Yearly Archives: 2014

Dragon’s Prophet (EU): Thadrea Rising region unveiled

Dragon's Prophet

Infernum Productions is proud to announce that the fantasy MMO Dragon’s Prophet has just unveiled a new region known as Thadrea. The highland of Thadrea brings a story of royal intrigue and dark magic that players must investigate. With new quests, new dungeons, new dragons, and an increased level cap up to 102; the update dramatically expands the Dragon’s Prophet universe.

Located in the south of Auratia, the highland of Thadrea is naturally protected from northern invasions by the Ashmond Mountains. Norden, which lies to the west, is the kingdom-sized monument to the contribution of the Tunno people in the Second Dragon War. The pinnacle of this city is the Oziak magic research institute.

The Marsh Witch’s Hut is the home of the witch Sukarin. She is rumoured to be the widow of the Tunno hero Asuma, who is said to have been left to die by the Osira. Tales of her cannibalism and powerful magic cause would-be visitors to be wary of the Silt Marsh she inhabits.

Players can now take on new Adventure and Legendary Dungeons. Tonapah Tomb and Mictlan’s Corridor force players to combine their strength in an unknown environment, whilst Asuma’s Mirage tests their endurance as they frantically try to access the Dimension Gate.

Along with the new dungeons, there is the new Crystal War event that has players sacrificing precious crystals and facing off against the summoned bosses to claim their juicy rewards. Amongst these rewards are new dragon eggs that can be used to obtain the new dragons coming with the update.

The update was released today and is now open for all players. For more info, visit http://www.dragonspropheteurope.com/en/

Age of Wushu: Winds of Destiny release date announced

Age of Wushu

The snail team is happy to announce the release date for the upcoming expansion to Age of Wushu. The next expansion, called Winds of Destiny will go live on October 15th.

The expansion will include some exciting new features previously revealed over the recent weeks, including:

  • Companion system – build relationships with players offline to acquire special benefits and the ability to summon offline allies to your aid
  • Delightful Island – an exciting new area filled with exotic adventures
  • Silver Hook – a hidden secret must be uncovered in this new Forbidden Instance
  • Flower Prince contest – show of your unique style in this special invitational competition
  • Path of the Departed – join in a struggle for power in the secluded region surrounding Lingxiao City in this unique new game mode

The expansion will be a free DLC available next Wednesday. Find the full story here: http://www.ageofwushu.com/news/view/444

F1 2014: New Hockenheimring Hot Lap Video Revealed

F1 2014

Codemasters® has released a new hot lap video for F1 2014. The hot lap video shows title contender Lewis Hamilton racing his Mercedes F1 W05 car around the Hockenheimring, which returns to the F1 2014 calendar, and game, having last hosted a race in 2012. The video is now playing at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxKWjDiwFJY or www.youtube.com/formula1game.

The 17 turn Hockenheimring first hosted a GRAND PRIX™ in 1970, and this year’s FORMULA 1 GROSSER PREIS SANTANDER VON DEUTSCHLAND 2014 was won by Lewis Hamilton’s rival and teammate Nico Rosberg. The two Mercedes drivers are competing to decide the title in one of the most dramatic and exciting conclusions to a FORMULA ONE™ season in years.

As the official video game of the 2014 season, F1 2014 includes all the seismic rule changes, new turbocharged cars, aerodynamics and more which have combined to deliver an unforgettable FORMULA ONE season.  Players can experience all of these new changes for the season in the game, and in addition to the return of Hockenheim, can experience the BAHRAIN GRAND PRIX run as a night race for the first time plus new circuits at Sochi in Russia and Austria’s Spielberg circuit.

F1 2014 will arrive on October 17th for the Xbox 360 games and entertainment system from Microsoft, Windows PC and the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system.

For more info, visit WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/FORMULA1GAME

Infinite Crisis: Stargirl Champion Revealed

Infinite Crisis

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and Turbine has just revealed a new champion for their F2P MOBA Infinite Crisis known as Stargirl.

Unlike other heroes, the event leading Courtney Whitmore to becoming a hero wasn’t tragedy. Instead, it was the breakup of her parent’s marriage and her mother’s remarriage to a man named Pat Dugan.

Courtney was miserable in her new life and blamed her stepfather. One day, looking through Pat’s belongings, she stumbled across the gear of ‘The Star-Spangled Kid’ and realized that Pat had once been the adult sidekick of a teenage hero. To make a mockery of Pat, she took his old gear to a school dance. Unfortunately, detecting someone wearing the Kid’s gear, one of Kid’s old enemies thought there was a new Star-Spangled Kid and attacked the dance. Pat came to Courtney’s aid in a suit of mechanized battle armor he had been secretly working on and the two defeated the old foe.

Exhilarated by the battle, Courtney decided to continue as a hero. Seeing how well she’d handled herself, and how it could help them grow closer as father and daughter, Pat agreed. However, there was one condition: He would have to fight alongside her as her guardian. Amused that he would now be her sidekick, Courtney agreed and took a shorter heroic name: Stargirl.

Stargirl will be playable on October 15th.

For more info, visit http://www.infinitecrisis.com/en

The Crew: Launching in December

http://www.onrpg.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/TheCrew_668x227.jpg
The Crew

UBISOFT has announced their online multiplayer racing game “The Crew” is currently set to be released this December.

The Crew has already completed three closed betas – two on PC, plus a limited technical beta on new-gen consoles – and each time they’ve kept their ears to the road, listening and learning. Yes, they were fiddling with things like server loads and tinkering with technical adjustments (as all developers do during closed betas). But the real win for gamers: They also enhanced the game itself to deliver more of what you love.

“We received a lot of valuable information from the recent PC and console betas,” says Creative Director Julian Gerighty. “We are now scrutinizing all of the player feedback so we can ensure that The Crew delivers the seamless open-world experience that meets everyone’s high expectations.” This ongoing process has already resulted in some substantial updates to the game, including everything from the option to fully remove the HUD so players can enjoy the scenery as they roam freely through a massive re-creation of the United States (a highly requested featured, Gerighty tells us), to fine-tuning the collisions to be even more realistic and adding in new visual effects. Other major enhancements include adjustments to the difficulty (for example, tweaking the police A.I.) and better integration of the voice chat – especially helpful when crewing up with other players.

For more info, visit http://blog.ubi.com/the-crew-release-date-december/

Might & Magic Heroes Online Review

By Jordan Hall (ApocaRUFF)

Introduction

Might & Magic Heroes Online is a new take on the browser strategy game genre. It’s a 2.5D game that has elements from both turn-based RPGs and browser-based strategy games, all set in the wonderful Might & Magic setting. The game has been brought to us by Ubisoft’s Blue Byte Studio. The game features customizable heroes, a large world, and the ability to do co-op battles. At a glance, Might & Magic Heroes Online should be an awesome addition to the Might & Magic franchise with a familiar retro feel to it.

 

 

Customization

The customization in the game is honestly pretty sparse. You’re not given much in the way in options during character creation and a majority of the customization appeared later in the game. When making your character, you’re able to choose between two factions; the seemingly good Haven and the evil Necropolis. Each faction has two classes, which seem to be mirrors of the classes available in the opposing faction. The classes can be summed up as Knight and Cleric.

 

Might & Magic Heroes Online Character Creation

Not much to work with, here.

 

Like I said, you’ll be customizing your hero after character creation for the most part. This customization will mainly come in the form of the ability trees that are available to you. Whenever you level up, you are given a point to spend in the six different ability trees. These trees are split into different tiers that have different requirements that must be met to put points in that tier. For example, you will need to spend three points in any of the trees to be able to start putting points into the second tier of any of the trees. So, that means even if you want to focus on the Warfare tree, you’ll need to split your points up before you can start spending more than a single point in the tree.

Might & Magic Heroes Online Abilities

 

 

 

Graphics

The graphics in Might & Magic Heroes Online are best described at 2.5D. The environments are 2D, but certain elements are either 3D or have a 3D-like appearance to them. This gives the game a very retro feel, reminiscent of some of the early 2.5D MMOs that were released a decade or more ago. Some might be turned off by that, but I know a lot of people will also enjoy it. However, although I enjoy the nostalgia effect the retro graphic style has, I have to admit that things could have been a much higher quality.

Might & Magic Heroes Online Graphics

 

 

 

Controls

When you’re not in battle, the game makes use of point-and-click movement. It does have some odd hotkeys – H for the character screen, rather than the usual C, for example. The UI in the game felt clunky – it seems like something you would expect from the early days of browser gaming. Not as responsive as it could be, but just enough to get by. In the end, the controls were just fine but that’s it.

 

 

Community

The community in Might & Magic Heroes Online is similar to any browser-based MMORPG. There are a lot of younger players in their teens mixed in with a few older people who mostly keep to themselves. I didn’t notice anything horrid in the game’s chat channels, but there were a few things that did make me cringe. All my questions were answered, though. So you probably will not have to worry about finding help if you’re confused about the game.

 

 

Gameplay

As I said in the introduction, Might & Magic Heroes Online combines elements from a few different genres. There’s a sort of town-building and army-management system, but also turn-based combat and RPG elements. The game gives you the ability to battle alongside friends, and takes place in a persistent online environment. So it would be a Strategy MMORPG? An ORPGS (S for strategy)? Something like that, anyways.

Might & Magic Heroes Online Quests

The strategy portion of the game comes from the ability to “Build” a town. In this town you can build things like barracks or special training facilities for certain types of troops. You can also upgrade these buildings to make them more effective. However, as nice as this sounds on paper, in reality you’re not given much freedom at all. It’s a fairly linear part of the game, and you don’t even get to “design” the town or place the buildings – you do it all through a list interface, which is pretty boring. So while it’s a nice addition, it’s an addition that could have been done better.

 

Might & Magic Heroes Online  Build Town

Welcome to OnRPGTopia!

 

The game has RPG elements, so you’ll be able to level up your hero. As you level up you’ll be able to purchase new abilities (as I explained under Customization). You’ll also gain equipment from defeating opponents, quests, or through purchases. This equipment will either upgrade your heroes own stats, or the stats and abilities of your troops (referred to as Creatures in the game, for some reason). This is one of the areas I think the game did quite well for itself.

Might & Magic Heroes Online  Hero Page

There are quests to complete, most of which consist of talking to certain NPCs and battling others. The world seems pretty interesting, though it’s mostly a linear path. But that’s most games, so I wasn’t surprised. As you travel, you can find random piles of gold or other loot to pick up. Some of this loot will only be available to you if you’ve defeated the NPCs guarding it (such as a pack of wolves protecting a large pile of gold). These little touches help make the game a bit more enjoyable, so they were appreciated.

Might & Magic Heroes Online  Protected Loot

Combat in the game is a bit more in-depth than you would initially think. As I mentioned above, the game has strategy elements and one of those elements is the ability to train troops. Once you’ve trained those troops you can add them to your army and split them into “stacks.” It is with these stacks of troops that you will do combat, with your hero leading them into battle. So, if you’ve trained up a hundred and fifty archers, you could then split these archers into three stacks of fifty and these stacks would act as “units” within the battle. When that stack takes damage, a certain amount of those archers within the stack will die off.

Might & Magic Heroes Online Battle

There are tactics involved in the combat. Troops have their own special abilities, along with your heroes’ abilities, so there can be a bit of planning of what troops you want to take in certain battles. There is the ability to maneuver your troops behind or to the side of an enemy unit to perform a flank, which gives bonus damage. Also, if you (or the enemy) manage to get a stack close to a ranged enemy unit, you can force them into melee so that they cannot use ranged attacks. This all adds up for some interesting battles, although a vast majority of the battles seem to be fairly boring.

Might & Magic Heroes Online Battle2

While most battles are made up of armies like your own, you will come across “boss” type characters from time to time. These are super-powerful opponents who only have one “unit” in their stack but instead have a lot of HP. So, while a boss may only have one “creature” in its stack, you will have to do a lot of damage to kill them. This can be difficult to accomplish when you consider there are other, regular, stacks on the field you must also fight and defend against.

Might & Magic Heroes Online Boss

 

 

The Cash Shop

As with most F2P games, Might & Magic Heroes Online has a cash shop. Something a lot of people ask before they try a game is “will the cash shop be P2W?” P2W being Pay-to-Win, or the act of using real money to gain significant advantage in the game. Well, the answer to that question is yes. If you are willing to shell out some money, you will definitely be able to progress further into the game at a much faster rate with a lot less effort. However, to me, doing that is only going to harm your experience in the long run. However, if your end goal is to be a high-ranker in the game’s many rankings, you might find what you are looking for by paying out a lot of money. Fun isn’t the same for everyone after all.

Might & Magic Heroes Online  Cash Shop

As the game is browser-based, and as far as I can tell PvP isn’t much of a thing, I believe the publishers decided they could get away with a lot when it comes to the cash shop. You can buy materials, auto-battle passes, potions, equipment, and gold as well. Just about everything you need to soar through content completely unhindered. About the only redeeming feature of the cash shop is that things seem to be quite inexpensive, so just putting in $5 or $10 will get you a majority of the things you could want.

 

 

Conclusion

Might & Magic Heroes Online is a pretty unique browser-based strategy MMORPG. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s amazing, but it can be something fun to play from time to time. Especially if you’re a fan of the Might & Magic series of games. It’s got elements from a decent number of different genres – strategy, RPG, 2.5D MMOs, and more. Definitely worth a try, if you’ve got some spare time and are looking for a new game to play.

 

Features: 3/5 – Some interesting stuff, but some of it isn’t done as well as it could be.

Customization: 3/5 – Some customization, however I feel there could be more.

Graphics: 4/5 – Personally, I like the retro look and feel of the graphics.

Controls: 3/5 – Mostly pleasant, but improvements in the UI are needed.

Community: 3/5 – Fairly typical online community.

 

Overall: 3/5 – It’s a good MMO, and worth a try, but it won’t be blowing you away.