f13.net

http://vindictus.nexon.net/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS1RdOsQqvE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93ZILvU7RDg&feature=fvst

A lot of gameplay vids on the tube if you want to check it out.

It's basically the western adaptation of the F2P Korean Mabinogi Heroes.  Uses the source engine.  Your typical combo hacker/slasher like 'Divine Souls' but likely with more polish, physics, and features with a slight touch of reality and better graphics.

You can scrape keys off of massively or mmorpg.com or I have two extra that came with mine.  PM me for them.
Havent seen an NDA yet but "OB" opens on the 15th of Sept.  Maybe one will pop up then, but doubtful.  So likely we may speak freely.

Enjoy!

Looks interesting, I'll check it out.

I've already given my two keys away to the SA keychain, but I'm sure a key chain can get started here. For each person that gets into the beta that launches on the 15th, they receive two keys to give to others. Those two people each receive two keys to give away.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ3VaA1dD-A

I have a key sitting in a PM box in another forum for later.  I'm gonna get this up and running tonight.  If I get additional keys I'll let you guys know.

I would be interested, that combat looks fun, the rest. who knows.

Rock out.  First come, first served.

It's basically Dungeon Fighter Online, but with third-person hack and slash combat. I played in Closed Beta and at E3.

YMMV, but it's kind of fun. Very polished UI, but playing alone is kind of lonely. Netcode was not great in closed beta.

I have one key left

Scroll up/down for perhaps more keys from others.
Additional thoughts on this:
I played quite a bit of "Warrior Epic" and I always thought that a strong studio with a better vision could take a similar type game much further, which was pretty much the sentiment for every single other WarriorEpic player in that game. i.e. they were ALL waiting for Vindictus and those who were testing it verified it was a much better game.

Sooo, I'm looking forward to this.  BUT, much like WarriorEpic - the game blows ass w/o a good party.  And when I say good I dont just mean skillwise.  You need people who are good at breaking the monotony of repeated quest runs, as this whole game is centered around gear churn.  Essentially a dollhouse game.

Thank you Ghambit.

To return the favour to others,  here are two more keys:

What are those codes for?  I just setup an account w/o one.

Some sort of beta starting tomorrow ont he 15th.

You can set up a Nexon account, but need to the code to register for the beta afaik.

/Spoiler it so lurkers and key-googlers dont grab it.

Edit:  :oh_i_see:

I have one for the folks who need it:

Gonna need one. I'll see if I can log a key from work. Just not sure where to log it in my account. I'll check after lunch.

1 to give away.

Servers are up... patching now

I'll be on TS3 (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=19679.0)

Got that key registered!  Thank you!  Where do I get the free ones to give away so I can hand it out to whoever here needs one?

Once you register, you should get an e-mail with 2 more keys in it.

This game is fun.  I like it.

I grabbed somebody's key in here so here are mine:

That doesn't help :awesome_for_real:

For how long tho?

Used this one. Thanks.

I played for an hour.  Then I made dinner.  Grouping with people turns the game into a slideshow kinda.  You can still play decently though.

The crafting and the combat are the only compelling things about this game, but they are enough, and I'm having a lot of fun.

+1 to more than 2 people making the game a slideshow.

Which is why I will be giving my keys to the first two people to PM me.

Probably won't be until later today that I send them out (Unless I hear from people in 15 mins), because I'm headed out and was setting this to download while I was gone.

Apparently grouping uses peer to peer so other people can lag you out.   :oh_i_see:  Except for you're the host/party leader of course.

That combat is way too exciting and fun.  They really need to tone it down to FFXIV speeds so I can get my ironing done while I MMO

I only received on PM<<<< so I still have a single code available... If I haven't received a PM overnight (again with possible delayed response from me) I will drop the code into the thread here for the google spammers and lurkers to possibly take.

Probably won't get to fire it up until tomorrow, but the download size was relatively small, and averaged a pretty decent speed for the install.

Do not forget to list your screename so you can y'know, be found in the damned game.

I got 2 keys in my email. Just PM me for them.

I'm playing as "Boggle".

Server too.

In as Golgothan on the west server.

Also, I've got two keys available if someone from here wants one.  Just send me a PM.

Ok, I'm gonna have to go to their tech support to see if I can find out what is going on.  Everytime after I click the race/class I want to play it starts to try and load another screen and it says "Serer connection lost..." or something like that.  So damn annoying!

I've got 2 keys - PM me for them.

I'm enjoying the game so far. I can see where I'll eventually get frustrated with it though. This random quest drop off boss mobs so you have to run the instance again and again is just a pain. I've killed that named wisp 7 or so times and even with 3 drops per kill, still no heart.

Looks like this comes with Pando Media Booster of LOTRO fame. All of a sudden I'm having second thoughts about installing the client...

I've been enjoying it, however I can see the difficulty really ramping up like the old Mabinogi.  The last couple of dungeons for the first arc get hairy.  Title collection is both fun and useful.

The combat is one of the best things to come out of an MMO, though, and makes me really look forward to GW2.

I play on East as Fleisshausen.

I now have two keys, PM me if you need (thanks Climbjtree!).

Edit: Both now gone

Pick me! Pick me!

I am a sucker for open betas!  :awesome_for_real:

East Server:  "Siulung"
West Server:  "Ghambit"

This game is crackity.  I especially like what they did with the dungeons in regards to scaling.  Sure, you run them more than once many times, but each experience feels subtly different, largely due to party size, some random generation, and difficulty settings. The Titles (which give kickass stats for you stat-whores) make things a lot more appealing and the "oaths of honor" are a nice mechanic.  Overall, the most polished game of this type.  You want a slick, simple actiony dungeon-runner mmo, this does the job pretty well.

The mission meeting area is simple genius.  Not only do you get to practice skills you've just learned and get to know your teammates, but you can buy/sell items, AND most importantly test your P2P connections.  In this sense I've never had a laggy mission because if I find a party with ping issues I just back out.  I've been in 5-mans with perfect ping.

Quests are my biggest concern.  Right now it's pretty entertaining (short-sweet dialog, simple goals, and varied)  and they've obviously spent a lot of time sewing everything together, but down the road I'm afraid that things will tail off pretty substantially.  We'll see.

One question:  anyone figured out how to 'reprocess' yet?  I have the feeling they havent implemented it.  I've got a billion spiked-clubs to breakdown.

Have an extra Beta key - PM me for it.   

Key gone. On west server as Veredus

I'd assumed 'reprocess' was fancy talk for 'can be used in crafting' (I think I used spiked clubs to make a better longsword) - that not the case?

I'm not really sure what went wrong, but I'm actually having fun with this title.  It's not quite a time investment of a full MMO, yet I don't quite feel like I'm wasting my time on a F2P.  It's fun in doses.

FYI bagspace:  You get another bag (from Aodhan I think) as a reward when completing the Veterans Raiment Set, around lvl 10 I guess.
And the more I play this the more I get the feeling of a stripped down, simpler DDO that you can just fire up and play randomly (albeit the dungeons here are so far pretty weakly designed; it's all about the mobs).

Anyone gotten further into the game and seen longer, more complex level design?

I would like to hear more about the combat.

Hm. I got a key now (thanks Ragnoros), but I can't creat a new "passport". The site simply refreshes after me clicking "done" and the verification code changes...  :headscratch:

edit: Got it working, needed another email-adress, gishpuppy was not accepted.

I'm not as familiar with the games that it is designed after, but it feels to me more like a console hack and slash action game.  It also has a Diablo "kill lots of enemies, break boxes, get loot" feel to it as well.  Build combos, execute finishers.  It's simple, but really well done. 

This one is supposed to launch as F2P, right?

*sighs*

Now I can't log in... "Authentication failed. Please try again later."

It's because i am from Europe, isn't it ?

I believe it's always to be F2P.  I think there may be a limiting factor for how many dungeons you can do a day freely and you have to buy passes.

I want to play the spellcaster.

Have you played the original Mabinogi before?  It's very similar but a 3rd person over the shoulder perspective.

You hit what your sword swings through.  Attacks are chains.  LB+RB, LB+LB+RB, LB+LB+LB+RB+RB, etc.  You can also do grabs, which have context sensitive tosses, kicks.  Lann has dodges.  Fiona has guard and rolls.  Evie, the magic user isn't released yet.  Secondary weapons can do stuns or holds.

Minions are mostly fodder, but a lot of fun to beat up.  Bosses are much more challenging, though I find they get repetative, and can easily wipe the floor with you if you're not careful.

Lots of destructable objects, which can also be used as weapons.

This one? (http://mabinogi.nexon.net/)

Very briefly, I found the controls kinda clumsily.

They're cleaned it up a lot.  WASD, Left Mouse, Right Mouse, E for grab/use, R for kick (sometimes Right Mouse will do this for you), Space for guard and dodge, and F for thrown.

'Tyssa summed it up pretty well.  You do also have a hotbar though with a slew of traditional stuff you can use like pots, res agents, spells, secondary weapons like spears, bombs, chainhooks, etc.  When you get further in the game, you DO die a lot and have to develop contingencies to handle this, like armor repair kits and res. agents, etc.  Anyone can resurrect a partymember as long as they have a feather.  You cant resurrect urself unless you have the 'Grace of a God.'  Which are earned I believe.

What's truly unique about this game (in this particular genre) is the destructable world.  Most everything can be used as a weapon, including mobs (whether alive or dead).  If it cant be used as a weapon, it can be destroyed and THEN used as a weapon (including mobs, which turn into stone many times).

Also, there is indeed mining/crafting within the dungeons if u have the right tools (bombs I believe that blow up the rock to get to the ore vein).  At low levels stuff is so cheap though that it's a waste of time to do.

Combat itself is mostly mindless combo-button mashing (for melee that is).  The real test comes with positioning (there is no tab-targeting), timing (mostly with dodge and picking up objects), STA mitigation, and aim both in melee and ranged.  Down the road you gain skills that'll give you stunlocks, aoe, etc. if executed properly.  Battlepoints are largely dependent on DPS, so getting good at doing dmg. is very important.  And said BP is used to generate certain titles and rewards.

AP is spent on skills (there's an assload of them) which generates over time as you play and a bit whilst offline with the meditation skill.  You also earn them in some ways and as you lvl.  

Lastly, they've done a masterful job in capturing the 'bling' feel everyone wants.  There's ALWAYS something going on advancement-wise.  There is very little grindy feel because of this, even when you're clearly grinding a dungeon.  Seems like every 2 seconds there's a shinay in your face or some such dramatic music/sound-effect denoting a reward.  And what downtime there is becomes spent fooling with crafting or buying/selling gear on the marketplace... which most of the time generates yet more blingy sounds and shinay.

I'm sure this will tail off as the lvls pile up, but so far it hasnt for me up to lvl 10 and given the shear volume of story-quests and titles there are to get it's doubtful it'll wear off any time soon.  And of course, if things get slow I can always pop Hard or Hero mode and throw in 'Season of Ganesh' or wtf is it called, which makes bossmobs near gods....  things get REAL tense then.  BP, rewards, and XP scale of course so you get what you earn in this sense.

And yes, there is a Raid Mode... but I'm nowhere near fooling with that yet.  Anyone else have?

Some of the dungeons have had bits of fun design. There's a rope bridge you have to run across before the kobolds cut it, have seen some group mates fall. There's a narrow bridge with a series of logs swinging back and forth that'll knock you off unless you avoid or break them. There's sloped passages with boulders tumbling down them you have to dodge on your way up. There are big crushing engines you have to avoid or get steamrolled. Not really prince of persia level platforming, but fun. Double tap movement key to run. Didn't find that out for a while and got smushed a few times.

I like the pick up just about anything and use it as a weapon. Throw an gnoll into a pillar, pillar breaks, pick up a chunk of stone and smack the gnoll over the head with it.

They need to tone down the realistic physics of the coin/health gem drops though. Break a pot and the coin flies across the room like you punted it. Gets annoying to have to track them down.

My preference is to throw a gnoll into other gnolls.  The over-the-shoulder toss never gets old.  Also the smashing a gnoll into a wall then either body checking it or scraping its face off.

I do indeed get tired of killing gnolls.  The killing is fun.  The fact that they're gnolls every time is blah.
I enjoy the coin/health gem drops though - it's like a minigame... "Find the loot"

Does this have talent trees or any skill customization to speak of?

I know you can train skills with points.  I don't know if it's limited though or how they work with pre-reqs.

Like the original Mabinogi, Skills are on a 16 point system.  Ranks F-A, 9-0.  (I'm not sure if they actually go to 0 in either game.  Only went to 6 when I played the original.)

Besides XP, you get AP which you spend towards the skills of your choice.  Your general skills follow a progression of 30, 50, 90, ... AP.  Most probably have further restrictions, such as I can't raise guard from B to A until I am level 20.  You can have a maximum of 100 AP at any time, so you need to make sure you spend it when available.

Does the game have the forced grouping mechanism that DDO had where you pretty much have to have a full group to get anything done?  I stopped after the tutorial mission because that's what it looked like to me.  If that's the case, I can't imagine trying to do this without a fixed group.

I've soloed everything except one double-boss mission.  It might be possible since enemies can hit one another, I just haven't tried.  Duo made the final two bosses of the first area much easier (level 1-10 dungeons).  Once past that, I was able to solo again.  Grouping seems like it's really easy, but people scare me.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of people either, but if I can duo with my wife, it might be reasonable.  I liked both DDO and Mabinogi, and this really feels like a blend of the two ideas.  I swear even trying to get 3 of my friends organized to do things these days in games is like pulling teeth though.

More tidbits:
-BP actually is cumulative, not earned in just one sitting.  So, unlike other games of this type, when you replay dungeons you're adding to your overall BP, not just what you earned in the one battle.  [edit: apparently difficulty has no bearing on BP, unless it's broken] BP has nothing to do with dmg. output during a mission.
-AP and/or XP MAY be dependent on dmg. output... but not sure as of yet
-Grouping isnt forced since mobs scale dependant on group size.  I've fought a hard-macha solo and pwned him... but, gotten pwned in a group of 4.
-Macha only effects the boss mob it seems whilst hard effects minions

Anyone still have a key? This sounds interesting enough to give a shot. PM me if so. Thanks in advance.

Grouping gets to be necessary imo. Multiple boss fights start becoming more common. Had a group of 4 but 2 dropped so it was 2 vs 3 boss mobs. We won, but it was touch and go. Technically if you're perfect in exploiting their patterns you could whittle them down solo, but you only have an hour per mission.

BP (Battle Points) comes from completing mission conditions: win with no potions, get a certain boss drop, etc. You can choose one, Oath of Honor, the otherd are specific to the mission.  Completing these objectives gives you money or xp as well.

Loved the over the shoulder toss during the Friends mission. Had a group of like ten gnoll vets chasing me, grab the lead and throw him into the pack. Much fun.

This is actually kinda fun, combat is different and I like that I can do a dungeon in a half hour or so. I can see it getting repetitive but for the last 2 hours it's been enjoyable.

I've now moved into the next zone (storyline).

Once the next chapter starts, you start having to deal with tokens (it's generally two coins per boatride, but if you use the boat too often for one place [per day] the fee increases).  There's meta involved with this obviously and I anticipate the RMT will come into play here.  Coins can be had as rewards, but also for turnins such as 'dedication seals,' which you typically get as rewards for resurrecting someone.  You get a weekly allotment, but obviously it'll be peanuts since for now you can only hold a max. of 50 silver tokens.  So 25 runs per week plus whatever they give you (whatever that is).

Definitely need groups for SOME boss fights, like the 'Revenge' fight when you're dealing with 2 bosses (one ranged and one melee)... but, to me there's always a way to handle them solo.  You can pop +dmg pots, use gods graces, stronger secondaries, spec more for solo play, and so on.  Plus an hour is a helluva long time to clear a dungeon.

Do the AP rewards get toned down in the second zone? I seem to be only getting like 10-15 AP per instance now, when I was getting 30-40.

AP is goal dependant typically.  Otherwise you need to work on your Meditate skill (which generates AP passively).  Feels like there are more goals in the 2nd zone so I guess there's that.  One thing with this game is you really have to pay attention to the required goals (and alternate goals) in each battle along with titles/quests you may get (which can also give AP).  For instance, if you need to kill the Chieftain via spear, make sure you do so.  If you need "x" amount of BP in a zone, run it enough times to get it and you may get AP, etc.  (although as of now, I've not a single quest that gives AP)

Hey I got 2 beta keys to give away! PM me and i'll get back to you as soon as possible.

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/82533/Futurama_Fry_Looking_Squint.jpg)

"Scruffy's work here is done."

FYI, for those on the fence about trying this OB due to burnout or character loss:  There will be no wipes from here on out.... ever (even post-release).  They'll slowly introduce new characters, but whatever chars. you now have you will keep.  Why they're doing this with no payment model in place is beyond me, unless the content they intend to churn out will keep people interested.

I will say I'm starting to get a bit burnt in the 2nd zone, mainly due to playing with strangers.  It's rarely fun and it seems most people dont go for some real, challenging teamplay.  Many less folks doing hard and macha in the next zones... dumb seeing as how your tokens go much further if you're gaining 'hard' xp.

Finally got started; having some fun so far. What does BP do? Should I be replaying every mission trying to get all the side objectives, or just blowing through them?

I believe BP is what you use to increase your skills.  You get bonus BP from doing the extra bits for the instances, like completing it with only 2 people, or under a certain time, etc.  I forget what those are called atm.

They're called Oaths of Honor. But, you use AP to improve your skills, not BP.

BP is just used to make goals in a quest or sub-mission and to make the pre-requisite to do the next battle zone.

Wow, I wish I knew that. I had been farming every mission for every silly little goal because I assumed BP were useful.

Well, most of the "silly goals" also give XP.

Yea, but I feel pretty over-leveled; I'm 4 levels or so ahead of the level of my quest zones.

CB ending on the 5th.  OB starting on the 13th.  Here's what's in store for the OB.  (quite a list of cool things they're adding) (http://vindictus.nexon.net/News/Content.aspx?boardNo=100&contentNo=009eu)

Of note; guilds, another town, more character customization, and weapon 'slotting.'

No new character class yet? SON I AM DISAPPOINT.

OB started today with the new features (http://vindictus.nexon.net/News/Content.aspx?boardNo=100&contentNo=009nb&pageIndex=1) discussed.  Also, microtrans is now active (avatar and supply shop) and there's now voice chat.

Uhm. Can't play. No matter what I do, once I get to the menu where it says "START GAME", it goes to "Disconnected from server, please log in from webpage again".

Perhaps it's an NA only OB.  You're from the Planet Irata.

Oh? That would be so inconvenient.  :heartbreak:

Can you log in no problem, even now?

EDIT: Yeah, North America only. Fuck your planet.

Briefly plaid this last night, seems solid, nicely polished and some great visuals. Combat is rather fun, if a bit to get used to. Some of the systems confuse me, but I only played for an hour.

It gets brutal later.  Soloing the Gnoll Chieftain is :uhrr:.

Have I said how much I enjoy this combat system?

The combat system is pretty neat, but the game leaves more to be desired in the difficulty and depth realms, unless you solo.  The moment you get grouped the dungeons get way too easy - at least up until the 3rd zone... which I havent tried yet.   So far, I think the reality is the dungeons arent actually the highlight of the game.  The itemization and skills are.

Yeah, a couple people throwing spears and you can stunlock bosses. But you don't even need to go that far. Solo is much more challenging, especially as I move into Ainle and learn the new bosses' patterns.
I'm enjoying the game and the storyline is decent so far.

Cash shop is  :uhrr: though. Things like new hairstyles and new underwear are rental only. Maybe I was doing it wrong but dying equipment was pay (in game not $) money for a random dye.

I did a nextflix trial and tossed them $5 to get enough nx to pick up a permanent inventory addition. Omg, so many components, so many drops and you don't know what you're gonna need.

It's not going to keep my attention long, but grabbing shit by the neck and then skull fucking them 7 ways to Sunday is awesome. 

And I prefer throwing rocks at bosses.  Those things hurt more than swords, apparently.

you have to rent your underwear?

The only thing of worth int he shop is the + storage and perhaps some of the self revives. Everything else I don't care about and or is fluff.

This is far more fun than it has any right to be. Though I can feel some grind setting in about halfway through the second area. Gear ingredient drops and such make for shitty armor upgrade paths, and I seem to be short on level to advance the main quest. And that's with going back and doing a bunch of the first area a number of times (soloing the chieftan is fun! It just involves throwing a small building at him. Kobolds with slingshots? FAR more annoying to solo)

Gnoll chieftain is one big grind wrapped up in a single encounter.  Fucking jesus.  He's not hard, but you have to fucking pink him to death or play some retard stone throwing game.

Every end chapter boss seems to be "run around, hit with giant rock, melee him for one combo, repeat for a solid two minutes"

My main issues with the game are the grind for some gear, and the absolutely absurd lag some peers give me.

Also: gnoll chieftain on hard mode with season of macha = lawl, was NOT expecting to get oneshot by his AE from full health.

Or use hooks from two people to hold him down.


Oh yes. Hopefully your entire group was not caught like one of mine the other night.



It dawned on my the other night what may explain Gambits perceived "difficulty" issues. While the combat system is fun, utility based (and by that i mean its not just different named "skills" with increasing numbers and different particle FX). The game lacks its other classes at this time, and as most games do, likely do not have the mirror classes for MOBS on the other side that math as well. I have yet to see a caster. The inclusion of ranged magic will greatly change how encounter go.

/end likely simple revelation

ANYWAY. I would love to do some full group stuff in this. If anyone will be on tonight, give Grimst a shout.

Is there talk of more viable ranged mobs?  I hope so.  Game is just too easy; but maybe I'm just overleveled and geared.  I tend to be a min-maxer, gearjunkie, xp whore...  so typically in any RPG I'm grossly OP (and I dont skip missions).  I will say towards the later parts of the 2nd zone if you dont start spamming heals you WILL die a lot.  And if you dont repair armor and/or lay a campfire, likewise.

Granted, if they made the game more difficult overall then they'd have to adjust the BP requirements otherwise things would indeed get too grindy.  Right now, at least it's not hard to wail through a map in under 5 mins.

Our version is apparently missing 3 classes. (http://www.vindictuswiki.com/wiki/Portal:PCs)

They show up in the char select as "Coming Soon".

Evie is going live in the US on the 27th of this month, apparently.

And also gone live is........


Silver tokens now refresh on Monday and Friday. Meaning you can now run roughly 50 instances a week without shelling out cash for gold tokens.

The forum rage on this "misc balance changes" note to the patch is.. hilarious. It pretty much forces the game into "I'll barely play and won't touch your cash shop" territory. Which is sad, because it's an absolutely wonderful game hidden under an absolutely insane microtransaction system. Seriously, 30 day cosmetic "rentals"?

There's a ranged vampire type in boat 3. Throws a fireball with a nasty dot. Some bosses get a version as well. Difficulty ramps up a bit. Vampires and goblins finish their attack animation unless you hit them early, traded hits a bit before I got used to it. Vampires actually run instead of the slow gnoll shuffle.

Could still use some more difficulty on the minion end, bosses are ok I think.

Evie (caster type) comes out the 27th. No word when the remaining two will be added.

Part of the minion issue is that they get interrupted by anything, and that season of macha doesn't increase their damage at all.

That seems to only apply to the boss.

MrBloodworth, you are so failing at news recently. Every time I see this topic updated I think it's you finally telling me it is going to be available to Europeans, and everytime you disappoint me. Not cool, buddy.

 :cry:

If you want to play and you're not in the states, all you have to do is use a proxy to log in and get to the character select screen. Once you're there, kill the proxy (for latency reasons) and you should be able to play like normal.

No, I cannot help you find a US based proxy.

Oh. I knew about proxies, but I had no idea you could "kill it" on the fly. Wow, cool. Thank you.

Rumor is the Korean normal is equal to either our macha or maybe even hard macha. My first death was a hair from level 20 on the Goblin Chieftain at macha. It and the polar bear only thing that have gotten me so far.

They're offering a chance to bitch at devs irl. Dare you step from behind the forums?

 http://vindictus.nexon.net/News/Content.aspx?boardNo=100&contentNo=009uA&pageIndex=1 (http://vindictus.nexon.net/News/Content.aspx?boardNo=100&contentNo=009uA&pageIndex=1)

Evie (the caster girl) is now playable. Might actually fire this up again now.

http://vindictus.nexon.net/News/Content.aspx?boardNo=100&contentNo=009vt

They also pretty much reverted the token changes. It's now reset 3 times a week, and you have 150 tokens. That was a fast fix to the pretty much ghost town the game had become in a lot of instances.

I found the reaction to the previous token system a little odd. This game does not feel like something most would play enough every day to go through a ton of tokens. It is fun to do a few missions every day but how many times can you repeat the same content?

If you're leveling, it's easy to burn 50 tokens in 2 days due to the required grinding of content for items (crafted gear is the only option, and the mats are usually absurd) and the increased token costs after 6 missions.

Basically it was causing people to play for 2 hours one or two nights, then not play until the end of the week.

Again:
Decrease the token requirements (or increase allowance OR balance the turn-in requirements for tokens), lower the BP requirements, adjust the loot tables, and increase the difficulty.  Done.
As much as they said they were westernizing this game and it'd be nothing like Mabinogi, a Korean MMO is Korean it seems.   :oh_i_see:

Their main goal should be to AT LEAST maintain the playerbase till max level (no matter how long it takes to get there).  So far it doesnt seem like they're willing to do that.
Great game, great premise, badly executed - again.  Fuck's sake there's still only 3 toons to play and the game like RELEASES today yes?   :facepalm:

I wish they'd mentioned it was IP blocked to be US only a little more prominently. Downloaded to experiment with it and getting "response delayed from server". Only on the forums did they mention I might as well have not bothered. And no, not motivated enough to use a VPN.

Oh well, Vindictus -> trash basket.

NECROH!


In the meantime, this game got released in Europe on the European Nexon (http://vindictus.nexoneu.com/) website. It's open, free, and everything. And honestly, I think it's quite an awesome game. Not the deepest one, but so damn fun.

The prologue and the Title Screen/Opening Theme are awesome, best I've seen in a "mmo" ever?

It is quite fun, gameplay wise. It's just that at higher levels there is a truly insane grind to get the components you need to craft your next set of equipment. I needed like 5 thorns from some mob. Killed like 100 of them, not a single drop. 1/day runs against the larger boss mobs like Titan and you need dozens of things he might drop.  Pisses me off thinking about how they ruined such an otherwise fun game. Loved countering mobs and shield smacking them across the room with my Fiona.

Yeah I can see where they are going with the grind. I wonder how they could have made it any different. After all, it's a Diablo clone with Final Fight combat style and deluded dreams of Demon's Souls grandeur, and for all I can remember Diablo is one of the grindest game ever even though we didn't really use the word at the time.

I don't remember mashing buttons in Diablo.

How come? Were you playing it with a steering wheel?

I didn't mind rerunning missions and the boss fights. It stayed fun. It was just that I could spend a couple hours playing and have made zero progress towards collecting the components needed for my next set. I'm currently playing Dragon Nest, another Nexon game, similar format; action combat with small groups or solo running instanced dungeons. It's only had one or two places that made me curse the drop rate, and that was just me being stat hungry as the rarer stuff was not really all that much better than the common drop equipment. Unlike Vindictus where there's only the rare, low drop rate stuff to upgrade to.

I am gonna try Dragon Nest. I am enjoying Rusty Hearts a good amount, but Vindictus (available on Steam, that's cool) kind of wiped it away. I wonder how it is the drop rate there.

Yeah, I've been playing a lot of Dragon Nest also lately.  I find it more enjoyable than Vindictus.  This is also one of the few cases where the cash shop doesn't get in the way of playing the game, either in necessary items or in price.  Give the pvp a try once you get to 10 if you're at all interested in that.  It's actually a lot more reasonably done than most other MMO's, since it doesn't really scale off your gear or level, everyone gets boosted in stats, and you generally survive longer than 2 seconds.

Dragon Nest is, alas, not available in Europe yet.
I am loving Vindictus, though. I can see where this will go, with the mindless repetition, but so far (level 21) it's a joy. The Source engine is half the fun, the other half is the visuals, clothing and all.

What I miss is PvP. Where the hell is it? Isn't this game Korean?

*Presses play*

Wut?

Well do you live in either fictional country? No? Then it's not FOR you.

I played the beta for this some time ago.  Its fun enough, but it didn't strike me as having a lot of staying power.

Total Biscuit is streaming the game right now:  www.twitch.tv/totalbiscuit

Oh, glad I saw this before I went looking for a download, same as Vindictus then. I read the forums which are full of the usual, "good, don't lag our servers" but can't tell if it's the normal retardation or they actually are client hosting some of the instances. I assume the first.

Vindictus? Second. Not sure about the other thing. But Vindictus is quite peer to peer, connection quality wise.

From Wikipedia:


Seriously?

According to the same article:


Does it mean that the American version doesn't have jumping, or the combo system? Seriously?

Or, is there anything in this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TABX4NQheI) that is not in the NA version?

For those outside the US and Canada wanting to give Dragon Nest a go you can play on the SEA version http://dn.cherrycredits.com/ (http://dn.cherrycredits.com/). It's still in open beta and last I time I played you could only level to 20ish. Ping is a bit of an issue but it's still playable enough.

We have combos but we cannot jump nor can we knock monsters into the sky.

I see. I also read that your characters walk, and when you use the key to make them run they consume stamina, which makes sense. It sounds a lot more Demon's Souls, and that should be good, but for some reason I don't think I'd like such a version of the game considering that you spend most of the time re-running the same instance over and over. The faster the better.

I probably missed the "harder" Premier edition, but I feel like I'm happier with the Extreme.

Our version is supposed to be "harder" but it's definitely slow paced compared to XE.    It has combo's but they aren't like the XE version either.

The combat system was already interesting, but the XE sounds like even more fun.

Just tried Dragon Nest, and I would have appreciated it... if I didn't find Vindictus first. I am all for "cute" stuff, and I am sure (according to what PalmTrees and Ard said) that it has more longevity and less repetition than the Nexon game, but I am still having tons of fun by hacking, slashing and smashing everything within the Source engine and physics, and at the moment I can't feel the appeal of another plastic anime-ish world, as opposed to the bloody destructability and ultraviolence of Vindictus.

That said, aside of the difficulty, I wonder if I am laking it so much due to the Extreme version. I understand the concept of the original one, but if I try to picture the game I am playing now without jumps or constant running, it feels like a major nerf to fun.

Thanks for that link, had never heard of them and there looks to be a bunch of interesting Asian titles. Just a shame Australian internet still mostly focuses on connecting to the US.

Rather decent update.

Vindictus Episode 9: Song of Doom trailer  (http://youtu.be/K0HRK5SzRrw?hd=1)