Monthly Archives: January 2012

Conquer Online Reveals Pirate Class in Action

Conquer Online Expansion PvP Trailer Reveals Explosive Pirate Combos

 

 

Conquer Online Pirate Poster

 

 

NetDragon’s fast-approaching new expansion for Conquer Online, titled Invasion of Pirates, will be launching on January 11, 2012. In the new expansion, players will have access to a slew of explosive new skills—such as Blackbeard’s Rage and Kraken’s Revenge—in their sweet new trade of piracy. A new video has been released today to show off some of the new skills in action. For the very first time, the Western sea bandits are confronted with the Eastern assassins of the gaming world—in a true Pirate versus Ninja battle, who will be left standing?

 

 

Those in the world of Conquer Online are standing on the edge of their destiny as invaders are intruding with powerful weapons and skills never seen before. While the continent is torn apart by the fiery rage of war, six heroes will come together to fight for their people. These heroes will reunite these divided loyalties, but do they know enough about their dreaded new opponent?

 

 

Conquer Online Krakens Revenge

 

 

The new Pirate class comes suited for battle with both rapiers and pistols. Their abilities all channel power and precision alongside the most explosive combat in the game. Pirates will be capable of taking any enemy down—on land or sea. With a little strategy and pirate know-how, the new class can easily become the most deadly in PvP battles.

 

 

The Pirate’s skills will be based on stamina, with many of the skills requiring a cooldown period. This means the key to winning a battle is how well a player can chain an effective combo—deploying buffs and abilities with haste, with the ability to quickly switch between targets. Mastering the Pirate’s skills may be one of the most challenging to master in the game, adding plenty of bloodthirsty new strategies to conquer in the new Invasion of Pirates expansion.

 

 

For a closer look, check out the PvP release video showcasing the explosive Pirate Class.

MU Online: The Early Years of MMOs Live On

MU Online: The Early Years of MMOs Live On

Remko Molenaar (Proxzor), OnRPG Journalist

 

 

MU Online has been a title that has been around for ages and has stood the test of time demonstrating to players what the early days of the MMORPG market were like. Undoubtedly many of the old school MMORPG fans have played it at some point since it launched late in December of 2001 by the Korean gaming company Webzen. It was one of the first games to set its mark on the genre and showed the possibility of open world PvP. And in this review I will be giving the game a second look after all these years to see how this old nostalgic title stands up in the modern MMO market.

 

 

Despite the rumors of an upcoming MU2 Online launch, MU Online is still successful and populated. When I was given the green light to write about it I excitedly hopped right in to enjoy some good ol’ graphics in the style of the famous Diablo. Even though the style is very similar the game is completely different and the environments were actually in my opinion glorious back in the day. After experiencing so much eye candy since 2001, the reality versus nostalgia glasses set in and I realized how dated the graphics are. You would think that after all these years they would’ve at least upgraded the resolution and textures?

 

 

When creating your character it is possible to choose between 3 different classes to set foot in the world.  I decided to try out the Dark Wizard since I had already experience the Dark Knight back in the day. After following the first step and getting introduced into town you get the choice to do a tutorial. Since I haven’t played for years and forgot my way around I decided it wouldn’t hurt so I began relearning all the basics.

 

 

After visiting all the NPC’s that were in the starting village I was already being bothered by one trivial annoyance. I have no idea if someone is throwing bread crumbs on the ground to feed the birds or Webzen is run by the Penguin, but a million birds are constantly flying all over town. After doing several tutorial quests and receiving a lot of ZEN which is the in-game money currency it was me vs the world and I set out to help the poor.

 

 

Classes

When creating your first character there are only three classes available for you to play. These are the Dark Wizard, Dark Knight and Elf. Each of these classes has their own abilities and equipment types. My chosen class, the Dark Wizard, deals out explosive amounts of DPS so long as you manage your mana supply efficiently.

 

 

The Dark Knight is a class that functions primarily as the warrior like in any other MMORPG. They have plenty of health and defensive capabilities to be able to defend themselves and teammates with. They also come with an arsenal of offensive spells to kill off their foes as quickly as possible should they go on solo missions.

 

 

The Elf is more like the hybrid class in Mu online which functions as the supporting role. They can cast supportive magic like buffs and heals and are able to deal a fair amount of damage from a distance using their bow.

 

 

There are also 4 classes you can unlock as you progress further in the game. They are as follows:

 

Summoner: Summoners possess a natural gift in manipulating magical powers and communicating with the void. By using special scrolls, Summoners are able to summon various mysterious monsters. Through constant prayers and meditations Summoners can incapacitate enemies by blasting their weak points.

 

Rage Fighter: The Rage Fighter is specialized for close ranged attacks and uses debuff skills to decrease their foe’s fighting capacity. These monstrous looking brutes are capable of dealing heavy attacks when needed and are able to turn the tide in a second.

 

Magic Gladiator: Do you want a class that combines spell and sword? Then the Magic Gladiator might be what you are looking for. This class is not only the ultimate killing machine but an immovable force when on defense. Their arsenal includes abilities of both the Dark Knight and the Dark Wizard classes.

 

Dark Lord: This fearsome class that is able to summon a Dark Raven and Dark horse to do his bidding. He is one of most helpful classes to have in a party because of their mastery of AoE abilities and skill to summon party members from nearly anywhere in the world to your location.

 

 

This point and click game was one of the trendsetters back in the day and Webzen sure made a game to be proud of. There are a lot of events that you can participate in when you are bored of questing or participating in the evil but so satisfying pk. But beware not to get the Outlaw status because once a player has this status from too much PK they suffer disadvantages during game play depending on the Outlaw level. If a person simply wants to get rid of its outlaw status simply time is needed until your level decreases, or if you hate waiting you could also kill a large amount of monsters which is easier done on a server that does not permit open world PvP.

 

 

Graphics

The Graphics of Mu Online aren’t top notch and doesn’t stand up to modern MMO standards. The graphics engine it runs on hasn’t been updated in quite some time but it still cares some cool visual effects for a game released in 2001. The environment remains lively with plenty of background movement, including the incessant bird fly-overs. Every area is unique looking with few repeating textures, and the monster selection is often thematically chosen to match the surroundings.

 

 

Since this game has been out for a decade I will not ramble about system requirements because I believe that everyone who has a computer capable of reading this review is easily able to play Mu Online without graphical lag.

 

 

Conclusion

Even though Mu Online is old it is still very much alive with a large and loyal community. What it lacks in graphical power it makes up for with gameplay features since Webzen has spent its time well in keeping constant updates flowing into the game. Are you a big fan of hack and slash type of games or do you simply want to play a rock solid game with a lot of support and events? Then I advise you to give this game a try because its far more satisfying than most F2P games on the market today.

Maplestory Announces Demon Slayer Class

Maplestory Announces Demon Slayer Class

 

 

The powerful Demon Slayer, the third and final new character class addition to the Legends content update series, will land in Maplestory next Wednesday, January 11 A former villain on a quest for redemption, the Demon Slayer packs an array of dark powers that players can harness for good.

 

 

The Demon Slayer was once a commander in the Black Mage’s army until the event that made him realize whom he was fighting for. On January 11, the Demon Slayer joins the Resistance, determined to free Edelstein and atone for his past no matter the cost.

 

 

Be sure to check out the related trailer revealing the Demon Slayer’s audition to the folks at Nexon.

C21 Online

C21 – Steel Battle Chronicles is an action-style RPG featuring robots as its stars. Take the role of a fighter in the Neo Robot Force, and join forces with others to defeat the wicked Devil Robot Force. Customize and upgrade dozens of robots while bringing peace to the world.

 

Features

 

Action-Based Gameplay: Use your keyboard and mouse, or a gamepad, to move around and fight on the ground and in the air against other robots.

Highly Customizable Robots: Robots can be upgraded through adding, removing, and changing parts to fit your personal playstyle.

Skin Editor: Use the paint store to customize the look of your robot, with the freedom to draw, color, and design either through the in-game graphics editor or through your own graphics program. Skins can even be shared with other players.

Iron Grip Marauders

Iron Grip: Marauders is an online, browser-based addition to the Iron Grip series, set after Warlord and Lords of Atelia. Serving as the leader of a band of mercenary pirates, you must build your army, train your heroes, and research new units to become powerful enough to conquer the land. Go alone, make friends, or make enemies – the choice is yours to make.

 

Features

 

Turn-Based Strategic Gameplay: Choose carefully among your available units and heroes before each battle in order to secure victory.

Varied Challenges: Join with other players in raids, smuggling missions, or even Boss fights for a chance at great loot and experience.

PvP Face Offs: Battle against other players head-to-head for a chance at ranking and PvP medals without fear – losses during the battle will be returned to you, and battles cost no energy.

Leaderboards: Both PvE and PvP host their own leaderboards, letting you compete for glory and fame however you prefer.

Star Supremacy Launches into Facebook to Start 2012

Star Supremacy launches into Facebook to start 2012

 

Star Supremacy

 

After weeks of hard work, Barbily is proud to announce the launch of the facebook version of their sci-fi MMORTS, Star Supremacy. The Facebook version of the game will allow Facebook users to login and play the game using their own facebook account.

 

 

“Facebook is the platform for many social game publishers. It serves as the venue where millions of users login to play games on a daily basis. Launching Star Supremacy as a facebook game will allow us to not only expose our brand and product to the facebook community but to also help us with improving our game and driving traffic. We are very excited to make our debut into the facebook community. We anticipate much success. We encourage users to take a break from other RTS games and come play our game. What makes us different from CityVille, FarmVille, CastleVille, or even Empires & Allies is that we are a sci-fi RTS game. ” says Thomas Watson, Public Relations Manager for Barbily, who was in charge of overseeing all operations for the launch. “We’ve read a lot of feedback from players both inside and outside our forums. Players expect a lot from a browser-based RTS. I am proud to say that our developers are working very fast and very hard to bring out new features and big fixes on a weekly basis.”

 

 

The Star Supremacy team has prepared some events for players to celebrate the launch.

 

There will be three GMs in the game. Each of them has two non-initial colonies on the non-initial planets (3 GMs x 2 colonies each = 6 colonies in total). Their colonies are filled with massive resources. You can assault these colonies. Please do not set up trade route on these colonies or obliterate these colonies. Doing so will cause GMs to revenge! The coordinates of the six colonies will be announced on Star Supremacy’s official Facebook Page. After the announcement, the GMs will refill their colonies every 24 hours as well as every week and re-announce them. The first two attackers of each colony will get three rare resource cards (three different types). Each player can only get the rare resource cards once after one announcement. It does not matter how many colonies a player attacks. Each player will be rewarded once after that has attacked a GM colony. 12 winners per week will be rewarded.

 

 

Reminder: When the Likes on Star Supremacy Facebook page reaches 500, 1000, everyone of Star Supremacy will receive gifts. What is more, when the page reaches 30,000 likes, 3 randomly selected players will win a gaming headset—Ear Force X11 Amplified Stereo Headset with Chat!

League of Legends: A Pyrrhic Viktory

League of Legends: A Pyrrhic Viktory

By Jason Harper (Hhean), OnRPG MOBA Reporter

 

 

 

Welcome Summoners, to… well, simply a League of Legends article about Viktor, actually. He’s been added to the game without much fanfare, with only a quick hotfix to mark his addition.

 

 

Viktor is a pure mage, focused on zone control through the use of large amounts of area of effect spells. The further away from him an enemy gets, the lower his damage output becomes, meaning his summoner must always know when to take risks up close and when to hold back at a distance. His play style is similar to Swain, with a touch of Oriana’s long lasting area denial, and various spells that move independently of the character.

 

 

His most unique mechanic is by far his unusual passive, Evolving Technology. This grants him a single item in his inventory at the beginning of the game, The Hex Core. The default Hex Core is nothing special, a single slot item that grants more ability power as he levels. However, Viktor can upgrade this item into three different items for a moderate sum. Each one of these upgrades provides a permanent special effect to each of his core abilities, Power Transfer [Q], Gravity Field [W], and Death Ray [E], along with an appropriate stat boost.

 

 

 

His go-to ability during the laning phase is his Power Transfer, a very short range targeted damage ability that grants him a shield after a short delay. This delay is shorter the closer you get to your target, though even at very close range it feels too long. The idea of the shield is clearly to allow him to trade at close range, granting him some added survivability at the cost of positioning. The problem is that in such situations, the enemy usually hits you before you hit them, because they’ll get in range before you can land your hit. Even in the best case scenario, the enemy will hit you at the same time, meaning that regardless of circumstance, you will always receive the shield too late.

 

 

The most reliable use of the shield is to simply use it on a minion right next to you, granting you instant protection. The problem with this though is that you’ve just wasted his most reliable damage dealing ability to gain a bit of survivability in order to get in range of an enemy. This leaves you with only auto attacks usually, though if you think the remainder of your abilities can be used to burst an enemy down, then it can be a good way to bolster yourself before diving into an assault, trading damage for guaranteed protection.

 

 

The upgrade for the Power Transfer is best taken to help with his laning phase against particularly tough opponents. It can also make a good trick to help with his escape and roaming capabilities, using it on anything nearby before using the speed boost to nip away.

 

 

His Death Ray is a vector targeted skill shot, similar to Rumble’s ultimate, The Equalizer. At the starting point of the attack, there is no delay between you clicking and the beam coming out, making it nearly impossible to avoid at close range. In addition, vector targeted abilities were improved some patches ago, so it can even be quick cast now. In other words Death Ray can you hit you faster than you can process the word ‘Death Ray”.

 

 

The end of the skill shot though can hit enemies at very long distances, but moves very slowly along the ground, so is very easy to avoid. This allows him a very long range, high damage poke but it gets easier to avoid the further away you are from an enemy, giving them plenty of time to avoid the approaching laser.

 

 

The enhancement for this is his main go-to upgrade. It grants him more ability power, helping the damage output on all of his abilities, while also granting a 30% damage boost to the Death Ray itself. The only time you would avoid this one is if you’re struggling being farmed due to a difficult lane opponent, or repeated ganks from a jungler. In that case, making use of the previously mentioned Power Transfer enhancement can be a good way to wrest back control of your lane.

 

 

While Viktor has multiple crowd control abilities at his disposal, he has no ideal combo to let loose on an enemy. The closest thing he has to a true spell sequence is to simply hit an enemy with everything you have after catching someone in his Gravity Field. This is a rather unusual trait in a mage, as most of the characters that share that role with Viktor require specific spell chains to optimize their damage output. While enhancing the Gravity Field is possible, it’s only worth it if you really cannot afford to go near any enemies during a team fight.

 

 

His ultimate, Chaos Storm [R], is similar to Oriana’s ball in how it’s controlled, but is far simpler to use. Simply cast the spell near the largest group of enemies, and then press R again on the squishiest enemy to watch it follow them about as it rips them to pieces. While I would advise you hit an enemy with Gravity Field before unleashing the ultimate on them, the movement of the storm is fast enough at even medium range to outpace most characters as they try to run away from it. The short silence on it can be surprisingly effective, used for stopping channeled ultimates or to stop someone just before they flash over a wall (using alt clicks you can then sit the storm on the other side of the wall to cut off any delayed escape). The damage output of the ability is impressive for how hard it is for enemies to avoid, though its lengthy cooldown means it can’t be used frivolously.

 

 

Take a level in Power Transfer to begin with. This is usually best maxed out first. His second level choice should be a rank in Death Ray. This is most often his second maxed out ability, though it can be a situational choice to take early against characters that are too dangerous to go near in the early game, since this is his only poking tool against such dangerous individuals. This can be a very risky choice though, and should be used with caution. Grab Gravity Field last at level four, and leave it to be leveled last.

 

 

For items, start with boots and three health potions on summoner’s rift. Doran’s Ring stacking will help his early game, though be aware that you’re working with one less item slot than usual. In Dominion the stock start of boots, Prospector’s Ring, and potions serves him well.

 

 

His build should emphasize Ability Power, tempered by survivability items to keep him in one piece. Items that grant both of these are, of course, good situational picks for him. Zhonya’s Hourglass can be a particularly nasty pick on him, because his ultimate, gravity field and laser can still be active (and moving) while he’s making use of its invulnerability. The common picks of Rabadon’s Deathcap, Rylai’s Crystal Scepter and Void Staff remain good choices on him.

 

 

How you choose to work your masteries on Viktor are dependent on how much risk you’re willing to take. Making use of the stock 21/0/9 page for mages is good for straight damage output, but allowing for some splashes in the defensive tree will provide you with more room for error. For runes I once again have been making use of the stock mage page of magic penetration marks, mana regeneration seals, ability power per level glyphs, and ability power quintessences. Again, splash into defense runes if you want to take more risks, and still survive.

 

 

My biggest emotional reaction to Viktor has been disappointment, unfortunately. Swain is one of my favourite characters, and I had hoped to make use of a brand new mage in my regular arsenal. He’s not a terrible character, but I feel that he doesn’t gain enough benefits for the very close range that he has to fight at to be at his most effective. I feel he needs either more range on his abilities, or he needs more damage when he gets up close and personal. The delay on Power Transfer, while an interesting mechanic, is a real problem for his laning phase, since he can’t trade hits easily at all. His team fight presence can be devastating at times, and he really has a strong time in the mid game, but once again, he has to put himself at far too great a risk for not enough of a reward when he’s so easily focused by the enemy team.

 

Hold off on getting him at the moment as he’s likely going to get some buffs once most of the Riot staff get back from their Christmas breaks.

 

 

To discuss the character 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.