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.

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.

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!

We have updated our free mmorpg list on April 9th, 2009.

If you find out that we have missed some other free mmorpgs, please feel free to contact us or leave a message here. We are glad to add them to the free mmorpg list.

You can visit free mmorpg list by clicking here.

310,000  current users with 43 game servers – that is an outstanding performance of the newly released cartoon style MMORPG – Luvinia Online, published by Simo tech in mainland China. Of course, the figure is from the “Official Website” and we doubt that always :p.

Before we get into the game details, let’s gossip about the company. Everyone knows that SNDA, largest game company in China has bought Aurora Tech in Chengdu. The rumor says that the leader of Aurora Tech has “escaped” from SNDA and made a new company called Simo Tech and they started to publish the new game called Luvinia Online.

Is that true? We don’t know yet but let us just regard this as a little appetiser before we get into the details of Luvinia Online(Chinese: ????).

As you can see from the screenshot above, Luvinia Online’s interface is just like other MMORPG’s, copying WOW interface. If you look closely you will find there are a lot of similarities with the icons used in WOW. The game is made from a 3D engine while zoomed into 2.5D views. It has solved the dizzy problems for some players. The whole game style is like a mixture of European and Japanese styles. We can also see some elements copied from Ragnarok Online, especially the profession settings, the maps and town names.

We have captured a lot of high quality screenshots in our testing machine but we don’t have them at hand. We will upload them to the next article on this game and explain them in more detail. We have reached lv. 20 and we haven’t found anything exciting beside the beautiful interface and skill effects. NPC and characters are really cute and we think this might attract a lot of girl players and RO styled MMO fans. But overall, from the official website’s introduction, this game is pretty plain and simple, with average MMO settings and features and we haven’t found out anything unusual yet. But it’s definite a game with all of the current popular settings.

If you understand Chinese, as always, please visit their official website for more details:

http://www.star07.com/

Before we go into details, let us have a look at the amazing screenshots downloaded from the official website of Kaixin Online, a free Chinese MMORPG:

Looks amazing right? OK now let’s get into the details of Kaixin Online – in English it means: Happy Online.

I think most of our readers have played a game called Stone Age, which was published a long time ago from a Japanese company. But the failure of that game was mostly caused by the useless and ugly pets. The pets there are only 2 functions: Tank and mounts. At that time, TQdigital developed a gamed called: Monster and Me (http://www.monsterandme.com) which is also a turn based 2D MMORPG, focusing on pet raising, evolving and composing. And that game made TQdigital a great success! Now TQdigital has just released a new game called Kaixin Online – Happy Online in mainland China on March 7th, 2009. Inheriting its success of turn based/ pet raising MMORPG, TQdigital announce Kaixin Online has hit 100,000 CCU on the first day of the launch!

Pets are still the most important part of this game. You can create your pet when you are creating your character. This has never been seen in any other MMORPG’s. They can not only fight with you, but also make perfumes and fruit drinks. They can also help the master to identify pets and digging mines as well. You can also give baths and feed the pets to become a real pet trainer!

In Kaixin Online, you can only turn on duel to fight with other players, that means bad PK behavior is forbidden in this game.

Here are the main features of this game:

Massive Quest System, Path Finding system, Family Settings, Pets and Unique Guild wars etc. We will get into the details next time. Here are the other amazing screenshots:

Official Website: http://kx.91.com

Meng Jiang Online started its Closed Beta in China on Jan 18th, 2009. Ming Jiang means famous warrior. The game background is set in the 3 Kingdoms period, ancient China when Wei, Shu and Wu’s three kingdoms were fighting each other, each of them seeking to unite China.

The game kinda reminds us of Phoenix Dynasty Online (http://pdo.enjoymmo.com). It has 2D backgrounds with 3D characters. However, the characters are far better looking than that game. There are 6 classes in total you can choose. Blademan, Swordman, Clubman, Spearman, Wizard and Priest. You need to distribute your points before you create your character. Do not mess it up otherwise it’s really hard to compensate yourself, lol.

As long as you know what color is, you can definitely look different from the other people. You need to choose your career path at first. If you choose warrior, you can become blademan, swordman, clubman and spearman; If you choose politicians, you can become wizard or priest.

After we log into the game, we were like: OMG! How could there be so many players dedicated to such a 2.5D game?! Are they mad? Here is the screenshot:

Did you notice the fairy on the upper right corner? She is very helpful when you are exploring the game alone. She reminds you when something/an action needs an explaination. And she is really sexy when she flies to you, lol.

Skills here are weapon based. If you use a spear you can only cast spear related skills. Before you learn some skills, you need to gain some basic kungfu points. These points can be gained when you complete any quests or from killing mobs.

Quests are really easy. You can use the robot funtion to find the target NPC/locations easily. But since it’s in closed beta, quests’ reward not high and you need to grind a bit to gain your levels. But that can be solved when open beta comes. Unlike other games, mobs are everywhere in the cities due to the first a few quests. But’s it’s really a nice setting: You will never feel lonely here. You will find a really defined community feeling here in the city.

Guess what we found? Take a look at the following screenshots:

We bet you know what are these systems in game. First is horse racing. You can gamble here to gain in game gold. We bet on the first horse but as you can see from the screenshot, yes we lost! -___- The second one is crafting system. We haven’t figured that one out yet lol…

Did you notice the arrows? When you fishing or doing other living skills, you can complete the tasks by playing this DDR-esqued mini-game to speed up the harvest. Just follow the directions of the arrows and tap in the combinations on the keyboard. Don’t hit it wrong otherwise you will start over again, lol.

Dungeon systems here are based on real history campaigns. If you have read a Chinese novel called: The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (and if you haven’t, pick up the book IMMEDIATELY!), you will find almost every famous campaign! Here are some screenshots from the official website:

Anti Dong Zhuo Union Campaign

If you understand Chinese or you are from Singapore, you can click here to read more campaigns.

We will bring more information after we reach certain levels. If you are intersted, you can share your thoughts here with us. We might get you a closed beta key, lol.

Name: Ming Jiang Online

Offiicial website: http://mj.8zgame.com/Default.aspx

Client Size: 544MB

Graphics: 2.5D

Subscription: Free to Play MMORPG

Language: Chinese

We have played Tian Xia II for quite a while. We devoted our weekend to this game and all answers lead to a good WOW clone. And not only clone, it has a lot improvements on World of Warcraft. We are pretty sure the Netease’s stock price will go high again, even in this ecnomy crisis.

Here are some screenshots taken in 1024*768 mode for Tian Xia II. We won’t play any other 3D games until we get bored.

The game is neat, and quest languages are really nice. Quests are designed very well… I really hope all you guys understand Chinese and give it a go:) Maybe this game will win the top 10 MMORPG award hold in the end of the year by fmmorpg.com.

Zu Online: High level Monsters in Watercloud Palace Overview

In Zu Online (http://zu.igg.com/), players can play an apprentice of one of the five clans and then enter the epic battle between the Gods and Devils. To maintain justice, they have to fight various monsters in the game. Today, some high level monsters and NPC in Watercloud Palace will be shown as below:

Shark Soldier:

Davy Jones General quietly trains Shark Soldiers as his trusted subordinates. They are brave and battlewise but fierce and ruthless so they have gradually taken the place of the Chess Army.

Dragon Elder:

It is a sea dragon. It was sealed by the Boulder Immortal in the sea chess for its evil deeds.

Chess Elephant:

It’s a sea elephant that has become a talented monster after years of hard training. It looks simple, honest and even a bit slow. But actually, it is of great wisdom like a military counselor. It was sealed in the sea chess by the Boulder Immortal.

Dragon King:

The Dragon King is the leader of the sea dragons. No one knows his age and no one has ever gotten a full view of his appearance. He resides deep in the Sea Dragon Cave but always cares for his clan and oversees the world using his sagacious eyes.

Huoshen:

Huoshen (NPC) is a talented master who possesses supreme power and has created tons of awesome creatures as well as guarding Watercloud Palace preparing to fight the Blood Demon. No one knows his history. No one knows his purpose either. People only know he is an excellent leader and guides the Resisting Army to fight against the Evil Chess Army without any complaints, even though he has suffered much hardship. However, he may keep a secret connection with the Evil Chess Army.

For more information, please click http://zu.igg.com/news/newscon.php?aid=1444

Zu Online: New Version 1.8.01 Available

The Zu Online (http://zu.igg.com/) Team is pleased to announce that the latest version 1.8.01 has been released on November 24th. Players can now run the client to update the game automatically. Those who have any problems updating the game client automatically, please visit http://zu.igg.com/download/download.php to download the updates patch.

In contrast with the previous version, there is a lot of new content in version 1.8.01, which will make the game even more fun. Boundary Hill, the second instance zone of Zu Online has been added. The monsters, especially the boss-level monsters in Boundary Hill are extremely tough, but they drop items that make it all worthwhile. Additionally, another two new high-level zones—Frozen Sea and Wei-Yang Palace have been added. What’s more, we have added several new systems, including Enchanting, pet combination, fashion improvement and the salary system. With the release of the new systems, players can improve their equipment by using the Enchantment function, attach a pet’s attributes to another, add extra attributes to fashionable items and get a weekly salary after meeting certain requirements. We also will improve the Commercial Travel system, add high-level Round Quests and improve some of the game settings.

In a word, Zu Online version 1.8.01 will certainly bring players an improved gaming experience in Zu Online.

For more information, please click http://zu.igg.com/news/newscon.php?aid=1458

Zu Online: Four New Bosses in Boundary Hill

Most people may have ever dreamt of winning a hero title. But it is not easy at all. To be entitled hero, you should be both brave and intelligent enough. If you wish to be a real hero, then just challenge those intelligent and tough demonized talented monks in the new instance–Boundary Hill in Zu Online ( http://zu.igg.com ). But you have to know that they are so strong that they may be able to kill anyone just by a hit.

Stony Devil

He was originally a martial monk of the Wan Temple. He had been seeking stronger supernatural power like crazy, which finally caused him to become a tall, unconscious and ruthless Stony Devil. He has become a killing machine absolutely. He was good at using Chaotic Hit ability to smite people instantly. He can even kill a strong man just by a hit. You had better not get close to him without a strong Sun Warrior accompanying you.

Broadsword Lord

Even though you may defeat the Stony Devil luckily, you cannot relax your will to fight because you will face a much stronger foe—the incredibly tall Broadsword Lord. Before him, fear, courage or any other power of will won’t work at all because no one had ever survived in his sight.

Broadaxe Lord

It means you are not far away from hell when seeing the Broadaxe Lord, the guardian of the Buddhist’s Finger Ring. He is very tall but surprisingly agile that even hitting him is a very difficult mission. What’s more, he is good at stunning his foes and attacking multiple enemies at a time. He also possesses unbelievably good defense. So, even the bravest people would try not to appear in his sight.

Red Winged Lohan

The Red Winged Lohan is the leader of the evil monks in the Boundary Hill. He was given birth by the Buddhist’s Finger Ring. Rumor had it no one had ever survived after receiving five hits from him. Even the strongest Sun Warrior would be wounded badly when receiving two hits from him. However, if he is not killed, the Flame Master’s conspiracy would come true. Who will complete the mission impossible?

For more information on the Contents of this new instance and How to Entry, please click http://zu.igg.com/news/newscon.php?aid=1463.

The newest Fiesta patch is now available! Featuring a new PvP Kingdom Quest, exciting Thanksgiving content, and permanent versions of some of fan-favorite favorite premium items, the latest patch will download automatically the next time you play Fiesta.

PvP Kingdom Quest – The Warrior’s Code

• The rulers of Isya have come together and created the ultimate challenge to test the heroes of of the world and determine the land’s most valiant champion – The Warriors Code!
  Wield the powerful new weapons and power-ups: The Invincible Toy Hammer and Freezing Ice.
  Participate in different level brackets and show off your skills:
  Amateur Fighter – level 35-49
  Brave Warrior – level 55-69
  Valiant Warrior – level 75-89
  15 players in 15 minutes of action.
  Win EXP and Set Items.

Thanksgiving in Isya

• - New Quest: Roumen’s Thanksgiving Feast.
  - Visit Town Chief Roumenus in Roumen and help him collect 150 turkey legs and save Thanksgiving in Isya.
  - Earn a 7-day version of the Thomas the Turkey mount.

Fiesta Store

• - Permanent versions of the Sakura Costume, Sensei Suit, and Cat Ears are now available in the Fiesta Store.
  - The Thomas the Turkey mount (30 days) is now available.
  - Removed Red Menian Suit (Permanent), Blue Menian Suit (Permanent), and Yellow Menian Suit (Permanent).

Bug Fixes

• - Guild Storage issues in Roumen and Elderine have been fixed.
  - Objective boss monster drop rates have been fixed.