Square Enix provides a tour of various Final Fantasy XIV locales with comparisons between the PS3 and PC version of the game!
Yearly Archives: 2013
Dice Venture Review
By Remko Molenaar (Proxzor), OnRPG Journalist
Why are board games so awesome to do, but hard to find on the Internet? There isn’t really a major board game popular online that comes to mind even if I stop to think about it. Surely by now someone must have found a successful way of making this happen? Remember the good old times as a kid playing just a simple board game with your family on a Sunday afternoon? Everyone enjoyed that, and luckily you no longer need a real board to play these games. I recently tried out Dice Venture, a board game that follows the Monopoly formula but shortens the game to fit into a casual play session rather than the typical Monopoly marathon.
A squared sized board where players loop around endlessly buying places and cities? Boy that seems familiar. In fact, almost every element of Dice Venture comes directly from the Monopoly board game. So what made CJ Global think they could find a market for this online when Hasbro still hadn’t? Well they knew a cheap copy wouldn’t be enough to break into the PC world. That’s why they brought their title to both the PC and mobile audience to provide the endless entertainment of this board game to audiences on the go. This combined with a persistent currency and account ranking system appealed to me.
Just like in Monopoly, you start at the starting square. On every ‘lane’ or street as you know it you can buy houses, villa’s, hotels and landmarks to upgrade them and make you earn more money if a poor soul stumbles on one. Unfortunately in my first game I was the poor soul that was too unlucky with throwing the dice and as a result I stayed at every city that all the other three players owned. When you come onto these owned cities, islands or other landmarks you’re going to have a bad time and pay toll. Also note that cities with a Landmark cannot be taken over, so placing a landmark in your city is a must if you want to establish your lane. Luckily there is no Jail in Dice Venture but there is something even worse, a Deserted Island, where you will be stuck for three turns. Fortunately you can also walk on the World Cup dice that will boost your toll prices for the selected cities. And then there is also the World Travel dice that will make you travel anywhere on the map. And if you go through start, even with the world travel option, you will attain the 300k Cash you always earn when you pass Start.
The game is a little different and definitely a lot faster paced than a normal game of Monopoly. Especially if you’re as unlucky as me because I always seem to be unlucky when walking around the board. Somehow I always manage to pay the highest tolls, and be the most unlucky with fortune cards. Fortune cards are also a way to mess around with the other players. You can either earn a lot of money with them, get a useful card that can help you out later in the game, or you can attack someone and let him pay for it. Luckily you get six turns in total with messing around with your dice rolls. You can influence the roll three times to get both an even and odd number for your rolls. As you can imagine, this can help you out in tricky situations where you may have to dodge a few cities that are in prime position to end you in bankruptcy.
Since the game is a lot faster, you will definitely have to play with your first walk around the board. You should buy as much as possible right away, since people can lose a lot of income if they cannot buy anything at all and have to buy your cities. And if they do buy your cities, that money goes straight to you rather than the bank. So to deny them any profit at all, you should expand your empire in the first lap around the board, even if it puts you into dangerously low savings. If you do find yourself on the wrong side of the blank ink, bankruptcy gives you three choices. Sell your properties, get a loan or accept defeat. So always gauge your extra purchases on what you expect to pay and earn on any given turn before busting out the credit card willy nilly. If you are as unlucky as me, you will unfortunately have a bad time and even lose winning games. I have always been horrible with any game of chance involving dice. It turns out even with Dice Venture’s ability to impact the luck of the roll, my fate to lose games of chance was never stronger while playing.
Conclusion
Monopoly errrrr, Dice Venture brings the fun without reinventing the wheel. It’s easy to pick up and learn for even those odd people that were born post-Internet and never touched a board game. Games can take literally hours if you wish, and you really can have a lot of fun playing with friends or patient complete strangers. As I said, it is strange to see board games have yet to find their niche in the gaming crowd, and Dice Venture has the fun factor to change this. I personally had a lot of fun playing within a team or all by myself in this simple yet nostalgic board game!
FishAO CB Key Giveaway
OnRPG is partnered with Gamovation to bring you a batch of CB keys for the first major test of FishAO, an anime fishing MMO!
FISHAO (Fish Always Online) is a real-time multiplayer game which is playable in a browser. It is not a simple point and click puzzle game, but a true cute looking open world fishing browsergame. It’s a social game that will be available both on Facebook and at FISHAO.com. Players can customize their own character, meet new friends, compete in online tournaments, complete achievements and catch many fish (more then 150) to complete their Fishdex.
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 official site HERE.
- Sign up for an account and enter your beta key where prompted on the homepage
- Enjoy beta testing the world of Fish Always Online!
Elsword Review 2013 – The Brawler MMO Evolved
By Darren Henderson (DizzyPW), OnRPG/MMOHuts General Manager
Ahn nyung ha sae yo!
Welcome to the world of Elsword. A world clearly designed with Korean Manhwas (style of comics) in mind. From the original Korean voice actors to the dramatic box frame special attack cutscenes, be prepared for an art style that throws Anime stereotypes at you from the first moment you step into game. In fact, let’s clear out said list of stereotypes while we introduce the six playable characters available in-game.
Elsword – Tiny kid wielding overly large sword to compensate for small dog syndrome?
Check and double check.
Rena – Huge breasted elf girl?
I see no problems here.
Aisha – Loli mage?
What story would be complete without one?!
Raven – Dark brooding swordsman with family vengeance issues?
This stuff writes itself.
Eve – Nothing says royalty from an ancient forgotten race quite like white hair on an incredibly young looking character.
Eve has this stereotype on lock.
Chung – Effeminate boy with cannon large enough to remove any doubts of manly courage?
Elsword was sorely lacking in this area. Luckily Kill3rCombo’s goons destroyed Chung’s civilization and people as encouragement to get him into the action at last.
Carmen – The baseball bat swinging fun loving girl that represents all things held sacred in ‘Murica!
OK I made that last one up, but a guy can dream! Art property of CarmenMCS
Each character plays how you would imagine to an extent. Raven’s fireball overcharge mechanic and Eve’s dual drone weapon systems are rather unique in the MMO industry but the rest have a playstyle to match their image. At least until you get into the various job classes.
Variety is the spice of life, and vital to a long lasting MMO experience
Elsword launched in the golden age of an era of gaming where the primary route to continuous content was new job classes. And while Elsword didn’t expand as horizontally as some of the earlier titles in the genre to introduce some 15+ characters, the job options they offered their starting six characters have a huge impact on your end-game playstyle. Aisha might end up a massive nuker or powerful support. Rena can follow the path of long range or hand-to-hand combat, or follow a tricky mixed bag. Each class has tell-tale visual differences that help distinguish them as well, a much needed addition that you’ll be thankful for when you get into the PvP.
Each tier has or in the very near future will have a secondary evolution at level 35 to add additional skills and combo options to your arsenal. Also if down the road you realize you’ve messed up and taken a route that doesn’t fit your style of play, the cash shop offers scrolls to switch your class without having to start over from scratch.
Hypercombo Finish!
When it comes down to it, no amount of cool classes or interesting character roster is going to save a brawler if it doesn’t play well. Thankfully Elsword offers a hearty mix of 2D fighting games, Smash Bros style platforming, and simplistic controls that can keep the initiated and arcade veteran alike happy.
Novices can casually grind through the game just by spamming X and Z, your two primary attacks, in various random orders along with the occasional skill to mix things up. Veteran players however can take these simple controls and memorize special combos unique to each character (and sometimes even unique to job classes within a character) to juggle both PvE mobs and enemy players in brutal fashion. This isn’t easy to learn and will take some dedication to do well even against monsters, but the rewards for spending the time to learn your character will pay off in end-game dungeons and PvP.
One issue with the combat that might irk fighting game fans and Smash Bros fans alike is the total lack of a default block option. If your enemy is aiming to strike you, and you can’t get out of the way, prepare to eat the dirt in true Manwha cutscene fashion. That’s not to say there is no blocking at all as some classes can acquire skills to deflect or defend against enemy attacks, but even then it’s going to cost you one of your vital limited skill slots to utilize. Again this is where knowing how your various skill combos work will come in handy as some have built in gap closers and dodges that will allow you to keep a combo rolling while avoiding counter-attacks.
It’s opinionated whether this is good or bad for gameplay as it does incentivize a more action packed offensive mindset that ‘he who combos first, wins.’ I personally think it removes one possible strategic action to an otherwise outstanding combat system.
Though one minor knit pick I can’t stress enough. Why does the mouse wheel work as zoom in town but not in dungeons? I can’t count how many dungeons I ran fully zoomed in on my character before I found the obscure map button used to manually zoom in and out. This is a UI disaster that needs fixed asap.
Though the view wasn’t half bad.
OnRPG Shotgun News 7/3: Dragon’s Prophet, Neverwinter, Mechwarrior and more!
By Shannon Doyle (Leliah), OnRPG European News Editor
Dragon’s Prophet Announces First Event
Starting today citizens all over Auratia are celebrating the annual Ancient Shadow Festival in rememberance of the great Warthorne who sacrificed himself during the Second Dragon War in Dragon’ Prophet. The event will be running from now until July 17th where players will be solving riddles to learn more about the history behind Dragon’s Prophet. Along with all of this next week will see an awesome patch which will on top of other things raise the level cap to 70.
Runescape 3 Release Date Announced
Jagex has announced that the highly anticipated launch of Runescape 3 will take place July 22nd. This is the biggest update in the 12 year history of Runescape with a move to HTML 5 to enhance player experience and much more.
Mechwarrior Gives Us Numbers.
1.1 Million Registered Pilots
9.6 Million Hours (1100 years) of played time
3 Billion tons of metal destroyed
2,451,270,519 lasers fired
1.0: 9/17/2013
That’s right! Update 1.0 comes on September 17th
Neverwinter Celebrates Lliira
Starting today and running until July 8th Neverwinter is hosting the Celebration of Lliira event. There will be daily missions in Protector’s Enclave, fashionable headwear, and more! Not only that but during the whole thing there will be double the rough astral diamonds.
Panzar Forged by Chaos 100 Crystal Giveaway
OnRPG is partnered with Panzar to offer our visitors 100 crystals to help beat the summer heat in their intense PvP MMO that’s been making waves in Europe recently.
Panzar is a free-to-play, team-based, third-person action game in the spirit of modern competitive multiplayer games. Combining the award winning CryEngine 3 graphics engine with extremely fluid gameplay, Panzar offers something its competitors still cannot match: stunningly detailed battles in lush landscapes that crank the concept of high fantasy conflict to a new level of epicness, while the core gameplay links easy-to-learn mechanics with complex character advancement and impeccably balanced character class choices.
Teams of ten players will be pitted against one another in four different game modes: clashing for Domination of important locations, playing King of the Hill for keeps, putting the other team’s fortress under Siege, or using Blitz tactics to retrieve a priceless artefact.
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:
MU Rebirth Closed Beta Key Giveaway
OnRPG is partnered with Webzen and gPotato to bring you closed beta keys to access the ultimate PvP brawl server for Mu. Welcome to Mu Rebirth! This is your chance to compete from day 1.
Mu Rebirth focuses on allowing players to battle it out for dominance serverwide without losing touch of the key elements like diverse class builds, real weather effects, and a massive content filled world rivaled only by the massive level cap, players are sure to find the competitive MMO battleground of their dreams.
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 MU REBIRTH’s Beta Key Promotion Page
- Enter the beta key and click the “redeem” button
- Visit the MU REBIRTH homepage.
- Download the game and let the adventure begin!
Firefall’s “Blackwater Anomaly” Trailer is Live
In anticipation for Firefall’s Open Beta launch on July 9, Red 5 Studios™ has released the official trailer for Blackwater Anomaly, teasing its first story-based episode to new players. Blackwater Anomaly is kicking off Firefall’s world-story reveal, planned to roll out during the upcoming Open Beta.
In addition, Red 5 has announced that fans can look forward to a new Firefall Fest live-streaming event on Twitch.tv, July 9 and 10. The Red 5 tribe is inviting gamers from around the world to join them for an epic Open Beta launch-day celebration complete with exciting guest stars, interactive gaming, giveaways and more.
Full Firefall Fest details and schedule at: www.firefallthegame.com/firefallfest
Tuesday, July 9
SeaNanners and Tybee @ 10 a.m.-1 p.m. PDT
Sevadus and Melonie Mac @ 3 p.m.-6 p.m. PDT
Wednesday, July 10
GameBreaker.tv and MANvsGAME @ 10 a.m.-1 p.m. PDT
Day[9] and SirScoots @ 3 p.m.-6 p.m. PDT
MLG Anaheim Planetside 2 Nexus Reveal Interview
DizzyPW meets up with Matt Higby of the Planetside 2 team to get a better grasp of the Nexus Battle Islands.
Runescape 3 Launch Date Revealed
Jagex, the creators of the hugely popular Guinness World Record holding free-to-play adventure game, RuneScape, is excited to announce that the highly anticipated launch of RuneScape 3 will take place on 22 July.
The biggest upgrade in the game’s acclaimed 12 year history, RuneScape 3 brings next generation browser technology, new gameplay features and heralds in ground-breaking player-driven content.
RuneScape 3 will mark the massively multiplayer online game’s transition to the cutting-edge browser technology of HTML 5, enabling any player to embark on the world’s biggest adventure without the requirement for Java nor any other plugins. The use of the proprietary HTML 5 engine allows for significant enhancements to the player experience such as improved graphics, longer draw distances, an upgraded camera system and superior audio. The addition of seasonal high scores will allow all players in the community to compete on weekly and monthly leader boards.
The launch of RuneScape 3 will also see player decisions directly shaping the future of Gielinor, its inhabitants and scenery for the very first time. It will also marking the beginning of RuneScape’s inaugural community-focused world event, The Battle for Lumbridge. In addition to the technological leap RuneScape 3 sees the world of Gielinor enter the 6th Age, a significant new milestone in RuneScape’s vast heritage, as the gods of RuneScape return to re-exert their authority.
“We received fantastic praise from our passionate RuneScape community when we first revealed the development of RuneScape 3, so we’re thrilled to be able to confirm the 22 July launch date for the most significant update in the game’s history,” said Phil Mansell, Executive Producer of RuneScape 3. “Our pioneering use of HTML 5 technology continues to place us at the forefront of browser-based gaming innovation, and will result in a truly amazing gaming experience for players.”
“RuneScape continues to go from strength to strength, and with the launch of RuneScape 3 this year we will no doubt continue on that upward trajectory,” stated Mark Gerhard, CEO of Jagex. “We have a solid line up of the most ambitious innovative content and ground breaking technical innovations ever, all of which will be coming to fruition over the course of the next few months, it’s going to be an incredibly exciting time for the community both past and present.





















