I've always liked the concept behind Aion, but I didn't like to pay for it while playing. The reason behind it might be obvious when I've spoken of the design-flaw included in Aion more than once... Late last year I had an eMail that Aion would go Free2Play for European players, and that NCSoft would transfer ALL player data to the new publisher (GameForge) for all players who would participate (unlike when Lineage II wehnt Free2play and ould be hosted by Innova). When I heard this news I was semi-excited. I do live Aion as it stands (aside from the design flaw), but as with Lineage II going Free2Play, hordes of as-hole kiddy players swarm the servers, killing fun for a lot of other players.  Though on the other hand, all these new players would somewhat eliminate the design flaw, since there'll always be enough players in the level range for the 'forced party areas'. But I thought to keep a look from the positive side of Aion going Free2Play and allowed NCSoft to transfer my game data to GameForge and I signed up for the beta program. A few minutes ago if finally happened. I was invited for the close beta test for Aion on the new servers. It tells me I do have a chance to win 'Veteran status' for a couple of weeks, but looking at the FAQ, I'll get one for sure since I subscribed in the past already. So instead of playing only Word of Warcraft from now on, I'll also play Aion for coming weeks in the beta!

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Why can’t we all just learn to get along? With MMO TERA finally having a release date set for May this year, and the pre-release hype building up, NCsoft have leapt in and thrown a court at the proceedings. As MMO Culture reports, a dispute over the ownership of software and artwork means that the release could be scuppered as it sinks in the mire of a legal bog. I’ve taken a look at the legal filing, and explained the details of the claims. Bluehole, they who are making TERA, are formerly of NCsoft, and the latter are accusing the former of having snuck out with half a game hidden in their coats. During their development of Lineage 3, a bunch of NCsoft employees upped and left to create their own studio, and NCsoft say they didn’t do this “empty-handed or with benign intent”. In fact, they say, they took off with “copious amounts of confidential and proprietary NCsoft information, computer software, hardware and artwork relating to Lineage 3.” Quite an accusation. “Their business plan was simple and audacious: creating a competing product using the very work they had done while at NCsoft, launch it themselves to great fanfare and acclaim, and in the process, deal a crippling blow to their former employer.” These seem like strange words for a legal document. They seem to be suggesting that Bluehole (which is a horrible name) plotted the fanfare and positive reviews, which is odd. And the suggestion that their company, with its many successful and popular MMOs, cannot withstand the competition of one more competitor is most peculiar. How this is a “crippling blow” to NCsoft will be difficult to prove in court, without their going out of business as a consequence. However, in 2009 a Korean court upheld accusations that the former employees had stolen “trade secrets”, according to the filing, along with winning damages and an injunction to prevent the “proprietary information” going forward, in a civil suit. The damages, however, were overturned on appeal. A similar case is taking place in Korea over the Korean-language version of TERA, although the game was successfully launched over there last year. But the release in the US has angered NCsoft until their holes turned blue too. The language in this filing is seething: “Bluehole, continuing its competitive war against its rival, has now threatened to open a new and potentially enormous front, namely, the United States.” WAR! It seems to come down to NCsoft’s belief that TERA will take away their Lineage customer base, and as a result they will hugely lose out on profits. And if Bluehole really did steal the content, it would seem they have a pretty strong case. Although one claim NCS make seems a touch dubious. Amongst the legal guff is the suggestion that the two left-most characters in the below pic - - a “child-like fairy heroine and the small, rotund and furry animal-like race” are “completely different from any characters previously appearing in an MMORPG.” Um. I’m sure we can all think of a few examples that contradict this. They also file this map that was intended for L3: Lineage 3 also planned to include “two radical and unique features”. They were “a more dynamic and engaging system for combat”, called the “Action Combat system”. It meant targeted regions on enemy bodies and constant movement around monsters. (So a bit like The Secret World then.) These are claims that absolutely every MMO developer makes for their next project, before failing to include them. Who knows what Lineage 3 would have had. The second was an expansion on the first two games’ “Castle Siege”, adding “a true political system that allows a player to become a rule through election, as an alternative to the traditional method of combat.” That sounds neat.  NCsoft then allege that project lead of Lineage, Yong-Hyun Park, had become disgruntled by his salary, and began plotting. Referring to him and others who planned to leave and form their own company as “conspirators”, they explain how he used NCsoft meeting rooms to recruit their employees, and was soon fired. 48 of the 100+ Lineage 3 team followed him out. Taking Lineage 3 with them in their brains was in violation of agreements they had signed previously, and NCsoft goes further to claim they also committed “theft”, putting “an extensive amount of proprietary data to, among other things, personal storage devices”. These are claims that seem to have been upheld by Korean courts, and fines and prison sentences were handed out to Park and three others. That was appealed, but upheld, and it’s now going through “Korea’s highest court”. But at this point (in 2008) they couldn’t prove that the trade secrets were incorporated into TERA. And then the big moment. NCsoft claims that the version of TERA launched in Korea in January 2011 contained those characters, the geography, the “Action Combat” system, and the political system. And that character line-up? Here’s their own comparison: They claim that since the release of TERA in Korea, Lineage I and II sales and market share have declined. Well, um, I’m sure they have, being fourteen and nine years old respectively. That seems a bit of a wild claim. So there it is. They’re after injunctions to prevent the release of the game, and the return of the proprietary information. Which could well be understood to mean, they want TERA as their own. They’re also after damages. Bluehole (just, ew) have so far issued a “no comment”. It does look like they have a pretty strong case here, and this could mean a significant delay for TERA, perhaps even kill it dead. We’ll keep you posted. Source: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

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I know some will flame me for this, but I'm back to World of Warcraft once more. This time to stay longer than ever before though. I think a lot of my readers might wonder why I make this move, and let me try to explain... First off, a couple of real-life friends of mine are playing World of Warcraft as well, and when I hit 85, I can join their clan immediately. And playing with real-life friends is most likely the best reason to play a MMORPG. Though I realize that playing Lineage II for almost 6 years, I made some friends there as well, but to me, there is a difference between in-game friends and real-life friends. Secondly, Blizzard has offered a deal: Basically, if I subscribe for a year (in a regular payment plan, not a payment at once like other publishers insist on), I'll get an in-game flying mount (have to hit the level where I can fly it first though), and I'll get Diablo III for free. Though Diablo III is not my 1st choice in games to play, I figured I might take it and make some money out of it when it's released because of that legal RMT option added to it. The final reason to play is that I'm not 100% certain about TERA anymore. I have made my doubts (more like worries) about it clear in the past already, not to mention they'll add a sort of legal RMT in the game as well (chronoscrolls - I didn't even bother to rant about it anymore...) So for the coming year I'll live my virtual life in Azaroth, and I'll be posting a lot about it here. Get used to it I'd say - I'm trying to as well

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Since I decided to quit playing Lineage II, I started the search for a replacement MMO. The first one I picked up (again) is Forsaken World from Perfect World International. Like the 'again' indicates, I did play it before but didn't come any further than level 13 at the time. This time I figured to start fully anew and give the game some more thought. Well, lets start saying that I've already de-installed the game from my system. In about 4 hours of playing I managed to hit leevl 24 and I still didn't get into the 'story'. And I think this is the main flaw of this game. Forsaken world uses the 'auto-walk' feature (like with most games from Perfect World International), and like I said about Eligium, you get tittle to no infirmation on where your desitination is and are supposed to use the auto-walk feature. Well, adding the auto-walk feature like this in MMO's makes one real lazy. I know of a lot of players that they don't read the quest description, but I normally do. But since in Forsaken World you get little to no information (and the quest text is set in an odd color scaling for fore/background), I skip it till the part I can press 'ACCEPT' and then click the auto-walk feature. Yeah I know, not my regular playstyle, but I did try to read the quests and figure out where to go, and I really had NO CLUE WHATSOEVER of where the quest wanted me to go. One time I even thought I knew the location where I had to go to (the name was my indication), but in the end I was going the wrong way Like Eligium and a dozen other of these kiddy 'auto-walk' MMO's, Forsaken World is not my kind of game. And that's a shame. The artwork is nice, the music average and the gathering and crafting system seems good. Lets see what I'll try next...

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It's been almost 2 months since the Goddess of Destruction expansion has been introduced, and as I've written with my 1 month review, I still think it's the WORST EXPANSION EVER for Lineage II. The difference between the new awakened (level 85+) and non-awakened classes is HUGE. Where up to level 85 the game used to be diversive, now when players hit level 80, they all move to the new Swampland (level 85+ area meant for awakened players to solo there), and there's no way you can find a 'normal party' for the old area's. This means that area's like Dragon Valley are no longer filled with parties anymore. The same goes the Lair of Antharas, where normally whole parties of level 83+ would hang out, now it's close to empty. Then the game-content for awakened players. Somehow NCSoft didn't keep in mind that there will be a large number of level 85+ players to keep busy. Instead, the amount of fields and dungeons added for these players is minimal, and certainly not enough to hold all players willing to play in those area's later on. Then there's the 'threadmill problem' that has come with the Goddess of Destruction. NCSoft thought it's be fun to add deaily quests and instances, as well as the huge number of tokens to be gathered used get gear. Wait a minutes, didn't we already see this in World of Warcraft Yes, I'm bored of Lineage II now. Screw the treadmill I'm put in. I don't like to do the same thing each & every day and not be able to change leveling location because the game's design has been altered so badly. In the past I was able to move from area to area if I wanted a change of scene/gameplay, but starting with Freya, that option became less available, and now with the Goddess of Destruction, you're almost forced to walt from area to area that's designated for your level without being able to change from this path (yes, I mean the Path to Awakening) Aside from these harsh words on the Goddess of Destruction, I would like to thank NCSoft for bringing this great game. It was my first and definitely best MMO experience so far. I hope to find a MMO that can match this gaming experience one day. Till that day, I'll keep my eyes on TERA, C9 and ArcheAge...

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It's been a while since I last wrote about Pen-n-Paper RPG's, because I felt not good enough to play them. Or rather, be in large groups of (hyper)active players effects me too much to actively play Pen-n-Paper RPG's But yesterday (after a 3 week eMail preperation) I finally was dragged into one again. A cousin of mine knows a couple here in Alkmaar and knows they're RPG-players as well. And one thing came to the next and before I knew it, we were planning a campaign... Our GM is using the Agone role-playing system and has set the campaign in the world of Carol Lewis' "Alice in Wonderland" (with a dark twist to it), starting in 1860 London. When I first heard of the idea and saw the character sheet, I immediately had an idea for my character - a real dark idea where I'd play a mentally instable surgeon. Well, the GM didn't like the idea and having 3 weeks to think about it, I didn't really like it either. So I decided to play a doctor with some dark twists added to it... We hoped to start playing a bit already yesterday, we didn't. The Agone system is rather new for all of us, and we had to think of our characters background a bit. After abour 3 hours all 3 characters were ready and my head was spinning (not to mention, it was already close to dinner time). So the GM's friend went out to get something to eat and we talked about how and what (mostly how the other 2 players and me would meet, since I'm 'upper class' and they're 'lower class'). After dinner, we just talked a bit about anything BUT role-playing and half an hour later we called it a day. We did get some homeworkd though. Make a good background on your character (I already had made general notes, so that should not be too bit a problem), and (more importantly) make an inventory of stuff your character possesses. That inventory-list might become a bit of a problem for me, since the background of my character is pretty weird, and I do need to keep some 'odd stuff' with me. Stuff I know in general what it is, but now I have to specify it...

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It's clear I haven't been playing my man class (Tyr Warrior) too much lately. As said before, I don't really like the class, and would awaken as ISS Enchanter. Well, that last part is not gonna happen, instead I'll awaken MissP as Aeore Healer. To get this done, I do have to level her (now) dual-class fast and awaken it (around 225% to go now), and I am kinda focusing too much oni t right now. As a result, the Tyr Warrior class is kinda stuck on level 86, while a lot of the (24/7 AFK-XP) players still level their main class, and I feel that in the Olympiad. Where in the past (right after I awakened as Tyr Warrior) I won about half my matches, now the level gap with the avarage opponent is growing and I only win 1/3rd of the matches. I'm not really sad about loosing those matches (I fo the olympiad mainly for the tokens & goodies I can get from those), but it does show I am slacking (as usual)... On the other hand, that bug-fix NC did on healers & summoners this week seems to pay off. Where in the past I could not win from any healer in the olympiad, today I faced one and had no trouble defeating her (s a warrior should IMO). Anyhow, I think I'll be leveling my Tyr Warrior class a bit more coming weeks, doing the SoA Nursery (also with Zilla BTW), to collect enough tissue thingies so that I can get the top and bottom of the Immortal robe set for free. Perhaps doing so I'll level the Tyr Warrior class to 87 as well..?

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I'm not sure, but it looks like NCSoft is thinking to drop their playerbase badly. Last couple of weeks, one bad decision on top of an other was made, and non-legit 'players' (yes, bots and their bot-enforcers) have been benefitting from it... As I've written before a couple of times, bots crawl the server now, and thanks to them our event was fucked up. Same thing now will happen for the other 3 (newer) servers. With today's maintenance the agation will be removed from game completely, making it the legit players unable to effectively use their event items... Then there's that bright light at the NC office who thought it's a good thing to ask the players what time they want their servers to be on. No problem there, but they'd also want to know that for both Naia and Chronos server. AFAIK those were said and to be dedicated EU / US and keep their service running as it was at the time. Not to mention, both Shilen and Magmeld have already had a couple of Territory wars and sieges and now they might be re-scheduled..? Well, the statistics are not lying about it... All 4 servers will be (according to the players choice) between GMT+1 and GMT+3. And then there's that last thing in today's maintenance: adding Pando Media Booster to speedup download *LOL?* PMB is one of the biggest pieces of CRAPWARE when it comes to Point2Point communication. It stays in memory constantly and will upload/download whatever file is requested on your system *WTF?* Good thing there is a work-around on this for Lineage II (renaming L2.bin into L2.exe and start that instead of the launcher), but this is not a good thing. Because just thing what will happen is this trick won't work anymore? No way in hell I'll leave PBM active on my system - so far I've deleted it constantly after it's been used, but NC states it'll be MANDATORY to download the updates with the launcher..

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In our clan we agreed to grow a bit (both in charcter level, as in members in clan), before we'd go to war with other clans. But todays episode changed it... One of our clan-members was having 'regular PvP' during his Wall of Argos quest (I still don't know why NC put up so many quest item requirements there). This clan-member won over and over again and the one he beat constantly got fed up and asked hit mentor for assistance (while my clan-member had no mentor at all - just showing PvP skills on newbee buffs ). Well, that mentor came & wiped them (of course, being 85+ you're no match for a 3-player party of level 72 players), and in turn I was asked for help and showed up. That mentor was nowhere to be found but the 2 that lost (prolly main + boxed char) were still there and that clan-member started to flag again, without result. All there was as reply "Yeah you have 2 clannies in backup now". As if - they get their mentor down to help Well, things stayed pretty boring there till I totally had it and declared war on their clan. Without any word, that (now almost enemy) player SOE'd and no word is heard of him or his clan so far... In 3 days from now we (finally) have our 1st clanwar at hand. Fun thing, we don't know a thing about them, since it's a new clan and not listed in the clan community. I'm wondering what we're up against

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Eligium... Now that's a Free2Play title I hoped to be a change for once. But I was totally wrong about that Let me explain on the how and what without telling too much. Eligium is in closed beta now and I'm not sure if I'm under NDA... The Eligium website doesn't give overly much information about the game itself, other than the 5 races it hold. Races, which are class bound as well... Logging on to the game, I had to pick a faction immediately, one thing if I knew I had to, I'd not even bother to sign up for the beta, but since I had a key and wanted to test, I figured to play it through... So I picked a class and faction and went into the tutorial. The first impressions were not bad... Graphics are very good (I could set to highest settings without any problem), though sound was set too soft (couldn't hear any at all), but when I turned it up is was decent enough. Then the first quest... As with most MMORPGs these days you appear in a new world right next to a quest-giver who'll hold your hand and lead you along (not a bad thing IMO, certainly not for new MMO players ). Eligium is nothing different here. But what bothered me was the fact that I had to 'find' NPC <x> (without ANY direction where to find this NPC...)and a tutorial immediately appeared explaining AUTO-WALK I'm sorry, I'm a veteran MMO player and I DO NOT AUTO-WALK - PERIOD. But hey, it's tutorial and since I didn't know where to go I clicked the auto-walk thing to 'find' this NPC. After doing the 1st quest (and the whole tutorial as well, using auto-walk to find that same NPC again on a different location *WTF???*), I was ready to head in the 'real world'. Once again, I get a quest to 'find' an NPC (again without ANY direction where to find him) and I have to auto-walk once again to get there... Now that was the line. Being a faction-based MMO with auto-walk and no description to find NPC's yourself..? No thanks... I'll save this MMO for starting MMORPG-players and/or kids under age of 10...

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