Can't see the Forest for the Trees

There's an event currently running in Atlantica Online that celebrates the Japanese Cherry Blossom Festival. From April 21 to June 16, guilds can build and plant their own cherry blossom trees in their towns for possible added revenue and aesthetics. Unfortunately, after the initial "neato" impression the particle graphics of the cherry blossoms that greet you upon visiting a town soon wears on you. I'm sure June 16 can't come soon enough for some of the regular AO players. I can't even imagine what a newbie's impression would be of these blossoms if he has no idea why every town he visits has these stupid pink blossoms flying around everywhere.

But I'd like to examine the actual mechanics of the cherry tree and appreciate the thought that went into its design. From the wiki entry:

Spring has sprung, so let’s have some fun, like they do in the land of the rising sun! The Sakura Matsuri, or Cherry Blossom Festival, is a highly anticipated time in Japan to get together and view the beautiful scenery of the Cherry Blossom Trees. If you can’t make it to Japan, don’t fret! The Cherry Blossom Trees are now available to view in Atlantica!

From April 21 to June 16, town owners will have the opportunity to build a Cherry Tree. Visitors of towns that have a Cherry Tree will enjoy some very pleasant scenery along with the chance to grab a Cherry Tree Fruit once a day at the cost of 100% will and 200,000 gold (half the gold will go directly to the guild fund). Eating the Cherry Tree Fruit will grant the player an additional 10% increase of experience for two hours. The Cherry Tree can only be guild-crafted and requires building craft to be at level 5 or higher.

Some new items that are required to build the Cherry Tree, such as the Cherry Tree Leaf, Cherry Tree Stem and Cherry Tree Root can be purchased on the market. All new items relating to the Cherry Blossom Festival event will be removed after the event is over.

Guild crafting, town customization, guild revenue, and XP booster all in one tree! That's some impressive multi-tasking.

Clash of the Titans

Atlantica Online was recently patched with a huge content update. Not the housing or 100v100 battle system patch that was recently revealed at this year's GDC. They're still busy working on those items. This patch updated the North American English servers with the content that has been live on the Korean servers for months now. Full patch notes can be found here.

There's quite a number of changes and additions documented on that page but the centerpiece of the update has to be the new Titan server. This enables interaction between characters of different servers. For now, it's only limited to sharing info and PVP but there are future plans to enable trade between the different servers. Future content is also planned which will utilize the unique aspects of this intra-server gathering place.

It's the PVP that has most people excited though, as finally we can find out who is really the best of the best. There is already a Free League ranking system that ranks players according to accumulated fame but there has never been a way to determine how players from different servers would match up against each other. Until now. You can Challenge other players on the Titan server to duels and there will be a weekly Grand Championship held there every Sunday. The rewards for participating and winning this GC are very nice to say the least and I imagine the inaugural event to be held this Sunday will have a very festive air to it. Hope to see you all there!

Atlantica Online - Increasing Benevolence in MMO's

I don't know if I'm the only blogger that keeps a mental list of topics in their heads that they absolutely must cover in their blogs but just don't seem to get around to it. Usually it's something they want to disseminate in order to inform or hopefully spur discussion but also can't be neatly en-capsulized with just a few minutes worth of work. Nay, doing the topic full justice requires going above the call of duty and maybe require screenshots or even...gasp...charts.

So it can be a relief when someone pre-empts you by writing the piece you wanted to write; but doing a much better job at it than you possibly would have. All you have to do now is just link to the article here and your job is done. Let the information dissemination and discussion begin.

I will update the link to point to the blog article when I get the information.

Third Time the Charm

We finally completed the Guild Dungeon, Marksburg Castle, on our third attempt. Our first attempt was a scouting run when I was in my early 70's. It showed we weren't ready to take on such a challenge so early in our guild's life just yet. We knew it but wanted to see what it would be like. I opted to pass on the opportunity as I didn't think I'd be able to contribute that much at my level.

The second try came last week and though we failed, we came awfully close to completing it. Ultimately our lack of planning and execution led to delays which saw the time run out on us just as we were clearing our way to the last level. I was able to contribute more to the effort this time around as a fresh 90 but it still led to some deaths and running back on my part.

This weekend was our third try and this one proved to be the charm. The combination of familiarity as well as the added levels we all had proved to be the deciding factors. Coming in as a 95 really upped my survivability against the mobs that ranged from levels 91-105. I went through the whole run without a single death although the lower level guildies weren't so fortunate.

The dungeon had a gothic/medieval/alice in wonderland feel as we fought our way against a variety of court jesters, palace guards, knights, wizards, and...grandfather clocks??? We actually had around 30 minutes to spare so the run took about an hour and a half. Not a bad way to spend some quality time with your guildies as well as getting some decent loot. Since this Guild Dungeon features prominently in the Dark Archer recruitment questline, I have a feeling I'll be spending more time in here once I turn 100 and become eligible for the quest.

Future Atlantica Content Revealed at GDC09

This year's annual Game Developers Conference was held in San Francisco, CA during the week of March 23-27. The developers of Atlantica Online were on hand to reveal details of future content at a press conference. Initial word came from translations of the Korean website as well as gaming news sources. But information was finally released on the nDoors website yesterday and can be found here.

There's also a flash site that has an introductory video. While the video doesn't show any new content, it does have some pretty nice Atlantica eye candy set to exhilarating music.



Pretty excited about the 100vs100 tactical battle system. If they can make it work, it should make for a pretty unique gaming experience.

Gutting the Ghost Ship

While the handful of level 90+ players we have in our guild is not enough to successfully run a high-level Guild Dungeon yet, it did make us an attractive commodity to burgeoning Nations. We kept getting offers to join from a number of them. Our first priority on finding a suitable Nation to join was their ability to run and successfully complete Nation Dungeons. While they would all promise the ability to do so, very few Nations on our server possessed the organization and manpower to actually complete ND's. A secondary consideration was the willingness of the Nation to help us out in completing our Guild Dungeons with the temporary loan of some high-level players.

With this in mind, we decided to join a relatively new Nation. New as in date of creation, but they had plenty of guilds and players that had been around for a while. Most importantly, the leading guild in the Nation had previous experience in successfuly tackling ND's. They were also willing to help us out in the matter of Guild Dungeons. Our guild leader took a vote and the overwhelming majority agreed to join this nation; innocuously named Peaceful.

We barely had time to greet our new Nation-mates in chat before plans got underway to run the Nation Dungeon, Ghost Ship of the Carribean. This was no coincidence as we had been invited to come along on this run beforehand to see exactly what it was we were getting into. Ghost Ship is the first and easiest of the series of Nation Dungeons and it is in here that access to the much-coveted Pirate mercenary is determined. Instructions from the Nation leader flowed as groups were assembled and reported in. I have to admit most of it went right over my head and I just focused on the immediate role of my group and what we had to do. I later found an excellent guide to this dungeon here that explained much of what our organizer had to say. Even with my extensive raiding background in WoW, I was impressed at the level of organization needed to succesfully conquer even this most basic of Nation Dungeons.

My guildmates advised me to stock up on Ambrosia and a Blessing Potion but I balked at their high market prices and determined to gut it out on regular food and the buffs provided by my various titles. I did spend some gold completing my level 90 armor set so I didn't look so mismatched. Finally the preparations were done, we were able to zone in, and I got my first look at the zone. I wish I would've taken some screenshots but I was so focused on making this a successful run that I didn't dare take the time to sightsee. Maybe next time. It was very much Pirates of the Carribean themed with mobs ranging from octopuses to crusty crustaceans to pirate ghosts. The end boss was none other than Davy Jones himself. We traveled from the ghost town to its docks where we boarded the famed Ghost Ship itself and scoured it decks clean of all the mobs.

One of the features I love about raiding in Atlantica Online is that they are timed events. You have 2 hours after starting the Dungeon to finish it. No more banging your head learning an encounter for 8+ hours only to find you still don't have what it takes to beat it. Even after you have a Dungeon on farm status, the times are saved so beating a previous record can be motivation for some guilds. My group quickly fell into a groove as we fought the mobs we were tasked with clearing. There were a couple of tricky pulls as sometimes we bit off more than we could chew but my groupmates were able to cover for my underpowered self. My thanks go out to my guildmates, fateii and Clematis, who were in my group for this inaugural ND run.

Looking at our progress compared to the timer counting down, it became obvious that we were going to successfully complete the ND unless something went horribly wrong. I probably stayed up for the event longer than I wanted to but there was no way I was missing out on the successful conclusion. When the success banner and music flashed on the screen, a collective cheer went up in Nation chat.

What a great way to lure prospective guilds to your Nation. Treat them to a great ND run and the phat lootz from same. Now, you're never going to get rid of us.

Nations in Atlantica Online

Having a 50 player cap for guilds can be problematic when it comes to getting the numbers to run endgame content. Except for the most hardcore of guilds, you will usually have a wide range of levels and playing times. Getting enough high-levels together at a certain time for a Guild Dungeon might not happen right away.

This is where Nations and Nation Dungeons come in. Nations are alliances of up to 10 guilds and the Nation Dungeons are endgame challenges which scale in difficulty. If Guild Dungeons can be run with a maximum of 50 players, Nation Dungeons can be run with a theoretical max of 500 players. Access to the B grade mercenaries (currently the highest grade in the game) relies on drops that can sometimes only be found in Nation Dungeons. So if you want a Spartan, Pirate, or Elementalist in your formation, you would be wise to seek out a Nation that has access to and can successfully run Nation Dungeons. Once you join a Nation, you gain access to Nation chat and can share info with Nation members as easily as with guild members.

The leader of a level 30 guild can go to the Caesar NPC in Rome and start his own nation for a fee based on the number of starting guilds. The roster of 10 allowable guilds allows for a wide variety of member guilds and the Nation leader has to seek out like-minded guilds with a decent amount of high-level players in order to grow his Nation. There's a considerable amount of diplomacy involved and the reputations of players and guilds go a long way towards convincing others to join your fledgeling empire.

Guilds in Atlantica Online

It shouldn't come as a shock to most readers of this blog that being in a good guild can lead to more positive experiences in a MMORPG. We all have our different ideas of what makes a perfect guild and also what the ideal guild activities would be. Guilds come in different shapes, sizes, and compositions but I daresay most of us feel more comfortable with a smallish but close group of people rather than being an anonymous cog in a giant-size superguild. On the other hand, smaller guilds rarely get the chance to engage in end-game activities which usually require a goodly number of players to complete.

At level 20, any player can go to a guild office in any town to create their own guild for a fee of 20,000 gold. Like WAR and EQ2, there is a guild level system that determines the maximum size, number of officers, permanent guild buffs, and susceptibility to deletion by inactivity. Guilds are eventually capped at 50 members. This is the reason why you see so many guilds listed when you use the Guild Ads feature. Anyone who has ever been in a guild before will know this number will not take long to reach especially with multiple alts per guild member. This cap on guild size, rather than being onerous, leads to a more intimate atmosphere in my opinion.

Guild levels are gained through regular player XP and activities. But guilds also generate guild points which can fuel a large number of guild activities. Guild points are generated by many means: individual players completing guild or town quests, Training Center, Guild Dungeons, guild crafting, and player attendance. These guild points can be spent by the guild leader at the Pointry NPC in Rome for Guild Dungeon keys or rare crafting supplies. They can be converted at a loss into Guild Operation books which can be used to add guild points. These books are usually sold on the market to beef up the selling guild's coffers and the buying guild's stock of guild points. Lastly, guild points are used to bid on and retain control of the towns in Atlantica Online.

For the guild leader, having control of a town leads to a SimCity-like minigame. You can set the fees that town agencies charge the players that make use of them in your town. Different towns charge different rates for using services like the Market, Bank, or Travel Agency. If you find the town you are in is charging you a rate you would rather not pay, your best bet is to port to Rome where the minimum is always the going rate. You can also build and place buildings to attract and keep satisfied the NPC population that dwells in it. Funds generated from service fees and taxes on the NPC population go directly into the guild funds so owning a town can be quite lucrative for a guild. Some towns even allow access to exclusive Guild or Nation dungeons for the guild that controls it. As you can imagine, there can be a lot of competition for the finite amount of towns amongst the numerous guilds on the same server.

For Pony!

My guild, Hunters on the Argos server, gifted me with a couple of surprises recently. The first is pictured above. There's several ways to score this particular mount but the most common way is by spending some real cash on the Item Mall for a Mount Box. For around $10, you can buy the box for a chance at a rare mount. The vast majority of the time, however, you will end up getting this pictured mount which comes with no stats and a 10% movement bonus. Like most Item Mall purchases, the mount can then be sold or traded ingame as desired. Currently, this particular mount is going for around 20 million gold on our server.

Now I had enough gold to throw away on this mount and, ordinarily, I would've paid the market price for the convenience as in other games. But Atlantica Online isn't like other games in that it comes with the highly convenient auto-move feature which takes much of the drudgery away of traveling from place to place. Drudgery that mounts with increased movement speeds used to alleviate. Happily, there are other reasons to get mounts in this game aside from aesthetics; most will come with stats that will increase you main character's survivability immensely. So I was saving up my gold for one such mount when my guild leader surprised me by giving me this one bought with our guild funds. Many thanks for the fine gift and now I don't have to look like a complete noob running around everywhere on foot.

The other surprise was their announcement that I had been promoted to guild officer. I was a little surprised in that I had only been playing this game for a few months and still considered myself an AO noob. But I guess my attitude and regular playing schedule impressed the ones who had to make the decision. Either that or there was nobody else that wanted the job. Since I am now on the cusp of level 87 and the AO endgame, I decided to accept to have some influence over upcoming decisions on how to move our guild into the endgame.

VINPC's of Atlantica Online

Atlantica Online doesn't have the standard vendor you can sell your trash drops to. Probably because there is no such thing as a trash drop in this game, per se. Every single item is useful in some way with the items most often associated as trash in other games being used in some crafting recipe somewhere. Sure, there are NPC's stationed outside the newbie starter towns that will buy anything off you for a flat 10g price but you can get much more than that if you are patient and place your items on the Market for others to buy.

This doesn't mean there is a lack of NPC's to interact with in order to acquire more wealth and power. In fact, you will become very familiar with these NPC's as you play the game. Which is more than you can say about anonymous regeant vendor #43 in WoW. The following is a short, but by no means complete, list of these NPC's.

Name: Livingstone
Can Be Found: Outside of Bucharest.
Role: This is the NPC stalker and the guy to come to when you don't know where a particular NPC can be found at the moment. For a 1000g fee, he will give you the whereabouts of every other NPC of note in the game. Very handy for tracking those NPC's that like to wander around.

Name: Goncourt
Can Be Found: Wandering Around
Role: Converts useless books into boxes which can hold more useful books or more useless books you can then trade back to him. The fee depends on what you are trying to convert but for regular skill books it is 1000g. Depending on your luck, he can be a great source of income especially for newbies. Trade useless book for book that sells for several millions on the Market. Profit and repeat.

Name: Howard
Can Be Found: Wandering Around
Role: In your travels, you will sometime come across Cultural Boxes, which contain random Cultural Treasures. Take them to Howard to appraise and, if they turn out to be real, he will offer to buy them off you for 200-400k gold. Take his offer as you won't be able to cash them in anywhere else.

Name: Columbus
Can Be Found: North of Lisbon
Role: Will buy armor and weapons for half the market price from you. The caveats being that he won't buy anything enchanted over +1 and Ghost Warrior level and above. He also has business hours from 9 to 18 ingame time. Check the ingame clock on the lower left hand corner of the UI to see when he's open. Very handy for unloading gear that is currently selling for less than half of the normal market value.

Name: Pointry
Can Be Found: Bazaar in Rome
Role: There are points to be accrued for various activities in this game and he's just the man...er...rabbit to go to when you want to convert them into something substantial. There's a great Pointry guide to be found here. If you ever find yourself wanting to try this game out, do me a favor and roll on the Argos server. Then set Warrender as your referrer so I can rake in those glorious Referral Points. Muahahahaha!

Name: Volcanus
Can Be Found: Bazaar in Rome
Role: You can improve your gear in two ways. You can use enchanting stones as well as an identical sacrificial copy of the item to be improved or you can go to Volcanus with just your item as well as enhancing stones. The caveat being it's not a guaranteed process like the first method and there is a chance of losing the item in the event of failure. Enhancing, especially with the use of Item Mall-only enhancing stones, is the preferred method of upgrading your equipment to endgame levels.

Atlantica Online PVP Video

This video was taken quite a few months ago and the build and strategies involved are outdated. Specifically, Xargrr's Seth Will build has been reduced in potency and the days of Oracles Sething Spears to wreak havoc on the front lines and beyond are gone now. But it does give a taste of what to expect from a typical Free League match.

Atlantica Online PVE Video

Jormungund is a level 107 Shadow Dungeon boss you will need to defeat in order to unlock the Lady Knight mercenary. Shadow Dungeons are designed to be tackled by groups of 2-3 players but it's entirely possible to solo one if you outlevel it by 10 or more levels. This video shows a 3-player party and is a good representation of what the combat in AO typically looks like.

Spirit of 76

My character is currently level 76 in Atlantica Online and I'm in the middle of rebuilding my formation. When I turned 70 and became eligible to use the Prophet mercenary, I elected to change my build from a melee-heavy formation to a more flexible one by replacing my 2 Swordsmen and 2 Spearmen for some range/DOT/AOE options with a Witch, Archer, Artilleryman, and the Prophet. At first, this move doesn't make much sense as much of the Prophet's value is being able to buff and heal melee units with their passive Concentrate skill. But I'm counting on this skill to bolster my weaker tanks on the front line.

Joining the Beast Tamer up front to take the place of the Swordsmen are my Exorcist and my Axe main. It remains to be seen if my main will continue to be up front as he's still a bit squishy at this level without any accessories like an armored mount to increase his survivability. I can't wait to level these new mercs up to take them into Free League. My FL ranking took a dive from 10 to 11 as I've been concentrating on PVE to catch these guys up to speed. Depending on how this formation works out for me, I might swap a Swordsman back in to replace either the Archer or, more likely, the Prophet.

Atlantica Online Screenshots

By popular Saylah demand, you can find some Atlantica Online screenshots here. Naraka is one of the solo bosses in the main questline. You can also find pics of my first ever winning Arena bet. Arena allows you to bet on NPC teams that face off against each other. Also, the Cute Bunny Suit and fishing seems to be popular in AO.

10 Tips For Atlantica Online Newbies

Atlantica Online probably has the most extensive ingame tutoring and help systems available in any game that I've played. But even with all that, there are still some tips left to pass on that you won't find so easily in the game. The following is in no particular order with apologies to David Letterman fans.

1) There is no need to beware of strangers bearing gifts. If someone wants to give you a gift of gear or gold, there are no strings attached. AO gives an XP reward based on the gold value of the gift for anyone level 30+ who sends a gift to beginners under level 30. It's totally random who it goes to but thanks are always appreciated.

2) Unless the item is specifically a quest drop, in which case it will have a letter Q on the item icon, you can always buy items needed for quests from the Market. An example is the Basic Training quest from Master Goh which requires you to get him 10 pieces of Rough Leather. Ignore the quest text that says you can get them from the nearby deer. The Market has plenty for you to buy and will save you some time and effort.

3) The Market is what is known as an Auction House in other games. But there is also an Auction in the game as well that functions much like a real auction. Don't get the two confused. If an item says it can't be auctioned, it can still be put on the Market for you to sell.

4) Read your Notes. If the note icon is flashing, chances are you probably want to check out what it has to say. Everything from tips on defeating monsters to email notifications can be found there.

5) Make your Mentor work. If you accept an offer from a player asking to be your Mentor, make sure to put that person through his paces. Mentors receive 200,000 gold upon your reaching level 30. The good ones will have imparted aid in the form of knowledge, monster info, craft info, and even gifts. The really nice ones will give you give you most, if not all, of the 200k to you. If your Mentor is slacking, you can get rid of him from the Mentorship menu.

6) Free League is available at level 1. You can start your climb up the PVP rankings at any time. If you don't mind losing a lot and to higher levels with more mercenaries than you, then FL is a great way to have some fun and earn gold at the same time. The coins you receive from winning and losing can be cashed in right away or held for a rainy day as their value appreciates over time.

7) There are quests that earn you titles and the NPC's that give them out are found outside Athens. More info can be found here. It's best to start working on the titles you are interested in as early as you possibly can.

8) Speaking of which, http://aop.muwing.com/ is a great site in the Wowhead/Allakhazam vein with tons of useful info and utilities about the game. There are also great wikis out there with additional info.

9) Pressing the C key (you might need to try this multiple times) when your mouse is over an item icon will open up the relevant item info giving you details such as what is needed to craft it if it is craftable or which mobs drop them if you have the creature's drop info.

10) You can find out even more tips in this great thread.

Grouping in Atlantica Online

You may think a MMORPG that gives you control of your own self-contained party of tanks, healers, and DPS would be one where you wouldn't have any reason to group up or even be social.

You couldn't be more wrong.

The main storyquest line is a long and ardous chain which is designed to be soloed. Indeed, the bosses you will encounter in this chain can't be fought in groups. But, eventually, you will find yourself with good reasons to venture into the Shadow Dungeons which are instances meant to be tackled in a group. Even though you can control a maximum of 9 characters, wandering monsters will join a fight in progress and you could see yourself in a 9 vs. 27 if you are particularly unlucky. Shadow Dungeons seem to have automatic adds as I've yet to see a fight in there where it was just 9 vs. 9. So grouping for those is the way to go unless you have gold to burn on Bewitching scrolls. Group battles can be really dynamic as it is possible to cross-buff and cross-heal between the different groups. Finding a group is particularly easy due to a Peer chat channel that only reaches those in the same level range as you. This filters out a lot of extraneous info and insures you get level-appropriate advice.

There are also many reasons to join a good guild as soon as possible. Each character has a hotbar that can be equipped with a potion or scroll they can activate with the appropriate function key. F1 and F2 are standard but the F3 key is only available to those who belong to a guild. F4 and F5 is unlocked when your guild controls a city. Monster and craft info can be freely traded between guildies and you gain access to the private guild dungeons and training center. Training centers are a low-level training ground for guild dungeons and are a great option for those guilds that don't have a lot of high-levels needed to run a GD. Guild dungeons are timed levels where you must clear out the different floors and finally the boss for your fat loots. Groups are capped at 3 players per but you can bring as many players and groups as you like for fast and easy runs. There are also Nation dungeons available for those guilds that belong in a Nation. Those high-levels that want to run instances apart from their guild or nation can run Independent Dungeons. Eventually, Nations will want to engage in war against another Nation and group combat takes another interesting twist with open PK 3v3 groups.

One thing to note is that there is absolutely no punishment for grouping in this game and you gain the benefits of grouping (in the form of extra XP) even when the group members are separated by geography and levels. This is known as Long Distance Grouping or LDP for short.

Crafting in Atlantica Online

At first glance, the crafting in AO seems to be typical of other MMO's. You have your crafting levels with new recipes available upon reaching some arbitrary level. You gather up the materials and the crafting job constitutes a workload you have to work through to come up with the finished product. As an aside, there are literally no trash drops in this game. Chances are if you don't know what an item does, it is used as an ingredient for some crafting recipe somewhere. This will drive those with packrat mentalities bonkers as they come to grips with the limited inventory space. After you gather up the necessary mats and go through the steps to define your job and workload, you will then find out where Atlantica Online diverges from the norm.

Your crafting progress is fueled by the XP you get from killing stuff.

Sure, you could get an auto-craft license on the market or as a reward for a quest chain you get in your 40's. This license will allow you to craft in the traditional way without having to kill anything and is a great option for those crafters unable or unwilling to engage in combat. But it really is faster and more efficient to craft the other way. The process seems a little strange at first and not a bit counter-intuitive but, eventually, you get used to it and will appreciate the fact that you’re not tied to a forge or sewing table if you want to make something. Guild officers can even set up guild crafting jobs where the huge workload is shared by everyone in the guild and their kills contribute to its progress, provided they aren't doing their own personal crafting. You can learn as many crafting skills as you want and there are a huge variety to choose from. Everything from weapons, armor, food, potions, buildings for your towns, skill books, and even licenses needed can be crafted. I'd say that short of special items only available from the item mall or special quest rewards, everything found in this game can be crafted. The only limitations being that it takes some effort and quite a lot of gold in order to level up your tradeskills. There are even plans to introduce end-game gear that is crafting-only; a move that hasn't met with universal acclaim.

That's not the only new wrinkle to crafting in this game. You gain crafting levels (up to a max of 100) by gaining craft XP. Once you gain enough XP to go to the next level, you will then need to be trained up before you actually gain the new level. It's even possible to gain enough XP to gain several levels at one time. Training can be done by finding the appropriate NPC or a player high enough to train you. For example, you can begin to train others at level 11 and can train those levels 11 and below. The same goes for levels 21, 51, and so forth. Training takes a huge chunk of Will which limits how often you can do it but the trainer gets a crafting XP reward as well for doing this which can be a great way to level up your crafting on the cheap.

There are other ways to gain crafting XP. There's the normal way of personal crafting jobs but you can also gain it through the guild crafting jobs as well. When the job finishes, it awards crafting XP to those guildies who contributed to the progress. You also get XP from dismantling gear into materials you can then use to create new crafting jobs. Teaching others also gains you crafting XP as mentioned already. These alternate methods are a great way to level your crafting without having to shell out for expensive materials. For example, I was able to level up my Machine skill from 0-12 purely from the XP I got from one guild crafting job (admittedly it was a huge one) without having to scrounge up so much as one lugnut or whatever it is they need to make things from that craft.

Combat in Atlantica Online

When creating your character, one of the first choices is the type of weapon your character will wield. This is equivalent to choosing your character class in other MMO's as the choice locks you into a set of skills you can learn and starting stats. The choices are sword, spear, axe, staff, gun, cannon and bow. With the most recent patch, two new weapons were added: instrument and power-saw with power-saw only available if you already have another main leveled to 100. Each class except for the new additions are roughly equal to the D class mercenaries that share their weapon type and they can learn all the skills available to that mercenary as well as main-only skills. For example, Staff mains can learn the healing spell Blessing of Life like Shamans but they can also learn the main-only skill Evanescent Scud which is an AOE attack. You can find a great page summarizing the different main character stats and abilities here.

Your very first quest in the game will have you hiring 2 mercenaries to aid you in your travels. At level 10 you will have an additional 4 mercenaries and gain the ability to add an additional one every 10 levels afterwards. At level 50, you will reach the maximum of 8 mercenaries available to be used in your formation. The starting D class mercs can be hired from a hiring NPC or you can find them wandering around and ply them with gifts to convince them to join your party. The ones later on will only be gotten from braving tough shadow dungeon quests or paying the exorbitant market prices for their summoning marble. Each mercenary brings something different to your group and much of the fun in this game is deciding exactly what the composition should be to maximize all the synergies between your units. This means every player is a self-contained holy trinity of tank, healer, and DPS and you won't ever find a LF1M - NEED HEALER in this game. This also means that if your side doesn't focus fire in PVP, you have nobody to blame but yourself. Muwing has another great page summarizing the different mercenaries here.

One of the first things you will notice in combat are the huge numbers over each unit in your party. These numbers tell you how many Action Points that unit has. AP is important in that it controls how many actions a unit can do over the course of a fight. Each main and mercenary has a different AP recharge rate which determines AP gain per turn. During the first turn, only one unit can act and that one is determined by whoever has the highest AP that initial turn. Since the recharge rate is random within a certain range, this can be any unit but the ones with the most steady range of recharge like Swordsmen usually will act first. After the first turn, 5 units can act with the same restriction; however, it is now possible for units to pass their turn to another one that isn't scheduled to act this turn. As long as the desired unit to act has 100 or more AP, the passing unit can choose the Guard option for a cost of 50 AP and pass their turn on. You might need to choose Guard on several units before the desired one is finally selected to be able to act.

You can tell which units can act that turn as they will have green rings around their feet. The unit currently being selected to act will have the green ring completely filled in. It takes a while to get the hang of if you're not used to this style of combat but it won't be long until you are ordering your units around and grinding PVE mobs with zen efficiency. There are boss mobs that will keep you on your toes and maybe even get you to change your strategy up in order to beat them. And PVP becomes almost chess-like as you and your opponent try to get past each other's defenses.

Atlantica Online - What Would Bartle Think?

If you're a fan of customizing your character avatar to your exact specifications so that its unique look stands out from the crowd, Atlantica Online is not for you. The character creation options limit you to a small number of faces which look pretty similar anyways. The standardized armor system doesn't help either and you will find a number of clones hanging around the leveling areas.

If you are an explorer who just has to find out what is up that trail and behind the babbling brook, I can tell you right now there's nothing there for you to find. Everything can be found on your handy map/mini-map. Even supposedly hidden treasure chests.

If you love your fluff and cool pets that follow you around; sadly, AO is virtually fluff-free. What little there is usually purchased from the Item Mall. Even the usual vanity stuff like mounts, outfits, and titles have stats elevating them to the status of useful items.

But for everyone else, Atlantica Online has something that is sure to appeal to them. For the socializers, there are comprehensive guild and mentor/apprenticeship systems. They can communicate to peers of their level in the peer channel globally and will always be rewarded handsomely for lending a helping hand.

The killers will have their hands full with a combat system that plays more like speed chess than the usual hotbar mashing. There's plenty of PVE mobs to grind and when you get tired of those, there is a full-featured PVP league system (Free League) and weekly tournaments. If you are in a guild which belongs to an alliance of Nations, you might even find yourself embroiled in open PK called Wars.

The achievers will think they've died and gone to heaven as there are plenty of bars to ding. Level cap is 120 and there are also the 8 other mercenaries in your formation to level from scratch. Roughly 90% of all items found in the game can be crafted and there's many different crafting skills that you can learn. The aforementioned Free League also sets another bar to conquer as you PVP your way from rank 18 all the way to the top number 1 spot.

So go get your Bartle quiz done and see if AO is right for you. You really can't go wrong with the price of admission.

Atlantica Online

This is a post that I've been meaning to write for some time now but have been putting off. But seeing the negative posts recently on some of the blogs I frequent, I thought I'd balance them out with a positive one.

I have to admit my first impression of this game wasn't a favorable one. I went in, as is my wont, having no previous knowledge of the title except that it was a F2P MMO of Asian design (I would later find out the developers are Korean). This explained the light anime graphic influence and the bad text translations to English. Neither of which were exactly endearing to me. The turn-based combat system was a pretty novel idea for a MMORPG but past experience has taught me I'm fairly bad at those types of games. Adding a timer to such a system certainly didn't help either. Instead of the typical MMO single character model, AO has you controlling up to 9 characters at once in a fight. These other characters are mercenaries that you can recruit or are given to you as a quest reward. About the only thing that impressed me right off the bat was the auto-move system. It was one of those now why don't more games use this feature moments. I would later have many more of those moments after spending some time with Atlantica Online.

So the game languished forgotten on my hard drive until I read this post and this post on Syncaine's blog. Wow, that certainly sounds interesting...what game was that again? Oh right, I already have that installed. Maybe I should take another look and see for myself some of these novel features he's talking about. I decided to do some research and find out more about this game. This led to a decision to reroll which wasn't that hard to make considering my original character was only around level 10 I believe. I began to get the hang of the combat system and I started to appreciate some of the unique features AO had to offer. The auto-move and enchanting system were just the tip of the iceberg. People actually are rewarded for being nice to noobies. I was bombarded with gifts in the mail containing gold and equipment and offers from strangers to be my mentor. Since I had done my homework, I knew that there weren't any strings attached like there would normally be in other games. Gift-givers get an XP reward based on a percentage of the gift's monetary value and mentors gain mentor points as well as a substantial gold reward after their students turn 30.

You know those other MMO's that seem to want to punish you for grouping for some reason? Not so here. There's no reason not to ever group as everyone gets additional XP as well as small XP books which can be saved up or used at your convenience. This system works even if the party is not in close proximity to each other and is typically known as LDP's or Long Distance Parties. Be careful of leechers and it's best to check with guildies first when doing this. Speaking of guilds, there is comprehensive support for guilds in this game. Guilds can control a town and multiple guilds can band together into alliances called nations. Nations can even go to war with one another which can result in players suddenly being able to attack one another. Other perks for guilds include access to guild dungeons and training centers as well as being able to add buildings to your growing town if you are the guild leader. The rank and file can also help out by convincing wandering NPC's to move to your town, doing town quests, and contributing to the guild crafting by killing mobs. But guild crafting is also a two-way street as everyone gains crafting XP as well just by being around when a guild crafting job is finally done. I've gained levels from different crafting skills without having to scrounge up one scrap of material because of this.

The graphics, especially the landscapes, can be stunning at times and not even the aforementioned auto-move system can detract from this. It actually enhances it, in my opinion, as you have more time to gawk at your surroundings when you don't have to worry about if you're heading in the right direction or not. The setting is a hodge-podge of eras from the real world with Spartans and Vikings fighting at your side along with the steampunk gunpowder might of Gunners, Cannoneers, and Inventors. The world map is very familiar as is the names of the cities and towns within it. Even the familiar is not to be taken for granted as I learned when I fought some camels with bulbous mouths for humps which spat out some deadly cannonballs.

This game's design reminds me a lot of Eve Online without the sandbox. In fact, there is a central storyline quest which will teach you everything you need to know about this game. But, like Eve Online, this game has features that dare to be different from your standard MMO. And all those features are tightly woven to produce a very complex MMO.

You say you want a revolution? Well, are you willing to make some time to play one then? If so, give Atlantica Online a serious try.