Yearly Archives: 2012

Knight Age Reveals Additional Open Beta Content

Knight Age Reveals Additional Open Beta Content

 

Joymax, today unveiled some of the additional content being added to the upcoming free-to-play MMORPG, Knight Age. With open beta starting on August 28th, Joymax is also pleased to announce players will be able to carry their open beta progress straight into commercial launch later this year!

Knight Age is known first and foremost for its mounted combat, the most common way to enter into battle. Players can raise their mounts and create unique strength and ability combinations to suit their personal play style. While closed beta offered players a limited number of mounts, open beta will double the amount. Joymax has even gone completely “quackers” on new rides, adding a new Duck mount for those who complete the hidden avian quest chain.

Not to be forgotten, the Pupa pet system is also receiving a thorough set of improvements. These pets quickly become your trusty battle companions, and vary from player to player depending on how they are nurtured and raised. With a variety of Pupa to choose from, they can be collected and even combined to create an even stronger Pupa! Just like the newly added mounts, players can expect double the amount of Pupa added for OBT.

Armed with new Pupa and riding new mounts, players will be able to tackle additional dungeons being added for the open beta. These randomly generated dungeons will not only test a player’s power against the monsters, but also their ability to maneuver through traps and puzzles to reach the final boss. These new bosses have a chance to drop rare Pupa eggs that will be like nothing players were able to acquire before!

The most anticipated feature launching during open beta is the PVP War system. This colossal PVP mode can support up to one versus one hundred players and will determine who will become the sole owner and wielder of Excalibur! Open beta also brings the launch of the guild system known as Legions. Legions will be able to take the field against other guilds for the Order of Knights, which pits 50 vs 50 in mounted combat. To arms, Knights, and prepare for battles both large and small!

Knight Age is a 3D fantasy MMORPG that takes players through a vast world of Knights battling against a malicious God. Knights perform elaborate attack skills on mobile mounts, with each ride providing different types of power-ups! This is in addition to 50 vs 50 Legion combat, the 1 vs 100 Battle for Excalibur, and the Pupa pet system, where raising a strong companion takes nurturing and dedication.

Knight Age’s official Open Beta is scheduled to begin August 28th, and excited players can already download the open beta client at http://bit.ly/GKADL0814. Participants of the closed beta simply need to run their client on the day of Open Beta Test launch to get the latest patch.

Heroes of Newerth Reveals Core Pool and Death Tips

Heroes of Newerth Reveals Core Pool and Death Tips

Today’s gaming world boasts infinite digital universes and characters beyond imagination, but is that really the best way for players to learn a game? At the height of GamesCom, the world’s largest games event, S2 Games today answered definitively no and declared a new approach to Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) games with Heroes of Newerth’s Core Pool. With months of development, this all-new, optional game mode offers players a controlled environment to hone their skills with 40 carefully selected heroes, rather than the current pool of over 100.

“We are always challenging ourselves to think of new ways to improve the player experience,” said S2 Games co-founder and CEO, Marc DeForest. “Core Pool represents something the entire MOBA genre has been missing – a more effective way for players to learn the game and hone their skills, without the burden of learning how to play with and against new characters every few weeks.”

Embodying a “less is more” philosophy, Core Pool encourages players to focus on their game and take their skills to the next level in an environment of “core” MOBA heroes. As Core Pool is an optional game mode, any player can choose the mode at any time to practice their skills, develop strategy, or just have fun playing a classic game of HoN. Core Pool also follows closely on another major change to Heroes of Newerth, a hero schedule featuring new heroes released every four weeks, instead of the previous two-week schedule.

“The games in the MOBA genre are always looking to add more: more characters, more maps, more abilities, more free stuff. Core Pool and our four-week hero schedule take a completely different approach to the way things are normally done with MOBAs, and significantly reduces the burden of knowledge, especially for new players,” added Heroes of Newerth Director Pu Liu.

The most popular MOBA’s each offer over 100 characters, and while variety ensures that no two games are alike, learning that many characters can be daunting for new players. Even experienced players can have difficulty keeping up with frequent new character releases. The difficulty associated with getting into a MOBA and staying current is well known and frequently lamented by gamers everywhere.

“Core Pool directly addresses the steep learning curve prevalent in all MOBA’s. No other MOBA offers a controlled environment like this, and so players are struggling with learning new characters all the time, without the ability to focus on their skills,” added DeForest. “Core Pool, and the concept behind it, is something the MOBA genre was missing and we’re really excited to bring it to our players.”

Added Liu, “Core Pool is great for both experienced and new players, as it offers a place to practice skills and try out new techniques by yourself or with your team in a more controlled game.”

Also launching with Core Pool are Death Tips, brief suggestions for players on how to use their hero better while they are respawning.

GamesCampus Kicks off Player Appreciation Month

Be Appreciated at GamesCampus.com, Win Amazing Prizes

 

GamesCampus

 

GamesCampus.com kicks off their Gamers Appreciation Month, running now until September 15th. Log in to your favorite GamesCampus title to collect tickets; players will earn one ticket per day for each game they play. Not a member yet? Head over to the official Players Appreciation page to sign up for a free account now.

 

 

Now through September 15th, GamesCampus is giving away all the “need to own” prizes for PC gamers, including gaming mice, state of the art keyboards, and headsets that pull the player straight into their games! Other prizes include Campus Credits (CC), the cash shop currency used in all games on the GamesCampus portal, alongside Amazon gift cards and even a sleek Nexus 7 tablet!

 

 

Once players have collected tickets, they can head over to the prize page to enter into your drawing of choice. Then check in every Wednesday to see if you’re the winner of any weekly prizes, including 1 of 3 Nexus 7 Tablets, 1 of 5 Logitech G500 Programmable Gaming Mice, or 1 of 20 $25 USD Amazon Gift Cards! Not an American? You’re still eligible for prizes! Winners from outside the US will be awarded prizes in Campus Credits.

 

Scarlet Legacy

 

Not interested in technological swag? GamesCampus is offering numerous instant win prizes of CC for all ticket holders. Enter one ticket to randomly win 10, 50, 100, 500, or 1,000 CC. Use these tickets to be awarded randomly 50, 100, 300, 1,000 or the grand prize of 10,000CC! These awards can be chosen at any time from now until the Gamers Appreciation event ends on September 15th.

 

 

“There are over one million credits of potential prizes on the line in the next month, and we’re excited to see how players decide to spend their tickets.” said Hubert Yee, Head of Marketing at GamesCampus. “Whether your goal is $100 of free CampusCredits or the amazing Nexus 7 Tablet, we’ve got a raffle that will blow your socks off!”

SWTOR Breaking News: Gamescom 2012

SWTOR Breaking News Gamescom 2012

By Jonathan Doyle (Ardua), OnRPG Journalist

 

 

Fresh from the Bioware Party here at Gamescom Cologne, we here at OnRPG can report on some brand new world first information only shown at the community party.

 

 

After hanging out, having fun and being entertained by a wonderful lightsaber battle, fans and a few select others were witness to a special Gamescom only World exclusive trailer.
Star Wars: The Old Republic will be getting amongst many other things, a brand new raid, a brand new Catlike alien race and most impressively of an all new space based player versus player system.
We will of course be bringing you the trailer itself in all its glory when released to the press and public at large.
Till then, remember, Rotworms. Jeff Hickman approved.

Grand Chase Heroes: The 2D PvP Champion

Grand Chase Heroes: The 2D PvP Champion

By Remko Molenaar (Proxzor), OnRPG Journalist

Intro by Darren Henderson (DizzyPW), OnRPG Editor-in-Chief

 

 

Hey this is DizzyPW joining in with Proxzor to give an updated look at a long-standing favorite among the 2D side-scrolling MMO crowd known as Grand Chase. The game has gone through some serious upgrades and introduced a bunch of new characters over the last year so SG Interactive convinced me to take a tour of their office in SoCal to give the game another look.

 

 

Now my sidescrolling experience is almost entirely limited to Maplestory with a splash of Elsword now and then so I was expecting to go into this title as a complete novice in comparison to my experience at more classic styled MMORPGs. They sat me down and put me on one of the newer characters Rin, a phoenix themed character designed with the help of the Grand Chase community (apparently the first of its kind and quite popular as a result!). They put me inside a player house as one of the members of the team explained the housing system. Despite her best efforts she couldn’t climb a series of clouds on the outside of the house to get onto the roof so she gave up and let me get my hands on the controls. Boy was I in for a surprise.

 

 

The control scheme in this title was a total nod towards the original Smash Brothers title that I sunk over 140 hours into! From the platforming to the double jumping to the character animations I felt like I was in some kind of anime arcade styled version of one of my favorite N64 titles of all time. I immediately hopped onto the roof on my first try and was ready to hop into the game.

 

 

Long story short they threw me on a GM level version of Rin to impress some of the newer players with my awesome gear. I was far overpowered for the starting zone so I decided to make a note to have one of my writers give the game a fuller inspection later (see Remko below!) and moved on to the next obvious phase of the game, taking on one of their most experienced GMs in 1 on 1 PvP combat of course.

 

 

I was caught with my pants down and blown away in the first round as the GM cut inside my defenses with Ronan, a magical empowered swordsman that Rin had no counter to once he got in range. However the map we were on had plenty of floating platforms to maneuver around so I learned quickly by the second match.

 

 

Utilizing rapid mid-range combos and blow backs I managed to unlock Rin’s true potential and keep the GM at bay throughout the second and third round to win 2 out of 3 in an intense match-up. If you’re skilled at twitch based PvP titles and love 2D fighting games along the lines of Smash Brothers than Grand Chase Heroes is definitely a title you can take to quickly and overcome your opponents with practice. In the end it all comes down to knowing yourself and knowing your opponent, and learning to unleash hyper combo finishes like the pros do at Grand Chase’s officially sponsored tournament events. At that I leave the article to Proxzor to look deeper into the strengths and weaknesses of this title.

 

 

Grand Chase Full Review

Thanks Dizzy! When I first looked at an overview of this title my first thought was there aren’t many free-to-play side scrolling MMORPGs and especially not with well-designed Player versus Player content implemented. Grand Chase Heroes is the game that fills that niche perfectly and balances its gameplay and promotional efforts around it to try to get this group of players really addicted. I was intrigued to see Grand Chase’s level of customization on a 2D title and wanted to see if there was more to this game than just a pretty cover. I’ll admit I’m guilty of being one of those players that never cash shops unless it alters my character’s looks, because who doesn’t want to look cute, tough, and handsome all at the same time? The addiction soon followed.

 

 

Grand Chase Heroes is definitely on par with many other titles in its ever increasingly competitive 2D brawler genre. However it differentiates itself with a huge cast of characters and focus on PvP! Now what might the catch be to this perfect sounding game? Well the game lacks a huge playerbase during the early levels. I don’t really understand why there aren’t that many people playing this game at all, by the looks of it this sounds like the perfect PvP-centric title for a fan like me.

 

 

Unlike many other games it doesn’t really matter what character you play in Grand Chase Heroes. You can always switch to another class you like and aren’t bound to one at a time. You can even unlock and purchase more classes to play with so by design the game encourages variety. I decided to play with Elesis because who doesn’t like cool looking swords in a bad ass outfit, right?

 

 

After you are done sorting out the controls in the practice area it is time to pick up your first mission and head over to the trial areas to test out your skills. Now don’t forget to check the equipment screen because you will find a lot of equipment and items during your missions that impact gameplay in a big way. You will start with an equipment set for each class you currently own so you already feel like a hero. The goal in Grand Chase Heroes is to do missions either on your own or together with other people to progress through the story and unlock more characters/equipment/random housing furniture. You can create rooms for the specific missions and wait for players or you can team up with people that are already waiting. Unfortunately you might have to solo a bit at the start or invite some friends to try the game out with you as it was slim pickings at the hours I played.

 

 

Like Dizzy said, the game controls are a tad bit outside the MMO norm and took a bit of getting used to for me. The pacing felt rather slow at first until I discover that just like in Smash Brothers, dashing is your way to go. Yes prepare yourself to bash those arrow keys to each side because dashing is the way you walk in this game. If you just move your character without dashing it is going to take you a loooooooooong time before you finish and empty the room. The various monsters that you will encounter will drop coins and boxes. These boxes have a wide variety of random goodies to give out based on luck of the draw. And as usual based on my average luck I got nothing worth a dime.

 

 

After you are done slaughtering the various stages of monsters it is time to head up into the last stage and cuddle the boss. In every mission/area there will be an end boss that you will have to defend. As a melee class prepare to cuddle this boss from start to finish and don’t freak out if he shoves you to every corner of the room. Luckily you can take a hit and at least the early bosses tend not to be able to outlast you so long as you don’t panic…

 

 

Graphics

Did I say already that Grand Chase Heroes has top notch graphics? The game is really cute looking and has aged well over the years to still be a beacon of the power of 2D titles. All the areas feel rather unique and all the variety of mobs is not only great, but many don’t just feel like rehashes of standard monsters you’ve faced in past MMOs. The game also has a lot of cosmetic items if you’re like me and need that extra bit of style, though the basic gear is well designed and never made me cringe wearing it. To play Grand Chase Heroes you will need the following computer specifications:

 

 

Minimum Requirements

Windows © System XP

Pentium IV 1.5GHz

512MB or more

2.5GB HDD capacity

DirectX 9.0c Runtime

GeForce 6000 series or better

1024×768

 

Recommended Requirements

Windows © System XP

Pentium IV 2.8GHz1024MB or more

3.5GB HDD space free

DirectX 9.0c Runtime

GeForce 7000 series or better

1024×768

 

 

User Interface

The Interface is really slick looking and doesn’t take away that much of your screen. In the upper left corner you will find your character along with your health and mana bar. This mana bar is actually some sort of special action bar to explain it at its best. If you fight monsters you will gain mana which you then can use to do special attacks with. In the bottom of your window you will find the experience bar and on the right side of the screen you can find skills and items.

 

 

Player Versus Player

As a Beginner there isn’t a huge selection of equal powered players looking for a fight. In fact there is no one at all so you are bound to go to the free channel. And as you guessed this means you can fight people that are all a different level which means it takes some time to find a worthy opponent. Most people are all high leveled so it will require you to level up some time before you are even close to taking down people.  There are two modes that you can play, the first one is the usual fighting mode where you can fight together against each other to be the last cute character standing.. The other one is Siege of Heroes; to sum this up in a sentence I’d call it the Grand Chase version of DoTA.

 

 

Conclusion

Grand Chase Heroes is a good looking, well developed title that remains a contender for king of the 2D realm even after all this time. Unfortunately the game isn’t really that popular and I feel it’s partially due to the cash shop creating a bit of division between the haves and have-nots. Despite this set back I still had plenty of fun just messing around with the core game mechanics on the start missions and PvP modes. If you’re willing to dedicate some time (or better yet bring a friend), you can grind through the lonely early levels rather quickly and find people to party with in no time.

 

 

Again it’s hard to emphasis enough how much more enjoyable this title is with friends so I’d say ask around to find some people that want to try out a solid 2D PvP focused title before jumping in. This game even has a small eSports scene going on so maybe your group can train to someday top the world charts!

 

Graphics – 4

Controls – 4

Features – 3

Customization – 5

Community – 2

Overall – 4