If you have lots of cash to drop on it you might have fun.

Originally posted by LtJohnnyRico

Originally posted by tsurano

There are silks which are a relatively rare drop.

There are also items in the Merit shop (Merit is gained from killing bosses, certain quests, and killing other nation players)

 

Silk is extremely rare as you said and if it is on the auction block, it is the most expensive item there.

 

And have you ever killed a boss for merit? If you got a full 10 merit for every boss you killed, that would be 350 bosses you have to kill for 1 merit item that restores 20 loyalty.

I got 11 from killing a level 55 boss (solo) and I hear it scales by the boss' level.  If you gain merit from warring as well, it should not be too difficult to get the merit you need.  The only problem is that the gates to other nations are closed.

There are silks which are a relatively rare drop.

There are also items in the Merit shop (Merit is gained from killing bosses, certain quests, and killing other nation players)

Your soldiers loyalty does go down if you AFK grind.

You should try climbing into one of the ballista in town, it's quite interesting.  Can't wait till we can get to fire them.  I also like the Sky Balloon transport system.  You actually have to wait to get around the world instead of teleporting everywhere but it is still much faster than running.  It's a pretty interesting game and even though there is quite a bit of grind, the fact you can afk grind makes up for it a bit.  Quests also give quite a lot of EXP.

I'm also on Shu, ingame name Asch.

Originally posted by trancejeremy

Originally posted by tsurano

I was thinking of trying it, looked to be a solid game and was something original.  Then I saw TQDigital was the ones publishing it.  TQDigital can take a great game and ruin it by trying to bleed their customers for all they are worth.

So basically, like every other company that runs "Free to play" games?

No, not like every other company that runs "Free to play" games.  I've played F2P games that are pretty balanced between paying players and free players.  For the most part, if you worked hard, you could keep up with paying players.  I played one of TQDigital's games called Conquer Online for several years, and I (who had been playing two years consecutively with my brother and cousin) could be beaten by someone who had played for two weeks and dropped a bit of cash into the game.   They also made it so that the damage you dealt in PvP was based on the "potency" of your equipment vs other players.  Based on the quality, number of sockets, upgrades etc of your equipment your damage would be lowered by up to 50%, before counting damage modifiers such as defense. I went from dealing 500+ damage to some players to dealing 20 damage.  Considering these people have upwards of 10k HP it meant that killing them went from difficult to impossible.

TQDigital does not do anything to punish botters/hackers if they pay money.  In Conquer Online they had a system called "Bot Jail" that you could get out of by buying from their website.  I knew one player who had spent over $5000 on the game and I hear there are players who have spent $30k.  I may try the game, but I know I'm not going to stay.

I was thinking of trying it, looked to be a solid game and was something original.  Then I saw TQDigital was the ones publishing it.  TQDigital can take a great game and ruin it by trying to bleed their customers for all they are worth.

Originally posted by dar_es_balat

Do not play Kingdom Heroes.   This is a game in china known as ZT Online, or derivative thereof done by the same developer.   Its bad news.    Players have wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars on this developers "Pay to Win" games.

Kingdom Heroes is definitely not ZT Online

Here is a screeny of ZT, a 2.5D/Isometric game.  Kingdom Heroes is 3D.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Gee William it is Gpotato why even bothering wondering how the cash shop will effect pvp.  It will have a major effect.

There is no such thing as free in a f2p game that features pvp.  Expect to invest a lot more than a regular sub would cost in a p2p if you want to be competitive.

That pretty much makes this game DOA. 

From what I hear, the Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese Item shops don't affect PvP much at all.  Yes, there are items that prevent gear from breaking, but that's not too bad since the game isn't 1v1 on GvG.  But I haven't logged in since the the item shop was released so this might not be entirely true.

Just a quick heads up:

After opening the AIKA client, before hitting START, you can hit Settings -> Video and set Screen Resolution to Desktop Resolution.  Should stop the pesky changing of desktop.

Quick tip:

If you download it using Pando Media Booster, make sure to uninstall Pando when you are done.  Otherwise it will keep seeding to other players and eat up your bandwidth.

Level 15 and I've played a total of 6 hours.

Originally posted by joker007mo

Originally posted by tsurano

AIKA is doing market research to figure out more information about its players.  So deceptively evil, disguising a survey as a game!

well i bluffed it off as me giving my pran a personality maybe dk but some of the questions were awkward  like "how should i be answering this in case its a hack or something "  and i might add  im glad i didnt sell the outfit i obtained other wise i woulda had a little girl in underwear running around  idk but i felt the pran should have an outfit on to start with which was weird to say the least  i was playing the cleric so my pran had yet to be anything useful to me though in no way did it seem i wouldnt eventually get to use her more effectively i cant say i dont like aika either since i did tell my cousin about it but its mainly the fact it was free

Well in CBT the Pran was asking some pretty strange questions as well.  Mine asked me where I would go for a vacation and other strange things.

What Nation are you?  And I have my cousin playing it also.  He's getting upset that his schoolwork is getting in the way of his playing time.

Originally posted by joker007mo

though i must admit the damn thing can be quite annoying asks tons of questions not just about game stuff but like what browser i use and a whole lot of other semi personal stuff kinda felt like i was being interrogated a couple times

AIKA is doing market research to figure out more information about its players.  So deceptively evil, disguising a survey as a game!

Digimon is 10x better than Pokemon

 Ash was an idiot who released his highest evolved pokemon and kept a pikachu with him.  He failed miserably.

 Besides, Digimon could die whereas pokemon just fainted.

Guessing this game isn't going to be too great, but I might give it a try.

Well everybody gets another chance to try it out. February 24th is 2nd closed beta test.

Originally posted by Tanon

 

No one flies while PvPing except to run away; you only deal half damage.

Watched a few PvP videos with people flying, but that seems kind of silly.  Why would you limit the power of a character who is flying when one of the things that makes Perfect World shine is the flying system?

PW has a 150 level cap, and you really don't start learning the basics of how to play your class until the 20s.

Doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to PvP/PK.  On the PvE server it wouldn't be a problem since you have to flag yourself for PK to PK (something I view as silly) but on the PvP server it gets a bit problematic with griefers going to level 30 grind areas and waiting for a few level 30's to pop by so they can test their new equipments.  I don't know if this happens in Perfect World, but it happened quite a bit in World of Kungfu.  Yes, you lose a lot of players with early PK but it helps quite a bit with gold farmers, KSers and annoying spammers.

There are multiple territories that can be controlled which require co-ordination. You can have allies bid on one of your territories so that enemies can't take it. On the other hand, you could have a bunch of allied guilds bid on multiple enemy territories so that the enemy is forced to defend. People can't play 24/7, so you're bound to face the enemy guild at times where some of their strongest players are offline. 

I looked at Perfect World a while ago and I believe I liked the Territory system at the time but I don't think I like it as much anymore.  Seems kind of silly that it is a 1 Guild v 1 Guild type of thing  competing over one territory, I guess with the way the system is set up it makes it difficult to have multiple guilds at once.   The actual battles require coordination, but the overall system doesn't really require much.  Just know the times your allies are weak and outbid them, not much unique strategy or coordination there.  There isn't also a large political dynamic where breaking an alliance with someone is as devastating.  Break an alliance with a guild and (if you are a strong guild) there will be three others waiting to take its place.  In AIKA if you break an alliance with someone (too often) you won't be trusted and a few nations will end up allying and ganging up on you.

Quick question, what are the benefits for winning a territory war?

If you say 'report any translation errors' the public will be more inclined to believe that the client is not very buggy. As you said, it doesn't mean there will be problems when patched over, so why are we reporting bugs in a known buggy client? 

There are still bugs, but most of the stuff is for translation errors.  Don't know what gPotato did to the client but who knows, they could have tweaked it a bit for reasons such as making it easier to run on the client, and making it easier for them to understand.  This does bring a few problems, and as I stated in my last post, the speedhack problem was pretty big, but isn't found on the other servers.

Korean developer. gPotato. Cash shop. 'Nuff said. Even PWI has a huge cash shop advantage.

Not always, so far the other servers aren't too bad, and one thing I like about a Nation vs Nation PvP system (Air Rivals had this) is that even if a few players become incredibly cash shop powerful, they are still allies and still in your nation.  Yes, they may end up winning the Castle Siege a lot and become Grand Marshal all the time, but at least the cash shoppers are on your side.  In most games I've played, the cash shoppers end up joining together and becoming part of one unstoppable guild.  I believe the Korean server sells grinding weapons (weapons good till level 40/50) but I think that is the worst of it, my brother quit Perfect World because you could practically buy (overpowered) endgame weapons that took forever to hunt for normally.

'Official' reviews and Q/A aren't objective enough. You can really talk about systems all you like, but in the end, it comes down to actually playing the game. Lots of people are saying you can't review a game in 5 minutes, but that editorial certainly isn't coming from someone that has played through to the endgame.

The Q&A does answer a few questions you had and the review was just to back up my point about not a lot of people having the lag issues that some were.  When I try a game I usually try to give it a week before I make a statement about it.

That might have been an issue. Thanks.

Yeah, Pando Media booster was great at downloading the client, but its set to start every time you turn on the computer and starts seeding to other people.  Hopefully the client will be uploaded to a hosting site soon.

Originally posted by drbaltazar 

 

yes they are bug testing ,french and english are two very different langage and keyboardlayout  etc

untill they can design a game on a universal code they have to correct it for each langage they support

i would go just english if i was them but then there  lot of chinese way more  350 million gamer

 

French and English?  The game is available in Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese.  They don't have it in French (that I know of).  Also, you don't need to change the code for each language, as long as the computer can support a certain programming language (not speaking language) its not a problem.  They just need to change the quest scripts and the interface language.

And there really does need to be a bug testing section.  There were quite a few bugs that were server related.  Such as the disconnect for speed hacking bug that happened when you had auto-attack on.

Originally posted by Tanon

Perfect World allows for fairly massive PvP as well as PvE with minimal lag, and it's pretty much the exact same combat system.

 

And, again, what's the point in a 'bug report' section on their forums if they already know that our client is buggy?

The combat systems are quite different due to the 3D (flying) nature of Perfect World's (PW) combat vs. the 2D nature of AIKA's.  AIKA also supports a lot more players and is more free in the PvP/PK sense.

AIKA is open PK as soon as you hit level 10 for all players on all servers for all nations.

PW does not have PK till 30, and the player needs to be flagged unless they are on the PvP server.

AIKA also supports more players in PvP, not due to system specs/lag limitations but technical limitations.  PW at most will have 200v200 PvP at its best case scenario.  Two Tier 3 Guilds with all players fighting during territory wars.  This would be quite impressive and would more than fill my need for PvP (maybe better than AIKA), but the problem is that it is just two sides fighting and ends up being not as interesting.  On the PvE server, there may end up being as many people PvPing as in AIKA, but it is much more difficult to control (no insta-messaging your entire nation) and the PvP system of PW was not designed with this in mind.

One interesting thing about AIKA is the idea of diplomacy with other nations.  You ally with a nation since you hear that two others are ganging up to attack you.  Your ally is helping protect your relics, when all of a sudden they remove themselves as allies, steal your relics and run away with them.  This kind of stuff won't happen in PW and would make things quite a lot of fun.

About the bugs section:
There can still be bugs in translations or script errors.  I noticed quite a few when I had a few untranslated characters in my chat scripts.  Just because it is an old buggy client doesn't mean there will still be problems when its patched over.  And even though it has been around for (five years?) a while there could still be bugs that still haven't been fixed (or caught but the chances are slim).

Note: I looked up Perfect World's PvP systems in addition to their guild systems and a few videos of the PvP.  Similar target/skill/attack system but the overall combat ends up being more challenging due to managing flying abilities in Perfect World.  So Perfect World wins out over AIKA in a 1v1  up to 200v200, but the idea of massive amounts of players from different nations all fighting together is what wins out AIKA PvP for me.  Guess it will all boil down to the cash shop.

Here is a Q&A and a Review (by Jaime Skelton, some of her articles are on the front page here on MMORPG.com)

Review: http://mmohut.com/editorials/aika-closed-beta-review

Q&A: http://www.massiveonlinegamer.com/news/special-features/453-aika-online-qaa

The Q&A addresses some of the issues you brought up in your previous arguments, and the Review shares a bit of the "the laggy/choppyness was only happening to a few people" idea I was trying to get across earlier.  The customization is worse than she says but the rest is pretty spot on.

Oh, and make sure you remove the downloader (Pando Media Booster) that downloaded the game, it acts like a torrent client and can get quite annoying.

Originally posted by Tanon , 

1. Ok, let me return to the following point: we are NOT bugtesting. We are playing on a client that is TWO YEARS old where most bugs have likely been tested and fixed already. All we're doing is seeing whether or not gPotato's servers can handle the strain.

2. I'm not the one that brought up the bug report; Knightcry was.

3. Could've been Pokemon and it would've served the same purpose.

4. Conquer Online is NOT skill. It requires a tad more skill than other games, true, but in the end it all comes down to gear. Besides that, turn on simple shadows and it's easy as hell because the characters have linear motion. Anyone that is good at an FPS will be able to aim in CO, but again, that's only one part of it. You could be the most skilled FB/SSer in the world, but that wouldn't matter if your gear was crap and a Fire with full SPG/SPG/+12 crap is bearing down on you. Therefore, your skill is irrelevant in the long run unless you also have godly gear.

tl;dr: An MMORPG may require skill; however, the skill is still offset by gear/levels/etc. Only FPS/RTS games truly depend on your skill.

5. So, if I used DO, that could mean (just off the list here at mmorpg.com, not even counting Darkfall because it doesn't say 'online' after it): Deco Online, Deicide Online, Destiny Online, Dragon Oath, Dragonica Online, and Dreamland Online. Yes, what a perfect acronym to get my point across.

6. Did you personally participate in the massive PvP? That's the real question here.

7. Actually, you misread it. The MMORPG overview states that it does include "sweeping graphics".

8. Technically, the game does make its point around the pet system. Aside from 1000v1000 PvP, the Pran system is pretty much the only other unique thing in the game (as covered by 'interacting' with your 'pet').

9. Let's take... naming chemical compounds for example. Pretty boring (unless you're obsessed with chemistry). Is getting 1000 people to compete against another 1000 in naming compounds really going to be exciting? No point in having an interesting PvP option if the PvP sucks in the first place, right?

10. Yes. They BENEFIT from it. Unless there's some sort of system like that in Aika, no one will listen.

11. You're not the only student playing MMORPGs, you know. Aside from that, acronyms are incredibly easy to remember. If more than one acronym fits, choose the most applicable one. Naturally, if Dungeon Fighter can't accommodate mass PvP, I wouldn't be talking about it unless I didn't even know what the game was like.

Yes, the client is two years old, but it has yet to be patched.  So we still have the original buggy client released to the other servers two years ago.  I've played the other servers and quite a few of the issues you brought up did not exist.  The issue with moving through the rock was most likely lag on your end.  What are your computer specs, connection specs and location?

I admit, they did not have to use daughters for it, but guess what, they did.  If you have a problem with it, keep yours in fairy mode or don't play.  Not really hard to deal with.  Besides you brought up the Pran way later after your first post so I don't see why I am still replying to it.

Conquer Online (back when I played) definitely required skill.  Back when I played +12 didn't exist and I saw ONE person with full 2 soc (I made sure to get several screenshots of this).  The highest people got were +6 which was amazing and since there was no potency/battle power it meant nothing.  Being able to take on full super trojans with a full elite trojan and win definitely was skill.  Godly gear only became an issue after TQ introduced lottery, 2nd reborn and BP.  You didn't even address Ace Online...

5.  Then just write out Darkfall and if it doesn't say online after it why is it DFO?

6. Yup.  Taiwanese server is fun.

7. I'll give you this one, the graphics on the game aren't that great but when you are in a large battle with no lag and with the current graphical setting I think its more than a fine tradeoff.

8. Hmm the Pran system is pretty well advertised but you forgot to mention some of the other PvP systems.  You act as if there is only one PvP system being advertised.  There are quite a few instanced PvP modes that are mentioned under the general PvP heading but the way you have worded it seems like there is only the nation battles.

9. Gonna pull a card from your book ;) "Did you experience it yourself?" No you didn't.  Well I was bored one night and done with classes so I decided to get on in time for a war.  It actually was rather exciting.  The PvP system in AIKA isn't all that bad, yes it is the standard PvP system that is overdone to death but until people get non-targeting PvP done right its what we are stuck with.

10. There is such a system.

11.  Said before, be more specific, write out Darkfall.  You said yourself there are so many things that could fit into the Darkfall acronym. 

Originally posted by aromero

So then...maybe you should go outside...there is another world after all besides the internet, tell me how it goes.

I'll tell you how it goes.

It goes: I have 6 more hours of class today and it is below 0 outside.  Mondays are my crap days when I have 7 hours of class (9 am to 8 pm with a few breaks in between).  This is one of the few times where I get to sit on my computer on Mondays so I would rather be on here while doing my homework than go outside (where it is freezing) just because some troll says "there is another world after all besides the internet".  I spend most of my time when I'm not doing homework away from my computer.  As I said before, I've logged about 10 hours of AIKA which is all the gaming I've done this month.  I spend more than enough time away from the computer.