GunZ 2 - KR CBT Gameplay Videos

After re-configuring my system locale, re-downloading patches and dealing with 15+ error messages, I finally got into the GunZ 2 closed beta test for South Korea. As soon as I logged in, I wasted no time and recorded some footage just to show you guys how GunZ 2 looks in its current state. I got plenty to show and tell, but for now I have some early footage of the game's tutorial mode and first playthroughs with different classes.

Keep your eyes peeled on this post and/or my YouTube page as I'll be uploading GunZ 2 gameplay footage throughout the day, as well as my initial thoughts on the game once all my videos are up.

Just an update - 8/29

God damn, there's too many games on my radar this week! I've had my eye on a couple of upcoming F2P titles and it seems a whole lot of them are having their beta tests happen ON THE SAME WEEKEND!

First up: GunZ: the Second Duel. Even though I have very little knowledge of the Korean language, I decided to sign up for the Korean closed beta which will be happening tomorrow (I'm downloading the CBT client as I type this.) It seems that I was one of the lucky ones to get accepted, including Steparu who got access to the game with a bunch of media press accounts. I'm hoping that I'll get the chance to play with Steparu and a few other English speakers when CBT starts.

Also happening this weekend: A CBT for ArcheBlade. I've actually been tracking this game ever since I found alpha development videos on YouTube several months ago. It's touted as a 3rd person fighting game and fighting games are right up my alley. The game also seems to have some MOBA style gameplay modes, as well. Just today I found out that they're planning an international closed beta on August 30th.

Registration for the CBT happened on August 23rd with a set amount of keys that were sent out fairly quickly, and I wasn't able to snag one for myself. I decided to email the developers and see if they could hook me up with one, and they were nice enough to give me two keys instead of one. I'm not sure who I'll give the second key too, though.

Last up: Gamingo is having their CBT for their upcoming MMORPG: Otherland. It's a Sci-Fi and Fantasy inspired MMO based off Tad William's novels of the same name. I never read any of the Otherland books before, but the style and the vibe of the game looks incredibly breathtaking. The actual combat that I've seen from the GamesCom 2012 footage and from the Next-G 2012 footage, however, looks kinda dull and clunky. If nothing else, though, Otherland could end up being a really cool MMO to just hang around and socialize.

Well that's a whole bunch of titles that I wanna stick in before college begins. Not a bad way to end my summer, though.

I'm still bumping around TERA, even though my subscription was supposed to end on the 28th of this month, but I decided to stick around a bit longer as one of my in-game friends wanted to sell me a Chronoscroll for cheap. I'm really grateful to have met such nice people on the Celestial Hills RP-PVE server. If it wasn't for them, I would have quit this game months ago (I know I said that before, but I can't stress it enough. TERA is really in shambles right now.)

The Argon Queen update is nice, but I'm already burned out of it.  The new dungeons are fun for the first couple of runs, but then they just become another chore to deal with the enchantment slot-machines...

The new battlegrounds are fun, but the pick-up groups you have to deal with are freaking TERRIBLE. There's also a leader role in battleground matches where one player on each team is assigned as leader, and they get access to two special skills: One that temporarily scans the field for enemies, and another that spawns meteors at pointed locations. I gotten used to playing as a leader a lot and giving directions, and for awhile it was kinda fun, but overall it's such a fruitless job when most people on your team don't listen to a thing you say and the rest just bitch at you for making a bad call even though they're doing very little to help win the match.

I became sick of being the leader after dealing with so many hopeless players in pick-up groups, but yet the IMS LOVES sticking me as the leader, even if I don't select the "Able to lead the battle" option.

In addition to the "Able to lead the battle" checkbox, they should add a "Absolutely does not want to lead" checkbox.

I got some new outfits for my character in the past week, though. I got the T13 Nexus Chest and Glove pieces for my outfit, and let me just say the make my character look so damn classy. I wore this outfit when I was judging the Miss Velika contest and everyone said my character looked FABULOUS.

I also got my complete basic PvP armor set from doing battleground matches (Victor Set). Two of the pieces I got from the "Bounty of the Fray" eggs (Gloves and Boots) and the chest piece I purchased using my BG credits. I also got my enigmatic PvP sword yesterday (Adversarial Blade), since I went into HARDCORE MODE and played BG matches for 7 hours straight. The extra PvP damage you get from enchanting the sword is nice, but I hate the fact that I can't get an extra 8% attack speed on it like with the Nexus hybrid gear, since the bonuses are completely locked and can't be re-rolled. My attacks just feel too damn slow compared to my +7 Swarmsword with 16% attack speed, so with that in mind, I'm thinking I might just go and get the T13 Nexus Sword as well. I'm just hoping I won't have to do a lot of re-rolling to get 16% attack + extra PvP damage on it.

GunZ 2 - First CBT Test

MAIET is finally ready to unleash their stylish action shooter for the world to enjoy, and when I mean 'for the world', I mean South Korea only. GunZ: The Second Duel will be going into closed beta testing this month.

As preparation for the upcoming test, the official GunZ: TSD website is now live on Netmarble KR. The website showcases new screenshots and character demonstration videos of the latest build.

I took the liberty of re-recording the demo videos off the website and uploaded them onto YouTube for those that can't access them on the official website.

In regards of what's to be expected from CBT: They're planning on including a new duel and matchmaking system, as well as some interface changes from the VIP test build.

Closed beta sign-ups for GunZ: The Second Duel are currently going on now, with selected applicants being revealed on the 29th. Closed beta starts on August 30th and will be ending on September 2nd, with the game server being accessible from 4:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m (Korean Time)

Official website: http://gunz2.netmarble.net/

TERA (NA) - Log - 8/11

On the Saturday of August 11th, a player named Arrafina and members of the Empyrean Divine hosted a summer festival, and along with it, a dueling competition. (It was limited to LV60 players with T12 gear only)
I didn't think I would make it very far, but low and behold, I managed to win first place!

Picture from Kayuki's Art Book 

There was a good amount of variety in classes that were competing, including priests, zerkers and lancers. There was one lancer in particular that I was worried for, manly due to to the lancer's high defense and reflect damage, and I was hoping that my re-enigma'd Nexus gear would be enough.What I got when I re-engima'd was an  extra 8% attack speed and 3% player damage reduction (though I was shooting for reflect damage myself, but that was good enough.)

Along with that, my friends decided to lend me some PvP zyrk crystals to use (More player damage reduction.) When it was time to compete, I had up to 52% player damage reduction on my character.

My first match against a priest really put me on edge, because I didn't realize that the priest also had reflect damage on them. First round I managed to defeat the priest with some health to spare, but the second round ended in a tie due to getting defeated by reflect damage. Third round I ended up losing and thought that it was over, but a friend pointed out that it left us both with two wins each. Final round: My new plan was to simply shut the priest down as soon as possible before the priest could heal back up again. I managed to dodge most of the incoming fiery escapes and pulled off multiple knockdowns in a row. Defeated the priest and moved on to the next round.

That battle sure taught me that priests are just as much of a pain to deal with as lancers.

The next couple of matches weren't as difficult as battling the priest, though. I had to compete against a warrior and an archer. The warrior I fought was damn fast, but my attack speed was just as good. The archer was kind of a push over, even though they managed to land most of their shots.

I quickly became the fan favorite at that competition. Having so many people cheer for me was a great feeling. And I managed to gain a creepy elin admirer.

Last I heard: That elin changed her animal form from a rabbit to a squirrel because she couldn't bare the memory of me rejecting her... Such a crazy Elin... wanting to be with me for the sake of genetics... HA. (I'M SORRY FOR MAKING YOU CHANGE. FORGIVE ME ;_;)

Moving on... It came down to me and another priest with reflect damage. Just like the last priest I fought, I wanted to shut the player down as soon as possible. I also switched out my defense cruxs with HP regeneration cruxs to keep me going. I managed to win both matches flawlessly. So I won the competition and my reward: Armor Templates! (Not a very good prize, I know, but I was still grateful that I got it.)

Overall, the whole thing was a lot of fun. Some people are wondering if there will be a WinterFest competition... If it happens, I'll definitely show up.

TERA (NA) - Log - 8/2 to 8/8

OK! So in the past few weeks, a lot of crazy stuff happened to me in the world of TERA, with some expected and not so expected mishaps. First off, I went on another road trip with the travelers of Broken Compass to climb the mountains near Tulufan.

Why did we decide to go on a mountain climb? I'm not really sure, but I think one of them muttered something about trying to capture "whale magic" or something. So we went out, traveled up the mountain and it was all pretty boring at first, but once we reached the top we got to see some sky whales, up close and personal.

Just an update - 8/14/2012

Hello random viewers. I just giving a small update of what's been going on...

In the last couple of weeks, me and my brother have been given the opportunity to start our very on Let's Play series on MMOHut, which was proposed by one of the full-time staff members in the company. I was really excited for the whole thing, since I've always wanted to do a LP with my brother, and the banter that comes from me and my brother when we play video games is pretty hysterical, so I thought it would have been an excellent way to appease the subscribers of MMOHut that crave some entertainment to go with their gameplay videos.

Unfortunately, the MMOHut community did not take us in with very open arms. Due to the recent actions of a previous video commentary, the YouTube community for MMOHut is still in an uproar, and they're not willing to let anyone commentate unless it's coming from Omer, the previous owner of MMOHut, or "The other guy". The amount of negative feedback was pretty massive, and it left me a bit sad and depressed.

Almost a day after the video went up, I received word about management deciding to cancel our LP series (I guess since it was just one video, it was more of a "pilot" than a series at that point). It's understandable, though. There's way too much drama happening on MMOHut right now and it just doesn't seem like it's going to die down anytime soon. I really wanted to comment on the video me and my brother made from my own account just to say "Give us a chance!" but after reading the 50th "YOU GUYS SUCK BRING BACK OMER AND "the other guy" comment I just couldn't bare view the video anymore, and I'm usually thick skinned when it comes to direct criticism.

I will admit that it wasn't a great first try for a LP session, and I really do believe that the video could have been a lot better. The sound quality was off since I was messing with primary sound devices, and there was several interruptions and recording issues. We had to re-record three times, and by the time we did our 3rd recording, all the good material that we came up with was used up, and if we tried to re-use it, it would have just seemed a bit force on.

While the series has been cancelled on MMOHut, DizzyPW is looking to keep the series going by having it moved over to OnRPG. I really hope we get another shot and have a chance to do a much better job than last time.

For those that are wondering: The video we did was on SMITE, a 3rd Person MOBA game developed Hi-Rez Studios. You can look it up on MMOHut's YouTube channel and all that. I, kinda don't want to link it here myself. Still can't bare to re-view the video and see all those negative comments. *sigh*

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Anyway, what else has been going on for me? Well I have been looking forward to Gamescom, mostly for new character reveals for the upcoming Playstation All Stars: Battle Royale. I was expecting a really big character announcement due to all the hype building messages coming from the NeoGAF and /vg/ message boards. Instead, all we got was characters that were already mentioned in the previous roster leak: Spike from Ape Escape, Dante from Ninja Theory's DmC, Racket & Clack from their game series and Sackboy from LittleBigPlanet.

Not really interested in Sackboy or Racket & Clank, but Spike looks hella fun to play, even though I've never played an Ape Escape game in my life, and DmC Dante actually looks great in terms of how he plays out and has style cancels. As cool as he looks, I REALLY just wish they had went with classic Dante, instead. What I'm thinking is that SuperBot asked for regular old Dante, but Capcom gave them Ninja Theory's Dante instead, and since SuperBot is a new dev company and can't really go around pushing demands, it was either "Take it or leave it" for them.

I hope that SuperBot at least got permission to include a classic Dante skin as DLC, but Capcom would probably make people pay a lot for it.

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I'm actually getting back into doing some reviews: This month I'm reviewing Ghost Recon Online. I previously did an impressions video stating the games strengths and (many) weakness. Most of the issues I had with the game could easily be fixed, though.

Planetside 2 is having CBT sessions all this week, so I'm looking to get in a few games and see what all the buzz is about. I've always wanted to play a game like this because it reminds of of the Battlefield series but on a much larger scale.

Lastly, I'm currently on the fence about reviewing the recent Pyromania update for Team Fortress 2. I'm thinking it might be late to jump on it, but Valve just recently revealed their Mann vs. Machine update which is a 6-player co-op mode where players of both RED and BLU can work together and team up against robot versions of TF2 characters. Still on that fence whether I should go with the review or give it up to someone else, though.

 I might do another update post regarding my time spent on TERA, but that's all for now.

RaiderZ - Early Access Preview

MAIET, creators of the stylish third person shooter “GunZ: the Duel”, is back in action with a new MMORPG, and they’re looking to give a few AAA titles a run for their money.

RaiderZ is a massive multiplayer online role-playing game centered on the theme of hunting. It takes many nods from other action RPGs such as Capcom’s Monster Hunter, and while throwing in several unique features into the mix, all this and more as a F2P title curiosity of Perfect World Entertainment.

I previously had a chance to try out RaiderZ during its alpha phase a few months back, but I didn’t get very far into it due to some optimization issues and client bugs. Now with closed beta on the horizon, it was time to jump back in and give this game a proper walk through.

MMOHut - League of Legends Play Session

As some of you may already know: OnRPG and MMOHut are now sort of merging together as the company that owns both sites wants to combine viewership and communities. As a part of the new changes, the company is now looking to have me help out with "Let's Plays" and "First Look" sessions on the MMOHut YouTube channel.

I'm very excited, as well as very nervousness about this new opportunity. Mainly because I have to fill this shoes of another guy that was a popular commentator for MMOHut. Luckly, I won't be doing these videos alone, as I'll be doing them with my brother. I'm usually not very good at trying to commentate by myself, as I feel very awkward when speaking to myself during a recording, even though I know that I'm speaking for an audience. With my brother, I won't feel so awkward and I'll be able to speak out naturally, plus he's a pretty funny guy at times, so I'll be able to bring gameplay and info while he brings the energy and laughter, so I think it works out pretty well.

Sort of as an ice breaker for members of OnRPG and MMOHut to mingle with each other, we had a live session of League of Legends featuring DizzyPW, JamesBl0nde, ColbyCheeze and Omer from MMOHut. I didn't have much experience playing LoL or any DotA/MOBA game before, and the same went for my brother and James. Omer and DizzyPW had tons of experience, though. We played a bot match before the recording and did pretty well. The live match against real players, however... not so much.

Still, I had fun and so did everyone else.

TERA (NA) - Log - 7/14 to 7/21

I know that I haven't done one of these logs in awhile, but there has been a couple of events and activities that I participated in recently that I would really like to share with everyone! The month of July was filled with so much adventure and excitement that I'm hoping to have more of these experiences like these soon (before my subscription runs out, that is.)

On Saturday July 14th, Fiora Laurent of the High Elves Council held a fashion show in the Velika Outskirts dueling ring. I personally thought it was a weird place to host a fashion show, and figured it would have been better to have it hosted at the podium in one of the Velika Plazas, but whatever, I said. It was their event after all...

The contest was a bit long winded, as contestants were asked to bring two outfits: One formal and one other outfit of their choosing. Contestants were also required to ask questions regarding why they choice their outfits and what their favorite hobby was... I could understand asking the contestants about why they decided to go with the outfits they brought, but a question about your favorite hobby? I thought it was supposed to be a fashion contest, rather than some kind of beauty pageant...

Anyway, I wore my usual outfit as my formal one: The open chest cuirass with the rope binding in the middle, along with my new favorite outfit: The aviator suit!

I didn't have anything special to say about the suit, other than I wanted to make use of a gift (the aviator cap) that I got from working with Invasico for months.