TERA: PAX - Server PVP and A Big Bad Boss - Preview

While the folks at En Masse didn’t attend PAX like they normally would, they were still a part of the show for press and fansites alike in that they invited us all out in small groups for special hour-long presentations on the game, with some hands-on group play to boot.  It was pretty spiffy walking into their offices to see the big windows overlooking the Seattle bay area, and we didn’t have to look too hard to spot our E3 award to the team for Best Combat displayed proudly on the front desk along with other awards won this year.  After introductions we headed into the “Swarm” room (their term for meeting or conference room) where five PCs awaited Carolyn and I (two for us and three for the devs).


And… ACTION!


Producer Chris Hager and Associate Producer Stefan Ramirez took seats at the front of the room to run us through a brief presentation.  Their game, they told us, is about two things mainly: action and depth.  The action part comes from their True Action Combat, and the pieces that make up this system.  First and foremost as we all now know, the combat is not auto-target centric.  Without your mouse reticule over the monsters, you won’t hit them.  The same goes for the healing mechanics in many cases.  You watch your enemies, and you track them with your mouse while you attack.  And there’s no queuing of spells either: you press the button, and they happen. Some may charge up, but they’re all reactive.

Additionally they told us about the combo chain system.  Essentially, you can create your own combos in the UI, which seem to be in groups of two skills right now.  So if you start off with a knockdown attack, a suitable combo might be a big punishing axe-slice from your Berserker.  After you activate the first part of the two-skill combo, a UI pop-up will tell you to press space-bar (or the Y button on your Xbox 360 controller) to do the follow up attack.  This is a simple and effective way of creating some pretty specific move combinations for each class. 

Then there are also crystals and glyphs.  Crystals are drops you’ll find around the world and in shops which can be slotted into your items a la Diablo II.  They give buffs to different stats for the weapon and your character, and can be un-slotted at will so you can use them in your next weapon or armor.  Throw in dodging, rolling, reactive AI, and all that good stuff and you have a recipe for some pretty action-oriented combat with a lot of depth. 

But Chris and Stefan also wanted to make sure that we knew the game’s not just about the fighting.  There are several things that give the world of TERA some real weight.  The game has a lengthy overarching story being penned by some of the world’s most renowned fantasy authors (RK MacPherson to name one).  The story covers the entire expansive world of over 80 zones with 25 cities and villages, and over 1,000 quests to take you from beginning to end of the tale (and beyond as content updates land).

Politics: Ruling the Land

And while there aren’t warring factions to drive conflict, there is plenty of strife between people and Guilds as the game’s Political System is making sure of this.  Guilds and individual players alike can vie and run for political office to rule one of eighteen provinces in the game (each province is split into several zones).  The Vanarch (ruler of the province) then can raise and set taxes on everything piece by piece from travel to potion sales.  They can even turn off the trade brokers (AH) in their province if they deem is necessary.  A Vanarch can rule with an iron fist and stay ruler by dominating in the game’s PVP matches, or he or she can win by earning the respect and votes of their fellow players.  The real interesting thing will be to see how everyone handles this system, and what sorts of rulers we find in the game. 

Server versus Server PVP

Lastly, Stefan and Chris were happy but cryptic to let us know that Server vs. Server PVP will be making it in for the Endgame.  While they anticipate having a nice group of PVE dungeons for the raiding crowd, they want to make sure the PVP folks have something to look forward to besides PVP deathmatches.  Their answer is the SvS PVP system.  They couldn’t reveal too many specifics, but they did say that an entire server will be able to unlock the ability to invade another server and reap the rewards and its riches, while wrecking havoc on its people.  The team plans to give real lore-driven reasons for this, but right now they hope we’re content to know that you’ll be able to invade, defend, drive-back and even chase an entire server into their own homeland. 

Then it was time for the demo.  I sat down as the Slayer, a dual-wielding machine of melee death, while Carolyn did some finger-waggling as a Sorcerer.  Stefan played the role of Priest and Chris was our Warrior tank, while another developer hopped on an Archer to lend a hand from afar.  This time we were in a late-game dungeon: we had tracked the Argons down to one of their lairs where they create undead metallic soldiers from the people of TERA.  Our goal?  Stop them.  Pretty simple.

For our demo we just had a few trash mobs to kill, which gave us all a nice feel for the combat and our classes.  Though we almost bit it once, due to the sheer number of mobs we pulled, we made it out alive and on to the first boss.  The Slayer controlled extremely well, and I never felt like I was just mashing the left-click to attack, as you can hold-down the button to string your main weapon strikes.  Then it’s just a matter of pressing the corresponding hotkey to pull off one of your many skills or abilities.  I had nice leaping stab that launched me to my enemy, several multi-hit attacks, and a few stuns at my disposal.  With two swords, the Slayer seemed to be mainly about single-target DPS, but with several mobs around me I could hit about three at a time.  Methinks that TERA will be a game which does multi-enemy combat quite well.

The boss was absolutely massive.  The argon had four legs, a gigantic tail that could pack a wallop and some razor sharp blades on his arms.  Our tank did a great job holding agro, and my Slayer had some crystals that added a critical chance from behind so I spent most of my time looking at the monster’s big butt.  The fight got really interesting when the Argon decided randomly to jump like a lunatic around the room, sometimes knocking us to near death were it not for the Priest (thank you Stefan!).  He also sequentially summoned these ghostly black adds which would damage anyone near to him, and though our Archer killed them off, each time he summoned them they’d get closer and our ability to move and dodge attacks was cut off more and more.  Mind you, there were only five of us, but it took a lot of coordination to make sure we each had the heals we needed, stayed out of harm’s way, and took down the guy.

In the end, though our Priest DC’d about 75% of the way through (he logged back in quickly), we managed to down the beast and win some extremely beefy rewards… that we’ll never get to use or see.  In all, my first foray into TERA was a pleasant one.  I get the combat, and I can see why this game got our E3 award for just that (as well as our PAX Prime award).  It’s exceptionally immersive combat, and really does the game great justice in a coordinated group setting.  It’s perfect for dungeons and the like.  What remains to be seen is how it works all together in the open world, and whether going solo is as fun as sitting in a room with friends and slaying bosses.  If En Masse and Blue Hole can do as good of a job with the entire game as they have with this dungeon fight, we’re all in for a treat.


Carolyn's Thoughts

At PAX this year, I tagged along with Bill to En Masse entertainment’s HQ here in Seattle to get some hands-on play with their latest build.  Now I’ve played melee characters before, the Slayer a couple of times and the Lancer once, but this time, I wanted to play a finger-waggler, one of my favorite classes in MMOs, a caster.  Bill was assigned the Slayer role and we had a Lancer as well, so as a glass cannon, I knew who to hide behind.

The character turned out to be a blonde high-elf babe in four-inch heels, a strapless evening gown that looked like it was painted on (there really, really needs to be a spelled “Mesmerise” with the accompanying animation being a shoulder shimmy used only in PvP), and long elbow length gloves.

Now, TERA is an action based MMO and with this new build, we had compass-point aiming reticules to aid us, and when in range, a circle formed around the points. This helps.  A lot. Compared to previous builds where you sometimes could not tell what you were hitting in a large scuffle of group mates and big-ass monsters (BAM). Being an action based MMO, all the big-ass monsters also had hints or tells and when low on health, became enraged, hitting harder. With desperation also comes new patterns and the fight pattern can change, so players always have to be on their toes.

Like many single-player action games, there are combos and players can chain skills to unlock them. They can be very powerful combos and the Sorcerer I quickly discovered had quite a few AE as well as very short range spell combs. All to be judiciously used for one of them landed me right on top of the aforementioned BAM and I got whacked a good one. This brought up another Combo, appropriately named “Revenge” which I fired off and ran on my tippy-toes out of the way. 

This particular fight had a BAM which was very mobile, running and jumping in different directions, charging at the healer and ranger, with Bill frantically trying to keep its attention. The game, which is not yet in alpha at this time, played very smoothly, and the addition of the targeting reticule made a vast difference. What glass cannon wants to unleash a big can of whoop-ass on the wrong mob? Mob hints were telegraphed, as are character windups so attention is important in TERA. This isn’t a game of hitting auto-attack and going for a sandwich.

TERA is looking better and better each time I have a chance for hands-on play and I’m looking forward to the day this game launches. One amusing note is the idle animation of the High Elf chick. After the combat, she dusted herself off fastidiously and swept down her skirt. Yeah, I’m totally playing a High Elf while I know Bill wants to play a cute little Popori warrior with a mucking huge sword or halberd.

Sources:

1

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Rusty Hearts - Review

To get started, for those of you not familiar with Rusty Hearts and who don’t want to ready my first impressions article, Rusty Hearts is a side-scrolling multi-player online RPG (MORPG). It is no more of a MMO game than Diablo or Call of Duty is, regardless of how Perfect World categories it, but that isn’t necessary a bad thing.



What Rusty Hearts does right is realize what type of game it is, a fasted paced action beat-em-up. With that in mind you won’t find any real world to explore, other than the towns you travel to as you progress through the game. All the quests and missions are accessed through Dungeon portals which are scattered throughout the towns, from which you will choose what dungeon you want to go to. While this means everything in the game is instanced, it also means you can jump right into the action without having to follow some quest marker.

Above is the first dungeon you’ll come across which you can see is separated into four sections, with each section having a level range, meaning you cannot access it until your character is at the minimum level. You can also see that all the dungeon sections have 4 difficulty settings. In the image above you’ll only see three,  Normal, Hard and Very Hard, but there’s a forth called Blood, which is the hardest difficulty level and available in all dungeons past the intro one, however requires tokens to access as the drops are epic.

While Rusty Hearts allows players to group, up to four players, you’ll really never need to unless you want to. I’ve only really had minor issues with some Very Hard levels, but nothing a few health potions or resurrection scrolls couldn’t fix.

Combat is what you would expect, fast and furious. Your character gets a lot of spells and moves, so you can can pull off some crazy attack combos reminiscent of those Marvel vs Capcom games. While initially I was having a blast doing quests and completing dungeons, as you progress it does get a little grindy. The main issue comes from quests that have you going to the same dungeons over and over again to kill this, collect that, find this, so it does get boring from time to time.

While PvE can get stale, Rusty Hearts also features a PvP battle arena where up to 8 players can square off against each other in various PvP modes as teams or solo. There’s survivor and death-match, which can be played solo or in teams and VIP and tag team, which require teams. Winning teams or players receive points that can be used to purchase special weapons and items as well as their PvP rank raised if they win enough matches. Rusty Hearts also features a PvP ladder system for those of you that want organized competition.


Crafting is very simply in Rusty Hearts, you basically go to various vendors who all have their own crafting lists and you see what you can make. For someone that doesn’t enjoy crafting and just wants to get back into the action, this crafting system fits in perfection with Rusty Hearts’ fast paced style.


Aside from crafting, players can also upgrade their weapons and gear by visiting the blacksmith. All you need is some in-game money and things called Wiseman Stones. While you can upgrade your items multiple times, the risk of failure goes up with each upgrade and if it fails, you lose all previous upgrades.

While for the most part I enjoyed my time with Rusty Hearts, it wasn’t all good. My biggest issue, although minor, did cause me quite a bit of frustration. When I started out I was using my mouse and keyboard, but due to the awkwardness I quickly switched to my Xbox gamepad, which worked great, except I was constantly scrolling though my skill rows accidentally. I’d pull of some combos, move away real quick, then would trying casing again only to realize nothing was working.  It seems I was pulling off an unknown combo that would scroll my skill bar from row one to two and I couldn’t figure it out, so I would have to grab my mouse and click the scroll button to get back to row one. I eventually figured it out, but was still constantly doing it so I had to make row 2 a duplicate of row 1 so I wouldn’t lose any time switching back. I was dying for a lock feature.

While PvE is fun, at least early on, it does become grindy and boring. What I’d like to see is more player interaction for PvE content in term of competing for scores or times.  There are already quests that have you completing dungeons under a certain amount of time, with a certain score or other requirement, so why not setup some sort of system to allow players to compete with each other? Or even a dungeon achievement list.

Rusty Hearts also gives off the feeling you’re playing a single-player game because you really don’t need anyone’s help to complete dungeons, so there’s no need in joining groups. There need to be dungeons specifically designed for groups, maybe some that require players to split up or complete tasks simultaneously or are just plain harder where you need to group.

Overall Rusty Hearts has a lot of things going for it, it just needs to adjust some of them to turn it from a good game to a great game.

Source

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Fabian Ciraolo

Fuente

EverQuest II - Review

The land of Norrath has always been a home to me. From its creation and growth in Everquest, to its destruction and slow rebuilding process through Everquest 2, I’ve found that it is a world of adventure and discovery. Almost seven years after launch, Everquest 2 has done a good job of keeping content fresh, exciting, and mysterious. Since launch there have been numerous expansions, which have extended the game world past twice its original size.

The expansions have added many new continents: Faydwer, a nature lover’s paradise and once home to the Dwarves, Gnomes, Wood Elves and High Elves; Kunark, the ancient home of a lizard-like race called the Iksar; the Sinking Sands, which was once the Desert of Ro near Freeport; the Overrealm, which are floating islands above the world; Innothul, a swamp-like land which once was home to the Ogres, Trolls and Froglok; Odus, a magic infused land above the world; and Vellious, and icy wasteland of danger.

Aesthetics: 9/10


Each area is rich in aesthetic flavor and beauty, and each has a unique feel to it, which helps keep the game fresh as players journey from beginning to max. For example, in traveling through the continent of Faydwer there is a very wild feel to it, as nature is important to many of the cultures that live in the area. At the same time, there are elements of clockwork and steampunk due to the ancient city of the gnomes being there. Now from there one may travel to The Sinking Sands, which is made up of deserts and Arabia themed wonders; a very different feel.

Innovation: 8/10

As the game stands now, players are able to get to a max level of 90, with character development continuing far after hitting max (usually). Alternate Advancement (AA) points, think of a more mix and match version of talent trees in World of Warcraft, but you use experience to gain points instead of gaining them at level up. Levels are gained with the conventional kill and quest experience, but AA experience is rewarded through various means such as questing, completing collections, finding rare items, or killing powerful enemies. This provides players with a reason to venture off the beaten path in search of the much-valued AA points.

Players returning after a few years will find a very different experience starting up a new character. Many classes are now available for both factions, with only ones inherently good or evil, such as a Shadowknight or Paladin, being faction specific. A handful of new player races have also been introduced, such as the Fae, a fairy, and the Sarnak, a dragon/Iksar hybrid, and starting areas have been added and changed to fit the way the in-game world has changed over time.

The old, outdated starting area of The Isle of Refuge, which led to Freeport or Qeynos, has been eliminated and replaced with Neriak, the dark elf lands, and Gorowyn, home of the Sarnak, for evil players. For good players, Kelethin, a city built in trees, and New Halas, built in the middle of a glacier, are the new starting areas. These starting areas do a good job of introducing players to the game and getting them acquainted with the new features that have been added.

One thing added which changed the pace of the game in a massive way was the introduction of new mount types. There are four different types of mounts, all with their own pros and cons. Ground mounts are your standard mount type. They run on the ground faster than any of the other type, but that’s about all they can do. They next type, which was newly added, are leapers. Leapers aren’t as fast as ground mounts, and can’t really go far, distance wise, once up in the air, but they jump extraordinarily high, which can help in mountains or cliffs. The third type of mounts are gliders, which were my personal favorite. They’re the fastest of the airborne mounts, but once in the air they can only glide down, hence the name gliders. Finally, we have flying mounts, which are slow on the ground and relatively fast in the air. While slower than gliders, they can stay in the air for as long as necessary, which comes in handy if a player has to go AFK in a dangerous area.

Battlegrounds have also been added for those who enjoy PVP, and though I didn’t personally experience them I do know a little bit about them. There are three maps, each with different methods of gameplay and player limits. One is a 6v6 capture the flag match, where players battle deep within one of the Kunark jungles. The second map, another 6v6, is a capture and hold map, where opposing teams try and keep an object away from the other teams as long as possible. Finally, there is a 24v24 king of the hill type of map, where players must capture and hold various territories on the map to score points.

As for PVE, a lot of the difficulty has been reduced in overland zones (depending on when you last played) and a player can get to max with any class solo. If you’re one who enjoys grouping you don’t have to fear, however, because a host of epic quests, dungeons and raids have also been added. For those who have trouble finding groups or a guild to play with, or don’t have the time to seek them out, guild search and application features have also been implemented. This makes finding a group of players to regularly team up with is a lot easier than I find in most games.

Gameplay: 8/10

As for actual gameplay, I found it to be pretty standard with many mainstream MMORPGs, but still different enough to have its own feel. Enemies can attack solo, but also be a part of a group, and though this has been around since launch, I like the concept. Many of the quest lines in a zone have a hint of intrigue and mystery to them as well, giving a feel to the zone and adding some spice to the “Kill X” or “Collect X” types of quests. However, that’s not to say those are the only types of quests to be found in Everquest 2. Exploration, escort, and lore quests are all a part of the Everquest 2 experience, as well as a slew of quests for crafters and even some for PVPers.

Longevity: 9/10

On top of all that, there’s a lot of variety in Everquest 2 that keeps the gameplay fresh. All of the classes, and there are a lot of them (24 to be exact), have their own special aspects and roles in a group or raid, which make playing classes, even in the same sub-group, a new experience. Also, the amount of zones make multiple play-throughs new and exciting, instead of being streamlined through the same one or two zones for each level bracket.

Social: 7/10

As with any MMORPG, I find community is one of the biggest factors bringing long-term enjoyment to player (it is for me, at least). My main community experience came from the guild I joined, which I found using the guild search. Another feature which brought me closer to my fellow players, and was highly convenient, was built-in voice chat that automatically linked with your guild, group or raid (should you be in one).  Zone-wide chatting was also fairly active and always allowed me to feel like someone was there.

All this being said, Everquest 2 did have its fair share of flaws. Staying on the theme of community, in my time in the world I saw very few groups outside of dungeons, and even then they were usually all members of the same guild. I saw no role-playing either, aside from a player here or there having a back-story to their character, and I was on a designated role-playing server.


Polish: 8/10

Lag was also an issue at times, though not nearly as much as I expected. In fact, I experienced few technical problems during my stay in Norrath. Occasionally an enemy would disengage from combat, or would be un-damageable (though they wouldn’t attack either, if this were the case). While this was slightly annoying, it was nothing that couldn’t be fixed by just finding a different mob to fight.

The SOE store is another thing some might have a problem with, though others may love it. I, personally, like how it’s set up, as a lot of the items on there are appearance only, though there are things like mounts, combat potions, and other things that could help one in game, though they aren’t really a necessity.

Value: 9/10

Overall, I found my return to Everquest 2 to be a lot of fun. Revisiting old zones with new characters gave a sense of nostalgia, while at the same time leaving me excited and giddy to see how they had changed. At the same time, visiting new zones with old characters allowed me to unlock new mysteries and battle new evils as I journeyed through magical cities and deadly wastelands. Easy to find and welcoming guilds added a greater sense of community and companionship to the game, while epic quests and dangerous dungeons brought us together for a common cause.

The world of Norrath is one of danger and excitement, mystery and conspiracy. It is a place ripe with adventure for those brave enough to seek it, and riches for those strong enough to persevere. It is a gorgeous, immersive world that I’m glad to have experienced once again, and I recommend those interested to check it out. There’s even a free version for those who would prefer it, so why not jump in and see the magic for yourselves?

Final Score

8.3

Great

Pros

•  Immersive world
• Lots of player diversity
• Very polished game play

Cons

• Lack of community outside guilds
• Little innovation, even from its outset
•  Little roleplay even on RP servers

Source

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Jury at school

04~10~2011

Today, "Jury" to choose our models for the 

50th anniversary of Arianne 5

It was soooooooooooooo long ! XD

5 hours for 20 persons o_o!

But everybody will make one of his model,

and for my part, I will MAYBE make the

costume of one of the main Character.

But it will be a man >~<

Outfit of the day~

Full Angelic Pretty

During the choice, We spoke with Honey,

as usual, a simple question became a philosophic-ethic

conversation x))

Well, after few days with only a little bit of sleep,
we all in the class , could rest a bit XD
Many of my friends said before to leave after school
" I go back home and  nap nap~"
:p