Yearly Archives: 2011

Dungeon Overlord is Now Live

Dungeon Overlord is Now Live

 

 

Hardcore gamers looking to feed their nostalgic dungeon keeping desires and whip their strategy MMO skills into shape can now join the free-to-play world of Dungeon Overlord from Night Owl Games. Those that following OnRPG’s coverage of PAX may have heard of this game during our Day 3 Coverage. The title has now officially launched and brings with it more than 80,000 active players from the beta.

Set in a fantasy world inhabited by goblins, orcs, warlocks and dozens of other mythical creatures; Dungeon Overlord has players assume the role of an evil tyrant who will stop at nothing to conquer the world.

Users start off with a modest dungeon that must be expanded so they can conquer others in their quest to claim the Heart of the Mountain and crown themselves king. Along the way players will interact with the environment by raiding elves, expanding their territory and collecting resources (preferably from the ravaged lands of their enemies). They can also connect with players to make alliances to invade other peoples’ dungeons. 

“Our goal was to create an online multiplayer strategy game that kept all of the classic elements of the Dungeon Keeper franchise, but applied lessons learned from our team members’ work on MMOs like Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies,” says Chris Mayer, CEO, Night Owl Games. “By taking advantage of the multiplayer potential of the franchise — allowing cooperative play, PvP combat for conquering your neighbors, a player-driven resource marketplace, etc… — we have modernized a classic.”

Features include:


Start Your Kingdom –
Build your dungeon and attract an army capable of world domination

Expand Your Empire – Construct new dungeons, raid the Overworld and pillage other players


Interact with Others –
Buy items from the player-driven market, form alliances, enslave your friends, attack and even conquer your enemies


Crown Yourself King –
Claim the Heart of the Mountain and tax your fellow players

Unlock Rewards – Complete epic quests, research new technologies, or craft your own equipment to obtain stronger minions, upgrades and rewards

TERA Online Reveals Set of BAM Trailers

TERA Online Reveals Set of BAM Trailers

 

 

 

Frogster, European publisher of TERA Online, has released three trailers today and additional information on some of the keystone big ass monsters awaiting players in this non-target based fast action MMORPG. Furthermore, they gave us an insight into the development process of what went on in the creation of each boss! Have a look at our trailers and then read up on the story behind each impressive monster.

 

 

Teralith

 

Story

A window to the past, teraliths have served as protectors of ancient relics all over the land of TERA since the gods themselves roamed the globe. Imbued with powerful magic, teraliths guard such secrets as the Fountain of Shara in Blessing Basin and the remnants of the giant empire in Colossal Ruins.  Soulcrusher, of course, protects the Bastion of Lok—the hidden base from which the Scions of Lok strike.

 

Dev-Insight

Visually, we wanted to show how magic can bring something as mundane as stone to life. Teraliths were designed without faces or heads because we wanted to emphasize that these are pretty mindless constructs. They have but one purpose—to protect something. We also wanted to avoid a lot of golem stereotypes. Initially, they would use spinning drills as their weapons, but that changed to have our teraliths blast enemies from the hole in their chests.

 

 

Kumas


Story

Much has changed for the kumas in recent times. In the days of old they were docile creatures, but much like the ghilliedhus, something changed that caused them to become much more aggressive in nature, and strangely attracted to sources of power.  Whilst kumas can be found across the world of TERA, they’re more likely to be found near artifacts, relics and sacred sites.  Players first encounter the kumas in the Celestial Hills, where powerful creatures can be found trying to unlock the many ancient secrets strewn across the environment.

 

Dev-Insight

Bluehole Studio’s main goal was to really emphasize the size of the kumas.  They leave behind large footprints and are pretty menacing; especially with the lightning rods that run across their back and to their wrists.  Initially their design incorporated a lot of Asian symbols, but that was later changed to reflect a more Western approach. Their basic movements remained the same though, in respect to their sumo wrestling roots. The armour they wore was also important, in that it had to retain the overall look of the kumas without obscuring each distinct element of their design.

 

 

Ovoliths


Story

Ovoliths, the largest of the arachnens, are the goddess’ Arachne beloved but hideous offspring.  Like their mother, arachnens are known for their penchant for collecting all manner of found items.  Their ability to survive in the hostile deserts of Val Aureum and the icy peaks of Westonia has also given them a reputation for being particularly hardy.  Usually working alone, ovoliths are aggressive fighters with a dangerous assortment of attacks in their arsenal which ensure they’re always a challenge to bring down.

 

Dev-Insight

Bluehole Studio wanted a monster that players wanted to see more of after the first encounter.  When they got their second look however, they soon discovered these monsters were far more deadly than they had originally imagined.  The initial concept was for the creature to morph from an egg shape to its spider-like form for battle, which translated to the game so well the team made almost no changes from that original concept.  The internal nickname for the creature is, ‘Fabergé’ death eggs’.

 

Ghost Recon Online: Theo Sanders Interview

Ghost Recon Online: Theo Sanders Interview

By Michael Sagoe (Mikedot), OnRPG Journalist

 

 

 

Ever since the late 90s, The Tom Clancy series has always been synonymous with military and espionage action. Most specifically: Ghost Recon is a well-known squad based shooter series, and now the series plans to go online as a F2P title.

 

 

Sounds like this change of pace with Ghost Recon Online is set out to put all other F2P shooters to shame. I got to chat with the guys at Ubisoft to find out more.

 

 

OnRPG: Hello! This is Michael Sagoe, writer for OnRPG.com. Before we begin the interview, would you mind telling me a little bit about yourself for our readers?

 

Theo: Hi, I’m Theo Sanders from the Ghost Recon Online team at Ubisoft Singapore.

 

 

OnRPG: Let’s cut to the chase: There are tons of free-to-play shooters out there, and the numbers of these shooters are increasing every day. Besides the fact that Ghost Recon is already established as a high profile series, what makes Ghost Recon Online truly stand out?

 

Theo: First and foremost, Ghost Recon Online is actually a game, and not a slot machine. We approach design the same way we’d approach making a AAA, boxed product – asking ourselves “what’s going to be the most fun?”, rather than “how many quarters will someone put in for this?” That approach reflects in everything that sets GRO apart from the pack.

 

GRO also bridges the quality gap that used to exist between retail and free-to-play, both in terms of gameplay polish and visual appeal.

 

 

OnRPG: With the recent closed beta that happened over the summer, how was the reception from closed beta testers?


Theo: Our beta testers have really been enjoying themselves.

 

But while it’s satisfying to hear from the community that they’re having fun, what’s most important is that our testers are also very demanding on us. They don’t accept when things are not working right, or if game systems are not as strong as they could be – and are constantly driving us to improve the game.

 

When you ship a retail game, you can kind of look back at the criticism and say “ok, I’ll try to do better two years from now when I ship the sequel.” During the GRO beta, players tell us “Hey, you can do better with this feature,” and that same day we’ll start working on it. That’s humbling in a sense, but also exciting.

 

 

OnRPG: Tell us more about the squad functions, such as the Team Link System.

 

Theo: When a team really clicks together in a shooter, it’s a lot of fun. But that seldom happens when you’re playing with a bunch of strangers online. To get that in most games, you’ve got to commit to a clan or a regular bunch of friends playing. Our big focus is breaking down the need to outright coordinate by adding intuitive systems like Team Link.

 

When you’re in proximity, you buff your teammates (depending on your class and choice of team upgrade) and see a visual representation of that through the CrossCom. A huge advantage of our 3rd person POV is that Team Link gives you 360-degree awareness of nearby teammates.

 

 

OnRPG: So how about those game modes?

 

Theo: So far, in beta we have two: Assault and Capture. In Assault, the attacking team has to capture two tactical objectives on the map to unlock the final point. Teams alternate attacking and defending. In Capture, there’s a series of five points and each team is trying to push through to the opposite end of the map to win. There’s always two points simultaneously open – one that you’re attacking and one that you’re defending.

 

Our design ethos has centered on creating 1-to-1 game mode and map pairings, with each map specially created for that mode. Maybe it’s a risky strategy, as quantity of maps and modes is a more common headline metric than quality – but we’re very happy about how that focused approach has turned out.

 

 

OnRPG: Tom Clancy games are also well known for their deep storylines. Despite Ghost Recon Online having a clear focus on multiplayer competition, will there be any sort of campaign or co-op game modes?

 

Theo: There’s nothing around that I can talk about today. I’ll just say we have a lot of fans of co-op modes on the dev team here.

 

 

OnRPG: For those that have never played a Ghost Recon game before, will there be tutorials to help them learn the basics?

 

Theo: We’re hoping to get one in soon.

 


OnRPG: How deep is character customization?

 

Theo: As far as your characters themselves go, I’ll be honest and say we’re not exactly The Sims. What we focused on instead is building very extensive equipment customization: weapons & attachments, body armor & inserts, and basically a whole skill-tree system guised as primarily ability upgrades.

 

New players don’t need to get how all of that works on day one, but there’s a ton of depth here.

 

 

OnRPG: How would you describe the game’s pacing?

 

Theo: The flow of the gameplay is a bit slower than your standard run & gun shooter. Most noobs in their first match will come out with guns blazing, screaming FREEEEEDOM at their monitor, but are then summarily massacred by players using cover and advancing with their team.

 

 

OnRPG: There seems to be a strong focus on urban environments. Will there be any areas such as jungles or deserts?

 

Theo: Yeah, so far our initial maps have all been urban or industrial (an oil rig). But we’ve got other maps coming in our pipeline set in more natural environments.

 

 

OnRPG: Will a matchmaking system be in place to balance out the newbies from the pros?

 

Theo: Automated matchmaking is the main entry point into GRO gameplay. It’s balancing a number of things to ensure you play with and against players of similar skill, but also ensuring you wind up on a server you have a good connection to. Through the Party system, we allow you to group up with your friends or clan.

 

We’re also working on some technology called Machine Learning together with a team of Ph.D.’s at the University of Montreal. Basically, this allows us to optimize matchmaking along a third axis (along with skill and ping) – fun.

 

Early next year, I hope to be able to share the research paper with the members of our community (at least with those not allergic to math), so they can dig into how that works.

 

 

OnRPG: For a free-to-play title, GRO sure is sporting some high quality visuals! What kind of a PC will players need to run this game? Have these system requirements been finalized?

 

Theo: We haven’t arrived at our final system requirements yet, but are obviously trying to be as inclusive as possible across a wide variety of machines through granular graphical options.

 

 

OnRPG: In the previous reveal trailer: Soldiers performed many different actions including slides and dives. What other types of actions can players perform in-game?

 

Theo: A lot of the cool moves revolve around the cover system. To work on PC, cover has to feel natural and intuitive. Imagine you and your opponent are in cover on opposite sides of the same low wall. In many games, the solution would be to get out of cover and navigate around it to shoot him. In GRO – you simply lean around (or over) it and the bad guy is dead. It’s fluid.

 

 

OnRPG: This may be a little too early to ask, but how will the item shop be structured?

 

Theo: In our next beta build, we’ll be testing an item model based around permanence. That means once you earn your core equipment (say, a gun) it’s yours to keep for good. That’s quite a departure from the rental model you normally see. We like it because it’s very respectful of the time players spend in the game – that isn’t taken away from them.

 

 

OnRPG: Some gamers believe that “Free-to-play” means “Pay-to-win”.

 

Theo: Players value a fair fight. If you die in a shooter, and the perception is “he only got me because he’s using a hack,” that’s very quickly going to turn you off from playing. The same is true, if you feel “I only died because this guy’s probably a lawyer or something IRL and I can’t afford that kind of stuff…”

 

Where do you draw the line? For GRO, we decided that we have to provide a fair fight or players aren’t going to stick around. So, there’s no cash- only ‘Golden M16 of Dragonslaying’. Our philosophy that it’s probably ok if some paying looks a bit cooler than you do or gets his stuff a little faster. But that anything touching game balance needs to be equally attainable for players who just want to enjoy GRO for free.

 

 

OnRPG: When can we expect another beta test or a commercial launch?

 

Theo: Betas are ongoing in Europe and North America. We’re growing the player base at a measured pace to make sure we don’t bite off more than we can chew on the service and technical side. The easiest way to get invited as soon as more spots open up is to head over to GhostReconOnline.com and apply.

 

 

OnRPG: Any closing comments?

 

Theo: I just want to say “thanks” to the OnRPG community for taking the time to read this. I really hope to see some of you guys in GRO soon!

 


OnRPG: Thank you for your time!

Ghost Recon Phantoms

Ghost Recon Phantoms brings the tactical methodical combat Tom Clancy games are famous for to a F2P PC audience. Join up with friends and coordinate a united assault utilizing some of the world’s most advanced weaponry to overcome your foes in a FPS unlike any you’ve ever played for free before.

Features:

Become the Ultimate Ghost: Level-up through combat, upgrade your gear, and customize your skills and equipment to make your ultimate ghost, the way you want it to be.

Class-Based Combat: Play as one of three classes of soldier: Assault, Support, or Recon. Each has unique abilities and specializes in certain weapon types, giving them their own strengths and weaknesses on the battlefield.

Challenging Modes: Battle in the tug-of-war style Conquest, the attack and defend Onslaught, or the control and capture Holdout.

Unique Match Making: Matches are created with an incredibly intuitive system that ensures players are matched with the best ping, the closest skill levels, and gear weightage. Players can choose their class after a match is found to improve squad composition.

Upgradeable Equipment: Authentic contemporary and advanced military technology is available for you to use and upgrade, with attachments that include silencers, laser sights, and inserts for armor that boost your stats.