Showing posts with label games. Show all posts
ArcheAge Closed Beta 3 & 4 Review
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| Adventuring with friends :) |
After a long hiatus I'm finally back to blogging. Have been busy lately. With work and etc. Good thing ArcheAge came along which helps to relieve some stress x)
This shall be a continuation from my previous post A sneak peek at new #MMORPG: ArcheAge . My friends and I managed to participate in Closed Beta 3 and 4. Just like to share some of my thoughts on how ArcheAge fair so far :)
Well, Trion is very smart to offer an exclusive Founder's package at 3 different price point, where you get advanced access to other features of the BETA. The cheapest package costs USD 49.99 and you get like... 4 days headstart against other F2P players? Hmm, just not really sure if it's really worth it to spend just for "additional" Beta access :/
The biggest impression left after the end of CB4 was the complexity of the class builds (whooping 120 types) and the intensity of the dungeon. You can practically create any job by mixing any 3 classes attributes, and so I chose the route of Shadowplay (like assassin), Battlerage (like fighter) and Archery which gives you a job call "Outrider". Sounds cool enough, and I'm pretty happy with this mix which gives pretty high dps. With dual-wielded swords and a bow, it's a hybrid strong melee and relatively strong ranged character as well which I've never tried before in any other MMOs. There's already a bunch of resources created about ArcheAge's complexed job system so would like to share a few good sites here:
arche-base.comhttp://archeage.gamepedia.com/Classes
Highlights in CB4
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| Beautiful airship thingy *-* |
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| Grow your own mount. Hitching a ride on a Nuian's mount is fun. |
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| Gliding with friends! |
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| Oh yes, pretty girl can climb a tree too :) |
Few interesting things we learnt in CB4 - harvesting crops from other's public farms will leave your footprints where other players can report you ^^. Overdoing "crimes" like this, or killing players from the same faction gives you Crime Points and where you eventually can be put on trial and go to jail. And when you commit too many crimes you can turn into a pirate as well ^^ Auroria island is a place where pirates reside. Going back to Nuia or Haranya - NPCs or players will be able to attack you lol. Pretty interesting. Kind of like to try living a life of a pirate :D
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| Oh thiefy :3 |
The most exciting part of our short adventure in CB4 would definitely be our sailing experience. We didn't have time to build a huge sailing boat, but we were so eager to sail out so heck it, 5 of us squeeze into our pathetic row boat and started our adventure anyway! :P
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| Chicken Burgers! This is really too cramp and no leg space! D: |
We set off in the day from Nuia's Dewstone Plains to Haranya. On our way there, we discovered some small isolated island where nobody resides and somebody planted mushrooms there lol.
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| Small deserted island! |
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| Dotted line marks our route! It was really fun! |
It took us quite long by manual rowing. Not to mention there were also sea bugs and gaint jellyfish jumping about and attacking our boat during our ride! It was so scary. We quickly jumped off our boat and 4 of us died leaving our tanker alone in the open sea! D: She was so afraid and could only swim to the shore of Haranya while the jellyfish continues to whack our friend's boat ><. 4 of us eventually managed to row our boat AGAIN via a shorter route to reach Haranya. We reached at dawn and was in time for the beautiful sunrise :D
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| Arriving at Haranya at dawn with our friend from Haranya welcoming us! xD |
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| Successfully arrived at Haranya after much ordeal :D |
You can see the obvious difference in the environment and terrain when you arrive at the opposing faction. Haranya is beautiful ^^ Buildings and trees look different as well :) When we first disembarked on the shores of Haranya, we were careful to look out for any possible enemies because we could be ganged anytime X) Luckily only a few were on shore. We couldn't understand what they are saying because you could only see gibberish texts :D makes it all the more realistic ^^ You gotta learn their language at a later part if you want to understand what your enemy is speaking.
We went on to venture into the lands of Haranya, only to be chased after by NPCs! Hahahaha, 2 of us died and was resurrected at the temple LOL. Our spy friend from Haranya was telling us that other Haranians were shouting to call on other Haranians to come to kill us xD
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| I really like this liondance mount! Way too cute! LOL. |
We met some friends over here as well, but couldn't communicate hahahhaa. Looking forward to Open Beta which starts this 4th Sept!
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| Nice scenary :) |
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| I shall take a selfie ^^ |
Phantasy Star Online 2 BETA Keys now available for SEA players
Hey folks, finally the much awaited Phantasy Star Online 2 is available to SEA region now in English! If you're in the SEA region and have been longing to try out the game, BETA keys are now officially available at:
http://bit.ly/PSO2BetaGiveAway
Here are a few more sites giving away free Beta Keys :)
SGCafe: http://bit.ly/1gQgynJ
GamesInAsia: http://bit.ly/PmarNo
MMOCulture: http://bit.ly/1jE7mmO
Game8Indo: http://on.fb.me/1dOQBFY
Geek Culture: http://bit.ly/1gR8NOl
Beta Key Activation: http://bit.ly/PSO2BetaActivation
Closed Beta Test officially opens on 10th April 2014!
Phantasy Star Online 2 is a F2P MMORPG, developed by SEGA and published by Asiasoft Online for SEA, and so you need a PlayPark account to play.
The setting looks kind of futuristic, with high-tech armours and equipments in parts of the environment.
There are mainly 3 classes to choose from, Hunter (e.g. melee fighter), Ranger (e.g. gunner) and Force (e.g. mage).
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| Hunter |
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| Ranger |
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| Force |
There are also 3 race - Human, Newman (e.g. Elf) and Cast (e.g. Mecha).
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| Human (Male) |
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| Newman (Female) |
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| Cast (Female) |
More updates to come along the way!
Halloween
Ohh, after the lunar 7th month is over, halloween's around the corner ^^ Have you got any ideas yet where to go, what to wear, how to play? I think this year's halloween scene in Singapore is quite happening.
There's a few venues having parties and events. For one, the popular RaceTheDead to be held at Sentosa has overwhelming responses, and extended its event for another day. It's a 5km run with obstacles for the survivors, and hordes of zombies to stop you from running to the safe house. It's like playing L4D in real life, only without weapons.
Sentosa has many events going on, just for Halloween alone. There's a night event on the same day as RaceTheDead on 26 October called the Zombie Party at Wavehouse. Seems like zombie theme is very popular nowadays. Too much L4D and zombie apocalypes movie or what? Haha ^^
11 Oct - 3 Nov 2013
This year there's also the Halloween Horror Night organised by Universal Studios Singapore again, after 2 consecutive successful years. The event is going to be on for almost the whole month of October on every weekends starting from 11 October till the 3rd November. Only thing for this party is that, participants cannot dress up and go for this party...Erm? They explain it's for the safety and security of the guests and the scare actors. Prolly don't want to mess up the real actors and the guests haha. Ticket is at $68/each and $60/each for early bird. Not cheap ehh to get yourself scared....
19, 25, 26 & 31 Oct, 1 & 2 Nov 2013
The next event in Sentosa, is the Sentosa Spooktacular Night at Fort Siloso. Wle, I think for this I definitely would not go because I have a small kokoro and I cannot take fake scares and maybe real scares also (I don't know but Fort Siloso used to be the place where real war happened in the past you see). Apparently the organisers understand that there are people like me so they have a special pass for this event call Kia Gui at a cheaper rate of $16.60 ^0^~
FREE EVENTS (26 Oct 2013)
We want to play, and all these events make us Pay-And-Pay!!! Are they any free parties then?!
Yes, you can go walk walk with fellow zombies for free at Singapore Zombie Walk on 26 October (like Big Walk but zombified? Hmmm the name is not very creative huhhh :3) Event will be held at The Cathay, and you will be part of the zombie horde (chiong ahhh* runs after boomer bile*) However, they have a cap for this event at 500 people so that it is only capped at 100 irregal gatherings? :D
Another free event would be at Asian Civilisation Museum on 26 October as well. There will be performances and ghostly movie screenings. Actually I think if they just close the whole museum and let people wander on their own may be more scary.... Because it's night at the museum... :O
Other events which are free could be those organised by clubs or nightbars. I remember last year Zouk's Halloween event is to let participants who dresses up enter free, while those who just went as normal being has to pay for the usual cover charge ^^.
Any ideas for dressing up for Halloween? What characters would be interesting? Shall skip the usual hot girl with flashing horns, and draculas.. My friends and I are thinking to do a zombified Crayonpop since we're going for the Zombie Party at Wavehouse. But, does anybody know Crayonpop in Singapore? :/ Or maybe a female hunter would be cool as well :) Comment below if you have got ideas to share lol :D
A sneak peek at new #MMORPG: ArcheAge
ArcheAge is a MMORPG based on Eastern and Western fantasy world view. Developed by XL Games from South Korea and creator Jake Song, who made the smash hit online game Lineage. The title has spent 6 years in development, and it has been in closed beta tests for 2 years in Korea. ArcheAge is described as a "sandpark" game, which the developers say is a hybrid of the open content style of a "sandbox" game, and the more structured play experience of a "themepark" game. It is a game with housing, territorial control, music, dancing and a focus on PvP as well as quests.
The game was released in South Korea in January 2013, Japan in July 2013, and had its closed beta in China so far. It has been announced that North America and Europe version will be distributed by Trion, but the beta phase for North America and Europe has not been announced yet.
Moving on, I shall highlight briefly on some interesting features of the game :)
CLASS SYSTEM: Archeage has an unusual system that allows you to mix skills from 3 different classes at once. That sounds nice, totalling up to a possibility of 120 different builds! There are 10 trees of active and passive skills in the beginning of the game, and you can pick 3 of the offensive skills to start off. The trees at later levels are completely free for you to choose. You can change the trees later or just reset the skills in a tree as often as you need (but it costs money). There is also "synergies" in the skill tree system, which offers extra effects, buffs or debuffs that you get through using skills of different trees.
With these many different combinations, I think players may have a hard time deciding whether you want to go for PVE/PVP built, and if you go for both it just means that you can survive but probably won't excel extremely well in either one. Having read that ArcheAge has quite a huge content in PVP, there are bound to be players going for the extreme built for massacres lol. In all, there have been much praises for the class system so far, being the best that players have seen in the past few years.
COMBAT SYSTEM wise, it is as simple as it is - tab-targetting (trigger-happy times) with no player aiming required. There is stealth in the game, but not in the absolute sense as other games may have created it to be. There is a chance you may get revealed if you are too close to your target. Collision between players can also be detected (so you don't just walk through them), which allows for body-blocking during combat, and also an obstacle detection which favours the ranged players in helping them dodge some attacks. Attacks from a glider, which is the flying equipment you see in the video is possible as well using bombs and arrows. Combat on ships using cannons, or tanks and mounts depending on which type you have. There are also pets which you can use to support you in a fight. Let's take a look at some good naval action:
PVP: All zones are PVP-enabled. Green name players are from your faction, and red names are enemies. The starting zones are safe for your own faction, enemies cannot attack you but you can attack them if you want. The player you attack can defend himself, but not his friends that are with him. Higher level zones are free for all PVP. You can attack the enemy faction, and, also your own! However, you can get in trouble with the law if you do attack your own faction. The northern continent and the sea are open for PVP all the time, however, if too many killings are happening it can start a war, which lasts for an hour. When war is declared, you get points for killing the enemy faction ^^.
LEVELLING: It is said to be quest-heavy. The quests and storylines are based on a famous korean novel. If you are someone who enjoys following the story in any MMOs you may appreciate it more while you are progressing through your quests. There are currently 2 books about ArcheAge and many short stories about the lore as well.
Other than the usual questing like most MMOs offer, you can also get experience from doing a whole lot of other stuffs as well like chopping trees, farming ore, stone and refining them, crafting packages and constructions etc. I forsee myself doing a whole lot of other things than just questing, or the worse, mindless grinding which I really hate (I detest repetitive activities!!!). I really dislike the fact that sometimes I am lagging behind when I don't do quests or grinding to catch up with my friends who does them lol. With the availability of so many other activities, it gives players rewarding recreational time as well rather than just questing and grinding all the time. This is great! :)
My thoughts: With synergies in the skill tree system and 120 different possible built in place, I think ArcheAge encourages players to really work together, so you get the best out of everyone's combinations, to plan and truly make use of each player's strength to tackle different situations. Moreover, you need help in defending your ship as well if you get attacked, as players would probably travel in groups as well to safeguard themselves.
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| Asian architecture and environment. |
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| Western architecture and features. |
TRANSPORTATION: Players can anticipate to travel in 3 forms of transportation - land, sea and air. Other than the standard mounts like horses or lions (which you have to breed), there are also cars, tractors, big ships, small ships, trade ships with radar function, submarines and gliders! Ships come in 2 different versions - the Eastern type with cannons and the Western with the harpoon.
Cars are pretty cute like a modern yet old vehicle in ArcheAge. It is also very expensive as well but it is the fastest moving land vehicle in ArcheAge so far. View the video below :)
Gliders are one of the other fun thing to take if you like sightseeing and exploring lands. There's enough land to explore and no invisible barriers holding you back from climbing every mountain you see.
ECONOMY: Auction house is global, which means you share it with other servers as well. This is almost the same as globalisation in real world. Generally this manner should be better in the context of resource allocation, but from sources it seems that the AH is just providing stuff generated by the system, and there are no real players interaction at the moment. They may be future changes, or not to the AH system so it may be too early to tell if it is a better system this way or not.
TRADING: This may be the main activity for most players' source of income. You can farm and harvest materials, craft them into packages and bring them to trading posts in another region where the distance and rarity would determine your profit.
PIRACY: With trading comes piracy. Players can choose to become pirates if they don't wish to go by the proper way of trading. This becomes a huge factor of the game since many players may choose to do trading to earn money. Pirates can try to take your packages when you land or they attack you to do whatever they want to do. This calls for greater need for all guilds to work together or even create some "political" ties which are actually relevant and true in real life lol.
FISHING: You can do standard or deep sea fishing. Just have to look out in the sea for a spot with many seagulls flying around. Fish caught will be put in a fish tank in your fishing boat, and you can choose to trade them.
COMPOSING SONGS: This is a really special part of the game where players can compose their own music and play them! The better you get with the skill the more accurate you would play. Sounds pretty realistic lol. I think it will get funny when it goes out of tune xD
EDUCATION: Every race in ArcheAge has their own language. Players can learn them from libraries and universities in the game. Some players are speculating that this function may lead to the possibility of player-created faction to happen as well.
COURT: If if break the law, you get charged to court. It allows players to participate as the judiciary as well in deciding if the other accused player should go to jail. Hahaha, can't imagine what would happen if people just decide to play a prank lol. This should be interesting.
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| Are they digging for keys to get out of jail? |
See below a video on how a player can get charged in court, put in jail, AND escape from jail. (You may skip the video if you don't wish for any "spoilers".)
This is pretty amusing.
The HOUSE SYSTEM is something players can explore when you're off combat mood. You get to build your own house and furnish it, and you would be able to decide through settings whether to allow public, guild, family or only yourself to visit. You can choose a location to build it with resource packages, and after you've finished it you can put furniture into it. Furniture like bed, has the function which restores your labour points used for crafting etc. Players can also upload pictures to decorate their houses.
Besides houses, scarecrows are used for general farming, and there are underwater farms as well (o_O).
The above are just the highlights of some features of the game and not the entire content of the game! Hope you have enjoyed what you have seen so far :) And after yakking and watching so much, the final question is:
"Is ArcheAge F2P?"
The answer is, YES!
As of July 2013, XL Games has ditched their subscription fees and made it F2P in Korea! Yayyyy~ At the same time, lots of new contents have been unveiled as well, like a new 10 person dungeon Island of Eternity, new houses with underwater farms, and a new coin system that will replenish a players cultivation/labor points.
There have also been talks about how the launch of ArcheAge may not be as successful in the West, for the "culture-shock" some western players may get, and the nature of it being a sandbox game is too niche an area of interest. But I think all these may be too early to tell for the game has not even been released in NA and EU yet. Looking at the amount of content, players may just look past the little differences that it may have.
More updates to come about ArcheAge. Meanwhile have fun and game on!
Game Review: TERA Online
Hi, welcome to my first game review on my blog. Hmm, having played many titles so far, I feel that the MMORPGs that are actually good and sustainable nowadays may be very few. What defines "good" is very subjective as well. There are some which are very game-orientated and lacks the community element in the "social" part of the game. Others, focus too much on profitability and changes the direction of the whole experience. Nonetheless, they are still admirable creations in providing players a source of entertainment at its best.
TERA Online being an action MMORPG, left me a great impression, which I shall be reviewing in this entry.
Background
This game was released first in South Korea and Japan in 2011, North America in 2012, and in Europe on May 3, 2012. My friends and I decided to play on the Europe server as it was the latest one opened then.
So what actually brought us to try this game - the spectacular graphics. One cannot deny that the developers did a really good job on the character design, map design and animations. TERA was initially intended to be released as a P2P (Pay-to-play) game, but after it's beta test, it was eventually announced and released as a F2P (free-to-play) game. This was a really good piece of news to the entire universe of players, for it was a pretty anticipated and highly recommended game even before its release.
The following segments will contain my own reviews and ratings :) These are based on my personal playing experiences and are subjective.
Graphics
Race & Classes
Quite a variety to choose from - there are 7 race namely Aman, Castanic, High Elf, Baraka, Popori, Human and Elin. They each have a racial trait that gives passive ability (e.g. a faster swimming speed.) You may choose one that compliments well with your class. But in my opinion, they don't make much a difference, unless it's a critical trait that affects your class's performance.
Classes or jobs come in 8 types - Warrior, Lancer, Archer, Sorceror, Slayer, Berserker, Priest and Mystic. The tank class here is the Lancer, and Warrior is almost equivalent to an assassin class in most of other games. Archer and Sorceror, as their names say. Slayer wields 2-hand sword, light-armoured, is a damage dealer and performs relatively good as a PVPer as well. They have both speed and damage, but they are difficult to control in my opinion. Berserkers wield 2-hand huge-ass axe, heavy-armoured. Slower attack speed, but better in defence as compared to slayer.
Priest is the main healing class in this game, as they can do single-target healing and AOE healing as well (all hail AOE healing !!!! \^^/). Mystic is a very good support class as they give good buffs, acts as a sub-healer, and is capable of doing a bit of additional damages as well to help out the party.
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| "I drop balls and I cannot lie~" |
Gameplay
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| Outlaw Declaration. |
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| Casting lock-on skill. |
SYSTEM: This is an action MMORPG, involving real-time combat. It feels like a combination of Dragon Nest and Perfect World, with the game-play system similar to Dragon Nest and environment comparable to Perfect World. Fire at will, however, you should also have some skills that enable target-locking. Basically, you are suppose to press the skill button once and mouse over to lock on targets, then left click your mouse to execute the skill. May sound easy, but takes practice to ensure that your casting is seamless during combat.
Being an action RPG, TERA's extensive map caters for comfortable space for combat, and that helps a lot especially when you're fighting BAMs (Big-Ass-Monsters).
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| Gwahhh! I shall call you BUM - Big Ugly Monster |
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| Party-matching system |
INSTANCE: Nexus is an instance in the game, where players can enter to defeat the nexus monsters in that phase. It consists of 3 phases, where the completion of each phase opens up the area to proceed on to the next. It requires multiple parties to take down the nexus lord, and only by defeating it will the nexus be closed. Each phase in the nexus battle is compounded in difficulty by a random effect that covers the entire nexus area.
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| Default mount. |
EXPLORING: Navigation wise, you don't go from one portal to the next immediate map (like e.g. Dragon Nest). You have to mount on to travel physically from one place to another to quest or dungeons. This may be a hassle after some time, because TERA's map is reeeeaaally huge. You may find yourself riding for full 5 mins or more if the place is far. So, plan your quests well to avoid any unnecessary detours.
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| Pagasus Platform |
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| Real-time flight experience...ahh~ |
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| Going through inter-continent portal. |
GEARS UPGRADE: In TERA, you need to work really hard to get godly gears. Weapons can be enchanted by an agent called "alkahest" to +9. To open up the possibility to enchant to +12, you have to do Masterwork and use even more alkahest which should cost you a fortune. The probability of enabling a weapon to be qualified for further enchantment to +12 is already very low, let alone the success rate of enchantment beyond +9. In all, the trade-off in time and effort to perfect enchantment is just too much.
Community
Recommendation (8 / 10)
Generally, I would say this game is totally worth a try for pull factors like its game content, graphics, combat system and environment. Levelling is a breeze in TERA, as there are main story quests and side quests to help you through until level 50s, so you should not require any unnecessary grinding if you follow through the quests correctly (I really hate grindinggggg). Travel vast and explore the lands, and you will naturally enjoy the experience.
PROBLEMS FACED: Firstly, we faced the lag issue. There was noticeable delay between our action and skills performed. For example, Archer's Rapid Fire of 7 arrows becomes a 4 or 5. Well, the lag could probably be due to the physical distance between us and the end-server (SG - EU). Annoying though, because this would mean we have lower chances at PVPs. We just had to deal with surprise attacks and random ninjas then o_o. Lastly, we didn't manage to upgrade our weapons beyond +9, because it requires too much money and luck. Full-stop.
Overall, it was a very enjoyable experience. If you are someone who aims to go for perfect endgame weapon (both PVE and PVP gears and weapons) however, be prepared to invest tremendous amount of time, effort and perseverance. Money probably can't get you there, for you require tonnes of pure luck!
Try it today at:
TERA Online (NA)
TERA Online (EU)
