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?

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.

… 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.

Allods Online is a free to play MMORPG being developed by Nival Interactive, one of the largest game developers in Russia, my birth country. They were also developing the well known Heroes of Might and Magic series and few other games that managed to get into the western market.

This MMORPG is based on its offline predecessor Allods or also known as Rage of Mages that has been released back in year 1998. Seems like it was pretty popular in Russia, so they decided to develop a MMORPG about this one.

Russian MMORPG, WTH?

No. Both, the European and North American GPotato will offer an English translated version of Allods Online, + French and German in the EU one. The closed beta will start in November 10th and last 14 days until 24th. The release however should be this year, so I guess it will be mid December, unless they delay it.

Worth a try?

I must say, this game feels like a WoW clone. Check out the screenshot on the right side. If there was no Allods icon at the bottom, would youstill say it’s Allods? I don’t think so. It looks like they accidentally placed a WoW screenshot on their page, but that’s not it. Other ones remind me pretty much on the WoW world.

But no, no. It’s not bad. I actually really liked its world. It looks nice. The part we should worry about is: “Is the gameplay cloned as well?”. Looks like yes. I watched some videos and it really feels like World of Warcraft. Well, I think it’s not a bad think as well. Me and you must agree that the gameplay in WoW is good.

Uniqueness?

Comparing this game further to WoW won’t bring us any further, I guess. So here are some key features that make Allods different.

Astral Battleships – You can build and control so called Astral Battleships. Since it’s a MMORPG, more people are needed to ride such a thing.

Goblinball – Self explainable, isn’t it? Goblin is the ball, we are the players. This game is played 6vs6. Even though I hate football (soccer) like the pest, this one sounds like fun. :D

Common features

Faction vs. Faction – There are two factions in AO, the League and the Empire. Both fight each other.

Crafting, Enchanting - We have crafting and stuff like this here as well, of course.

Instances, Raids - Instances allow up to 6 players to enter and raids up to 24 (4 parties).

Auction house – Oh, what could we do without an auction house nowadays? :p

PvP – There are rankings and you can reputation points for killing your foes. Those can most likely be used to buy stuff like armor, weapons, etc.

I’ll keep my eyes on this one

Since I’m not bound to any MMORPG right now, I will look forward to waste some of my time with Allods Online. Even though it’s a f2p game, I think it has some great potential. Now I need a closed beta key …

Final Fantasy XI was released back in the year 2002 for Playstation 2, followed by Windows also this year. I’m really a big Final Fantasy series fan. I played every single one from 7 up to 12. The story, atmosphere, and combat is really epic. Especially the boss fights are awesome!

Unfortunately it didn’t work with FFXI very well. I gave it few tries, but never got past level 10. Actually the game is really professional. The quests are very well done, world looks really nice. Still, I couldn’t stick with it. Too much grind and it’s nearly impossible to level without a group. I don’t really feel like grouping with someone all the time, so I decided to skip this one. Also it requires being no-lifer in order to reach max. level.

Final Fantasy XIV announced

Few months ago, the next Square Enix’ newest MMORPG, Final Fantasy XIV was announced. It is supposed to be released for PS3 and PC in year 2010, after FFXIII. They said that it will be much more casual player friendly. The production started back in year 2005, so I think we can expect a well polished MMORPG soon.

Features

Armoury System

The are 4 base disciplines, you can choose from. Within these are different classes. To change classes you simple have to equip a different weapon.

Example: You’re a disciple of war, an archer that uses bows. To change into an Marauder, you must equip a two-handed axe. I think that’s pretty cool. If you get tired of your currently class, switch to another one with no effort without re-rolling.

More info about the disciplines and classes here.

Races

There will be 5 races available in total.

• Lalafell – The shortest ones among all 5.
• Elezen – Look like dark elven with pointy ears. I think most r0xx0rkids will choose them.
• Roegadyn - Tall, wide.
• Miqo’te – Mid-sized humanoid race with a tail and cat ears. The name sounds really cool. I think this will be my race of choice.
• Hyur – aka humans.

More info

If you want to learn more about this game, check out these websites:

• Official FFXIV website
• Eorzeapedia
• FFXIVCore

Since I’m no longer playing Aion, I’ll give Champions another try. I was beta testing this MMO for few hours, but my first impression wasn’t that good. Well, it was still not that complete and servers were lagging pretty hard.

Free trial weekend

This is the reason why I decided to give CO a try. Cryptic is offering a free trial on the upcoming weekend. Starts on 30th October and lasts until 2nd November. It’s a good chance to try out the “Blood Moon” event. Sounds like fun. :)

The Nemesis system

I’m looking forward to try this part of the game out. Really cool to be able to create and fight your own arch enemy.

A chick this time

No more male characters for me. Female characters have a way too many advantages. Like free items from 10 year young kids, more buffs, etc. Also I think it’s healthier for me to watch boobs and butts of female characters rather than the opposite. Don’t you think so.

Nothing more to say

I know only a little about this MMO, so let’s stop here. I will however post about it on the next weekend while playing it. And probably even after this if I decide to stay.

“In English: Raaazer!, Raaazer! – Do you hear me?!”

If you were on the GamesCom in Cologne or watched the live stream, you may remember this phrase. The Aion booth tried to communicate with the Razer one by shouting throughout the whole hall. Someone even recorded this stuff. It was pretty cool, in my opinion.

But that’s not the point I was going to talk about

The last weekend I decided to replace my old ZBoard keyboard and my 10$ mouse with something more awesome, expensive, special, epic. I first asked around on Twitter for some recommendation, because I really had no idea what’s good, what’s not. Within few minutes I already received some, but most of them were Logitech G*insert a number here*. I somehow didn’t want it. Don’t know why. Some time later someone mentioned Razer. Thanks to this, all my memories about Razer awakened. I hurried to their website at RazerZone and there it was. The monster mouse, designed for MMOs, Razer Naga! I think it was love on the first sight!

I’ve read few reviews about it, but couldn’t find anything bad about the Naga. So I made up my decision and bought it from Amazon for 80 €uros. Since I also was going to buy a keyboard, I ordered the Razer Arctosa for 50 €uros. There are also some more expensive ones, but the only difference is the *bling bling*.

This all arrived today at my home and I decided to write a first impression about this hot stuff.

The Naga

Razer Naga is their newest creation. This mouse way specially designed for MMO’s. When I first hold it in my hands, the difference between the 10€ mouse was HUGE! It really fits my hand perfectly and feels very well. I can reach all its 17 buttons without any problems.

The installation went smooth. I plugged in the USB cable into my computer and within few seconds Windows (7) detected and installed the mouse. Done. No extra software necessary. All buttons are working, including the 12 ones on the left side.

Once the mouse was up and running, I hurried and logged into Aion. Before configuring the keymap, I switched to “Num” from “123″ on the Naga’s bottom. That means, the 12 buttons are now assigned to the number keypad, or however it’s called. I decided to assign my 4 buffs on the 1-4 buttons and it worked flawlessly. My unused thumb can now be used in my pwnage process . That’s really comfortable, I don’t have to use my left hand for all my skills anymore

However, I never used my right thumb in MMO’s before, so it was at first really weird. After 15 minutes of grinding mobs I got much better in this. The accuracy hitting the right button increased from like 50% to 95%. Even though I used only 4 buttons out of 12, the other ones are easily accessible as well. It’s just a matter of time until your muscle memory gets used to it.

Maybe I’ll discover some downsides of this mouse later on, but until now I nyerkin’ love it!

Arctosa

The keyboard I bought together with the Naga is called like this. In my opinion the design is done very well. It’s pretty thin and the upper surface is shiny. Actually it’s nothing special, but there are 3 nice features.

• Usually keyboard blocks and the computer starts beeping if you press more than 3 (or was it 4). On this keyboard nothing will happen. You can press as many key as you want, at the same time. For me it’s nyerking useful. It happened so often that I had to press more than 3/4 keys due to WASD and the numbers. Now it’s all solved. :D
• Disable keys. You can disable keys for example the “Windows” one by pressing the Razer logo at the upper right + the key you want to disable. This in my opinion is also very useful when playing games. Someones I hit accidently the Windows button and the game minimizes. This is no good, especially when you’re currently fighting. Good stuff.
• Macros. Of course you can set up macros for this keyboard as well. First the software must be installed though. The interface is really simple. On the screen there’s your complete keyboard. By clicking on a key will open a menu with many macro options like launch a program, etc. The generic macro stuff I guess. :P

That’s all. I’m gonna GET IMBA now! xD

… for me!

Today I expected the worst in Aion. I didn’t even imagine that I’d be playing today, but I did! Thanks the the downtime. Once the servers went back online, I used my uber-1337 skills to login quickly and succeeded. I played my awesome assassin for over 4 hours non-stop and got to level 10. But once I arrived in the Asmodea main city, Pandaemonium and completed the “Daeva-welcome-stuff”, my client crashed, unfortunately. :(

Not successful at all?

STFU! I bet, if you’re reading the post, you’re still sitting in your queues. Compared to you losers, my Aion-related day was successful today. Naah, I’m just joking. Don’t take it personally. I really feel sorry for those who are still queuing, especially the ones that couldn’t even play Aion due to queues. Haha, losers! L2queue!

No lifers got no life

Seriously, I just checked the ranking on my server, Spatalos[EU]. Ninjette is currently leading with level 34 there. Are you nyerking kidding me?! Head Start launched only 3 days ago, but this no-lifer has already got that high. Hopefully he will die in front of his screen!

What about our North American friends?

I actually expected that NA players might be higher, but the no-lifers are all around level ~34 there. So, EU = NA. I’m usually starting EU vs. NA flame wars, but what I did right now is settling it! I just said that EU is the same as NA. WTF? We all know that EU is superior to NA. This is a fact. I can’t post the reasons, unfortunately. This would exceed my max. webspace size. I’m really sorry.

Oh heck! I started it again. *duck*

BTW

If you’re a Narutard, the latest episodes (127, 128) of Naruto Shippuuden will be released tomorrow, 24th September. The stream will be up on NarutoGet.com.