Monthly Archives: March 2012

Dawn of Fantasy: Plenty of Potential

Dawn of Fantasy: Plenty of Potential

By Jake “Kibeth” Winters, OnRPG Journalist

 

 

MMORTS? That’s a word not often used, though Dawn of Fantasy might just change that. Released in September 2011 by Reverie World Studios, the game combines a little simulation, a lot of RTS, and a tiny pinch of RPG into one neatly packaged box. Despite an earlier-than-planned release and a number of other challenges, Reverie is slowly turning Dawn of Fantasy into an MMORTS masterpiece.

 

 

Mythador – a land set hundreds of years ago during the advent of swords, magic, and siege weapons – plays the centerpiece of this tale. Suffering the aftermath of a bloody and gruesome war, the land is torn, corrupt, and on the edge of collapse. As a fresh-faced young Knight, it is your job to turn the world around, make a name for yourself, and become a hero. Now that’s a sales pitch.

 

This hero wears his underpants on the inside.


Dawn of Fantasy features three game modes:

 

Kingdom Wars plays like a mix of Total War and Civilization. Starting with a single city, the player can build armies and battle the AI to take control of the world without having to worry about economies or building. This is an offline game mode, but shares the same game map as the online version making it ideal for testing strategies and refining tactics.

Skirmish allows the player to step into the shoes of a city being sieged as either attacker or defender, and fight an epic battle against AI opponents. This game mode has no need for economies or micromanagement, and is the perfect pastime for bloodthirsty siege-addicts to practice their moves.

Online Kingdom brings the game together, and is the focus of this review. Combining aspects of city building, questing, siege warfare, PvP, and exploration, Online Kingdom brings players together on a single game world to fight over Mythador.

 

 

Choosing a Faction

Should I be a noble Human knight, clad in chainmail and fighting for King and country? Or perhaps a bloodthirsty Orc; dumb as a post but with a mean right hook. Maybe an Elf… or maybe not. The game’s three races boast incredible variety, with no two races sharing units, buildings, or even play styles.

 

Elves, typically, have some of the best archers in the game.


What Orcs lack in intelligence they make up for in brutality, and with armies a thousand strong they can zerg the field before the enemy has a chance to realize that they’re missing several limbs. The Orcs have allied with Goblins, Worgs, Ogres, and all other forms of ugly brutes to field a bloodthirsty army.

 

 

Elves, on the other hand, are entirely the opposite. What they lack in numbers they make up for in tactical gameplay and skill. Boasting the best archers in the game, and the unique ability to turn invisible, Elves scout the field and strike when the time is right.

 

 

Humans sit somewhere in between, being good at generally everything but with nothing particularly ‘wowing’. Their modest foot soldiers might look like easy targets, but the cavalry most certainly are not.

 

 

Along with a starting choice of faction, players also get to pick various attributes for their kingdom, as well as where they want to be placed (mountains, forests, grasslands, etc). These choices are vital for any tactical commander, as each comes with a number of benefits and drawbacks. Customization allows players to tailor the game to their own style: hiding behind walls and turtling through the game is far easier in a mountain, while grassland might afford you an epic economy; the combinations are endless.

 

 

Life in the City

Every new player starts with a city (mine affectionately being called ‘Bacon’), and a small pile of resources: food, wood, stone, and gold. From here the game plays very similar to Age of Empires; players can build houses, barracks, archery ranges, siege workshops, farms, and a variety of other buildings. Peasants and workers are ordered around, and armies rest ready for the next huge battle.

 

 

Alongside the four ‘key’ resources is the final resource (only available in Online Kingdom mode) called ‘Influence’. These points are won from quests and PvP, or can be bought directly from Dawn of Fantasy’s cash shop, and are used throughout the game for research, building powerful units, buying resources (for those too impatient to farm their own), and upgrading a town’s defenses.

 

 

Perhaps the most important feature of Dawn of Fantasy is the scale of it. While the maps are vast and armies can number in the thousands of units, the most noticeable aspect is just how long the game takes to play. Unlike many RTS games where buildings are constructed in mere minutes, Dawn of Fantasy’s scale means that these projects might take hours. Indeed, the whole pace of the game is drawn-out; though it rarely feels dull.

 

Growing a city from single house to medieval metropolis.


Unlike games like Age of Empires, where a city is built and a battle is won in an hour, there’s a true sense of accomplishment in Dawn of Fantasy whenever a milestone is achieved. That Archery Range you waited eight hours for actually feels valuable, rather than the fast-paced and spoon-feeding games that plague the gaming market today. Additionally, the game runs even when you’re offline; waking up after a 12 hour break (who sleeps that long anyway?) to see your peasants handing you stacks of resources is its own reward.

 

 

The game doesn’t feel ‘slow’, though, merely ‘paced’. An army can be assembled in a matter of minutes and at the enemy’s gates shortly after that. While sieges might last up to an hour, the thrill of pounding down the enemy’s walls with burning trebuchet-flung boulders makes the waiting worthwhile.

 

 

Combat & Questing

Combat itself is involving, and despite all sides having wildly different units the game feels (for the most part) balanced. Building on a typical army, the game employs a ‘level up’ system to every single unit in the game, and these levels are rewarded with points to be spent bolstering a unit’s defense, attack, or various other stats. While this seems like a lot of micromanagement, being able to tailor your army to suit you provides an astonishing level of customization.

 

 

Combat follows the general rule that melee suck against archers, archers suck against cavalry, cavalry suck against melee, and dragons are good against everythi… DRAGONS?

 

 

Along with typical units, the game throws a few curveballs here and there. Players also gain a ‘hero’ character, a super-powered behemoth with the power to take down entire armies by himself. Anybody that invests time and/or money into farming Influence points gain access to a variety of powerful units, ranging from Dwarven cannoneers to fearsome Royal Dragons. Even a small number of these units can turn the tide of battle.

 

Dragons + Forest = Forest Fire. Who would have thought?


It’s tempting to scream ‘pay to win’ at this point, bearing in mind that players can buy the best units, research and resources with real money, but Dawn of Fantasy avoids this issue with its smart ‘player matching’ system. Every player army has a ‘strength’ figure, and the game will only ever match players with similarly powerful players. Even buying your way to a huge empire means you’ll only ever face other huge empires, so smaller players without an investment don’t feel punished.

 

 

If PvP isn’t your thing then the game offers a number of AI-based quests, as well as cities to siege. Throughout a play-through, quest givers regularly have need of aid, whether it be delivering messages or razing armies. For those with a particularly large death wish, an army can also be assembled to siege NPC cities.

 

 

During a successful siege (whether player or NPC), both sides receive a large number of resources and Influence (even if they lose), but nothing is ever captured. Indeed, players start the game with a single city and will keep that city forever, never gaining more or less. It’s this constant stasis that keeps the game permanently online, since there’s always a new target available. Unfortunately, for those wanting to go down the route of world domination then Online Kingdom mode might not be the right game mode for you… yet. Check out our interview if you haven’t already to get a sneak peak at some future content in the works.

 

 

Dawn of Fantasy doesn’t have a specific ‘end game’, but the fact that no land ever changes hands means that players are limited to questing, sieging NPCs, or PvPing, with very little activity in between. While the first several days of gameplay might be watching a brand new city burgeon, repeating the same set of quests on the same identical maps eventually starts to wear thin. Every win or loss has a heavy tax on your army and resources, and rebuilding after a win or loss takes hours. This delay might leave end game players spending a lot of time twiddling their thumbs.

 

My money’s on red.

 

 

The Bad and the Ugly

Picking fault with Dawn of Fantasy isn’t a difficult job. The game was released months earlier than intended and the number of problems, bugs, and bad design features remains pretty high. It’s really hard to slam the game, however; Reverie have been incredibly efficient with dealing with bugs, releasing over 30 patches at the time of writing this review, and the developers of the game remain incredibly active both in-game and on the forums ready to deal with new issues.

 

 

Some persistent problems that plague the game are how difficult it is to find a PvP match that will actually play; the game suffers ‘sync errors’ meaning that even if a match is found, it can never actually be fought because players can’t sync up. Smaller issues like workers ignoring orders or units in combat standing idly around whilst an ogre beats them senseless are less problematic, but detract from the gameplay all the same. The constant need to reboot the game to fix the various errors is both time consuming and immersion-breaking, and isn’t something a player should have to do in the first place.

 

 

One of the most unapproachable aspects of the game is the interface. While it’s obvious that Reverie intended to give the interface a medieval/fantasy style theme, the end result is a cluttered mess with nigh-unreadable text and an irritatingly intrusive chat panel.

 

 

The game graphics themselves leave much to be desired. While environments look well-presented and have a realistic feel to them (weather effects, water shimmering, forest fires spreading), unit presentation feels a little disappointing, as do close-up shots during quest-driven conversations.

 

Graphics of quest-driven conversations feel lackluster.


While the graphics lack finesse, the overall look and sound of the game work well together. The game feels fantasy-like, and the music sets the tone well. Unlike an increasing number of games with an overly fond affection of anything grey, Dawn of Fantasy has no problem with using color; battles look vibrant and towns look busy and full of life. Despite limited graphical capabilities, the game still impresses, and this issue isn’t something to get overly hung up about.

 

 

MMORTS or SPWAHORTSAPVP?

(Single Player with a Hint of RTS and PvP)


Even with every single player sharing the same map, the game feels incredibly restrictive about player to player contact. Indeed, no player towns show up on the world map, and all PvP action is governed by the match system. For the most part, therefore, the game feels like a single player game with a built-in chat function. Reverie took the first steps towards addressing these issues this year by introducing co-op siege missions. A sign of good things to come.

 

 

The End of the Tale

Dawn of Fantasy feels so unique in a market bogged down with cheesy grind-fests and high-powered bravado. Occasionally it’s nice to take a relaxing back seat, watch a city grow, and then take your army deep into the bowels of hell to torch some Elvish settlement to the ground. Perhaps ‘relaxing’ was the wrong word.

 

 

The game offers such an immense range of features, and is certainly worth a go. While the initial step into the game might feel a little off-putting, losing yourself in the world of Mythador is almost inevitable. The gameplay is rewarding, making players want to come back for more, and it’s rare to find a development team that sees their game as more than just the next pay packet, but as a project to be proud of. It’s certainly not hard to agree with them.

 

 

Graphics – 3 (detailed environments, but disappointing unit presentation)
Controls – 3
(short learning curve, but the UI needs an overhaul)
Features – 4
(multiple game modes and in-game activities)
Customization – 4
(variety of races, units, and unit customization)
Community – 5
(incredibly active and responsive development team)

SWTOR Reveals Game Update 1.2: Legacy

Star Wars: The Old Republic Reveals Game Update 1.2: Legacy

 

Star Wars The Old Republic

 

Build your legacy in the Star Wars™ galaxy! Continuing to deliver compelling new content for eager Star Wars™: The Old Republic players, EA, BioWare and LucasArts today revealed Game Update 1.2 —Legacy. Going live in April 2012, Legacy will introduce new high level group content and community-requested features including PvP Warzone Rankings and Guild Banks, along with enhancements to the game’s innovative Legacy system. This update also provides improved UI customization as well as gameplay fixes and the latest optimizations to combat balance. Also today, BioWare announced Star Wars: The Old Republic’s “Friends Trial” program, allowing subscribers to invite as many as three of their friends for a seven-day free game trial.

 

 

“Prior to release, our main priority for Star Wars: The Old Republic was to deliver a high quality game and service, right from day one,” said Dr. Greg Zeschuk, General Manager of the BioWare Label’s MMO Business Unit and Co-Founder of BioWare. “Now that we’ve achieved that, we have shifted our focus to adding more content to the game and improving and refining the experience for our fans. Legacy is our biggest update yet and a great example of the kind of content players can expect for the months and years ahead.”

 

Star Wars The Old Republic

 

Game Update 1.2 presents the next evolution of the Legacy system. Players can now link their different characters together into a single family tree, giving them the power to unlock and share special Legacy-only abilities.  Players can further customize new characters by unlocking different species from any class in their family tree. The Legacy system also provides fun new convenience items for player ships, including an on-board mailbox and Galactic Trade Network terminal. Companion Character affection and moral alignment will also benefit from Legacy bonuses, giving players even more control over their crew mates.

 

 

Beyond the much-anticipated game features like improved UI customization, PvP Warzone Rankings, Guild Banks and valuable new in-game items, the Legacy update will introduce challenging new high-level content for both experienced and new players to enjoy:

 

Game Update 1.2: New Content:
·         Flashpoint: Lost Island continues the Kaon Under Siege Flashpoint from Game Update 1.1 – Rise of the Rakghouls. Players must survive a menacing island of mystery on Ord Mantell as they hunt for clues to the Rakghoul virus outbreak that ravaged the Tion Hegemony. But the answers to this riddle may prove fatal!

 

·         Operation: Explosive Conflict sends groups of eight or sixteen Imperial or Republic players to a new zone on the planet of Denova, where traitors and mercenaries are selling the rare explosive mineral baradium to the highest bidder. Players will battle through hordes of Droids, mercenaries and deadly creatures all fighting for control of the planet and its valuable resources.

 

·         Warzone:  Novare Coast pits two teams in an epic battle to control multiple mortar locations and use them to bombard vulnerable enemy bases.  Like the Huttball Warzone, Novare Coast can be played Republic vs. Empire or with players of the same faction fighting each other in a thrilling contest of wills to determine each side’s greatest champions.

 

Star Wars The Old Republic

 

Beginning tomorrow, March 6th, current subscribers can start inviting their friends to join the galactic conflict as part of the Friends Trial* program for Star Wars: The Old Republic.  For a limited time, current subscribers will have the opportunity to send an invitation to friends who have not played the game and who do not have an active, inactive or former Star Wars: The Old Republic game account.  This trial experience will give new players seven days of free access to reach level 15 across all eight classes and experience the thrilling stories that make Star Wars: The Old Republic a unique MMO experience (some gameplay restrictions will apply). Trial members will also receive a limited time offer to purchase the digital version of Star Wars: The Old Republic on Origin.com at a special promotional price.

Dawn of Fantasy Interview: The Future at Hand

Dawn of Fantasy Interview: The Future at Hand
Questions by Jake “Kibeth” Winters
Answers from Alex Walz, Assistant Producer for Reverie World Studios.

 



The war-drums are beating, the arrows are raining, and the clash of steel on steel is unmistakable; Dawn of Fantasy is here. A relatively new game in the MMORTS market, this rising star has been making waves at OnRPG, and we took the time to interview Alex Walz – Assistant Producer for Reverie World Studios – about what’s in store in the future.

 

 

OnRPG: Thanks for giving OnRPG the opportunity to ask some questions. Why don’t you tell us a little about yourself and your role in Dawn of Fantasy?


Hello! I’m Alex Walz, an assistant producer for Reverie World Studios. Working for a small company like Reverie, I’ve had the privilege to wear many hats over the years: design, scheduling, recruiting, accounting, community management, and marketing. So my actual job is very loosely defined. I’m more on the business side than the development side, so I won’t bore you with the details; but in general, I just try to keep the Executive Producer a bit less overworked and a bit more sane.

 

 

OnRPG: Where did the idea for Dawn of Fantasy come from? How long has the game been in production?


We’ve had a few bumps in the road and turns in direction, but the concept for Dawn of Fantasy was first conceived back in 2003. The idea came to members of a prominent modding community who, upon completing the Age of Kings campaign for the nth time, posed the question: “Now what?” They designed some very well-received mods for AoK and other games, but were inspired to try the next step – to create not just a new Real Time Strategy game, but the evolution of the RTS genre. The modders then turned to the RTS community to understand what the players wanted to see in a game, and the most prevalent responses were that they wanted to experience a thriving, persistent, online world. So in a sense, Dawn of Fantasy truly is the game created for the players, by the players. Those modders then compiled those ideas with a rough concept of the first MMORTS and took them to experienced design veterans and narrative writers, and soon enough, that fabled persistent world became Dawn of Fantasy’s Mythador.

 



OnRPG: Tell us a little bit about how the Online Kingdom works. What parts of this game mode turns Dawn of Fantasy from RTS to MMORTS?


The Online Kingdom mode is Dawn of Fantasy’s main game mode, featuring a vast, explorable world; three unique quest-driven campaigns; and epic PvP and PvE battles with other player and NPC strongholds, randomized army camps, and travelling armies. All of this takes place in a massively multiplayer, persistent online environment, hence the MMORTS. Players start off with a single building, a hero, and a few worker units, and through the course of the game, develop it into a striving kingdom with multiple layers of walls and keeps, a complex economy, and a number of massive armies and trade caravans wandering the game world.

 

 

Although the mode relies on instanced maps due to its scale, all players will contend for supremacy of the same world, and their actions will greatly affect those around them – whether it be through stopping trade routes by patrolling a border, controlling one of the large NPC capital towns to redirect the course of war with the upcoming guilds feature, or establishing army camps all across the world map to reign supreme.

 

 

OnRPG: The current Online mode allows players to siege NPCs and other players, but no land ever changes hands. Are there plans to have player-capturable locations?


Once fully implemented, guilds will be able to control NPC capital towns and capture all other NPC towns. Obviously with thousands of players in the world, we can’t have the towns fully controllable as they are essential to the campaign, but guilds will be able to control them indirectly by exerting their diplomatic stance onto that town. For example, if a player is a member of a guild that is at war with the guild controlling the town of Dagbor, Dagbor will appear hostile to that player, and any hopes for trade or alliances will depend on reclaiming the town. For the average player, this will have a minimal impact – the main differences being that if they offer tribute to the town to improve relations, that money will go to the guild. Likewise, if the player attacks the town, he will be at war with the guild.

 

 

At the moment, there are no plans to have defeated player towns change hands as individual players can only currently control their homeland, but this may change in the future – possibly with the introduction of a hardcore mode.

 

 

OnRPG: What new chat and community features might we expect in the near future? The game mentions guilds and alliances, are they on the immediate ‘to do’ list?


Alliances will be incorporated into the game very shortly, allowing players to form temporary alliances to team up against a rival stronghold. Guilds are a little farther down the list and are stronger and more permanent than alliances. Players in a guild will be able to rely on any online guild members for reinforcement support in a battle, and joining a guild will unlock some new opportunities, as discussed above.

 

 

Other upcoming features include new channels for chat as well as private chat and offline messages, friends, PvP rankings, and Player-to-Player trade and gifting. PvP battles will also be expanded to support up to six players on a map.

 



OnRPG: You mentioned in a recent press release an updated economy and new resources. Can you give us more details on this?


Right now we’re just playing around with this idea. We’ll need to run it by our community to see how well it will go over, but in essence, we want to increase the role of economic micromanagement and city-building in the late-game period. It’s currently set up so that players can tend to their economy early in the game, allowing for a more or less automated economy later on. We are considering adding some other resources, such as iron and raw materials that will need to be refined, to make everything a little more hands-on. All these new resources wouldn’t have much of an effect on regular unit costs, but if you wanted to research an advanced technology at the Blacksmith, for example, you would first need to find Iron. In addition, most of these added resources would be found away from the Homeland, so players would need to branch out more. We may also add the ability to construct outlying outposts and resource gathering camps rather than just army camps using a similar system to Dawn of Fantasy’s other mode, Kingdom Wars.

 

 

OnRPG: The in-game market place allows players to purchase various units and resources using Influence points. What future additions to the market might we expect?


I’m proud to say that adding to the in-game Market is at the very bottom of a very long schedule. True to our origins, all of our designers are more concerned with delivering the fans the game they want than milking the game for all it’s worth. We’re listening close to all of our fans’ feedback and bug reports, and slowly but surely, we are working to make the game as optimized, and add much customer value, as possible. So far, we’ve released nearly subscription-free 40 patches and introduced a number of new features.

 

 

But yes, one day, we will expand the world of Mythador with some DLC content. The first two packs will introduce naval combat and a sophisticated magic/spell-casting system to the game. While we’re waiting to release further details, these packs will feature new units, quests, explorable regions, and homelands.

 

 

OnRPG: At the moment each race has one default Hero. What plans do you have to build on the game’s RPG element?


The RPG elements are mixed into how you interact with the RTS world: the story-driven quests, visiting NPC diplomats, exploring a vast world, leveling and training units. DOF does have the Hero unit you mentioned, but his role is to serve as a liaison between the player and NPC units, so to speak. In terms of military and tactics, however, he’s little more than one guy in an army a thousand strong. Heroes have some unique abilities, but they’re not designed to be used as one would use an RPG hero.

 

 

With that said, we will be adding a basic Hero Customization aspect to the game, allowing players to purchase or win various weapons, armor, mounts, and additional skills for their hero. We also hope to offer players a second hero, a Mage that can learn up to eight unique spells. Unlike your original hero, the Mage will be an important factor in your strategy.

 

 

OnRPG: Are there any new races on the horizon to fight alongside or against the Elves, Humans and Orcs? Perhaps a race of tiny penguins hell-bent on world domination?


Hell-bent on world domination?! Surely you’re mistaken, our penguins are only rising up for liberation and reparations after their land was unjustly seized in the War Without Kings…

 

Penguins aside, I’d say it’s possible that you may see a larger role for the dragons of Sssilistra and the dwarves of Dunn Ergast one day. 😉

 



 

OnRPG: It’s clear that Reverie is incredibly proud of Dawn of Fantasy, and it’s not difficult to see why. What, personally, is your favorite part of the game?


I know most of our devs would go with the PvP battles, but I’ve always been a big fan of the game’s scenario design editor. It’s a hidden gem, but it’s an incredibly powerful utility, as you can see in the diversity and scale of the game’s levels. It’s an absolute blast to mess around in, as evidenced by the half-completed designs of Minas Tirith and King’s Landing on my screen whenever the boss is out. Our fans have made some truly inspiring creations with it, and I hope to see more and more as the game grows.

 

 

OnRPG: Thank you for taking the time to answer all of our questions. We hope to see Dawn of Fantasy continue to grow and become something truly great.


Us too! Thanks for giving us this opportunity to discuss Dawn of Fantasy. The folks at Reverie really enjoyed OnRPG’s Video Impression of Dawn of Fantasy, and are always grateful for coverage!

 

 

If you want to see more of Dawn of Fantasy, why not check out JamesBl0nde’s video impressions or visit the Dawn of Fantasy official webpage. See you there, gamers.

Elsword Unleashes the Might of Henir in New Update

Elsword Unleashes the Might of Henir in New Update

 

 

 

Kill3rCombo is now offering players the opportunity to begin dungeon crawling and battling adversaries faster than ever in its MMO, Elsword. At five times smaller than the full client, first-timers can now get in to the action faster via the new streaming system, while the game client continues to download in the background. In addition to decreased download wait time, Elsword is also introducing new content in the form of Henir’s time and space dungeon. Check out the new trailer showcasing this epic dungeon at OnRPG.

 

 

Available to all players, but ideal for those with fierce combo skills, Henir is an amalgamation of all boss monsters from 35 dungeon stages. Gamers that wish to take on this intense test will need to obtain either Henir’s Key or Henir’s Hidden Key, depending on which mode they choose – normal or challenge. Once players clear challenge mode, they will be placed on Henir’s Time and Space Ranking list and can bask in the glory of a new title. This exclusive dungeon consists of all five regions in Elsword – Ruben, Elder, Bethma, Feita and Altera – and should be played in sequence so as to complete the series and receive Monster Cards that can be exchanged for better equipment.

 

 

In Elsword, gamers can choose from five specialized and customizable characters as they explore immersive maps and battle to complete dynamic quests. As players progress through the game, they can evolve their fighting styles by upgrading to new job classes and watch as their chosen character matures and gains more fierce 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 a solo mission or cooperatively in a party of up to four players. For those who welcome a challenge, Elsword also delivers action-packed PvP combat.

The Secret World Announces FR and DE Versions of Website

The Secret World Announces French and German Versions of Website

 

 

Funcom is pleased to announce that the official German and French language websites for the upcoming modern-day massively multiplayer online game ‘The Secret World’ are now live. For those reading OnRPG via Google Translate rejoice! You won’t have to do that for The Secret World any longer.

 

 

‘The Secret World’ is set to launch June 19th this year and will be available with both German and French localization and support. Funcom is excited to be able to provide our German and French speaking community a place to go to for the latest news and information on The Secret World’, and each site will be kept up to date by a dedicated team that includes German and French speaking community managers.

 

 

To visit the new websites, head over to www.thesecretworld.com/de for the German language site and www.thesecretworld.com/fr for the French language site, or use the language selector at the top of all pages throughout the www.thesecretworld.com website.

Jade Dynasty Launches Empyrean Lands

Jade Dynasty Launches Empyrean Lands

 

 

Today Perfect World Entertainment announced the launch of Jade Dynasty’s “The Empyrean Lands” update, with the new Elysium zone!

 

 

This new map is a PvP hotspot, and will give you the Chroma rewards you need to reach the pinnacle of Vitalic power. Challenge the three epic bosses for Kirin Sigils and endgame gear!

 

You can reach Elysium by going to Dragon Mountain, either via the Royal Altar in the Divine Realm or by talking to Dragon Envoy Jassie in Sunstream City.

 

 

Shangge, at the base camp on Dragon Mountain, can teleport you directly to Elysium, or you can climb to the top of the mountain.

 

 

To reach Elysium, you’ll need to be Ascended Lv120, be Tier 5, have an Affinity and be at least Chroma Level 1.

 

At the center of the Elysium map stands the Aeon Wat, a palace that will be the scene for thousands of PvP battles. With three floors to fight over, the Aeon Wat has space for both pitched battles and ambushes.

 

 

The Empyrean Lands are full of Chroma power, and you can grab tons of Chroma Beads from kill quests and harvesting items. With a little dedication, and a watchful eye to keep from getting ganked, you can earn tons of Chroma Beads each day.

 

 

If you can get enough players to agree to join forces, you can challenge Elysium’s three bosses, for prizes including endgame gear and Kirin Sigil.

 

 

These titanic bosses will require at least twenty-man squads, equipped with high-refinery gear, to take down. The rewards are huge, but so are the challenges.

 

 

Elysium will have a separate Marketplace, the Sky Exchange; some useful items from the normal Marketplace will be included, but the Sky Exchange will also have its own unique selection. Grab Empyrean Lands-only mounts with a fast +6.50 movement speed, or heal up with the Pearl of Vita and Aeon Shard batteries, including 30 million points of Health or Spirit.

 

 

You can learn more about the Aeon Wat and Elysium’s PvP in this featured blog post, up now.