Yearly Archives: 2013

Shotgun News 11/26: Eldevin, C9, GW2, and More!

Eldevin Launches This Weekend

After 8 years of production Hunted Cow Studios is launching their flagship project, Eldevin. The self funded MMO uses Java, making it accessible by browser on Windows, Mac, and Linux. But you don’t have to wait until the official launch this weekend. There are Founders Packs available ranging from $10 to $1,000. Even the lowest level gets instant beta access.

 

Panzar Now on Steam

Fantasy MOBA Panzar is now available via Steam. Alexander Steshenko, CEO of PANZAR Studios, explains: “We are excited to bring Panzar to Steam. Panzar has been available for a period of time in Europe already, but we’d like to make it easier for players to join and play with friends. With Steam, the user experience for Panzar will be even better, and in addition, Panzar will enjoy the benefits of easier global game operation and metrics.”

 

C9 Announces Fourth Expansion

Webzen’s fantasy-action MMORPG C9 has announced their fourth expansion, Rahkdan’s Counterattack will arrive tomorrow, November 27th! The update includes a server-wide character rebalance, making C9 more challenging than ever. But tomorrow’s update is just the first part of the expansion. Two more installments will be added in the coming months.

 

Guild Wars 2 Fractured Update Launches Today

Players have been eagerly awaiting new mini dungeons in Guild Wars 2 since the July launch allowed players to decide what would be made next. The winning Fractal is finally making it’s first appearance today along with several other new Fractals. And that isn’t all! They’ve got another competition going on, and a new video for it.

SMITE Launch Date Announced along with $100k Launch Tournament

SMITE Launch Date

Hi-Rez Studios, a leading developer of free-to-play online action games, today announced that the 3D MOBA game SMITE will officially launch in Europe and North America on Tuesday, March 25, 2014. In addition, a $100,000 LAN Tournament to celebrate the release will be held the following weekend.

The company also announced their mythology-themed 3D action MOBA game has accrued over 2,500,000 registered players to date through its extended Open Beta phase.

SMITE Assault Rework

The $100,000 SMITE Launch Tournament will take place on Saturday, March 29, and Sunday, March 30, 2014 in Atlanta, Georgia in front of a live audience. The tournament will include the top four teams in Europe and the top four in North America who will have qualified from the SMITE Weekly Tournament Series beginning on January 4, 2014. The event will also be live-streamed worldwide via twitch.tv/smitegame.

Further information on SMITE tournaments can be found on esports.smitegame.com.

All player progress in SMITE’s Open Beta will carry over to the game’s general release. Also, all Beta players who reach level 30 before the launch date will unlock the Cacodemon skin for the playable god Ymir. For more information, and to play SMITE for free in Open Beta, go to www.SMITEgame.com. Tutorials, game play videos, and more community content can also be found at www.youtube.com/smitegame.

FIFA Online 3

FIFA Online 3 continues to deliver the online soccer action that Electronic Arts has previously delivered in FIFA Online and FIFA Online 2. Improving on gameplay, strategies, and graphics, FIFA Online 3 features the latest rosters and use of official licenses that include almost 15,000 real world soccer/football players from 30 leagues and 40 national teams. The new FIFA Online also features new techniques and features, improved AI, enhanced animation, and five-on-five multiplayer competition.

Asura Force Review – This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

By John Shadle (Sephorus)

Asura Force Review 1

Asura Force, published by Mira Game, is an MMORPG set during a mythological war in the ancient Orient.  It promises lush visuals, intense PvP action, and a plethora of activities and diversions to keep players entertained for a long, long time.  The reality, however, is that this couldn’t be farther from the truth; with lackluster art and sound, a minimum of innovation, and a horrible localization, the only thing Asura Force does well is act as a prime example of how not to design an MMO.

Character creation is fairly straightforward, if both overly simplified and slightly baffling all at once.  You’re given a choice of five classes – three of which are locked to a single gender – and a very small selection of pre-made face and hair styles.  There’s also the choice of two tribes – Cosmos Tribe or Chaos Tribe – but character creation does absolutely nothing to explain anything about the two factions.  Similarly, class descriptions are written in incredibly broken English, and a few of the entries apparently became large enough in the translation process that they’re partially cut off in the description window.  There’s enough to get the gist of each class, to be sure, but it’s indicative of things to come.

From there, you’re thrown into a series of tutorial quests, and while they do a passable job of explaining basic things like movement, equipping items, and turning in quests (IE: typical MMO fare), it falls woefully short on anything more advanced than that, like leveling and caring for pets or using equipment to upgrade a Force Sprite – apparently a spirit companion that travels with you.  In one instance, the tutorial segment almost seemed uncooperative, with the person you’re sent to giving you the poorly-translated equivalent of, “Oh, you came to me to learn about this?  You figure it out, lawl.”

Visually, Asura Force fails to impress.  While the actual design of things like temples, statues, and buildings lean to a more ornate style, textures appear incredibly low resolution, character models seem somewhat jagged and rough around the edges, and animations, as a whole, feel incredibly jerky and unrealistic.  Running around felt more like gliding while swinging my arms and legs to poorly try and look like normal movement, and watching PSY – yes, supposedly THE PSY – dance felt more like I was witnessing a terrible hybrid of Gangnam Style and someone really, really trying not to pee their pants.

Asura Force Review 3

The audio direction is marginally – and I stress marginally – better, but still feels incredibly uninspired as a whole.  There’s a few musical tracks that feel quite upbeat and engaging, but offer little in terms of memorability or uniqueness.  The fact that they’re short enough to repeat quite often doesn’t help matters, either.  The various sounds of abilities, enemies, and other creatures almost feel like placeholders for something much more grand, and there were many a moment where I’d sit back in my chair and wonder, “I just summoned a small flaming dragon to set this thing on fire – shouldn’t this get way, way more than a poof or a whoosh sound?”

Asura Force Review 2

Character enhancement, overall, is both pretty basic and pretty disappointing.  You’ll earn trait points – called Inherence Points here – to spend on a whopping two passive skill trees, each with a whopping two choices at each tier.  Gear can be enhanced to become progressively stronger, with the old premise that failure can weaken your gear.  As you level up, you can purchase stronger versions of your class skills from your trainer.  There’s also the aforementioned Force Sprite system that, to this day, I couldn’t figure out – nor do I particularly care to – and some kind of rune system that I hadn’t seen in-game, but seems equally as confusing if the website’s write-up is to be believed.  Thankfully, the game also offers an auto-fight system to let you grind out XP so you can go play something far more worthwhile, like Pong.

Asura Force Review 4

Finally, there’s the localization issue that permeates just about every aspect of Asura Force.  Simply put, it’s terrible.  Not only is dialogue riddled with phrases like “don’t offend me or you will regret! Lol…” or “You will be able to build a career in future”, but various UI elements were never redesigned to accommodate the differences in language, leading to buttons with text spilling out over the sides or text windows with half the dialogue missing because the ability to scroll was never needed in the original write-up.  Broken English is one thing, and potentially something to overlook, but the lack of care with the user interface is just plain sloppy.

Asura Force Review 5

Verdict: Poor

All in all, Asura Force was an incredible letdown.  While the initial premise seemed kind of interesting, the overall execution made it seem like none of the developers have any kind of experience with making a good, solid game.  Additionally, with the game not being presented as being in beta, it seems like the level of quality – or lack thereof – is precisely what the developers are comfortable with.  If that’s the case, the best update this game could see is the one that takes it offline for good.

 

John Shadle is a reviewer for Game Empire Enterprises, and he’s now thoroughly convinced that playing this game could be used as a sadistic form of torture.

Alfheim Tales Online CB Key Giveaway

OnRPG has partnered with GameDP to get you into the closed beta test for their upcoming 3D MMORPG, Alfheim Tales Online.

Alfheim Tales Online Giveaway

Alfheim Tales Online is a fantasy MMORPG with exquisite anime-styled 3D graphics, which allows you to enjoy the fascinating battle experience. Travel around Carlyle land under the guidance of the Spirits from a refreshing country town to an outstanding capital. Search for the track of spirits, discover the secrets that lie within the dark volcanoes, ice fields, battle fields and grasslands, and become the savior of your continent as your rise victorious from various battles. It is a world full of dreams, glory and exciting adventure.

 

To Redeem your Key:

  • Sign into Gamedp portal.
  • Visit the Alfheim Tales Online homepage.
  • Click the “Use CBT Key” and enter your code.
  • Then your account will be activated. You can enter the fantasy ATO world when CBT launches at 9 pm, Nov. 26th EST(GMT-5).