Monthly Archives: August 2011

Vindictus Releases “Unveiling the Truth” Update

Vindictus Releases “Unveiling The Truth” Update

 

 

 

Nexon has released the Unveiling the Truth content update for Vindictus, the award-winning physics-based action MMORPG. Today, mercenaries find out the true motive behind the rebellion at Ortel castle and come face to face with unimaginable threats. The content ushers in two fearsome new raid bosses, a new dungeon, new player skill advancements and more.

 

 

Players are now able to explore the dark corridors of the Ainle Catacombs, home to the Succubus, mistress of seduction. She lies in wait to ensnare any unwitting mercenary, along with the demonic colossal Glas Ghaibhleann. In contrast to the beautiful and seductive Succubus, Glas is one ugly creature, and stands ready to tear foolish warriors limb from limb. These raid encounters will be the deadliest players have ever experienced, and a wise adventurer will work together with comrades for victory.

 

Mercenaries won’t have to face these encounters ill equipped. New tools of destruction are now available, just in time to help combat the Succubus, Glas and their fiendish hordes of minions. Certain existing skills have also been raised from Rank A to Rank 6 for added effectiveness in battle.

 

 

Unveiling the Truth also brings improvements to the in-game chat system to make it easier for players to communicate exactly how they want. Players now have the option to detach the chat window, block unwanted chatter, change chat font sizes and also include emoticons in their chats to other players.

OnRPG Site Redesign Nearly Complete

OnRPG Site Redesign Nearly Complete

 

 

Hey OnRPG viewers! This is just a quick notice that OnRPG will be undergoing some major changes in the homepage and game profile design sometime this month. This will involve moving placements, giving our videos more attention, and providing a much more organized and easy to navigate game profile to help you find the information fast rather than having to shift through endless news releases to find a game review. We’ve been working on this design for over 2 months now and are very excited to finally see the end result go live.

 

Also for those who may be wondering what happened to our facebook page, we had to recreate it due to some security issues. The new page is up and running and can be found HERE. Be sure to like us if you wish to get updates on all of our key articles as well as video coverage.

Picaroon Announces Nation’s Challenge 4 Week Event

Picaroon Announces Nation’s Challenge 4 Week Event

 

 

 

Today Nice Technology, publishers of the naval battle MMORTS Picaroon, announced a nation versus nation 4 week event beginning today!

 

Picaroon is an unusual MMO that places players in a post apocalyptic world in which all that remains is scattered small islands amongst a massive unexplored ocean world. Players are tasked with building up their base on a starting island and then harnessing their resources to explore and conquer their surroundings in order to prepare for the epic endgame final battle for supremacy.

 

 

In the Nation’s Challenge, players are allowed to use the new alliance system to team up with other players from their real world home country. In this World War, players will be forced to recruit others from the real world to bolster their numbers beyond those of their enemy nations to achieve total victory.

 

Picaroon plans to give away very large doubloon rewards (the ingame cash shop currency) to the winning team as follows:

1st Place in winning alliance: 5,000

2nd Place in winning alliance: 3,000

3rd Place in winning alliance: 1,000

All competitors in the winning alliance that survive will also receive 300 doubloons.

 

If your nation hasn’t formed yet, a 1,000 doubloon reward is up for grabs for taking up the role as the leader of your country. It’s a nice change of pace to see a game publishing company being both creative and generous as this and OnRPG wishes all their competitors luck in the coming weeks!

Picaroon Interview – RTS Meets MMO

Picaroon Interview – RTS Meets MMO

By Bryan King (Bryan), OnRPG Journalist

 

 

 

Picaroon is a brand new MMORTS that prides itself on mixing time-based rounds based on player preference, such as rounds being able to last anywhere from 90 minutes to four weeks. Today, I got the chance to sit down with Paul Baker of Nice Technology to discuss Picaroon.

 

 

King: Please introduce yourself and your team to our readers!

 

Nice Technology was formed in 2009 to commercialise the company’s unique MMOG engine (AliceServer), develop the software further and self publish games made with it. Nice Technology has developed two titles: Tronji, a children’s MMOG  created for BBCW and Ragdoll and Picaroon, both of which are in open beta.

 

Picaroon, has been produced by a small but dedicated team: Toby Simpson, creator of AliceServer, designer and producer; Mark Ashton, designer, producer and lead programmer; Greg Brown, lead artist; Gavin Rudd client, web and database programmer; Gary Wood IT network and support manager;  and Paul Baker, general manager.

 

 

King: How did you guys come up with the name “Picaroon”? It’s quite interesting.

 

The credit here goes to Mark Ashton the co-designer, producer and lead client programmer on Picaroon. We knew that the game had a swashbuckling theme, but title ideas with the word pirate in it just didn’t feel right. Then Mark came up with Picaroon which means the same thing and it sounds much nicer as all words with two ‘o’s in do. Of course there’s also the issue that if we mention pirates in the title, it sets people’s expectations to a historic setting whereas we’ve deliberately based Picaroon in some suitably grim future to allow us to pick and choose what technology we wish to use and not be limited to cannons, swords and parrots.

 

 

King: Is there a back story behind Picaroon that everyone should know about?

 

Picaroon is played out in the future where all that remains of the Earth’s surface are thousands and thousands of small tropical islands – most of them volcanic in nature. Now tidally locked, half of the planet is in perpetual darkness and no-one knows what is there (yet!). The remaining people battle it out for control of the land that’s available to feed the power of a few massive warlords descended from empires of times long past.

At least that’s the story as told around camp fires these days! What we really wanted was an excuse to mix old and new and apply a little odd styling of our own. If we based a pirate sea game in the past we’d not have been able to have super submarines, dirigibles and weapons of mass destruction. We wanted some familiarity and the ability to continue to uncover cool new things in future games: the tidally locked thing is part of that—there’s a whole half of the world that is dark and unexplored…

 

 

King: What features disassociate Picaroon from other MMOs and Strategy Empire Games out there?

 

Picaroon is a RTS: a genre that is traditionally very hard to transplant into the MMOG arena. Part of this is that it is technically quite difficult to manage hundreds of thousands of units owned by different players on a single server and game instance. We have created some exciting new technology that lets us do this and we wished to show it off as best as we could! Also, of course, because it’s a technical and design challenge, we were aware that any large-scale MMOG real-time strategy game would be unique, and we would be providing something to the market that was not already present.

 

Picaroon is also unique for a couple of reasons. Firstly it’s got this end-game phase where players who tribute a threshold amount of resources to the warlords get access to some pretty amazing extra weaponry at the end of the game which is designed to encourage some pretty vast wars. Secondly, we have worked very hard to establish a path of development that lets us introduce new game types that allow the game to appeal to more and more people. Obviously we’re also in a situation where unlike RPGs, RTSs tend to have a single winner. That can make for a lot of losers – so it’s vital that we have many, many ways to win, both small and large. We’re proud of the results of that work and we’ve yet to scratch the surface.

 

King: Picaroon recently went to an open beta from a closed one, what feedback did you get from your testers, and what content based on that has been added in game?

 

So far, so good! The reaction we have had has been excellent. We have worked very hard during beta to listen carefully to what our players say and respond accordingly when producing updates. The open beta has given us the opportunity to listen to a wider audience and to learn what our game feels like to play for the first time. We want Picaroon to be successful and the only way we will achieve that is through keeping our ears more open than our mouths!

 

We have received many suggestions from testers about the balance of units, the structure of alliances, the scoring of points, and specials! During beta we have made many changes to each of these areas as well as introducing some cool new features such as the airship and the technology centre. In addition, we’ve made progress to releasing a beta version of Persistent Picaroon.

 

 

King: What would you guys say was the biggest hitch that occurred in development?

 

In a large scale MMORTS such as Picaroon where players can control hundreds of units in real time, one of the biggest challenges is to balance the gameplay between paying players, free players, individual players, alliances and then particular units. This has been meticulously undertaken over a period of beta testing.

 

The biggest technical challenge was to update the graphics engine so that it can display the hundreds of ships of alliances members in a shared scene without performance degradation in the heat of vast battles!

 

 

King: Now, on the contrary, what feature are you most proud of?

 

Picaroon’s end-game is something that we’re very pleased with. It’s a feature where towards the end of any game, the rules change a little and the players that have given away the most resources through a tribute system get some powerful new units and specials that are only valid for the duration of that game. We have found that this encourages everyone to go to war and that is entertaining and engaging for all the players.

 

Plus we really like the newer units, the airship and technology centre, plus our original favourite the super submarine!

 

 

King: You guys make it a point to emphasize the fact that games have a massive scale and last up to four weeks, how does this occur, and do you guys have a record of the longest game so far?

 

Well the longest game we’ve had to date is approximately four weeks but we do have Persistent Picaroon up our sleeves!

 

 

King: The game is free to play with a cash shop. How does your team balance between players who buy “Doubloons”, your cash shop currency, and those who don’t?

 

We spent a lot of time balancing the game and created rules so that cash players cannot ‘buy’ a win by using very powerful specials.  The intention is to trade time for money but not necessarily a place on the leader board. We also offer vanity specials such as banners and in the future stylish character models for paying customers.

 

To underline what we were saying above, some of the most powerful specials cannot be purchased with cash but can only rarely be found or bought with in game gold!

 

 

King: How does your team attempt to draw in players who aren’t familiar to MMORTSes, or real time strategy games in general?

 

We hope that by presenting the game in as simple a way as possible we will encourage all game players to try the game. We have kept the barriers low: the game is free-to-play which should help encourage maximum trial and, in addition, it’s only a 60MB client download, incredibly light weight for a game of this genre.

 

To support this we are also presenting Picaroon in a variety of flavours: Skirmish Picaroon can be played out over an hour; Classic Picaroon can be played over a week or weeks; Persistent Picaroon which is in closed beta will invite players to retain a foothold in the game for as long as they can. There’s something there for everybody whether they are familiar with RTSs, MMOs or not.

 

 

King: What is your team’s target audience with the game? Hardcore or casual?

 

We hope that the game will have broad appeal! We’ve added features such as overnight build-queues and automatic building upgrade plans as well as specials that will protect your islands for several days. Hopefully this will help balance the game for those that have lots of time versus those that do not.

 

Having said that, we recognise that it is difficult to get this sort of balance perfect and it is something that we have spent a lot of time attempting to perfect! We continue to experiment with lots of game configurations. We’ll have to see what our players suggest!

 

 

King: In terms of community features, what kind of events can your community expect to see?

 

During development we have gradually introduced achievements, friend get friend schemes as well as the ability to share some accomplishments on Facebook. We will continue to add features for alliances and are also considering implementing an overarching faction structure above alliances. Further work is also planned to promote and share alliance achievements.

 

 

King: What’s next for Picaroon in terms of future content?

 

Our immediate plans are to maximise the creative possibilities of the Picaroon concept. We are just about to test the persistent version of Picaroon.

 

We also have plans for new PvE features such as weather, monster octopuses, pirate owned islands and giant squid, and we want to develop a super alliance (the factions mentioned above) concept and other new units.

 

We also want to give a quick spring clean to the UI so that we can simplify and make things even more intuitive.

 

After Picaroon we plan to develop a commercial version of Tronji and then also another project which we hope will be really innovative and fully exploit the possibilities of our technology: think of ever changing organic worlds teeming with artificial life, a world where players can shape the game experience and environment– we are getting really excited and hope OnRPG’s readers might be too!

 

 

King: Does your team plan to bring Picaroon to other platforms such as iOS and Android?

 

Yes, we’ve always harboured plans to create some mobile applications so that players can stay in touch with critical aspects of their empire, as Picaroon never sleeps.

 

 

King: Anything thing else you want to say to our viewers?

 

Absolutely! Come and help us make this a great game. We know that we need to keep our ears open and we are aware that the game has only progressed as far as it has because we’ve listened hard to what our players are telling us. We’re always open to advice and if any of your community feels that Picaroon is the game for them, then we’d be delighted to have them and to hear what they have to say!

TERA Online Release Time Frame Confirmed

TERA Online Release Time Frame Confirmed (NA and EU!)

 

 

En Masse Entertainment, a new publisher built by gamers and focused on delivering fun and innovative online games, announced today that the launch of its award-winning and highly anticipated Action MMO, TERA, is scheduled for spring 2012.  Development and production continues to both add new features as well as refine confirmed elements to deliver an innovative, action packed experience set in a visually stunning world that can only be discovered in TERA.

 

“Adding time to our schedule will help us ensure we exceed people’s expectations for TERA,” said Chris Lee, publishing VP of En Masse Entertainment. “The game’s action combat and depth has generated a lot of interest, and we are committed to making sure every aspect of the game lives up to our standard of quality.”

 

 

The recipient of several industry honors, including 9 awards and 17 nominations coming out of E3 2011, TERA is a new class of game that combines all the depth of an MMO with the gratification of an action game. Players master their destiny using a pioneering dynamic combat system in which player skill—not just stats—determine success or failure in a richly detailed game world. TERA’s player-driven political system allows individual player actions to influence a world where old rivalries are erased, and disparate races must form a common federation to stave off destruction by marauding monsters and warring gods.

 

Coinciding this announcement, Frogster, TERA’s European publishing company, has stated that the European launch of TERA will mirror the North American launch.

 

 

“By launching TERA in Spring 2012 we ensure that the game will not only live up to expectations, but surpass them,” said Daniel Ullrich, CMO of Frogster Online Gaming. “We’ll be unveiling various features at Gamescom and rest assured these are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what players can expect when TERA is released early next year.”

 

 

Frogster has also promised a very closed alpha testing period in the coming months with an open beta beginning at the start of 2012! OnRPG is chomping at the bit to get our hands on this excellent game and we look forward to bringing you future Early Access columns and videos as soon as this is possible!

League of Legends Releases Skarner Mechanics

League of Legends Reveals Skarner Mechanics

 

 

Today Riot Games released a sneak peak of what we can expect from their next League of Legends champion, Skarner the Crystal Vanguard. Skarner is a predatory scorpion, wearing a head piece akin to an Egyptian headdress and leading a race of subterranean scorpions. As such he functions on a basis of producing fear in the opposition team and capitalizing on this fear to obstruct the enemy team’s map awareness and jungle presence.

 

The idea behind Skarner’s toolkit is to get on people, stay on them, and really capture that inevitability of being run down by a predatory creature. Unlike most champions that follow this pattern though, Skarner lacks a gap closing jump attack.

 

The primary way Skarner overcomes this weakness and stays a sticky melee fighter is through his ability Crystal Slash and his passive, Energize. Crystal Slash does a quick, point-blank AOE and empowers the ability if it hits. Empowered casts will do bonus damage and slow (making successive uses really useful for sticking to his target). His passive causes his spells to cool down faster each time he auto-attacks – a natural combination with the empowered Crystal Slash.

 

Properly utilizing Skarner’s passive is central to his gameplay as a whole. For example, Skarner’s ability Crystalline Exoskeleton puts up a shield that grants additional movement and attack speed while it’s up. The bonus attack speed will help greatly decrease the cooldown time of his abilities, leading to additional Crystal Slashes or more uptime on this steroid.

 

Skarner’s marquee ability is Impale. As hinted in OnRPG’s E3 interview, Skarner’s ultimate causes him to skewer an opponent with his tail and drag them around for a few seconds. The positional manipulation of the ability can turn a teamfight by peeling an enemy off of a wounded ally, or dragging a greedy enemy into a tower. It also adds a bit of horror feel when one of your allies is skewered and pulled into a bush in the middle of the jungle.

 

Skarner truly is the long awaited monster champion the League of Legends community has been waiting for. If you haven’t checked this game out yet there has never been a better time!

Golf Star- Hole in Two

GolfStar – Hole in two

By Neil Kewn (Murxidon) – OnRPG Journalist

 

 

 

Golf is an interesting sport. To outsiders, it’s men swinging clubs at white balls in the hope they land in a hole. To fans, it’s a hugely challenging game that requires immense patience, skill and accuracy. Golf is often considered to be one of those sports that is more entertaining to play than to watch, but based on the sales of a certain well-known video game franchise fans love to sink their teeth into virtual renditions of their favourite sport. GolfStar aims to capitalize on this popularity and take “the game” into an online multiplayer arena. Hundreds of other club-wielding jumper-wearing players can tee off against one another, and although I was sceptical about how well such a basic premise could translate, I quickly discovered there’s a lot more to MMO golf than meets the eye.

 

Golf games can’t help but be similar to each other. There’s only so many ways you can hit a ball and whichever way you look at it, the fundamentals of golfing were firmly mastered in video game form many years ago. Although I will try to avoid comparing it to other online golf titles, GolfStar doesn’t stray too far from the tried and tested formula.  It has everything you would expect from a title in this genre, wrapped up in a sweet arcade presentation.

 



GolfStar at its core is a social experience. Players are encouraged to mingle, chat and compete with one another, which is why I was confused by the sheer lack of customization options for my golfer. With only four characters to choose from and very limited facial options, players in GolfStar are clones rather than individual characters. The four free golfers that are available at creation aren’t particularly inspiring either, and I’m pretty sure one of them is too young to be playing eighteen hole golf in the first place. Perhaps someone else is driving the caddy.

 

Once registered, a helpful tutorial guides you through the basics of the game. The core golfing mechanic is a relatively simple one. Two meters represent power and accuracy. Power is charged by holding the spacebar down and releasing it at the desired power level. Accuracy is determined by how close a reticule is to the centre of the accuracy circle. Both are simple timing games, and whilst you can reposition your shot and change clubs, that’s all it takes to take a shot in a basic game of GolfStar.

 

Of course, hitting the spacebar key all day would bore anyone. Your golfer has many tricks up his sleeve and even more in his caddy. As your character levels up, ability points are earned on the green and deposited into four different areas – Power (increasing range), Impact (making nice shots easier to make), Control (improving accuracy) and Stamina (helps swings in rougher areas and increases consistency).

 



That’s not all; golfers also have access to special skills bought with Skill Points. These unique abilities live in an action bar at the bottom of the screen, similar to any traditional MMO you may have seen over the past ten years, and provide an ample number of special shots that can be used on the green. Twist shots, approach shots and bunker shots – There’s a skill for every situation you may find yourself in. Skills can be upgraded in time, further increasing their usefulness, giving a strong incentive to see games through and reap the rewards.

 

Of course all of this substance would be useless without a realistic interpretation of the sport. Thankfully, GolfStar gets the basics right. Trajectory, slopes, and wind direction all play a part in your swing. Trees need to be avoided, bunkers are as cruel as ever and the rough disrupts accuracy. It makes for a competent game of golf even with the simple control scheme. Putting is also well done, with a grid outline indicating the presence of slopes and the depth at which they sink.  Every shot counts, and it makes a successful birdy all the more satisfying.

 

When you’re not teeing off, a central plaza area is where players meet, chat and establish games. It acts as a hub for all of the game’s features including stores, locker rooms, record lists and character development screens. The store funds the game, with real-world transactions paying for the most exclusive products available. Making up for the lack of character customization during the actual creation process, the store stocks a large amount of weird and wonderful clothing items for your golfer in addition to a variety of buffs, clubs and other items. They are not vanity items either, with many increasing the stats of your golfing hero. There are two currencies to get to grips with, one is topped up via real world money and the other is a reward for good play on the green (nice swings, accuracy and games). Naturally premium items require the use of paid-for Star Cash, but there’s a good amount of stuff available for those who play for free, even If the prices are a little steep.

 



There aren’t a huge number of courses to choose from, but it’s still possible to have an enjoyable eighteen hole game with what’s available. Players take their shots at the same time too, so there’s no need to sit through another player’s excruciating attempts at getting out of a bunker before it’s your turn to swing. Clubs can be upgraded giving you the ability to hone and refine your arsenal to your particular taste and playing style. At the end of each game experience cash and items are dished out to the players, along with a neat podium scene before returning to the plaza.

 

GolfStar doesn’t reinvent golfing games. It’s similar to other games in its class but succeeds in being a fun, fluid and faithful representation of golf. Simple pick up and play mechanics will appeal to many and good course structure in addition to a large international community compensate for its uninspired visuals. The elevator music may grate, but it’s a welcome foray into the online multiplayer sports arena. GolfStar doesn’t take itself too seriously; it’s just fun online golf.

 

Graphics – 3
Controls – 4
Features – 4
Customization – 3
Community – 5

Operation Gamma 41 Reveals Item Upgrade Features

Operation Gamma 41 Reveals Item Upgrade Features

 

 

 

Just A Game today revealed the details behind the many items and equipment available for use and upgrading in its strategy-war game, Operation Gamma 41, which is now in open beta.

The majority of items in Operation Gamma 41 are used to speed up/unlock certain processes or enhance other aspects of your city or commander. All items come with a description explaining exactly what they do. Whether speeding up recruiting and building through orders or collecting extra taxes, items can make tasks faster or easier.

 

Each Commander has five slots to equip: Epaulet, Cap, Uniform, Boots, and Weapons. Depending on how experienced they are (the number of stars), different generals will be able to equip advanced gear with better base stats and enchants.  There are four different ways to improve an item: Star Upgrade, Bonus Upgrade, Refining, and Gem Inlay.

 

Refining allows a player to combine a gem and equipment to add a buff to an item – for example, you could improve the defense of an item against a specific troop type.  This destroys the gem, but provides boosts not found otherwise.  Bonus Upgrades work with what Refining has added to an item – for example, once a bonus experience stat has been bound to an epaulet, the Bonus Upgrade can be used to improve this bonus, up to an additional maximum of 10%.

Star Upgrades give items increased stats; use a Meteor Gem to begin this process.  Most items are only 1-star to begin, so using this method of improvement is important – but risky!  Without a Fixing Location, the player risks reducing the stars on an item or even destroying it completely.  The rare and coveted Emperor Meteor Gem also ensures the item will lose no stats if the upgrade is a failure.

 

Punching your equipment creates holes in which gems can be added for additional stats. However, punching is quite risky and can result in breaking the equipment, and unlike adding stars there is no fail safe. Equipment can have a maximum of 3 slots punched, but be aware though the more holes, the higher the risk of failure.

 

If you are successful in adding slots to your equipment then you can use Gem Inlay to give you extra stats. Each stat (Attack, Defense e.g.) has its own gem in different qualities, so you can pick the stats you want. Players can remove gems to make room for new ones via Gem Remove, but be aware this will destroy the old gem.

 

Now that the game is in open beta, OnRPG will be investigating its merits to let the wary know what to expect in the realm of Operation Gamma. Look forward to the review soon!