Yearly Archives: 2011

Three Kingdoms Brawler

Three Kingdoms Brawler is a classic 2D side-scrolling massively multiplayer online role-playing game based on ancient Chinese mythology. Players can choose from three character classes, each with a unique fighting style, and brawl their way through hazardous dungeons. In addition, players can join together to form parties and guilds, explore the deep crafting system to create powerful weapons, and participate in daily in-game events.

 

The Three classes are Dragon (blades), Tiger (martial arts), and phoenix (range and magic). Each class allows you to branch in one of four ways upon reaching level 14.

Early Access: Eden Eternal Community Features

Early Access: Eden Eternal Community Features

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

 

 

Welcome to part 3 of OnRPG’s Eden Eternal Preview series! As of today, the countdown to closed beta is only a week away! If you were worried about sneaking your way in to test this game early, you can now set your fears aside. Our lucky viewers will be among the first to get into this closed beta. Stay tuned in the coming week for more information on how to ensure your spot in CB!

 

 

As promised, today we will be going over the two vital social functions that make Eden Eternal stand apart from most games on the market. They are the guilds and the soulmate system. Now if you know much about MMORPGs, you are probably looking at this line with a quizzical expression on your face. Hold your judgment! It is not the fact that these systems exist in the game that makes them unique, but the way they are implemented.

 

Soulmate System: Just the Two of Us

Now in my gaming past, showing your love for another player ingame usually meant one thing. Money money and more money! It is no secret that free-to-play games take full advantage of the need for lovers to express themselves by charging them heavy fees for weddings, special rings, and other such love focused items, especially in anime styled games like Eden Eternal. Thus it came as a huge surprise to me when I saw that you can initiate dating a soulmate in Eden Eternal without the use of a cash shop item.

 

 

Hopefully this remains as is because the Soulmate System really provides some strong benefits to players that are dedicated to each other. Special lover skills (including the often wanted soulmate teleport power) are slowly unlocked the longer you stay together, along with other buffs and even a soulmate heal. You basically won’t want to go adventuring without your soulmate as the power increases are just addicting. Of course one major argument and poof, all your hard earned buffs and skills go up in smoke! So take good care of your soulmate or face the consequences.

 

Another great innovation comes in the freedom of sex involved with picking a soulmate. No longer will you have to force your best buddy to roll a female character to gain the benefits of the soulmate system. So long as you don’t mind taking a stroll on the liberal side, two guys or two girls can pair up as soulmates and receive the same buffs! I’m glad Aeria Games and X-Legends have taken the approach that gameplay is greater than society taboos and given its players this freedom of choice.

 

 

I think that is enough about love. It’s time to move on to the part organized team gamers are going to be interested in, Guilds.

 

Guild: A medieval association of craftsmen or merchants, having considerable power.

 

Eden Eternal takes this definition to heart and brings back what made guilds great in the medieval European era. The primary function of the guild is to pool the resources of its members in order to construct a guild town. This town is able to produce 5 crafting structures out of countless options. Thus a guild is able to specialize constructing epic blacksmiths or potion shops that most guilds will not have access to. And at this point, the guild structure does what medieval guilds do best, charge outlandish surcharges to anyone outside of the guild in exchange for their services!

 

 

By using the world map, players are able to visit the various guild towns of the world. This is useful since you can go to a guild town that has crafting abilities that your guild’s town might not, and use their service to advance your crafting ventures. Since crafting has been made to be a vital part of end-game in Eden Eternal, you will find yourself doing this or at least better know someone savvy enough to do it for you. Why do they need to be savvy you say? I’m glad you asked!

 

Guild leaders in Eden Eternal can assign a tax rate on their guild town’s crafting hotspots. This rate is tacked on to the cost of using one of your town’s crafting npcs to supply the guild with funds. Although early on in the game’s lifespan, monopolies will exist and players will be forced to endure outlandish tax rates, eventually more and more guilds will be able to provide access to advanced crafting facilities. Once the market is flooded with options, supply and demand is going to take over and savvy shoppers will quickly learn which guilds provide the best services for the lowest price.

 

 

Of course there is one limiting factor to the spread of guilds. While the first 50 guild towns founded will be for the low cost of 500 gold, any guild town after that is planned to be sold at a whopping 10,000 gold. That’s over 9000 gold! Also if a faction becomes inactive, their town will eventually be disbanded. These two factors combined should keep the guild population to a manageable number while providing just enough free market pressure to avoid crafting monopolies.

 

Guild Towns and Guild Ranks

Beyond crafting and material gathering npcs, guild towns carry a great number of useful unlockable features. For instance, guilds can construct different sets of obelisks in their town square, inspiring any member belonging to the faction to greater heights by giving them a buff. Each obelisk offers a different buff so there is some strategy involved in giving your faction what they will make the best use of (or you can just use the prettiest one. I like using the prettiest one).

 

 

Another cool feature of the town square is guild leaders are capable of constructing massive monuments in honor of various guild members. These statues actually acquire the character model and fashion from the player they are based on and create an ingame statue of them. Nothing inspires guildies to greatness like a statue!

 

Guilds are also useful for storage, in a big way. While each player’s personal inventory size is decent, a maximum upgraded guild storage bank is outlandishly large. Three separate tabs filled with something like 30 slots each (I can’t remember the exact number and was barred from taking screenshots of the guild interface) ensures that you will not be wanting for storage space for your guild’s rare artifacts.

 

The guild ranking system is also wonderful and brings back one of the few features I truly enjoyed in Warhammer Online. The guild leader can assign 5 tiers of privilege to categorize guild members. These tiers are customizable to the extreme, offering you the ability to rename each tier and set custom privileges to each tier. There are at least 15 or so privileges you can assign to each tier from changing the guild tax rate, to inviting new members, to depositing or withdrawing items from the guild bank. In short guild managers will have their hands full with a plethora of nifty dashboards and control panels to create a guild uniquely their own!

 

 

A fun scavenger hunt event available within guild towns is what I deem the ‘Crystal Pinata.’  This massive blue crystal can be placed within the guild town, with some insane amounts of health and defense. However, if you guild gets together and beats it down, it explodes with treasure chests that fly out and hide all across the world. These chests contain rare unique items that are worth finding, and your guild will be the first to know the scavenger hunt has begun!

 

Last of all, guilds will have plenty of events and activities in which to compete with each other to earn Harry Potter style house points for their faction. Guild ranking systems will help keep track of the most successful factions in these events. Although not available at launch, Associate Producer Jeff hinted that 40vs40 guild battles were in the works. I can say that will be a glorious sight to behold in this game.

 

 

The beginning of closed beta is now only 7 days away! But there is one last article on the horizon I plan to tease you with before you can get your hands on this game. Check out our final part of Early Access: Eden Eternal next Tuesday for a look at reputation, titles, and other tid bits that make Eden Eternal oh so user friendly.

Picaroon Online

Picaroon is an MMORTS taht takes place in a futuristic post-apocalyptic Earth brought straight out of the Waterworld movie. Kingdoms battle over islands and resources while shady deals are made over the purchase of the few remnants of advanced weaponry from the last days of modern Earth.

 

The key to Picaroon is simple. Find an island and settle it. Build up your island’s defenses and begin extracting resources. Use resources to build boats. Use those boats to conquer more islands or prove your worth and join a stronger alliance for protection. Eventually the dark siders, an advanced remnant of modern Earth will emerge from the dark side of the globe in an attempt to colonize your lands. Stand together with your allies, and even your enemies, to survive this devastating final nuclear assault!

 

Picaroon is unique in that it plays out like a game of Risk. No matter what happens, eventually the pieces will return to the box and the world will begin to play out anew.

Age of Conan Goes Fremium: Another in the Popular Trend

Age of Conan Goes Fremium: Another in the Popular Trend

 

 

 

Funcom is excited to announce Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures will receive a digital re-launch this summer under the new name ‘Age of Conan: Unrated’. As well as reaffirming its position as the sexiest and most savage MMO in the world, Age of Conan: Unrated will also feature a hybrid business model allowing anyone to freely roam the vast lands of Hyboria either as free players or premium subscribers with access to extra content.

 

“With over 1.4 million copies sold, glowing reviews for both the core game as well as the expansion, and a healthy player base ever since launch in 2008, there is no doubt that Age of Conan has been a true success story for Funcom,” says SVP of Sales & Marketing Morten Larssen. “Now we turn to another chapter in this story as we thrust Age of Conan: Unrated into the world of free-to-play games, a gaming space that is becoming rapidly more popular and profitable across the board.”

 


The new business model will give players the opportunity to choose whether they want to play for free or become premium subscribers, and Funcom is also introducing an in-game store to the game where both free players and premium subscribers can purchase exclusive content such as weaponry and mounts.

 

Age of Conan has always been a Mature gaming experience, but going Unrated gives the development team freedom to stay even more true to the original works of Conan author Robert E. Howard, and use even more of the barbaric, brutal and sexy setting that is Howard’s Hyboria. Funcom is already in the process of developing new locations, monsters, equipment and storylines for Age of Conan: Unrated. This includes the movie tie-in adventure pack announced yesterday, that will introduce content and characters from the upcoming ‘Conan the Barbarian’ movie.

 

 

“Everyone on the team is excited about opening up our world to an even larger audience,” says Creative Director and Executive Producer Craig Morrison. “The online world of Hyboria is constantly expanding as we continue to introduce new gameplay features and new content, and we truly believe that Age of Conan: Unrated will offer something truly new and unique to both new players and to those have already experienced the brutal online world of Conan the Barbarian.”

Gamigo To Stress Test Black Prophecy’s US Servers

Gamigo To Stress Test Black Prophecy’s U.S. Servers

Gamigo is preparing to begin stress-testing the new North American servers for its highly-anticipated MMOG, Black Prophecy. OnRPG is tremendously excited at this announcement as our previous time in beta revealed tremendous lag in the starting zones that made the game nearly unplayable for West Coast players trying to access the UK server.

 

 

Starting tomorrow, Thursday, May 26th this issue will be a thing of the past and you can bet I will be back in the pilot seat to give the game another look! In addition, many bug fixes and game updates have gone live this week. Gamigo is inviting all players who were part of the recent closed beta to login and help stress test the servers  through Sunday, May 29th. All players who login during this time will receive a special gift at launch. I will see you there!

Steps Evolution Online: Fingers Do The Talking

Steps Evolution Online: Fingers Do the Talking

By Mitch Baylosis-Benesa (Syllica), OnRPG Journalist

 

 

After I tried out Cubinet Interactive’s 3D online dancing/rhythm game, Steps Evolution Online, I was completely reminded of how I used to start finger drumming at church to keep myself from nodding off at early Sunday services. It was a nasty habit but it kept me from snoring. The habit formed pretty much like a conditioned response of any human to an upbeat song—either they bop their heads along or do the jiggy while mopping a wet floor. It was an unbidden response, but it was oddly comforting.

 

That is basically how Steps Evolution Online struck me. The online game just stuck with the fail-proof formula of rhythm game basics and focused on further embellishing its features. I have to admit that I already had my expectations of this game and thought that it was just going to be one of those generic music games out on the market. Steps Evolution Online pretty much proved me wrong.

 

Get Ready To Party

In Steps Evolution Online, your life is a party. You have no world to save, no evildoers to be stopped, and definitely no bloodshed. It was honestly a refreshing game to review. I get to play the game and not think about how the virtual world’s apocalyptic fate rests on my poor shoulders. It’s just the music, you, and how skilled your fingers are.

 

Creating characters is a breeze. There is not much available stuff to choose from: a couple of hairstyles in several shades and a couple of tops, pants or skirts, and shoes. The appearances of your characters are limited to cute, naughty and sexy as well, but the item mall definitely provides a lot of items which allow you to make your character unique. Some missions or quests will also yield gifts or rewards that you can use. Quests in this game are not like the typical ones that you get from online RPGs. These are simply missions like finishing a song, achieving a top score, or not having more than 30 misses in a round.

 

 

Show Me Your Moves

The game has no tutorial sessions because the controls are, in all honesty, idiot proof. The cursor keys—up, down, left, and right–are your primary controls for the 4Key mode. Just press the appropriate keys on the screen before the meter gets to the part where you have to hit the spacebar. If you time it correctly, you can get a Perfect score which gives you higher points. You can choose to start off easy wherein you only have 1 key to press at the beginning until it becomes 8 keys. Normal difficulty kicks off with 6 keys to input and goes up to 12 keys. The song difficulty depends on the bpm or beats per minute so you can have total control of your pacing.

 

 

If you think that this is far too easy for your quick fingers, then the 8Key mode should be a suitable challenge for you. It makes use of the NumPad for the 4 additional keys: 7 for the upper left arrow, 9 for the upper right, 1 for lower left and 3 for lower right arrows. If the 4Key mode is already a feat to mastered, then the 8Key mode will prove an option used by only an elite few.

 

The Nth Rule: Thou Shall Not Be A Wallflower

Steps Evolution Online is a social game as well and it doesn’t hurt to mingle around as if you are really in a party. While you are allowed to create a room and lock yourself in it while you practice your killer moves, it would be heaps better to have other people join you. One of the advantages of hosting your own room is that you get to choose the song and the stage for the dance face-off. Playing with others can also lead you to try out the Couples Mode where you partner up with the opposite sex and synchronize your steps, sometimes even doing a combo. Who knows, you might hit it off, virtually get married, and be allowed to have a virtual baby (one that can give you stat bonuses).

 

 

More Modes

If you keep on missing the bar and you become frustrated with the cursor keys, you can also try out their Rhythm mode where you can play Drums. This is not as complex as Rockband or Guitar Hero games. It simply has four buttons: D/K and F/J for the small orange and blue beats, and D+K and F+J for the big orange and blue beats, respectively. I actually prefer this mode because this is really like earning points simply for finger drumming.

 

Updated Music

One thing I appreciate with Steps Evolution Online is that they have featured new music from known Asian artists like Wonder Girls, BOA, Utada Hikaru, and Tae Yang (if you couldn’t tell from the screenshots, this is marketed mostly towards Asia), plus popular artists like Taylor Swift, Ne-Yo, Michael Jackson, Sean Kingston and Lady.

 

 

Steps Evolution Online is clearly a step up from old online rhythm games like Audition and HighStreet5 Online. The studios or maps in Steps Evolution are pimped up as some rooms play the original music videos of the artists in the background or have ambient characters cheering you on or playing instruments. The player’s characters also have some good grooves going on. If the videos or other characters bog your game’s frames per second down, you can easily hide or turn off these features.

 

Other Features

In essence, Steps Evolution Online is a pretty simple game that tests your hand-eye coordination skills with up-beat trendy music as background noise. However, there are also other features in the game that make you feel more in tune with the world, like allowing you to apply for a home where you can grow your own crops and mine materials. These materials that you reap (or buy) can be merged into items that will help boost two other features in the game: your pets and your baby. Getting married and having a pet or a baby helps boost your stats and raise your popularity.

 

 

That’s pretty much the game—nothing more, nothing else. The graphics are not that notable and more like a schoolgirl’s brand of anime dipped in 3D goodness, but nothing spectacular. It also isn’t as intellectually stimulating as other online games. There is definitely no need to strategize but you really have to trust your fingers to at least be skilled in finger dancing and drumming. Steps Evolution Online still clearly has its own charm that makes it quite addicting and not easy to forget.

Realm of the Titans Abraxas Hero Showcase

Realm of the Titans Hero Showcase: Abraxas

 

 

Aeria Games sent OnRPG an early look at the Hero Showcase for Abraxas in upcoming DotA inspired Realm of the Titans. Realm of the Titans adds its own distinct flavor to the increasingly popular Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) genre by incorporating an additional map option and a slew of unique in-game systems and boosts.

 

 

Realm of the Titans’ fast-paced PvP action rewards teamwork and strategy. Knowing every hero’s strengths and weaknesses is vital for effective cooperation on the battlefield. The latest Hero revealed, Abraxas, is a beefy support hero and pillar of strength for any team. His massive spiked tail and four muscular arms intimidate enemies as well as execute mighty offensive maneuvers with ease. If you’re unfortunate enough to battle against Abraxas, steer clear of the path of his deadly spear!

 

 

Abraxas’ skills are each linked to a keyboard shortcut, shown in parentheses:

 

  • Mighty Throw – (Q) Causes damage and stuns enemies in a path.
  • Bolster – (W) Increases Physical Damage based on your total Health, up to 100%.
  • Battle Cry – (E) Increases nearby heroes’ Movement and Attack speeds for 8 seconds.
  • Majesty(R) Gains vision, causes damage, and lowers Defense and Magic Resist of an enemy. Increase an ally’s Defense and Magic Resist and restores their Health.

 

Realm of the Titans is scheduled to begin Closed Beta in early summer. But OnRPG is not known to like to wait. So we are coordinating an interview with producer Travis Hawk the week following E3 to get an inside scoop of what RoTT has instore.