<p>Starting today, I decided to start reviewing games that I play when I have time. Why? I don’t know and I just feel like it. The first of mine is going to be Atlantica Online and because this is my blog and not a “formal review” I can do a lot more blasting of the game than I normally would be able to in a review.</p>
<p><span style=”color: #0000ff;”>Story:</span><br />
Unlike most MMOs, there is actually a story. More or less 3 sisters have summoned you to their world in an attempt to save it or something like that. The main story quest goes nowhere fast and just has you talking to NPCs to complete a long chain of quests that goes through nearly every dungeon in the game. I’ve done the quests up to the mid 80s, and it goes nowhere still. Its just “we need your help to kill ____ or stop ____ and ____ then talk to _____”. Each quest chain is fairly long but it sometimes has you revisiting past NPCs on the other side of the world.</p>
<p><span style=”color: #0000ff;”>Graphics:</span><br />
The graphics of the game are pretty good. There are some issues with slow down when in large 3 groups vs 3 groups battles since there is up to 54 things on the screen moving at once. The details and spell effects are nicely done and there is quite a large variety of enemies as well instead of reusing models and recoloring them. The towns are all fairly generic and share more or less all the same characteristics. The same goes for pretty much all the characters as well. The mobs have a nice variety, but the players don’t. Customization options are very limited and there is not much you can do to make yourself unique.<br />
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<span style=”color: #0000ff;”>Gameplay:</span><br />
The gameplay is by far the best feature in Atlantica. It uses a turn based combat system. The amount of time you have is dependent on the number of mercenaries you have in your team. You can have up to 9 mercenaries in your team and can switch them out for one of the first 4 listed in your mercenary room during a mercenary’s turn. You start off with only 3, but as you complete the tutorial quests and level up, you can add more. You get an extra slot in your party every 10 levels up to 9 slots at level 50. You can rearrange the formation of your mercenaries in and out of battle for more added strategy. The only problem is you cannot place a mercenary over a dead mercenary.</p>
<p>Your hero counts as a mercenary slot but has higher stats than the rest of them. Your hero’s weapon choices are limited to Sword, Spear, Axe, Bow, Cannon, Gun, and Staff. I might be missing 1 but I think thats it. Each type of hero (melee, range, magic) has a unique skill restricted to hero characters. They all share the characteristic of dealing a fair amount of damage to all targets. When all 3 types of heroes come together in a battle, they can perform a unqiue hero combo by using all theirs in the correct order (range, melee, then magic). This is one of several types of combo magics available in the game. All but 1 or 2 are very useful in nearly any situation. The added effects of combos are very powerful and often lasts for several turns.</p>
<p>Quests more or less introduce the entire game to you slowly. Some things such as combat and obtaining items you learn early on while things like gifting and mentoring you don’t learn about until level 30.</p>
<p>You start off with only 4 types of mercenaries available. These are Swordsman, Spearman, Archer, and Gunner. You will eventually unlock Shaman (Level 10), Monk (Level 18 Quest, first Shadow Dungeon), Viking (Level 20 Quest), Artilleryman, Beast Master (Level 44Quest), Witch (Level 51 Quest), Exorcist, Princess, Prophet, Inventor, Oracle, Lady Knight, Spartan, and a few others. Many of them require completion of a Shadow Dungeon to unlock. There are numerous types of mercenaries. You can store some in your mercenary storage if you have slots opened (Item Mall or Treasure Map item). It allows for a nice variety of combinations and different strategies. All of the mercenaries obtained from quests at Level 40 and on have higher stats but are more difficult to level and can only be obtained from quests.</p>
<p>Shadow Dungeons are very difficult dungeons meant for parties. It pits the group against multiple enemies and enemies will reinforce each other to fight against the player so you will often find yourself fighting 20-27 enemies at a time. Shadow Dungeons are often required to unlock a mercenary and for obtaining crystals to rank up those mercenaries as well. They can more or less be ignored though.</p>
<p>Will is very important in the game. It slowly regenerates and is required for many things. You need it to use many items and to travel quickly through towns using Travel Agencies in town or the Teleport License. The will requirements for many things (except item use) goes down as you level up and from Level 50 and on, your max will goes up by 1 every 2 levels.</p>
<p>A dirty trick that takes most of the difficulty out of the game is the use of Vikings or an Axe main character. These characters posses the ability to freeze enemies. At first they can only freeze 1, but once they complete the Level 20 upgrade, they can freeze a whole row of enemies. The game designers finally picked up on this and starting from Level 50, all bosses and minibosses become immune to freeze. It can also be employed as a PvP strategy until players obtain Monks who can cancel the effects of freeze.</p>
<p>There is also a cheap way to level up using scrolls. Place the character you want to use the scrolls with in the back row and everyone else basically acts as human shields. Enter a fight against mobs that are about 33% higher level than you. The character in the back row activates the scrolls on a large group of mobs and results in about 100k exp a shot.</p>
<p>Another fault with the battle system is that your main character is like the king in chess. If he or she dies, its an instant loss. One of the chief PvP strategies use to be to get a team of ranged characters and just focus on picking off the all important Monk, Shaman, and Main Character. Playing as a staff (Mage) main character also had an interesting feature. You could learn a skill called Noble Sacrifice, a skill which Shamans can also learn, which instantly killed your main character resulting in a loss. It’s probably just an accident, but it was worth mentioning.</p>
<p>By leveling up you unlock more features in the game. Free League PvP is unlocked at level 20. Free League PvP is basically a set of battles up to 8 which allow you to earn money, battle points, exp (Stamina Servers only, more on that later) and to fight other players for fame. Unfortunately, you are REQUIRED to PvP in Atlantica. At some point you must fight in the Free League to earn Fame to enter high level dungeons and continue the story quests. You still get rewards for losing, but its only about 1/5th the rewards the winner gets minus bonus exp item. If you do not participate in Free League for 24 hours, you are automatically dropped down to the next division in ranking. Division ranks start at 18 (lowest) and move up. The lower your division number, the better rewards you can get. You can also earn a title with enough fame and the top PvPer gets a unique PvP title to him or herself. Battle points can be traded for items in the city of Rome.</p>
<p><span style=”color: #0000ff;”>Guilds:</span><br />
The game also has a guild and town system. Guilds can be formed by any number of players but you are required to meet a few guild level requirements in a certain number of days otherwise they are disbanded. This basically eliminates the chances off any small guild from participating in guild features. Guilds can earn points from just being online or by completing guild quests. With guild points, a guild can bid on a town and if they win, they gain control of the town for about 2 weeks. A guild with control of a town gets to change the tax rate of the town and can upgrade and maintain the town. At the end of their term, the guild has to bid on the town again to maintain control.</p>
<p><span style=”color: #0000ff;”>Mentoring and Crafting:</span><br />
I put these two together because they are closely related and intertwined.</p>
<p>Mentoring allows a player Level 30+ to guide anyone below that level through the game. You can mentor 5 people who are below Level 30 at a time. They can remain with you past Level 30 and will give out large amounts of mentor points each level. A mentor can send their student items and teach them crafting skills if the mentor has the skill at Level 11 or higher. By teaching skills to other players, the mentor obtains exp on their skill instead of having to obtain it through crafting. As the student levels up, the mentor gains mentor points which can be traded in for items in Rome. Unfortunately with everything except the mentor points, you can do the same with friends and thus turns mentoring into a glorified friend system. Not only that, but some players are only in it for the mentor points and neglect the goals and purpose of the mentoring system.</p>
<p>Crafting needs to be at least Level 1 before you an make items (except Quest items). They can be learned from other players with the skill in Level 11+ or from NPCs in fixed locations. Level 11 and up crafting skills must be obtained from traveling NPCs or other players. Luckily the game provides a nice list of the people with the highest level in any craft that you can access. You can craft up to 15 equipment items at once and up to thousands of usable items at once. The most I ever did was 12000 arrows at once but you can still do more. In order to craft you either need the auto-craft skill or to fight. When you do either you get jobs and when you reach 100%, you obtain craft exp and you can select the items. You can cancel crafting but items are lost and you are not rewarded any exp. There are some items that can only be obtained through crafting. However, none of the crafts are profitable when considering the price of all the ingredients required and the selling price of the final product. It is something more suited for personal use.</p>
<p><span style=”color: #0000ff;”>Stamina Servers (applies to Korean Seoul server and North American version only):</span><br />
Stamina is a feature implemented by ndoors to provide a more friendly environment for casual gamers. It creates heavy changes in the gameplay. If you only play for something like 2 hours a day, its a pretty nice feature since no one will really get that far ahead of others. Stamina provides a nice benefit and changes to PvP that aren’t featured on the other servers. Unfortunately, if you party, the concept of stamina limiting players becomes ruined due to the stamina regeneration rate in a party.</p>
<p>At the beginning of the day players below Level 50 are given 100 stamina and players above are given 50 stamina. Players regenerate stamina at the rate of 1 every 10 minutes with no combat. Other ways to obtain stamina include giving gifts, sharing monster info with other players, and using the help desk to answer questions (limited to 5 each a day). Players below Level 50 can store up to 120 stamina while players above can store up to 60. When a player has stamina they obtain normal exp and drop rates. When they run out of stamina, exp and drop rates are reduced to about 30% of the normal rate (the North American version says stamina gives a 300% exp boost, but its actually the normal rates of the other servers). If you check the monster info in your database, it gives you the correct amount of exp that a monster is suppose to give you, but stamina doesn’t give 300%, it only gives 100%. If you ask me, its false advertising on nDoors’ part.</p>
<p>The goal of stamina is to create a linked community where players are likely to interact with each other. It is very focused on PvP. Your division ranking is displayed right next to your name as well so others can see where you stand overall. Stamina has been the source of numerous debates in both the Korean and North American versions of Atlantica. The Korean version basically won the fight against stamina resulting in a single stamina server with 10 non stamina servers. On the other hand in the North American version, stamina won the fight resulting in 3 stamina servers for open beta.</p>
<p>Most of the changes were made in PvP. Equipment and skill level play a the role in determining who is superior. Equipment upgrading is also capped at +2 so a player with +10 weapons can still be beat a player with +4 items. It provides a competition that is mostly based on skill rather than who has the best items and highest level. Even a level 40 player can defeat a level 100 character with this. The second big change is the implementation of auto scrolls. In PvP, an opponent’s player is marked with a bonus sign which will automatically activate a scroll when that character is hit. Unfortunately this creates a huge advantage for players using range and area of effect characters as they can affect multiple targets in 1 shot nearly guaranteeing the activation of several scrolls per turn. You also get a “300% boost to exp”, which means its normal, when fighting in PvP and can obtain items off of players as if they were normal mobs (other players do not lose their items). Winning a PvP match will also grant you 3 stamina as well.</p>
<p>The biggest problem with stamina is that it turns Atlantica Online into AFK Online (Away From Keyboard Online). Once you get auto craft, you might as well just auto craft, wait for stamina to regenerate, and wait for the next free league event to start. Level through free league and just win chains. Meis on Thebes for example has won 130+ free league matches in a row now and gets 5 advanced experience books (10k exp) per win. Otherwise just auto craft, watch your guild gain attendance points, watch guild mates recruit people to your town to earn exp. Use guild money to buy crafting materials. Wait for the next PvP event, repeat.</p>
<p>There were other minor changes such as limiting the number of item boxes players can open each day or skill books they can obtain from the book exchange npc, but nothing that really makes that much of a difference.</p>
<p><span style=”color: #0000ff;”>Overall:</span><br />
Atlantica is a nice game that provides for a unique experience. A well executed 3D turn based MMORPG makes it the first of its kind. The stamina servers provide a nice experience for casual gamers. Unfortunately that hurts everyone who isn’t one in the North American version so tough luck if you don’t live in Korea or understand Korean or have access to a Korean Social Security Number. The traveling system provides easy access to any point in the world. There are features for both PvPers and PvEers to enjoy. It takes some of the best elements from things liked in a game including a smooth leveling system, a variety of characters, and can be enjoyed by most people. Its a good game, but in the end, its nothing very spectacular that would make it stand out as a giant.</p>

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