Blog move!

I moved to a new blog (https://noraorzira.wordpress.com/). I know, I know. I have too many blogs or I wouldn't be able to maintain all these blogs. So, I will be updating only on the wordpress. I have been pressed by my friends to continue writing my blog, get updated at least once a week. All of these are for my own good and practise.

I will not close this blog but I will not be posting on this blog anymore. All my game reviews will be on the wordpress.

On the side note, I felt a little nostalgic looking at my first blog. (http://environmentalistinaction.blogspot.my/)
I looked through and I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that I have 186 published post on that blog. Almost to a 200. And this blog has only 13 published post.

It was fun times, writing those small rants and daily lives that 140 words could not fit. It was fun ranting on blogspot, away from the eyes of some of my acquaintances from Facebook.

I am going to miss it. Of course I will still be ranting on the wordpress but not as innocent as I were 8 years ago. YES, IT HAS BEEN EIGHT YEARS. Time really do fly fast.

I guess that is all. Thank you all for reading. I know I am the only one reading this. Haha, but shout out to the invisible people behind the screen that read. Thank you for those time. Thank you.

Update on Revelation Online

Taken from My.com

Since Chinese New Year visiting is already over, I had the opportunity to explore the world of Revelation Online. And so far, this is what I learnt:

1. Leveling is hella easy from 1 to 40. 
Like Tera and Wildstar or in this case, most of the MMORPGs in these modern times, you will spawn at a beginner island. A place for you to learn the tutorials on how things work. Controls, inventory, questing, the simple simple stuff. You can easily level up from 1 to 15 there. Questing is simply with autoguide of a simple click of the mouse can bring you to your target. I level up from 15 to 36 in a matter of hours and I was taking my time doing other stuff than the quests.

(Rant: Unlike the old games like Ragnarok Online where there is no such thing as a guide for you. I admit that I miss taking my time, hitting that options button, learning each controls, clicking on each icon to see how they work instead of being shown the way. I am pretty sure most MMORPGs gamers nowadays are born from that era.)

2. Translation is not yet complete.
The translation is not fully complete yet which I think might call for a few more closed beta test before open beta test. Some of the quest markers are in Chinese. The people talking in Chinese. And surprise, surprise, you might find AngelaBaby in that game. Her voice is even in that game.

(Rant: I actually don't have a rant here. I love the Chinese speech. It makes the game feel more authentic. The game IS originally from China so keeping their original speech from their original country is simply a good idea to bring gamers into the developer's world. Some gamers dislikes taking their time to read subtitles so they will disagree with my part. Which brings me to the next point.)

3. Story? Meh. 
I didn't bother about the story. I was clicking next, next, next all the way without bothering to understand the story behind it. At the end of a sub-chapter, I will somehow, work out what is happening. The game works like this. They have chapters with started with a prologue and in each chapter, there is small stories which I refer to as sub-chapters. These stories work like a travelling quests. Most of the time, you walk here, talk to this dude, take the quest, move to another dude, and rinse and repeat. Once this story ends, you move to a new location and start all over again. On the way, you will a few monsters but not so much that you will feel overwhelm instead you will feel bored of it.

(Rant: Travelling is not much of a problem when you have the autoguide. And at level 29, you get your wings, travelling gets so much more fun. However, I wished for more fighting in the story quests. Like fight this boss, hit these 10 monsters. Instead of just a few mouse clicking and watching my character running here and there. MORE INTERACTION!)

4. World is big.
When I mean big, I mean VERY VERY BIG. AND it is still expanding. Some areas and quests are locked. Imagine Guild Wars 2. You can travel between continents by foot. Or in this case, by mount or wings. There is teleportation devices for you to travel quicker with the cost of some gyph notes but it doesn't cost that much. About 20 to 50 notes (for now).

(Rant: No rant here. I love big worlds)

5. Open world is open world. 
I am so thankful for this. There is swimming, there is flying, there is running and mounts. I can fly as high as I can but I glitch at some low areas. I can run as fast as the game allows but I have a limit to it and I am blocked by mountains at certain areas. I can swim but I am limited to the air and depth of the ground. But the whole point is I can explore as much as I want without a limit of only a pathway.

6. Characters are so pretty.
This is just a personal opinion. There is freckles and wrinkles option in the game. Some NPCs are created to be who they look like (a.k.a stereotypes)


That is all for now from me to you.
Zira.

Revelation Online

Note: This post is very heavy with large pictures. Please remember to turn on WiFi before reading. 

After checking again on the email (I was on mobile), there is no notification whatsoever to indicate that I have the access to the game. So I turned to my PC, get the mail, click on it and I got this.

It's under achievements beside my profile and you have to hover over it to get this. So, YAY!! Since it is complete in download and installation, time to jump right into the world of Revelation Online.

Taken from My.com

First and foremost, let me introduce to you the world in Revelation Online called The World of Nuanor. This is an open world basis, MMORPG game which includes mounts and wings for flight and exploration of this huge map. According to the website, The World of Nuanor consists of 10 provinces and 3 great cities. Across this entire map lies 7 strongholds that is not limited to only land but also the sea and sky.
Like any MMORPG, this game relies heavily on its ability to construct a story that could capture players' hearts (for example: Blade & Soul and Wildstar has some interesting stories whereas Phantasy Star Online 2, Skyforge, and Dungeon Fighter Online is a dungeon basis game). So, Revelations Online has story quests, dungeons, raids and of course, bosses for the players to indulge in the world of Nuanor.
This game has open world PvP which means that in certain areas and after a certain level, you will be opened towards attacks from other players. This, in my opinion, has not been something I am very keen about. I avoided these kind of games but so far, I have seen no one in the same map as I am (phew!). HOWEVER, bullying is not tolerated so penalty will be given to those that abuse the PK ability of this game.
This game also has castle sieges where you join a guild and conquer one of the seven strongholds as mentioned above. In the website, they mention literally thousands of players will guard and attack to conquer each so I can imagine the amount of lag I will get if I were to join so heads up, I am not joining.
Not only that, they have arena (for those PvP craze players), aerial combat (if you have flight, you better fight), and battlegrounds (which consists of different kinds of PvP modes such as seizing the flag, classic battleground to test your ability as a PvPer).

As for the closed beta test 3 testers, there is only 2 servers available. And as you can see, both are busy with players but I have not encounter any lag. Yet.

Let us start with the most important part of every MMORPG,

Character Creation.

Pick your class. There is six classes to be picked. Each has both genders, though the body size for each classes are limited (will be explained further with more pictures!). After choosing your class, there will be a small animation played out for each character (fancy moves!).

Occultist class. Specialize in magic attack and healing. This class is an AOE, ranged, support character. The class uses dark magic to attack, and light magic to heal. Great for those that like to hit and run, the stay-at-the-back characters. Decent damage but not a damage dealer. 

Occultist Male

Occultist Female

On the side of each class choice is the gender and body type. On the left is for male and right is female. There is 3 body types but some are locked where if you noticed, the greyed out are locked while the slightly golden ones are choices. You shouldn't bother much about the body type because you can change that in the after choosing your gender.

Spiritshaper class. This can be deceiving for those that think that this class is only for moe girls. Do not fear, you can change everything to be a buffed up, muscly, manly support class. This class is a healing, ranged, support. Unlike the occultist, they conjure animals and plants to aid them in healing and attacking enemies. As you can see on the top right, there is difficulty settings for each class.

Spiritshaper Male

Spiritshaper Female

Vanguard class. The most important person in a dungeon, a raid, a squad, the front liner, the TANK. Wielding a spear and a shield, this tanker is for those chiongster that wishes to LEROY JENKINS all the way to the boss. Highest defense among all classes, this class is the first to CHAAAARGE any mobs, first to get hit, and can take the most hits in a fight. Scared of death? Take the tank.

Vanguard Male (huge ass spear, compensating for something eh?)

Vanguard Female

Blademaster class. Blademaster as it is, is the master of blades. Surprisingly, this is a tank class that specializes in parrying, close combat and crowd control skills. With high damage, the aim for this class is not to tank it but to kill it as fast as possible while taking the hits. 

Blademaster Male

Blademaster Female

Gunslinger class. As the name mention, this class uses guns as their main weapon. Ranged abilities that can crowd control, this class is much feared for being one of the damage dealers in a group. 

Gunslinger Male

Gunslinger Female

Swordmage class. Swordmage is a class that does not use sword but summons astral swords as a ranged weapon for them to throw at mobs. AoE, ranged, damage dealer, this class is almost similar to the gunslinger class.

Swordmage Male

Swordmage Female

Now that you have chosen your class, let's move to,

Character Customization. 

As you can see, this is what you get after choosing your gender and body type. For now, I have chosen a female occultist. On the right are the presets, top right is the save and load buttons for those who have customized and wanted to reuse the same choices, top left is a small video for you to view the flight and apparel, and bottom left is poses, apparel for classes, and wings for flight. 

Each round sub-buttons signifies the area for you to modify. 

Note: There is a slight problem for this part. The right side for each sub-buttons (other than the presets) are very tiny. The sliders, the text, the images are incredibly small. So the images after this are only for the right side. 

Body > Hair

Body > Skin

Body > Torso

Body > Legs

Body > Body

As I have mentioned earlier, there is not much to worry about body type because you can customize to each detail of the human body, 

Face Customization and sub-buttons.

Face > Skin (look, moustache)

Face > Eyebrows

]

Face > Eyes

Face > Makeup (I'm bad at editing images, forgive this noob.) You choose different colour for each eyes (go crazy!).

Face > Lips

Face > Face

Note: Honestly, even the male of this game looks so much more prettier than me. Not forgetting the ladies. This game is killing my self-confidence. More gym! Get slimmer!

You are allowed to have 6 characters. Enough to try each classes. 

Yeah, that is me. Holla, if you see me!

After a few hours, you are finally DONE! Time to get into the game!

Loading screen. I really love the art. 

Story time! It's not translated yet (speaks in Mandarin). Don't bother asking me what the story is about. I don't know too.

This appeared straight as you enter the game. Three types of mode of playing. Lock on target (where your actions will focus on that target), click to move (the classic Ragnarok Online click that area to move to that area) and the free aiming (ever played Tera or Wildstar? Yeah, like that.).

We will jump straight into the next most important part,

The UI (User Interface).

UI Editor

This is something that most MMORPG developers include in their games. The UI Editor. UI is one of the most important part of a player's experience. Based on how clean the UI looks and how user friendly it is, it can be a success or failure area of an MMORPG. The UI for this game is pretty simple. From 12 o clock, you have the mob details and notice, system notice and battle notice, gift notification for beta testers, map, quests details, secondary skills shortcut key, menu icons, main skills shortcut keys, EXP bar (tiny blue bar at the bottom), chat, HP and MP, name, and shortcut keys for settings. The colourful squares are the buffs and debuffs notifications. I like to move all of these to the edges of the screen and keep my human character right in the middle, completely clean from distractions. 

For me, the UI seems very tiny. This is at 100% size. 

This is at max 130% size. 

I made it to 110% size. The text is still quite small but bearable. 

You can click on the underlined text in the quests area to move your character automatically. (Easy for lazy people, a turn off for me.). Additional to that, there is green arrows on the ground pointing towards your target. This may sound quite immature of me but I find it the arrows to be an unnecessary feature. A simple quest indicator on their heads (which they have) would suffice. Markings on the map is also sufficient enough to point me towards the target. I don't need no arrows and auto-move, I ain't no small kid.  

The small icons consists of character/wings/dossier, inventory/auction/shop, skills/action/craft, group/squad, guild, job, friends/proximity characters/chat/camera, battlefield/arena, rating/achievements, events, and esc/settings.

Character window

Class path (still not sure what it does, will tell soon)

Crafting window

Factions Window

Honor window (something like a merit point system)

Inventory with the classic bag extensions (encourages you to play more/spend more).

This game has a few types of currency. 

Gyph Notes : To trade with NPCs

Gythil : To trade with other players. 

Aurum : In-game points bought with real cash. 

Ausgyth Points : Honor certificates earned to exchange rare items.

Combat skills

Special skills (no information about this yet)

Flying skills. 

Mounts will be obtained at early level. At level 69, there will be your own class mounts. Special mounts allowed two players to mount together. Wings will be obtained at level 29. The wings can be upgraded later at level 49. Wings also can be purchased through crafting, dungeon, NPC, quest and of course, cash shop. Wings allow players to have aerial combat (the first I ever had so far). 

Achievement window

Dungeon Queue Hall. This is a norm in modern MMORPG where by players are able to join teams of parties for dungeon runs, raids, battlegrounds without meeting up at the same spot. This makes everything so much easier.

Example of quest acceptance.

One of the many animations during the story quest.

Yes, I would adopt Jibi as a pet too. (That small egg on my feet.)

TL;dR: I can't give an exact rating to this game but so far, I would say I am 8/10 for this game. 

Pros: I love the vibrant colours, the art, the character customization, the UI, mount, wings, the animations, and classes.

Cons: I dislike the PK system and the translation to English is still not done and I really want to know the story, and tiny customization on the right side.

What I hope I can get from Revelation Online is the changes to the customization, translation, PvE only server and hopefully this game will never, ever be a pay2win type of game. 

Note: I will not be able to play this game during this whole week because I will be away for Chinese New Year. The opinions are my own, based on the one hour that I had gone through Revelation Online including reading the website and playing the game. 

All pictures are taken by me as screenshots from the game, Revelation Online unless indicated. 

Happy Chinese New Year!

Zira.