The Exiled Realm of Aborea (TERA)

It has been a long time since I have read about an mmorpg that seemed to be different from the norm. Even longer since a pay to play game caught my attention enough for me to take a second look at it. My love affair with TERA has only grown with time, following the bits and pieces of information that I have been able to collect. After quitting World of Warcraft in mid 2009 and Aion shortly after that, I had shut my brain off from looking at all pay to play games, the big name developers out there had soured me. But then I learnt about a small upstart company, En Masse Entertainment. En Masse is a compilation of game developers who have worked for companies like Blizzard and NCSoft. Why have these people branched off from these large companies? I don’t have that information, but the combination of these people in one company definitely seemed like a win-win situation. I have heard rumors that this team of people were the same ones working on the Lineage III project for NCSoft, however it seems they have moved in a different direction.

The Exiled Realm of Aborea, I believe, is a game that will turn the mmorpg world on its head, and improve gameplay in a way that has not been done before. It combines the action elements of a first person shooter and the fantasy and story of an mmorpg into one perfect mix. TERA does not have a targeting system, this forces the player to actually aim the attacks of their character, as well as dodge and block the attacks of their enemies. This is a game that will be more about the skill of the person behind the character as opposed to the greatest armor or weapons which is what excites me most. An excerpt from the official website sums it up perfectly:

TERA is the first true action MMORPG. What does that mean? TERA provides all the depth of any MMO–quests, crafting, an intricate plot, PvP, and more–combined for the first time with the satisfaction and skill of a console action game. No more are you confined to tabbing and then standing around and eating a sandwich while taking on a boss. You’re at the center of the action, hitting where you aim and reacting in real-time to dodge and move out of the way when attacked. In TERA, skill and substance combine for an entirely new MMORPG experience.

Another one of the perks of the game is that it runs on the Unreal Engine, a beloved system to many gamers because it delivers beautiful graphics for even lower end pcs. The design of TERA is beautiful all the way from the landscapes to the details in the armor. It is set to release in 2011, I am suspecting the later half of the year.

Want to learn more? Visit these sites:

Official North American Site

Terafans.com (this is a great fansite with a wealth of information from around the globe)

Forsaken World Closed Beta Announced for NA

So I have been refraining from blogging about this game for a long time. Simply because it hasn’t been released for testing yet in North America. The game in question is Forsaken World from Perfect World Entertainment. I’ve been following the game for some time now. I was able to sign up for the North American Closed beta on April 13th, which was roughly when I started tracking news about the game. I was impressed that a full website was up with a lot of information, as well as active forums. It was stated that the game would be released new in both China and North America, it stood out to me because China hadn’t been playing the game for years already. North America actually had a chance at getting a game at relatively the same time as China.

The hype was increased about the game with the E3 Expo that is taking place now and ends tomorrow. Perfect World has made numerous announcements about game features as well as revamping both their website and forums, polishing up all of the information available to potential Forsaken World players in North America. All of this was done to reveal that closed beta testing will not begin until winter??!? Yes that is right, closed beta testing. I wonder what the reasoning is for all of this hype only to disappoint so badly the people that have been following the game for some time now. I definitely do not think they should have been giving away closed beta keys. I had been looking forward to this game for some time, and was excited to hear information about testing since it had been stated that testing would be starting in Q2 of 2010 for North America, and then that got pushed back until after E3, I guess I should have saw this bombshell coming. Nonetheless, there shouldn’t be so much hype and information put up for a game like this if the first stages of testing won’t begin for another 6 months. Perfect World better have some good reasoning behind all of this because they had definitely turned off many potential players with their incessant carrot dangling. (And I can’t believe I just used the phrase “incessant carrot dangling” but I kindof like it lol.)

UPDATE [7-7-10]: I just learned that Perfect World is now going to start rounds of Closed Beta testing in early fall! Here is the official statement by Obah on the forums:

Greetings Everyone,
Your (and mine) cries were heard by the developers of Forsaken World and are proud to announce we will be opening Phase 1 of Closed Beta for North America and Europe early this Fall.
The selection will be random, there is nothing for you to do at this time. As the date approaches you will get an email, stating you were selected for Phase 1 of the closed beta. If you don’t have a beta key yet, you can still sign up and have the same odds of being selected.
If you didn’t get selected for Phase 1, fear not, more phases will open shortly after. There are many things we need to test on our end technically, in addition to gameplay.
There will be a specific forum for Closed Beta testers, where we will be conducting feedback sessions on certain gameplay elements.
-Obah

This is good news, but we’ll see if I get picked for any of the testing sessions lol, I am sure I have many many competitors… =P

Karos Generic Application Error Update: Possible Workaround?

Hello all I am just writing this post to get this information out there in case people do not find it on the forums, but there was just a posting from an official Game Organizer on the forums about the Generic Application Error for Karos Online that has plagued many Intel users.  I know I have been scouring the net trying to find a solution to the problem, but it was nice to see something officially posted by GO_Skadi:

“Hi,

This issue has long been known to the developers. It seems that certain Intel-based chipsets have trouble running Karos Online, so please check if your computer has an Intel-based chipset. Please know that our developers are already working on a fix to this issue as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, please try to see if these workarounds will work for you:

From the Karos Online folder, please right-click on the Karos executable launcher and then choose to “Run as Admin”.
Try to uninstall Karos Online and reinstall it in another path, not the default Program Files.
If you’re still getting the same error message, please send us a copy of your dxdiag via our customer support (click on Run, then type ‘dxdiag’ without the ”). We will send them to our tech team and hopefully, it will help them solve this problem soon.

Thanks. “

Now, I don’t even know if I should be posting this because I haven’t tried these suggestions yet. I have uninstalled the game from my computer and am not sure if I am going to give it a shot or not. But I figured it would be good to post this so that people can follow this suggestion if they want, and if it doesn’t work you can post on the game forums. Good luck! And if any of you have success or failure in trying let me know!

Generic Application Error.

Those three little words are the bane of my existence at this point. Not really…but they definitely are irritating. I have come to realize that my excitement about Karos was premature…and I may never get the opportunity to post those screenshots of my Mystic if I can’t even have success launching the game. I have been digging through the forums trying to find a solution to this problem:

Apparently this error has been around for some time, and was a problem in closed beta as well as open beta versions of the game. It also seems to only be affecting the users that have Intel graphics. (Lucky me!! >.< lol) Why hasn’t anything been done to fix this? Before I start to ranting more on this topic I will tell you that I have tried to solve this problem on my own. I went out and tracked down the latest version of the DirectX SDK that I could find and installed that. My video drivers had been acting up on my anyway so I figured it would be worth a try. Alas, I had no luck even after that. Both Guild Wars and Aika run just fine on my laptop so I have come to the conclusion that this is not a problem on my end.

Countless people have posted in the forums on the topic only to get no feedback from the moderators or even a post of aknowledgement of the problem. I’d be happy even knowing that they know of the problem and are trying to find a way to fix it….give me something to work with…anything! But I fear that this problem will go unanswered and I have a bad feeling that Karos will pass me by, without my even getting a chance to try out the game. I understand for the most part that when these free to play games come over to the North American market they are pretty much set in stone and not many changes are made…but still! Karos Online will lose many many players because of this problem and I do think it is a serious one that should be looked at. Over all of the free to play games that I have tried out, this seems to be the only one that hasn’t provided prompt feedback on an issues that their players are having. The staff seems to be nonexistent, and I think this is very sad because Karos appeared to have potential. I will keep an eye on the forums to see if any updates are posted…but until then no Karos Online will be played on this computer. =(  Maybe it is just karma coming back to me and telling me to do my homework…hehehhe I think so.

Karos Online: Commercial Launch

So today Karos Online is finally coming out of its various beta stages and is going to be available for all to play. Best of all, it’s free! I am going to be trying out the game for the first time today and am pretty stoked! The world looks beautiful and lush, and the character designs seem to also be well done. I don’t know a whole lot about the game yet but I will soon find out.

The following synopsis is taken from onrpg.com:

With a strong RPG component, wide range of class skills and fantastic visual combat effects, Karos Online offers a rich player experience and an exciting end-game for guilds, including castle sieges and resource control points. There are a variety of dynamic dungeons to explore, with shifting paths and surprises to challenge players as they progress in level. The economy is well-developed, with mining, fishing and crafting elements and a consignment system for storage.

Karos Online offers rare graphical quality for its small client size, and will be accessible to a vast range of computers with minimal requirements.

After perusing the pages of the main site I think I have decided what race and class I want to be. The main races of the game are the Shadow (dark elves), Seroine (light elves), and of course the Humans.

I’ve always been a fan of elves, and I rarely ever pick the human race unless I have no other choice. Who wants to be human in a game anyway when you can have awesome pointy ears? =P There is another race spot open yet but nobody knows what that one will be or when it will be released. From the looks of the silhouette it is male and has elf ears! ^_^ Each race so far has male and female genders except for the Seroine, so hopefully there will be a male elf coming soon.  I’ll do some digging around and if I find something out I’ll be sure to update you!

As for classes….unfortunately they are gender locked. T__T Each main class has two subclasses, you can choose your path once you reach level ten, they expand out further yet once you reach level sixty I believe, but I’m not going to get into that here. First up are the Shadows. Shadow males can be the stealthy Rogues (subclass: Assassin or Duelist). And the females can be mysterious Sorceresses (subclass: Banshee or Spellbinder). Secondly are the  all female Seroine, they can either be Bowmistresses (subclass: Archer or Ranger) or Mystics (subclass: Mage or Cleric). Finally we have the Humans. Males are Bladers (subclass: Swordsman or Spearman). And the females are Paladins (subclass: Defender or Holy Knight).

As you can see all of the usual archetypes are here, Shadows are the rogues and warlocks of the game,  Seroine are the rangers and mages, and the Humans are the standard tank and off-tank. I have decided to go with the Seroine Mystic with a subclass of mage, just because I like to do a lot of damage. Sorceress looked cool, but she is more of a “give your enemy a slow death” type, I like to get things over quickly. We’ll see how the initial game-play goes, I might try out the Sorceress, Bowmistress and the Paladin just to see. ^_^ Lol no wonder I never get anywhere in games! I will be sure to update you with some screenshots of my own when I get a chance, between work and college I’m pretty busy, but I’ll sneak some time in there somewhere!

Days of Old

So have been going through a rather large bout of nostalgia lately, and figured blogging about it might help me feel better. I am really missing World of Warcraft at the moment. Since I quit in September of last year I’ve missed my original character, and playing a hunter. The game was so familiar to me, there were always people to talk to, and it felt like a home away from home sometimes. Now I have been sort of floating around in the world of mmos trying to find something else to give me the same feeling. Well I know that doesn’t happen overnight, but still this urge to reinstall wow is really getting to me. I know that once I do install the game I’ll feel bad about it because some of the people close to me feel that it is a waste of time, and essentially it is. I also am not so excited to start paying a monthly fee for it either.

So I guess I really need to take a long hard look at why I’m feeling the way I do right now. It probably has something to do with me being stressed out from college, the end of the semester is approaching fast and there are so many things I haven’t started working on. World of Warcraft was a form of stress relief back in the day for me, a place where I could just escape for a bit and forget everything else.

My nostalgia is also a longing for the way things were in the game when I was happy with it. There were multiple reasons why I quit. I felt that things in game had gone down hill, and there wasn’t really anything left that caught my fancy since I was a casual player and not geared enough to do most of the things I really wanted to in game.  On top of that, the spec I had been since day one had become a flop, and I was too stubborn to change, so I dug myself a hole lol. Now I sit and think…”well y’know….I could probably reinstall the game and respec as Marksman…yeah I could do that now”. But no, despite all of the bargaining inside my brain, I still wouldn’t be happy. So it is best that I don’t pursue my nostalgia.

Probably the biggest part of my aching to play WoW again has to do with the silly sentimentality I have toward my character Escada. She was my original mmorpg character that actually went somewhere and that I spent a lot of time with. As I’ve mentioned in other posts my characters seem to sort of take on a personality of their own so to speak, I can name a character in a different game Escada but…well it just isn’t the same! Yes, I will admit this all sounds a little crazy, but I am sure there are fellow players out there who feel the same way I do. Again, I just need to give another game (aka: Aika) time, and eventually I will feel that connection again, I hope.

So now I am going to pose a few questions to all of you! How do you deal with the urge to go back and play a game you know you probably shouldn’t? Are there other mmos out there that have a class that is close in structure to the hunter class of WoW? What game are you playing currently?

If you have any suggestions or thoughts feel free to let me know! =]

Aika Update: All Grown Up!

So, once again I promised to update you once my little pran grew up, well she did! And I think I love her even more than before, she’s so absolutely adorable! ^_^ If you missed my previous entry you can find it here. Probably the funniest thing in Aika so far was when my character asked the guy that was going to perform the spell on my pran if she would still be buzzing around like a fly lol, thankfully for Elyisa’s sake the answer was no.

After she was transformed then came the fun part, picking her hairstyle, and buying new clothes! lol I think my boyfriend got to listen to me deliberate over her hairstyle for about 10 minutes…hey I’m particular about this kind of thing.  All I can say right now it that it is a lot of fun having this little girl that follows you around and cheers you on in battle, no matter how simple it may be. She’s a lot of fun and a great companion, I look forward to seeing her grow even more.

The picture above was made courtesy of Picnik.com ^_^  I am sure there will be more to come soon!

Aika First Impressions

As promised I am going to being you my review of Aika online after being able to participate in their open beta testing that began on March 16th! If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read this post first.

So far my experience in Aika has been a very pleasant one, the regions are beautifully put together with many rolling hills and trails to follow, some of which lead to monsters that can and do squash my little character like a bug! I haven’t been out of the zone that is called Verband yet, but I have liked what I have seen so far, the world is bright, colorful, and airy, something that makes me want to see even more of the land that is Lakia!

There are only a couple of things that have been disappointing to me so far, and even those aren’t even really related to the overall game. The first problem I encountered was that I wasn’t able to get the character name I usually use, so I had to settle for EscadaSkye, which is inspired by Ione Skye, I first heard of her in Anthony Kiedis’ book Scar Tissue (if you haven’t read it do so!) and I thought her name was just beautiful! Anyway back onto topic…once I got my character created I logged in, and much to my dismay almost every dual gunner I saw had the same hairstyle as my character. There are not very many options for character customization in Aika, but I didn’t expect to see as many characters with the same style as me. In short I will be changing my character’s hairstyle one way or another because if anything drives me insane it is seeing perfect clones of my character running around. >.< That being said I don’t really have any other complaints about the game. I have been enjoying the unique quest dialogue that is offered in this game, where your character is actually carrying on a conversation with the npc instead of just getting a block of text explaining the quest and then saying “go kill however many fuzzy kiwis”. No there aren’t any fuzzy kiwis in Aika……yet, but you get my drift. There are however large penguin npcs in Aika, and it doesn’t get much better than that! The people I have worked with in game have also been very friendly and helpful, which is also an added bonus.

And of course my favourite aspect of the game is the Pran. I was able to get mine once I got to level 7, and she has been quite the interesting companion, and we’re slowly starting to get along. I am not one to spend a lot of money of things, but it seems my little pran Elyisa will be pretty demanding if I am going to get her to buff me in combat. So far she hasn’t helped me out much and usually refuses my requests for her help, she also thinks my choice of favourite dinosaur is stupid. >.< Guess I’ll have to feed her more cookies and pie….? But they are so expensive!!! Well I guess that is the way it is when it comes to kids. (sighs) I am looking forward to when she grows up into a little girl which should be pretty soon! I will be sure to post some screenies for all of you! I have been pretty satisfied with how the game looks on my computer, there are a few jaggies but overall things are pretty detailed. I haven’t had much lag in the game either, and the W A S D controls work smooth enough for my liking. I think I have finally found a home in Aika and this makes me very happy, my days of mmorpg jumping may just be numbered! I hope to bring you more thoughts and screenshots soon!

I’ve Been Meaning to Write This….

It has been far too long for sure this time since last wrote here…..makes me a little sad. Things have been pretty busy around here as of late, and really I think it is only going to get even busier so I figured I better write now and get caught up before I don’t get a chance to blog for another month. =P

First off, midterms are approaching, and fast! They aren’t the average midterms I have been used to taking either, they are actually pretty hefty and I’m not quite sure how I am going to pull it all off yet lol. One test alone is having me write a 5-6 page paper for one question and then another 3-4 page paper for a shorter question. (Those pages are double-spaced of course, but still….it is a larger load than I was expecting >.<) That midterm is due on the 19th at 5 pm. I assume I will be fighting for my sanity by that point, because there is also an online midterm that has to be taken between the 17th and 19th. If I can get a jump-start on those papers and get one of them done before this weekend I will be in good shape. Then I won’t have to worry about the rest of my midterms until after spring break (March 22-26). Whew. Anyway, enough on that topic, who wants to hear about college anyway?!?

In other news! It is my boyfriend’s spring break this week, and we’ve gotten to spend quite a bit of time together which is pretty nice. ^_^ We’ve been together for just over four months now, so I hope things keep going well. Y’know how things sometimes seem too good to be true? Well that is how I feel, sometimes I wonder how I got so lucky to find the person I did. Call me a sap, but that’s the way it is! I don’t think I’ve ever felt so comfortable with a person, and it truly is a great feeling, I just hope I’m not the only one that feels that way.

Ok, moving on from sappiness overload, my boyfriend has also been able to rent out a very powerful Nikon D40, digital SLR camera! And let me tell you it is absolutely AMAZING! I am so inspired, I swear that thing can’t take a horrible picture no matter how inexperienced the user (*coughs* Me.) may be! But practice makes perfect, and I hope to get one of my own someday. This is a prime example of what this camera can do,  granted there was a bit of post-production done here but the detail came from the base image that the camera took, which is what makes it so excited to use! That camera can capture any little detail you could possibly want it to. =]

Continuing on down my list of updates…I am currently addicted to this:

I picked up a small sample size of this stuff the other day and it is absolutely amazing smelling! =D The clean, fresh scent is just lovely, and I definitely would like to get the whole set of products available. Awesome stuff.

And for my last piece of news for this post, I will talk a little bit about Aika Online. ^_^ It is a new mmorpg that is free to play that is set for official  release sometime this spring. The good news is though, they are hosting an open beta which I hope to participate in which starts on March 16th. You can find out more information here. I know I have become an mmo hopper since I quit WoW last year, but I am really hoping that this one will stick with me this time, it definitely looks promising that is for sure! The most exciting aspect of the game so far for me, has been the idea of the “Pran” system. Mmos in the past have implemented pet systems into games for many years now, that’s nothing new, but Aika takes a fresh approach to this with the Pran. Prans are a female fairy character that you can aquire in the game once you reach a certain level. The Pran becomes your companion, or “daughter” as they are often called, and will grow up as you continue through the game.

She will as the player questions,  and aid him or her in battle, if she feels like it that is. The Pran will develop her own personality based on the way the player treats her and answers her questions. I personally think this idea is pretty cool and am excited to try it out. As far as the kind of class I will be playing, my options seem pretty limited since the classes are gender locked. =/ Players can choose from Warrior, Paladin, Rifleman, Dual Gunner, Warlock, and Cleric. The Paladin, Dual Gunner, and Cleric are the female characters available, and since I don’t play male characters, and don’t fancy healing all that much I suspect my main character (Escada of course…hehe) will be  a Dual Gunner. I mean c’mon, who doesn’t like a kick ass female gunslinger??

So that pretty much wraps things up for this post. If I am able to get the Aika client to install on my computer, and get everything up and running, I will be sure to update my blog with some screenshots from the open beta, between working and midterms that is… =]

Years Gone By…

So it has been far too long since the last time I wrote…well it hasn’t been too long but I guess I feel there has been too big of a gap.

Anyway, it is my birthday today! And I am pretty stoked to say the least. I am sure there will come a time when I am not so excited by the whole birthday prospect, but that is far in the future. A certain special someone has come home from college for the weekend and he will be taking me out somewhere…I haven’t been told where that will be, nor will he entertain guesses I assume, but maybe I should try lol. It will be a nice weekend. I am also pretty sure I will be making a trip up to Michigan again for Valentine’s Day weekend, and this time, if I see any good photo opportunities while I am driving, I am going to take advantage of them!! [Insert evil laugh here.]

In other news…I have finally found a game I feel I will be sticking with for the long haul, and that is Guild Wars. After quitting World of Warcraft, I have been on a quest to find the perfect free to play game for me. After experimenting with some not so free to play games (Aion, and Lineage II), and free games (Perfect World International, and Rohan: Blood Fued) I have gone back to my roots so to speak, and the right game had been sitting in front of me for a long time. I had bought the original Guild Wars game back in 2006 when I was making my first forays into the online gaming world, and my then boyfriend had decided to try it with me since he wasn’t able to talk me into playing WoW. Well my first encounter with Guild Wars lasted for about a week before my boyfriend had decided he didn’t like the game. So I ended up going into WoW because I wanted a game we could both play. WoW got me hooked, but once I got to endgame it wasn’t so much fun. I wasn’t the most hardcore gamer and I didn’t have long time slots to just sit down and play. And if you wanted to have fun in endgame you pretty much had to have the best of everything to be able to group up with other players. I soon found myself worrying and comparing myself to other players and only now do I realize how stupid that sounds…really it is a game! lol Anyway, it had gotten to the point where it wasn’t any fun anymore because a lot of players are so stuck on the statistics and numbers in the game, and that just isn’t me. So I quit. It was a big deal since I had been playing the game for about 3 years, and I had met some amazing people. I miss them still, but we keep in touch. Hell, I even miss my original character…lol. The name Escada has stuck with me to all other games, and that will never change. It is really weird to say this, but each character made almost takes on a personality of their own, and I think I am one of the few people I know that gets a sort of sentimental feeling for them. But ok I will quit freaking you all out right now.

Continuing on, I decided to take my Guild Wars box off the shelf once again and dust it off, and I have not been disappointed. It has been a lot of fun and I think the game works very well for more casual players like myself. The level cap is set at 20, and you can either go at a nice gradual pace or move along pretty fast. The game also isn’t about the gear you have but rather the skill and the way you play, which also makes me very happy. I love the beautiful graphics in the game, so much better than WoW, and it makes for great screenshot taking. So, I will leave you with a few of my pictures from in the game and a Guild Wars trailer! Enjoy! Until next time.