Kartuga recaps their Alpha Challenge tournament, the first time regular players have had hands-on time with the game.
Yearly Archives: 2012
District 187: Sin Streets Steam Launch Trailer
District 187 has been greenlit for Steam and launches a new features trailer to celebrate.
Meta’s Verse: The Last Week of CoH
Meta’s Verse: The Last Week
By Meticulous Meta, OnRPG Paragon Reporter
Well, we’re here. The week every City of Heroes fan has been dreading for months. I’ve been spending my week making a catalog of my characters, recording video and just generally saying a hard goodbye. Even more depressing is that November 30th will mark the two year anniversary of Meta’s Verse. I had planned to make this article all about what the future will hold for the big fanmade groups, Titan Network, Samuraiko Productions, and Real World Hero. Unfortunately for me, TonyV from Titan Network, and Mr. Wentworth from Real World Hero are both very busy with projects at the moment and don’t have the time to sit down with me.
Real World Hero has been in full gear for nearly a month now and will continue through to December 15th. So far almost $3,350 have been raised for the four charities it supports.

The Titan Network has two plans. One is the big Hail Mary TF. A 31 page pitch to Disney Interactive in the hopes to save City of Heroes from the end. And a final unity rally for the final hour of the best super hero MMO which will be held on the steps of City Hall on Virtue.
Samuraiko, though I imagine incredibly busy with videos and recording as much of City of Heroes as possible, had time to answer a few short questions.
1. What will the future hold for Samuraiko Productions?
Samuraiko Productions will continue on as it has – it’s very much a freelance business for me, and thankfully my clientele is slowly and steadily improving. While CITY OF HEROES certainly went a *LONG* way toward improving my skills and my experience, for which I will always be grateful, the closure of COH does not mean the closure of Samuraiko Productions. I’m hoping to begin making videos in some of the other MMORPGs I enjoy, and in future, who knows? If someday, COH makes a return, Samuraiko Productions will almost certainly be there to again chronicle things.
2. Do you plan on going on to other MMOs? If so, which ones?
Yes, I do – I am currently in RIFT and in LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE. Both are beautiful games with a lot of content, friendly communities, and much video potential. 🙂 Several of my COH-playing friends are also in one or both games, which helps! I’m not going to stop gaming just because of the closure of COH, although I have to keep reminding myself, “Oh wait, I can’t do that in this game like I do in COH.”
3. What one thing did you always want to do in CoH but never got the chance?
Finish my videos list. http://samurai-ko.deviantart.com/journal/Samuraiko-s-Video-Project-List-259753695
4. Are you planning on attending the final moments? Where will you be?
Most likely on Justice, my home server, running around like mad, trying to film right up until the last second. Thankfully I live on the West Coast, and since it’s a Friday night, I can stay up til midnight, no problem. And I suspect I will be crying when the game goes dark.
This was of course before the unity rally was announced, so she may reconsider where she’s saying goodbye. Personally I plan to be at the rally. I’ll be taking part in the CoH/TSW screenshot gathering taking place. Oh and staying up all night so I can get as much time in City of Heroes as possible that last day.
I really don’t know what to write about this week. There is just so much sadness, I don’t know how to express it without sounding a little bit pathetic. I really do hope though that the Titan Network succeeds in their plans.
Before the end though, do your favorite things. Play your favorite characters on your favorite task forces. Get screenshots of everything! Videos too if you can. If you don’t you may regret it. Get those characters to 50. Don’t hold back or not do something because you’re holding a torch. The time for that will come soon. Join the Facebook groups, Titan Network and other groups forming to keep the community together.
Next week I’ll take a look back at the events that take place on Friday. Come back again then for the last installment of Meta’s Verse.
District 187: Sin Streets Announces Steam Launch
District 187: Sin Streets Announces Steam Launch
CJ Games Global (www.netmarble.com), today announced it is bringing the recently launched first-person-shooter (FPS), District 187: Sin Streets to Steam. More than 54 million active players across the Steam Network will have access to the competitive FPS. Players can sign up for a Steam account to download District 187: Sin Streets for free at: http://store.steampowered.com/app/221080/.
“Steam is the most powerful online game platform in the world and our agreement with Valve for global distribution allows us to provide players with easy access to District 187: Sin Streets,” said Jina Song, COO of CJ Games Global. “This is just the beginning of our long-term partnership with Valve, so watch for our upcoming CJ Games Global titles to launch on Steam.”
After officially launching last week with a major content update, hundreds of thousands of players have entered District 187: Sin Streets. More than 1,000 competitive clans have formed, giving the game credit as an action-packed PvP masterpiece.
To commemorate the launch of this partnership, CJ Games Global has launched a new trailer.
OnRPG Shotgun News 11/28: Gamania, Everquest, League of Legends, and Much More!
OnRPG Shotgun News 11/28: Gamania, Everquest, League of Legends, and Much More!
By Shannon Doyle (Leliah), OnRPG Journalist
Gamania US and UK Shutting Down All Operations
Reports are coming in that Gamania is shutting down all operations in the US and UK markets. This only comes as somewhat of a surprise after the announced closure of all of BeanFun UK’s MMOs. Gamania is the owner of BeanFun UK. What this means for the future of the two MMOs Core Blaze and Langrisser Schwarz which are in development is unclear.
Guild Wars 2 Addresses Mobile Authenticator Issues
The Guild Wars 2 Security Coordinator has gone to the forums to address issues that have come up with the mobile authenticator. The authenticator now has a “remember this network” feature similar to the email authenticating already in use. The feature only recently came into being and caused concern as people thought their authenticators had broken. There is no way for users to change which networks are remembered so caution is urged.
Guild Wars 2 Announces Wintersday Event
Asuran Toymaker Tixx will be making rounds in the major cities of Tyria from December 14 to January 3. He will come in his gigantic airship (where do I get one of these?!) to deliver toys and holiday cheer to the children around the world.
Everquest Launches Rain of Fear Expansion
Today the 13 year old MMO, Everquest will be offline for possibly up to 10 hours while Rain of Fear is launched. In Rain of Fear the level cap is being raised to 100, a new aggro meter is being introduced and a new linear item progression system will be put in place. This is all in addition to over 100 new quests, 13 raids, 9 zones and much, much more. For a detailed look be sure to check out our sister site MMOHut’s write-up here.
League of Legend Season 3 Online Qualifying Tournament Announced
Beginning today 32 North American teams can register online to take part in a single elimination tournament to take part in the LoL Season 3 Championships. Registration ends on December 2 at 5 PM EST. The top two teams will get an all expense paid trip to compete live at Riot’s Season 3 qualifier in Los Angeles. Fans will be able to watch all the action on Major League Gaming’s website starting December 6.
Kartuga Alpha Weekend A Hit With Fans
Last weekend 16 lucky people were invited to visit InnoGames’ Hamburg office to take part in Kartuga’s Alpha. The sixteen came from six countries all around Europe some spending 14 hours on a train. Closed beta is hoped to start sometime in early 2013.
MechWarrior Online Introduces Customization
MechWarrior Online has introduced a new patch to the MMO which allows players to customize their mechs. Players will be able to change pain colors, create patterns, and change cockpit items to make their mech more customized. It also brought back Bitching Betty voice from the original MechWarrior games.
World of Tanks  Post 8.0, A New Look
World of Tanks – Post 8.0, A New Look
By Remko Molenaar (Proxzor) OnRPG Journalist
Riding a tank and shooting at people with it, who doesn’t want to do that? Well it is harder than it looks! The awesome people over at Wargaming gave me a press account fully equipped with some high tier tanks to give get a feel for the advanced gameplay in this title that has been refined quite a bit during its short life. For those just now hearing about World of Tanks, this free-to-play MMORPG revolves around tanks shooting tanks! These heavily armored death machines on tracks are in your control on massive battlefields filled with all shapes, sizes, and national makes of tanks with nothing standing between each other but destructible environments.
The latest update 8.1 adds some huge new features including a new tech tree and the British! This tech tree added a whole lot of new tanks for people to play with to give the players an even harder choice to pick a tank for battle. Besides the many fixes and optimizations there was also the introduction of some map reworks and quite a bit of behind the scenes coding to reduce lag and make for an overall smoother playing title.
The first time you start the game up, you are given a set of tanks in the first tier. In total there are five different types of vehicles including Light Tanks, Medium tanks, Heavy Tanks, Tank Destroyers and Self-Propelled Guns, probably better recognized as Mobile Artillery. All these different types of tanks are scattered around five nations that you are able to unlock simply by playing. When you are in your garage for the first time you notice that you are given one tank from each nation. Each time you play on one of these tanks, you earn money to unlock more vehicles in the Tech Tree. If you are less patient however and don’t really mind spending some real money, you are also able to do this with a few tanks. This is however not necessary at all and everything accessible in this game can be earned through playtime so people with Gold won’t have any unfair advantage.
Besides having the best possible tank that suits your playstyle, a Crew is also really important if you want to live the longest on the battlefield. No vehicle in World of Tanks is able to operate without any crew, and if you have bought an expensive tank, you obviously want the best possible crew to operate it. Each crewmember has a special role in the tank that is a key to the success of surviving. The unique roles the crewmembers can have are the Commander, Driver, Gunner, Loader and Radio Operator. Each crewmember is needed in battle, and if you lose one in combat you are going to have a hard time shooting back. Take care of these crewmembers like they are your own family because while you are simply tapping on your keyboard trying to move your tank around, these men risk their lives while doing their dangerous jobs.
The Commander is responsible for spotting enemy tanks, the better the Commander, the better the chance on spotting enemy tanks at a larger distance.
The Driver is obviously just as the name tells you, the soldier responsible for the driving of your vehicle. On top of impacting the tank’s movement speed, the Driver is also able to give the tank the necessary boost in speed in a pinch that might mean the difference in victory and defeat.
The man on board that does all the aiming and firing is the Gunner! The competency of the gunner is highly important when facing an enemy tank. The better your gunner, the quicker you’re able to aim and shoot back at your target.
The Loader is the muscled man responsible for reloading your tank with whatever shell you want to fire next. This important crewmember affects the speed of reloading your shell, and as I’ve experienced myself, this can take quite some time resulting in nail biting showdowns determined by who fires the next round first.
Last but not least is the Radio Operator who keeps contact with your friends and allies and greatly increases the range when he is more skillful.
Gameplay
When you have finally picked your tank and found the suitable set of crewmembers, it is time to join other people on the battlefield! When you join the queue with your tank, you are automatically matched with people playing in tanks around the same tier as yours. This prevents the high level players being matched up with the newbies and scaring them away with all their firepower and skill. There is no particular nation you are bound to fight for and most matches consist of a hodgepodge of various nations and types on each team. Once you are finally loaded in the game, you will be put on one side of the map with all your allies next to you waiting for the countdown to finish. When the game starts, you will have some time before you face the first enemy tank so you will have to plan out what way you want to go on the map while considering what your allies are doing. Grouping up is probably the best plan to survive at first since you can carry each other to victory by defending and attacking at the same time.
Your tank is controlled by the WASD keys on your keyboard, and your mouse controls the turret on your tank. World of Tanks strafes for the realism in this game and thus you cannot expect to quickly turn 90 degrees because your turret is simply not that fast. Because of this realism, you will seriously have to plan ahead every step that you take because popping up at the wrong time might cost you the game as there are no respawns in these matches. Do not worry though, if you managed to get your tank blown up it is simply unavailable until the end of your match. So if you don’t feel like spectating your teammates you can simply jump into another tank and join a new battle. All roads lead to Rome and thus there are many types of shells that you can fire at the enemy tank to take him down. Since there are many tiers of tanks, you want to think through what shell might be the best for your occasion such as armor penetration against heavily armored tanks or raw explosive damage against light tanks. Luckily you are also able to get some useful medical and repairing tools when you are in dire need of repair after a close escape.
Graphics
World of Tanks is a really beautiful game for all the tank maniacs like myself, not only does the game strive for realism, the graphics have improved more than just about any title on the market compared to how they looked at launch. The attention to detail it offers with destructible environments is also commendable. But what I truly appreciate is that the graphics aren’t just eye candy but actually add elements of strategy to the game with heavy tree cover that offers camouflage, tanned out cityscapes, low walls, and so on. Even in a massive tank the maps are designed to allow the typical FPS style camping and ambushing tactics. To play World of Tanks you will need the following computer requirements:
Minimum system requirements:
Processor (CPU): Intel from 2.2 GHz or equivalent AMD Family
RAM: minimum of 1.5 GB for Windows 2000/XP, 2 GB for Windows Vista / 7
Free hard disk space: At least 3.5 GB
Video Card: Shader Model 3.0 GeForce 6800GT with 256 MB of RAM / ATI X800 with 256 MB RAM, DirectX 9.0c
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible Internet connection speed: at least 128 Kbps.
Connection rate: 1024 Kbps or higher (for faster downloads)
Conclusion
World of Tanks brings a full package of realism, fun, beauty, and features to create a truly well-rounded game that is only getting better with age. Since I had every tank to play with I really got a chance to experience just how much diversity there is between them. Tactics can change drastically even within the same type of tank as you progress through the tiers. As a huge fan of tanks, I’ll openly admit I have some bias towards how awesome this game is, but it was refreshing to meet many enthusiasts just like me within the community. If you are a big fan of shooting people up, be it in vehicles or just an FPS setting, and have the nerve to withstand a challenging learning curve, then I would seriously test out World of Tanks as there is just nothing that compares on the market right now.
Graphics: 5 (Graphics are continually pushed to the next level as the game develops)
Controls: 5 (Though a bit unwieldy to a new player, once mastered you really love the feel of how each handles)
Features: 3 (Currently the game only has basic clan wars and regular battles. Hopefully the inclusion of Warplanes and Warships expands on available features)
Customization: 3 (Average customization exists and gets the job done)
Community: 4 (Although there’s quite a few short-tempered people on the battlefield, you usually can tell that most of them are just really passionate about this title and trying to push their team to victory)
Red 5 Studios Announces Firefall Beta Weekends
Red 5 Studios Announces Firefall Beta Weekends
Red 5 Studios™ announces today they will be hosting a series of “Beta Weekends”, offering thousands of new players 48-hour beta access to experience Firefall’s innovative gameplay and to stress-test the servers. Additionally, they’re announcing the launch of the new “Founders Rewards” program, offering founding members exclusive items for helping the Tribe reach its funding goals. You can grab a key to ensure your spot in this upcoming weekend’s stress test right here at OnRPG!
“We’ve seen an overwhelming demand for access to Firefall’s beta since we began testing last year,” said Mark Kern, CEO of Red 5. “The fact is, the growing number of registered players continues to outpace our servers and with closed beta testing going into 2013 that won’t change in the short-term. These Beta Weekends are the solution. We’re inviting thousands of new players to temporarily join Firefall for some huge server stress-tests, giving us valuable feedback, giving them a taste of the game, and helping to prepare Firefall for much larger numbers.”
Firefall’s upcoming Beta Weekends are scheduled Nov 30-Dec 2 and Dec 7-9. These are North American and European 48-hour stress-tests with players encouraged to find bugs, test various features and help the developers improve the beta by providing feedback. To sign up for Firefall and the upcoming Beta Weekends, please visit: http://www.firefallthegame.com/betaweekends/
Red 5’s Founders Rewards program unlocks exclusive bonuses for founding members as new funding goals are reached. With the first funding goal already achieved thanks to early supporters, all founding members have been given Virtual Camouflage Goggles. Upcoming items and live progress updates can be tracked at http://beta.firefallthegame.com/founders, and new players will still gain access to all unlocked rewards by purchasing a Founders Pack.
Arcane Legends Official Launches to iOS
Arcane Legends Official Launches to iOS
Gamers can now conjure magic on their iPads, iPhones and iPods with the Retina display optimized fantasy Co-Op RPG Arcane Legends from Spacetime Studios. The game has been downloaded more than two million times and played in 191 countries since it launched two weeks ago on Android devices and the Chrome Web Store.
Arcane Legends is the fourth title in the highly popular Legends franchise. The previous Legends titles, fantasy Pocket Legends, sci-fi Star Legends, and horror Dark Legends have been downloaded more than twelve million times, making it the world’s largest cross-platform mobile/desktop MMO franchise.
“We are extremely excited to deliver another evolution in mobile multiplayer gaming. Arcane Legends incorporates the most popular elements from each of our games and introduces new features such as blistering combat, fully interactive pets and 3D cut-scenes,” said Gary Gattis, CEO, Spacetime Studios.
Arcane Legends marks Spacetime Studios’ most ambitious and expansive product to date largely due to the game’s innovative “Companion” system that allows players to collect a myriad of powerful and mystical pets for use in combat. Players will select companion pets to complement their play style, evaluating the merits of each animal’s combat skills and buffs. Pets level automatically as they adventure alongside players, gaining access to new skills and abilities. There are 36 pets available at launch with more scheduled for future free updates.
Set in the fantasy world of Arlor and beset on all sides by evil forces, players must battle foul goblins, trolls, necromancers and much more in their quest for glory and gold. Players help the local townsfolk as well as a host of exotic and magical animals, enrolling the latter to join them as battle companions.
Arcane Legends is free on the App Store, Google Play and the Chrome Web Store. It will be coming soon to the Kindle Fire. The game features optional microtransactions for virtual currency that enhance the play experience in a wide variety of ways.
End of Nations Delays Open Beta Testing
End of Nations Delays Open Beta Testing
Although it went mostly unnoticed amongst the mayhem of the Thanksgiving week, Trion Worlds officially announced they would be delaying the planned open beta launch of End of Nations in an effort to further polish the title and fix some bugs. Players who pre-purchased the game have also due to receive reimbursement as an apology for the sudden change in plans. Multiple high ranking officials have stated that the game is not cancelled but no word of when the real open beta testing will begin as of yet.
Legend of Edda: Vengeance Announces Closed Beta Date
Legend of Edda: Vengeance Announces Closed Beta Date
GamesCampus announced the official launch date for the closed beta for its colorful fantasy MMORPG, Legend of Edda: Vengeance. Originally introduced in 2010, Edda spent a year in mysterious silence which was broken wide open with a massive game update. Legend of Edda: Vengeance will enter closed beta on November 29th!
“We’re keeping the Legend of Edda: Vengeance beta short so we can provide an intense testing period and gather the most information in the smallest period of time,” said Hubert Yee, Head of Marketing at GamesCampus. “Players will be amazed at the number of changes over the last year including 1v1 Duels, 3v3 and 5v5 Arena Battles, and much more. We can’t wait to get the community’s feedback!”
GamesCampus, alongside EYASoft, has completely overhauled the original Legend of Edda engine, and players will be amazed by the number of changes that have happened over the last year. Included in the Vengeance upgrade is a Revamped Skill System, Achievements, a full Economy Rebalancing, Item Drop Table adjustments, improved Set Items, and not to be left behind, an Upgraded Success Rate! Players will be able to see all of these changes in just a few days!
Players will be able to start playing Vengeance on November 29th. But you can grab a beta key to reserve access now at OnRPG!

















