Monthly Archives: April 2013

EverQuest – Shadow of Fear Press Event

By MerryQuiteContrary, OnRPG Journalist

 Everquest Shadow of Fear Preview

Recently I had the opportunity to discuss Shadow of Fear, the second instalment in EverQuest’s 19th expansion Reign of Fear, with the EQ development team. The team included Thom Terrazas (producer), Jonathan Caraker (lead designer), Julie Burness (assistant lead game designer) and Douglas Cronkhite (assistant lead game designer). It was immediately clear that this team loves their game and enjoys discussing it. Not only do they love their game but they seem to really understand how vital their playerbase is to the development of EverQuest, citing the enormous amount of feedback.

 Everquest Shadow of Fear Chelsith Reborn

EverQuest had its 14th anniversary on March 16th and as part of the celebration have released the second chapter in the Reign of Fear expansion which was released in November 2012. Shadow of Fear features two new zones: Chelsith Reborn and Plane of Shadow. These two new zones are meant for level 100. Chelsith Reborn is a mysterious new Shissar city that has made a sudden appearance. It is unclear as to why or how it has appeared. It will be up to the player to figure it out. Also included is an arena which boasts ten different champions to fight. Julie assured us that the loot would be well worth the risk of taking on these champions. As well as the new zones there are new and powerful spells, raid content, quests and missions, achievements and enhanced AA lines.

 

What the team seemed the most excited about however was the Plane of Shadow or as Thom puts it, “Plane of Shadow is kickass”. The Plane of Shadow was once two planes: light and dark. The beings of these planes fought each other constantly but eventually came together, using their combined energy, to form the Plane of Shadow. It is here in the Plane of Shadow that the god Luclin lives. Luclin is the balance between light and dark. This will be the first time in game the players have met Luclin. What is particularly exciting about Luclin is her custom appearance, animations and wait for it…voice overs! When asked if there will be more voice overs to come Thom responded with, “yes, you betcha” This is great news for EverQuest fans.

Not only was the team eager to talk about the new content but also to describe how they are working on the continual delivery of story-the making of history within the game. Thom says, “We are working better and we are delivering better” and that more story will be coming, “soon™”.

  Everquest Shadow of Fear Luclin

It is exciting times to be playing EverQuest and one thing is certain and that is that I need to get to levelling. See you in game!

Powerful Protectors Summoned For The Lost Titans Open Beta Launch

Lost Titans

 

 

Calling upon the vigilant Warriors of Light, ZQGame today announced that its mythology themed, free-to-play massively multiplayer online role-playing browser game, The Lost Titans, is entering its open beta phase.

 

 

The Lost Titans gives players a fresh take on old mythological tales. As a newly trained Warrior of Light, characters that players control, players must find their way through an epic, continuous storyline, inspired by real Egyptian, Greek and Roman mythologies. Journeying through the world of Aristos, players are tasked with saving their Titan Ruler, Hyperion, and the land, from Titan Ophion’s destruction and betrayal.

 

 

Lost Titans

 

 

The Lost Titans launched its first beta phase on November 29, 2012, and this second beta gives players access to plenty of new content, including new pets, mounts, zones, bosses and additional player-vs-player (PvP) features to an already expansive next-gen browser game. Moreover, this next beta phase increases the player’s maximum level cap to 85 from 75, offering a more balanced in-game economy and better player progression.

 

 

“More than 200,000 registered users participated in our first beta and our community has played a large role in the development of The Lost Titans. The new additions and updates in this open beta phase were a direct result of the exceptional player engagement and feedback,” said Justin Lin, lead producer of The Lost Titans. “With its client-level graphics and action-packed gameplay, The Lost Titans is setting a new standard for browser games, and we have even more stories and refinements planned for the future.”

 

 

Lost Titans

 

 

Key updates include:

 

  • CORE OF ARISTOS: Ophion has been mining the magical power in Aristos, and the entrance to the Core of Aristos has recently been discovered. Players must venture deeper into the core, fight their way to the ultimate boss, and avenge Lord Hyperion.
  • ZEUS’ FURY BATTLEGROUND: Saddle your mounts and ready your weapons! During this new event, players will fight new bosses and other players all at the same time. Additionally, they’ll have to take on Punishers, a new group of high-level monsters that may require Warriors of Light to band together for victory.
  • DUEL OF THE PROTECTORS: This new PvP feature allows players to challenge an opponent and “Duel.” The winner gets bragging rights and a reward.
  • RITE OF PASSAGE: A revamped beginners’ area, where all players are now inducted into the Order of of Light. Players must prove their worth as a Warrior of Light by facing the trapped water demon.
  • FORTUNA’S WHEEL: Spin to win and give luck a whirl! “Fortuna’s Wheel” is a new, roulette-styled event, where players can win any of the following rewards: Nether Rocket Fragments, Blue WarSouls, Mount Souls, Silver, Gold, Brilliant Shards, Faction Points, and Star Lucks.
  • NEW MOUNTS: Travel through Aristos at top-speed on “Nether Rocket,” a new mount obtained only through Fortuna’s Wheel.
  • NEW PETS: Players can now adopt new pets, including “Pogo,” the cuddly panda, “Minifinny,” the mini-Finback, and the alluring “Stormfell” fairy.
  • UPDATED VIP SYSTEM: The VIP system has been expanded and modified to be more accessible; players VIP 1 – VIP 12 will be rewarded with new economic and aesthetic perks.

 

 

Open beta features will become available tonight at 7 p.m. PDT exclusively on the new Olympus server for those starting new games. Previous servers will not be wiped and players are still able to access prior content.

 

 

Lost Titans

 

 

In addition to being highly customizable, and specially designed to be accessible to all types of players, The Lost Titans uses a proprietary game engine to introduce client-quality performance and effects to the browser game. These features distinguish The Lost Titans as the first AAA browser game for core and casual players alike.

 

 

The Lost Titans will be commercially available later this year.  The game is free-to-play, with optional in-game micro-transactions, and accessible on major PC browsers with minimal downloads.

 

Age of Wushu: Book Fight Club

Skill books in Age of Wushu are sought after more than any other item. They are the way to grow in power. Learning new skills add new weapons to your arsenal, new options to move in combat, and more. Coming across these items is not as easy as having a Ming Dynasty library card though. A popular method of achieving books and creating a reputation among peers is Robbing Scripts.

 

 

Because of the danger involved, script stealing is reserved for players that have some experience in game. After joining a school and reaching the level of Novice, a player can participate in the daily event. At 7pm Server Time scripts will appear in a designated school. To accept the task, talk with your Library Guard of your school and teleport to the scene where the scripts are located. Simply infiltrate the school, steal the books, and run back home with the book bag loaded with new skills. Simple, right?

 

 

Along the way are some player obstacles you will encounter thought. Schools are made aware when they are the target of the day for stealing. This creates a difficult arrangement when fighting through players protecting their teachings from outside fighters. In addition to live players, NPCs will also step into the fray and honor their sect.

 

 

Once you’ve got a book and made it out of the school grounds, you are not clear of danger. Another player, perhaps even a friend can strike you down and take the books for themselves. These precious bound chests hold the most powerful secrets in the game and can change the relationships of many men. If you do make it back alive, your reward is a script to learn (or sell) and honor certificates with your school.

 

Log in and begin your training to steal or protect scripts. Age of Wusuh’s free-to-play excitement is available now, and will be at GameStop on April 23rd!

Moonlight Online Review – When Werewolves and Vampires Collide

By MerryQuiteContrary, OnRPG Journalist

Moonlight Online, developed by China-based IGG, is a free to play fantasy Vampire based MMORPG for Facebook, though the player can log in using Twitter, Yahoo, MSN and Google. Currently only Windows OS is supported.

The world of Ansgarde is in trouble or so the story goes. Unnamed dark forces are attempting to overthrow the three great races of Human, Vampire and Werewolf. There doesn’t appear to be much in the way of lore but if you are fan of Twilight or just like vampires and werewolves in general then you are in luck. Moonlight Online has plenty of both.

Moonlight Online Map

There are three races to choose from in Moonlight Online: Vampire, Werewolf and Human. Each has their own special abilities, style and starting zones. Character creation offers the choice of the three races, gender and several looks for each. Character creation is very basic with only two or three choices for face but quite a few for hair colour and skin colour. There isn’t a slider bar to be had anywhere. Vampires and Werewolves have the choice of being a knight, rogue or mage and Humans can pick from knight, mage and sage.

Moonlight Online Vampires

“Moonlight Online boasts 3D amazing graphics.” Amazing is a rather strong description. Decent graphics would be more of an appropriate adjective here. I haven’t seen any evidence of physics or ragdoll effect. There isn’t a lot of character detail. I have a high end gaming PC and I can’t tell the colour of my character’s eyes. This is with settings turned all the way to max. That being said the art direction has a haunting old world quality to it. There is considerably more detail in the architecture and environs than the characters. While the graphics aren’t bad the sound effects are. The sound effects are annoying; I had to turn them off. I would rank them on par with Runes of Magic. You know that tinny metal on metal sound? Yeah, that. The background music is nice without being obvious.

Moonlight Online Review

As with most free to play games, the interface is cluttered with promotions, giveaways, and rewards as well as the standard fare. If you think the interface looks a bit familiar that is because it bears a striking resemblance to the standard WoW interface, especially the red buttons. The item mall, however, is unobtrusive but there is a scrolling ticker announcing miscellaneous items or sales. The item mall carries things like reagents, warehouse expansions, rep gain items, guild items, materials, pets, mounts and fashion outfits.

Moonlight Online Mall

Graphics aren’t that important to most as long as the combat is good. Luckily, Moonlight Online has surprisingly average combat which is neither good nor bad. If you’ve played any of the AAA titles you will feel right at home here. One of the more interesting features is the ability to enhance your weapon and then transfer its abilities to a new weapon. By enhancing your weapons you unlock new skills. Where Moonlight Online potentially fails is with the questing which seems to be a lot of running around talking to this NPC or that. Levelling is incredibly fast at least at lower levels. When you do get to fight there doesn’t seem to be any real threat that you may lose to. I would even say lower level characters are a bit over powered. I can’t say if this carries on throughout the game but hopefully end-game has further challenge.

Moonlight Online Traster

There are currently only four dungeons in Moonlight Online. The first dungeon becomes available at level 28. There are several events throughout the day which require the player to be at least level 25 to 30 depending on the event. There is some PvP in the form of arenas which are open to level 50+. However, none of this is immediately clear and requires some looking. I found nothing in the tutorial with regard to PvP options.
Mentoring is another feature of Moonlight Online though I haven’t determined to what end other than possibly extra experience. Supposedly, as a disciple, graduating from your mentor brings “great rewards”.

Moonlight Online Blodwyn

Aside from mentoring another feature that is somewhat unique or at least one that isn’t encountered that often is meditation. Meditation allows the player to gain experience and energy while offline. In later levels this requires a certain reagent.

Overall, this is a fun and easy game. It would be ideal for those new to MMORPGs to learn on; however, it could do with a better tutorial. It has its own merits and a few faults but it is early days yet for Moonlight Online. It will be interesting to see how it develops over time. For a Facebook game, Moonlight Online is a nice way to spend some time. If you haven’t tried it yet, why not give it a go? Trust me, you could do a lot worse.

The Femme Fatale Takes Center Stage in District 187: Sin Streets

D187-Femme

 

 

 It’s time to get seduced by the mysterious femme fatale as District 187: Sin Streets (D187), an urban combat first-person shooter (FPS) published by Netmarble, adds its first female characters. The latest update, “Femme Fatale,” also adds new features, including a new team death match map and new gold-plated weapons. Fans of fast-paced, close quarters combat can play D187 by signing up for free on the game’s official website.

The “Femme Fatale” update includes:

    • First Female Characters – “Femme Fatale” introduces the game’s first female characters: Emilia, a rebel that has turned to a life of crime; and Bridget, a former pro cheerleader now fighting to restore peace and order with the S.W.A.T. team. These characters provide players with a 30 percent experience boost and 15 percent gold boost, and also sport a 30 percent quicker reload time.

 

    •  New Map: “Metro” – Transit hubs act as tactically significant vantage points in any urban warfare setting, and D187 is no exception. Metro, the only working transit hub left in District 187, is now up for grabs.

 

    • More Arsenals – The update adds five new guns, including the “PSD XR-Gold-Fully Moded” sniper rifle, the “Lizard M3TC” shotgun and the stylish “DE Crane-Gold” pistol. Furthermore, the newly added “Heart Grenade” gives literal meaning to Femme Fatale. Useable by female characters only, the grenade lets players show their love in a fatal new way.

 

 

 

For the full list of newly added items and features, please visit: http://d187.netmarble.com/community/news/view/2357

OnRPG Shotgun News 4/17: Prime World, Darkfall, Guns of Icarus, and Much More!

By Shannon Doyle (Leliah), OnRPG Elder Scribe

 

District 187: Sin Streets Introduces Femme Fatal

FemmeFatale

Lookout world here come the women! For the first time in District 187: Sin Streets’ history women will be playable characters. Emilia is a former pro cheerleader who turned to a life of crime and badassery. With her in the Femme Fatal update comes a new map, Metro, where players battle for the only transport hub in District 187.

 

Guns of Icarus Meets Kickstarter Goal

Thanks to the fans of Guns of Icarus they’ve reached their $100,000 goal with 34 days remaining. And that means the stretch goals are coming out. The next goal is $350,000 which will mean a world map of towns and trade routes and much more.

 

Prime World Live Stream

Prime World is hosting it’s first live stream right now on twitch.tv. Log in at 3PM EST and join the conversation where you’ll be able to ask questions. And keep an eye out on OnRPG later this week to see more coverage of Prime World from DizzyPW.

 

DUST 514 Hosts Reddit AMA

Tomorrow from 3AM GMT CCP will be hosting an Ask Me Anything session with 8 different members of the development team. Those with questions are invited to post them during a 24 hour time period after which the CCP team will get together and start a crazy answering session.

 

Star Trek Online Character Creation Gets Improvements in Coming Expansion

STO

A new dev blog shows off the changes to the character creation process for Star Trek Online which will be part of the Legacy of Romulus expansion. It will include the ability to choose your faction from the start, touching up to the visual interface, preset options for streamlining, and much more.

 

World of Warcraft Battlechest on Sale for $10

For this week only you can buy the WoW Battlechest for just $10. This is half the price it normally is. So if you don’t already own World of Warcraft now is your chance to pick it up on the cheap.

 

Darkfall: Unholy Wars Launches

After a long wait Darkfall: Unholy Wars has launched at last. It is only available via digital distribution from the official site so you don’t have to worry about finding a game store that stocks it.

Light of Nova Review – A Shining Light in Dark Cold Space

By Remko Molenaar (Proxzor) OnRPG Journalist

 

Light of Nova Review

 

In this Massively Multiplayer Online Real-Time Strategy (MMORTS) game you will have to take over the commander role of the fleet and grow your invincible space army to take control of the solar system. Light of Nova is yet another game that takes a shot at pulling in RTS fans just like me with a fascinating story line and exciting battles.  But with thousands of other players and multiple available servers there’s plenty of competition waiting to keep your intergalactic imperialistic fantasies nothing more than a dream.

 

When you are making your first character you can choose between four different ‘Arms.’ These Arms are different forces with a different view on life and the events leading up to this point. Each Arms has its own piece of the solar system held out, though they’re intent on expanding to capture the rest in time. There aren’t any benefits to joining one of these so it is purely based on whether you like the background story or not. As usual once you are started you get a thorough tutorial to teach you the basics of this game. Just like in any other RTS browser game you be focused on earning money to upgrade and build anything you need in this game. The best route to a booming economy comes from mining asteroids and running missions for rewards.

 

Light of Nova Large Battle

 

Once you are shown the ropes of the game and you are done with the tutorial you are let free. Everything is purely based on what you want; I decided to start off with the quests and missions. You get a few newbie guide quests to help you expand even more; these are all pretty basic like upgrading buildings and building other facilities that can help you grow your fleet even more. These quests reward you with a lot of minerals that can help you expand even more, so doing these are a win-win for new players. Unfortunately upgrading and building these production or resources facilities take real life time. So sometimes you will have to wait in order to complete even the newbie quests. As you can imagine this problem becomes more apparent in the later stages of the game as you attempt to acquire the higher end buildings and upgrades, making this game more ideal for killing downtime than playing hardcore for hours at a time.

 

Light of Nova Missions

 

Luckily beyond the tutorial quests there are still a series of missions you can participate in. These are more advanced and a lot more fun to do. In these missions you basically get to kill something such as crossing forces with space pirates! The combat is probably the highlight of Light of Nova so I was more than happy to jump into these missions. Plus the resources you earn from them substantially speed up your ability to upgrade and build on your empire. I also commend the devs for tying these missions into an overarching storyline rather than random encounters so lore fanatics can appreciate that there is purpose behind their warfare. Another side note to mention is by upgrading your facilities and doing missions you will earn experience. All the members of your fleet such as your commander or the governor are able to level up. If you level up you are given skill points that each one of your member can use in order to get extra stat bonuses to give you an edge over your opponents.

 

Light of Nova RPG Elements

 

Conclusion

 

Light of Nova is a free-to-play browser MMORTS game. You get exactly what you’d expect out of this but at a level of quality a bit above what the competition has on offer. It doesn’t really ask anything out of your computer at all and thus is playable just about anywhere on any machine even while multi-tasking. I have played many MMORTS browser games and Light of Nova’s art is top notch. Unfortunately though there isn’t a ton of features to check out and you can get burned out fast doing the same missions over and over. But if you are a big fan of real time strategy games then this shouldn’t bother you. The game is updated frequently and offers a large competitive alliance scene that is certainly worth checking out.

 

Light of Nova 1 vs Army

Light of Nova

Light of Nova is a browser based MMORTS title set in the dead cold reaches of space. Featuring constant updates, a competitive alliance system, and missions that tie into a larger story along with impressive artwork, it sets the bar high in the highly competitive browser empire building market.

Defining Defiance

By Jonathan Doyle (Ardua), OnRPG Journalist

Defiance Impressions @OnRPG

Defiance! I’m sure you’ve heard of it.

If not, in the real world Defiance is a cross platform, cross media, MMOFPS by Trion Worlds and the SyFy Channel. In their world? Defiance is the town that the television show of the same name is based in. It’s the name of a battle, a movement, a place and probably more besides.

Suffice to say, it gets around.

Definitely Fun

Seeing as Defiance revels in the name trans media for being both a television show and a game, we’re going to have a trans-review. We’ll do the review bit first and the opinion afterwards.

Defiance is in a word fun. In several words, as stated it is a massively multi-player shooter but unlike the others on offer in the genre, it’s mostly PvE. It’s not all shooting mobs though, Defiance comes equipped with team based PvP instances for small scale action against your fellow players as well as the Shadow War system.

Defiance Shadow War

Specifically Shadow War is an area of the open world that people are entirely able to pass through but also serves as the battle ground “training” for larger teams of up to 64 on a side.

On the PvE side of things you have plenty of things to shake your weapons at. Arkfalls, which if you are familiar with RIFT, well… they’re rifts. Rocks fall, things happen, bring ammo and friends for fun and loot. Time trial races on your vehicles, leader board toting mayhem instances and other such diversions. If Defiance lacks anything, it certainly does not lack diversions to keep the player busy in the post-apocalypse.

Getting into the game is easy and compared to some of the character and class creators out there, rather simple and quick. Some of that can probably be laid at the feet of also making the game for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 crowds. At the moment there are two races which come in the male and female flavors (hey, aliens, you have to check that sort of thing).

Defiance Character Creation

“Classes” for want of a better word really just define your starting gear and outfit. If you’re unhappy with the machinists’ semi auto rifle or the scavengers’ sniper rifle, don’t worry. You won’t go long without finding or being able to buy replacement weapons.

People are guided quickly though the tutorial getting their grenades, weapons and trying out the EGO powers as they go. Coming into the game proper players find themselves very quickly getting their first ride and ego points for passive perks to apply. There’ll be no long foot slogs for new players; you’ll be on the little ATV fairly quickly, with various other four wheeled weapons (hey you can run things over) eventually being offered.

Defiance Vehicles

There’s very little lead time between starting your character and getting into what Defiance is offering you. Episode missions, arkfalls, mutant uprisings. They all beckon.

 

Defying Borders

Moving away from the PC there are two major things to remember about Defiance.

Firstly it is cross platform with the PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 all being able to play Defiance. Sadly though not together. I am sure there are various reasons for it. Concessions have been made as a result with design to give the best experience across all three platforms. Would I prefer if I could hop into a Shadow War against a bunch of my friends who only have consoles? Of course I would, but if it isn’t to be, then we’ll survive.

Secondly, there’s that whole TV show thing happening. While initially the amount of bleed over from the game to the show and back is limited, it is an additional influence in the game world that should be considered. Building, presumably, on the show and on the episodic idea, Defiance offers season passes to its DLC that is set to come this year. Five separate DLCs are planned and will have both free to play and paid components in them. How they will affect one another as time goes on? Well…. that’s the big question and the grand experiment isn’t it? Time and Nielsen ratings will tell.

 

Defining Defiance.

From a purely review standpoint, Defiance is well worth a look. If nothing else the trans media effort will certainly make it a touch different to anything offered on the market as you know it. Everyone I know who plays is having a great time and complaints that I personally have seen are few enough and usually attributed to the normal growing pains any game has. Any of the larger complaints have been met head on by the Defiance website with frank and clear discussion on what they are doing with regards to lag and other such irritations.

From my inevitable opinion standpoint, how do you review half a product?

I do not mean that Defiance is unfinished. I mean that it is only half of the story. Any other game before launch and indeed through various quests or missions will flesh out its own lore, it’s own background and personality. Defiance doesn’t, or at least doesn’t to the same degree. Yes I’ve read everything I have come across in-game and listened slavishly to the audio logs I have found, but I am left lacking context and at times connection.

Defiance Nolan

Take Nolan from the show whom we meet in Defiance early on. That should be a big thing right? However at this point I feel it’s more of an intrusion. Go away Mr. TV Character, you’ve not yet in my experience explained yourself or indeed really been much of anything to me. I’ll stick with Cass Ducar, who is cuter anyway. Why do I feel that way? Television.

Defiance Review Cassducar

The characters of the show and indeed the history of the world have both been laid out on various wikis and interviews and whatnot around the Internet. However the actual emotional side, seeing the Pale Wars in full swing, watching the battle of Defiance, all of this is likely reserved for the TV show or is in areas of the game that I simply haven’t reached yet.

TV demands ratings, ratings demand people to watch and so in my mind the juiciest bits of the back story and the world have been kept for that. Gamers will happily head shot things from now until the end of time, they will be entertained or they won’t. Television viewers are treated as different creatures, despite obviously the hope that people will both watch the show and play the game.

So on the purely review standpoint, if you’re looking for a new game and want to storm mutant strongholds or mow down giant critters with a mob of people or simply a few fine friends, get Defiance.
On the opinion standpoint, I’m still waiting for the show so I can connect with the universe.

I also cannot wait to see how this whole trans media experiment goes and what it will mean for games and television in the future. My personal suggestion? Give them both a go, there may never be anything quite like this again.

In conclusion, if you join Defiance, you’ll probably find me lurking down near the Golden Gate bridge, eying my nemesis, the giant missile spamming murder bot.

Defiance Murderbot

You know what I need?
Defilade.