Destiny calls on 16 Atlantica Online players from Europe to battle it out in what is probably the biggest Free League competition they will ever join. That’s right! It’s time for the European Regional Final of the Game and Game World Championship, and 16 of the best players from six servers—Mycenae, Argos, Thebes, Macedon, Sikyon and Delphi—are set to face their destiny.
For those who don’t know what the hell Free League and the Game and Game World Championship are, the former is a daily player-versus-player competition on all Atlantica Online servers while the latter is, as its name implies, a …read more

No, “All is quiet in the realms” isn’t the title of a new massively multiplayer online role-playing game. It’s not even a teaser or the slogan for an existing MMO. What it is, however, is a subtle announcement that MMOtaku is still cooking up something to write about.
Actually, ever since we came out with news that The9 was sour-graping cooking up plans to launch a new game to replace World of Warcraft, nothing extraordinary has happened. Well, nothing except for my almost getting hospitalized because of overexposure to the afternoon sun while painting the house.
But let’s not talk about that. …read more

The bid to get my Atlantica Online character, Cooky (yeah, laugh all you want) to a decent level has been sidetracked because of a massive power outage in my little nook in Asia. Well, that’s not entirely the reason. I also blame this ongoing war between Cooky’s nation, Defiance, where the Dragon guild belongs, and a rival nation led by the PunkS and, uhmmm, PantiesWanted.
This little war would have been cool (who doesn’t crave a little PvP once in a while) except for the fact that most members of the rival nation are in higher level brackets than those in …read more

I’ve forgotten how crappy the first days of most online games closed beta testing are. Rohan: Blood Feud’s first day in the Philippines has not been spared. No matter my resolve to continue playing, I find it more and more difficult to level my character. I mean, a choppy latency is bad; not being able to move while watching, usually in morbid fascination, mobs hacking and biting away at your character is definitely worse.
I know, I know. I shouldn’t be harsh, since that’s why online games have a closed beta period—to iron out the kinks and ride out the birth …read more

January 21, 2009, around 6 p.m., GMT+8:00. Around 200 characters on the Tiger Server of Perfect World Philippines converged at the Great Wall to join the celebration of Chinese New Year.
All dressed in red and shades of red, the avatars welcomed the Year of the Ox with fashion and style, and of course, with bow and arrows, swords, spears and axes, and bursts of powerful spells as they strutted their stuff down the length of the Great Wall and defended the land against powerful soulless beasts.
Ehem. Yeah, that’s how the story would have been written in a bit of journalese …read more

Does that statement ring true to you? Of course, by “alone,” I mean going through the pains of adventuring in a new virtual world without in-game acquaintances and friends. Oh, sure, you’ll survive the quests, the monsters, and the world, even when you’re alone, but how can you combat boredom with sword and sorcery, gun and grenade?
I’ve tried my hand at going solo, particularly in online games like Granado Espada (Sword of the New World to other folks), Requiem: Bloodymare, Rohan: Blood Feud and Atlantica Online, and my characters suffered immensely. Name it, they’ve got it—slow leveling, bad equipment, weak …read more

Have party, will grind. That’s the name of the game whenever my former Perfect World Philippines Tiger Server clanmaster winwin and his brother weejay are online on the North American Rohan: Blood Feud server Akhma. The brothers don’t seem to get tired of hacking and slashing (and shooting arrows and spells) at the mobs that spawn in their chosen hunting ground, Shadow Gorge.
Back when I was playing Rohan: Blood Feud on the Marea server, I used to go around the different towns—Einhoren, Vena, Kai’inon, Rev’Decca, Par’Talucca and Montt—and grabbing all the quests available before setting out to eliminate monsters required …read more

Yes, it’s a milestone in the online game Perfect World when your character reaches Level 99, primarily because this level is the beginning of another esteem, Enlightened or Infernal, or the highest cultivation levels, at least for the moment, in the game.
To understand esteem or cultivation better, let me elaborate further. Esteem is simply another way of saying that your character cannot get new skills until he or she has reached a certain level of understanding. In other words, it’s a general mastery of a group of skills. At present, there are 10 esteem or cultivation levels that your avatar …read more

Yes, I’m playing Rohan: Blood Feud again, thanks in part to the constant nagging of my former Perfect World clan master winwin and his brother weejay. I’ve lined up a few articles on Rohan for the next few days, and the first one (yes, this post) tackles elemental skills and its pros and cons.
To date, I’ve only played two Rohan: Blood Feud character races and classes that makes use of the four elemental skills—Blazing, Frozen, Darkness and Divinity. There’s a fourth elemental skill, Poison, which can only be accessed, as far as I know, by the Dans.
Going back, the three …read more

By the gaming gods! Is it true? Have five days already passed since I last posted? Apparently, yes. Whew! Time flies so fast when you’re having fun. Unfortunately, my five-day hiatus had not been even remotely fun.
Yes, you guessed it. The flu—at least I think it’s the flu—hit me right after New Year’s Eve, right in the middle of writing a Top Ten Asian MMORPGs of 2008 post. Don’t worry, I’ll finish the story … soon.
Right now, I’m just starting to recover. Of course, as a fanatic of massively multiplayer online role-playing games, there’s only one way for me to …read more