Monthly Archives: April 2013

OnRPG Shotgun News 4/3: Star Trek Online, Everquest II, and Dungeon Fighter Online

OnRPG Shotgun News 4/3: Star Trek Online, Everquest II, and Dungeon Fighter Online

By Shannon Doyle (Leliah), OnRPG Elder Scribe

 

 

First Contact Day Celebrations

50 years from now Vulcans will land on Earth during Humanity’s first official contact with an alien race. Ok, so we aren’t living in the Star Trek universe, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t an important day in Star Trek Online. And so from April 5th to April 11th you can get your own replica of the first Human warp capable ship,Phoenix.

 

 

Elsword Introduces Code Electra Class

Does the idea of laser beams and harnessing pure energy get you excited? Well the new Code Electra Class. This is a new option for Eve the Artificial Intelligence. There is also a new ability called El Spectrum which allows Eve to change between a variety of modes.

 

http://youtu.be/zlS2AjqFqDA

 

 

Everquest II Scars Awakened Enters Beta

The latest update for Everquest II is now open on beta. Scars Awakened will be hitting the live servers There will be class updates, new tradeskill quests, a new dungeon, and so much more. The beta is open to any EQ 2 player.

 

Dungeon Fighter Online to Close

Nexon has announced that they will be closing Dungeon Fighter Online in North America. The cash shop will shut down April 11th while the game itself will be shutdown on June 13th.

WoW Wednesday – A Short Guide to Pet Battles

WoW Wednesday – A Short Guide to Pet Battles

By Meredith Watson, OnRPG Azeroth Reporter

 

 

When pet battles where first announced most everyone laughed and said, “Pokemon”.  It may be true that Pet Battles are a knock off of Pokeman but I wouldn’t know. While I’ve never played Pokemon, I have pet battled and it is good fun. If you haven’t participated in pet battles yet for whatever reason at least give it a try. Maybe you think it is another time waster like Archaeology. It is but it won’t make you want to stab your eyes out.

 

 

What are Pet Battles?

The pet battle system is a fun little game within World of Warcraft using the player’s companion pets. It has a turn based combat system. The player can level their companion pets to level 25 by fighting and capturing pets in the wild. Fighting trainers and duelling other players are also options. The 5.2 patch included a quest line for the battling of legendary pets.

 

 

Surely by now we’ve all seen the Battle Pet Trainers in Orgrimmar and Stormwind. All you need is to be level 5, be in possession of 10 copper, and you can learn Battle Pet Training and Track Pets. If you don’t have any pets to start with the trainer will offer to train you with a pet specific to your race. You now have a space unlocked in your pet battle team interface. To unlock the second and third slots you will need to raise a pet to level three and then level five. In doing this, there is an achievement for both.  Assuming you’ve learned the pet from your inventory you can drag it to the unlocked slot from the list of pets on the left hand side.

 

 

Your trainer will give a short quest series which you will want to do as the reward is Revive Pets, which is vital to playing. This skill allows you to heal and resurrect your dead pets. Revive Pets is on a fairly long cool down so you will want to learn to use it wisely.  Any stable master in Azeroth will also heal your pets for a small fee. If travelling around Azeroth looking for a stable master doesn’t appeal to you and your Revive Pets is on cool down, there is another way. Doing the quests to fight Battle Pet Trainers and winning will reward you a bag of spoils. Quite often these bags contain pet bandages, which work just like Revive Pets but don’t share the same cool down.  I would love to see at some point the ability to make our own pet bandages or even be able to purchase them.

 

You are now ready to rumble

All pets have six different abilities they can use that are unlocked through levelling. Only three are active at a time however. In your team interface there is a drop down menu on each ability, allowing you to choose between two options. Some abilities have long cool downs that can last several rounds such as HoTs or debuffs.  Your pets can also be switched in and out during battle depending on their effectiveness. Only the three pets in your current team can be used though.

 

 

All pets are categorised by family types of which there are ten: Aquatic, Beast, Critter, Elemental, Dragonkin, Humanoid, Flying, Magic, Undead and Mechanical. All pet families have their own strengths and weaknesses against each other. For example, undead is weak attacking aquatic whereas mechanical is strong defending against elemental. The combat interface indicates their strengths and weaknesses so you can switch pets in and out as needed.  You don’t necessarily need an encyclopaedic knowledge of what each pet family strengths and weaknesses are to be a successful trainer.

 

 

Pet Battling out in the wild allows the player to capture the pets they are fighting if they so desire. Pets, like most things in WoW, come in colour-coded rarities: grey, white, green and blue. Blue pets are rare and will have more health and do more damage than their lesser counterparts. You will need to get the pet you want to trap down to 35% health before the trap icon lights up. If you miss, you can always try again the next round but remember the pet you are trying to trap will still keep attacking.  You must defeat all pets in the battle for the trap to be successful if it is a multi-pet battle.

 

 

PvP pet battles can be quite fun as well if battling wild pets and fighting trainers is a bit of a snooze- fest for you. You can do this two ways: Through the Pet Battle Finder or directly challenging another player. If you use the Pet Battle Finder and win, your surviving pets will gain experience whereas if you directly challenge another player and win no experience is gained. Unlike wild pet battles though, PvP battles through the Pet Battle Finder are timed.  One of the best things about this system is that you can’t interact with the player you are battling against avoiding the usual trash talking that comes with PvP. You won’t know their name, guild or server. It is all about the pet battle. As it should be. 

 

 

Currently, when battling, you and your pets are phased so that you can’t be interacted with or interact with the surrounding environment. This is soon to change come 5.3. Other players will now be able to watch pet battles as they happen. My hope is that they can’t be “heard” though.  There are quite a few changes coming for pet battles in 5.3 all of which seem quite positive.

 

 

Do you participate in pet battles? What changes or improvements would you like to see to the current system?

Elsword Introduces Electrifying New Class For Eve “Code Electra”

Elsword Introduces Electrifying New Class For Eve “Code Electra”

 

 

Kill3rCombo, publisher of the hit free-to-play action MMORPG Elsword, reveals another new class in its Transformation series. Popular character Eve, queen of a lost robotic race, gains a whole new set of looks and abilities with the Code Electra class. Her arsenal expands to include devastating laser beams and the harnessing of pure energy into aggressive electric attacks. This new choice for Eve is part of the on-going Elsword Transformation series; a multi-month campaign delivering a new class for each of the six unique Elsword characters.

 

 

Eve’s regal powers reach a new peak as she gains the ability to focus mystical energy into a wide array of deadly laser attacks. With the Code Electra class, Eve unlocks a new ability called El Spectrum, where she can switch between multiple modes which alter the way her laser beams behave and fire. Effects from the new modes include the ability to scatter beams more widely, tighten the beam for pinpoint accuracy and increased damage, and more. Each of the numerous skills players can choose for Eve is affected by mode switching, resulting in many strategic options. These modes must be mastered for players to gain the most from Eve’s new abilities.

 

 

Eve is no ordinary artificial intelligence; she’s determined to regain the glory of her ancient robotic race. Preventing the meltdown of the Nasod Core nearly drained Eve of her natural powers. Seeking a way to regain her abilities and become even stronger, Eve discovered the path to mastering the Code Electra class deep in the vaults of the Nasod Core. Now armed with the ability to wield laser beams on top of her already intimidating arsenal, nothing stands in the way of Eve’s goals, except foes waiting to be cut down.

Early Access: Gloria Victis Details Combat

Early Access: Gloria Victis Details Combat

 

 

Gloria Victis is a Medieval Realistic Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game that seeks to redefine the genre. The game will be launching a Pre-Alpha test within days (More Information to come) where we will be showing the game to the world for the very first time!

 

 

We are a passionate team of independent but professional developers determined to make a game that can be considered a piece of art. And as such, we will be breaking the paradigms of conventional MMORPGs and doing away with recycled textures, generic quests and identical gameplay mechanics.

 

 

As mentioned earlier, the Pre-Alpha is coming soon and I am pleased to give you all a run through of our combat system through these topics: Non Target Based System, Techniques (Skills), and finally Stamina. As you obviously are all avid gamers, I am sure that you are quite familiar with the generic keyboard mashing and potion spamming styled combat system present in the flood of cheap low-quality MMORPGs flooding the market these days. This will be one of the many conventions that we will be breaking with Gloria Victis. Instead, Gloria Victis features a Non Target-Based Combat System where players control exactly where, when and how they wish to execute their attacks and parries. So without further ado, I will be running through a major feature of Gloria Victis that makes it Paradigm Shifting as well as future development goals for the future, so without further ado, I present to you – Combat Mechanics.

 

 

Non Target-Based System

One of the conventions of games these days is the delegation of combat to a simple mouse click whereby the player would then proceed to watch his character hack away at an enemy, requiring the player only to once in a while mash the keyboard when skills are off cooldown.

 

 

This is a convention that Gloria Victis will be breaking in regards to combat with our Non Target-Based Combat System.

 

 

So what does this term mean to us? It means that the player will have to control how the character fights rather than delegating the fight process to the computer by a simple click. The player would have to swing in the right direction or you would be slashing nothing but air. The player would have to attack when the opponent’s guard is down in order to make a hit connect. Conversely the player would also have to block at the right time and in the right direction to protect themselves and also move around agilely to dodge blows and frustrate the efforts of the attacker. In this combat system, the reflexes and skill as a player play quite a major role in the outcome of fights. However, there are things that players can employ to overcome their opponents both in terms of offence and defence, which brings me to my next topic – Techniques.

 

 

Techniques

If Gloria Victis’ combat was only restricted to normal directional attacks, combat would be quite a dull affair, so to spice combat up and add to the dynamic quality, there will be skills designed to alter this pattern. However, they are not skills in the sense of the run of the mill game which is why I have called them instead “Techniques.” They operate in the sense that any person in real life can pick up a sword in real life and be able to slash around with it, but it takes training to be proficient and a tutor to learn the best specific styles properly.

 

 

Techniques also require the player to be facing the right direction and be at the right distance in order to connect with your opponent. Techniques too can be blocked, but players will find them a much greater threat than the typical attack and must have superb reflexes to reliably escape. As opposed to a cooldown system for skills, we are currently working towards “conditions” as being the restriction on techniques. For example: a quick counter-slash technique might only be executable after successfully parrying or a series of fast slashes to overwhelm the opponent when they are staggered. However for the Pre-Alpha, techniques will for now operate on a cooldown basis.

 

 

Techniques in no way replace normal attacks. The player is expected to use them to complement their basic attacks. For example: a player could use a left normal attack and execute a right quick slash technique effectively creating the combo “Left Feint”.

 

 

Stamina

As realism is one of the greatest considerations when developing Gloria Victis, we feel that it is unrealistic that a character be able to swing a heavy sword all day long without tiring. As a result managing stamina is vital to the success of a fight. Taking any actions such as running, striking, parrying or simply holding your weapon up in the air in preparation for an attack or anticipation of parrying consumes stamina. A character who runs out of stamina in the middle of a fight would be in quite a predicament, resulting in having his sword easily batted away by his opponent and a swift yet gruesome death.

 

 

Stamina consumption varies depending on playing style. For instance a player that chooses lighter armour would have a slower stamina drain whereas a more heavily armoured character would have less stamina as the weight of the armour will have a negative effect on dexterity. A player might choose to gamble the outcome of a fight in a flurry of blows expending most of their stamina in the opening portions of the fight in the hope of overwhelming their foe, or a player might choose to play slow and steady, parrying only the necessary blows and waiting for their foe to make a mistake or leave their guard down for a killing blow. Whatever the choice, managing stamina is a vital part of combat, using techniques for instance consumes more stamina than normal attacks due to the intricacies compared to the former.

 

 

So in summary, the combat in Gloria Victis is very dynamic and offers players plenty of options to make their fighting style truly their own. From armour choice to fighting style it is completely up to the player to choose, for players to discover who they are in terms of fighting and equipment. The decisions you make both in and out of fights will help build a reputation of who you are as a fighter.

League of Legends: Karmarama!

League of Legends: Karmarama!

By Jason Harper (Hhean), OnRPG League Reporter

 

 

 

Usually I don’t write about reworks, but this time I’m making an exception. Karma hasn’t so much been updated as gouged from the game and replaced by a thematically similar character with the same name.

 

 

The new Karma is a utility mage with little crowd control, yet has a good defensive trick in return. Her damage output isn’t great, but her range is particularly long. While she’s suited to being either a mid or support choice, she’ll likely return to her old position of not being in any games. Orianna, Morgana and Lux players could wish to play as her if they enjoy a handicap.

 

 

Pros:

Her enhanced shield is a Locket and Reverie combined

Her mantra grants her an ‘ultimate’ right from level 1

She pretty much has three ultimates

 

Image by DieNoob

 

Cons:

Has poor matchups against most mid laners

Her ‘ultimates’ are not as strong individually as most other characters’

Possesses no hard crowd control (Has an AoE slow and a snare)

Has no reliable crowd control

Damage output is poor without using mantra (and even then isn’t great)

 

 

Ability Summary

 

 

Gathering Fire [Passive]: The cooldown on Karma’s mantra lowers every time she lands a spell or hits an enemy champion with an auto-attack. Encourages you to always use Mantra as your opening spell, rather than hold onto it. Why this passive isn’t just rolled into Mantra is beyond me.

 

 

Mantra [R]: Enhances Karma’s next spell to gain additional effects. These additional effects scale with Mantra’s level, not with the original ability. While these abilities are given different names to their base counterparts, they still share the same cooldowns, unlike Rengar.

 

 

Inner Flame [Q]: Skillshot that explodes in an AoE on the first target it hits, slowing every enemy hit. This is her go-to ability, both for pushing and harass. Its slow projectile speed (relative to other skillshot harassment tools, like Ezreal’s Arcane Shot) makes it easy to avoid, and is easily blocked by minion waves.

 

Soulflare [Mantra Q]: The skillshot deals additional damage, then leaves behind a slowing field the size of the blast. If an enemy is still in the field when it disappears, they will be dealt additional damage. Most damaging of Karma’s abilities, with a total 1.8 ability ratio as of the time of writing. Due to the low cooldown of Inner Flame, this is her most often used Mantra ability, as she can use it at the start of a fight and still be able to get off another few casts to lower the cooldown of Mantra.

 

The main use of this ability is to drop it on an enemy that can’t move (either due to your own snare or crowd control from an ally) so they eat the full damage of both blasts for a good deal of damage. The other, less frequent trick to pull is to fire the skill shot at an advancing pack of enemy champions, using the created slow field stall them. This is especially effective in narrow parts of the jungle where the enemy can’t simply walk around the field.

 

 

Focused Resolve [W]: Karma tethers herself to a nearby enemy champion, dealing damage over time. If the tether expires and the enemy is still in range, they will be snared.

 

Renewal [Mantra W]: The snare deals additional damage while healing Karma based on a percentage of her missing health. This is intended to be her main duelling tool, but the health drain will only grant you enough health to survive one or two auto attacks. Since you can only target champions with the ability, you can’t use this as a normal sustain tool. No-one is going to be dumb enough to let you heal off them without trading for some damage.

 

 

Inspire [E]: Karma grants a shield and speed boost to a targeted ally.

 

Defiance [Mantra E]: Grants a speed boost and a portion of the shield to all allies in range (Stacks with the shield on the original target), while also releasing a burst of AoE damage. While this is a great ability, it will always have parts of it go to waste. If you’re using it as an engage/disengage tool (Like a Shurelya’s Reverie) at the start of a fight, the damage component is going to go to waste, as you’re not going to be using it in range of the enemy. If you’re using it to protect your allies in the middle of a brawl (as a Locket of the Iron Solari), then you get the bonus of hurting the enemy, but the movement speed bonus is often wasted.

 [page]

 

 

Combos & Shenanigans

Her basic combo is to use her Inspire to close ground with its movement speed boost, snare the enemy with Focused Resolve then smack them with a quick Inner Fire while they’re a sitting duck. If she can’t get in reach, then using Inner Fire’s slow to get close enough to use Focused Resolve is sometimes necessary.

 

 

Enhance her abilities as is called for in a given situation. Soulflare is best for damage and area denial, Renewal is a very situational tool that will help her win duels when both Karma and her enemy are on low health, and Defiance provides a good deal of utility in larger engagements.

 

 

Conclusions

When I played Karma on the PBE, I actually thought she was some time away from launch, as she felt so weak I couldn’t believe Riot considered her finished. The fact that she’s made it to live after receiving a nerf completely boggles my mind. She has a synergistic kit that rewards flexibility and quick thinking, which is usually the mark of a good character. Yet glaring oversights in her design prevent her from being anywhere near viable.

 

 

In order to be a successful mid laner, you really need at least two of three criteria: Good wave clear, good crowd control tools, good roaming capabilities. Being able to duel your lane opponent is good, but is not necessary if you can either push your lane out and gank or lock your opponent down long enough for your jungle to murder them. Karma has none of these things, and can’t even fight a large number of the common mid lane picks in her lane.

 

 

As a support, you’re looking for sustain, defensive utility and crowd control. Of those, Karma brings a great bit of defensive utility with her enhanced shield, but her complete lack of hard crowd control and sustain makes her a poor choice. Her reliance on AP scaling was the death knell of her previous incarnation’s support attempts, and unfortunately the shiney new model is no different. While she is taking her time to scale to a point where her abilities are useful, her AD carry is going to get bullied out of the lane.

 

 

She’s still better than the old Karma, but no longer being awful doesn’t mean she’s good. With more testing and tweaking she could have been quite an interesting, versatile pick. As she is right now though, she’s a fun choice that has nearly no impact on the game.

 

 

Final Verdict

If you already have her, give her a spin once more, just don’t expect to win your games. If you’re interested in her, resist your desire to impulse buy.

 

To discuss the new Karma yourselves, post in the massive League of Legends thread in the free to play MMOs section, or post in the comments section below. If you haven’t tried League of Legends yet, you’re missing out.

Looking to the Future of MMOs – A PAX Panel

Looking to the Future of MMOs – A PAX Panel

By Shannon Doyle (Leliah), OnRPG Elder Scribe

 

 

 

When six industry leaders get into a room to talk about the future awesome things happen. When those six people have to answer questions from the people who play their games you get a glimpse into the industry like none other. From the closure of MMOs to the future the MMORPG PAX Panel on the future of Online Gaming had it all. With industry vets like Jack Emmert from Cryptic Studios and Dave Georgeson from SOE on hand to answer questions and give their views it was the panel to be at this year.

 

 

The Future

So, what does the future hold for MMOs? This was the first question asked at the panel but I think the panel as a whole spoke more on the future than the one directed question. Answers ranged from more dynamic content and letting people do what they want, to the community helping developers. But what seems really to be the future is mobile access, the ability to be in the game in some way without being at your computer. We can already see this coming with things like ArcheVille which was recently announced to go with ArcheAge.

 

 

Mobility

Jack Emmert came straight out and said that mobile access/games are the future. While Chris Roberts from Star Citizen would like to see tablets become the first point of connection with fans.


 

Closing MMOs

My personal favorite question of the night was about the closure of MMOs. In particular the closure of City of Heroes and if everyone who plays an MMO should be prepared for their game to die. Every one of the panelists agreed, MMOs should last forever. Dave Georgeson put it quite simply, “City of Heroes shouldn’t have died, damn it.”  It was also said that any time one closes it is purely business. And finally, if a game is facing closure it should be mentioned to the fans before it is too late and ways should be provided for the community to help bring down costs.

 

 

All Classes on One Character

A member of the audience put forth the question of why can’t you level all the classes on one character. The best answer to that was again from Jack Emmert who said that ultimately MMOs are about being social. If you don’t need anyone else you won’t play with anyone else. And eventually if you’re only playing alone you’ll stop playing.

 

 

User Generated Content

Finally there was a discussion on user generated content. MMO content takes a long time to make so building a tool that will keep players happy and creating content of their own is only logical. At the same time though even user generated content requires a lot of work, and so it was suggested that there should be some sort of tip system in place for builders. A way to thank builders for the hard work they’ve put in. But all around it was agreed that user generated content is the future.

 

 

The future looks bright for MMOs. The industry is expanding in every direction. Mobility and user generated content seem to be the things of the future. And MMOs should never close. For me this one panel made the 3,000 mile trip completely worth it. And that is all thanks to the wonderful developers of the games we love.

Defiance Launches Worldwide Today

Defiance Launches Worldwide Today

 

 

Trion Worlds, the leading publisher and developer of premium games for the connected era, is proud to announce the launch of Defiance, the groundbreaking futuristic online open world shooter for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system, the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system and Windows PC. The Defiance Universe expands even further on April 15th, with the premiere of Syfy Network’s Defiance series.

 

“We’re incredibly proud that after five years of development, we are bringing this ambitious project to life,” said Nathan Richardsson, VP of Development for Trion and Executive Producer of Defiance. “The game launch is just the beginning of a truly unique entertainment experience and, in a couple weeks’ time, you’ll be able to tune into Syfy to see the story unfold, the characters develop, and realize transmedia entertainment unlike ever before.”

 

 

In Defiance, thousands of players, who take on the role of an Ark Hunter, scour a transformed Earth in search of valuable alien technology. Each Ark Hunter can play to its strength, customizing special abilities as well as upgrading a huge variety of both modern and alien weaponry at its disposal. Players can hunt alone or with others as they engage in massive co-op boss battles and fierce multiplayer combat known as Shadow War, in addition to taking on dynamic missions in campaign mode while exploring this constantly evolving world.

 

 

Digital copies of Defiance can be purchased online at http://defiance.com/en and both digital and physical copies of the game are available at all major video game retailers. Standard Editions start at USD $59.99.  Premium bundles, including the digital Deluxe Edition for PC and physical Collector’s Edition for console and PC, are available for USD $99.99. A limited run Ultimate Edition is also available for console and PC for USD $149.99, and includes a season pass, all Standard and Collector’s editions items and an exclusive Hellbug figurine.

 

 

Digital PC customers who have already bought a digital Standard Edition can upgrade to the digital Deluxe Edition for $39.99.  Full details can be found on http://defiance.com/en.

OnRPG Shotgun News 4/2: Camelot Unchained, The War Z, and Defiance

OnRPG Shotgun News 4/2: Camelot Unchained, The War Z, and Defiance

By Shannon Doyle (Leliah), OnRPG Elder Scribe

 

 

Camelot Unchained Kickstarter Reaches $200,000 in Half an Hour

The Camelot Unchained Kickstarter campaign was launched earlier today. And it didn’t even take a half an hour for them to reach the $200,000 mark! With nearly 900 people already backing the project. No one has taken them up on the $10,000 reward tier level yet but two have gone for the next highest, $5,000. To get a more up to date look or make a pledge yourself check out the Kickstarter campaign. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13861848/camelot-unchained

 

 

The War Z Issues Security Alert

The standard forums for The War Z have been replaced temporarily by a security alert. Players are being advised to change their passwords after their game databases which has player data in it were compromised. No payment information was obtained during the hack but email addresses and passwords were accessed.

 

 

Trion Worlds Launches Defiance

The cross media shooter made in a partnership between Trion Worlds and SyFy Channel has gone live on the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. Standard editions retail at $60. While two other editions cost $100 and $150. The TV show will premiere on SyFy on April 15th.