GunZ: The Duel

GunZ: The Duel
File:Gunzforumlogo.jpg
Developer(s)	MAIET Entertainment
Publisher(s)	MAIET Entertainment Netmarble Level Up! Games ijji
Designer(s)	Venister
Engine	GunZ Engine
Platform(s)	Windows
Release	June 2005 (Beta Edition) June 2003 November 2006
Genre(s)	MOSRPG, Third-person shooter
Mode(s)	Online Multiplayer

GunZ: The Duel (Korean: 건즈 더 듀얼), also known simply as GunZ or Gunz, is an online multiplayer third-person shooting game, created by South Korean-based MAIET Entertainment. International GunZ, in its beta, is currently free to play, and is planned to remain free after its official release. Though the International Edition is still in its beta stage, the Korean and Japanese versions are considered complete. The game allows players to perform exaggerated, gravity-defying action moves, including wall running, flipping, tumbling, and blocking bullets with swords, in the style of action movies and anime.

Kill system

The various kill animations found in GunZ: The Duel.

Scoring kills in GunZ earns a player "bounty", which is the currency unit in the world of GunZ, and experience points, or EXP, which contribute to the progression or advancement of a player's level. In GunZ, when a player achieves a kill, they may receive one or more of five animations that appear above the player's head. The amount of EXP and bounty a player receives for a kill depends on the level of the enemy defeated. There are four ways to lose EXP. Three involve suiciding: typing /suicide, falling into a bottomless pit, or killing oneself with their own explosives. These deaths will only cause EXP loss if the player is over level five. The fourth way to lose EXP occurs when one player, over level twenty-one, is killed by another player seven levels lower than them. This only occurs outside of the Expert or higher level channels. When a player's EXP drops to the point in which the player has less than zero EXP for their level, it is possible to move back one level. They will, however, be reverted to the previous level with 99% experience points and are able to increase their level again by attaining experience points equivalent to 1% or more.

Gameplay

Unlike many other common games that involve shooting, GunZ has its own community-introduced gameplay styles that many people uses.

Korean-Style

"Korean-Style," or commonly known as "K-Style," is a style of playing in GunZ that was introduced by the Korean GunZ community. It is based on animation and gameplay glitches and is a form of emergent gameplay. Like in several fighting games such as Street Fighter, canceling certain character animations or doing two actions at the same time in a sequence can create complex combo moves. However, since it's based on several programming oversights, people using the style were commonly considered to be cheating, but it was never forbidden in any of the versions. In fact, it was featured in the official 2005 trailer released on the official GunZ website. At the core of K-Style is the usage of these animation cancels. K-Stylers most commonly use swords due to it's weight to damage ratio advantage over kodachis, however both are equally usable.

Weapons and accessories in GunZ

GunZ has many types of weapons and accessories to aid your quest. There are seven types of ranged weapons, three types of melee weapons, three kinds of grenades, and five accessory types. The majority of these can be purchased with bounty from the in-game shop.

The melee weapons included in GunZ are the sword, the dagger, and the dual kodachis. Each melee weapon comes in many variations that are wieldable based on the character's level. Ranged weapons include pistols, revolvers, shotguns, rifles, submachine guns, machine guns, and rocket launchers. The grenades included are fragmentation, smoke and stun grenades. Purchasable accessories include rings, elemental powerups, health kits, repair kits, and magazine packs. Rings boost a character's armor points, health points, or maximum equipment weight limit. The elemental effects apply to any melee weapon equipped and can do a variety of extra attacks when charged with a massive attack. Health and repair kits are self-explanatory, they heal lost health or lost armor points when used. Magazine packs restore ammunition to the currently active weapon.

GunZ Networking System

GunZ's networking system in most part of the game is peer to peer, unlike many online shooters. Players connect to other players through their client, instead of through a central server. However, if one player has difficulty establishing connection with another, either the error "Agent Error : Agent not available" comes up, or if network address translation (NAT) is available on the server, the player will connect through TCP/IP directly.

Although this works well on LANs or within relatively short distances, longer distances between players creates high latency, or lag. Because GunZ relies on the player being hit to transfer a packet back to every other player to inform their clients that they were hit, players who have slower connections are harder to kill, as any packets sent to inform the client that they are being attacked are delayed.

Quest Mode

In quest mode players, in groups of up to four, go through parts of a stage for a certain number of rounds, which are determined by the quest level. In each stage players are required to kill masses of creatures. The game ends when every member of the player team dies or completes all the rounds. Players can make the quests harder, and more profitable by using special quest items to increase the quest level that can be bought from the in-game store or obtained during a quest. By using certain items in combination, players can enter a boss quest, By sacrificing items from defeating monsters in other quests with sacrificing item is a torn page, which you can buy from a store.

Official GunZ versions

There are currently 7 versions of GunZ available, 2 of which are available internationally, 4 of which is available only in its localised regions and 1 which is still unreleased.

• International (IGunZ) - (Open Beta) Hosted by MAIET Entertainment.
• Korea ("KGunZ") - Sponsored by Netmarble.
• Japan ("JGunZ") - Sponsored by Netmarble.
• India ("InGunZ") - (Open Beta) Sponsored by Level Up!.
• Brazil ("BGunZ") - Sponsored by Level Up!, and it was pay-to-play until recently.
• North America ("ijji GunZ" or "NAGunZ") - Sponsored by NHN via their game portal ijji. This version is available outside of North America despite its name.
• Philippines ("PGunZ") - (Unreleased) Sponsored by Level Up!.

ijji/North American edition

On November 8, 2006, the closed beta for the North American version of GunZ was released on the game portal site ijji. Upon release, the game surpassed Gunbound in players, ijji's then-most popular game, with more than 5,000 players on at any given time. Special premium items were given out if the user's account was made before a predetermined date. The North American edition of GunZ: The Duel's closed beta ended on November 15, 2006. The ijji/North American GunZ live service was then released on November 29, 2006. The live service included clan wars and quest mode. The premium item shop was opened on January 8, 2007. Quest mode was updated on February 14^th, 2007. New sounds and voice narrations were added to the game on May 9, 2007.

On the 18th of May 2008, after being plagued by chat bot spammers for days, the ijji staff decided to ban a number of users, even those not guilty of hacking. This resulted in many people losing years worth of effort and money invested into their characters. The ijji staff simply replied that those banned were hackers and even went as far as to say that the hackers would only be temporarily banned, whilst the innocent would be permanently banned.

For those who remained banned, ijji staff would not allow them to contest such a decision and were adamant that they had evidence against the victims, but refused to bring it forward.

As of this moment, the innocent players have still yet to be unbanned.

See also

• ijji
• Level Up!
• Netmarble
• MAIET Entertainment

External links

• GunZ The Duel Official site
• GunZ Factor English GunZ fansite
• Template:StrategyWiki