Nival showcases Prime World‘s new story driven PvE scenario.
Yearly Archives: 2013
Prime World Now Available 24/7
After a long series of surprise limited beta weekends testing the various modes, Nival’s Russian developed MOBA Empire Building Hybrid, Prime World, has now opened to the public at all hours of the day!
The various modes are set to a rotational schedule changing up your gameplay experience depending on what hours of the day you log-in. Players can also now purchase gold, the in-game currency, to unlock higher level heroes sooner along with purchase Prime World’s signature skins that can completely change the look (and sometimes even gender!) of a hero.
Those looking to join should check out the official Open Beta post for more info, guides, and chances to win gold from dev-run events.
AIKA Online Massive Update – Zereca’s Plot: Land of Wailing

Redbana refreshes the experience of playing AIKA Online this August with the upcoming patch update: Zereca’s Plot: Land of Wailing. With this patch, players have brand new content and features to explore and enjoy.
Level Cap Raised to Level 90
All players had to make do with the level 85 level ceiling-that is, once they’ve struggled through training their characters to reach that point. Zereca’s Plot: Land of Wailing increases both possibilities and game difficulty by increasing the max level of all characters to level 90, and adding a few key features that will change the gameplay as veterans know it:
New Skills
Each job class gets a new skill waiting to be unlocked at level 85.

New Level 90 Equipment
Each job class can get new equipment sets to augment their characters’ strengths. With the new Unique Disassembly System, players can acquire the materials for the Heaven Set by disassembling level 80 unique equipment.
Pran Changes
Just like the players’ characters, Prans have notable changes in this update too. With Pran Skill Improvements better viewed once the update goes live, and the Property Change feature allows for wider customization choices.
New Field Map, New Dungeon
The titular Land of Wailing map is added to the game, filled with monsters ranging from level 90 to 95. With it comes a new HELL MODE dungeon. In Kynari Aviary HELL MODE, players level 85 and up can enter this daily dungeon to challenge the powerful boss: Seridunn. If players experience difficulty in this map, they can receive a special buff through the Air Garden Totem for assistance.
Anno Online – So You Like To Build Cities?
By Jordan Hall (ApocaRUFF), OnRPG Journalist
Anno Online is a f2p browser-based strategy game brought to us by Ubisoft. It’s based on a popular series of RTS games of the same name. Designing cities, trading with others, and doing your best to grow your empire are all goals of the game. It seems like it should be a great game with many interesting features. Let’s see if Blue Byte has been able to capture the magic of the Anno games and put it into your browser within an MMO setting.
Customization
There aren’t any real “characters” to customize in Anno Online, except for your avatar. Most customization comes from how you decide to design your cities and build your empire. That being said, you will basically be exactly the same as almost every other player. However, given the genre, this is OK in my opinion. Holding a lack of customization against an RTS game is like being angry at an FPS for not having any sandbox features – you can’t really do it unless you’re just being unreasonable.
Graphics
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised as it’s 2013, but I have to admit that I was pretty happy with how good the graphics are for a browser-based game. I mean, sure, the graphics aren’t much better than an RTS game you would find in the mid 2000’s, but they’re still good. Especially when you consider that you don’t have to download a client or extra plugin to experience them. The world is beautiful in detail and the citizens of your city are all animated. I loved that I could watch my citizens go about their business and I am quite pleased with the graphics quality of Anno Online.
Controls
Being a browser-based RTS, a majority of the “control” in Anno Online centers around the mouse. From what I experienced, the mouse was always smooth and the UI was as responsive as you could want. The few keybindings I made use of worked very well, too. There were a few times that I had a bit of lag, but I believe it was an issue on my side. I’ve had no real negative experiences with the controls. I’m glad that all the pleasantries of a client-based game have been incorporated into the browser, so there isn’t much to want for.
Community
Being developed and published by a big publisher, combined with the already well-known Anno name, the community for this game isn’t hurting. The global chat is always moving and questions are often answered very quickly. If you’re having issues, be they game or technical issues, you will generally meet a helpful response when you ask for help. Occasionally you’ll run into the odd troll, but they haven’t been an issue for me yet. Overall the community in Anno Online is of a healthy size while still remaining helpful.
Gameplay
Gameplay in Anno Online revolves around your standard progression that you will find in most RTS games. You start with nothing and follow the tutorial to get a jump start from rewards. You then develop your city, balancing production with citizen happiness. As you continue along, more and more buildings and features will be unlocked. If you’ve played a modern RTS in the last three years, this won’t be anything new to you, but you will appreciate how smoothly everything works.
As you play, you gain access to new types of buildings and designs. What might start as a small fishing village can grow into a bustling town that spans across a whole island. The drive to play the game comes from wanting to expand your empire even further, being as efficient as possible with your city designs to optimize production and trade. Trade happens on many different scales. There is trade within a city, trade with other cities, and even trade with other players. Economic success is the true name of the game, and just about everything you do will be towards that goal.
After a while, you might get tired of designing cities and directing your empire. To make things more interesting, more than a few interesting features that will add a bit of change have been added. An example of this is treasure hunters. You can have ships built and man them with a treasure hunter and send them off to find you goodies. It seems like these rewards can be anything and everything so there is a chance to strike it rich. It is little things like this that help change things up and keep it from getting boring.
Level progression is a thing, but it seems to mostly pertain with unlocking certain features. It acts as more of a show of how far along you’ve gotten than anything else, which is fine. The cash shop, which uses a currency called “rubies” seems like it will be pretty pay-to-win. That is just an early assessment, though. While it will certainly give you an advantage if you use rubies, I haven’t been able to tell if that advantage will actually be any good against other players or not. Another thing worth mentioning is that it is possible to unlock new hats, titles and other customizations through various means.
Conclusion
Anno Online appears to be a very solid MMORTS. I enjoy the idea that my city lives on and trade continues when I log off, as it’s nice to log on each day to see how far your economy has progressed in your absence. It adds a lot more fun to the goal of building an efficient city and trade economy. If I had one gripe, it would be that player interaction doesn’t seem to be as big as it should, especially in the early game. I also want to mention that the game has some superb music that really fits the setting. Often, I will mute the music of a game and listen to my own playlist, which is something I didn’t do with Anno Online. All-in-all, my time was well spent in Anno Online and I had a great deal of fun playing. Check it out if you are a fan of the city-building and RTS genres!
Features: 3/5
Customization: 3/5
Graphics: 3/5
Controls: 5/5
Community: 5/5
Overall: 4/5 – A great RTS experience! But could use some improvement.
Narrativium
Clipped from: http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/index.php/Narrativium
To drive a world, things need a reason. The reasons can be simple window dressing for some games. Take pretty much any FPS or MMOFPS. It’s either good guys versus the other guys or it’s Faction Flavour One versus Faction Flavour Two/Three/Etc.
That’s no bad thing, if you pressed me, I’d happily identify as Vanu in Planetside. Smurfs and Commies can suck my plasma bolt. Conflict is easy to organize amongst players. Someone sooner or later is always going to take a swing at another person. A game based on it? Well that’s its own content. It also comes with its own troubles which we’ll cover another time.
In the PvE world however, we need something more. We need a narrative. A reason to be doing the things we are doing. On Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Narrativium is that driving force, or in his own words..
The most common element on the disc, although not included in the list of the standard five: earth, fire, air, water and surprise. It ensures that everything runs properly as a story. For example, if a boy has two older brothers, chances are they will go on a quest. The first will be strong, and fail because of his stupidity, the second will be smart, and fail because of his frailty and the youngest brother will then have no choice but to go out, succeed and bring fame and fortune to his poor family.
Narrativium makes stories go, stories are life.
Living Story
The first thing to come to mind for me when dealing with the idea of a living story naturally is the one named for it. Specifically ArenaNet’s Guild Wars 2 Living Story. Anyone in need of a refresher should pop over here for Dusty Monk’s recap.
Now win, lose or draw, ArenaNet deserves applause and support for the attempt to bring a constant stream of new content into the world in such a fashion. It does give the impression of passing time, changing identities and inescapably a Living story.
Another game near and dear to my heart bringing out content but nowhere near as regularly… (Can anyone else keep up with ArenaNet’s promised every two weeks?).. is of course The Secret World. No one can in my mind say a word against Funcom’s stories presented in The Secret World. Wonderfully written, cleverly voiced and acted out… the scenes of story are a delight each and every time I experience them.
Whether DLC that you must purchase, an expansion or a free update, stories are what drives content. If there wasn’t a need for some sort of framework to give the activity meaning, well any studio would be able to pump out vast volumes of bland repetitive content to keep you clicking. Stories are here to stay in the massively online world. Sometimes they will be the creation of the players themselves in sandbox games. Other times they will be the newest biweekly/bimonthly/biannually release from the studio.
Transmedia
Stories are important, but I wonder if there isn’t a better way to arrange them. I’ve been playing through the Living Story in Guild Wars 2 when I want. Other times I end up ignoring it as something that hasn’t caught my imagination. For some I imagine Mist of Pandaria was a great thing to get their hands on, but what if you really just hate Pandas and wanted something else?
Earlier I mentioned the problem with PvP games. That problem is sooner or later they run the risk of being repetitive. Some x factor can be introduced to shake things up but there is still always the chance that fans of the game will settle into a rut.
One clever fix to this that I have seen is that of the upcoming Warhammer 40,000 Eternal Crusade.
The new world may have a completely different ecosystem, new resources, new layout, and all of that to fight over. Think of it like competitive “seasons” in any sport. What’s the point of a war if no one wins? And that’s the philosophy behind having a campaign system in Eternal Crusade. Source
Eternal Crusade. As long as people are playing, well there’ll always be more of the galaxy to conquer.
So if sport can inform the e-Sport of a PvP game, how about we take something else and apply it to PvE games?
Climactic Events
Right now there is an operating Transmedia game, Defiance. However you know, I think they’re missing a trick. They have DLC and episodic content, but they don’t have a season arc at the moment. Maybe I am incorrect in that, please do drop a comment if I am.
Turn on the TV and check out any big show at the moment. There is a season arc. There may well be episodes of the week but over all they have a describing arc which not only helps the characters grow but brings upswings to the climactic moments of mid-season and end of season breaks.
Do I want cliffhangers in my MMOs? No thank you. I’ve got enough of those, both resolved and not, from my television. I do think though some games and some IPs could benefit from stealing proven story methods from TV.
Next week Guild Wars 2 will move into Cutthroat Diplomacy. There will be a period where we vote for either Ellen Kiel or Evon Gnashblade.
One will win, and players will get a bonus for it.
If this was television or a book? Well … let’s say I would be enjoying the imminent revenge plot line. Online, I hope that they remember to shake things up a bit more if they want the story to be truly living.
(Bonus Question for particular Readers. If MMOs are TV shows, does that make NCSoft the Fox of Online gaming?)
Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade
Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade is a 3rd-person, PvP-focused, Action MMORPG created by Behaviour Interactive and published by Bandai Namco. For the first time, players select one of the authentic factions of the 41st millennium and fight for control of a persistent world, claiming territory in massive battles and hacking their way through procedural content while earning the right to customize their characters in a deep progression system drawn from Warhammer 40,000 lore.
Features:
Massive Battles: Combat in Eternal Crusade ranges from a personal clashing of Chainswords to truly epic warfare. Dive into the shifting frontlines, engage in melee, take to the air with a jump pack or fire into the fray.
Embrace your faction: Work together with your squad and faction to overcome constant resistances from enemy factions in PvE or PvP game modes.
Choose your allegiances : Pick between twenty different sub-factions, then earn hundreds of weapons and accessories drawn from 29 years of Warhammer 40,000 lore.
Behaviour Interactive
Behaviour Interactive
City of Titans
City of Titans (previously called The Phoenix Project) is a community-run attempt to rebuild a new superhero MMO from the ashes of the City of Heroes community. Founded by players, the game is currently in early development, but hopes to be able to produce a new game based on the same theme and principles that players loved in the original game. The game is undergoing a Kickstarter project to gain the software and team required to keep the game sustainable for the long run.
Missing Worlds Media
Missing Worlds Media
Mighty Quest for Epic Loot Closed Beta Key Giveaway
OnRPG is teaming up with Ubisoft Montreal to bring you the greatest loot of all, Closed Beta keys for the Mighty Quest for Epic Loot!
The Mighty Quest For Epic Loot is a competitive player-versus-player experience where the one goal is simple: loot! Choose from one of three heroes and raid other players’ castles, fighting and avoiding danger to collect over 500 unique pieces of treasure. Meanwhile, build and design your keep’s defenses with traps and minions to keep other thieves out!
To get your key you have to follow these instructions:
- If you are not yet a member of OnRPG please sign up here.
- Enter your OnRPG username and password below to get your key.
- The key will appear at the bottom of the page. Copy & paste it to a safe place as you may not be able to retrieve it once closing your browser!
To Redeem your Key:
- Visit the special event registration page HERE
- Sign-up for an account and enter your beta key at the bottom of the page
- Brace yourself for epic traps, mighty monsters, and ultimate glory!












