Monthly Archives: March 2013

PAX East – The Calm Before the Storm

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PAX East Day 1 Preview – The Calm Before the Storm

 

 

 

It’s now one hour prior to the doors opening in Boston for the 2013 PAX East Convention! I’m in the scene (DizzyPW) leading the charge with Ardua, Leliah, JamesBl0nde, and Bowen (our largest convention content team ever!).

 

 

Today is kicking off with Blizzard’s early morning press reveal and Leliah and Ardua hitting up the Indie Mega Booth to get a look at The Repopulation and plenty of other surprises that really make PAX East so unique!

 

 

Next up Leliah and Ardua will be hitting the invite-only Bethesda booth to go hands on with The Elder Scrolls Online while I take a peak at the upcoming DLC for Dishonored.

 

 

Meanwhile James and Bowen will be meeting with HiRez’s Tod Harris to talk about what’s coming in their latest hit MOBA SMITE and snag some Kali keys for an upcoming giveaway! On the other end of the spectrum I’ll be covering what’s new with Riot Games’ League of Legends. Here’s hoping for an epic new PAX skin this year for more giveaways!

 

 

Then it’s onto the FireFall event that’s sure to change the game in a big way!

 

 

And then finally we get our MMOHuts First Look at Carbine Studio’s WildStar! Be sure to check back late tonight for a quick recap of the day’s events and keep an eye out for our upcoming editorial coverage at OnRPG and MMOHuts!

Elsword Transformation Closer Look: Rena and Raven

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Elsword Transformation Closer Look: Rena and Raven

By Darren Henderson (DizzyPW), OnRPG Editor-in-Chief

 

 

It’s hard to believe it’s been 3 months since JamesBl0nde and I jumped into Kill3rCombo’s Elsword to test out the newly released third class available for Elsword and Aisha. But as the Elsword Team has kept on schedule (perhaps even ahead of schedule) on Transformation launches, we now have Rena’s Trapping Ranger and Raven’s Weapon Taker classes available in the US. As such I pulled some strings and got an introduction to these two classes from the Elsword team and a bit of an ass whooping from GM Skillz to get a taste for each character in PvE and PvP. Oh and for the record I’m a novice Elsword player that’s just a fast learner thanks to its similarities to Smash Brothers which I spent many hours (ok days) of my life learning. So take this as a noob’s first look and not an expert’s guide to these characters.

 

 

Raven’s Weapon Taker

I have to admit I’m not normally a lover of the melee classes in Elsword but Weapon Taker… I like. He has so many tricks up his sleeve and his skills are just insanely punishing that you never truly feel safe when facing one no matter where your location is. Think you can beat him with fast dodges and aerial combos? He can turn some of his skills into air attacks to take the fight right back to you.

 

 

Beyond this, he can utilize Giga Prominence (a localized series of fire explosions that erupt from the ground and reach decently high into the air) to blast away anything in his radius for absolutely insane damage. And just when you think you have his back up against the wall, his HellFire Gatling (a fan shaped assault of 40+ fireballs with long range) paints a large fan of death in the direction he’s facing while making him nearly impossible to interrupt. On a flat battlefield this skill might be one of the most devastating abilities ever unleashed, which is quite a statement to make about a mere first class upgrade for Raven. And while these two skills are balanced with long cooldowns and heavy mana costs, his Revolver Cannon (4 consecutive straight line rockets) offers a more cost efficient way to keep your enemy at bay while winding up for your next vicious combo.

 

 

But where Raven’s Weapon Taker form truly shines is his passive abilities and unique overheat power that when combined make him an excellent duelist that can hold his prey in place for horrific combos that can be amplified at the cost of your own HP if you really have your foe in your sights. Not only does he have various passives and buffs related to upping his magical damage to make the most of his ranged attacks, he also can unlock an awesome Z dash attack with Shadow Piercing that’s ideal for cutting your enemy’s special ability short. His Mercenary Behavior passive also reduces the effects of just about any CC or DoT you can throw at him while reducing the damage he takes when he Overheats his abilities. Talk about getting some serious bang for your skill points!

 

 

I highly recommend this class for players that can keep a cool head under fire and focus on the timing of Raven’s Soul Taker combo strikes. Utilizing Z Z Z X and Z Z Z -> X in particular allows you to deal continuous damage while getting a large evade/jump behind skill that will leave your PvP opponents dazed and PvE bosses swinging at air. His ranged low mana X attacks also allow you to keep rival melee fighters on their toes during skill cooldowns and punish ranged characters trying to zone you out. If you can master this while also biding your time and making full use of Raven’s Rage Core, you can plow through enemy special abilities and punish anyone that tries to stand their ground to fight you head-on.

 

 

Check out a highlight reel of GM Skillz showing me his moves with Raven’s Soul Taker:

 

 

 

Rena’s Trapping Ranger

What happens when naïve innocent high elves fall into the wrong crowd? Well for Rena besides getting an amazing yoga butt, she also gets her hands on the blessed blade Erendil to unlock one of the most varied, vicious, and unpredictable fighting styles in the Elsword world.

 

 

Rena’s Trapping Ranger is hands down a tactician’s dream character in Elsword. At range she can harass and interrupt her foes. In melee she can tear opponents down to size in rapid succession with the best of them. Her double jump mixed with impressive air dashes and long ranged Z attacks make her a mobile threat whether you’re below or above her on the battlefield.

 

 

As far as skills go Rena seems focused around controlling and cutting off her opponent’s movement until she reaches that ‘checkmate’ moment and goes in for the execution. Her Explosion Trap offers a quick arrow shot diagonally into the ground in front of her that gives her a nice buffer against speedy enemies that want to dash in and initiate. Those attempting to counter her should be weary that she packs plenty of passives to keep you on your foot for extended combos while she unleashes a barrage of Erendil strikes with a huge chance of landing critical strikes. She even has a wind powered kick that can reflect projectiles back at you! The Trapping Ranger can be quite unpredictable in style as well since her passives allow her to gain increased mastery of both physical and magical attacks, and even gain armor piercing arrow strikes.

 

 

But all of this is merely a façade to hide the true intention of Rena’s Trapping Ranger. Once she has you where she wants you, she can unleash Call of Ruin to fill your now limited safe zone with multiple spiked orbs or blow up the very ground beneath you with Karma, forcing you a huge distance away from her so that she can set up her minefield of arrows once more.

 

 

One last note on the Trapping Ranger. Never underestimate her and think you’ve won just because she’s on the verge of death. Fatality offers a  lightning fast straight line finisher skill with a chance of dealing 6,560% physical damage to any enemy struck. It can also do 1 damage or various other damages in between depending on luck. Still it’s best to approach quickly and stay airborn when possible when fighting a Trapping Ranger to make sure you never have to play Russian Roulette against Erendil.

 

 

Check out my much less one sided battle with GM Skillz in our Rena Trapping Ranger highlight reel:

 

 

 

Interested in checking out the game for yourself? Check ’em out at http://www.elswordonline.com/. And if you like what you see don’t forget to cast your vote to get them Greenlit on Steam!

Warframe Blasts Into Open Beta With Biggest Update Yet

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Warframe Blasts Into Open Beta With Biggest Update Yet

 

Warframe

 

The wait is over for gamers anticipating entry into one of the year’s hottest AAA Free-To-Play games, Warframe. The sci-fi co-op action game for the PC developed by Digital Extremes, launched its Open Beta this week alongside its most extensive content and feature update: Update 7. Anyone who registers at www.warframe.com can now download and play the game for free.

 

Since October 2012, players have participated in the game’s Closed Beta providing feedback to help improve the experience from top to bottom. Players were introduced to Warframe as Tenno warriors, who have discovered an ancient exo-skeletal technology only they can operate. These Warframes bring unimaginable power and skill to the Tenno and provide players with unique offensive and defensive powers to explore and master. Players go solo or band together in squads of 4 to complete co-op based raids to locate ancient artifacts that will help customize and upgrade their Warframe and weapons.

 

 

Coinciding with Open Beta, the game received its largest feature  update yet. Update 7 includes a highly anticipated open environment snow planet, 2 new Warframes with poison and sonic powers, a Sentinel pet system, and a new Global Chat feature. The most radical feature in this update is the re-vamp of the Mod System that has added a new level of depth to customizing your arsenal. Adding some of the stealth flavor seen in the original Dark Sector sci-fi concept of 2004, the update also provides players with stealth attack options and a new hunting bow called The Paris.

 

Warframe

 

Steve Sinclair, chief creative director on Warframe expressed his gratitude to the Closed Beta group. “The road has been wild, but through the fixing, the breaking, the smashing, and the rebuilding, the Warframe community has supported us and it’s heartwarming to see their love for the game matches our own,” said Sinclair. “Free-to-Play has reached a level of acknowledgement within the gaming community that now demands higher level production values and in-depth gaming experiences. We’re delivering that with Warframe and if the success of the Closed Beta is any indication, it’s well on its way to pushing the Free-to-Play frontier into the next generation.”

 

 

 

Plans for additional content and feature updates will continue through Open Beta. First up: Steam integration – Warframe will be available on Steam starting March 25, 2013.

 

Kartuga First Look – PvP for People Who Hate PvP

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Kartuga First Look – PvP for People Who Hate PvP

By Shannon Doyle (Leliah), OnRPG Journalist

 

 

Since I got my first look at Kartuga during a press event at Gamescom 2012 I have been excitedly watching the news for every detail InnoGames has released. When I saw Kartuga on the assignment sheet I jumped at it. Now I’m so glad I did. It has changed so much since the last time I looked at it. It has more complexity, more maps, and more fun.

 

 

It starts out rather simply, pick a ship and set sail. Your guide through the tutorial is a cheerful man with a bit of eyesight trouble. But that doesn’t mean he can’t teach you well. There you learn what every pirate needs to know, how to move and how to shoot. Once you escape arrest you set sail for the live world. There you come face to face with three options, do quests, pvp, or sail the open world.

 

 

The pve quests are by no means the focus of the game. There are just a few quests which serve as a nice distraction between pvp matches. Many of the ones I did included “find this” or “kill 10 ships.” These are of course the staple of the MMO genre. The only thing missing was an escort quest.

 

 

PvP is the real meat of the game. It’s where you earn most of your XP, where you interact with fellow players, and where the chaos lives. There are two modes, Domination and Destruction.

 

 

In Destruction mode the focus is all on the bomb. Get that bomb to your enemy’s target and set it off. Of course if you wander away while your bomb is still getting ready to blow the other team can stop it. But of course for that to happen you have to get there first, if they let you.

Domination mode is all about exactly that, domination. Your team needs to take control of as many control points as possible. For each one your team gets points, the first team to 2,500 points is the winner.

 

 

Customization of ships comes from a skill tree, a crew, weapons, ammo and consumables. Everything you can imagine can be changed, from speed to how wide you can shoot. Your crew gives bonuses depending on who you decide to have on board. And the ammunition for your cannons can vary depending on how much you’re willing to spend.

 

 

Consumables can be picked up after you sink a ship or you will be able to purchase them in the in-game store if you choose. To that, yes, there is an in game store. No, it isn’t pay to win.

 

 

You’ll also be able to team up with friends by forming guilds. Already on the forums there has been discussion of a war between guilds. But if you want to get even more focused then maybe you’d be interested in the ability to form premade teams. This way you can always play with your friends, learn each other’s talents and become the most fearsome team that sails the seas.

 

 

Looking back Kartuga is an amazing game for the casual and hardcore. There isn’t any pressure to do anything but have fun. And best of all you can play it just about anywhere as its browser based. Customization, community, and cannons are what its all about. So grab your pirate hat, get a parrot and set sail for awesome.

WeMade USA Relaunches Lost Saga, Signs Former Outspark CEO

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WeMade USA Relaunches Lost Saga, Signs Former Outspark CEO

 

 

WeMade Entertainment USA, the US-based publishing arm of leading online game company WeMade Entertainment, today announced the hiring of online gaming executive Philip Yun as Chief Executive Officer. In conjunction with the new leadership, the company unveiled its new corporate headquarters in Irvine, CA as it gears up to re-launch the popular PC fighting MMO, Lost Saga, under its own brand.

 

Yun steps in as CEO of WeMade USA after serving as CEO of the online gaming companies Outspark and NHN USA. His accomplishments include helping pioneer the rise of free-to-play MMOs in the US and overseeing the highly popular MMO Fiesta Online.

 

The first title to launch in the new era of WeMade USA will be Lost Saga, scheduled to launch commercially in April at lostsaga.wemadeusa.com. Lost Saga is an action-packed online fighting game for PC. The MMO brawler brings together heroes from fantasy, history, and sci-fi in an epic brawl for glory. Players can choose from over 50 unique heroes and level up and customize their skills. Fighters can be subbed in, tag-team style, even in the middle of a battle to create favorable matchups or initiate multi-character combos. Teams of up to 16 players can participate in a variety of game modes while battling in treacherous terrain. WeMade USA and IO have spent the recent months polishing the game, preparing new content, and building out a plan to add an outstanding lineup of new and well known characters to the game’s pantheon of fighters through regularly scheduled content updates.

 

“Our mission at WeMade USA is to bring American gamers the most engaging PC and mobile games from the extensive WeMade Entertainment lineup,” said WeMade USA CEO Philip Yun. “Starting with Lost Saga, we have aggressive plans to launch new projects, especially on mobile, that fit our philosophy of publishing games we are excited to play ourselves.”

 

For future projects, the company will be fueled by the creative and technically advanced output of WeMade Entertainment’s eight global development studios and over 800 development staff. The company’s games span multiple genres and platforms including RPGs, action games, MMOs, and social network games on PC, mobile, and social platforms.

Talking Flight in Age of Wushu

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Talking Flight in Age of Wushu

 

Free is a word that Age of Wushu uses in various manners. It’s Free to Play. Players have the freedom to make decisions in a vast open game, and there is the ability to move freely across rooftop and other structures that are typically off-limits in MMORPGs. The Flying Skills of Age of Wushu let players explore more of the landscapes, reach random treasures that would otherwise be too high, and escape pursuing enemies or vengeful victims.

 

Since Flying Skills are in fact “skills,” players must learn them through unique skill books similar to the Internal and Combat Skills found in-game. Some of these skills can be found strewn about in the world by their pages, some rewarded in instances, and some through the Random Encounters that unlock as your life in Jianghu progresses. Once learned, these skills do not require any cultivation. You simply study the script and now have the excellent ability to sprint across the surface of water around Suzhou.

 

Flying skills rely on a player’s stamina to utilize. Having more base stamina lets you run and fly longer than a player with less. Stamina is adjusted and modified through various means as well. When you use the flying skill the blue bar that appears tells you how much stamina remains. This is important when using a feather fall skill from a higher ledge. You don’t want to lose stamina mid fall and complete the rest of the descent flailing to a thud. Likewise, you don’t want to be running from constables while wanted for murder and lose stamina trying to climb the side of a city wall.

 

 

To see these impressive skills in action check out the montage video below. Age of Wushu will launch on April 10th, so don’t let the time fly by without reading up on the various guides on their site!

 

 

TERA: Rising F2P Conversion Interview

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TERA: Rising F2P Conversion Interview

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

Answers by Patrick Sun, Associate Producer, En Masse Entertainment

 

 

Just three months ago on our combo 2012 Awards Show I gave TERA the Combat of the Year award. However I ended the award stating that it was my sincerest wish that the game would go free to play in the west so that an entire untapped market would have access to the same visceral experience I had tried to share with anyone who would listen since launch. And now today we see a TERA F2P system that is not only fair and balanced, but has returned unbelievable new life to the game. And so we’ve brought on Patrick Sun from En Masse Entertainment to talk briefly about the F2P conversion and how the company pulled off such a successful sudden jump from their subscription model!

 

 

OnRPG: Hello! Please introduce yourself and tell us a bit about what you do for En Masse.

 

Hello!  My name is Patrick Sun, and I’m the Associate Producer for TERA here at En Masse Entertainment.  I’m mostly in charge of working with the development team, Bluehole Studio, at getting content builds of TERA out to our market.  I also voice player concerns, help plan community events, and get owned by other players in our battlegrounds when I have the time.

 

 

OnRPG: When did orders come in that it was time for the free-to-play transition? How long had you been preparing for it prior to the announcement?

 

We started months before our announcement.  There really wasn’t a switch we could just flip to make TERA free.  A lot of our back end systems, as well as the game itself, had to go through a complete overhaul to make this transition as seamless for players as possible.

 

 

OnRPG: Your model is incredibly fair for new players while still providing plenty of goodies for long-time veterans like myself. Were there any past conversions from subscriptions your team looked at to get a nod of either good or bad ways to go about it?

 

We looked at a variety of titles ranging from super popular to niche, but I don’t think there’s any specific title (or titles) that led us in the direction we eventually took.  We’re all gamers here, and as a player and a consumer we know what feels right which helped us structure our current business model. Our philosophy from the beginning of the transition has been to avoid gating content to force players to spend money. We find that if players are truly enjoying the game, they are happy to spend money on things they want to buy.

 

 

OnRPG: Again and again end-game content seemed to be a constant complaint with the early launch state of TERA. With a whole new audience rising through the ranks, what do you have planned and what have you introduced since launch to change this consensus on TERA’s end-game?

 

Since launch, we’ve introduced a variety of end game content which continues to expand in the oncoming months. The Nexus introduced a multi-stage raid event while PvP players compete against each other in 3v3 and 15v15 battlegrounds to win epic gear. Battlegrounds will continue to grow in our future updates to a massive 20v20 siege in addition to an extensive revamp of the political system to include alliances. These are just some of the updates we have planned, but we’ll provide more information in the near future.

 

 

OnRPG: And with the incoming planned content, are you intending to adopt a B2P model for major expansions akin to titles like WoW and the original Guild Wars?

 

 

We’re invested in our free model and currently do not have plans on changing it to anything else.

 

 

OnRPG: Thanks for your time and again my appreciation for publishing such an adrenaline filled MMORPG. I wish you the best of luck going forward.