Recently, a lot of gaming friends are talking about the games coming from gPotato. Beside Allords, Aika has attracted our editors’ interests too. Here is a piece of news that Aika is finally to be released!

Sunnyvale, CA—January 26^th, 2010 Gala-Net, Inc., a leading free-to-play online game publisher, has announced today its first Closed Beta Test (CBT) for Aika Online in the North American market. The first CBT will run from February 3^rd through February 9^th and will allow players to play all 5 nations, all 6 classes, and levels 1 through 30.

Aika Online is an epic fantasy MMORPG developed by JoyImpact, creators of Neo Steam: The Shattered Continent.  Five nations vie against one another for control of Arcan, waging war on a scale never before seen in an MMORPG.  Nations hurl themselves against one another in massive castle sieges, relic thefts, and customized battlegrounds.  Each nation is ruled by a player, the Lord Marshal, whose supreme power is supported by a regime of guilds.  Preeminence is an uncertain throne, however, as nations may ally together to usurp the ruling kingdom and guilds may conspire to overthrow the ruling council.  Players take a pivotal role in this drama as they choose one of six classes, each of which undergoes multiple evolutions, and are assisted by their Pran—an intelligent, sassy fairy familiar which supports them in all their endeavors.  Aika’s gameplay innovations have not gone unnoticed.  The Korea Game Industry Agency (KoGIA) awarded Aika the prestigious 2009 Best of Show: Prime Minister’s Award, Player’s Choice: Best Online Game, and Best Game Design & Scenario.

“Aika Online represents many tremendous advancements for PvP-centric MMORPGs.  The game engine has been custom designed to support 2,000 simultaneous players in a single, real-time battlefield—a remarkable technical achievement.  Players choose to become a citizen of one of five nations, where they can siege each others’ capitol fortresses, raid rival nations’ enchanted relics, and compete in a variety of warfare scenarios.  Not only must players manage these tactical objectives, but they must also remain vigilant of greater strategic goals.  Players determine multinational alliances, the workings of their nations’ economies, and the governance of their citizens.  Beneath these innovative elements, Aika contains the core features of a premier MMORPG: dungeon instances with multiple difficulty settings, raids, a comprehensive crafting system, and an immersive storyline with over 1,000 quests.  We look forward to debuting Aika’s deep and unique world to Western players!” – Patrick Paik, Marketing Manager, Gala-Net, Inc.

Users can sign up for the Closed Beta at http://aika.gpotato.com.

About Gala-Net

Founded in 2004, Gala-Net, Inc. together with its European subsidiary, Gala Networks Europe, is a leader in the thriving free-to-play online gaming industry in the western market.  Headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., Gala-Net’s diverse service portfolio includes Flyff, Rappelz, Luna Online, Tales Runner, Allods Online, Aika Online, and Heroes of Gaia.  Through the gPotato Game Portal (http://www.gpotato.com), gamers can play any of Gala-Net’s games for free, as well as buy in-game currency and virtual items for any of its games.

Recently a lot of things happened to Chinese MMORPG industry. As you may know SNDA has aquired Gold Cool in China not long ago – Gold Cool is the game developer for Magic World Online (http://mwo.enjoymmo.com) which has already been published in English. Years ago, some of you should have tried that 2D game, with 2.4G size of the game client.

Today, Gold Cool brings you a whole new 3D MMORPG called: Magic World Online II. Only a few people are able to get access to this period of testing, which is called: Expert Testing. We are lucky that we finally get an account.

There are two classes available right now. So we pick a panda as our main character to explore the world.

The first a few of quests are really just so so. NPC just told you to hunt some mobs outside and report to another NPC. But what attracted us most is the graphics. The whole style really looks like a game imitating Diablo III, not World of WarCraft. We have believe that the designers and artists of this game are hug fans of Blizzard Games. Let’s check some screenshots out to find some clues about this.

As you can see from the above screenshot, when you reach Lv.10 you are able to aquire Main Quest. The quests settings are just like that in Diablo II, Scene1, Scene2…Chapter 1, Chapter 2…

When playing in the Dungeons, you will have a strong feeling of playing a 3D Diablo. This quest was designed to kill 10 mobs and get a special item from the deep dark cave. The numerical settings are fine because we didn’t die during this quest. But the worrying or we can say the previous concept of “teaming in Dungeons is a must” looks like unnecessary. This gives us another concept: Don’t judge this game as an usual MMORPG.

Since we haven’t explored far enough in this game, but let’s take a look at some screenshots first. The game is still in early alpha stage, but we can already sense the potential of this game. Since SNDA has aquired this game, we think SNDA will enter the North American market soon.

But the the part concerning us is the grinding. It’s true that almost every MMORPG is grinding based, but if you want to penetrate a market only by grapics and acting like a copycat isn’t the best way. We hope to see more self-innovation in this game. As far as we can tell from the current official website, all gaming systems are the same.

Note: The following article is made based on Talisman Online Chinese version. There might be some version gaps between Chinese version and English version, but we are sure that all reasonable and great elements from Chinese version will be introduced into English version.

Currently in China, the Chinese version of Talisman Online has become more and more popular. As most of the players know, the Tailisman Online is made by the group of guys who procuded Zhen Feng Shen several years ago. But the company went bankrupt due to some issues. While the team, together with Mircale Castle, grouped together and made Talisman Online in English market first, and then introduce its Chinese version in China.

Judging from Zhen Fengshen, the first product they have made, the item system, skill systems, graphic effects and power-leveling system are the most attractive key elements for all gamers. The CEO of Miracle Castle Ltd., is a hardcore gamer which definitely knows what players want. So let’s take a look at Talisman Online and let’s see what makes it a big hit in both English market and Chinese market.

1. Client Size

The client size of Talisman Online is around 250M. Such a tiny client can reduce the loss of the conversion from signing up to entering the game. As we know most of 3D game clients are over 3G or 4G, such sizes definitely bring the distribution problems for the product. Will the small client causes low graphics and other losses to the games? Definitely no.

2. Graphics

In 2007, when I first saw Talisman Online chinese version, I was totally shcoked by its graphics effects within such a small client. There are not so many houses, buildings in the game, which reduced the work of art designers as well as the Chinese themed element in the game. The skill effects are the most important to players and they handled it pretty well in Talisman Online too. Attacking is the most pleasant thing in the game since you can enjoy the effects of each skill you are using. It also makes grinding not a pain in the game. The view of the game is not a full 3D view but that is good for all kinds of gamers, since over 60% of the players will faint for full –3D games. Color rendering for graphics is also the best that I have ever seen – sometimes you don’t need a reasonable explaination for that why here we should use deep dark color and there we should use light color, but the joyful of seeing it and enjoying it. This is also the key between a natually born designer and an aquired designing learner.

3. Marketing

Marketing? Yes! We have seen a closely marketing bound game here. There are a lot of marketing activities in quests. For example, you have a series quests of adding friends to gain good items. Maybe I want to solo but where the reward is great enough, I will add those people I don’t even know, or accepting their requests. As first I was thinking it was only a method to get my rewards. But during the later play, I have really made friends of some of them in my friend lists – playing instances together, teaming together etc. Another example is that, when I grow to level 20, I have a quest of inviting other friends into the game and I will get super items. Most of the company do it outside the game, and made it very diffuclt in order to reduce “alts” and control the economy.

4. Temptation

If you stay online for another 5 minutes, you will get a mount! If you make your level +2, you will get elite equipment. We can see this kind of settings in game everywhere. People are greedy. Sometimes they actually just download the game for a try, never thinking of staying here. But the natural esense of the human will force him to stay and claim those items maybe he doesn’t even want. The longer he stays, the more addctive he will be.

5. Newbie Village

Most of the games out there having a lot of factions, so that they bring a lot of newbie villages. What’s the benefit of it? Scattering people around and make the game a Massive Single Online Role Playing Game? In Talisman Online, there are only 1 newbie village. All people are gathering there and you will feel the game is crowded even the actualy number of concurrent users is not that high. They have also put the important NPC there so that advanced players need to go back to this village from time to time. Newbies will be fasinated when they see advanced players’ costumes and skill effects. Advanced playes can help the newbies with quests and answer their questions.

6. Items

Currently most of the game item systems are copying World of Warcraft (sorry for mentioning this game again, lol). But is this kind of item system the best one? Definitely not. So far, Conquer Online item system is the most reasonable and attractive system that we have evern seen. From the investment part, you don’t want to drop your items when your character grow up. You want to invest a thing that you can use for your whole life. In talisman, every dollar you invest will not go waste. Three kinds of items will grow with your characters. But we also found that the fun we have in Zhen Fengsheng is lost, that is when you grind outside in ZFS, you will find a lot of items dropped, each item has different elements and attributes. If Talisman Online can bring this back to the game, it will definitely last long the enjoyment of hunting mobs.

7. Numerical Balance

The numerical balance in Talisman Online is really nice. At your level, you are reasonable to do things fitting your level. You can also go to challenge the instances all by your own – instances have different scenes. You might be able to deal with mobs in the first scene, but it will cost you a lot of HPs or dollars if you want to explore dungeon deeper. At least you will team up with others and explore the instances together. Without a careful numerical engeneer, it’s really hard to balance the game like this. We would like to express our thanks to the hard working guys behind the scene.

8. Timing

Most of the companies are using the “Following Strategy”. They always want to be the first one to do something, but they never did it so they turned themselves into the follower. Once they saw the success of ther other people, they just think they can copy and follow, without any hesitation. Will they succeed? Sometimes they will, but 99% will lose the battle. Talisman Online is the first tiny client, awesome graphics, marketing embeded, temptation everywhere game. That is also the basic elements for its success. In the year of 2007, overall there aren’t strong titles out there in the market being released. Comparing those normal, average games, Talisman Online will win.

If you would like to check the game and become another addctive gamer, just click here to visit their official website and enjoy the fun of a real mmorpg, not the crap from those silly aquired designers. Fmmorpg.com can always find the best games for the gamers since our editors are truly gamers and natural game deisngers.

A lot of gamers are playing Runes of Magic right now – actually we have no idea whether they are fasinated by the desining of sites, or the gameplay itself. Comparing that game to King of King 3, both games are made by Taiwan companies but King of King 3 is much much better. But, King of King 3 is not introduced in English yet.

King of King, was known to all gamers in the early of 21st century. After the releases of King of King, King of King II, Larger, the developer of KOK series have just released KOK3 in Taiwan.

Giant Online, we have also introduced this game to you guys. The developer of Giant Online also participated in the game designing of KOK3 since Larger sold the license of China mainlaind to it. We can see that in KOK3, there are a lot of similarities of Giant Online, especially the dancing ground, mini-games etc.

It is said that KOK is made based on a very well written novel. There are totally 7 gods in the world and they fight each other etc… We will left the game background apart since all games out there have a background with stupid stories, trying to let the readers smell a sense of history just as in World of Warcraft.

The game has autopath system, instances, casual gaming, and complicated items system. It has great avatar systems as well. For more details, we will report this game in our following reports. Let’s take a look at some screenshots first.

We don’t know how many of you know about the history of Genghis khan. If you are interested in researching his history, you can find information on the internet pretty easily. Today we are going to introduce Genghis Khan Online to you.

Genghis Khan Online is a 3D MMORPG based on the history of Genghis Khan. You need to download around a 700M game client and then install the game. After a few auto patches, you will see the log-in interface of the game. The background music you are hearing is composed by a very famous Chinese musician called GuoFeng. After logging in and creating your character, you are going to begin your own adventure in this fascinating world.

People regard Genghis Khan Online as a dark horse in the current Chinese MMORPG market. Currently it has over 10 server groups and over 200,000 CCU players. The game has several interesting features:

a. The whole game is historically based, so that you will find every quest, every structure, and every NPC fits in with this theme.
b. We always regard the people of Khan as being born with an excellent knack for training horses. So the horse mount system in game is definitely a key feature: once you get level 10, you are able to raise your own horse. Horses have different qualities and skills. You need to treat your horse well so that you can give a lesson to your enemies.
c. Nation war is a sparkling feature in this game – sure every game has a war of some kind right now;
d. Instances are designed carefully and are welcomed by all gamers right now – endless quests, endless instances.
e.  The rune system is the most complicated one in this game. You must heard of mahjong. Designers have used mahjong tiles as the runes in the game. Runes will grant your equipments with mighty effects and of course, great power as well.

We will follow up this game in our future reports and today let’s take a look at those stunning screenshots.

One more interesting issue out there with this game is, people from Changyou(US) made the accusation that the Kylin Software is stolen their Dragon Oath engine. They are fighting with each other in China and currently there isn’t any result yet. But as gamers, who cares? All we need is a playable game, good service and an excellent community! We believe this game will be introduced into English because the war between Kylin Software and Changyou(US) is everywhere!

Demon’s Blood, a new 2.5D mmorpg has just been released in China for its open beta! Our editors have heard about this game since last year and from the previous screenshots and concepts arts, the game looks interesting.

The most interesting thing anout this is that, unlike other 2.5D MMORPG, this game has a deep background since the the game is made based on a work of fiction with the same name. Every NPC, every map can be traced back to that fiction. If you have read (well, I doubt it..) the novel before, you will definately find it’s familiar to you.

We doubt if they have used the same engine as Conquer Online/Eudemons Online. As far as we have experienced, all shortkeys and settings are a kind of “copy” from Eudemons Online – Same character models, same old map, same old eudemons etc.

There are only 2 races in this continent, human and orc. You can be born as a swordman, mage or a paladin if you choose the human side; you can be born as a warrior, priest or a hunter if you choose the orc side.

Judging from its appearance, we do believe they have a bunch of good art designers. But we play a game for its gameplay. We found the game lacking in gameplay and it doesn’t have any unique features. Robots and autopath are the standard function in all Chinese MMORPG; Boring quests asking you to hunt this mob and report to that NPC…We gradually find its boring after a few hours.

We don’t recommend you to try this game but if you are bored enough, you can check it out on its official website http://sx.baiyou100.com/.

But we are looking forward to the 2nd product from this game developer: Dragon Dynasty. It’s a 3D mmorpg and so far the concept arts and demo videos are really nice. We will report about this game once its out.

Finally we have got a chance to log into the pre-closed beta server for Dragon Oath. As we have mentioned in our last articles, Dragon Oath is one of the most popular MMORPGs in the Chinese market now. How is it going for the English version?

The client is really small, about 600M roughly. After several patches, we finally logged into the game – to our surprise, the manual patch can’t update our game to latest version – that is really unpleasant.

As you can see from the above log-in interface, sohu.com remains its Chinese logo with pinying. Don’t they need an English name? After that, you are directly to the 2nd log in interface.

As you can see from the above, the integrated bulletin tells the players which event is being held today with time, event name and related information. This function is really great and players do not need to visit the game website to retrieve the latest event news.

Here we come to the server list. As we can see from the above, there is only one server for pre-alpha testing and is called Death Valley – sounds cool or dull? Lol…You can also see the network status right here. We do believe the translation here is a bit confusing and we will leave this part alone for them to fix. Let’s get into the character creation interface.

The default character is a she. She is a very traditional Chinese girl. You can name her, or change her to a him by clicking the Male button, choose her facial form from “the beautiful” to “the tender”, you can also dress her and find the best portrait for her. We do believe the customerization is good but we dislike the avatar icons. They should input some American facials there. If you are creating a male character, you can find a rainbow behind him. That’s a bit gay to us.

When you’ve logged into the game, you are in a deserted place that you don’t know. No novice guide, no hints. Since it’s pre-closed beta, we can bear it. We saw an old man riding a big bird and we do belive he is important. If you look carefully at the screenshot above, you will see there is a security period after each log in. That’s cool but sometimes it’s annoying – especially when you are doing trades – you have to wait till the period is gone!

The short cut is really hard to remember. Alt-A for bag?…Maybe the chinese use “A” letter for their bagpack instead of using “B”.

The texture here is really colorful. Sometime it’s too colorful that we can’t read the text! Auto-path function is really good. But if the NPC is not in the same scene, you have to manually find it’s area map (for god’s sake, it’s Tab key, not M key…). After you reach that map, you can then continue to use auto-path function. Bad and uncomfortable.

By following the quests, it’s really easy to reach level 10. But since it’s pre-closed beta, we have found tons of language mistakes and inconsistancies in quests and dialogues, sometimes you still find Chinese languages that untranslated. We do believe they will fix them before the closed beta launch.

Compared with other Chinese cultural themed mmorpg, such as Phoenix Dynasty Online (we have also introduced this game a lot), Dragon Oath is more fictional. History is only a background while in Phoenix Dynasty Online, you can find real historical figures everywhere, as well as their thoughts such as taoism, Confucianism, yinyang, wuxing etc.

Let’s see what happens when Dragon Oath goes to commercial launch.

Dragon Oath, known as TLBB in fmmorpg.com has finally being translated and brought to USA! We have changed [CN]TLBB to Dragon Oath in our free mmorpg list from now on.

Official Introduction

What is Dragon Oath

Dragon Oath is a Massively Multiplayer Online Game set in ancient China during the time of the Song Dynasty in 960 AD. The main storyline of Dragon Oath is based upon the mythology of the eight races of non-human deities described in Buddhist cosmology.  According to Buddhism, these Demi-Gods exist on a higher plane of existence than mortals, and yet they are still bound by their passions and desires to the Samsara, the cycle of reincarnation.  While the Demi-Gods themselves are not the primary focus in the game, the story’s main characters are modeled after the deity races, exhibiting many of their qualities, both divine and mortal.

The story behind Dragon Oath revolves around an elaborate saga of complex, troubled relationships among numerous characters from various kingdoms and sects during China’s Northern Song Dynasty. The warring empires involved in the story are those of Song, Liao, Dali, Western Xia, and Tubo. The struggles the characters experience within their combating factions affect the bonds between themselves and their families, societies, ethnic groups, and countries. As a result, strife and conflict abound, and each player will find himself quickly pulled in to the fray, striving to evolve and leave his mark. Part of this evolution involves choosing one of the nine martial arts classes. Once chosen, the player’s class will foster development of uniquely powerful skills and abilities that will define the player as a true force with which to be reckoned.

What does Dragon Oath have to offer

Dragon Oath allows players to engage themselves in ancient Chinese lore and take part in captivating quests that tell the tale of warriors and diplomats from this time period. Dragon Oath has a large emphasis on teamwork and community within its gameplay mechanics. Marriage, guilds, and blood relationships play a huge role in the overall experience of the game.

We truly belive this game will definately give a shock to western mmo companies: Chinese MMORPG is no longer a copycat from western games. They are gradually changing to meet the needs of the player, and provide the most convenient functions to players. The only issues would be the cultural. But to all gamers, a game is to be played. Unless you are definately against foriegn cultures, we suggest you give this a try. You can also review the articles related to Dragon Oath we have on our site for a further look at this game. They are also looking for game translators. If you are insterested you can also contact them and try to become one.

Official Website: http://www.dragonoath.com

Today we went to Chinajoy, biggest game show held in China during July 23rd to 26th. We have found a lot of new games and now we’re going to show you some brand new game screenshots as well as some descriptions.

Legend of Xuan Yuan

Legend of Xuan Yuan was designed by the Gamebryo Element 2.3 Engine (Xbox 360 main engine). As we can see from the released pictures, the graphics look really awesome. The core content of the game is the city war. There are 3 classes: Warrior, Assassin and Priest.

Master of War

We do not have more details about this game. But judging from these concept arts, we think we might have a try once it’s out.

Mux

MU was one of the most popular mmorpg in history. The9.com, the one who introduced World of Warcraft to China and now lost it due to Netease, was the publisher of MU in China. Mux is now being developed by the9.com. Through the name, we can see that the game is designed based on MU. It’s a 2.5 D game too. Since the9 lost 92% of its income due to the loss of WOW, we have no idea how will this company survive and Mux is one of the first mmos made by the9 itself.

More games will be released during the next a few days of this carnival. Beside games, we have also seen a lot of nice show girls in this Chinajoy. So let’s take a look at them then.

Show Girls in 7th Chinajoy

I think most of you have just watched Transformer 2: Revenge of the Fallen. Today we are going to take a look at this robot themed mmorpg: Transformer Online, just published by netease (NTES), a Nasdaq listed company from China. Currently the game is in so called Closed Beta – although everyone can register and play with a promise: no wipe.

There are totally 4 types of class for you to choose when creating a new character. They are: Hammer, Tank, Battle Plane and Chopper. It seems the game has copied a lot of concepts from the real Transformers: the class setting is just like settings for Transformer: Autobots and Decepticons.

The most interesting part of the game that we have found for now, is the transformation part. When you reach Lv.9, you can transform to a car or a plane according to the different classes.

Besides that, we didn’t find this game that much interesting comparing to netease’s other games such as Tian Xia II. The battle effects are really out dated; same old quests and same old storylines.

We think the stock price for NTES will definately drop since Tian Xia II didn’t perform very well in China. And this old-designed game will make greater loss to the company as well.

Still want to have a check? Here is the official website: http://bb.163.com. Have fun!