And I wasted my money for this crap

I never felt more scammed than this before.

Mortal Online is a MMORPG developed by amateur indy corp, Star Vault, based in Sweden. They planned to make this game like the good old Ultima Online, failed epicly bad though. After few years of development, this game looks like some wannabe-MMORPG made by some high-school students during their free-time.

Star Vault is advertising with shiny, pre-rendered screenshots and videos. The real game and the videos/screenshots look extremely different.

The real game, which was released few weeks ago works like some half-assed pre-alpha game. Servers crash like 30-50 times per day, most of the game mechanics are broken, game is filled with exploiters(because it can be exploited damn easy).

HACKERS, although they claim that their game is hack-proof. Check the video above, I livestreamed this few days after release, after I released that this game will very, very soon go down. So I didn’t want to just let my subscription expire and exploited the game to its extent and live broadcasted this.

This is nothing compared to duping. My former guild mates generated thousands of gold(which is a lot in MO) within few hours by multiplying it with an easy trick(which I won’t tell). This is one of the reasons why I left. The economy was not even established yet, but is already dead. You don’t need other players, you can exploit your way uo, just like in a single player game.

Like said above, most of the core game mechanics work half-assed. It feels like this game was never tested, but it was almost 1 year in paid beta test. I really have no idea what SV is doing all day long. My crystal ball says, that MO won’t survive for much longer. The extreme fanboys, who would even sell their house to support this broken game will keep it running for a while, but they’ll lose faith too.

Mortal Online is only ruining the good reputation of the sandbox MMORPG idea. That’s sad.

Vanafest ’10 ist over!

.. and I got no FFXIV beta invitation, yet. Square Enix said that starting from today, March 01, they’ll start inviting loyal FFXI players into the closed alpha beta. In eleven days, the FFXIV beta site will opens its gates to all lucky beta access winners.

Unfortunately I got no email from them, but hope still remains! I’m really glad that I subscribed to FFXI few months ago,  this will definitely increase my chances getting into the bete of the most awaited MMORPG of the year! :D

Hmm, hmm, but who’s considered as a loyal player for them? 1+ months? 6+?

I bet the FFXI sales/re-subs will skyrocket this month, due to the announcement.

Hey! Don’t worry, lads!

The announcement said: “starting from 1st march”. The 1st march were maybe the uber-nolifers in FFXI and nerds which were on Vanafest. There’s still nuff’ place to hope … until 11th march at least …

If you lucky ass somehow managed to receive an invitation, why don’t you share it with us? :D

Oh btw, my FFXIII copy will arrive next week. <3

Oh my god! It has been so FUCKING (I’m sorry) long since I posted in my wonderful blog. I don’t even have an idea where to start. My blogging skills surely degraded. Back when I started blogging, I never imagined that I’d become so inactive again. Maybe I burned all my motivation.

Humans sure suck. It’s like with food. When you eat something yummy too much, you will slowly lose the sensation. I’m sure everyone experienced this already. Why is that so? Pissing me off, seriously. xD

Back on-topic

So recently I started playing WonderKing Online. Oh wait, it’s just called WonderKing and King in lower cases. So Wonderking it is. Eh, confusingname, isn’t it?

Alright, lads. Wonderking is a 2D sidescrolling MMORPG, just like Maple Story.

Lulwut?!

Short: Super-Mario-like with a persistent online world.

Long:

• 2D graphics
• Sidescrolling – You can only run left, right, up and down.

LULWUT2?!

It’s not a joke. I’m seriously playing this game. Who could expect such a change after games like Darkfall, EVE or FAIL Mortal Online? How could this happen?

My MMORPG career(or should I call this addiction?) started with Ragnarok Online. This game looks very anime-like with drawn characters in a 3D world, called sprites I think. Beautiful. After few years playing RO, I had to move on due to boredom. (Ragnarok Online had tons of dramas. I loved it. No other MMORPG offered so much drama as RO.)

Well, the game I moved on was Maple Story. It looked very similar. I actually loved it, this game was very addicting and fun. BUT the goddamn grind killed it for me. These Koreans often overdo with grind in their MMORPGs. We, westerians, are like little pussies compared to them. Grind-wise we will never be able to beat them. You need like several no-lifes to level in MapleStory. The EXP gain is so low, that causes us to ragequit. The EXP loss upon death is so high that it causes us to ragequit. It’s a frickin’ doom loop.

Back  on-topic take 2

I’m not sure why, but playing Wonderking feels so good. You have like full control over you character. It’s not some retarded click ‘n wait MMORPG, nor a F1-12 spamfest. It’s a MMORPG where _player_ skill matters. Reminds me on good ol’ 2D jump & run sidescrollers like Super-Mario.

Also you can play this game with a Joystick, which is much better than keyboards, imo.

There are 3 versions. NA, EU and JP. If you’re EU, you can’t play on the NA servers and vice versa.

NA website: http://wonderking.ndoorsgames.com/center/default.asp

EU website: http://wonderking.bigpoint.com/ (atm only in German available, English client coming within the next 2 months. The English community is there pretty big though.) I’m playing on the EU server. Ingame name is obvious.

Eh, that’s it I guess. My blogging-motivation is all used up. kthxbye

1 sec, check out this video:

GOD I LUV THIS PEW PEW!

Square Enix’s MMORPG, Fantasy Earth Zero or FEZ is finally coming to the western market. It has been released in Japan back in year 2006 and was doing pretty well. SE partnered with Gamespot(USA), hence they’ll be hosting this game. FEZ will be a free to play MMORPG, most likely with cash items.

Another Asian grind?

I’m sure you have to grind there, but Gamespot promises immersive quests. Also the battle is fast-paced, not some lame click n’ wait MMORPG, says the feature page. I’m sure this one is pretty unique, compared to the shitty mass-product Asian grinds which are being released almost every day. After all Square Enix created this game. :)

Features

• Hyperactive Combat System – Attack, jump, run, dodge, and experience fast-paced and exciting combat.
• 50v50 PeeveePeeee!
• Crystal Combat – Allows you to transform into more powerful forms and summoning epic creatures like Giants, etc.
• Anime-esque art – An energic art style with blistering battle effects from the unmatched quality of Square Enix artists. (I must agree. None can beat SE in such things)
• 3 classes – Warrior, Mage and Scout, each class has multiple transformations.
• and more …

Beta

You can apply for beta on the official FEZ Gamespot website.

Bling Bling

Here are some videos. Combat system looks actually really nice. No lame targeting and hitting the “F” keys. No, here you need some player skill, unlike in most other MMORPGs.

FUCK YOU:

• WoW
• WoW clones
• Broken sandbox wannabes (Darkfall, Mortal Online, etc.)
• Vaporware (Jumpgate Evolution)
• Crap (Star Trek Online, Champions Online, Global Agenda and the remaining 90% MMO’s)

I’m now back where it all started: Final Fantasy. Square Enix has created/is creating the most amazing games. In 3 months FFXIII will be finally released and shorty after its release, FFXIV should enter the beta phase. Can’t wait. UMGZ!

From now on I’ll start following Final Fantasy XIV which will be a MMORPG and BURN my PS3 once FFXIII is released.

FFXIV: PS3 or PC?

It will be a cross-platform MMORPG. PS3 and PC players can play together in one world.

I personally will stick with PC, since I still got a high-end machine which will run it on high settings without any problems. I can’t imagine playing without “alt-tabbing” to check news or w/e. On the PS3 you can’t do this, or really limited, the browser is pretty slow and doesn’t support many things.

Also it’s uncomfortable to type on a keyboard while lying on a couch. Chair + PS3 is fail btw.

If you’re planning getting it once it’s released, which platform are you gonna use for it?

The prices of wares have multiplied.

Here’s a little comparison:

• Timber = 8-10g/ea (before ~3g)
• Wood = 20-22g/ea (before ~8g)
• Iron Ore = 12-15g/ea (before 4-5g)
• Iron Ingots = 30-40g/ea (before 10g)
• Rare ingots like Veilron, Selentine, etc. = 1k/ea (now 2k)

Why is this happening?

The expansion brought few new features, made PvE’ing more profitable and SHIPS/WARHULKS!

Not enough gold sink

I’m sure the slot machine is causing some gold sink in the world of Agon, but it’s not even close to enough. Crafting is as before the main gold sink in the game, however this can’t keep up with the current gold influx. Every day there’s thousands/millions of gold influx from capturing villages, PvE, all kind of chests which drop gold. This is simple too much.

Over the past 2 weeks, the prices as you see in the comparison above, raised by a lot. If it continues like this, Darkfall will soon simulate the inflation in Germany(1921-1923). Important materials would soon reach the 100g mark/ea. The economy would be pretty doomed.

Ships/Warhulks

These two wonderful vehicle types had a little revamp in the expansion. Prices to produce them were reduced and the damage was greatly increased. Also AV added sea towers to the north and east sea, which can be only captures by ships.

Most clans of course feel challanged and started producing ships like crazy. Ships require a really great amount of wood and iron. This leads to a huge demand, offers are unfortunately not enough, because in my opinion there aren’t many newbies in Darkfall running around and harvesting stuff to get some gold. If you were in school, you sure have learned that: high demand + little offers => high prices.

You may now think: “How can this be bad? There’s gold flow in economy like never before!” – That’s true, high gold(money) flow symbolizes a healthy economy. But there’s simple too much gold in this flow and must be reduced.

The inflation is not a lie!

That’s really funny how some players ignore this fact. The market price of almost all items increased greatly, not only the mats required for ships and warhulks. Steedgrass for example, which is required to tame mounts had a price increase of over 100%! Before it was only 200-250g, now it’s freakin’ 500+g.

<3 it

This is so damn cool to experience an economic crisis in an MMORPG. I have no idea how this all will develop this. How will Aventurine counter attack this?

I’m really excited. :D

/discuss

Meh … I’m so addicted to Darkfall Online again that I never found time to post here something or was too lazy. However, today I managed to overcome this. Server is currently down for patching, see patch notes.

Lemme share some epic videos with you in the meantime!

Mostly about sieges and some PeeeveeEeee, very well done.

OMG this bish dropped 90k gold! :O

NEW is a clan especially for new players. So if you just joined DFO recently, I’d highly recommend you to join them!

PEW PEW!

After a pretty long down downtime, the most recent expansion Conquer the Seas for Darkfall is finally up! Unfortunately AV had to bring the server down again due to a error in the database. I hope there will be no rollback, because it’s the first time I got something valuable from a chaos chest, a slot machine for gambling and sold it for 26k gold!

Thanks to the downtime, I can post some stuff here again. It will be of course about the expansion.

New features

Sea Fortresses

There are now 2 sea fortresses, one south, another north. Such fortresses float or stay on sea (must dive later to find out :p). Ships or its cannons must be used to destroy the stone at the top of the fortress and obtain control over it. Once a clan successfully takes it down and lands the final shot, it will belong to them for 3 days. After this time, it becomes vulnerable and can be taken by another clan. The current clan that owns it can protect their fortress by the installed cannons. The fortress cannons are currently the most powerful ones all over Agon, so it won’t be a piece of cake to take it down.

Of course there are also rewards for the owning clans. Once you gain control over it, the clan will receive gold and valuable items like ship modules, rare ores, etc. Check out this forum post for more info from the first clan that conquered one.

This is not all of course! There are clan stations in all NPC cities. Above them the name of the current clan that owns a sea fortress is floating. Now if a clanless player “uses” this clan station by pressing “F” in front of it, a window will open to apply for this clan. So this is another way to recruit members and become FAMOUS!

Racial Skills

Actually AV said that racial skills will be available at the launch but meh .. However, they’re here now.

Alfars got Alfar Cunning that increases the max. mana by up to 10 and Alfar Resilience which ads up to 3.0 acid protection.

Dwarves were blessed with the most useful racial skills, imo, especially Dwarven Steelmaster which increases the durability of crafted armor by up to 10%. Another one is Dwarven Durability, it gives you up to 5HP extra and Dwarven Perseverance which increases the protection against debuffs and causes less stamina loss on using melee skills.

Mirdain(Elf) got imo the worst ones … One of them is Elfsight and increases the max. ID range, means: You can identify players and most likely mobs from longer distances. The more useful one is Mirdain Insight which increases mana by up to 10. I’m a Mirdain and damn disappointed by these lame skills. :( QQ

Humans get a skill that increases the duration of nourishment effect by 50%, called Human Ingenuity. Also same like Mirdains, a bonus for mana, Human Willpower.

Mahirims got a skill that increases their running speed NOTE: Running, not sprinting. This makes this skill really useless, because you almost never run, but sprint. It’s called Mahirim Huntspeed btw. Another one is Mahirim Endurance => up to 5 moar HP.

Orks do up to 3 more damage by using high ranked greataxes(2-handed) thanks to the skill Orkish brutality and 5 maor HP with Orkish Toughness.

A GODDAMN KRAKEN!

Seamen, fishermen beware! The wide seas are no longer dull, boring, empty. The kraken will from now make your life harder. No longer romantic fishing afk trips, my childs.

The Kraken will from now on attack you, especially your expensive ships and rafts. You really shouldn’t underestimate it. Check out this video, the ships and its crew was pretty much pwned. Looks like a Brig wasn’t enough to take it down or there were not enough ship repairers. I personally can’t wait to experience this myself! My clan, Hew Hope is still not fully naval ready but very soon we’ll make the seas unsafe and possibly take this damn Kraken down! :D

Free-Spawn Objects

Alongside the chaos chests, there are now more things randomly spawning all over Agon. Broken chests, lobster cages etc. are included.

Trade Routes

This part is imo one of the most interesting ones. There are trading route societies on Agon. You can go to the locations which can be seen on the world map and “get a job” as a route runner from a NPC. Actually you buy stuff from him and get a backpack that is visible to all other players and tell you to deliver this one to the other trading route location. Once you’re done, you get more money than you invested and possible a special reward.

Like I said before, you get a backpack that is visible to everyone. This makes you to a target of course, because the PK’ers can make plenty of money from you. If one kills a trade runner, they can be looted for 80% of the invested money. So imagine you bought stuff for like 10k gold, the PK’er would get 8k gold. This is a lot and is I think a very profitable stuff for PK’er and trade runner.

kthxbye

I don’t want to post the less-interesting stuff here. Full patch notes can be read here.

The Darkfall servers are down since 1AM GMT. Aventurine is currently applying the long awaited expansion, Conquer the Seas.

Aventurine moved to a new, larger office last week, that’s why the expansion was delayed. During the downtime, they updated their website at Aventurine.gr with some pics of their new office. Looks pretty nice.

Here ya go!

OMGZ! This blonde chick has to get to work, ffs! Flirting while we wait here for a expansion. Unforgivable!

Such wide cameras exist?

A little bit weird furniture decoration, huh?

Missing the AV logo.

3 terrorists doing their job. j/k :p

… in the Darkfall addiction

I decided to give DFO a try after 3 months long break. Not expecting a lot, I slowly got used to the game again and at the same time the bond has become stronger. My daily playing hours increased buoyancy. I feel like some no-lifer now. I come from work, start DFO and play it until I go sleeping again. This is really no good.

Why am I playing this game?

I wish I could tell. Even though Darkfall has so many, actually TOO MANY flaws, I still love this game. What is it what keeps me playing it? PvP? PvE? Crafting? Sieging? I really can’t tell, but I guess it’s the sandbox part that keeps me there. I can be whatever I want. I MUSTN’T do what other players do.

I can go explore the world and make money at the same time by opening the chaos chests and hopefully even get a house deed. Apropos housing, want your own house on Agon? You can build, decorate and even life with your friends there or use it as a bunker where you can relax from the harsh world of Agon. Soon even keeps can be claimed with up-to 10 bind-spots and add slot machines into it to gamble with friends. Damn I can’t wait for this week’s expansion!

• Fight mobs
• Craft and sell stuff
• PeeeVeePee
• Siege
• Naval battles
• pwn noobs
• Capture villages
• Become a traitor and switch sides.
• Cause drama
• Contribute to the development of the DFO politics on your server
• Become a king
• Build your reputation. Are you a coward? Traitor? Coward? Eternal Noob? Troll? People will remember and treat you accordingly. I love this part
• Become a heartless griefer

Sandbox MMO’s are imo all based on your imagination. You can really do whatever you want.

Players that are used too much to theme park MMO’s may fail in Darkfall. Here you are your own quest giver. You decide what to do. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel. No dumb daily boss raids here. Instead there are adrenaline filled player city raids, sieges, etc.

Your list can go to the infinitum if you let go of this mainstream themepark principle.

There are no classes. You are you. Play however you want. Wanna just be some old perv stalking female characters? A fat, greedy dwarf? Men-loving male Mirdain? A racist(ingame)? It’s your choice. Go on.