Monthly Archives: November 2011

TERA Online Brings Home the Gold at G-Star

TERA Online Brings Home the Gold at G-Star 2011

 

 

OnRPG’s associate Nick Goldmark is on the ground floor at this year’s G-Star convention and has sent us some early morning news that has caught quite a few off guard. Blue Hole Studios, developer of the upcoming non-target based MMORPG, TERA Online, took home the figurative gold winning not only the acclaimed President’s Award but also best sound, graphics, and character design.

 

 

The last 30 days represent an exciting state in TERA Online’s development. Following the rumors of TERA’s development director resigning, a new slew of content updates have followed catering more towards the demands of the player base, both in Korea and abroad. Open world GvG war declaration, an outlaw system to assist with spontaneous PK battles, new dungeons, a level cap increase, and well tested class balancing are just a few of the great changes that have been revealed in their Evolution update.

 

 

The upswing of the game seems to expand beyond just development as the North American publisher En Masse Entertainment’s producers Brian Knox and Chris Hager have recently admitted publicly on the forums that they have not been active enough with their community. Things have become much livelier since then with Knox and Hager making frequent posts and comments answering players’ questions on the forum. A new website redesign is expected to be released soon giving players unprecedented details into the inner workings of the game and its rich culture.

 

 

Stayed tuned to OnRPG as we continue to report on any major news from the Korean G-Star convention!

Star Wars The Old Republic: Class Overview

Star Wars the Old Republic: The Classes

By Remko Molenaar (Proxzor), OnRPG Journalist

 

 

As promised I will be taking a closer look to the classes that have been announced for Star Wars The Old Republic. Personally I have played a few of these classes and I must say I like each of them. They all have their abilities that make them better for different occasions; they match everyone’s style of play. I personally lean more towards Lightsabers and other fancy weapons and force abilities so my favorite class quickly became the Sith Warrior. I have already made my choice of joining the Sith because I really am enamored by this faction’s storytelling in the main quest lines, as well as the difficult decisions they have to make. Currently there are 8 classes announced divided between The Galactic Republic and The Sith Empire. Though not identical mirrors, the classes each have a similar counterpart on the opposing side to make balancing the game easier.

 

Let’s start with The Galactic Republic:

 

Trooper


The Trooper is a very popular class due to its famous role in the Star Wars movies. When seeing the first cinematic trailer once you have chosen the Light side it completely changes the view you have on the Trooper; it shows you a very heroic and powerful class with extensive utility. These brave souls are ready for combat when needed and are equipped with heavy guns to blast their foes to shreds. The Trooper represents the most talented and disciplined soldier among a new breed of elite Republic Troops. They are the Republic military’s highest aspiration and the most advanced fighting force in the galaxy.

 

 

Smuggler

The smuggler brings to life the famous Han Solo and his Wookie companion, Chewbacca, in MMO form. Together with their ship named the Millennium Falcon they smuggled crazy amounts of contraband and helped Obi-Wan and Luke in one of the most important battles of the universe. The smuggler is one of the most entertaining classes I tested out in beta. The life of a Smuggler is always a gamble but these sneaky, smart brave men have been an important asset to every war and are often the ticket to turning around a deteriorating situation. They are equipped with one handed guns or rifles and are true sharp shooters with a wide arsenal of firearms.

 

 

Jedi Knight


The Jedi Knight is no doubt the most known class and most likely the number one played class in Star Wars The Old Republic. Every fan of the Star Wars series is most likely going to try out this class because of their lightsaber and the use of the Force. The Jedi Knight body and mind is in perfect harmony and nothing can break them; they are skilled hand to hand fighters and are deadly once equipped with a sword or lightsaber. Because of the power of the Force and their reflexed and physical precision the Jedi Knight is the ultimate fighting machine available in battle. This class can easily face roll a lackadaisical opponent and is sure to be considered a pub stomper in PvP.

 


Jedi Consular


The Jedi Consular is the second class in The Galactic Empire arsenal that is equipped with the Lightsaber. They are slightly different than Jedi Knights, focusing on the wisdom of the force to fight their battles through diplomacy rather than brute “force”. Years of arduous training and meditation have sharpened Consulars’ minds to cut to the truth as cleanly as their Lightsabers cut through their foes. When negotiations turn aggressive, a consular can demonstrate their gift of foresight by anticipating an enemy attack and cleanly deflecting it from any angle with their dual Lightsaber. The Jedi Consular is one of the support classes in Star Wars The Old Republic but can also become a deadly mid ranged fighter in the right hands.

 

 

The Galactic Republic classes all look really impressive in beta and I look forward to facing them in combat in their fully release form later this year. Now let’s take a closer look to the arsenal the Sith has.

 

Bounty Hunter


Everyone knows not to mess with a Bounty Hunter because they are deadly serious about their business and will kill anyone who gets in the way. As you might expect, these fighters specialize at assassinating their targets quickly and with great precision, at range if possible. These skilled fighters do anything for money and they will search the whole universe just to find their target and eliminate it. Although they prefer to use firearms, they have a few additional tricks up their sleeves to stave off an over aggressive target.

 

 

Sith Warrior


The Sith Warrior is the perfect opponent of the Jedi Knight. Both utilize various aspects of the force to enhance their melee fighting while disabling foes from range. The Sith Warrior seeks to rule the galaxy through power and intimidation and is unafraid of using his power on innocents to achieve his goals. In a team, you can expect to be looked at as an initiator and leader, running into your enemies to disrupt and confuse them while your backline safely reinforces you. As expected, their weapon of choice is the light saber.

 

 

Imperial Agent


The Imperial Agent is the Sith’s secret weapon. The cunning Agents of Imperial intelligence track down and eliminate the Empire’s enemies. They master the art of infiltration, seduction and assassination to advance the Empire’s causes. They have a lot of disguises and stealth enhanced battle-gear to make them untraceable and a constant threat to their enemy’s backline in combat. To counter them you have to keep ever vigilant, track where they disappear from, and predict their next move before they are able to put their plans into action. They are equipped with deadly firearms to deal massive burst damage to unsuspecting foes.

 

 

Sith Inquisitor


The Sith Inquisitor is the other support class that is available in Star Wars The Old Republic. This class represents the true ferocity Dark Force is able to unleash on a weak willed foe. The Inquisitor experiments with forbidden powers to not only survive in this cutthroat environment, but to excel and seize authority. These skillful fighters can be very deadly once they have come up with a plan and their arsenal of abilities can leave some of the bravest members of the Galactic Republic unable to proceed in combat. While most will play them as support healers, it is possible to play as a dark magic assassin so long as you can rely on your teammates to support you properly. Like the Jedi Consular, these manipulative geniuses use the dual-bladed Lightsaber as their main weapon.

 

 

With rumors of public betas swirling in the near future, I can’t wait to join the rest of our viewers in sharing the unique experience this game brings to the market. Feel free to message me on our forums to tell me what classes you are most excited for and why!

Aika Online Announces Epic II: Karena Island

Aika Online Announces Epic II: Karena

 

 

The tides of battle have changed once again as new threats challenge the citizens of Aika Online!  Evil has turned its greedy eye upon a newly discovered island, and it’s up to each nation’s finest warriors to defend themselves in the newest chapter of Aika’s Epic II: Karena.  New PvE zones, enhanced PvP challenges, and delicious PvF wait on November 17th!

 

 

Wait what? What the heck is PvF? Aika is introducing a player versus fish system in which hearty adventures can take to the water all across Lakia to capture some tasty morsels. By turning your hard earned sea life over to a group of travelling penguins, you can cook up some stews sure to warm your bones and your blade with the blood of your enemies using new status enhancements.

 

 

As for the main content update, the tale of the corrupt Zerecan forces continues. Aika’s five nations find themselves at a crossroads when a resource rich island is discovered hovering near Traband.  Dubbed Karena, this new PvE isle may hold the key to destroying the Zereca, but each nation wants the power, ancient armor and weaponry for themselves.   They’ll have to join forces however if they wish to stop their common enemy. If they fail, and the Zereca in the Spiral Mine dungeon are not stopped from uncovering Karena’s Caelium core, the island may fall as well!

 

 

The war between nations continues elsewhere however, as the rules for Traband’s Tower Wars have transformed.  As each nation battles against each other they must now additionally collect resources from the resource nodes that litter the grounds of Traband.  Once collected, they can be used to power the guardian watchtowers, and the nation that manages to power the most towers will gain critical, battle winning buffs.

 

 

We’ll bring you more information as the 17th approaches!

SD Gundam Capsule Fighter: CB Impressions

SD Gundam Capsule Fighter Online: CB Impressions

By Michael Sagoe (Mikedot), OnRPG Journalist

Gundam fans! The wait is finally over! SD Gundam Capsule Fighter Online (SDGO for short) has finally reached North America. SDGO is a multiplayer online third person shooter featuring SD (Super Deformed) versions of mobile units from many different Gundam eras, including Gundam SEED, Mobile Fighter G Gundam and many others.

 

 

Since its initial release in South Korea, the game is about four years old and has had a lot of content built up over those years. Players that got to participate in the closed beta were granted with 1,000 astros (OGP currency) to test out the shop and play around with as many functions as they wanted. I nabbed a closed beta key and got to try out all these Gundam goodies for myself.

 

 

Once logged in, the game starts the tutorial right away. From the get go, gameplay seemed pretty basic  for anyone that has ever played a mech shooter similar to this one, but I stuck through it just to see if there was anything special worth learning.

 

After training, I was granted a freebie roll to earn my first SD unit:

Meh. I’m not fond of Zaku units, But hey… it’s free.

I was looking to head straight for the PvP, but the game locks out any players that aren’t private rank and up. Oh well. Mission mode it is then. First mission was “Destroy the Moon Base”. Sounds pretty straight forward, but the mission was divided into four sectors. First: protect the battleship we flew in on from 30 enemy Zaku IIs, then destroy six Gatling cannons and six beam cannons, and THEN we can destroy the moon base.

Other available missions had simple objectives such as protecting space ships from waves of enemies.

 

After a few more rounds, I took a peek into the capsule and shopping room to see what kinds of units were available. There were TONS. They sure weren’t kidding when they said Gundams from every era would be available: There’s Aegis Gundams, Astray Blue Frame Gundams, Strike Gundams, GM Sniper II Gundams, even the freaking Nether Gundam that looks like a silly windmill.

Geez, that’s a lot of Gundams!

My personal favorite was the M1 Astray Gundam, with its Orange-White-Black color scheme and huge jet boosters in the back. I also picked out a 105 Dagger Gundam which specialized in melee combat using dual plasma swords.

After taking on a few more missions, it was time to hop into PvP for the first time. First game mode I tried was Boss mode. Similar to a typical team deathmatch, both teams will have one player serve as a “boss”, in which both teams will have to destroy to earn extra points. Boss players will gain an increase in size as well as increased defense and attack damage. Playing PvP is where the game really started to pick up, as combat here felt fast-paced and chaotic. It’s so easy to get taken out in a second if you’re not careful. It took me awhile to get used to the pacing, so my first couple of matches were less than stellar. You don’t have to worry about ammo while battling, as it’s completely unlimited so players can jump into the fray without hesitation. Only thing players have to worry about is reloading.

 

PvP exposes players to the finer aspects of combat, such as performing special attacks and making use of environments as cover. Pulling off special attacks require you to be in point black range of an enemy, and will go into an inescapable cut scene that shows your unit tearing the enemy up.  There are tons of different special attacks for each unit, as well.

Environments are also destructible, so players can level the entire playing field if they wanted to. 

“Building? What Building?”

Several matches afterwards, I ranked up and was able to jump into the higher channels. I wanted to see if PvE mode’s difficulties were any more challenging.

 

The kids gloves were off for PvE, as Normal mode felt more like impossible mode: Enemy spawn rates were doubled and both boss and grunt units could easily take players out with four or five hits. It sure felt like the labeling of difficulties were a bit misleading. They should have been labeled as:

Very Easy = Easy


Easy = Normal


Normal = BEND OVER

 

They were so difficult that I felt like giving up after only a couple tries. I suppose having a more supped up mobile unit and good communication among teammates will be the key to beating these missions, but we all know how well communication works out when playing online games in PUGs, rights? Yeah, I know you do. Better gather up some good teammates to play with you; otherwise get used to seeing your unit explode over and over again.

 

The more I played around, the more I was taken in by the game’s music. SDGO’s original soundtrack felt really authentic, as if ripped straight from a Gundam Wing episode. The music was so nice I felt a bit of nostalgia, which was kind of weird since I never played SDGO previously… Feeling a sense of nostalgia over a game I’ve never played before? That must be a good sign.

 

However, the voice overs for the operators were incredibly lackluster. It sounded almost like they grabbed a bunch of strangers off the sidewalk to perform a few lines of dialog, and then recorded everything using a five dollar microphone. The only operator that gave a moderately decent VO was Operator-B, and she clearly sounded like she was trying too hard.

Overall, My time spent playing SDGO was great. Once this game comes out of closed beta, SDGO is something that all Gundam fans should take a look at, as the amount of mobile units will be enough to make any fan have a nerdgasm. Oh, and the gameplay isn’t too bad, either.

 

 

For more information, check out our SDGO profile page here at OnRPG.com

Elsword Reveals Major November Updates

Elsword Reveals Major November Updates

 By Darren Henderson (DizzyPW), OnRPG Editor-in-Chief

 

Kill3rCombo, North American publishers for Elsword, are excitedly tantalizing their gaming base and my writing staff with what looks to be a November to remember. Starting on the 9th, Elsword will be rolling out 2 new Velder dungeons, a completely revamped PvP system, and a series of events leading up to the release of Eve the Queen of Ancient Nasad.

 

 

Once November 9th rolls around be sure to camp your character in Velder to be among the first to experience the two new dungeons being hosted at the ‘Southern Gate’ and ‘Commercial Area 1.’ These intensely difficult dungeons will be filled with Glitter monsters, dark elves, epic bosses, and a few nasty surprises. Oh and if you aren’t feeling motivated because you’re stuck at level cap, fear not! The cap is being bumped up to level 50 with a series of new quest lines to help you reach it.

 

 

If you’re more of the veteran gamer who is just looking for a true challenge, the revamped PvP arenas may interest you. A better-than-ever match making system is being installed to get you up against people on your own level so everyone can have fun. You can also grind up Arena Points to trade them in for a series of 400+ rare, elite, and unique gear sets to bolster your character to its limits. Also expect a few surprise appearances from epic NPC Heroes to throw some chaos into your battles.

 

 

Feeling a bit lonely spending your days in Elsword? Well this patch hopes to address that by upping the rewards for players that take on big bosses in teams rather than solo. If only more MMOs understood this concept. Sheesh.

 

 

Finally, beginning on the 9th a series of events will begin to unfold in anticipation of Eve the Queen of Ancient Nasad. You will have to take up arms in arena to defeat epic NPCs and other players, defeat Eva the Eve imposter, and defeat the last two Velder dungeons on maximum difficulty to claim all the rewards. The clock will be counting down so don’t wait!

 

 

Stay tuned to OnRPG as we bring you a closer look at Eve later this month! Also if you’ve never touched this game, I highly recommend you check out the arcade action madness that is Elsword.

War 2 Glory Announces D-Day: Operation Overlord

War 2 Glory Announces D-Day: Operation Overlord

 

 

 

German publisher, Just A Game, this month announced the launch of a new server for its browser-based War Strategy, WAR2 Glory.  Named “D-Day: Operation Overlord”, this new server launched just ahead of the first anniversary of the game’s launch (November 10th).  With a unique story driven by a variety of updated and new missions, both veterans and new players alike will be diving straight into the new Operation!

 

 

D-Day: Operation Overlord will focus on the secret mission of US forces in Normandy and throughout France during World War II.  With the aid of your trusty Commander, players will need to recruit soldiers and other units, establish a coastal presence and create a formidable Navy.  Complete the “Flying High” missions to earn critical promotions for your Commander to get stronger in the game, and follow an epic set of Story Missions to discover the secrets behind how to win the final confrontation!

 

 

“We are excited to mark the upcoming first anniversary with this major D-Day: Operation Overlord launch,” said Simon Seefeldt, Senior Director Online at Just A Game.  “With the new server, it is almost like playing a second game that has the same basic controls but a whole new narrative.  Players will have to prepare themselves for new challenges and missions and we promise to continue offering new themes, missions and stories for our community.”

League of Legends: The Early Gank Gets the Wyrm

League of Legends: The Early Gank Gets The Wyrm

By Jason Harper (Hhean), OnRPG MOBA Reporter

 

 

Welcome summoners, to the patch v1.0.0.128 article for League of Legends, the game that just won’t wipe that Smaug grin off its face. This patch includes the observer mode beta, a reduction in Dominion’s comeback mechanics, a few key buffs to some under used melee characters and Shyvana, The Half-Dragon.

 

 

Shyvana is a close range sustained damage dealer, ignoring all utility in favour of massive amounts of area effect damage. All her abilities armane enhanced by her auto attacks, so she benefits from constantly attacking to both build towards her ultimate and triggering a variety of effects from her unusual passive. She’ll likely be enjoyed by those who enjoy melee fighters that don’t focus on dueling, and more on area of effect spam, like Renekton and Skarner.

 

 

Her game plan is focused around building fury on minion or jungle creeps before leaping out into a fight with her ultimate, Dragon’s Descent [R]. The cooldown of her ultimate works out at only 50 seconds from her passive fury generation. It can, however, be brought down dramatically through generating fury off her auto attacks, allowing her dragon form to be up in almost every fight she gets involved in. While she is still pretty effective in her human form, she is a near unkillable rage beast with it up, and few champions will want to stick around to fight a crazed dragon spitting out pain in all directions.

 

 

Knowing that anyone not farmed to high heaven is going to flee at the sight of your draconic self flying into battle is an important bit of information you need to accommodate for as Shyvana. She only has one bit of crowd control, so you need to be able to make the best use of it to keep someone in the fight, or be in constant communication with your team to deliver a kill for you on a silver platter. Assuming you don’t have a team to back you up, the best way to secure a kill is to sneak up behind your unsuspecting victim and drag them off somewhere using the active component of her ultimate. Using Burnout [W] just before you take flight will burn the ground behind you, cutting off their most likely route of escape, and delaying them for longer while you get your hits in.

 

 

Burnout is a great skill though even when it isn’t leaving a blazing inferno in your wake. If you invest in the ability early, it wipes out any minions near you at a truly astonishing rate, making her farm into the end game feel effortless, both in the lane and in the jungle. It also acts as a very fast movement speed steroid she can use as a gap closer when turning into a fire breathing lizard isn’t an option.

 

 

Flame Breath [E] makes a very good opener as you’re charging into the fray. While the damage on the ability itself isn’t that grand, it gets better after triggering the extra damage from her passive, combined with the already decent amount of armour reduction it inflicts. Unless you’re using it as a harassment tool, try to use it as close to the enemy as possible, so you can make the longest use of its debuff while auto attacking. If in dragon form, the distance isn’t quite as important as simply trying to hit as many people as possible with its cone effect, to diminish the enemy’s overall defenses in a team fight.

 

 

Twin Bite [Q] is a stock standard melee ability that does a lot of damage, and resets your attack animation. It gets more interesting while in dragon form though, letting her smash not only the original target, but also anyone nearby as well. This ability, combined with her Flame Breath is why you really want to try and keep as many enemies as possible in front of her in dragon form. This will maximize her splash damage during team fights. While you can’t really control the positioning of the enemy, you can keep repositioning her to accommodate for their movements, so keep her on her toes at all times.

 

 

Take a level in Burnout to begin with. Max it first as it’s her only means of closing distance on the enemy, while also being an incredible farming tool. Twin bite is her level 2 choice. Max it second, as it’ll ramp up her single target damage significantly. Flame Breath is a level 4 pick up, and should be maxed out last. It is mostly useful for its debuff earlier on, and since she benefits mostly from her auto-attacks, focusing on a ranged ability early doesn’t help her much.

 

 

For items, start with a vampiric sceptre if you’re heading for a sustained route, or go for boots and a health potion if you intend to invade the enemy jungle early. For a laning build I typically go either cloth armour or boots depending on my match up. In dominion she’s best suited to the stock AD start of a prospector’s blade and boots.

 

 

When jungling, you should rush a Wriggle’s Lantern as fast as possible, to make her already insane farm even faster, while also giving her some excellent sustain. Phage should be the first item she grabs after her boots, giving her the ability to stick to a target much more easily. From there she has some options. Wit’s End is a perfect fit for her against teams with a good deal of magic damage, giving her both attack speed to help with her passive and also giving her enough defense to survive enemy nukers. Building her Phage into a Frozen Mallet and topping it with an Atma’s Impaler is an excellent way of not only guaranteeing nothing can escape her, but also adding to both her survivability and damage output. Supplement these higher priority items with standard defensive options like Sunfire Cape, Force of Nature or Banshee’s Veil if needed. Due to her defenses being doubled from her dragon form, she doesn’t need many pure defense items as the point of diminishing returns will come much quicker than with most champions. If you want to though, you really can make her near unkillable. But due to her lack of utility she really doesn’t do a great job filling the tank role so be sure to build offensive items. Madred’s Bloodrazer isn’t a bad choice on her against tanky teams, due to it being another nice auto attacking item that also rips down health stacking meat shields.

 

 

Go with a 16/0/14 mastery set up when jungling or solo laning, giving you a good combination of mobility, experience gain and offensive capability. On dominion I’ve been using a 16/14/0 set up that lets her accept a bit more of a beating for the early game team fight on the windmill, though at the cost of maneuverability. I’ve been using a similar rune page on her to what I used on Nocturne way back when. Armour penetration marks, armour seals, attack speed glyphs, and attack damage quintessences. More attack speed would likely help her jungling, but I like the armour penetration and attack damage to at least giving her some chance at ganking enemy champions.

 

 

I think Shyvana is a terrible choice on Dominion. There simply isn’t enough things for her to hit in order to reduce the cooldown on her ultimate, and there certainly isn’t much of an advantage to her lightning fast farming and pushing capabilities. In Classic though she can be a complete beast… if she’s allowed to farm freely and have a team that covers her complete lack of utility.

 

 

I personally prefer her in the jungle to in a lane, where her ability to burn down minion camps is extremely therapeutic. While she’s not the best jungler out there, due to being way too easily shut down by counter jungling and having very few ganking options, her clear times are so impressive that if the enemy jungler is dumb enough to just allow you to freely farm you can come out later on in the game and just murder everything in sight. Her clear speed also allows you to frequently gank, invade, or hold lanes while her own camps are respawning.

 

 

I’ve enjoyed playing her quite a lot, and done fairly well with her, even though nearly every game I’ve played as her has resulted in a loss. While I’ve had fun with her, I’m uncertain about her overall power. She’s very simple to play, which I think will help a lot with her popularity; Become a dragon and hit all your buttons until everything dies. I think she’s similar to Master Yi in the sense that she’s great against people who aren’t paying attention and who don’t understand how to shut her down, but suffers greatly against those who understand how to beat her. If she gets gold starved, she really is completely out of a match. Thankfully, her farming is easy work, so this isn’t as likely a scenario as when playing the Ionian samurai.

 

 

A quick, special note before I move on to the patch stuff this week – I want to talk about Graves shortly. I didn’t get a say on him last patch due to my own globe trotting activities, but Abubakr covered for me well, and my thanks are with him for that. My own take on the character is he’s one of the best additions to the game in a while. A ranged attack damage carry that doesn’t get forced into simply using auto attacks from miles away? Oh hell yes! He’s fun, he’s powerful, he’s great.

 

 

This patch saw the first tests of the observer mode. While the groundwork for this much anticipated feature was added a little while back, it’s good to see that Riot are moving forward with finally getting it out to the public. Just in time for the Dota 2 beta too, a game that is touting its own observer mode as one of its key features. Smart moves there, Riot. While the League’s own observer mode isn’t as robust as Dota 2’s, it certainly gives them some ammunition against Valve’s looming juggernaut.

 

 

The changes to Dominion this patch should help some of the rubber banding going on in the game mode, and make a comeback feel earned rather than given. There’s still enough stuff on the map to help a losing team, and it still won’t snowball in a manner like Summoner’s Rift, but it hopefully will stop the sense that nothing in the game matters until the match’s final moments.

 

 

The changes to Olaf’s Ragnarok is a net gain for all Olaf players everywhere; Letting his ultimate be both easier to use and allowing the total time where it’s actually useful to have a longer duration, even though the total duration was nerfed. Been seeing him in games recently, and I have to say, it’s been like seeing an old friend again after a long, long time. Wukong still seems a little bit underwhelming to me, even after the recent buffs, but perhaps I simply haven’t run across anyone using him to his newfound potential. AP Shaco being nerfed I only count as a good thing. That build wasn’t always the most effective thing to run into, but by Odin’s beard was that box-in-a-brush gimmick annoying.

 

 

To discuss some of the changes yourselves, post in the massive League of Legends thread in the free to play MMOs section. If you haven’t tried League of Legends yet, you’re missing out.

Tribes Ascend: Closed Beta Impressions

Tribes Ascend: Closed Beta Impressions

By Michael Sagoe (mikedot ), OnRPG Journalist

 

 

A legendary shooter series is coming back for a new generation, and it’s getting the F2P treatment. “Tribes Ascend”, developed by Hi-Rez Studios, is a multiplayer only FPS series that’s all about jetpacks, insane speed and blowing stuff up. While having a very sizeable fanbase, Tribes has always been considered to be a niche title. So many changes were made in order to appeal to a broader audience. An early access closed beta was opened to a select few, and I managed to get in on the action.

 

Straight from the log-in screen, different character classes were shown, each with alternative load-outs between light, medium and heavy movement types. This makes for a total of 12 playable classes. Unfortunately, only two medium movement types were available from the start: Soldier and Ranger. Ranger seemed like a good class for me, equipped with an assault rifle and grenade launcher. Since I tend to spray and pray when playing unfamiliar shooters, I selected Ranger and headed straight for the play button.

Play options during the early closed beta were a bit scarce, as only two maps were available and only two game modes: CTF and Rabbit. There was also no option to start your own rooms. I wasn’t sure what Rabbit mode was like, so selected CTF and was dumped into a game in progress.

 

The two warring teams were the Blood Eagles (Red) and the Diamond Swords (Blue), both classic clans from the Tribes series. The Blood Eagles had buff and bulky looking body armor while the Diamond Swords had a more slivery sleek design to theirs. I didn’t have a preference since I have never played a Tribes game before, so I went with the Blood Eagles.

Right away, I wanted to abuse the ability to ski so I could mow people down at high speeds, but it wasn’t as easy as it looked. Proper skiing requires holding down the spacebar while sliding down a sloped surface to pick up speed, and maintaining that speed required a light touch between jetpack boosting uphill, otherwise you’ll bleed your speed. I didn’t really figure that out until I discovered there was a tutorial for skiing in play menu. It’s a neat feature once you get the hang of it, but I felt like it missed something… (More speed and some tighter movement, perhaps?)

The first map I played on was Katabatic, a huge snowfield with tons of mountains to drop in from. It was also the perfect place to get some wicked ski battles going. My team and I were primarily fixated on rushing for the flag without setting up any defenses for our base. Luckily for my team, the enemy flag carrier kept trying to rush past us and always got shot down, allowing for an easy pick up.

After getting used to playing as Ranger, I switch to the Soldier class after a respawn. Soldiers were similar to Rangers, but instead of a generic assault rifles, they used Spinfusors, another classic Tribes weapon that fires spinning electric blades of exploding death. They’re single shot weapons and were best used in mid-close range. They weren’t my cup of tea, but it was a fan favorite.

 

Starting to get a real good feeling for the combat, I managed to get a nice killing spree going…

…that was until I walked backwards into an endless pit of nothingness.

 

Easy come, easy go.

 

Next map up was Crossfire, a map filled with smaller grassy hills that separate two huge drop ships. This time, I went with the Diamond Sword team. Both sides rushed out to the middle of the field and engaged in a chaotic fire fight. With my new found skiing skills, I snaked around enemies while picking off weaker ones for some assist points. I attempted to grab the enemy flag, but enemy turrets and some damn good snipers kept picking me off.

Going straight for the flag wasn’t such a great idea, so instead I decided to do some fancy covert action and go for the generator instead, thus disabling enemy turrets that were getting in me and my team’s way.

After a few more rounds, I decided to give this Rabbit mode a try. This game mode is a fan favorite and a true test of your skiing skills. The object is to grab the flag in the middle of the field and hold onto it as long as possible while other players try to kill you. First player to 30 points wins.

 

It was like a good ‘ol fashion cat and mouse chase, except the cats and mice were strapped with jet boosters and speeding around at 130+ kilometers an hour. I learned a thing or two about proper skiing routes from this mode as I tangoed with more Tribes vets. Some vets were nearly impossible to catch up with.

 

Even though I do not have any previous experience with the Tribes series, I had a whole lot of fun with this one. As long as they tweak the skiing a bit and go easy on the monetization process they’re planning, it could easily be one of the slickest F2P shooters out there.

 

Tribes Ascend is having a closed beta test that began on November 4th, 2011, with an Open Beta shortly after. For more information, stayed tuned to OnRPG for an upcoming video first impressions!