Yearly Archives: 2011

Elsword Prepares to Launch New Pet System

Elsword Prepares to Launch New Pet System

 

 

Starting tomorrow, Elsword players will have the help of an ally as they make their way through the formidable dungeons and cutthroat side-scrolling bosses of Elsword, the massively multi-player online action game. The all-new pet system will make its debut tomorrow, Oct. 5th, giving players the opportunity to traverse the anime-themed world with new companions at their side. OnRPG has exclusive access to a new trailer showcasing these new pets in action.

 

 

The pet system introduces gamers to the Pocket Phoru and Ancient Phoru, with Tree Knight and additional pets coming soon. Upon reaching level ten, players will have the opportunity to utilize their pet of choice to help them in quests. Though they may look cute and cuddly, pets actually have powerful attacks and buff skills that will prove integral to dungeon crawls. Pets also are maturing creatures with evolving personalities, and require care from their masters to maintain peak performance. They grow up as they are fed, progressing from infant to teen to adult, gaining stronger attacks and prowess with every change. How players treat their pet also will shape its personality, changing the range of combat options they can perform.

 

 

 

“Introducing pets to Elsword adds another dimension to the game and allows players to become fully immersed in the comic book style world,” said Ben Colayco, CEO of Kill3rCombo. “By echoing character evolution and growth within the pet system, we wanted to reinforce that Elsword offers a unique and dynamic environment to players, while at the same time maintaining the key differentiators that set us apart, such as maturation of characters.”

 

 

In Elsword, players can currently choose from four specialized and customizable characters as they explore immersive maps and battle to complete dynamic quests. As gamers progress through the game, they will have the opportunity to evolve their fighting styles by upgrading to new job classes and watching as their chosen character matures and gains more abilities and combos. With intuitive and straightforward controls, Elsword offers players of all skill levels the chance to defeat enemies and deal damage, either on solo missions or cooperatively in a party of up to four players. For those who welcome a challenge, Elsword also delivers action-packed PvP combat.

 

 

For more information about Elsword be sure to check out JamesBl0nde’s video review!

Diablo III Countdown: Skillsets

Diablo III Countdown: Skillsets

By Remko Molenaar (Proxzor), OnRPG Writer

 



Recently the Diablo 3 Beta has gone live! Unfortunately Blizzard forgot to invite me but thankfully a lot of people, including ColbyCheeze, are streaming the game and revealing a lot of content to get us even more hyped for the launch. Also the skills on the official Diablo 3 website got released and in this article I will be showing you a quick preview of a few spells that Diablo 3 currently revealed. I have already talked about the classes in the first article but now we have some specifics to describe exactly how these classes operate on the battlefield.

 

 

Demon Hunter

Fan of Knives: Some of you might know the skill Fan of Knives in World of Warcraft. In Diablo 3 the skills has the same kind of effect; it is an area of effect spell in which you basically throw knives around you to hit the surrounding monsters. While the description is the same, the actual animation is far more beautiful in Diablo 3.

 

Molten Arrow: This spell might be one of the most useful spells the Demon Hunter possesses; basically you shoot a piercing arrow in the current way that you are aiming. It hits targets for a percentage of your weapon damage and it leaves a trail of fire, dealing Fire damage per second to all enemies who stand in it. This spell will surely have some epic combinations with the rune system.

 

 

Grenade: The Grenade spell lets you throw three grenades in the current direction you’re facing that explode and deal Fire damage to the surrounding monsters.

 

Bola: With this spell you shoot out an explosive Bola that wraps itself around its target. After a few seconds the Bola will explode and deal extra damage to the target and an additional amount of damage to nearby targets.

 

Entangling Shot: The Entangling Shot is the Demon Hunter’s stun skill. With this shot you shoot off an arrow which deals damage and entangles the monster for an x amount of seconds.

 

 

Monk

Crippling Wave: The Monk uses large sweeping attacks that daze the target; on the first hit the target is dazed and on the second and third hit it refreshes the duration of the daze effect.

 

Impenetrable Defense: The Monk creates a shield that protects him from any incoming damage. Enter monks as an off-tank class!

 

Exploding Palm: With Exploding Palm the Monk does a series of lethal strikes to the targets nerve clusters, setting up a deadly chain reaction within the target. It also causes the target to bleed for an x amount of second. If the target dies while bleeding it explodes, which deals damage to surrounding enemies.

 

 

Seven-Sided Strike: Unleashes a fury of attacks, striking multiple enemies nearby.

 

Way of the Hundred Fists: The Monk fires a series of punching strikes to the targets in front of the Monk. Let’s hope this one stays true to the name ‘hundred.’ I have high hopes for some spectacular rune effects connecting to this skill. Projecting waves of lightning with each strike maybe?

 

 

Wizard

Disintegrate: Fires off a laser beam that will hit every target in its line of fire. It’s always important to have situational skill shots to keep things exciting for the wizard.

 

 

Electrocute: Fires off an electric beam that hits multiple nearby targets dealing x amount of damage, as well as stunning and slowing the target. Electrocute can jump to 2 other targets dealing 30% less damage with each jump.

 

Teleport: The standard go-to defensive skill for a mage. Just make sure you teleport out of the fray and not into it.

 

Magic Missile: This skill lets you fire off a fast single magic missile at a target, dealing x amount of arcane damage.

 

Slow Time: The Slow Time spell creates a purple bubble of protection around the Wizard. Basically what it does is create a forcefield around the wizard that not only slows the movement of enemies who enter it, but even slows projectile attacks launched from distant enemies.

 

 

Barbarian

Cleave: This skill lets you swing your weapon in a wide arc to deal damage to nearby targets. It also does 60% of weapon damage to other nearby enemies that are caught in the extended swing.

 

Ground Stomp: Ground Stomp makes you stomp the earth beneath you to stun and do 30% of damage to the surrounding targets. It’s an easy clean-up job from there.

 

Leap: With Leap you will leap into the air dealing 40% of damage to all enemies within 8 yards of your destination. This skill might be the most fun opening skill to do because you surprise your targets when you leap forward. I expect this to be widely popular in PvP.

 

Seismic Slam: This Slam might be the biggest Area of Effect spell that the Barbarian possesses; the barbarian slams the ground to cause a wave of destruction that deals 215 weapon damage and knockbacks targets in a 45yard arc around the epicenter.

 

 

Whirlwind: Every Warcraft fan and Diablo fan is probably familiar with the Whirlwind. We saw the blade master in Warcraft 3 being specialized in this skill.  Whirlwind lets the character rotate in circles to deliver multiple attacks to every target that is currently walking in its path.

 

 

Witch Doctor

Firebomb: Firebomb is very similar to the Grenade skill that is used by the Demon Hunter. Instead of throwing grenades you throw one bomb at your enemy that will explode on impact and deal fire damage. As such timing is vital to landing this attack.

 

Horrify: This powerful curse frightens the nearby enemies into running away for a few seconds. The radius emanates from the Witch Doctor, not from the spot targeted when cast, so it only works on enemies who are very nearby.

 

 

Locust Swarm: Locust Swarm might be the most fun spell for the Witch Doctor to have. You send off a cloud of locusts that swarm over nearby enemies eating their flesh from their bones. The Locust Swarm will chain between nearby enemies which might set off a really fun situation where you can clear the room with only one simple spell. I’m curious how effective it is against living skeletons though.

 

Mass Confusion: With Mass Confusion you will confuse your targets into turning against their allies temporarily. The duration is currently set at 8 seconds.

 

Soul Harvest: With Soul Harvest you can feed on the life force of up to 5 nearby enemies within 15 yards. You will gain 126 attack for each affected enemy which will last for 30 seconds.

 

 

After seeing all the skills of the current classes I am thinking about trying out a Demon Hunter at the release of Diablo 3. I have always liked the archer class above any other class in any MMORPG that I have played. It’s refreshing to finally see an archer breaking from the typical stereotype to encompass a bit more utility. The Wizard also looks rather interesting but I can’t help shake the feeling that it’s meant to play more of a supporting role in this game. Still, in the hands of an expert, wizards will be able to dish out immense aoe damage while remaining quite mobile. The current amount of damage an attack or spell deals can be changed considering Diablo 3 is still in early beta, but after seeing all the video’s on the Diablo 3 site you can get a really good view of what to expect of the currently announced classes.

Glitch Online Enters Open Beta

Glitch Online Enters Open Beta

 

 

Glitch Online entered into a limited open beta last week. As of now they are accepting all applicants willing to register for the game! A blog post by Stewart Butterfield signifies that this is a sign Glitch is sending to the public that their game is stable enough, and fun enough, to be made available to players from around the world. He states that this is merely a humble beginning, and the team is dedicated to create something with infinite replayability. As such you can expect a solid stream of new content and events in Glitch to keep things fresh.

Of course Glitch Online’s development team knows how vital the player base and their creativity is for making a game with infinite replayability. As such they will be working to expand all the ways in which players can create and express themselves. The team best summed up their thoughts on the game with this quote:

“There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other, infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play.” – James P. Carse.

A Tale in the Desert: The Sandy Old MMO

A Tale in the Desert: The Sandy Old MMO

By Remko Molenaar (Proxzor), OnRPG Journalist

 


Have you always been fascinated by the work of Egyptians? eGenesis introduces you to A Tale in the Desert and will show you how people in the old Egypt crafted tools and handled their own business. Instead of killing monsters and gaining equipment and other features a normal MMORPG possesses, A Tale in the Desert teaches you how to craft your own set of tools to create items that you might need to unlock new technology.

 

 

When you first start up the game and make yourself a new character it is time to learn the basics of A Tale in the Desert. You will start to learn how to gather wood and learn some other important crafting options through one of the schools or universities that are scattered all over the map. You can visit these schools that will help you learn to create some helpful tools. Leveling up your skills is done by crafting the same object over and over; after a while your character gets the hang of it and its success rate to craft that item will be higher.

 

 

After the short tutorial you are given a list that you will need to find and create. After you have done everything that is put on the list, you will be an official citizen and can join the community in various projects.

 

Yea.. I built that. No big deal.

 

Gameplay

The crafting in this game is very easy, fun to use, and not terribly difficult to learn. For example, slate is found near water and with two pieces of slate you can make yourself a Stone Blade. With this Stone Blade and some wood you can make yourself a wood plane. This wood plane is useful for making wooden planks that can be used for other crafting recipes.

 

 

Every skill and project that you have obtained is found by clicking on your character. Here a list of all available actions is presented in one easy menu. This also includes your fluff skills such as emotes. And if you want to change the looks of your character you can head over to the appearance tab to edit your avatar. If you are lost you can activate a compass along with using the positioning of the sun to find your way. Of course for the less adventurous, coordinates are provided to give you a general idea where you are on the world map.

 

 

In the bottom left of your screen you can find your item menu. In the Items list you can find the items that you have gathered and have created in the world of A Tale in the Desert. You will also see how much you are carrying with you in terms of weight and bulk. Next to the items is a skill tab which allows you to keep track of your various skill progressions. There are so many skills in this game it made my head spin so you’ll be glad to have such a well presented menu organizing them all for you.

 

 

Overall the objective of the game is simple. Do what you want! As a sandbox game you are free to just have fun and try to achieve whatever goal you care about at the time. If you are one of the hardcore players, you can aim to become to top of one of the seven schools and even gain a say in how the next iteration of the world will be designed after the world reaches its conclusion and resets. Currently A Tale in the Desert is just beginning Tale 5 so there’s still time to aim for the top.

 

Graphics

A tale in the Desert is quite an old game already and the graphics show this off. The game isn’t really looking that great and feels a little empty. Even though you have to create most of the environment yourself it feels a little dull and boring. To play this sandbox game you will need to have a Pentium 700Mhz processor along with 512 MB of RAM. You will also need to have at least a Geforce MX or a Radeon 9600+ video card in your rig running. If you have no idea what this means and you have no idea what kind of computer you’re currently running right now. I’d say everyone with a computer that is made in the last 10 years is easily able to run this game without any trouble.

 

 

Conclusion

A Tale in the Desert is a fun game to learn about Ancient Egypt. The crafting element is everything in this game and designed well enough to keep you entertained for hours. Once in a while the world will reset itself and the law that is made up by all the players is deleted and started over so this game has a different outcome every time. Unfortunately there are still things that annoyed me during my play. The camera physics are ancient, unwieldy, and downright frustrating to maneuver. For looking around you have to place your mouse at the edge of your screen and looking up or down is not possible. A Tale in the Desert is a fun game but there’s no way it can compete in today’s market as a P2P game. Nonetheless A Tale in the Desert is a fun game to play that will teach you some history about the old Egypt, and lets you socialize with others in a way that doesn’t involve bashing heads in for once.

Rise of Immortals: MOBA Madness

Rise of Immortals: MOBA Madness

By John Gallagher (Zaitlyn), OnRPG Journalist

 

 

 

Rise of Immortals is a great game developed by Petroglyph Games that’s hindered by things that are not the fault of the game itself. Rise of Immortals is a MOBA game, where the player controls a hero while battling repeating spawns of weak A.I units called “Creeps” that constantly advance forward towards the enemy base. There are many different types of heroes, from a support tank that heals nearby friends, to single target classes that focus on sniping enemy heroes. This is a great aspect of this game, in that each class has its own backstory as well as its own unique look and feel. The game’s main focus is its Player vs. Player content, which is a blast and well thought out.

 

 

The main problem with the game’s focus on Player vs. Player content is that not many people play Rise of Immortals, which is a shame since it is obvious the developers care a lot for the game. During my time playing I was only able to get into smaller 2v2 games, and sometimes the wait for that was up to five minutes during peak times. Luckily though the game provides the player with a central hub to walk around in as well as chat with other people who you will be fighting against when the players turn comes up in the queue. This central hub also gives the player time to assign skills that are unique to each class. Each class gets its own skill tree of offensive bonuses, defensive bonuses and a skill tree only usable by the current class. Mainly these skills are passive benefits such as more health or mana regeneration. These skills carry over with the player for as long as they play, but at the beginning of each battle the player has to earn the right to use big hitting spells by gaining veteran points, which is a different stat than skill level ups. This allows each character to develop. Being able to customize one’s character allows the player a sense of achievement and uniqueness

 

It is here you tune your hero to your own play style.

 

The game does not do a good job of easing the player into the experience. At the beginning of the game, the player is given a choice of hero and then is placed in the central hub with no clue on what any button does or where to begin. They give the player a practice arena, but even that’s very bare bones. Luckily, the game is pretty simple to understand, each hero has four unique skills designed around their role in battle. A support tank has an area heal for example, while a mage’s skills focus mainly on long range spells that damage a large area. Each time the player joins a new battle, these action skills are reset to zero, and the player gains the right to use them as you kill enemy creeps, heroes or defensive towers. The player levels up fairly fast, so within three to four minutes of a battle the player has his or her hero tuned to their specifications. The hero’s stats can also be affected by items that can be bought at a shop in the main base. The player earns gold for these items by killing enemy units, and these items can also be upgraded with gold for even more benefits. Careful management of gold to either increase the hero’s strengths or decrease his weaknesses to balance him out is a big part of this game.

 

A support tank doing what he does best

 

The graphics for Rise of Immortals are a mix of well made backgrounds and hero models with bland creeps, textures, and building details. The art style of the different heroes is very interesting. Every hero is unique and does not look anything like what I expected when I first began playing. The screenshots I saw as well as the website gave an impression of a standard foray into a fantasy land we’ve all been to before. But when the player loads up the character select screen, and a giant walking treant makes up one of the tank heroes, and a cyborg dwarf with a rifle makes up one of the single target focused heroes, it was refreshing. The spells and skills of the heroes are well detailed and easily noticeable. Heroes look great, with smooth, detailed animations. The sound effects are also great; the battle music does a great job of increasing the mood. The announcer is also easily heard and keeps the player updated on the action, such as when an ally dies or a defensive tower falls.

 

 

The maps that the heroes fight on are detailed and varied. Bushes that obscure the opponent’s line of sight provide ample opportunities for ambushes. And if the player feels that one path of attack is being locked down too well, the map designers provide many different methods of getting under the opponents skin. The maps are the perfect size, with running times from home base short enough to not be boring, but long enough that an attacker can punish the player for not defending their towers properly. One feature that Rise of Immortals truly excels in is map variety. There are literally a dozen maps you can play on, a rarity in the MOBA genre.

 

 

 

All in all, I think Rise of Immortals is a great game that simply needs more players. That the developers love the game is obvious, but at the moment of writing there simply is not a big enough community to support it. Rise of Immortals has the framework to be a great game, but it simply needs more exposure and more fan word-of-mouth to increase its competitive potential; that part of the game is balanced, during my time with the game I felt I hardly ever had a “cheap” death. If I died, or my team lost, it was because I was outplayed. No one hero is chosen more than any other, which adds to the replayability of the game. Because of this, the player is never left groaning at a loading screen because there is yet another team of Hero X or Hero Y needing to be conquered. Rise of Immortals is a very fun game that any strategy or MOBA fan should give a try.

 

 

Graphics: 6 out of 10: MOBA games aren’t known for their graphics. This isn’t one of Rise of Immortal’s strong points.

Sound: 10 out of 10: Great sound effects, great music, great announcer. Can’t complain here!

Controls: 8 out of 10: The default control setup is kind of wonky, but you can reprogram inputs to make it work for you.

Replay ability: 8 out of 10: With several heroes, each with their own levels as well as skill points, this game can keep you interested long term.

Eden Eternal Announces Housing

Eden Eternal Announces Player Housing

 

 

 

Aeria Games has just released scenes of player housing customization for one of its most popular titles, Eden Eternal, that will be released in early October.

 

 

Players can now rent a house from the new Innkepper NPCs located in Aven. Player housing will give the ability to players to customize their house however they feel by using items either purchased or earned through various quests.

 

 

Players’ rooms will be ranked based off of the different types of items and arrangement. Players will also be able to host “parties” that allow other players to visit their homes and earn various status boosts. Check out the new trailer of the housing system right here on OnRPG.