Yearly Archives: 2012

Knight Age

Knight Age is an MMORPG that focuses on mounted combat. Players can form or join guilds, and their contributions to that guild help it grow stronger. This becomes important in the guild versus guild battles, as every member will contribute to the battles in some way. Players can also raise magical pets called pupa, each with their own unique looks. Pupa can be trained and developed by the player to become powerful in their own right. Instances in the game offer a changing environment, depending on how the players perform. There are several different types of dungeons, including solo and mounted for multiplayer.

 

 

Features

Mounted combat: Never leave your trusty steed behind! Attack enemies by horse, tiger, chicken … you name it. Formations when grouped with others offer tactical bonuses that can’t be ignored.


Guild system:
The Order of Knights needs the cooperation of all members. Work together with your fellows in battles against other guilds, and to raise your reputation. Share tactics and commands in real time with your fellows to dominate your opponents!

Instance Dungeons: Face dungeons that evolve depending on your actions. Each dungeon feels alive and interactive as you challenge yourself to complete it. Enjoy solo dungeons, or join with friends to tackle more difficult content.

Pet System: Find an egg from a monster, and raise it into a powerful ally called a pupa. Train them and level them up to assist you further. They, in turn, will give you magical gems called Pantas that you can use to upgrade your equipment. Train them well, and they’ll make you even stronger!

Vibrant World: Enjoy the colorful graphics and amusing, unique NPCs. Travel the world and see lush forests, snow-covered mountains, or the rocky cliffs seaside. Change your character’s appearance through various means, like defeating monsters for a truly unique look.

The Wrestling Game

The Wrestling Game is a browser-based wrestling manager game with a variety of features. Select from five different classes of wrestler: Strength, Technical, Speedy, Resistance, or Balanced. Start out as a rookie, fresh from training, with rudimentary moves. Upgrade your abilities, compete in matches against other wrestlers, and use your winnings to further develop your stats, and work on your signature move. Create your own entrance, costume, and more!

Features:

Create a Wrestler: Start out as a rookie in the wrestling industry, and fight your way up the ranks to become world champion. Learn a variety of moves, like grapples, submissions, and more!

Training: The game features an extensive gym and training system in order for you to work on stats and skills. With nine different areas to work on, it’s important to focus on your strengths, and cover up your weaknesses carefully.

Automatic Matches: All calculations are handled for you, meaning you can simply choose an opponent, match type, and go. Review the match details, collect your earnings, and continue striving for the championship.

Federations: Join a league, or create your own. Manage your roster, picking exciting match cards to create storylines, and ensure your wrestlers are paid a fair wage. Several championship belts can be won!

OnRPG Shotgun News 8/1: World of Tanks, Elsword, Age of Conan, and Much More!

OnRPG Shotgun News 8/1: World of Tanks, Elsword, Age of Conan, and Much More!

By Shannon Doyle (Leliah), OnRPG Journalist

 

 

Zentia Closing It’s Doors

 

After almost 2 years of operation Zentia will be closing its doors. Servers will go offline on August 13th at midnight PST. Any remaining Zentia tokens players have can be transferred to Dragon Oath or Sword Girls if a ticket is submitted through customer support before September 13th.

 

 

Zynga Facing Class Action Lawsuit Over Stock Selloff

Zynga is facing at lawsuit after it was revealed that Zynga’s top executives and investors had been taking part in a massive selloff of stock just prior to a dismal quarter revenue reveal. The selloff of stock amounted $500 million combined. Only one lawsuit has been filed currently but other firms are investigating as well. Zynga is being investigated for many problems, the worst of them being insider trading.

 

 

Age of Conan to Use The Secret World Technology

 

After the success of The Secret World, Funcom has announced they will be taking Age of Conan in a similar direction. They will be adopting the single server technology, a process which has already begun and will continue through the rest of the year. In addition they are seeking feedback from players on subjects such as the idea of making smaller content releases instead of saving things up for one big release.

 

 

S4 League Season Four Coming this Fall

The fourth season of S4 League is expected this fall and the first details of it’s sequel will be revealed at Gamescom in just two weeks time. Season four will include extensive innovations for both PvE and PvP play.

 

 

Rage of 3 Kingdoms

 

Malaysian publisher RMS has announced the open beta for its war strategy game Rage of 3 Kingdoms. It was awarded Top 10 Web Game of 2011 soon after its Asian launch. Rage of 3 Kingdoms is expanding worldwide after having secured itself in the Asian market.

 

 

Norrathian Home Show Returns to Everquest II

The home/dungeon show has made a return to Everquest II. They are inviting players to submit images and descriptions of their homes and dungeons to be featured on the Everquest II website.

 

 

Everquest Gets a Cosmetic Armor System

 

SOE has announced Everquest is getting a cosmetic outfit system this August. It is called Hero’s Forge and is an add-on system that will be sold per character. A free set of armor will be given when you purchase the new system. It will continue to be expanded in the future with new armor and color variations.

 

 

Elsword Releases Chung Class Upgrades

Manga inspired MMORPG Elsword is releasing Chung’s advanced forms today. Chung is best known for wielding a giant cannon and the ability to activate berserker rage mode. He will now also be able to upgrade to become a Deadly Chaser or Iron Paladin. For a limited time players who give Chung a try will receive bonus experience and a free weapon.

 

 

Harvest Festival: All Signs Announced

 

Red Panda Games has announced their latest project Harvest Festival: All Signs will be released on January 1st. It is a free online social farming game that is completely language free. A unique trade and barter system will replace traditional currency.

 

 

Vindictus Unleashes a Dragon in Newest Update

In the latest update to come to Vindictus Europe an extremely powerful Dragon God has been unleashed. Echulus can be found in the newest raid which puts you face to face with the God of Fomors. The new raid starts at level 40. In addition there will be new weapons and armor for level 70s.

 

 

Bullet Run Is Officially Live

 

The new free to play first person shooter from SOE, Bullet Run, has completed its open beta testing and is now officially live for the PC. Players go up against eachother in a reality TV show setting where players are called Contestants and performance is everything.

 

 

World of Tanks Update 7.5 is Live in Europe

Wargaming has announced that the update 7.5 has come to World of Tanks Europe and will be released in North America tomorrow. Features include new tier 10 tanks, tank destroyers and battle arenas and premium vehicles. There are also three new maps which all take place in North America.

Overwolf Surpasses One Million Users, Launches Appstore

Overwolf Surpasses One Million Users, Launches In-Game Appstore

 

 

Overwolf, a software company specializing in the socialization of online games, today announced the launch of the In-Game Appstore, for its community of more than one million gamers. The Overwolf client provides a wide range of in-game, social media related features like Video and Screenshot Capture, Skype, TeamSpeak, various Chat services, an in-game Browser and more. Starting today, Overwolf is going to power up its offering with user-generated and third-party in-game apps.

 

 

Game publishers can add all of these functions to their games without touching a single line of game code, making integration fast and easy. Besides embedding Overwolf’s social media features, using the Overwolf SDK, they will also be able to offer their players the opportunity to develop in-game apps that meet the needs of the community. Many game companies spend a significant amount of resources to enable user generated content or add-ons for their games. Now, every game publisher can do that by simply partnering with Overwolf and conserving development resources.

 

 

“The past year has been wonderful for Overwolf. We’ve continued to build the product focusing on user feedback and usage analytics. This has allowed us to sign agreements with more than twenty publishers, and most importantly, receive awesome feedback from the gamers that are using our product,” said Uri Marchand, CEO of Overwolf. “The next challenge for us is to allow gamers to utilize our technology to develop in-game apps, and publish those apps in our In-Game Appstore for the benefit of the gaming community”

 

 

Overwolf started the closed beta for its SDK two weeks ago and hundreds of developers have already signed-up. To start developing in-game apps, please go to http://developers.overwolf.com/.

 

 

“We are always looking for a better gaming experience for our users,” said Peter Zhalov, VP of Marketing & Advertising at Wargaming.net. “And so far we were mainly focused on superb game content and playability. We do bear in mind that our users enjoy such social media tools like Facebook, Twitter or Skype, and we believe it is a great experience to have all that stuff in-game as well. That’s the reason we have started to work with Overwolf. They provide us with a plug-and-play one stop shop solution for embedding all social media tools effortlessly”.

 

 

“Overwolf offers everything we originally planned to introduce to Brick-Force,” said Andreas Weidenhaupt, CEO of Infernum. “That’s why the decision to partner with Overwolf was so easy for us. Now we can equip Brick-Force with social and viral features while placing an extremely strong tool into the community’s hand. I previously experienced Overwolf as the perfect community tool for Runes of Magic.”

 

 

To see the client in action, please visit: www.Overwolf.com and download the beta. Also stay tuned for an upcoming interview between JamesBl0nde and Overwolf’s CEO Uri Marchand!

WoW Wednesday: The Mod Squad

WoW Wednesday: The Mod Squad

By Meredith Watson, OnRPG Journalist

 

 

Blizzard, since the release of the World of Warcraft, has given its players the tools to create addons for their game.  Addons, or mods as they are interchangeably called, are small standalone applications that add to the existing game. Mods are written with a scripting language called Lua that work with the WoW API (application programming interface).

 

 

The ability to mod the game is one the best features of the World of Warcraft and adds an immense amount of customization.  There are mods for every aspect of the game with popular categories being action bars, PvP, class specific mods, auction house, bags and inventory,  and role specific mods to name but a few.  The WoW standard UI is, or was, rather simple. Blizzard has expanded upon it considerably by incorporating popular mods such a threat meters. Tailoring the UI to the player’s individual needs is still the most common reason to mod.

 

 

Currently, the most wanted mods, aside from UI customization, are for boss fights, gathering and damage meters.  The two main sites for downloading mods boast, between them, over 8,000 standalone mods.

 

 

Almost every player in Azeroth uses some form of addon. However, there are a few purists who consider it cheating to use mods. Mods are not meant to change the mechanics of the game but essentially are used to make aspects of the game more efficient. Mods like Deadly Boss Mod are what the purists have issue with.  DBM informs the player of when certain boss abilities will occur so that the player can take appropriate action. A purist would argue that bosses emote to let the player know what is going to occur and DBM is not needed or that, in fact, makes the fight too easy. With that in mind, most raiding guilds now require DBM.  It isn’t just boss fights that mod-free players take umbrage with. Healers nowadays rely heavily on mods. Healing is one of the more stressful roles in World of Warcraft and mods for healing can cut down on that stress by making healing more efficient. That being said, every healer should know how to heal without mods to begin with.

 

 

The game has progressed to the point if you don’t have certain addons you’re not playing it correctly. We, for one, insist everyone has DBM if they want to raid-Sociallydead, GM of Praestantia (Mazrigos EU)


 

Give a player a foot and he will take a mile.  As of May 19, 2009 Blizzard implemented its Addon development policy:

 

AddOns must be free of charge.

AddOn code must be completely visible.

AddOns must not negatively impact World of Warcraft realms or other players.

AddOns may not include advertisements.

AddOns may not solicit donations.

AddOns must not contain offensive or objectionable material.

AddOns must abide by World of Warcraft ToU and EULA.

Blizzard Entertainment has the right to disable AddOn functionality as it sees fit.

 


This policy, especially the last rule, would come into play with patch 3.3.5 when Blizzard intentionally broke AVR.

 

 

The above mentioned AVR (augmented virtual reality)was quite controversial in that there were players that considered it a hack while others  thought it was fair play and not too dissimilar to the  above mentioned popular Deadly Boss Mod.  AVR allowed the player to draw on the 3D world creating diagrams and the like for boss encounters. These drawings could be shared with other raid members taking strategy to a whole new level and, for Blizzard, too far.

 

 

The invasive nature of a mod altering and/or interacting with the game world (virtually or directly) is not intended and not something we will allow. World of Warcraft UI addons are never intended to interact with the game world itself.  If we find that the AVR mod (or any mod attempting to replicate its functions) are usable after 3.3.5 we will take further, more drastic steps.-Bashiok, Community Manager Blizzard Entertainment

 


GearScore (now known as PlayerScore), towards the end of Wrath of the Lich King, was also a very controversial mod and led to a lot of exclusion and elitism. GearScore calculates the gear level score by creating a numerical value based on gear stats. Supposedly, it is the maximum potential of a player’s performance.  Many equated that the higher the gear score meant the better the player.  However, GearScore didn’t take into account things such as gems, enchants, glyphs, spec, or personal knowledge of the game.  It was only ever meant to be used as an initial assessment.  Though why that assessment was needed remains unclear. To say this mod caused a bit of a furore was an understatement. One could argue that it did, in fact, break policy rule by negatively impacting realms or players. With patch 3.2 Blizzard introduced ilevel which has essentially negated the use of GearScore/PlayerScore.

 

 

With patch 5.0.4 on the horizon, and soon thereafter Mists of Pandaria, there will be some grumbling from the community as expansions always break mods. The players will disable their mods grudgingly but will happily continue to play through the new content without them until their favourites are updated. Some mods will never get updated and others will take their place.  The writers of the community’s beloved mods are all volunteers as they can’t charge for or accept donations for their creations (see Addon Policy). Currently, because so many are playing in the Mists of Pandaria beta the mod authors are already writing. However, if a player can’t play without their mods, they probably shouldn’t be playing.

 

 

Whatever your opinion on mods, love them or loathe them, they are a permanent fixture in the World of Warcraft with no threat of disappearing anytime soon. There is only one opinion on mods that matters and that is Blizzard’s. For all we love to customize our UIs and make everything just so, it is their game to do with as they see fit.  Blizzard has its limits.  AVR taught us that.

City of Steam Alpha Weekend Round 2

City of Steam Alpha Weekend Round 2

By Shannon Doyle (Leliah), OnRPG Journalist

 

 

Another wonderful weekend of City of Steam Alpha has come and gone. This was the weekend of the Elven Elite. Even though I could have rolled up another Human if I wanted to I decided to go for a Riven and I’m glad I did. Her entire look was completely out of place in the dirty starting zone that is the Refuge. Her wavy blonde hair made her easier to find for my partner in crime this weekend. This weekend I introduced my youngest brother to City of Steam, though we didn’t play as much as we would have liked to since he was playing on a laptop with no mouse, resulting in some tough controls to utilize. But he will be ready for next weekend and is already asking me how much longer he has to wait.

 

 

There are two Elven races, the Riven and the Draug. Both races scream money, prestige, and haughty views of the ‘lesser’ races in typical Elven fashion. Despite this though I will more than likely end up making a Riven when the game goes live. Why? I love beauty. And they are beautiful people. Almost the sort of put it behind glass so no one touches it kind of beauty.

 

 

At this point I’ve played 3 of the four classes. This weekend I was a Channeler and I think to date it is my least favorite. Not because it’s bad, but because it isn’t really my style. It looks great though. Admittedly I think I may be a bit biased because I found a class I really love. I’m not sure anything will compare now. I’m talking about the Gunner. Specifically the Gunner with a two handed weapon. Why is it my favorite? Well besides the fact that you look like a complete bad ass holding one, it is easy to use and powerful. During my sneak peak I got to play the Warder. I couldn’t really decide on one weapon type with my Warder and switched it around every other fight. But it was a lot of fun to play and you really felt like you were doing damage. So that leaves one more class to play. And lucky for me and you readers there is one weekend left to do it.

 

 

After noticing that most of the armor and weapons that were dropping were useless for me I decided to take a closer look at the marketplace. It was explained to me during the sneak peek that things would fall that you couldn’t use because they want to have a steady and widely used marketplace. And wow is it used! You can’t access it until level 4 but that is a pretty easy level to get to and it means when you do go use it the first time you have things you can sell. It works much like any other marketplace in any other game. Though if you plan on buying things make sure you have money. Things aren’t cheap. I could certainly see myself spending an hour or two every day playing around on the marketplace earning my fortunes though.

 

 

In City of Steam there are a few ways to get around. On the surface it looks like your choices are walk or take the train, and for the majority of your travel that is true. I’ve mentioned before the different ways to get around on foot. Wander aimlessly, use a sign to take you exactly where you want to go or use the quest tracker. You can also take the train which unlocks different zones as you gain levels. I use the train whenever I can because they went through the extra steps to make it feel real. You don’t just wander up and click on the train to use it. You talk to the ticket machine which will tell you what options are open for you. There are announcements on the platform. It feels like a real train station. There is also a short range teleportation device outside of the Refuge which admittedly I haven’t used yet because other than exploring, I haven’t ventured out of Refuge. Sometimes it’s good to restrain yourself in a new MMO as I don’t want to play the whole game in Alpha and not have anything left to do when the game comes out properly.

 

 

This week I only noticed a few changes. They all dealt with the tutorial and start up of the game. When you first start up City of Steam you get this beautiful fly over of the city. It has lovely music that plays during the whole thing. But as I discovered during my sneak peek if you’re trying to talk to someone on Skype at the same time you can’t hear anything but music. It was loud and there were no settings to turn it down or off even. Well that has changed. During the flyover there is now a setting bar letting you play around with video and audio settings. There were also some new instructions in the tutorial explaining how to do things which may not seem completely obvious.

 

 

Mechanist are really going all out with these alpha weekends. And with just one more weekend left I’m not sure how I’m going to find the time to try out everything. If you’re interested in giving City of Steam a try this weekend OnRPG, has teamed up with Mechanist to offer Alpha keys. Alternatively you can sign up for the City of Steam newsletter. This weekend coming up I’ll be wandering around on Leliah. So if you see me say hi! I don’t bite. Often.

SWTOR Going Free this Fall

SWTOR Going Free this Fall

 

 

Though not totally unexpected after recent reports, it now appears official that Star Wars The Old Republic will be adopting a new business model this coming fall. Subscribers prior to August 1st and especially Collector’s Edition purchasers will receive bonus rewards as thanks for their dedication to the game. New players will be able to play for free in the future as well as purchase extra goodies from what is being called the “Cartel Market.” Though information is still limited, you can check out the new free teaser page to catch a glimpse of some of the upcoming content being added, or head over to the FAQ to see exactly how this may impact you.

Faithless is He: Momentum

Faithless is He: Momentum

By Jonathan Doyle (Ardua), OnRPG Journalist

 

 

 

Today is the day! Today Issue 1: Unleashed is released for The Secret World.

 

 

Waiting for fans and fanatics is an update with bug fixes, new missions and new investigations all begging to be sampled and solved.

 

 

Today is also a very telling day for Funcom, Ragnar and the team who have all put in such hard work on The Secret World. Today is the first update, true. However there have been hints spread around by the developers and by Ragnar himself about what more is to come.

 

 

The most important part of that all is that it is coming. When, to my mind, is immaterial. Momentum is what we want nowadays.

 

 

Vibrant Worlds

It is safe to say that RIFT and Trion Worlds have something in common with The Secret World and Funcom. Sadly it isn’t the other worldly portals, but I will admit a part of me is terrified to think what would happen to Telara if Norwegians were unleashed upon it. Both games, both companies, both worlds have a sense of moving on and of actual time passing. Not merely the time marked by seasonal mini events dressed up so that they aren’t quite Christmas or Valentines, but a feeling that the world is moving around you.

 

 

It is that sensation of a constant vibrant world that we have missed for so long and that sensation is what I think will carry The Secret World and more into the future. You can rest assured, completely assured, in the knowledge that new content is only a month away. If they can keep the pace, and so far I have not heard anything that implies that they cannot, then you will forever be only a month away from something more. New missions, new stories, new outfits and weapons, and all the other items that make up the experience online are all surely on the way.

 

 

The feeling of the living world is its own special attraction. Look away and you might miss something. Stay in Agartha and your story only gets richer.

 

 

Picking up the Pacing

It’s not all going to be little instalments of course. Already Ragnar Tornquist has been laying hints here and there about Auxiliary Weapons and new areas. Piecemeal content by itself would hardly be enough to get excited about, but the confirmation that the game will continue being expanded in various ways is something worth perking up for.

 

 

It has been repeated many times by the team that they have a broad story laid out for us over the coming months and years.

 

 

There will always be people who speed through things. I wish them well and would never presume to tell them how to play. I know there are people listed on the Chronicle who have maximised their skill points and filled their skill wheel. That’s quite an achievement and makes me look rather slack in comparison. After all I have only just entered Egypt in The Secret World and still am slowly plodding away at my skills.

 

 

However you play though, we’ll all get more as time goes on. The steady drumbeat of monthly content is fantastic but it is the higher peaks that will catch people’s attention. New zones, new weapons and a skill wheel that seems made for expansion and modification.

 

 

Momentous

This all sounds grand but some things need to be experienced by oneself to be truly appreciated. Previously we had a buddy code sitting encrypted at the end of an article here, this time around though there are no such hoops to jump through.

 

 

Do you want to play The Secret World? This weekend you can.

 

 

Head to the official site and sign up for the celebration on the right hand side of the page. Any previous beta testers will have their accounts re-enabled and any new and curious visitors can sign up for the free weekend and start downloading the game.

 

 

The generosity is quite simply part of the celebration. Here we are a month after launch, new content sitting in our laps and more to come in the next few weeks. Ragnar and team have promised more details on the new zones and weapons soon. There may well be something coming from Gamescom in two weeks time and of course OnRPG.com will be there to find out everything for you.

OnRPG Shotgun News 7/31: E3, Maplestory, and Maestia

OnRPG Shotgun News 7/31: E3, Maplestory, and Maestia

By Shannon Doyle (Leliah), OnRPG Journalist

 

 

E3 to Stay in Los Angeles

The ESA has confirmed that Los Angeles will remain the hosts of E3 at least for the next three years. There was some speculation that E3 would move after rumors surfaced that the LA Convention Center where E3 is held would be demolished and replaced by a sports arena. This is of course great news here at OnRPG as we still hold the home court advantage on future coverage of the venue!

 

 

The Last Summer Update Comes To MapleStory

 

This has been a summer of updates for MapleStory. The most recent update “Fight for Azwan” is the final update for the summer. It introduces a new party and solo PvE mode where players are recapturing the city of Azwan. It has four levels of difficulty; Easy, Normal, Hard and Hell. In addition there are new timed game modes which reward experience and Azwan coins which can be traded for items in the new Azwan shop.

 

 

Maestia Officially Launches in the US

After a brief event filled beta test, Gravity Interactive has decided to push forward and fully launch Maestia stateside. To celebrate the launch of the cash shop, they have implemented a rare monster that will drop tickets redeemable for prizes, some of which are normally only obtained in the cash shop! The Summer Festival is now also in full swing so get to collecting tickets to redeem some sweet prizes.

 

 

But the biggest update of all is the introduction of hybrid PvPvE zones in which players can farm freely during the day, but take part in epic night battles ranging anywhere from 30 vs 30 to 80 vs 80!