Thursday, December 29, 2011

100 Years' War: Guild 101

So you've got accepted into a guild in 100 Years' War but are lost with all the features that's available? Look no further!

Here's the lowdown on what's in a guild.
100 Years War - Guild Profile Window
To access the "Guild Profile" window, just press "G" while in the game or look for the corresponding icon at the lower right corner of your screen.

In this window, you can see six buildings in a map and a couple of buttons at the bottom. First of all, lets talk about the buildings.
  • Alchemy Lab
    100 Years War - Alchemy Lab
    The alchemy lab is a shop which offers special elixirs to guild members at the cost of contribution points. The quantity and variety of items sold in the lab is dependent on its level.
  • Academy Tower
    100 Years War - Academy Tower
    The academy tower allows the guild to begin research on various projects and advancements. Some of these researches benefit the guild itself, while some bestows bonuses to guild members.
  • Badge Shrine
    100 Years War - Badge Shrine
    The badge shrine is where the guild research on and upgrade the various badges that are available to be slotted into a guild member's badge compass. These badges provide additional bonuses to a guild member's stats when slotted in the compass.
  • Knights Shrine
    100 Years War - Knights Shrine
    The knights shrine is sort of like the hostel for guild members. Upgrading this building will increase the limit on the maximum number of members a guild can recruit. In addition, it also allows the guild to promote more members to a higher ranking position.
  • Conference Hall
    100 Years War - Conference Hall
    The conference hall is the guild's primary building. It also symbolizes the strength of the guild. This is the first building you will need to upgrade before you can level the rest of the other guild buildings.
  • Archives
    The archives is the place for guild members to complete guild-specific quests. The higher the level of the archives, the better the quest rewards will be. Increasing the level of the archives will also increase the number of guild quests you can do a day.

Now that we're clear about the buildings, lets deal with those buttons.
100 Years War - Guild Profile Window
If you refer to this same picture above, at the top left hand corner, you can see a chest icon with a timer counting down. This is actually the daily experience bonus that is granted to all members of a guild. As long as you stay within the game until the countdown finishes, you can claim this experience bonus (click on the chest icon once it lights up). The amount of bonus experience you get depends on your character's level, your rank in the guild and the guild's level.

The adjust button is used by the guildmaster to change the EXP tax rate enforced upon its members who are completing guild quests. The taxed EXP is used to level the guild.

Right below this adjust button are two donate buttons. The first donate button (the one that is beside funds) involves you donating silver to the guild. Each donation of 1000 silver will contribute 10 points towards the guild funds and also award the player with 10 contribution points.
100 Years War - Placing Badges in Compass Slots
The points given to the guild funds is used for upgrading and expansion of the guild and also for the daily upkeep. The contribution points awarded to the player is used in buying elixirs from the alchemy lab or in slotting the badges from the badge shrine into their badge compass.
100 Years War - Purchasing Saint's Statue from Item Mall
The second donate button involves you donating Saint's Statues to the guild. These statues can be found from killing mini bosses found in the fields, like harpy queen, or it can be bought from the item mall using 200 diamonds or crystals. The donated statues are used in upgrading certain guild features.

Lastly, the edit button is used to edit the message in the guild notice.

Doing Guild Quests
100 Years War - Guild Quest Issuer100 Years War - Guild Quest
To do guild quests, you need to approach Canal in Orleans (297,201). There is a daily limit to the number of guild quests that you can attempt and upon completion, you will be rewarded with some experience points, contribution points and member experience.

There are four types of guild quests that you might be given.
  • Dialog - Involves you running around speaking to various NPCs.
  • Errand - Requires you to obtain a certain number of a specific item.
  • Monster Hunting - Asks you to kill a certain amount of monsters.
  • Monster Hunting (Adv) - Asks you to kill a specific monster.

With that, we've now come to the end of Guild 101. In our next lesson, Guild 102, we will be talking about the badge compass in detail.


Next: 100 Years' War: Guild 102

Friday, December 23, 2011

100 Years' War

100 Years' War is a historic MMORPG inspired by the legendary war between Britain and France in the middle ages. It is played directly from Facebook.

Developed by IGG using the famed Unreal 3D engine, 100 Years' War takes players back in time with vivid graphics, cinematic narrations and detailed storylines.
100 Years War
Well, at least that's what was stated in the game's official website, so how bad could it be?
100 Years War - Character Creation Gender100 Years War - Character Creation Class
Although I can't say much about the graphics that I'm greeted with (looks a bit grainy on the edges), but it does seem refreshing to be "guided" through character creation.

There's four character classes to choose from and it is good to know that they're not gender-locked, so you are free to choose whichever class and gender combination that you want.
100 Years War - Game Interface
Perhaps I have too high an expectation, but the view of the game isn't as vivid as it is claimed. What's more, it is creepily silent throughout the game apart from the soft music that's played in the city of Orleans (due to some bug).

In my opinion, this seriously places the game in a bad spotlight and people might think that its a poorly made game. (Come to think of it, where's the "cinematic narration"?)
100 Years War - Combat 1100 Years War - Combat 2100 Years War - Picking up Items
The combat animations and effects isn't exactly top-notch in this game either, but I guess they're bearable for a browser game that doesn't take long to load.
100 Years War - Character Stats Window
In 100 Years' War, your character doesn't automatically level up once you've acquired the necessary amount of experience points. You will have to manually click on the "Lv Up" button in order to increase your character's level. (But that's only after you've reached level 20 as the system automatically levels your character before then.)

If you look at the bottom of the hotkeys, you will see an empty bar (0/20). As you kill monsters, it will gradually fill up with a light green colour. Once it is filled, you can choose to keep the experience points gathered or use it to level up.
100 Years War - Character Stats Window 1100 Years War - Learning Skills from Trainer
Usually, you will want to spend the points immediately to level up your character, but sometimes, you may want to keep it in order to level up your skills instead. For example, Blitz Strike Level 1 requires a character of level 20, 240 experience points and 230 silvers to learn.
100 Years War - Gold Dealer
And talking about silvers, you should know that in 100 Years' War, silver and gold are the two primary currencies used in most transactions. Silvers can be used for learning skills, buying stuff from NPCs and also for repairing your equipments. Gold on the other hand, is primarily used for trading between players because we can't trade silver.

Gold can be exchanged to silver via the Gold Dealer at Orleans, but silver cannot be exchanged into gold. So the only way to obtain gold is through doing quests or selling stuff to other players.
100 Years War - Elite Token Trader100 Years War - Gem Trader
Besides gold and silver, there are some NPCs which sells stuff that cannot be bought with gold and silver. To buy these items, be sure to check the "currency" that they require.
100 Years War - Quest Prologue100 Years War - Newbie's Guide
As I explore 100 Years' War in depth, I've started to notice the good points of the game. Firstly, I kind of like how the quests "progresses" from where we first started to the sewers and then into the city of Orleans. It gives the player a sense of being lead around in the game like in those offline RPGs that we loved to play (rather than senseless wandering).

Secondly, I also like the "Newbie's Guide" which comes up as I entered the sewers (I think the trigger for this is due to me reaching level 15). Apparently, its a guide that introduces us to the tons of features that is available in 100 Years' War as and when we've fulfilled the requirements. I highly recommend that you read and do them.
100 Years War - Map of Orleans
If you take a look at the map of Orleans, you can get a slight idea of these features from the NPCs that are available. For example, there's an NPC for Adventure Quests, one for Demon Hunting Quests, another for Stardust Missions, Escort Missions, Suppression Quests and Instance Quests.
100 Years War - Adventure Quest Issuer100 Years War - Adventure Quest
Adventure quests work just like regular NPC quests. You are asked to kill X number of a particular monster and will be rewarded with experience points and some gold coins. (You are limited to doing 50 of these quests a day.)

Instance quests are simply dungeon runs with three difficulty levels, normal, elite and hero (not available yet). Upon completion of the quest, you will be rewarded with power gems, artisan stones and/or drilling gems. (You are limited to doing 1 (for normal level) and 3 (for elite level with corresponding elite card) of these a day.)
100 Years War - Life Temple Teleporter100 Years War - Stats Window for Mercenary Quests100 Years War - Badge Plaque Window
The rest of the missions and quests features require a level of 30 or above so I am still not sure how they work.
100 Years War - Equipment Crafting Window100 Years War - Equipment Upgrading Window100 Years War - Equipment Enhancement Level Transfer Window
In addition, you can also find NPCs for drilling sockets into your equipment, upgrading, disassembly, gems, transferring upgrades between equipments and crafting.
100 Years War - Mount Window100 Years War - Spirit Pet Window
You can also own mounts (helps you move around the maps faster) and even your own spirit pets (helps you in combats). The mounts can be upgraded so that they give more movement bonuses while spirit pets can be merged and upgraded.
100 Years War - Item Mall
That's a heck of a lot of features if you ask me. However, I can't help but feel that behind all these features, there's too much of a motive of tempting you into spending money on the game. But if you take a step back and think, aren't all games designed to make you spend money on them?

If you like exploring a complex game which offers a plethora of features to keep you occupied, then 100 Years' War isn't a bad choice for you.



Friday, December 16, 2011

Drakensang Online




Drakensang OnlineDo you like playing the Diablo series games? Are you having sleepless nights counting down to the release of Diablo III?

Fear not! Here's a game that will keep you occupied until then. What game is that you say? Drakensang Online, of course.
This epic browser-based action RPG game released by Bigpoint has extraordinary 3D graphics and effects. It also has a range of breathtaking landscapes which is full of hostile monsters.
Drakensang Online - Character Create 1Drakensang Online - Character Create 2
At the time when I was trying out this game, there were only two classes to choose, Dragonknight and Spellweaver. However, the next day when I went back to the website, there was news of the release of a third class - Ranger. And what's more, there will be a fourth class somewhere in the near future. My guess is that this fourth class will probably be a "healer".
Drakensang Online - Isometric View
With the classic top-down isometric view and the red-blue hp and mp globes on the left and right, doesn't this game give you that sense of nostalgia?
Drakensang Online - Character StatsDrakensang Online - Skills
Although you can see some primitive form of statistics for your character, there are no actual stats for you to allocate when you level. Furthermore, skills in this game are not restricted by skill points. All you need is the right character level and enough in-game money to get them. So much for trying to be special then, almost all the players within the same class will be somewhat the same.
Drakensang Online - Quest 1Drakensang Online - Quest 2Drakensang Online - Quest 3
The quests are laid out in an easy to read format. In addition, the NPCs who are giving out these quests are visibly labelled with a blue "!" or "?" on top of their heads. Furthermore, the locations of these NPCs are also reflected on the map allowing players to easily find them.
Drakensang Online - Currencies
There are two forms of currency which you will deal with in Drakensang Online. The first form of currency is the in-game money which comes primarily as "gold", "silver" and "copper". The second form of currency is called "Andermant". Andermant is the rarer currency within the game and you shouldn't be too far off calling it the "cash shop" money.
Drakensang Online - Weapon TraderDrakensang Online - Potion TraderDrakensang Online - Upgrading
From the short interaction I have with the game, apart from the basic necessities, you will inevitably need to spend some andermant at some point in time while playing the game.

For example, when you wish to upgrade that unique weapon or armor that you've found, you will need andermant.

Or perhaps, when you wish to identify the unknown items that you've picked up, but ran out of crystals of truths, you will need andermant then too.
Drakensang Online - Crystals of Truths
Drakensang Online - Looting Andermants
But perhaps as some consolation to ordinary gamers, if you grind hard enough, you can actually get andermants and crystals of truths from the mobs that you kill. So its not all that bad for non-paying players.

Overall, this isn't a bad free game to play with and it will keep you occupied for some time. (Possibly until Diablo III is released?)