Atlantica Online brings a new endgame patch called Rise of Rieredan.
Yearly Archives: 2011
Silkroad Online’s Carnival Arrives
Silkroad Online’s Carnival Arrives

Joymax today revealed that their new premium server for Silkroad Online, Genesis, will go live tomorrow, on November 15th. To celebrate the launching of their first members only VIP server, Silkroad Online is also running a giant carnival for all servers including events for players of every level!
Introducing the next server, Genesis! For its first month, players will enjoy the “Fever of Creation” event, where all characters on Genesis will enjoy a boost in EXP/SP/Drop rates; this is in addition to the Carnival boost of experience and drop rates, giving a total MASSSIVE 300% EXP boost and a 200% Drop Rate bonus! There will also be a variety of GM events running now until December 13th. Players making Silk purchases for their characters on Genesis will also receive a lucrative cash shop discount until next month, so now is the perfect time to stock up on all your favorite power items.
If that’s not enough, the Carnival has arrived and is ready to charm players new and old. From now until December 13th, players can enjoy a variety of boosts, activities, sales, and much more. First, during the carnival there is a 100% EXP/SP boost – and if that wasn’t enough to get players online, there is also an attendance event where players can receive SP scrolls as well as a coveted Stat/Skill Reset scroll.
Working towards new equipment? Now is the time to upgrade, as 11/12D alchemy is boosted by 30% through the next month. This is in addition to several drop rate improvements, including 12D magic items in the Dimension of Mirrors, inside Jupiter Temple and Advanced Elixirs from the Tomb of Pharoah. Need a bigger boost? Astral, Immortal, Special, and Proof stones are all 25% off!
Those seeking something new will find a new avatar outfit, the Fantasy Knight, a token to change a character or guild’s name, as well as a skill/stat reset items – one for level 1-100, another for 101+. The in-game survey system has been upgraded based on player feedback, the gold exchange limit has been increased from 100 million to 1 billion. Also in response to player feedback, Premium Gold Time and EXP Scrolls may now be used simultaneously. Last but not least is a new Hack Shield Update, continuing the Joymax promise to maintain stronger security against real-money trade and botting.
Atlantica Online Releases Rise of Riederan This Week
Atlantica Online Releases Rise of Riederan This Week
The greatest test of strength is approaching in Atlantica Online with the release of the “Rise of Riederan” content update set for Nov. 16. Atlantica Online, Nexon’s strategic turn-based massively multiplayer online role playing game, will bring Atlantians a higher level cap, a new cross-server market, the elite Pegasus equipment, and the majestic sorceress Mwindo.
Players will be able to explore Atlantis further as the level cap is lifted from 140 to 150. Not only will these warriors proudly train as the strongest champions of Atlantica, they will be granted the power to wield the glorious Pegasus equipment. This gift of divinity is bestowed upon heroes of Atlantica by the mythical creature, Pegasus. Players will be able to harness the power of the mythical Pegasus starting from level 141.

To advance players’ access to items and equipment, Atlantica will be introducing the new cross-server market. Players will be free to trade goods amongst all six servers.
Before getting back on the field, players can use the Talent Point System to specialize their skill needs. Talent points can be spent freely to improve attack power, health, magic level, and class-specific abilities. Players can easily reset Talent Points should they wish to change their main character class.
The long awaited mercenary Mwindo will soon be ready for recruitment near Kinshasa in Africa. Mwindo controls the weather to unleash the devastating power of nature through two powerful spells: Primal Monsoon and Beating Sun. The powerful sorceress will join the journey on Dec. 7 to fulfill the prophecy of delivering peace and unity throughout all of Africa.
Check out the preview of General Riederan in the teaser trailer here!
Sword Girls Beta Impressions
Sword Girls Beta Impressions
By Jason Harper (Hhean), OnRPG MOBA Reporter
Sword Girls is a browser based lolli card game from Zeonix. The game, rather than using elements or colours for its card types, uses stock anime tropes. Darklore cards feature goth vampires and witches, with abilities mostly orientated around attacking the enemy as much as (in)humanly possible. Vita cards are a band of schoolgirls, with abilities that help them swarm an enemy down. Academy cards represent aristocrats and their maids, relying on controlling and disabling the enemy before going on the offense. Crux cards are nuns, knights, and other holy figures, who rely on a stalwart defense and cards that aide one another before they attack.
While there is a backstory to why these various cliches are battling one another, it doesn’t really enter into the game itself in any way, so is largely ignorable. I don’t really count this as a bad thing though, since even a mega company like Wizards of The Coast have been very light on bringing some of the extensive backstories in their card game universes into the games themselves.
Even if you’re not appreciative of the subject matter, the game does feature some great artwork for its cards. The UI is also slick, easy to use and visually appealing. The background music for the game, however, is really annoying and on a very short loop, forcing me to mute it within minutes.
The gameplay of Sword Girls is very simple. Outside of a unit cap, there are no resources to manage at all. You can lay down your most powerful cards right from the start if you so please, so long as you don’t mind them dying early on in the battle. The objective of the game is to use your various cards to whittle down an enemy character’s health until they hit 0, at which point you win the match.
Character cards act as both a player’s health pool and give free effect that triggers once per turn. Some of these cards only trigger if certain conditions are met, encouraging a certain style of play, but most simply happen without any way of an enemy stopping it.
Followers are the primary focus of the game’s strategy. These are creatures that are placed in one of six slots around your character card. They have four important attributes – Size, Attack, Defense and Stamina. Size is how much the card counts against the unit cap of ten, and also is the amount of health lost on your character when they die. Attack is simply the amount of damage that a follower deals every time it attacks. This damage is reduced by the defending card’s Defense value. What’s left of an attack’s damage hits the card’s Stamina. When a follower’s stamina hits 0, the card is removed from play, and the defender’s character card loses health. Unlike in some other card games, a follower’s stamina never regenerates on its own, so most games are battles of attrition while you’re desperately trying to kill enemy cards before your own fall in turn.
There are few ways to win in the game that don’t rely on a beat down strategy, so cards that simply attack a character’s health, cancel effects, take control of other cards, or otherwise bypass defenses are very rare and powerful. Most spells in the game are focused on buffing or debuffing followers on the table.
While the game is easy to pick up, it also isn’t particularly deep. Card placement is simultaneous, but attacks are not, with the turn order decided each turn through a coin flip. In addition, all the cards in play will attack all other cards in play unless they’re killed, so it’s not like you ever have to make hard decisions on what you need to take out. Which cards attack what is completely out of your hands, and appears largely random. The overall strategy seems to simply be to put down better followers than the other person and bash them into submission.
What is complicated about the game though is how you get cards. Most free to play models have some form of in-game currency that allows you get what you want after playing the game for a while. Sword girls, on the other hand, has you collect randomized objects after winning a match that might, perhaps be useful in building a card you want in the future. You can exchange useless resources you find at a four to one trade, but this has the obvious consequence that it can sometimes take four matches at best to get something you can actually make use of.
You could skip that nonsense and instead try and simply give Xeonix money in order to get the cards you want. However, you clearly are thinking of making things much too simple on yourself, because you are going to have to invest in buying booster packs rather than simply getting what you want. Advancement in this game can really be associated with simply pumping money into a slot machine, but instead of maybe getting some money back if you’re incredibly lucky, you get cards that don’t actually exist.
Sword Girls is a nice way to kill time, but it’s also a bit brainless, and built to be as obtuse as possible. I’d say give it a look when it comes out only if you’re bored at the office and need some time to kill.
Diablo III Countdown: 2 Auction Houses
Diablo III Countdown: 2 Auction Houses
By Remko Molenaar (Proxzor), OnRPG Journalist
Recently Blizzard announced something new and something very unusual coming to Diablo III. It is something no MMO has actually seen before under legal terms and as you can assume it got a lot of attention. What is this mystery I am speaking off? They introduced the new concept of an Auction House, but it isn’t your typical auction house. This time it is not only possible to buy items with the in-game currency but also with your credit card! Not only items can be sold or bought for real money but even characters can be traded. This seems like indirect support of gold farming to me.
As you might have guessed a lot of bad publicity filled the Internet and a lot of players are actually rethinking whether or not they should buy the game. Gold Farming services have been a pain in the ass for most game companies and the majority of the player base that shies away from their services. Almost every MMORPG that is quite popular or lacks proper moderating gets spammed in the global chat channels with links to gold selling websites. Not only is it the annoyance that made people upset, but also the fact that a lot of little children in China are set up to farm something for days with only a few hours sleep a day and barely enough food to survive. In this article I will be taking a closer look to how this system actually works.
The Auction House mechanism that will be featured in Diablo 3 has two varieties. There will be the gold based auction house where players can sell their items, crafting materials, gear and even characters for gold which is the normal in-game currency. And there will be the RMT which stands for the Real Money Transaction that is the secondary auction house. On this auction house players can sell their items, characters and other stuff they have looted or don’t need any more of for real money. There will be two types of servers you can play on, and the Auction House is restricted between the Softcore characters and the Hardcore characters so it cannot influence any gameplay on opposing sides.
Interface
The interface is quite easy and simple to use, every player can open up the Auction House menu at any point in time. The items for sale are categorized for ease of use. There are also some nice filters in place so you can find a piece of gear with a specific enhancement on it. Even better, you can run a scan on your character and be provided with a list of items you could perceivably use to upgrade your gear. I personally find this function really helpful and I can’t wait to play around with it. You can also find a transaction history through the battle.net client to show the player what they bid on, what they have won and what they have lost. All the items that you put up for auction or items that you have purchased from the auction house are sent to the shared stash. The shared stash is a space that can be increased in size by purchasing larger tabs. This is quite helpful since it will not stuff your backpack while traveling or wandering through dungeons.

There is also an auction fee required whether you put something on the Auction House with gold or real money currency. The fee will prevent players from putting useless items that nobody ever wants or searches for on the auction house and thus not flooding the system. There is no real info on how much the fee will be for either versions of the auction house.
Conclusion
It is somewhat good to see Blizzard implementing a system like this. Back in the old days of Diablo 2 and up until now there are a lot of illegal transactions that have been set up by some community sites. One of the best ways to get the desired item you needed for your character in Diablo 2 was visiting one of these sites to trade with fellow players and pay with real money or a ridiculous amount of in game currency which ruined the game. Unfortunately the system also has a lot of flaws and supports some services which have been growing in Chinese basements.
On the upside, by allowing regular players to compete with these large organizations, it should flood the market and substantially lower the real world prices on gear. This in turn might lower the profit margins enough that some gold farming companies won’t bother anymore. It should turn into quite an interesting social experiment to watch. Knowing Blizzard they might be creating something soon to be copied throughout the MMO world.
DC Universe Online: Sony’s Second Wind
DC Universe Online: Sony’s Second Wind
By Jake Winters (Kibeth), OnRPG Journalist
Holy Crucial Moment, Batman! DC Universe Online is now available to play for free, and comic fans everywhere must be delighted. Sony hasn’t had a great year, and neither has DC Universe Online. Dwindling player counts and a lack of enthusiasm from both gamers and developers has left the game stuck in somewhat of a rut, until now.
Less than a year after its release, Sony has decided to open their new “Speed, Fly and Fight for Free!” campaign, allowing players access to the DC Universe for absolutely nothing. The change has been staggering, and the game has once again become a thriving metropolis of superheroes and supervillains, all ready to take on Brainiac – and each other – in their fight for glory.
Shame lightning-based powers don’t actually exist… yet.
Customizable Payment Plans
Sony’s tiered game plan model allows gamers to pay and play how they want; the more money you pay the better the service you receive (generally):
Free players have access to the full game, but have severely limited inventory and character space, cannot trade with others, and can only hold a small amount of currency at a time.
Premium players are those who have spent $5 or more on the game (even as a one-off), and get significantly more inventory and character space, can send mails, and have an increased on-hand currency cap.
Legendary players must pay a monthly subscription fee, but get access to all DLCs for free, and have a huge number of characters slots and inventory space, as well as no on-hand currency cap. If they stop paying the subscription their account reverts to Premium access.
To accompany this, DC Universe’s cash shop has been significantly expanded to allow gamers to pick and choose services that they want, such as increased inventory space, the ability to retrieve stored currency (with an on-hand cap, any currency beyond the cap is put into storage and only accessible by paying through the cash shop) or a variety of cosmetic items.
It’s hard to find fault in the new model. Players are able to pay for what they want. While things such as a currency cap seem unduly harsh, the currency itself is rarely used (except for buying potions) and thus the cap shouldn’t make a significant difference to gameplay. On top of that, the population of each server has risen significantly, with Sony reporting 120,000 new players in the first week of release alone, not counting any returning players on top of that.
The game was getting a little lonely under its old subscription-only model; flying around Gotham or Metropolis and fighting off hordes of bad guys felt like a single-player game, and even group interactions were silent and monotonous. Sony claims that the move to a new model was not as a result of dwindling player numbers, but having played the game for a number of weeks before the conversion, this seems a little difficult to believe.
So lonely that I might have been the only Green Lantern in Sector 2814.
Character Creation
Setting aside the actual mechanics of subscription-free play, the game itself remains relatively unchanged from release date. Players are introduced to the game through an epic introductory scene, and then hurled into an even more epic character creator. Body height and definition, gender, idling pose, facial features, hair, and – most importantly – costume. There are hundreds of costume designs, some found through character creator but the majority are found through gameplay itself. At any time during the game players are free to mix-and-match their costume type and its colors, and this is ideal as new styles are unlocked regularly.
Players also choose a mentor (Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman for heroes, or Joker, Lex Luthor, Circe for villains) that will act as their starting zone, as well as ‘powers’ and ‘movement types’.
Powers:
Fire: Usually tanks, they scorch enemies and heal themselves with a vast array of explosions, flamethrowers and meteoric destruction.
Gadgets: Not so much super-power as super-technology, gadgeteers have the ability to crowd-control the battlefield and wreak havoc in the form of traps, robots, and bombs.
Ice: Defensive tanks that use ice to create body-shields and hailstorms, drawing enemies in then decimating them.
Light: The newest power set in the DC Universe; take up the ring of a Green Lantern and create giant claws, fists, guns, shields, and other whacky light contraptions to control the battlefield.
Mental: Crowd controllers who use their telekinetic ability to levitate enemies, hurl objects around, and create a variety of offensive and defensive force-fields.
Nature: Become a variety of animals, from giant insects to raging gorillas. Their healing form uses plants to create Area of Effect healing zones to keep themselves and their group alive.
Sorcery: By summoning pets made of raw magic, they can create vast force-fields and healing zones, or use their powers to wreak pure devastation on foes.
Iconic Powers: Throughout the game, players are invited to unlock a variety of iconic superpowers such as Superman’s heat vision, Batman’s Batarangs, or Green Lantern’s shield of pure Light. These add flavor and variety to existing power sets, and usually come with a number of powerful stat bonuses too.
Movement Types:
Acrobatics: Fast running speed, wall-crawling, zip-lines between buildings, and the ability to glide. Combat benefits include being able to escape from tight spots, and hurl knives to knock enemies away.
Flight: Ah flight, the only reason anybody would be a superhero (right?). Swooping around Gotham at super speeds and being able to touch the sky is glorious, and being able to dive-bomb opponents isn’t too shabby either.
Super Speed: Run at the speed of light (almost), and dash up the sides of buildings to get across the city with ease. Combat benefits are mostly tornado-based skills such as knockbacks and stuns.
Brainiac ‘accidentally’ gave us the powers we use to fight back. Whoops.
While the character creator is expansive, the biggest concerns are the small number of powers, as well as the costume color variety. Costumes are only allowed up to three colors, leaving them looking dull and shallow; trying to recreate favourite characters such as Wonder Woman or Joker are almost impossible. Additionally, the power sets seem quite lacking, the most noticeable omission is a power set focused on raw might (like Superman), or lightning (like Circe). Power sets that do exist have no real interaction, so creating characters like Martian Manhunter with his super strength, intangibility, shape-changing and mental abilities isn’t going to happen any time soon.
Gameplay
The game world itself consists of a very small number of very large maps. Iconic locations such as the Halls of Doom, the Justice League Watchtower, Gotham City, and Metropolis set the scene for the main game, with smaller maps such as Area 51 and the HIVE Moon Base setting the scene for group play.
Superman’s statue and the Batsignal are some of the most significant locations.
Graphically, there is no doubt that DC Universe will make the jaw of most gamers drop. Characters are vibrant, and power effects and combat really strike out of the screen (like any good comic book should!). There is a hint of cloning in the maps themselves, but building a city several game miles across is going to come across that problem in the best of games.
One of DC Universe’s crowning features is its voice acting, including legends like Mark Hamill (the voice of the Joker) and Kevin Conroy (the voice of Batman). Reprising such valued assets as well as comic-book style art makes the numerous and in-depth cut scenes a pleasure to watch.
Joker’s left hand. Bet you didn’t even notice.
Combat
Despite being visually appealing, combat itself remains rather clunky and prone to abuse (animation clipping allowing a flurry of back-to-back attacks comes to mind). Weapon combat is initiated through a combination of mouse clicks, while power combat is done using eight assigned hotkeys. Given the number of abilities available, and the fact that two of these hotkeys are reserved for a trinket and potions, the game feels very limited in allowing players only six active abilities at a time. Any character reaching level 20 and starting to explore their character roles (DPS, Controller, Tank, or Healer) will soon realize that they have to choose to bring one important ability over another. While this was no doubt designed to bring tactics to gameplay, it just makes combat less fun and a little frustrating.
While such a major flaw cannot be overlooked, the game goes some way to make combat interesting by providing a wide variety of weapons to augment powers, ranging from rifles and pistols to giant axes and dual-wield swords. The choice of weapons is mostly cosmetic, but certain weapon choices benefit one role more than another (healers, for instance, may find dual pistols attractive because of the stat bonuses provided).
Group Play and PvP
One of the striking issues about free play and Premium members is the inability to create their own League (similar to a guild or clan). Leagues are supposed to offer a place to meet others and chat, as well as participate in alerts and raids together, but are only creatable by Legendary players. The Leagues themselves aren’t actually as useful as the game makes out; the game’s difficult interface and chat input means that constant conversation is difficult (the UI’s tiny chat box doesn’t help much), and the lack of language-specific servers means that communication is stringent at best.
Alerts and raids are very much the same, silent affairs except for the occasional “lol” or “wtf noob”. Players can use a group-finding tool to be placed with three others to take on a themed mission chain (such as Gorilla Island or Area 51). With the new influx of players, finding an Alert should be a simple task (compared to the previous wait times of up to an hour), assuming those players stick around.
Even a year after release, the game suffers from the same bugs and errors: doors not opening or bosses not spawning. Despite being easy fixes, developers seem to overlook them in lieu of poorly designed and recycled world events (Halloween comes to mind).
An example of a force-field not fading when it should.
End-Game Content
One of DC Universe’s biggest criticisms is the lack of end-game content. Getting to level 30 (the current maximum) is hardly difficult due to simple combat and a mere few hours of required playtime. End-game content consists of recycling all previous Alerts and creating a “hard mode” of them, as well as unlocking a number of raids – similar to Alerts but with more players and more action. End-game activities and daily quests reward ‘Marks’ rather than currency, meaning that the on-hand cap that Premium and free players are stuck with is not a huge issue. ‘Iconic Battle Suits’ are among the rewards for Marks, and look similar to suits worn by generic heroes (such as Hawkgirl or The Flash).
The amount of end-game content feels disproportionately small compared to other MMOs. The game seems to encourage casual play (a few hours a week), and does not cater well to gamers who wish to spend a few hours a day playing. Asides from daily quests and the occasional alert, the game pretty much ends to anybody who manages to buy all of their gear (not a difficult task); asides from its issues, the biggest contributing factor to DC Universe’s loss of players is straight-up boredom.
The End is Nigh
Brainiac is closing in and this review needs wrapping up. DC Universe is by no means the perfect game. The months-old bugs and clunky gameplay, as well as a lack of power diversity and previous fall in player count meant that the game felt like a beta-version single player game.
Sony’s new model will no doubt change things. New players bring new life to the game, and on top of the cited 120,000 new accounts, a countless number of veteran players may have also returned. The big question for Sony is whether they can keep the game interesting enough for those players to stay. Despite their reinvigorated marketing campaign, it seems they are continuing to ignore the actual issues (the bugs, mechanics abuse, and lack of end-game) and instead just glossing over it with some ‘good’ PR.
Because the new payment model is so new, the direction of the game is totally unknown. Depending on how well Sony uses this second wind, the game can either become great, or spiral back down into the dust of MMO history.
In the meantime, have a go and let your wildest super-powered imagination take over. After all, every inner child still wants to wear a cape and underpants on the outside. Right?
Graphics – 5 (vibrant comic book style graphics, and beautiful cutscenes)
Controls – 3 (can use a gamepad or mouse and keyboard; lack of hotkeys disappointing)
Features – 3 (game lacks end-game content, and much of the levelling content is solo work)
Customization – 4 (huge number of costumes and weapons; needs more power types)
Community – 4 (many players during transition, but no promise it’ll stay active.)
Firefall G-Star 2011 Trailer
Firefall wows us yet again with another powerful trailer from this year’s G-Star convention.
Everquest 2 Producer Announces F2P Transition In December
Everquest 2 Producer Announces F2P Transition in December
Everquest 2 producer Dave Georgeson made the long expected announcement earlier this week that Everquest 2 plans to transition into a freemium payment model similar to Lord of the Rings Online and DDO.
Customers will now have the option of becoming free, silver, or gold members of the game with various benefits as listed below:

For current Platinum customers, this service will no longer be offered to new players. Those who continue to pay into the platinum service will not see any change to their services. However if you drop this subscription plan at any time, you will not be able to renew it.
This comes along with Dave’s promise of much more content updates in the near future, namely the Age of Discovery Expansion Pack which is already available for preorder. If DC Universe is any indicator, this change should breathe new life into the aging Everquest 2. Hopefully they use their time wisely and brace for the increased server loads so they can avoid some of the issues plaguing the DC Universe Online relaunch.
4Story Announces Newbie Leveling Event
4Story Announces Newbie Leveling Event
Zemi Interactive has announced a new leveling contest in their global version of 4Story. All players that successfully fulfill the requirements will receive $30 worth of cash shop currency and a chance at winning a new monitor!
To participate, you must do the following:
1. Register
2. Create a character
3. Reach level 10
4. Play 1hour everyday for 30 days
5. Write a ticket or send a tell to any GM confirming 1 through 4.
Once confirmed the staff will send you 3000 points of cash shop currency! The event has already begun and will run till December 31st, 2011. By the end of January, all successful players will be placed in a drawing to win a new monitor. However, since this is an event only for the new comers, there won’t be any notices regarding the event. The only way to claim your reward will be to say the magic words to the GM or send a ticket to the administrator. “Give me a prize for the Newbie Event!”
Last Chaos Launches Tarian, The Frozen Tundra
Last Chaos Launches Tarian, The Frozen Tundra
Aeria Games has just released one of the biggest content patches ever for Last Chaos. The new content patch is the largest since 2009, and allows players to access a new zone as part of the level cap increase from 165 to 175. This massive content patch also comes with a re-imagined dungeon, an increased skill level, and new gear.
New content included in this content patch:
- New Zone: The new zone, “Tarian, the Frozen Tundra,” is open to players who are at or near the level cap. This new zone contains monsters all the way up to level 175 and is in a snow map that prominently features a frozen lake, a dark tower and several new and re-imagined monsters.
- Level Cap Increase: Players can now level up from 165 to 175, the first level cap increase since 2009. The level cap increase comes complete with new gear, new monsters, extended skills, new quests, and a brand new zone.
- Re-Imagined Dungeons: Visit the “Temple of Forgetfulness,” a re-imagined dungeon with many new features. The Temple now includes a time attack zone, a treasure hunt, a new boss and several new monsters.
- Increased Skill Level: The addition of an extra level and a corresponding upgrade in power allows players to increase their skill levels.
- New Gear: Brand new sets of gear will provide more power to players. Players must level up in order to get access to the new gear.
Check out some additional screenshots here!



















