Yearly Archives: 2009

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

Ran Online : Beta Key Giveaway for the 2nd CBT!

Real Life, school RPG Ran Online which has been developed and serviced by the Online Game Developer Min Communications Inc. will soon giveaway Beta Keys for its 2nd CBT through Onrpg.

To participate in the 2nd CBT of Ran Online, you must get your Beta Key. The Beta Keys can be acquired through the brand new event on Onrpg and can be used at the Ran Online Official Homepage. Once the Beta Key is entered players can enjoy Ran Online just by logging in during the Ran Online 2nd CBT.

Plus, there is an event held for all the users who participate in the Ran Online 2nd CBT with the Beta Key from Sep. 2nd to 15th, winners will be drawn randomly and rewarded with in-game items.
 
CEO Kim, Byung Min of Min Communications Inc. said “For more enjoyable experience for the users, we are giving out Beta Keys for the 2nd Ran Online CBT,” and “I hope that users can also experience the new sensation of School Action MMORPG through Ran Online, which they have never experienced in other games.”

Ran Online

GodsWar Dev Journal: Brainstorming the Holy Suit System

After we made improvements to the pet system, we figured it would be in our best interests to improve the game’s equipment system as well. We understand that our players want their gear to be anything but ordinary, and many are dissatisfied with the star ranking equipment system. The challenge is coming up with a new system that can be both interesting and easy for players to adapt to. It is a tough assignment because our opinions are subjective, and until it is put to the test by our players, we are “sailing in blue water.”
 
Initially, we had some cool ideas. Some staff members favored a direct extension to the current design. The goal there was to strengthen the equipment using special items. For instance, players might design a specific kind of mystic scroll and apply it to a piece of equipment to boost their physical attack power. We even came up with a name for this: the “Mystic Binding System.” While the idea is a good one, it is hard to put into practice. Although the process is easy to understand, the system would take too much away from the gameplay and is too involved. Players would first have to learn how to design a scroll, and then learn how to apply it to make maximum use of it. We think we have enough game content without adding a time-intensive, multi-step equipment enhancing process that would detract from game time better spent on other pursuits.
 
One staff member favored a variation of the “Mystic Binding System.” Taking complexity into consideration, he recommended eliminating the scroll designing process. Though this could make the process easier, it would still fall short of our intent to add something new and interesting to the game. Without the scroll designing process, players could purchase the scroll from the item mall or through rewards from various events, which would be too much like extending the star ranking system from the current 10 levels to 20.
 
As it turned out, I received an unexpected phone call that sparked many further conversations before we finally nailed down the “Holy Suit System.” Believe me when I say the call came at an expected time; it was 1:00 AM in the morning. The call was from Frank, one of our customer service staff members (also a close friend of mine). He had an idea inspired by a comic book from his childhood. He sounded quite excited and started telling me about this holy suit idea of his. Considering the late hour when he called and my lack of enthusiasm, probably due to the fact that I was sound asleep at the time, I managed to accomplish two things: get confused and get more confused. However, the next morning his idea finally started to make sense. Everyone, myself included, liked his idea.
 
The new system would divide equipment into three classes: bronze, silver and gold. It would give players a better visual representation of their progress. Besides, metallic suits look good. To upgrade their equipment, players would need to gather some corresponding items. At first, we weren’t sure what items to use. We wanted something players could easily obtain. Then another staff member, Jerry, recommended using players’ experience points in combination with some easily obtainable items. We had been having problems figuring what to do with players who had reached the level cap and had stockpiled extra experience points, and this was a great opportunity for us to kill two birds with one stone. We felt players would have no problem with that, because otherwise they were stuck with these built up points with nothing to use them on.
 
Mabie, our SVP, recommended enchasing gems on suits. She likes fashion, including dazzling accessories, but she had a whole set of reasons behind this idea, and one of them is based on the wolf in sheepskin concept. Players who want to surprise others with their performance would have the option of strengthening their equipment without changing the look. She also wanted to give players an alternate way to improve their equipment.
 
Now that I have shared the brainstorming process behind our new Holy Suit System, I’d like to invite players with good ideas or suggestions to please contact us, but try to avoid Frank’s method. I don’t think anyone likes the idea of being woken up at that hour of the night. We like his idea very much, but not his delivery method. Again, all comments are welcome, and as always, we will try to make the right choices that will best accommodate our players in a timely fashion. I also want to take this opportunity to thank all those who have stood behind us over the past several months; we appreciate your support.

Gods War Online