Firefall‘s community manger and esports maven discuss their upcoming events for 2012.
Monthly Archives: March 2012
League of Legends: Get to the Point
League of Legends: Get to the Point
By Jason Harper (Hhean), OnRPG LoL Reporter
Welcome summoners, to the patch v1.0.0.135 article for League of Legends, the game that fights like a dairy farmer. This patch gives us more mana when jungling, improved chat functionality and Fiora, the Grand Duelist.
Fiora is a melee carry. She’s a strong duelist that uses steroids to kill enemies with her deadly auto attacks, but lacks durability and crowd control. Her goal is to get close to weak enemies and kill them before they have a chance to fight back. She’s best suited as a top lane choice, though she also makes a passable jungler. Fiora will likely be enjoyed by anyone who prefers similar characters like Master Yi and Tryndamere.
The best part of Fiora is not one of her abilities, but something that is more ‘under the hood’. Her base attack damage is very high, and her attack animations are extremely quick. This allows her last hitting to be reliable, quick to execute and with a large margin for error. Her farming is easily done, and unless otherwise inhibited, she should be able to last hit every minion in a wave without effort, even while under a tower.
The most unusual thing about Fiora is she has a very small mana pool, but also a very low mana cost on her abilities that remain at a flat cost. This makes her mana feel more akin to the energy used by the three ninjas and Lee Sin. Her mana can deplete quite quickly if you’re not economical in your ability usage but if you’re careful, her mana bar will barely move throughout the match.
The rest of her kit is built around these two pillars – High auto attack damage and frequently used steroids with a low cost. She can’t rely on any single ability in her arsenal, as her kit is built to be blown all at once. When you get near an enemy, trigger Burst of Speed [E] to boost her movement and attack speed. If they run, Lunge [Q] at them. If they fight, Riposte [Q] their auto attacks to turn their own damage against them. If they continue to attack, make use of Omnisla- Blade Waltz [R] to ignore all incoming damage while you get some free hits in.
Outside of her basic “Run at people and kill them with auto attacks” strategy, Fiora does have a few tricks, but not many. Her Riposte is a funny tool for dealing with ranged harass in the laning phase. Wait for the usual poke when going for your last hits, tap Riposte and watch your enemy go cross eyed with frustration as they get their own damage right back at them. This won’t just work on auto attacks, but also anything that triggers an on-hit effect, like Gangplank’s Parrrley. The timing on Riposte is incredibly lenient, allowing you to return damage even after the attack has already hit you, likely due to some form of lag compensation.
While it might seem daft, it can be a good idea to fight enemies behind their own creep wave, or near monsters in the jungle. This is because Lunge can only target enemies, so it can’t be used as an escape unless you deliberately put weak targets behind you to use as stepping stones. This also can be used as a form of very weak harass, where Fiora dashes past the enemy creep wave with her first Lunge, then Lunges back again to the wave once she’s bored of hitting her foe. You can double dash from tanks to weaker enemies in larger engagements, but I’d say only do this when you have your ultimate available to protect you, given you’ll be out on a limb with little means of escape.
Her starting ability will depend on who you’re against in the lane, and will also determine her leveling order. Against ranged enemies, start with Lunge, grab Riposte second and max it first. Against melee enemies start with Burst of Speed, max it first and grab Riposte second. In the jungle you can level either Riposte or Burst of Speed. The former is very slightly better for ganks, and the latter is very slightly better for clearing, but the differences are minor and more for personal preference and rune loadouts. Regardless of your leveling order, leave Lunge as your last leveled ability, as its only useful as a gap closer.
Her starting items are also going to be influenced by who you’re against, and where you are. Boots are better against enemies you think you can fight in the lane. Cloth armour, and the increased number of potions it affords you, will help your sustain against difficult match ups, so you can stay in the lane and continue to farm your lane. Vampiric Sceptre is her go-to jungling item. On dominion, start with a Prospector’s Blade, boots and potions.
Her itemization should be focused around physical damage first, with just enough survivability to stay alive once the late game team fights roll around. This means that attack damage, attack speed and armour penetration are stats to look for early, while armour and magic resistance should be picked up later on. Items that balance between the two are, of course, very good on her, so Wit’s End is a superb item for her to use. Atma’s Impaler can be a good choice, but it isn’t very useful unless she has a high health item on her already, meaning you often are forced to put the cart before the horse when building her. That said, Phage and its upgraded counterpart, the Frozen Mallet is a good pick on her against kiting enemies, since she lacks any form of crowd control of her own, and often struggles to keep foes in combat with her. The usual slew of basic damage items like Infinity Edge, The Bloodthirster, Mandred’s Bloodrazor, Last Whisper and so on all work fine on her. A rather amusing gimmick item on her is to use the active on Youmuu’s Ghostblade alongside her Burst of Speed to become super fast hyper Fiora for a few seconds. Not the best use of money, but still fun to watch.
21/9/0 masteries works fine on her. 9/21/0 is also possible if you’re afraid of a bad lane match up, but sticking to 21/9/0 is usually the best bet. Her runes should simply fit with the same stats I outlined above in her itemization. About the only constant on her is to keep some armour seals. Everything else is really down to whatever you have available. When jungling, I’d recommend sticking with some attack speed marks, just to help with her clear times, though this sacrifices the usual armour penetration marks that most people use to help with their end game.
I hate Fiora. She is a prime example of the sort of character I do not enjoy, and would avoid if given the choice. Her primary goal is to farm, get easy kills and get money money money! I really don’t enjoy killing minions for around thirty minutes until I become an unstoppable murder machine.
She also has far too much overlap with master Yi for my liking. Blade Waltz feels like an ultimate version of Alpha Strike, and Burst of Speed feels like a normal version of Highlander. While she is different enough to be her own character, I can’t think why someone who already has Yi would really want another character that acts so similarly, and given that master Yi is a 450IP character that near enough everyone already owns, I really can’t picture why anyone would want to bother.
It doesn’t matter what I think about her though, because she’s looking to be one of the most popular characters Riot have made in a while. This is despite her being more bland than a sack of potatoes. She was near impossible to play on launch day due to having so many people clamoring to lock her in first. Every one of the Fiora’s I’ve seen has functioned much the same way – mediocre laning or jungling, very strong mid game, and a completely unpredictable late game depending on how farmed she is.
I like the new chat functionality, though I can see why many people have found it annoying. The divisive issue is the newly added item notifications when you buy wards or another support item. It’s good to be able to see what your supports are buying, and to easily see who bought wards and who didn’t, but they can spam the chat box when the whole team is picking things up. The most important part for me though is I know when someone has an Oracle’s Elixir on the team and when they don’t much more easily now, which means you’re far less likely to wind up with a double elixir on the same team. The timestamps are undeniably an excellent addition though, allowing for the calling of jungle timers to be much easier to perform, with a greater degree of accuracy.
The new mana gain from jungle creeps is very nice. Not game changing I don’t think, but hopefully it’ll make manaless junglers like Lee Sin and Shyvana feel a little less dominant. It certainly has made playing Skarner much easier as of the the most recent patch, though it’s not like he needed a helping hand to stomp his way through the wilderness.
To discuss some of the changes 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.
Carte iTCG to enter Commercial Release this Week
GamesCampus’ Carte to enter Commercial Release this week
Carte‘s ace in the hole revealed: Leading online game publisher GamesCampus announced the official commercial launch date for their first global online trading card game, Carte. Beginning March 8th, all players will be invited to join the card revolution, build a deck, and join one of five illustrious nations, each with their own stories and strengths.
“The closed beta test has been wildly successful – we would have loved to include everyone, but the demand was simply too high!” said Chris Ahn, Head of Marketing at GamesCampus. “The feedback we’ve received is great, and we’re ready to show off the results of daily patches including bug fixes, translation corrections and card balancing.”
With the official launch of Carte, anyone can now partake of Carte’s many exciting gameplay features, such as its epic raid battles. Raids allow players to show off their deck building savvy, puzzle solving, and teamwork as they team up with other players to earn unique cards by challenging deadly bosses.
These bosses have powers far beyond those of a normal player. Even the easiest raid provides a unique challenge, with its combination of Hero-slaying monsters and mass destruction. More difficult bosses will summon hordes of defenders, take on multiple forms, and more. Raids provide hours of entertainment and challenge as players work together to find the right combination of cards and skill that will lead to victory.
Carte is a fast paced global online trading card game. Choose a Hero, build a deck and launch into exciting battles with fierce weapons and allies. Create and master endless strategies with an arsenal of spells and creatures to conquer your opponents. With an easy to learn system coupled with a user friendly interface, Carte is ready for new players as well as grizzled TCG veterans and everything in between.
Firefall to make Appearance at SXSW in Austin, Mar 9-11
Firefall to make Appearance at SXSW in Austin, March 9-11
Red 5 Studios announced today that it will bring its upcoming open world PC shooter, Firefall, to South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas, March 9-11. Attendees will get to experience Firefall’s dynamic open world with a hands-on demo, talk to Typhon and Mourningstar in their completed “Battleframes”, and walk away registered for Firefall’s exclusive beta.
Currently under development by a talented team of gaming industry veterans, Firefall is an upcoming free-to-play, open world PC shooter set in a unique and beautiful science fiction universe. Firefall consists of two triple-A components for shooter fans: polished PvP combat tuned for elite-level eSports competition, and a robust open world experience designed to immerse players in its deep storyline, dynamic events, and social gameplay.
The Red 5 team will show Firefall during SXSW Screenburn on March 9-11 at the Palmer Events Center, booth SB3. Those attending will get a special preview of Firefall’s fun and exciting gameplay with a full hands-on open world demo, and will be able to sign up for access to Firefall’s exclusive beta at the show.
Firefall is currently in the first stage of its exclusive, invite-only beta – planned to rollout during 2012. Unable to make it to SXSW? Check out their new event discussion video to start planning for when Firefall will appear in a town near you!
Einherjar Online Viking’s Blood Trailer
Einherjar Online incorporates browser-based empire building elements with tactics RPG combat and a deep character system.
TERA Online Fyrmount BAM Tour
TERA Online takes us on a fiery tour through some of the nastiest BAM in Fyrmont.
TERA MMO-FO: No Button Mashing Allowed!
TERA‘s Bas Rutten continues his campaign to raise awareness of true action gaming.
Einherjar – The Viking’s Blood
Einherjar was developed and introduced in Japan in November 2010 by KBMJ. After the initial domestic success, the game was brought into abroad markets in July 2011 and its first destination was Vietnam. So far Einherjar has drawn in over 200 thousand players and become one of the most favourite game titles in Vietnam (Southeast Asia).
Stepping into Einherjar, players will play as Viking leaders. The story takes place in a vast wild land near the North Seas, where a human race calls themselves descendants of the Gods. That is indeed the territory of Vikings.
Features
Tactics Model: Battles are fought in turn-based tactics fashion, with weapons triangles dictating strengths and weaknesses.
Age System: Characters age and become weaker over time, yet constantly gain new abilities and strengths as they age.
Cold Sleep: Players are only allowed a set number of combatants at a time based on their profile level. However you can place unused characters into ‘cold sleep’ mode to preserve them for the future when you can make use of them.
Marriage and Birth: Characters over the age of 15 can marry and have children. Their offspring has a chance of inheriting their parents’ Viking Blood, allowing them to access advanced skills from an early age.
OnRPG Selects our True TERA MMO-FO
OnRPG Selects our True TERA MMO-FO
Last week OnRPG partnered with En Masse Entertainment and TERA to search our community for the top MMO-FOs. About thirty people stepped up to the challenge and in the end two Canadians stood above their peers as knowing exactly what an MMO-FO is all about. They have been rewarded a physical collector’s edition (grand prize) and digital collector’s edition (2nd) for their efforts and I wanted to share our winner, AnonymousAnnie’s entry on the homepage so others can aspire to such greatness:
It is rather comical for people to be talking tough about what they have done in an MMO that requires only half of what your mind is really capable of. As someone who has been playing MMORPGs for over a decade now, I cannot help but find some amusement in what qualities as an impressive feat. To pick on a popular game as an example: I remember venturing into World of WarCraft and hearing people talking about “hard raids” or recommending “challenges” for me. The end-game content is laughably easy. All of them are paltry and pitiful offerings that pale in comparison to true feats of difficulty that I have faced in other MMOs. Especially some of the non-F2P Korean games out there.
In general a lot of MMO gamers are soft. They are slow, they are spoiled and they will take whatever they feed them. I do not blame them. With their ability they are able to acquire equipment that will carry them through whatever they need to with very little need to improve how they play. Who is to blame them when they are playing in an environment that plays much of the game for them? Oh, but if it is still too hard, they can read what is essentially an order-of-operations for any encounter and download tools/mods to make their experience even easier.
I respect that everyone has different tastes, and some people might enjoy a slow and relaxed experience. It is their time and money and they are free to do what they wish. The market should offer something for everyone. But myself? I have not played an MMORPG I have enjoyed in ages. I feel that, with functionality such as tab-targeting or click-to-move+attack, the game is doing so much of the work for me that my interest begins to fade. Cannot aim? That is fine. Everything will just home in on the target and a calculation will dictate whether I hit or miss. It feels like I am losing more and more control of my character, and my abilities as a veteran gamer are not as rewarding as I would like. I appreciate that my sense of strategy usually has some deal of effect, but what about marksmanship? What about reflexes? What about positioning? These all have varying levels of effect on just about any MMORPG, but it is overly trivialized.
This bothers me more in a PvP environment. I am not the best player in the world, but at times I find myself absolutely disgusted in how low some of these games bring the skill ceiling. PvP is about 80% of the reason why I get into an MMO. Which is not to say I do not enjoy farming and general PvE, but in the back of my mind I am always thinking about battle strategies or who I am about to impale with the new lance I am working on. The whole draw of PvP is I am not just killing predictable AI. There is someone else on the other end. I can feel their abilities. I can feel their emotions. I can feel their fear.
I will continue my quest to taste the various MMO offerings out there. Games such as Global Agenda have been nice… but if I wanted a shooter then there are better options out there. I want games that have the intricacies of a fantasy world with the demand for twitch abilities as a shooter. I want to feel like I am actually in control of the combat, and my skill and choices as a player mean more. Not going to lie: There have been some quality MMO offerings thus far, but none of them have really offered what I want. I am hoping TERA will deliver something I can enjoy. The fact it is coming from a Korean developer has certainly raised my hopes. They generally make the things I enjoy most.
Hope to see you on the battlefield, wherever we meet. I apologize if the arrogant tone of my words has offended you. -AnonymousAnnie
If you’re ready to step outside the norm and mix your FPS and Fantasy MMO genres together in an open world unlike anything you’ve experienced before, then I suggest you head over the TERA-Online.com and pre-order to gain access to this weekend’s closed beta. I’m hearing rumors from my buddies over at OnePR that TERA has something big to reveal at GDC this week so this weekend’s CB test is one you won’t want to miss!
Brick-Force
Call it Minecraft meets FPS: Brick-Force is a sandbox shooter in which players both build the battlefields and kill on them. Enter the world and rebuild your team’s base with hazards, traps, and vantage points; then enter battle and face off with a variety of weapons and game modes. Brick-Force may look light-hearted, but its guns mean business.
Features
Map Creation: Build new maps by yourself or with friends. Use a variety of bricks, and build your dream battle location. This mode will be available on smartphones and tablets as well as the PC.
Four Game Modes: Battle against others in Team Mode, Blast Mode (bomb and disarm), Survival Mode (classic deathmatch), or CTF (capture the flag) Mode.
Cross-Platform Play: Brick-Force will support play between PC, iOS, and Android devices.













