Yearly Archives: 2015

Cosplay Highlights: Final Fantasy VII, Heroes of the Storm & More!

It’s time for another week’s collection of the top cosplay we’ve seen this week! As always, please visit the cosplayer’s pages directly to support them if you like what you see.

 Feathered Queen - Ravenna Cosplay by the-mirror-melts Feathered Queen – Ravenna Cosplay by the-mirror-melts

 

FF VII AC Reno cosplay by Akitozz6FF VII AC Reno cosplay by Akitozz6

 

 KH2: Whatever Lies Beyond This Morning by behindinfinity KH2: Whatever Lies Beyond This Morning by behindinfinity

 

Litchi Faye Ling Cosplay by ChiipiChanLitchi Faye Ling Cosplay by ChiipiChan

 

 Tyrande Whisperwind - Heroes of the Storm cosplay by Narga-Lifestream Tyrande Whisperwind – Heroes of the Storm cosplay by Narga-Lifestream

 

Bonus Round: Geek Art of the Week

 Time For Reckoning by shilin Time For Reckoning by shilin

Want more? Make sure to follow OnRPG’s Pinterest!

Villagers & Heroes Releases Equinox Update

Mad Otter Games is proud to announce the worldwide release of EQUINOX, a fresh update offering new content, cool features and great improvements to their online free-to-play fantasy MMO, Villages & Heroes.

Sands Of The Equinox Update

A special event zone unlike any other has just descended upon the Seven Realms! In these waning days of summer, experience the scorching sands and blazing rays of The Oases of Anuk’Amon, a magical desert land where ancient pyramids, floating gardens in the sky, mountainous dunes of sand, and deadly pharaohs with nightmarish powers await. The EQUINOX event zone is for players of any level, where old friends and new friends alike can come together and partake in epic battles against increasingly challenging bosses. And this place of frightening beauty isn’t just for the combat driven.  With its numerous quests and opportunities to earn an abundance of exotic treats and rewards, the Oases of Anuk’Amon offers something for everyone. Players can also look forward to an array of stunning desert-themed outfits to choose from, as well as a number of exciting new pets and toys created only for this one-of-a-kind event zone.

Get the full patch notes here.

Wizards of the Coast settles with Cryptozoic and Hex

Wizards of the Coast settles with Cryptozoic and Hex news header

Today Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. (NASDAQ: HAS) and publisher of the strategy trading card game Magic: The Gathering®, and Cryptozoic Entertainment, LLC and Hex Entertainment, LLC, have resolved a litigation filed in May of last year claiming willful infringement of intellectual property rights arising from the digital trading card game, Hex: Shards of Fate®. The parties have entered into a settlement agreement and license with undisclosed terms.

“We recognize that Wizards owns valuable intellectual property in Magic: The Gathering, are happy to have this matter settled and excited to move forward with Hex: Shards of Fate,” said Hex Entertainment President and CEO Cory Jones. “We believe that the gaming community will benefit from knowing that Hex: Shards of Fate is no longer subject to litigation.”

“Wizards of the Coast has always welcomed new games to the trading card game genre, and we encourage TCG fans to not only play Magic, but to try many different games. However, we will not hesitate to take action to protect our intellectual property and the amazing work of hundreds of dedicated Magic team members around the world. That is why we brought this lawsuit and why we are happy to announce its resolution through a settlement and license that both protects the valuable intellectual property of Magic: The Gathering and allows Cryptozoic and Hex to move forward with Hex: Shards of Fate,” said Wizards of the Coast CEO, Greg Leeds.

The lawsuit filed in May of last year included claims for copyright, patent and trade dress infringement.

Magerealm Reveals Turf War Feature

Magerealm Reveals Turf War Feature news header

GTArcade’s free to play, browser-based 3D MMORPG Magerealm has come a long way since its release. A constant flow of updates has expanded the game exponentially, and now GTArcade is ready to unveil the next exciting feature coming to Magerealm – Turf War! Players have been asking for more thrilling guild events and their requests have been heard. Different from PvE focused content like Guild Boss and more causal events like Pool Party, Turf War is the first time guilds will confront each other in the ultimate battle for dominance! Players must protect their guild’s territory while laying siege to rivals as they strive for power and glory. Guilds are set to clash head-on to determine which is the best in the Realm. This is Turf War!

Conquer the Realm

In Magerealm, each guild enjoys its own secluded domain that is off limits to outsiders. However, there is no such comfort in Turf War. Guilds will be given a piece of territory, or “turf”, that is wide open to invasion from other guilds. Each member of a guild will be tasked with overseeing their own stronghold within their guild’s turf. Members must defend their strongholds while assaulting those of rival guilds. If a player can successfully break through their opponent’s stronghold, they can reach the inner city and gain victory points for their guild.

Choose Your Battles

In Turf War, it is not wise to simply attack strongholds at random. Players should choose their opponents according to their own strength. Each stronghold will have a Star rating to give attacking players a better idea of what they will be up against. Attacking a 1 Star stronghold means the attacker has an advantage in terms of Battle Rating. 2 Star means the BR of the attacker and defender are roughly equal, while 3 Star strongholds will be the most difficult to take down, as the defender has the BR advantage. Use the Star rating to gauge enemy strongholds and take the best course of action.

Fight as One

Every member will have an important role in how their guild fares in Turf War. Anyone with the will to fight and compete has something to contribute. For each battle, players will earn 3 points for victory, 1 point for a draw, and 0 points for defeat. Points earned by all members will be tallied to determine their guild’s rank in Turf War. There is also an individual ranking to show the top combatants of the guild and encourage some healthy inter-guild competition.

Guild vs Guild warfare has finally come to Magerealm! Stand strong alongside your comrades and battle for honor and glory!

ELOA Online Interview with Webzen and NPICSoft

Questions by Matt Short (Trilient)
Answers By
Dennis Choi: CEO NPICSoft
Richard Sunmyoung Moon: Head of Global Business Development at Webzen

 

ELOA Copyright Interview

Hello, my name is Dennis Choi, and I’m the founder & CEO of NPICSOFT Inc., the developer of ELOA (Elite Lord of Alliance). It’s very nice to meet you, and thank you for this interview opportunity. Today I’m joined by Richard Sunmyoung Moon, Head of Global Business at WEBZEN Inc., the official publisher of ELOA in the West.

 

 

Trilient: What’s the difference between ELOA and Inspirit online?

 

[Dennis]: Inspirit Online is not an official version of ELOA. In fact, we have sent many official notifications to the corresponding company, declaring Inspirit Online as an illegal copy of ELOA. It is important to note that NPICSOFT has registered the global license of the brand name “ELOA”, along with its characters, etc. This includes licensing rights for North America, Europe, and other countries. However, a company called “GRE” is still continuing its unauthorized services. The developer of ELOA is NPICSOFT, and the official publisher of ELOA is WEBZEN. Inspirit Online is simply a copy of ELOA, a game developed by us, and will be considered as an unauthorized, illegal private server.

 

Trilient: What makes ELOA stand out, not just from IO, but from other MMORPG’s in general?

 

[Dennis]: I think ELOA is superior to any other MMORPG currently active, owing to its unique dynamic battle system among many MMORPGs where stable server synchronization is the most crucial. I believe the unique feature of ELOA is the strategy whereby users can customize their own various skills and combos, and apply them to battle at any time, as opposed to all the emphasis simply being on actions.

In addition, we provide a smooth gaming experience with an easy-to-use “Automatic Party Matching System”, to support users in PvP areas and dungeons.

Also, we allow players to acquire and grow their own pets to move faster and enjoy various conveniences. Users will be able to see a variety of pets in the town.

 

Trilient: Do you expect the launch of ELOA to have an impact on the already existing Inspirit online?

 

[Richard]: Now that the publishing contract has been signed, WEBZEN will take every legal and business measure to manage WEBZEN’s license to the best of our ability. WEBZEN has been authorized to utilise all rights for the game’s brand and license to enforce adherence to the lawful copyright of NPICSOFT, and will try our best to protect the license of NPICSOFT which was infringed without notice.

 

Trilient: Since there would be two versions of essentially the same game in the west, wouldn’t it be confusing for fans of the game to know which version they should play?

 

[Dennis]: We understand that this situation must have caused a lot of confusion among players who learned about ELOA and started playing it under the name of “Inspirit Online”. ELOA is currently serviced by our Korean partner company, Netmarble, and contains much higher quality content compared to Inspirit Online, with the localization for North America and Europe already in progress. About 100 developers at NPICSOFT’s ELOA studio are currently devoting all their energy to the global release. We’re very certain that the running of Inspirit Online, without any basic understanding of ELOA, will never be a match for the official content of the original game.

 
ELOA_Publishing_Agreement_Signing_Ceremony_01

Trilient: Is the direct competition a factor being considered in gearing the Eloa cash shop compared to typical models used by Webzen MMORPGs in the past?

[Richard]: ELOA will be “Pay for Convenience”, and items that change the visual appearance of your character will be available in the shop. We are aiming for convenience only, such as a slight increase in experience gain, visual transformations into NPCs or monsters, or ridable pets which can also be obtained in game.

 

Trilient: Do you have anything planned for ELOA that might prevent the game from becoming stale in the future?

 

[Richard]: ELOA has its own unique strength as a game, and offers completely different art direction and gameplay. You will immediately notice the anime style, which is a big and quite amusing contrast to this darker themed world. For example, riding a giant teddy bear as a mount is not something you see in many other games in the usually grim action RPG genre. The combat system offers 3 stances that you can switch between mid-combat, what we refer to as “triple action”, which is another completely unique feature to ELOA. Action RPGs are booming (again) since the release of Diablo 3, Path of Exile and similar games, and we are very confident that ELOA can offer a unique and easier-to-get-into experience, especially for beginners and the less hardcore-oriented MMORPG fans.

That’s not to say that ELOA is not tailored at all towards the hardcore crowd; on the contrary, instance bosses and later end-game raids are quite challenging! For example, tactically switching between the three combat stances and learning their mechanics while fighting a raid boss is something that is surely easy to learn at the start, but hard to master later on. We are very confident that our players will have an excellent and unique gameplay experience with ELOA. As we have many content updates already in the pipeline, there’s already a long content roadmap laid out by the developers, so our fans should not be disappointed or bored at any point!

 

Trilient: NPICSoft very vocal about being the primary developer behind ELOA. As such, should the team behind Inspirit Online shut their version down, or do you see this as an opportunity for healthy competition?

 

[Richard]: After a thorough investigation, we came to the conclusion that Inspirit Online is using a CBT client from the Southeast Asia version of the game, which was leaked without authorization. Rest assured that we are not worried about WEBZEN’s official version of ELOA, as we already have huge amounts of content readily available for our beta test. This includes new maps and classes which have already been developed by NPICSOFT, but are not included in the leaked CBT version that Inspirit Online is using. We’re very certain that Inspirit Online, currently operated illegally, will never keep up with our content releases. We look forward to showing you the distinct differences between the original and copy, as we offer much better quality assurance for our live operations, and receive direct support from the original developers of ELOA. Because of this, the two games will show incomparable differences in terms of service stability, with superior security/server connections, and so forth.

 

Trilient: When can we expect to see the launch of ELOA?

 

[Richard]: The first beta test will start this autumn, with the official launch slated for the end of this year. We are currently looking at the Beta Test date to be finalized, but we will announce the upcoming schedule soon. So stay tuned!

 

Orcs Must Die! Unchained – The Apprentice Returns

Orcs Must Die! Unchained - The Apprentice Returns news header

After some time being reworked, the Apprentice has returned Orcs Must Die! Unchained, under the new name Zoey.

Zoey’s new design gives her a new gameplay loop that still caters to the chaotic nature of her spellcasting, while adding in her new extra ability and restoring her potential as a damage dealer after the changes in closed beta phase 2.

A full breakdown of the Apprentice’s new abilities is available here.

League of Angels Introduces Alliance Expedition and Sylph Hall

League of Angels Introduces Alliance Expedition and Sylph Hall news header

League of Angels is offering two new challenges for players – the Alliance Expedition and the Sylph Hall.

Alliance Expedition

Alliance Expedition is a cross-server PVP event, which is a grand war among alliances. To succeed in this war, you need to improve your individual performance, and you also need to make the whole alliance united! Only best of the best will win King’s Division Emblem!

All alliance will challenge alliance ranked 70th to 1st in sequence. When your alliance defeated all the target alliance members, then the whole alliance will receive both each challenge rewards and Alliance clearance rewards.

Sylph Hall

Sylph Hall is a place where powerful sylphs dwell, shrouded in mystery. It’s time to awaken the sylphs from a dead sleep! All heroes in Sylph Hall possess mystery powers and skills. They can be set to bless your heroes in battles after you summon them. To summon a Sylph hero you need to collect Sylph Hero Badge. Good news is one of the Sylph Badge can be gained through Loops. Don’t miss it!

After summon a sylph, you can train him/her to boost the stats. The necessary Purgatory Soul can be gained in Alliance Expedition. If a sylph blesses a hero, you can choose the hero skin by checking the Morph Sylph Skin button. If you summon a new sylph later, you can recycle the Purgatory Soul you spent on the former Sylph.