Massively's first look at sandbox Shards Online
How many games have you played only to find yourself uttering the phrase, "If only I could run my own server"? Chances are, there at least one or two titles you''d love to make into a private playground for select friends using your own personal ruleset. Lucky for you, in Shards Online, you'll be able to do precisely that!
Announced last month, this upcoming sandbox by former Mythic Entertainment devs is built on the premise that players will run the majority of the virtual worlds how they want to. Do you want a fantasy world where you can boot those who ruin immersion? You got it! What about the ability to take over mobs and fight the players while spouting personalized comments? Yup, that too. What if you want a hardcore world where survival is for the fittest? Mm-hmm, starving to death is an option, as is permadeath. And how about a world where gameplay unfolds around players as they explore rather than offers questing on rails?
That's the theory behind the game. But how do these ideas hold up in practice? Last week I sat down with Citadel Studios co-founder Derek Brinkmann to witness a demonstration of Shards Online and talk all about the plans for the game.
How will player-run worlds work?
Brinkmann, who was a lead developer for Ultima Online for seven years, explained that the eponymous shards are personally run worlds. These shards can be individual because every one is an alternate reality. The shard itself is a relatively small area, currently built to sustain 34 players; the plan is to have shards that can support 64 players, although there is also consideration for shards that can hold up to 128 players. Shards have different maps, meaning there is a variety of terrains that owners can utilize.
Obviously, that doesn't sound very massive. The massively multiplayer part of this MMO is found in the fact that shards can be connected to one another through clusters. Players then can travel between all shards in a cluster through gates. Clusters, which can have thousands of players, run standard rulesets (PvP, RP, etc.) and even custom ones. Although a single player can control a cluster composed of many personal shards or shards belonging to others, Brinkmann said the devs see clusters as something run more often by gaming communities. Perhaps a guild wants to make their perfect fantasy setting and makes its own system for members to enjoy. Or perhaps a multigaming community wants to make a large world open to anyone. There are many possibilities, especially when you take into account modding!
If you know anything about modding in such games as Skyrim, then you've got an idea of how it will work in Shards. Shard owners can customize the game to fit their playstyle. Don't like an update that the devs dish out? No problem -- don't implement it. Brinkmann elaborated:
"It just makes sense to let [players] mod the game as well. This allows players to decide how they want to play the game by picking a cluster that suits their playstyle. With the custom rules, there are many layers to the modifications that you can make to the game. You can create very simple mods without knowing any scripting and just doing some simple tweaks, or you can go all the way down into our scripting engine and completely change the game. You can create new skills, new abilities -- you can wipe the entire game and create your own stories and your own monsters. You can go crazy with it!"
What about those who don't want to join any of the player-run worlds because they don't find any good fits with rulesets, because they are waiting to create their own, or because they just prefer how the company runs things? Those folks will have a place to play as well! Brinkmann told me, "Shards is a complete game. The official rules that we will provide [make up] a complete game with its own stories, its own gameplay, and everything." He added that Citadel will host a few clusters with different rulesets as well.
Because of the variation in rulesets, players who want to move to a different cluster will have to actually re-roll, just as if they were changing to play on a different server in a standard game. That way no one can become super powerful on a shard/cluster with relaxed rules and then decimate others on one that has a harder set. On the same note, if you want to change your shard's cluster, you'll have to make a new shard; you can't just move it between clusters.
Dishing on the demo
What good is owning a shard if no one wants to get on it to play, right? Keeping in mind that the current state of Shards Online is, as Brinkmann put it, somewhere between a prototype and an alpha, these are the tidbits of info and impressions I picked up from my live demonstration.
The game itself is fixed isometric, so all those who are comfortable with games like Diablo and Marvel Heroes will be pretty fluent with the controls. According to Brinkmann, it'll control a bit like Diablo, but the combat resembles traditional MMO combat more, utilizing timing and tactics as opposed to being a clickfest. The ability hotbar is actually broken into two different sections, with those based on learned skills (yup -- it's skill-based!) on the right and those based on current equipment on the left.
During the demonstration, Brinkmann showed off many of Shards Online's sandbox features. If you want to see what a merchant has for sale, you don't pull up an interface; you look at his cart and in his boxes! And by look, I mean rummage through visually because again there is no interface, just the container or shelf. The inventory pack is currently the same, but Brinkmann admitted that it gets hard to find things when they are all piled on top, so the devs are looking to change at least the inventory space to a slotted interface that can be organized.
You can also get stuff by making it. If you want to make a spear, you need to collect the necessary items and then craft it. Each item you recover from the world will have a list of items that can be crafted from it. You can even whip a crafting bench out wherever you are and make your items, leaving it for others to use or picking it back up. This is actually quite useful on shards where players can actually starve to death because you need to make a knife to get the meat from a deer -- after you hunt and kill it, of course -- in order to eat! In another interesting twist, avatars do not like raw meat (go figure), and so players will have to cook it by making a campfire, all before perishing!
One of the best perks of the game is the ability to participate in player-generated content. Not only is there housing that players can place anywhere and decorate any way they like, but players can be a part of a dynamic storyline. How? Well, server administrators are the gods of their respective servers. Shard owners can play in player mode along with everyone else or in god-mode, where they can run around invisible at fast speeds, appear as different things (from a ball of light to a giant elemental), spawn items in the world (even giving them a decay timer so they disappear if not picked up), and take control of NPCs to give players a uniquely personal experience. If you've been itching to try your hand at virtual world DMing, it looks as if your time is coming.
When asked when players might be able to jump into Shards Online, Brinkmann said that plans are to invite more testers to the game before the end of the year. Current players testing out the demo can kill stuff, use skills, loot, and equip things, but there is definitely more to do, including making new maps and adding graphical effects. "We haven't quite hit our graphical target," Brinkmann explained. "There's a lot of polish that still needs to be done to get us to the standard that we want to hold to for our game."
Record of Lodoss War Online First game screenshots revealed
Based on the classic Japan RPG, Record of Lodoss War franchise and developed by L&K Logic Korea (Red Stone Online), the first screenshots were shown over at the annual Niconico Chokaigi event this past weekend. The publisher is GameOn, which also announced Black Desert Japan.
As you can see above, there are 3 playable classes in Record of Lodoss War Online. The game design and graphics style is a trip back to the future, reminding me of classics such as Diablo 1 and Lineage 1 with upgraded visuals. The Alpha phase will begin later this summer.
Hello !
Do you expect ArcheAge since months ?
You pay 150$ ? Will know that some streamers hardly discover ArcheAge and obtained a direct acces to the Alpha.
Just PM Scapes and say : " I am a streamer with 10.000 viewers. "
It is really unjust for a good amount of between us ...
When you contact Scapes you do not obtain an answer. Answer is difficult and yet, it is the principle even of the courtesy.
Trion, you should re-examine your policy ... you disappoint many players.
ps: Sorry for my bad english.
New Dungeon Striker (KR) - Open Beta trailer
After a couple months of closure by publisher Hangame, Dungeon Striker enters Open Beta today under the HappyOz portal in South Korea. In fact, the isometric action game is launching under a few other platforms (same server), including Naver, the country’s top search portal.
Other simplifying the previously messy class tree into 4 main types, different difficulties were added to each dungeon as well, along with actual gears dropping rather than just materials for crafting. Signed for Japan, China and Taiwan, there is currently no news for an English version.
Pearl Abyss released a new Black Desert gameplay vid this morning that focuses on the fantasy sandbox's mounted combat. MMO Culture reports that not all character skills can be used while mounted, but "a couple of new ones are granted."
Click past the cut to view the footage.
This is how mounted combat looks in Black Desert
Black Desert Online 2nd Beta Review in Progress Part 2
Black Desert Online 2nd Beta Max and Low Settings Quality Test HD
Leveling Experience - To Quest or Not to Quest! Bonus!?
When playing new MMORPG's most people will often wonder what kind of leveling system will they experience. Black Desert has good amount of quests, I even unlocked new ones in the main city, but they don't give much or any exp at all. Which leaves the question, what is the rewards for completing these quests? Completion of certain quests will grant a player more skill points. This results your character not having enough points to learn or enhance your skills. Quests will also build your relationship with NPC's around that area. After you have accumulated enough relationship points, you can obtain equipment from the NPC as a reward. You also miss out on the whole lore and story of the game, hidden quests, NPC node system, buying houses (requires contribution points), hire carriages for product trading and more. The more points you have the bigger and better house you can purchase.
Black Desert Online Level 35-40 Sorcerer Grinding Spot HD
What did I do? I mainly focused on the easy quests first until I hit level 30. After that, I figured it was best to grind like an EXP machine and focus on my dark spirit quests only. There is actually no real benefit of grinding like crazy, I think. I just do it because I'm weird like that and want to be more prepared for upcoming Guild Castle Sieges. At first I thought the grind was slow, but once I figured out where to hunt I was able to level up faster. I suppose I can blame myself for skipping out quests that shows me where to hunt. Eventually, I ran into monsters that doesn't hit like a truck. Oh boy, was I in heaven! Cranked up some music and grinded like crazy. I even watched a few TV shows while I was at it. I earned a lot of money grinding about 200-300k, which was a lot to me! I ended up purchasing a stronger weapon and continued to grind as it's the fastest way to level up. The leveling pace is actually not that bad if you know what you're doing. One player already hit the beta max level cap within the first week of test and not to mention the fact that servers are only up for about nine hours a day. A few guild members of mine are a only a couple levels away from 50, I hope it stays the same on release and perhaps more variety.
Black Desert Online Tour Calpheon Large City HD
Combat Mechanics - Explained Again
Other than the death penalty the action combat keeps me on my toes. Most people are still confused on how the combat works in this game. It's not like the average spam three rows of skills type of game. Black Desert Online is an Action MMMORPG and the amount of skills it offer is just right, not too many skills to play around with and not so little to get bored with. Skills flow through each other that it looks like I am pressing one skill at a time, but in reality I am executing a series of key strokes one after the other. I've listed a sample combo and some of the commands below.
Black Desert Online 2nd Beta Killing Enemy Knights HD
Open World PvP, Death Penalty, Karma
In the previous beta, players were able to PK each other at level 30. This has now been changed to level 40 which is going to make my adventures a bit tougher later on as I am very close to 40. You can tell if a character is below level 40 because their character name will show up Green. When they are above 40 their character name will become purple and is auto flagged for PK. Players that misbehave and kill random players will increase their Karma points (성향and become Chaotic. If they have too much Karma, then they will most likely drop or lose bonus items in their "inventory" on death. The "Normal" death penalty is a random chance to lose socketed gems and weapon enchants. Still confused?
Death Penalty Simplified
1. Breaks Gems depending on the quality, some gems are more tougher than others.
2. Lose EXP (Depends on Karma Value) (Lawful 2% EXP Loss) (Chaotic 5% EXP Loss)
3. Weapon and Armor Enchants go down with Black Stones.
4. Random Items from Inventory is dropped. (Chaotic Only) (Not All Items)
Enchanting System
The Enchanting system in Black Desert is fairly simple, upgrade stones drop from monsters and you can enchant equipment by summoning your Dark Spirit guide. When you fail to enchant a piece of equipment, the maximum durability of that item goes down. Fail enough and you will have one useless enchanted weapon. How can one restore the max durability? Find a blacksmith NPC in town and give him an extra copy of your weapon to be used as fodder, it will only restore a few points at a time. The gem socketing system hasn't changed much compared to the previous beta and probably doesn't need much explaining. Just socket some gems in on your gear for more bonus and stuff.
While I am still pretty low level, I thought I should post something about the low level experiences in the Closed Beta 2 phase of Black Desert, currently ongoing in South Korea. After trying out all 4 class, my favourite remains the Giant, a pretty straight forward melee brawler.
Black Desert (KR) - Closed Beta 2 rain effects
1 of the first major changes from Closed Beta 1 upon logging in is the new UI arrangement, now clear than ever. Most of the modules can be turned off by simply clicking the corresponding button on the lower left corner of the screen. However, modules currently cannot be moved around.
Black Desert (KR) - Closed Beta 2 Giant gameplay 1
Not understanding Korean can be a hassle when trying to figure out objectives, even with the guiding marker. If I am not mistaken, quest mobs having a blue alert above their names is something new in Closed Beta 2 as well. The quest marker has a flaw, which stops at dungeon entrances where objectives are actually inside. Of course, this can be entirely blamed on not understanding the language.
Black Desert (KR) - Closed Beta 2 Giant gameplay 2
Graphics are as gorgeous as ever, and combat is indeed faster and more “actiony” than before. Skills can now be chained together better, as you can see in the combat scenarios in the videos posted here. I will still be playing the game given my limited time, so stay tuned for more info!
Wow, huge urge to try a bunch of those listed games....instant regret upon looking at the thread
EVE to Kick off 10 Expansions Annually Starting from the Summer Release Kronos
At EVE Fanfest 2014, the well-known game developer CCP Games formally announced the plans for EVE Onlines summer release, Kronos, which will be a big update by virtue of it originally being intended as an old-style expansion.
Kronos will bring a huge overhaul to industry in the sci-fi MMO, according to press release, with over 10,000 lines of code being rewritten. Moreover, it is reported that the update frequency of EVE Online will switch from two expansions per year to around 10 releases annually, beginning with Kronos. Kronos will be available free to all EVE Online subscribers and trial users on June 3, with more details offered in coming weeks via a series of dev blogs.
The new cadence of development will allow us to take on bigger, more ambitious features, deliver content at an increased pace, and give our players even more to look forward to, said Andie Nordgren, Senior Producer for EVE Online. Kronos is the perfect release to kick off the series of upcoming changes as it provides the foundation for the colonization dreams of player empires were working towardsepic sci-fi construction projects that lead to new parts of the universe.
In addition, CCP unveiled the release schedule of the following 10 expansions as follows:
- Kronos - 3rd June
- Crius - 19th August
- Hyperion - 23rd September
- Oceanus - 4th November
- Phoebe - 9th December
- Rhea - 20th January 2015
- Tethys - 7th February
- Theia - 17th March
- Themis - 4th April
I swear, I thought they shut down the servers, lol. It's still going?
Black Desert Online 2nd Beta Forest Giant UHD
Multiplayer Characters and Alts
One of the more interesting features of Black Desert Online is that you don't have to map out the fog of war all over again between all of your characters. Once you've explored that area it will be visible on all of your characters, a very nifty features for players that often get lost like me! However, the quests aren't shared so you will have to complete the same old quests when rerolling or starting a new character. Farming contribution points is a little bit easier with this system as the contribution bar is shared between all characters.
Black Desert Online Undead Forest Combat System High Level Gameplay UHD
Making Money and NPC Trading System
There are a couple ways to earn money in Black Desert Online. The usual grinding and farming items to sell on the Market place. Others take advantage of the unique trade system where you buy certain goods from NPC's and sell it to other NPC's in different regions or towns. An item's worth varies depending on the the demand or areas where the supply is low. These items can only be bought and sold by the "Trade NPC" and is worthless to other NPC's. As a foreigner, the trade system was a bit confusing at first, but I eventually picked it up during my adventures. In my last review, I talked about how contribution points are obtained from questing. Another use of the contribution points is to open up trading routes. For example, opening a trading route from one town to other might cost a total of ten contribution points. Once a trade route is opened, the lines connecting the two towns will transition from white to yellow.
Players can earn a large amount of money if they were to just focus on trading all day because they will spend most of their contribution points on unlocking trade routes from town to town instead of using those points to purchase better gear for grinding levels. I focused on the latter part so I am not wealthy as other players. One thing to keep in mind is that other players can ransack your items while you're enroute! Kind of scary, especially if you're delivering a bunch of expensive items from one town to the other. If you're rich enough, you can always think outside the box and hire another player to hop along your carriage or mini cart. An Archer would be good because of their crazy range attack. Random payers can protect your precious cargo from users that enjoy trolling, griefing, etc. A friend of mine got ransacked the other day, he ended up losing a bunch of armor and weapons that he had stored on his horse.
Black Desert Online Trading System Donkey Express HD
Skill Awakening System - Enchant Skills
Upon hitting level 40 you're given an option to enchant one of your skills by summoning the Black Spirit NPC using the "/" key. You can enchant any of your skills, but it's a one time deal for that skill. Enchanting that skill will give it special bonuses everytime that skill is used. The first skill I enchanted was my Shift+LMB. I ended up getting attack speed and critical bonus on it which was fairly decent. A guild member of mine enchanted their Shift+RMB which is the chain lightning skill and got life leech as a bonus effect, which is awesome because no more HP potions needed while grinding. I decided to enchant my chain lightning. Unfortunately, the enchants I received wasn't good as my guild member. I don't think there is any way to reset the enchants yet, so you're stuck with whatever random buffs it gives you. I ended up enchanting most of my skills by the time I hit level 50, since you get to enchant a new skill per level.
Black Desert Online Level 50 Sorceress Skill and Slow Motion Effects
Guild War and Open PvP
Either something went wrong with siege wars or it just bugged out this week because there were no other competing guilds that wanted to rival the castle that we claimed. The next siege event starts later next week so perhaps that might be more interesting. It's kind of a good thing that something wrong with the siege war because of the overpowered Archer bug or skill that got nerfed the same day. I ran across a bit of server lag and bugs because I am playing from USA and got stuck on random things. I am hoping for a better experience next week. The game has gone through numerous patches this week, Pearl Abyss and Daum are working really hard to fix some of the issues the game is facing. According to the last beta, the first guild to break the statue claims the castle. From there on out, other guilds can band up and team up against that other guild via alliance in guild menu and try to overtake the guild defending the castle. I will have more details next week, when guild wars actually happen.
Black Desert Online Castle Siege Advancement
Max Level or Unlimited Levels
Technically the max level in Black Desert Online is Level 50 because there are no new skills beyond level 50. You can still train your older skills by obtaining more skill points from quests or grinding onward. Wait, did you just say grinding onward?! Yup, there is no level cap in Black Desert Online. Meaning you can level up like crazy and go beyond or should I say over 9,000! The current highest level player at the moment is level 54 or 55'ish. Once you get level 50, the grind becomes a bit of a chore and hassle. Some players might complain about the no level cap thing. If you ask me, I don't mind. I have a pretty good tolerance when it comes to hardcore leveling and grinding. I can foresee some problems for high level PvP matches later on. Unless there are diminishing returns on the extra stats gained beyond level 50 and up. Black Desert is like a grinding machines dream, perhaps too hardcore for other gamers outside of Asia.
Black Desert Online 2nd Beta Sorcerer Gameplay UI 4k
Random Patches
My leveling spree was halted a day or two because of a serious bug that made the durability of my armor go down real fast. Not only that, the repair prices were extremely expensive! I couldn't do anything all day because I spent all my money on repairing my armor. The outcome of that patch was good though because I finally got a chance to play around with the trade system. A day later, they hot fixed the bugs and reverted the prices back to normal. I was really upset that day because I couldn't make any money at all and the prices were so expensive. I suppose I wasn't the only one because everyone ended up complaining about it and it was fixed. Was it a bug or some major test that failed on making content more challenging. Whatever it was, I am glad it's back to a normal playable game. If I had enough gold, I would have just bought a house and an anvil so that I can repair at my own home.
Clothing and Clones
Hate to say it, but the game is a bit lacking in clothing variety. I am pleased with the designs in general because there are no crazy bikini armors and stuff. I'm happy that my last set looks nice, at least better than the other classes. If I had to guess, the special and cool looking armors are obtained from field bosses that I need to poke later this week. I was hoping to get one of the cooler looking outfits previewed during the character creation. Large scale battles still look like clone wars because of the same overused colors that doesn't change much, especially for the Ranger class. You're just green all the way baby. I suppose this problem will fix itself when the remaining classes such as Wizard, Valkyrie, Blader, and Tamer is released. Pearl Abyss focused a lot on how clothing adapts with the environment when used too much the armor becomes dirty and ragged like the image below. When raining clothing become soaked in water.
The Market System - Sell and Buy!
I was a bit confused on how the Auction houses or market system worked in Black Desert Online and learned the hard way. My items weren't selling because the I paid the minimum price when placing it up for auction. The market only lists thirteen pages of items. Depending on the city or location it will have more than one market. For example, the large city of Calpheon has two to three market stalls while the smaller towns in the starting zone only have one. Items listed on the market aren't between places. When putting up an item, you can adjust the price of how much you want to sell it and how much gold you want to use so that the item is displayed on the first few pages of the market or the last page.
The more gold invested when putting an item up in the market, the more priority it will get over the other items. For example, if I wanted to put up a super rare sword, I would sell it at 80,000g and add 200g extra for the listing fee. Checking the market and the last page, I don't see my item anywhere because the current lowest item is some 5,000g potato and that a random person put up with a listing fee of 1,000g. Looking at all the items on the last page, everything has a listing price of 1,000g. Now I have to remove my sword and price it at the same 80,000g, but change the listing fee from 200g to something like 1,001g to 6,000g so that it will be visible on top of everyone else's items. With that much gold the item might be displayed in the first few pages of the market. In short, it's a good idea to check the minimum listing fee in the market and the last page before adding an item to be displayed in the market.
Conclusion - What's next!?
Now that I have reached level 50, I really have no idea on what to do other than level up some more! Holy moly, am I crazy!? The next guild battle kicks off this weekend. I can't really say if I am looking forward to it because there seems to be a huge problem with balance at the moment. I do want to hunt some field bosses soon, but my guild is very busy grinding leveling like crazy, more than me sheesh! I will most likely end up relaxing or start playing my other games, though level 51 sounds very tempting. More importantly, I think I need to catch up on some sleep-lag as I have been staying up late and playing way too much Black Desert lately.
Tree of Savior More game info revealed via media interview
1. Difficulty of the monsters is being tuned for Closed Beta after feedback from the Focus Group Test (FGT) held in February.
2. An alumni of soundTeMP, a studio which work on various online games music (including Ragnarok Online), is currently overseeing music/sound for Tree of Savior.
3. The Closed Beta client is said to be around 70% completed.
4. The camp-fire seen in the previously-released screenshot (below) displays the rest mode. More details will be announced in July.
5. Dashing (or running) is apparently limited by stamina, before switching back to normal walking speed. There will be class-specific skills for dodging as well.
6. Production system is open to all players with the appropriate items. The production process is said to take up a few minutes.
7. Open Beta version for Tree of Savior is currently aiming for around 200 zones/ maps with 3 main cities.
8. For accessories such as head gears (bunny ears etc), there are currently around 50 types.
9. In the previously-released PvP screenshot (below), random chats can be seen floating on the screen. These chats are temporary, and aimed to boost the significance of the bustling crowd gathering. This is inspired from a famous Japanese video site (this can also be seen in some animes).
10. Other than just levelling up, there are hidden quests and objectives, so players are advised to navigate all corners of each map.
English Service of Phantasy Star Online 2 Open on May 29 in 6 SEA Countries
[Asiasoft announced that the English service of Phantasy Star Online 2 in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines will be fully launched on May 29, 2014. Early access for beta players starts on May 27.Thai service will start on May 22, 2014 and its early access will start on May 20, 2014.
Before the beta test of Phantasy Star Online 2 in April, Asiasoft received over 100 thousand beta activation for both English and Thai services. Phantasy Star Online 2 is out on PC and PlayStation Vita in Japan. A Western release has been announced, but no date has been set.
Tree of Savior New Devs Q&A Discusses Gameplay, Graphics and More
- Tree of Savior, the upcoming fantasy based 2d non-targeting MMORPG developed by IMC Games, has attracted a lot of attention since debut at last year's G-Star. Recently, Korean gaming media Inven held an interview to ToS team, discussing the current development progress, gameplay, graphic engine and more. Below are some points we summed up from this interview:
- The team got a lot of positive feedback and suggestions from the first Focus Group Test (FGT). During the upcoming summer CBT, they will pay more attention to "massively multiplayer environment".
- After FGT, the team intends to make game more beginner-friendly and focus on blanching monsters and items changes in the following development. Regarding graphics, the team emphasized that "making the manually drawn graphic style stand out over graphic driver generated graphics as much as we could".
- The graphic engine ToS using is the same as another new MMO Wolf Knights".
- 70% contents of ToS' CBT version have been completed.
- The control operation of "8 directional movements and a sprint key" will be added the stmina limit and dash are only available to specific classes.
- Resting Mode will allow you do "non-combat related activities" like crafting. Crafting requires recipes to learn, and specified material to make products.
- As of now, character customization is only limited to Class, Sex and Hairstyle.
- ToS will open at least 200 regions with 3 cities in OBT version.
- The Adventure System encourages players to collect Adventure Score through grinding monsters, exploring maps, collected items or completing some special affair and there will be a corresponding ranking system build up for these players.
Tree of Savior: New Title from Ragnarok Online's Producer Got an English Blog
Korean new MMORPG Tree of Savior is going to enter the first closed beta this summer. This game is developed by the producer of Ragnarok Online, Kim Hakkyu, one of the four most famous game producers in Korea. The development team has opened an English development blog of this game for the western market.
Tree of Savior is a large-scale 2D MMORPG. Players can use direction keys to move, "Z" to attack and "X" to jump. And the mouse is only used to modify the UI interface.
This game provides four basic classes including Warrior, Mage, Archer and Hierophant. And when your character reaches a certain level he/she will be changeable. There are 80 character classes with 10 changeable ones in Tree of Savior.
Tree of Savior had a FGT (Focus Group Test) in February this year and first closed beta will come this summer.
NCsoft just released the Q1 2014 earnings report, indicating that the sales in the first quarter of 2014 dropped by 15% compared to Q4 2013, and net income dropped by 20% against Q4 2013. The company stated that thanks to strong Blade & Soul in China, the game's royalty expanded. On the other hand, Lineage dropped as in-game item sales being scaled back.
The decline was unexpected as NCsoft had no new release in this period and we shall see how the sales would be in Q2 with Wildstar being released in June. NCsoft also revealed the anticipated action MMO Lineage Eternal will start beta test this winter.
According to the latest financial conference for NCsoft, it was announced that the Closed Beta phase for Lineage Eternal and Metal Black: Alternative is scheduled for winter 2014. It is somewhat surprising NCsoft has decided to push 2 games within the same time frame.
Lineage Eternal (KR) - Debut trailer
Metal Black: Alternative (KR) - G-Star 2009 gameplay video
Back in 2009, NCsoft revealed Metal Black: Alternative at the annual G-Star event. Subsequently, news of the game stopped as NCsoft moved on to higher priority products. At yesterdays financial call, the developer announced that the game will enter Closed Beta in South Korea later this year.
An action MMO with a top-down isometric view, the game is pretty much a high tech Diablo with guns. Using the environment during battles is crucial, such as hiding behind objects from incoming fire. According to foreign articles, the game has a strong similarity to MOBA titles.
Other than PvE maps, there will be a variety of PvP ones as well, including a MOBA map. At the financial release conference, a NCsoft representative apparently mentioned that it is time to launch Metal Black: Alternative as players are now accustomed to such games. citing League of Legend as an example.
Credits to MMOculture.com
Extra Information
Sales for games in the 1st quarter of 2014 fell sharply compared to the 4th quarter of 2013, with a massive drop for Lineage 1, which remains the top revenue source for NCsoft. Aion continues to outperform Blade & Soul, while other games remain somewhat stable.
Civilization Online New Screenshots Show Different Civilizations
Civilization Online is going to have the first closed beta from May 27 to June 1 and today a series of new screenshots of this game were released online. You can see the different types of terrain, characters, crafting, cities, rockets, wars, etc. Take a look.
Civilization Online is sandbox MMORPG produced by Jake Song and it is based on the original Civilization series. Jake Song is a famous game producer in Korea and known as one of the four godfathers in Korean gaming industry who once worked at NCsoft, Nexon etc. and participated in the production of Lineage, The Kingdom of the Winds etc. His main project after he formed XL Games is ArcheAge.
FIFA World – Global Open Beta phase goes live with over 16,000 players
Earlier today, EA announced that FIFA World is entering its global Open Beta phase. A free-to-play game, it features over 16,000 real players from 600 real clubs and 31 fully licensed leagues. Vying for the World Cup, there are over 45 national teams to choose from as well.
Trailer
There are three control options to choose from – traditional keyboard and gamepad controls for experienced FIFA and PC gamers are complimented by new, simple to use, mouse based controls which offer first time FIFA players an easy way to play.
Key Features:
FIFA World Ultimate Team – Build your own unique club that plays your style of football and hit the pitch to compete in online and offline modes. Play the 24/7 transfer market and strategically outwit other gamers in buying, selling and trading the world’s greatest superstars to create your Ultimate Team.
League Mode – Lead your favorite real-world club to victory in Online Seasons and experience the drama of promotions and relegation as you battle against other community players to climb the league tables and reach the top flight.
Accomplishments – Complete challenges and earn rewards for in-game tasks revolving around gameplay, transfer market, tournaments, online play and more. Check FIFA World daily for limited time accomplishments that reflect activity from the real world of football and accomplish to earn coins, packs and XP!
Match Invites – Challenge your friends to an Ultimate Team showdown and see who has what it takes to rule the pitch.
Featured Tournaments – Every week new featured tournaments put your Ultimate Team in the spotlight, challenging you to beat some of the world’s best clubs to earn even bigger rewards for your Ultimate Team including coins and packs!
EAS FC Social Hub – Capture and share spectacular goals and beautiful moments you create on the pitch and instantly post them to the in-game social feed. Keep up with your friends’ in-game activity and debate and discuss the latest results and highlights with the community.
EA SPORTS FIFA World Ultimate Team - Getting Started
Built to be enjoyed on average spec laptop or desktop personal computers, everyone can now enjoy a fun, free and authentic football game. EA SPORTS FIFA World is available in English, German, French, Russian, Spanish, MX Spanish, BR Portuguese, Polish and Turkish.
Monster Hunter Online May 22, 2014 Trailer, Haruhiro Tsujimoto, CAPCOM's COO played it in person and highly praised it.
Monster Hunter OL May 22, 2014 Trailer, Highly Praised by CAPCOM COO
2p.com will get several beta keys for the Ultimate Beta on May 30, we're recruiting experienced game writer for reviews or other kinds of article/videos of MHO, please check this link for more information.
Monster Hunter Online is a CryEngine 3 real high definition Monster Game co-developed by Tencent Games and Capcom, the game is set in Chinese MMO market, international version is yet to be announced. The latest closed beta test is scheduled on May 30, 2014.
The Division developers explain the 2015 delay
A lot of people weren't particularly surprised to learn that The Division was being delayed until 2015, but it's still nice to find out exactly why. After all, if you're looking forward to the game at all, you would like to see it sooner rather than later. Gamereactor recently spoke with the development studio, and the developers explained the core reason behind the delay as simply being a matter of properly exploring the concept rather than releasing an unfinished game on a tighter schedule.
According to the interview, the development team was upset at the original announcement of a 2014 release, as there had been no in-house discussion of release dates. The game's engine is quite powerful, but even the 2015 date may be overly optimistic, with The Division's multiplayer components still having major issues with implementation. Hopefully the delays will help ensure that the game is more polished and playable when it does release, whether that's in 2015 or later.
Tree of Savior – First English screenshot revealed by developer
Ending the Focus Group Test (FGT) in Korea earlier this February, developer IMC Games teased the multi-language ability for Tree of Savior. A new feature added into the game recently, there is an option to switch between different languages for both text and dialogue.
The first 3 languages are English, Japanese and Korean, as seen in the screenshots here. IMC Games mentioned that testing for Tree of Savior is currently done in Korea, as there might be heavy latency for international users. The studio is examining setting up physical servers in other countries.
There is no mention if the language switch option will be available in the final client, but I guess it will be up to each region’s publisher to decide (it seems IMC Games is prepared to host an international server itself). The language switch option can be used anytime during gameplay.
Japanese-style MMORPG Onigiri English Closed Beta Begins June 5
Trailer
CyberStep announced that the English closed beta of Onigiri will start next month on June 5. The game client will be downloadable from June 4th.
Onigiri is a Japanese-style action MMORPG that lets you fight with a variety of weapons. In this game, players are possible to equip 3 weapons in total and switch quickly during the battle. According to the weapon they are using, gamers are able to unleash different skills. You can form a party with other players, or set out on your journey with 8 NPC companions who travel with you.
Maplestory 2 Gameplay Trailer Reveals World and Combat System
Official Gameplay
Nexon Korea just released the first gameplay trailer for Maplestory 2 Online showing off the world and I must say, it's a very blocky looking game in a good way. It looks like Maplestory 2 is leaning towards a very cute chibi sandpark art and world direction. Looks like Dungeon Striker and Minecraft had a baby or something! I'm definitely going to keep a closer eye on this game now mainly because I enjoy cute stuff!
Interesting world! Boss battles look fun with all the destructible content and mounting on bosses. Makes me wonder if players can create their own world? Perhaps they will reveal more details about it in the 2nd half of the gameplay video to be reveal soon.
Monster Hunter Online: Official English Names for Monsters
Monster Hunter Online, the highly anticipated CryEngine 3 action MMO will start its third closed beta on May 30, 2014. Whlie a lot of NA/EU Monster Hunter fans are expecting the English release of this game, Capcom and Tencent games still keep silent about it. But from Tencent Games' Chinese official page about monsters in this game, we can see that every monster here gets an official name, even the original monsters that never appeared in other Monster Hunter titles get their official English names.
So why are Capcom and Tencent Games name the monsters in English if they just plan to release this game in China? The answer is quite obvious, they have at least a hope that this game will go the the west. If MHO succeed in China, there is no reason they won't expand the service worldwide.
Tree of Savior Q&A #2: Creating Characters in the Barrack
It is a barrack. You are able to create characters in the barrack and to decorate the barrack too. Besides, other players are able to visite your barrack and leave messages. The first barrack that is given to you when you start the game will have four character slots. If you move into a bigger barrack, you can create more characters.
Other important features:
1. Server-wide chatting is available and the messages will be showed on the upper side of the screen.
2. They are going to make a market instead of using individual stalls. GM will also start auctions at specific times.
3. Level cap is level 100 in the CBT version of the game.
4. There are four playable classes at the beginning and the four classes will have 80 job changes in the full version of the game.
5. You can train your characters to level up skills and learn new skills and attributes.
6. This game will have gathering and crafting.
7. To control the character, you need to use keyboard; to check UIs, you need mouse.
Meet Durango, Nexon's dino survival MMO
Durango - Official Trailer
Pop quiz, hotshot! Which of these things do not go together: dinosaurs, wooly mammoths, hot air balloons, chainsaws, survival gameplay. It's actually a trick question, because in Durango, Nexon's newest MMO, they all do.
Nexon recently revealed the survival-based dino-tastic MMO with a teaser site. From the looks of it, players will be put into a mish-mash prehistoric isometric setting and challenged to survive by making tools, constructing traps, fighting dinos, and building up a safe home. The title is being made by the folks who did Vindictus.
In an interesting twist, Durango will be heading primarily (from the looks of it) to mobile platforms, including iOS, Android, and Nvidia Shield. You can check out the teaser trailer after the jump.
Civilization Online 1st Beta Review in Progress Part 1
The first Closed Beta Test for Civilization Online kicked off last night and it will last for a week long! To be honest, I wasn't really interested in this game. I thought it was just going to be one of those MMORPG's where you just build random stuff, but to my surprise I ended up playing throughout the whole test last night. Find out why below!
Character Selection
Civilization Online 1st Closed Beta Character Selection
Civilization is still in the first beta and probably early build so there wasn't much customization features other than choosing a starting faction. It seems like there are three factions to choose from in this beta which are Romans, Chinese, and Egyptian. For testing purposes, the 4th faction is disabled in the first beta.
Civilization Online Genre Explained
A lot of people are often confused when they hear "Civilization" Online especially if you've played the previous installments. This version lean towards more to a 3rd person RTS with RvR mechanics. Pretend you're playing Warcraft or Age of Empires and each unit represents a player. Some players can change jobs into Fighter types like Warrior, Knights, Knights on Horses, Archer, Gunner, etc. While some other players can focus on trade and life skills such as Smithing, Peasants (Builder), and more. Players of the same faction must work together and build their own base and Town Halls throughout the region. It's one big massive continent! Upgrading Town Halls, building towers for protection, lumber mills, and all that RTS stuff. Players must mine and harvest resources to build stuff. Just like the original Civilization series, your faction can progress through different eras! The game isn't that complex and is very easy to adapt too.
Okay, so you can build stuff when does the fun part come in? For me, the best part of Civilization Online is the destroying and pillaging the enemy Town Halls and villages. As you can see in the video below, I spent a lot of time raiding with the other strangers of the same faction. We raided town to town and by the time we finished I ended up having over 400k. I didn't even realize an hour had passed and I was recording that long, I was so into the siege that I lost track of time. My HD almost exploded with the recorded file size using FRAPS uncompressed recording. I'm looking forward to piloting the planes and choopers, perhaps boats for naval warfare.
Civilization Online 1st Closed Beta Long PvP RvR Destroying and Capturing Enemy Towns
Now that I have tons of gold and resources, I will probably spend most of my time tonight "teching" or upgrading the faction buildings, build monuments, towering up the buildings that my faction took over. Expect a lot of "building stuff" tomorrow, unless I get suckered into another RvR. I'm still experimenting with the game and wondering if teching up will force us to move up into a new era. Would be neat to see and create the more advanced buildings and vehicles. I'd like to see some helicopters used in RvR, wouldn't you?! Just hoping that the session does not reset tomorrow. Perhaps the world only resets after your faction fully dominates all the opposing factions on the map. Which means it will be a new experience each time, but is starting over too much? I really don't mind either way, it's a new experience each time. On a side note, I better find a guild soon.
Fast Leveling and Crafting System
The current beta cap was up to level 10 or perhaps it was because of the current era? Leveling up to 10 was extremely easy, took less than an hour. Other than the character levels alone, players can also level up their active skills by continuously using it. The max level of a skill is 10, I think it scales with the level. I started working on my Smithing since I wanted to mass produce weapons for my faction members. I mined ores, crafted a bunch of weapons! I ended up maxing my Smithing within the hour, shortly after, I discovered an NPC that sells PvP based items. Was disappointed that the PvP items were better than the ones I could craft during that time, leaving me with a useless Blacksmith, lol. Hopefully, it will be a lot more useful when the era changes.
Civilization Online First Beta Blacksmith Crafting
All of the characters in the game can build stuff, some classes are just better at it. For example, you get more recipes when you job change to a Blacksmith. You also get Blacksmith related skills that can enhances the crafting process such as quality, progess, and more. The crafting system is somewhat leaning towards the FFXIV 2.0 system. You can increase the quality of the item with a skill and use another skiill to increase the progress. Once the progress bar is 100% a result screen will pop up revealing if your item is maximum quality or NPC material.
Conclusion - Is it fun!?
The game is still new to me, so I am enjoying it a lot. I've decided to play the last few remaining days of beta, Civilization Online has an interesting concept. Won't lie, but some of the features feel very ArcheAge'ish like construction, skills, combat, icons, etc. Even if you're a person that doesn't enjoy PvP, you can focus on other things like building tower defenses, upgrading buildings, and learning technology for the faction. I'll have more juicy details soon.
