Renaissance Kingdoms (Part 2)

http://www.renaissancekingdoms.com/

As promised, here's part 2 of our Renaissance Kingdoms article, I'll take over from my co-blogger Bart to tell you about the daily routine and new player experience. The reason for this is that Bart has been playing RK for years already, while I started about a month ago so that puts me in a better position to handle these subjects.

For those of you that know the game I'll quickly position my character in the game. I'm currently level 1, you could say I have about 1/3 of the requirements needed to level up. I have the clothing needed, now I just have to get all the money to train stats and to pay the fee for the Count's First Secretary.

Daily routine

As said in the introduction last week, you'll be mostly surviving at first and this is where the daily routine comes in. Survival is divided into 2 things: eating and working. In-game this translates to buying either bread or corn to eat, and checking the town hall's job offers or the mines for work.

Obviously you should try to stay alive; so eating and working has to be done every day. You can skip a few meals every week though, as long as you eat when your status is 'dying'. The only penalty for not eating is stat reduction, but when you start out your stats will be 0 anyway so it doesn't matter.

It's advisable to work every day though, as you'll need money to level up and buy new food (including the types of food that are used to train your stats). In the case that you won't be able to get online for some time, it would be cruel to let your character starve to death (resulting in severe stat loss) so the game provides the option to retreat in the Church ("Vacation Mode"). You'll get food during your retreat, but obviously won't earn any money.

New player experience

Shortly after you've created your account you'll get a message from your town's Mentor; the person that guides new inhabitants. But first, you may be shocked to find out that your look is decided at random, character customization would have been nice (I guess Celcius Online will implement this in the game some day though). Basically the message you get, gives you some info about surviving (pretty much what I've said above about the daily routine) to get you started.

Getting jobs in the town hall and buying/eating food is pretty straightforward, but (for me at least) it got more confusing when you want to work in the mines outside of town. Of course I had Bart to explain stuff like this to me, but I can imagine that there are quite some new players that may have troubles finding certain features in the game.

Something that bothers me more, is that all you need is just 2 minutes a day and you're done in the game. Sure, I know most of the game takes place on the forums but I'm not really into Roleplaying. I'm aware that I throw away more than half of the game by not going on the forums, but Roleplaying just isn't my cup of tea.

So the bottom line is, like Bart said last week, that the game by itself can't keep you occupied enough to stick around. Personally I couldn't imagine playing RK for years like Bart does, but again this game is all about the Roleplaying so if you're into that you'll definately like RK. The way I see it, the game mostly offers somewhat of a background for your roleplaying.

Well that's pretty much everything I can think of, please do share your opinion with us.
In case you haven't already, you can read 'Renaissance Kingdoms (Part 1)' here.

RuneScape: Prayer update!

http://www.runescape.com/

RuneScape saw the release of a new quest today: The Temple at Senntisten. Noteworthy is that the quest rewards you with the ancient curses, a new set of prayers. Following Jagex plans of introducing more high-level content in the game, these prayers range from level 50 to 95. Unlike the different spell books, you can switch prayers easily at any altar in the game (spell books can only be switched at one specific place).

Most of the curses can be divided into 3 groups: sap curses (drain your opponent's stats), deflect curses (protect you from damage, like the standard protection prayers - but with a chance of deflecting some damage back to your attacker) and leech prayers (boost your stats, while training your opponent's stats at the same time).

Then there are 3 high level curses: wrath (lvl 89), soul split (lvl 92) and turmoil (lvl 95). Basically these are enhanced versions of the retribution, smite and piety prayers. In fact, all of the curses are similar to the old prayers, but they seem slightly stronger (and have higher level requirements). I'm not sure how fast these cursus will drain your prayer stat, but I hope the draining rate is about the same as the old prayers, otherwise you would need tons of prayer potions to use them.

Star Wars: the Old Republic: The Final Two Classes Revealed

http://www.swtor.com/

Fans of Star Wars: The Old Republic will be in for a treat this week! Several magazines in North America and Europe will have articles that not only talk about The Old Republic but also reveal our final two classes: the Jedi Consular and the Sith Inquisitor!

APB: Podcast Episode 14

http://www.apb.com/

With some delay a new podcast has finally been made by the guys at APB (All Points Bulletin)!

Like said earlier, this week we sit down again with Kitkat and take a look at the Enforcer organisations. Introduced in this podcast are 2 factions on their side: the Preatorians and the P Tigers. Also some more info is given about 2 key characters on the Enforcers side.

The Organizations of San Paro Part 2:


The next podcast will be another Q&A special so if you want your questions answered, send them in to PODCAST@APB.COM.

EVE Online: Dominion - Expansion time!

http://www.eve-online.com/

DOMINION represents the type of conquest never realized by pretty words and poetry. It is true power born from the broken hulls of a thousand starships, the genes of the ambitious and the hubris of the greedy. EVE's 12th free expansion offers the power of control to anyone bold enough to seize it, bringing you the tools for you to rally legions together and carve out your own space.

Will your ambitious new Alliance rise up to the challenge and stake their claim, evolving territory to suit it's needs? Will your established empire hold fast against the fleets that press at your borders, hungry for the wealth you protect? Will you call old friends to your side and convince them to join you once more in battle? Or are you the clever entrepreneur who sits clear of the danger and fuels the war from the periphery?

DOMINION enhances the tools of communication and evolves the dynamics of war, altering the very way in which pilots interact with each other through warfare or cooperation. The vast riches of sovereign authority await for those bold enough to seize them amidst a beautiful, deadly universe of possibility.

Check out the Dominion Features Page for more info!

Or just look at the new awesome trailer that just shows how epic battles in EVE can be!

Renaissance Kingdoms (Part 1)

http://www.renaissancekingdoms.com/

For those who don't know anything of the game

You begin in a small village with a few hundred other inhabitants. It will take you some time to fully get to know the game and to explore all the different things in Renaissance Kingdoms. But at the beginning, your first mission is to survive and to integrate yourself into your village. With the intention to let you learn/understand the basic mechanisms of the game, and to get to know some of the people that live in your town (make contacts).

Personal opinion and experience

When I started playing (in 2 weeks that will be 5 years ago), the game wasn’t as advanced as it is now. Though you still hear people complain so much about this is bugged and that needs changing… but I guess that says more about those people then the game. Anyway, we always used to say that the game was based on the forums because really everything used to happen there. You couldn’t fight wars with armies or anything yet, so people used to either just revolt in towns, or role-play (RP) it on the forums. Many other things also happen on the forum which can’t yet in the game, of which some things that I don’t like so much; for example wedding RP’s or baby showers.

These days you can do a lot more ingame, but you seriously can’t do without the forums. People who try the game and never go onto the forums will abandon the game in no time. Basically all you will be doing then with your character is feed it and work each day, and after a while you’ll level up. That sort of playing would only take 5 minutes a day from your time, can’t really call that enjoyable in my opinion. So, what I wanted to say is that if you’re not a role-playing fanatic you shouldn’t play the game. The quality of the RP’s goes down as people who aren’t playing the game for that reason jump in one of the open (or sometimes even closed) RP’s and go ruin it.

But I have to confess I don’t visit the forums anymore as much as I used to, mainly because I’m not RP’ing much since my character lives miles away from his wife at the moment. Hope that will change soon with the sea lanes they finally implemented a few weeks back. But I seriously don’t think so, I would rather RP on a private forum then. There are all sorts of reasons, but one of the main is that some people… well, to simply put it they can’t RP in the right time spirit. Maybe to come back on the wedding RP’s: you got people posting all kinds of pictures there in an RP. Ok, no problem you would think… yeah maybe not if electricity would have been invented in the Renaissance. Also fashion, god, I hate people posting these modern wedding dresses… even avatars or signatures on the forums sometimes annoys me. You go play a game that’s situated in the Renaissance, then play like you should and have your character live in the Renaissance.

Mayors and Councils

And that brings me to how the towns and counties are run. This is also done by players. You put up an election list for the county with some people, or you run solo for mayor as member of a party or an independent candidate. Now again, a large part happens on the forum and if you’re familiar with irl American elections you’ll have no problems getting elected. That said, mayor elections are held every 30 days, and council elections every 60 days. How you get elected? Well, the one with the most votes wins; so the more people vote for you, the better.

The county council is made up of 12 people who get to fill in different positions, all with their own specific task. In short: someone sits at the head of the table, someone take cares of the treasury and trade, someone is responsible for the mines, another for upholding the law, etc. And of course like in irl, you got elected people who are corrupt… like all of them if you ask me. Just joking, you got good people too. Either way, it pretty much works like it does in real life.

Laws and criminals

And like in real life, you have laws you have to obey. Of course some people choose not to and live the life of a criminal. Laws are written by the people in power, so like them, these laws can be really unjust. Until recently if you did something wrong and it was reported to the public prosecutor, you would be prosecuted and have had to defend yourself in Court by the push of a magical button.

There was little you could do to prevent it, of course fleeing from the county works to prevent this as they cannot file lawsuits if you’re not on their ground anymore. But the ‘police’ or someone else didn’t have to find and arrest you first, which isn’t really fair, so there was really little attraction to playing the bad guy.

With my character I used to be a big criminal too and luckily I’ve not often been victim of the magical button. And when I was, I used to go to the Court of Appeal and until now I’ve won each case there; mainly because I could always prove the judge was biased. But it sometimes is a drag, and I can understand why most people don’t take the effort of going there.

And again free only goes this far ...

Anyway, I said ‘until recently’ a bit earlier because they have added a new option you can unlock for a short period of time (20 days) with real life money. This option would make you invisible on the town’s list (when you’re in a town you’re name normally is on the list of inhabitants), and you won’t be able to be prosecuted.

Also there is a new option there that will allow you to change your name. Where as in the past you would have had to let your character die and start over (multi-accounting is not allowed). This option can only be used once a month though. And about changing your character’s look hasn’t been said anything yet, so if you’re not happy with how Jah made you, you’ll still have to let your character die to start over. But maybe that’s something for the future.

And next to that there were some other new good and useful additions to the shop. I think that’s great news… if you got a lot of money, or if you want to spend it on this game.

Part 2

I could say so much alot more about Renaissance Kingdoms because it’s pretty big, but I am going to end it here for now and I would like to thank you for still being here. :) Next week, we'll move to Part 2 then in which we'll say a bit more about the daily routine and the new player experience.

'The Guild' Season 3 Episode 12

'The Guild' Season 3 Episode 12: “Codex flourishes as the hero” is now up!

Hoozah!

Online computer games are always so good to vent frustration and anger to some other poor person, work it out on them. :) Nice to see Codex do it too finally, instead of being her uncertain self. But go watch!

And oh ooooohw....

Watch 'The Guild' S3 E12