
 
Archer – Archers are known for their strong ranged attacks, but in Dragonica, they are also able to handle some enemies in close range. After finishing the job advancement quest, archers are able to choose between the jobs Arbalist and Pathfinder.
 
Arbalists specialize in archery by using crossbows, but that’s not everything! Arbalists also have the ability to use grenades, machine guns and missiles. An Arbalist can advance into a Grenadier at level 40.
 
Pathfinders keep their bows and arrows. They are fast, strong and they cannot be missed in a great party. A Pathfinder can advance into a Ranger at level 40.
 
Magician – The beautiful class of offensive and healing magic.  They are incredibly strong, but their lack of defense makes it hard for them to fight alone. After the job advancement, a magician will have to choose between the healing Monk and the offensive Battlemage.
 
Monks are the key of a strong team. They can heal and resurrect their friends, but they can also attack their foes. At level 40 a Monk will be advanced into a Priest.
 
Battlemages rely on their offensive magic and they are able to take out a high amount of enemies at once. They will be advanced into a Warmage at level 40.
 
Thief – The quick and stealthy class. They rely on their speed and their ability to dodge attacks. A thief will be able to pick between the jobs Jester and Assassin.
 
Jesters use claws to attack their foes. As a jester, you will be able to reach a high amount of combos, because of their incredibly speed. A Jester will be advanced into a Harlequin at level 40.
 
Assassins are known for their poisonous attacks with their katars. They are fast and dangerous, even for themselves. An Assassin can change into a Ninja at level 40.
 
Warrior – The traditional melee class of every game. With their high defense and hit points, they are able to protect their friends from dangerous species. Warriors can choose between the jobs Gladiator and Knight.
 
Gladiators are the strongest melee class of Dragonica. They can deal a high amount of damage with their two handed blades and swords, but their attacks are slower than the Knight’s. They will be promoted to Myrmidons at level 40.
 
Knights have a better amount of defense, but they can also deal pretty decent damage. A Knight will be able to advance into a Paladin when reaching level 40.

Gameplay

 
The English versions of Dragonica might not be fully released yet, but they already have some interesting features. One of these features is the Housing System. You will basically be able to create your own house and decorate it with furniture’s and more!
 
The second feature I would like to discuss, is the PvP option of Dragonica. Every player that is at least level 10, will be able to create his own PvP room. Any other player will be able to join the room. Other than a regular Death Match, which can be played as a single match or a group battle, there is also the possibility of playing “The Last Man Standing”. This PvP mode will give every player only one single life, which means they cannot resurrect, and release them into the battlefield to take out their opponents. The game can only be played as a group battle, which means that the last person’s team wins.
 
Some other features of Dragonica are the Guild function, which will allow you to create your own guild; and the Couple function, which will allow you to marry your boy- or girlfriend. Be warned: the game only offers its players to marry the opposite sex. These functions have not been tested by us, so we cannot give you our opinion about them.

Personal opinion

A great game, from the beginning until the end! It has really surprised me and I didn’t expect so many good from this game. The game definitely gives us what we always wanted from a MMORPG. Great graphics, challenging battles and missions, unique skills and features and easy controls can all be found in Dragonica, a game for young and old. I had some difficulties with placing all my skills on a single skill bar, but Gpotato’s Dragonica will have a second skill bar to avoid any problems. I can’t wait for the release of the game and I will recommend you all to play this fantastic game!

Angels Online: New PVP system Preview

In the new edition called House Party, the Angels Online team has developed a brand new PVP system, Angel Arena, which is totally different from the Totem Battle and Holy Battlefield. Players can join this PVP system alone and fight to win the highest single honor in game. Today, the Angels Online team is going to give a brief introduction about this all new PVP system.
 
Level Requirement: Only Level 60+ players can sign up and take part in this event.
 
Event Location
The Angel Arena in sever branch 1 of all servers. Players can use any [teleportation] items or [Escape Potions].
 
Sign-up Location: Players can go to one of the four main cities, the Angel Lyceum or Palm Base to find the NPC [Battlefield Angel] who will teleport them to the [Sign-up Office]. There, they must sign up at the [War Angel Servant] and then choose to join or view the battle.
 
During the Battle
After the event starts, all participating players will be teleported to their corresponding battlefields. Then, the system will automatically count down 5 seconds in the World Channel (it is included in the 20 minutes for each stage.) After 5 seconds, each participating Angel must find a blue circle on their feet. Then, they can begin to PK with each other.
If players are killed in the Angel Arena, they can’t join the battle again. They can continue to view the battle and they will lose no exp after their death. However, if they are offline during the event, they can’t join the battle even if they login.

Magic World Online 1 year Anniversary Celebration

Magic World Online, the first concept MMORPG with legal bot, will be celebrating the one year anniversary from May 12th for a whole month. Numerous events will be held to mark it, and both new players and old players are invited to join the grand Carnival.
 
At the time of the 1 year anniversary, players can get special items named “For Magic World online 1st anniversary celebration” from the drop of monsters. Then they can go to MWO Ambassador (Sun City: 175,177; Sky city: 198,159) to exchange for special gifts. You must not miss this chance because you may acquire the super rare Gold Equipment.
 
Another event is Auction Hunter, in which countless items which are better than ever will be put in Auction House, waiting for players’ bid! First come, first get! Besides, Hide and Seek, Prison Break which are popular in players will be held on irregular basis.
In addition, we will put on higher drop rate and better chance of Blessed Crystal (super) in terms of Growing Weapon composition.
 
Please join us for a month of celebration starting from May 12th and run until June 15th!

Destiny Online Anniversary

Destiny Online is an MMORPG featuring Beautiful 2D Graphics, Exotic Weapons, Powerful Skills, Loyal Pets, Versatile Mounts, Fierce PK, Tribal War, Online Romance and Wild Wedding Party. Now it has been a great year since last summer when Destiny Online was first launched. We experienced lots of fun together and those memories will be with us forever.
It is the first MMO that “Pays U 2 Play”, meaning that for each 2 hours that you are continuously logged in the game, you will earn 2 Gold Points. The Gold Points that you accumulated by being online can be used to purchase valuable items from the Destiny Item Mall. And now with the new twist of it, the brand new Master-Slave program, you can even earn more Gold without doing any more work.
During the 1-year anniversary celebration, there are lots of special events going on. Let’s check them out first:
1. Zero requirement for marriage. Marry her as long as you love her!
There’s no more requirement of level or friendship points any more. You can marry any one whatever your level is or however your friendship point with her/him.
2. Super Pet Fairy Dew!
Fairy Dew can be used on pets above level 80.
3. Hairstyle fashion show.
To stay in and never out, hairstyle is always the key. Destiny Online provides you more choice of hairstyles and hair colors.
Furthermore, we now provide you two public newbie codes that you can use to register new account. With them, you can claim a newbie package in game with great gifts inside of it.
Here are the codes: XRRLS8K, PKYLG8K.
It’s a great game and it’s now a great opportunity to get started. Happy anniversary to Destiny Online and we are looking forward to experience more fun with you!

Saga of Ryzom goes P2P

To keep you informed if you are not yet aware. For 9 months, our company : “Winch Gate Property Ltd” – based in Cyprus, took over Ryzom to put it back on its feet and allow you to continue to play your favorite game.
 
Our first action was the restoration of free online play on all our servers. This has continued for more than 8 months now.
Since then, we have applied two large patches that you have recieved for free. These patches have fixed many bugs and added many new features. But we will not stop there, in the future we plan to release many patches, on a regular basis.
 
Concerning Events: many have already taken place on Atys, with many others ready to be launched to entertain you; thanks to our dedicated animation team. The path to the : “Power To Player” is at hand ;-).
 
Finally, we are in the process of reactivating our “System Subscriptions” from Monday 4th May 2009 and begin payment effectively in two weeks.
 
With the reopening of these paid subscriptions, we can finally get your financial aid to help fund not only the operation of our game and our teams, but also the future development to come that we have planned.
 
Above all, remember that starting today, you get two weeks free game time, whereafter – you get the opportunity to come and play test the latest additions to our patches.
 
CAUTION: In two weeks all accounts will become paying accounts, you can find the new prices at here and the terms here (As you can see, the subscription price has been heavily revised downwards, for example a single monthly subscription is now 7.95 Euro’s).
The free trial pass gives three weeks of free and unlimited gaming that does not limit levels gained during the three week period (You are no longer forced to remain on Silan). Do not hesitate to invite your friends, as the game is still free to download (and play – within trial account limits) here and a new free trial account can be created here.
Now you are on the road to Atys, a wonderous, living world awaits, let the adventures continue!
The Ryzom Team.

RPG Dreamer

Here’s the winner for the Onrpg Blue Dragon Video Contest! The video is by Hotshotz79 and here’s the description:
“I start playing mmorpgs to see if they are worthplaying. While playing I fall asleep and wake up in a different world, only to find out that I have 10 minutes left on my quest to have lunch with my girlfriend! Will I make it in time or will i be suffering the consequences?”

Pangya

Pangya is a casual online multiplayer golf game – but it’s much more than just that. It simulates the challenging sport of gold in more immersive fantastical landscapes such as captivating desert backgrounds, lush green tropics, snowy wonderland and more.
 
Combining a fantasy adventure game with golf is probably not your first guess, but it generates interesting possibilities!
 
Pangya features elements we all look for: competition, PvP Tournaments, Pang Battle, Stroke or Team Match mode.

BattleForge Review: Perfectly Balanced

The first step in BattleForge is to choose your army. BF provides you four different sets of cards, divided by colour: red for massive attacks, blue for stalwart defence, green for regeneration and healing, purple for decay and damage over time. You can combine these colours any way you want but, just like in Magic the Gathering, the more colours you use, the more unlikely it will be for you to use the most powerful spells. A deck is composed by 20 cards, and you will need a balanced army, with melee and ranged units, turrets and spells. To help you move the first steps and get accustomed to the cards, the game provides you four pre-built single-colour decks. You can try them and decide which colour is more suited to your play-style and if you’d rather use one or more.

By Gabriele Giorgi (Darak), Onrpg writer

Take a good chunk of the Collectible Card Game Magic the Gathering (or Yu-Gi-Oh, if you prefer), dip it in a broth of Warcraft (I mean the original Warcraft, mind you, not WoW) and add a pinch of auction house from any MMO; boil and stir and… there you go! It’s the recipe of BattleForge, a brand new title by EA Games that can’t be boxed in just one genre. Will the gamers like its taste? Let’s try to guess it with this preview.

 

Build your deck

There’s more to it, of course. When you complete scenarios, you will be awarded upgrades and new cards, or “coins” you can use to buy boosters. Boosters will contain at least one rare card, much like in the CCG Magic the Gathering, and you can combine copies of a card, upgrades and battle points to create more powerful versions of it.

 

So part of the strategy and the first step to victory lie in a careful and balanced planning of your deck. As soon as you have arranged it, you are ready to enter the battlefield.

Power to fight

Although BattleForge is basically a Real Time Strategy game, some of its mechanics might prove to be a bit unusual from what you are used to. The main difference is that you do not need buildings to produce your troops, nor you have to constantly gather materials or gold to pay for them.

 

The only thing you need in order to summon your army is power from pylons scattered throughout the map: the more pylons you control, the quicker your power pool will replenish. The other essential requirement for your cards are elemental shrines: when you access a new one, you have to select which colour it will be. If you are using a single-colour deck, the choice will be straightforward, but if you are playing with more than one, you might want to be careful selecting what you need the most in that moment. Also, when your troops are defeated, some of the power you spent to summon them will form another pool and will contribute to your main level as well.

 

With your power you can summon units and cast spells near any other unit or pylon of yours. This means that you do not have to manage structures, and the defences are limited to walls you can erect in no time. So basically you just need to claim pylons and shrines, then defend them with turrets and troops alike (the only thing preventing you to amass you a vast army is a fixed unit cap).

 

This way the action turns out to be more fast-paced than a regular RTS, and a game, PvE or PvP alike, will not usually take more than half an hour.

 

Visually the game looks great: the graphics are stunning and really polished, while the animations are smooth and nice to watch. This is one of the best assets of this title and people will surely be impressed by it.

Know your enemy

As you might expect, you will have to face two different kinds of opponents: computer-controlled PvE scenarios and human adversaries in PvP.

 

Contrarily to what you might expect, the PvE part of this game is developed very deeply: not only there is a story unfolding, but you get to choose your path through the world map, since some of them require a cooperative effort to be completed. As usual, they will be increasingly difficult, letting you experience more of the game as you progress. About the kinds of mission, they are quite similar to what we have seen so far in RTS games, ranging from defending outposts to protect NPCs and the like. Anyway they are worth playing, both for the immediate rewards and because they can unlock other, more powerful cards.

 

PvP scenarios are set in simpler maps, and it will usually be a rush for the power pylons and the elemental shrines, since controlling them allows you to use more powerful creatures and spells. On the other hand, human opponents make them definitely more challenging.  Something that takes a bit getting used to is the rule allowing you to spawn a troop nearby another one: it might be a bit disappointing if you are about to finish off an opponent, only to see another, more powerful unit, spawn at his feet. About balancing, this could be another possible issue, but problems of this kind will surely be addressed on a regular basis. PvP duels are also quite important, since they award some coins required to upgrade your cards.

A boost with boosters

As already mentioned, one quick way to improve your army is through boosters. BF will use a micro-transactions system to get in-game currency with real money. This will help people willing to invest real cash to have a more powerful deck in less time.

 

Players who do not want to spend real money will eventually be able to obtain the same cards, but it will take time and many battles, and in the PvP scenarios they will have to watch out for “boosted” opponents.

 

Another way to get more cards is the auction, very similar to most auction houses you might know. Along with simple trade (just contacting people through the chat system), it is a good way to get rid of the cards you are not going to use and search for those that will fit in your favourite deck.

Conclusions

BattleForge is surely an innovative title, that winks to different kinds of players. While it provides something for every one, it remains to be seen how it will appeal the public. Anyway it is to be recommended, since this game is trying to bring something new in the MMO environment.

Pros
– Astounding graphics
– Every game mode (solo, cooperative PvE, PvP) has been equally developed
– Many ways to obtain and trade cards

 

Cons
– PvP maps quite simple
– Some RTS unusual rules might require getting used to
– PvE missions too similar to any other RTS

Maple Story celebrates fourth anniversary

Nexon America Inc. welcomes gamers to celebrate the fourth anniversary of its epic free-to-play game, MapleStory (maplestory.nexon.net). Launched on May 11, 2005, MapleStory became a legend in online games with its amazing social features, rich art style and open world opportunities. Players have flocked to MapleStory with over 92 million worldwide users and over six million users in North America.
Maplers have traveled through the many lands of the game’s vast world, as well as unleashed the game’s traits of individuality and freedom beyond its game borders. Players have turned MapleStory into an online video mainstay through blogs, community fan sites and fan videos. Over 200,000 videos are available by searching MapleStory at YouTube.
“After four years of service in North America, MapleStory continues to evolve and surprise us all. We are very grateful to our loyal fans and this celebration is for them,” said Min Kim, Nexon America’s Vice President of Marketing. “MapleStory fans have helped create something special and we’re going to reward them with new, exciting content to enjoy throughout the summer and beyond.”
The anniversary celebration will feature:
– Fourth Anniversary Maple Weapons – Monsters will be dropping special anniversary weapons. Or the players can exchange previous anniversary weapons and Maple Leaves for new Fourth Anniversary Weapons, Maple Hats, Maple Shields, Maple Earrings, or Fourth Anniversary Scrolls.
– Item Upgrades – Maple Hat and Maple Earrings obtained through monsters are upgradable using Maple Leaves. The earrings can be upgraded by completing additional quests.
– Leveling Up Event – Each time players levels up, they will receive Maple Leaves. The number of Maple Leaves rewarded will vary depending on the level. Higher level players will receive more Maple Leaves.
– GM Events – The GMs will run special events and summon last year’s anniversary boss, Big Puff Daddy, at random times.
– Monster Transformations – Any player can transform into one of MapleStory’s monsters for a given period of time.
– 4 Candle Event – Nexon is giving away 1,200 prizes over 40 days, including in-game items, Nexon Game Cards, digital cameras, iPod Touch and a laptop computer.  Players who play for 40 minutes will receive a candle. Once a player has a candle, they can receive up to four pieces of cake for each successive 40 minutes of game play. Players who get four pieces of the cake will have a chance to win.
– Maple Quiz – Players can take the Maple Quiz. For every question a player gets right, five Maple Leaves and a special cake will be rewarded.

Huxley: The Dystopia: Closed Beta registration open

The dream game for twitch-heavy first-person shooter (FPS) players looking for the character development and community found in massively multi-player online (MMO) games is within reach.  Huxley: The Dystopia kicked-off the second phase of its teaser Web site, marking the beginning of closed beta testing signups for ijji.com’s first-of-its-kind Unreal Engine 3-based MMOFPS.  Now eager players can enter their names for a chance to be among the first to try Huxley: The Dystopia. 
The Huxley: The Dystopia site’s new additions also boast a variety of previously unseen surprises and tidbits about the game.  New items include videos, access to forums, screenshots, character descriptions, storyline background, and much more.
“Huxley: The Dystopia is ready to reveal what it has evolved into, and we want our community to be the first to see the great progress we’ve made gearing up for the game’s launch,” said Philip Yun, CEO, NHN USA, Inc. “As just talking about the game doesn’t do it justice, we are excited to invite players in to see exactly how we brought together elements of FPS’ fast action and MMO’s character development, combining it all within a intricate storyline with stunning visuals.”
Huxley: The Dystopia is a powerful combination of massively multi-player online (MMO) game character development elements and the twitch-based fast-action game play of an Unreal Engine 3-based first person shooter (FPS).  Players are thrust into a dynamic world of crisp graphics and realistic environments, where they align themselves with one of two races, Sapiens or Alternatives, in the battle to harness dwindling resources in a war-torn land.  Game play is endlessly peppered with attacks from and against the Hybrid, a mysterious third group born of the two races.