Atlantica Online

Atlantica Online
Official logo
Developer(s)	NDOORS Interactive
Publisher(s)	NDOORS Interactive
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
Release	July 15, 2008 (start of closed beta) October 30, 2008 (official launch)
Genre(s)	MMORPG
Mode(s)	Multiplayer

Atlantica Online is a 3D massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) being developed by NDOORS Corporation. The international English version, available worldwide, is distributed by the US subsidiary company NDOORS Interactive, Inc.. A closed beta version was made available to FilePlanet subscribers on July 15, 2008. The first phase of the open beta ended on July 28, 2008; the start of the second phase began on August 7, 2008. On October 30, 2008 at 11a.m. PDT, Atlantica Online ended its beta period and began its official run at 6p.m. PDT on October 30, 2008. The Chinese company The9 has obtained exclusive rights for distributing and operating Atlantica Online in China.

The game is set in an alternate history Earth, with the game map consisting of large parts of the northern hemisphere. The setting is fantasy-themed with elements of steampunk.

Business

The game is free-to-play but generates revenue through the company's online shop.

Gameplay

A player and his mercenaries accompanied by two groups of bewitched mobs attacking an enemy mob group.

The game features a persistent world populated by player-generated characters and NPCs. At character creation, a player selects one of seven basic classes and can then customize the character's appearance. There are no races to choose from; only humans are available. The character's class decides what armor that character can wear and what weapons and skills that character can use in battle.

Players do not fight with the starting character alone; as each character levels up, it can acquire player-controlled mercenaries. During the mandatory tutorial section at the beginning of the game, a player chooses his/her first two mercenaries; as the character gains levels, it can control more mercenaries, up to the maximum of eight, which makes for a party of maximum size nine. Players can store additional mercenaries in mercenary rooms.

All characters can, in addition to their battle skills, pursue a number of different crafting abilities.

The game design puts strong emphasis on the concept of guilds. Guilds can control the various towns on the game map. Strong guilds can found nations and wage war on one another.

Battle in Atlantica Online is rather unusual for the genre as it is turn-based. Representations of hostile parties wander around the landscape; if a player touches such a representation, his/her party and the enemy party are transferred to a separate battlefield similar in fashion to battles in the Final Fantasy series and remain there until the battle is resolved.

Classes

Player character

The player can choose from one of the nine basic weapons for his/her own character Sword, Spear, Axe, Maniac, Bow, Gun, Cannon, Musician, Staff.

Prevalence

Prevalence of each class is constantly changing, mostly affected by updates to PvP balancing.

Mercenaries

Mercenary classes include the following:

• Sword: Swordsman, Exorcist, Lady Knight, Sailor
• Staff: Shaman, Monk, Oracle, Witch, Princess, Elementalist
• Axe: Viking, Beast Trainer
• Spear: Spearman, Spartan
• Gun: Gunner, Inventor, Janissary
• Bow: Archer, Prophet
• Cannon: Artilleryman, Cannoneer

As with player characters, the weapon determines the basic attack. Additionally, the sub-classes differ in the distribution of attributes and available magic skills.

Mercenaries are also grouped by grade. Players can have any number of identical Grade D mercenaries, but are limited to only having one of each Grade C and Grade B mercenary in battle. Additional Grade D mercenaries are obtained by persuading those that wander around, Grade C are obtained through quest chains, and Grade B are obtained through a combination of quest chains and rare items.

New Power Saw, Musician, and Bow C-grade mercenaries are planned for release in 2009.

Experience rate

Compared to many MMORPGs, level progression is rapid; however, this changes at level 95 when the experience curve increases dramatically. There is currently little reason to reach the maximum level, which is level 120. As of April 2009, only an extreme few have reached level 120.

There are various ways to earn bonus experience points such as through titles, various items, and bonus experience weekends.

Tactical battle

The game's battle system is unusual for its genre in that it uses a turn-based system.

When a player character and an enemy character come into contact with each other on the game map, both parties are transported into a miniature instance where the battle takes place. For outside players, the involved parties appear as stationary, with a symbol floating over the combatants' heads to indicate combat. In this state, both parties, computer-controlled foes as well as human players, can receive assistance from up to two additional allied parties that can enter the battle at any time. This can lead to large battles of up to 27 monsters versus 27 heroes (3 players, 24 mercenaries).

The game is classically turn-based in that only one side can take action at a time and those actions take immediate effect. However, each character also has a certain speed represented by action points; that means that slower characters may have to skip some turns to reach a threshold value of action points while fast-moving characters have to skip fewer turns or none at all. Additionally, magic effects can also modify the amount of action points a character has to allow fine-grained control of speed effects. Each party can never have more than 5 characters act during a turn, even if more than 5 characters have sufficient action points.

The characters of each party are positioned on a 3x3 grid. Positioning the characters is an important decision, because different weapons and skills have different attack patterns. The player can change the position of his/her characters during a battle if desired.

During a character's turn, one of the following actions can be performed:

• Basic Attack: Perform a standard attack.
• Magic: Use one the character's available magic skills.
• Item: Use an item that is assigned to one of the character's available Quick Slots, such as a healing potion or a magic scroll.
• Move: Move the character to any position on the grid that is not occupied by a dead character. If the target destination is occupied by a living character, the characters will switch positions.
• Wait: Forfeits the character's turn, keeping all action points.
• Guard: Assume a stance that reduces damage dealt to that character during the enemies' next turn, while passing on the character's turn to the next character that has sufficient action points to act (if any).
• Search: Search the body of a fallen enemy for loot. This also removes the body from the field, preventing resurrection.
• Switch mercenary: Switch the mercenary out for one that is not currently fielded and stored in a mercenary room. You can only do this a limited amount of times during a battle.

All of these actions, except for Wait, consume a certain amount of action points.

Player versus player

The game features several kinds of PvP combat:

• Challenge: You can challenge anyone to a duel, you must wager at the minimum 100 gold. The winner will receive the prize minus 10% system cut.
• Free League: Organized leagues, scheduled throughout the day, with in-game coins called Atlantis coins/coin shards to be won. For this type of PvP, a ladder is present and Fame can be earned to increase one's Rank.
• Weekly Tournament: These are held 3 times on Saturday and 3 times on Sunday. Reward for first place is a 7 days duration Heavenly Horse and about 50 million gold worth of Atlantis Gold Coins.
• War: Wars can be declared from one nation to another. Currently this is the only way to have PvP combat in greater scale than 1v1. The max however, is 3v3 per battle. During war pk battles, the normal bonus for other 3 methods of PvP does not apply. Also if you lose a fight in the war, you will drop one of your equipment items. This can get costly since at end game the armors and weapons can cost over 30 million gold each.

Player versus environment

Mobs either roam around freely in designated areas of the world map or in dungeons. The majority of the dungeons are scenario dungeons accessible by all of sufficient level. They are primarily used for completing the main quest line.

The game also features several kinds of instanced and timed PvE dungeons. If successful, players receive rewards in addition to the loot they obtained.

• Independent: These can be completed solo or in up to a party of 3, and require a certain level to enter. Rewards include various equipment.
• Guild: These are completed with a member's guild. Difficulty varies depending on the dungeon. Completion rewards also vary and are directly sent to the guild leader.
• Nation: These are currently the most difficult dungeons to complete since difficulty of the mobs necessitates several parties of high level players, also requiring a lot of organization prior and coordination during the dungeon. Teams are often organized by level and assigned specific roles such as "heavy offense" or defense. Completion of these dungeons are announced to the entire server. Completion rewards are directly sent to the nation leader, and include rare and thus expensive items.

Record times for Independent, Guild, and Nation dungeons are recorded in the game's Hall of Fame.

• Training Center: Training Centers are completed by guilds. They consist of dozens of timed rounds against progressively more difficult mobs. Based on their performance, guilds are rated and given Training Center points for completing Training Centers; a list of the guilds with the most points is also available for viewing by all players.

Setting

The world of Atlantica Online features real world locations mixed with mythological and fantasy elements. Countries like Germany and China are represented, with cities like Munich, Moscow, and Sapporo being featured as cities where one can visit. Though the locations on the map feature climates similar to their real world counterparts, the architecture is often a generic recreation of well known structure types, such as the cities in Eastern Europe and Japan. Rome also takes on a big role as a real world location, resembling the ancient city of Rome as is well known from its period of conquest as the Roman Empire. Any player above level 20 can instantly teleport to Rome with the necessary percentage of Will available. While in Rome players can check out the Bazaar, store items at a warehouse, and fight in PvP competitions held daily and weekly. There are also a few NPC's available only in Rome.

The locations are based on real world locations, but are often geographically out of place, and heavily altered in order to make the game more interesting. Most of the civilizations represented are in different time periods- for example, Rome is still in the time of the Roman Empire, but Great Britain is independent, the Ottoman Empire reigns in Turkey, Southeast Asia resembles ancient Indian kingdoms before Western colonization and Islamic influence, and North America is caught up in the Industrial Revolution. This results in many convenient (and probably intentional) inaccuracies when it comes to NPC design, as famous people like Julius Caesar , Erik the Red, William Shakespeare, Charlie Chaplin, and Henry Ford are all alive in the same time period, along with mythical characters like Beowulf. Many of the NPCs wander around the world; the player often needs to track down these NPCs for specific purposes.

On December 18, 2008, the North American continent was added, which features New York as a new explorable city and the United States and Mexico as explorable countries. These contain a few dungeons, but greatly expand the map in Atlantica. Developers have also mentioned the possibility of adding the continents of the Southern Hemisphere, excluding Antarctica.

Content Updates

Atlantica's publisher and developer, NDOORS Interactive, regularly releases new content updates. For the most part, the International servers have received updates approximately one to one-and-a-half months after the Korean servers. Additionally, while Korean servers receive many, smaller updates, NDOORS usually combines the updates into fewer, but larger releases for the International servers. Updates usually include adding new dungeons, quests, NPCs, skills, mercenaries, outfits, equipment, mounts, and community features while also adjusting the existing game experience such as improving PvP balance and the rate of obtaining experience points.

Game Developer's Conference 2009

At the Game Developers Conference 2009 on March 26, NDOORS announced several major content updates to arrive in 2009.

• Tactical Battle System

100 player v 100 player PvP battle and PvE where players utilize terrain and weather, collect resources, and construct buildings and traps in this RTS-style war.

• Housing System

Players can customize their homes where each room has a different purpose such as raising pets, teaching mercenaries, crafting, and most importantly, visual and public documentation of player's past accomplishments (such as defeating bosses).

• Titan Server (Implemented)

Interserver PvP tournaments and competitions, as well as possibly Server v Server competition.

• Event Dungeons (Implemented)

In addition to existing dungeon types, a new dungeon type will be added. These dungeons will only be playable at certain times of the week.

Reception

Reception of Atlantica Online has been highly positive, receiving a number of awards in 2008. The game is acclaimed for its innovative turn-based battle system and its integration with community features. Danny Gourley of Ten Ton Hammer praised its gameplay, stating "it requires gamers to think a little instead of just mashing buttons" . It has been selected as an official game for the Game and Game World Championship for two years in a row (2008, 2009). Other unique features that are often praised include its mercenary system, beginner/mentor system, and auto-move.

Ever since its release, it is consistently rated by members of various MMO website portals, such as MMOsite.com and MMORPG.com, as one of the top MMO games. At MMORPG.com, it has been consistently rated as the best F2P/microtransaction MMO.

However, despite its many innovations, Atlantica Online has been criticized by many players for still having many of the problems that many MMORPGs possess. Though players can level from level 1 to level 95 quickly, many feel that quests require too much Grind (gaming), repeatedly killing the same groups of enemies. Other complaints include mediocre community events (despite a strong community), sloppy interface, the lack of accurate information, and average sound design. NDOORS Interactive has begun to address many of these concerns, for example, holding "Unlock Your Way to Atlantica", a major prize giveaway for the Summer of 2009.

Awards

• "Best Free To Play Game of 2008", Ten Ton Hammer
• "2008 Best New Game" Nomination, (voted 3rd), MMORPG.com
• "Best Game", Korea Game Awards 2008
• "Golden Plume Award for Best Foreign Online Game", China Digital Entertainment Expo and Conference (ChinaJoy) 2008
• "Most Innovative Online Game", GameOgre's 2008 Online Game Awards
• "Top Free MMO of 2008", "Best Innovation in an MMO of 2008", "Best Gameplay in an MMO of 2008", Onrpg Member's Choice Awards 2008

External links

• Official English Atlantica Online website
• Official Korean Atlantica Online website Template:Ko icon