Mabinogi

[schild]

http://mabinogi.nexon.net/

Not feeling witty, here's some PR:

March 1, 2008 – Los Angeles, CA – Nexon America Inc., the U.S. division of Asia’s leading online entertainment company Nexon Group, delivers the open beta for Mabinogi, its free-to-play, massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), on March 5. Slated for release later this spring, users can create their own personal “Fantasy Life,” by signing up for the open beta during an exclusive 24-hour play period at FilePlanet.com or afterward at http://mabinogi.nexon.net.

Open beta users will tap into a world that has already birthed a civilization of more than seven million fans in Asia, and will retain these characters through the commercialization of the game. With over 30,000 users signing up for the recent closed beta, the open beta should prove a similar success providing players an opportunity to discover a beautiful 3-D, cell-shaded art style, featuring anime-type characters and gruesome monsters.

The open beta delivers users numerous new areas to visit, including more dungeons to explore. It also offers North American players a first chance to burrow into new game skills such as cooking, enchanting, meditation and composing music.

These are just the first phases of Mabinogi’s deep, online universe, where players experience all facets of fantasy life. Dazzling 3-D graphics boast an art style based in Celtic and Welsh mythology, which also gives Mabinogi its name and foundation. Mabinogi provides a new experience with its gameplay variety, unique combat system and orderly time element and age component, to provide additional depth to Nexon’s latest free-to-play offering. In addition to traditional MMO features – challenging adventures, exciting group quests and a plethora of fearsome monsters – Mabinogi offers a much fuller “life” for its players. Players can increase experience by taking jobs, such as cooking, shearing sheep or other farming duties. The game’s unique music program allows users to write and share music in MIDI formatted files.

Mabinogi’s traditional mouse and keyboard functions unite with its distinctive combat, and anthology of game-play styles, that should excite the most hardcore gamers. Players will also quickly discover Mabinogi requires more finesse and strategy during combat than just pushing a few buttons and haphazardly attacking everything in sight. The unique fighting system, which emulates paper, rock, scissors, adds another degree of complexity. Characters develop skills in three categories— Combat, Life, and Magic—so users can not only gain experience by fighting a giant spider but also by cooking dinner and learning a new spell. Players acquire Ability Points as they gain experience in the game to help show progression. This gives players more freedom to play Mabinogi however they choose.

Additionally, Mabinogi’s time is standardized, allowing for users who play longer to earn different “daily” bonuses as incentives. Plus, avatars age on a weekly basis and get taller as they get older (up to 17). Avatars gain ability points up to the age of 25 as well. Plus, players will see their avatars’ diet affect appearance.  Mabinogi also features a long-term storyline that is revealed over a series of generations and weaves its way throughout the game. Using these unique features, as well as the heavy socialization aspect present in all of Nexon’s games, gives Mabinogi a unique placement in the world of MMOs. And like Nexon’s previous offerings, the game is free to play. 

Interested players can learn more at http://mabinogi.nexon.net.

[Yegolev]

[Signe]

I played the beta.  It was, much to my unsurprise, very cute.

[IainC]

I have a beautiful copy of the Mabinogion illustrated by Alan Lee. It's glorious and my favourite part is this excerpt from the story of Owain.

King Arthur was at Caerlleon upon Usk; and one day he sat in his chamber; and with him were Owain the son of Urien, and Kynon the son of Clydno, and Kai the son of Kyner; and Gwenhwyvar and her hand-maidens at needlework by the window. And if it should be said that there was a porter at Arthur's palace, there was none. Glewlwyd Gavaelvawr was there, acting as porter, to welcome guests and strangers, and to receive them with honour, and to inform them of the manners and customs of the Court; and to direct those who came to the Hall or to the presence-chamber, and those who came to take up their lodging.

   In the centre of the chamber King Arthur sat upon a seat of green rushes, over which was spread a covering of flame-coloured satin, and a cushion of red satin was under his elbow.

   Then Arthur spoke, "you gief itam now plx" said he, "I go afk, you get itamz or i pk u kk?" And the King went to sleep. And Kynon the son of Clydno asked Kai for that which Arthur had promised them. "^^" said Kai. ":(" answered Kynon, "you gief itam i am noob" So Kai went to the kitchen and to the mead-cellar, and returned bearing a flagon of mead and a golden goblet, and a handful of skewers, upon which were broiled collops of meat. Then they ate the collops and began to drink the mead. "Now," said Kai, "you givf itam!" "Kynon," said Owain, "noob he pk u" ":(," said Kynon, "I am noob, i no have itam" "you givf" quoth Owain, "now plx" "kk" answered Kynon.

[Draegan]

Bob Sagat always makes me laugh.

Nice touch.

[Modern Angel]

I have a beautiful copy of the Mabinogion illustrated by Alan Lee. It's glorious and my favourite part is this excerpt from the story of Owain.

King Arthur was at Caerlleon upon Usk; and one day he sat in his chamber; and with him were Owain the son of Urien, and Kynon the son of Clydno, and Kai the son of Kyner; and Gwenhwyvar and her hand-maidens at needlework by the window. And if it should be said that there was a porter at Arthur's palace, there was none. Glewlwyd Gavaelvawr was there, acting as porter, to welcome guests and strangers, and to receive them with honour, and to inform them of the manners and customs of the Court; and to direct those who came to the Hall or to the presence-chamber, and those who came to take up their lodging.

   In the centre of the chamber King Arthur sat upon a seat of green rushes, over which was spread a covering of flame-coloured satin, and a cushion of red satin was under his elbow.

   Then Arthur spoke, "you gief itam now plx" said he, "I go afk, you get itamz or i pk u kk?" And the King went to sleep. And Kynon the son of Clydno asked Kai for that which Arthur had promised them. "^^" said Kai. ":(" answered Kynon, "you gief itam i am noob" So Kai went to the kitchen and to the mead-cellar, and returned bearing a flagon of mead and a golden goblet, and a handful of skewers, upon which were broiled collops of meat. Then they ate the collops and began to drink the mead. "Now," said Kai, "you givf itam!" "Kynon," said Owain, "noob he pk u" ":(," said Kynon, "I am noob, i no have itam" "you givf" quoth Owain, "now plx" "kk" answered Kynon.

This is empirically the greatest post ever made here.

[Simond]

Incidentally, anyone who installed this MMOG just got Gameguard plopped onto their PC.
Enjoy!

[Righ]

Oh FFS - people still use that shit? INCA haven't even fixed the three year old security vulnerability despite the proof of concept code being a fully working key logger.

[Tale]

As IainC's inferior, all I can contribute is a near-anagram in the creepy YouTube phenomenon Magibon.

And her stalker (probably NSFW) 

[Xanthippe]

This is empirically the greatest post ever made here.

Hear hear!

[tmp]

Incidentally, anyone who installed this MMOG just got Gameguard plopped onto their PC.
Enjoy!

There's close to 40 games listed using that (and a number of them have english version by now) so suspect it's not exactly new addition to PC of plenty people here...

[Righ]

At this point we should probably summon Whiny Bitch @ THQ to tell us why installing software that messes with device drivers is not the fault of games companies.

[Ratman_tf]

As IainC's inferior, all I can contribute is a near-anagram in the creepy YouTube phenomenon Magibon.

And her stalker (probably NSFW) 

**Too jaded to be surprised, but not jaded enough to refrain from making a comment.** 

[Draegan]

 

[WindupAtheist]

The stalker site is way too contrived.  It's clearly designed to be creepy, but I don't think real stalkers TRY to be creepy.  I mean, give me a free-hosted site with no bandwith and rock-bottom production values, full of still pics and shitty music and reams of badly-spelled poetry, and I'll show you a stalker.  This is way too cinematic.  Shenanigans.

[K9]

...

[Mrbloodworth]

Mabinogion

[Tale]

The stalker site is way too contrived.  It's clearly designed to be creepy, but I don't think real stalkers TRY to be creepy.  I mean, give me a free-hosted site with no bandwith and rock-bottom production values, full of still pics and shitty music and reams of badly-spelled poetry, and I'll show you a stalker.  This is way too cinematic.  Shenanigans.

It's not shenanigans, it's a tribute. The source of the "stalker" is linked in the comments section of the blog post I linked above: http://xorsyst.com/stuff/magibonfreakout.htm (Which begs the question - wtf is http://www.svamp.eu?)

Edit - the guy in that thread mentions "my danung youtube channel", so after a bit of googling he turns out to be someone called Joakim Danung, a "digital media artist and designer" in Sweden. He's not the person behind Magibon. He's just a young artist, playing: http://portfolio.danung.com/ (and he hangs out with cute chicks who poke roadkill).

Mabinogion

Yep, I derailed onto Magibon.

[NiX]

It's ugly as sin and the bloom is so bad I actually got a headache from the intro.

[Signe]

You're such a baby.

[Cheddar]

wut

[Lantyssa]

I've been playing this for about a week now.  It's cute, and I like the skill system.  Levels give a few stat gains and points to spend on skills, but don't affect anything else.  Stats are affected more by skill choices and doing quests.  Character aging is an interesting idea.  There are some other mechanics I am just starting to understand which I really like, too.

Most things aren't handed to you.  Characters will give some hints, but it would be easy to miss things if not paying attention.  Cooking food is trial and error to find the best ingredients.  I make a mean strawberry milk.

It's not perfect, but it's the closest I've seen to my ideal game in a long time.

[Nebu]

I've been playing this for about a week now.  It's cute, and I like the skill system.  Levels give a few stat gains and points to spend on skills, but don't affect anything else.  Stats are affected more by skill choices and doing quests.  Character aging is an interesting idea.  There are some other mechanics I am just starting to understand which I really like, too.

Most things aren't handed to you.  Characters will give some hints, but it would be easy to miss things if not paying attention.  Cooking food is trial and error to find the best ingredients.  I make a mean strawberry milk.

It's not perfect, but it's the closest I've seen to my ideal game in a long time.

Sounds a bit like atitd meets UO with a cartoonish sheen.  I may have to try this... though the graphics may be too much to overcome. 

[tkinnun0]

How are the quests? Do they make sense or are they just filler?

[Lantyssa]

There is a starting quest line which takes you through a lot of the basics.  It's really good money, too.  Depending on some of your choices and how you perform you end up with a different title.  A displayed title affects stats.

Some quests are randomly given by owls who do a fly-by.  These are usually worth doing.

There are part-time jobs which cover the usual tasks of gathering, delivering, and crafting.  These are given out only at certain times of day (all shops have a sign saying when), with a limited number available, and a time they must be completed by.  Most shop keepers give you the option of several rewards.  XP, cash, and items in differing amounts.

[Xanthippe]

You've managed to perk my interest in this.

[Signe]

I never got to the crafting bit.  I mostly walked around and punched sign posts for phat lewt.  Well, maybe it wasn't so phat but for some reason punching inanimate objects for lewt was fun.  I have to say, an awful lot of those tiny 10 year old characters talk very, very dirty.  People don't even bother to whisper to each other, they just do it in the road.

[Lantyssa]

I've switched from Auto combat to Manual recently.  It makes a lot of difference.  Learn how to play with Manual.

Of these skills, the most important to start are Combat Mastery, Critical Hit, Defense, Smash, Counter and Sharp Mind.  There are some other ones I don't use or haven't gotten yet.

Combat Mastery raises your base damage and critical provides for extra damage with lucky hits.  Sharp Mind lets you see what skills the monsters are using, but doesn't always work.  Sometime you must pay attention to their behavior.  That leaves the trifecta of Defense, Smash, and Counter.

If you charge an attacking enemy there is an equal chance of one of you getting the first hit or both of you.  When an enemy is knocked down or back, upon standing it has the advantage.  Smash is a high damage attack, but is easily countered by a regular attack or Counter.  It beats Defense.  Defense will cause a regular attack to be parried with minimal damage and put the mob off-guard.  Counter will parry a regular attack or Smash, sending them flying, but is a constant drain on stamina.  It is very tactical and how you do here means the difference between not getting a scratch and a very nasty death.

[Xanthippe]

Tried installing and running it, but got a "GameGuard Initialization error."  No idea why or what it means, but rebooting didn't fix it.  Scanning the forum, it looks like it's not an uncommon problem.

[Kitsune]

On the one hand, I approve of a game where effort and thought have been spent on non-combat activities.  On the other, it's a Korean MMOG distributed by Nexon, guaranteeing that its features will be months out of date compared to the Korean version and that there will be a total lack of support for it.

[Kail]

Would love to give this game a shot, but I'm tewwified of this Game Guard thing.  Anyone know if there's somewhere to get more info on this?  Like, can I uninstall it, does it load on startup or just when I start the game, is this going to permanently screw with my drivers or something, or anything like that?

[Xuri]

In a moment of boredom I signed up, downloaded and installed Mabinogi. Then I tried logging on, and was eventually told that I'm not cultural enough (or don't possess the right kind of culture) to play. "North America only".

Thanks, Nexon. You could have told me that BEFORE you let me sign up and download your client. *thumbs up*