Dragon Nest developer, Eyedentity Games, revealed that it has licensed Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3. Without much guessing needed, it should be used for the company’s 3rd online title, currently in its early planning stage. News of the mysterious game broke earlier in April (link). Dungeon Striker (link), its 2nd game, just started the Closed Beta phase a few weeks back.

Seeing how Eyedentity Games is action combat oriented in its 2 games so far, I wouldn’t mind a competitor for Bluehole Studio’s TERA, which I strongly disagree being labeled as “True Action Combat”. Can’t wait!

SMITE: Demigods, Deities and Gods Explained is a new column dedicated to introducing prospective players of SMITE to its massive back story of lore. From the Greek to Hindi, each week we’ll look at two characters from a major pantheon and provide a quick recap of their history and in what capacity their digital incarnation will represent on the field of Hi-Rez Studios upcoming MOBA.

Lore: Anubis – Anapa in Egyptian – is the jackal-headed son of Nephthys and is most closely related with the Egyptian process of mummification and thus, the afterlife. The association is strengthened further in hieroglyphics, which sees a jackal, Anubis’ animal form, sitting atop a tomb. In addition to protecting those during their travel to Datu, the underworld, Anubis was the “Guardian of Scales”, weighing the fate of the soul of the deceased.

His parentage is complicated, changing depending on the timeframe and legend of the texts. In the earliest texts, Anubis was of Ra’s seed. Later texts claim the father as Osiris. A near-equal amount attribute his patronage to that of Osiris’ brother, Set. Murkier still, one legend claims that Nephthys used alcohol to seduce Osiris, another that his mother impersonated Isis for the same purpose.

Hit the jump for the rest of Anubis’ lore and how it’s used in-game.

Anubis, actually a Greek name, was associated with Greek and Roman mythology in various capacities, despite the cultures considering the half-animal gods of Egypt as primitive.

In-Game: Anubis is a ranged spellcaster that makes full use of his embalming and underworld knowledge. Donning his full jackal appearance, Anubis also possesses personal movement bonuses and attacks, such as Death from Below.

Further reading:

• Anubis on Wikipedia
• Egyptian Mythology on Wikipedia
• Myth of Osiris, Isis and Set
• Book of the Dead

Head over to SMITE: Demigods, Deities and Gods Explained for access to details for all of the playable characters.

I’ve been trying to sort out quite what is wrong with the Elin. My gut isn’t much help, since it just screams “oh god what is wrong with those people!?” and gut-based psychoanalysis of developers isn’t usually a successful endeavor. My brain kicks in eventually and says that no children are harmed by the development or play of the game, that is it fantasy events with fantasy characters in a fantasy world. Well okay, but that doesn’t make me feel any less sick, so it appears as though my gut has triumphed.

I experience the same dissonance between my gut and my brain. The Elin are sexualized children, and I find that revolting. But I know that the issue of whether drawn child pornography is bad and/or illegal isn’t quite as black & white. There are countries where the law says that drawn and photographed child porn are the same, and there are other countries where the legislation makes a difference for the reason Klepsacovic mentions: No children are harmed by it. Which for most people doesn’t make it any less revolting.

I can rationalize my disgust by arguing that drawn child porn could lead perverts on to an appetite for the real thing. But then my brain explodes, because by analogy a video game in which you play a terrorist planting a bomb (Counterstrike) or shoot people in the head (every FPS) would be just as bad. If we argue that there is absolutely no risk that playing Grand Theft Auto or Mafia turns us into gangsters, then how do we justify the argument that depiction of sexualized children will turn us into perverts?

In the end, as Klepsacovic does, I can only say that the gut wins. I simply don’t want to play a game that has panty-shots of children. Call it gut, call it a difference in culture between the Asians and the West, but the disgust easily beats the rational arguments.

Tobold’s Blog

[More info] In a week where the whole world is engulfed in the Diablo III frenzy, several Asian MMO companies took this period to announce their various financial reports for Q1 2012. While looking out for some juicy info in those reports, I spotted new information for KOF Online and another fighting game which was thought to be canned.

Korean developer Dragonfly, best known for MMOFPS Special Force, confirmed that The King of Fighters Online will finally meet the public later in the 2nd half of the year.I wonder how will the new build look like…

Also to be revealed later this year, my best bet at G*Star 2012, the mysterious Samurai Showdown Online will finally be shown. While KOF Online has to a trailer from 2009, absolutely nothing is available for Samurai Showdown Online so far.

Incoming search terms for mmorpg games:

• KOF MMORPG

Lore: Ao Kuang, usually spelled Ao Guang, is the destructive god known as the Dragon King of the East Sea. During his early years, Ao Guang reigned terror on man through the forces of nature. Droughts, storms and other natural disasters were his weapons of choice and his destruction continue unabated until Nezha, a protective deity, intervenes. After suffering a humiliating defeat at the hands of Nezha, Ao Guang seeks vengeance by kidnapping Nezha’s parents.

Hit the jump for the rest of Ao Guang’s story, how he’ll play in-game and further reading.

A common antagonist, Ao Guang is actually responsible for helping Sun WuKong achieve his most powerful relic, the transforming staff known as Ruyi Jingu Bang. Unsuspecting that the staff, which was holding down the ocean, would react to the Monkey King, the dragon-king teased the diminutive figure to attempt to acquire the heavenly weapon. Upon approach, the magical weapon reacted to him, confirming that he is the rightful owner. The sea, now unconstrained after Ruyi Jingu Bang’s removal, went into turmoil, wreaking further havoc that was attributed to Ao Guang.

In-Game: Despite the back lore (and misspelling), Hi-Rez Studios is currently tailoring its incarnation of Ao Kuang as a wind serpent. The character is a classic ranged spell caster, featuring wind-based attacks and little crowd control.

Further reading:

• Ao Guang on Wikipedia
• Chinese Mythology on Wikipedia
• Journey to the West (PDF)
• Investiture of the Gods (WikiSource guide)

Head over to SMITE: Demigods, Deities and Gods Explained for details on all of the playable characters.

As the English server (link) is preparing to enter its first Closed Beta phase, the Korean server for Dark Blood Online added a new class yesterday, the Thief. Its 2 advancement classes are the Assassin and Outsider, which I think is a pretty cool name. Wish more game developers will bother about choosing unique class names =.=”

Incoming search terms for mmorpg games:

• darkonline server file

TERA’s political system was not technically delayed shortly before the title’s launch earlier this month, but En Masse Entertainment hasn’t done anything with the system since. Until now, that is. The politicking will begin in earnest this Friday, May 18, for those interested!

The political system is a one-of-a-kind feature enabling high-ranking members to wield untold power over the direction of the realm. For better or worse, the reign of prosperity (or terror) will only last three weeks before another Vanarch is elected. Once elected – more on that in a second – a Vanarch is able to mandate and collect taxes and select which special vendors to open for business. Both the powers of community-elected officials and the process itself are set to mature with the game.

Like any real political system, you have to work at being an electable official before you can be elected. Thankfully, millions of dollars aren’t the only requirement. Players must be level 50 (experience), be a leader of a guild of level 3 or higher with 20+ members (leadership) and pay 3,000 gold and 100 Catharnach Awards (currency sink) to get on the ballot.

If you’re interested, registration begins this Friday, May 18, followed by a week of voting. If you’re not interested in the responsibility, you can vote for a candidate of your choice once per continent per server per account.

Time to go work on my soapbox speeches.

Stay tuned on the latest election happenings by visiting the Election Calendar.

There a more epic battle ensued. Besides regular bullywugs there was their leader, a sorcerer hiding in a dragon’s skull, which gave him cover against attacks by the players. And there were two grey oozes as a kind of surprise arriving only in the second round of combat behind the players. The whole thing was pretty well balanced and challenging, with the group succeeding in the end. But as soon as they had rested a bit and found some treasure, a patrol of bullywugs returned, getting them into the fourth fight of that game day (second of the session).

The main challenge of that fight was two giant frogs, who swallowed characters whole, taking them out of combat until they succeed a saving throw. The 4th edition of these giant frogs has been discussed on other D&D sites and forums, with some DMs feeling that they need to be nerfed. The have the potential to take a character out of combat for quite a while, without him able to do anything but take damage and roll saving throws. But I felt that this would mainly be a problem for smaller groups, while I have a six player group, with enough damage potential to take out a frog that is getting too dangerous. And I distributed their swallow attacks around, so as not to take the same character out of combat repeatedly and make the combat boring for him.

The group succeeded this battle as well, and found a halfling boy who had been taken prisoner by the bullywug patrol. The boy led the group back to his clan, a group of Vistani traveling folk on a barge on the river. The Vistani being travelers not only of this world, but of parallel worlds as well, they could advise the group on their enemy of the previous adventure, the ancient vrock Jaazzpaa. They suggested that if Jaazzpaa’s chalice of planar travel had been weakened by centuries of contact with holy water, the demon would need a place where the barrier between the worlds was thin to reactivate the chalice. And they knew of the Keep on Shadowfell being built just on top of such a rift in the barrier between worlds.

Exhausted from a day of fighting, the group decided to spend the night with the Vistani, and we ended the session there.

Tobold’s Blog

[Source] I am surprised EA is not helping a lending hand so far. The developer of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, 38 Studios, is apparently embroiled in a financial with the local authorities of Rhode Island. You see, the studio was promised a loan of USD 75 million back then to move to the area, which was criticized by then governor candidate Lincoln Chafee. Now that he is the governor, things will not be going as smoothly as planned.

38 Studios is currently developing “Project Copernicus”, apparently the MMO version of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. With a AAA grade MMO requiring around USD 50 million in development costs, any possible deduction in the loan amount (I suspect a hefty one) will no doubt cast the game production in doubts. Talks are ongoing to make the studio “solvent”, which no doubt means there is a bigger trouble than just funds for developing the MMO.

Less than 2 hours before the digital copies of Diablo III can be installed and less than 24 hours before the game servers open, I thought it would be nice to have a recap on a previously posted video which outlines the birth of the Diablo franchise. Seriously, you have got to appreciate the founding of Diablo which came as a coincidence since it was first a turn-based game.