Vindictus(Mabinogi Heroes)

[Akiyama]

You just know you suck! >.>;; Hey, help me do some Slingshottan action. Trying to finish a few quests.

[Lazytowner]

You just know you suck! >.>;; Hey, help me do some Slingshottan action. Trying to finish a few quests.

If you're asking me, I'm working :/. Mon/Wed/Fri/Sat evening EST are my usual playtimes.

[Akiyama]

Bah.

[Lazytowner]

OH GOD WHY

>Go to work
>Goddamnit
>Get off of work
>MAINTENANCE TIMES: (YOU HAVE ONE HOUR O'CLOCK AM to When You're In Class O'Clock AM)
;_;

[Akiyama]

Haha. Haven't tried getting on today.

[Insanecyclone]

I wasn't aware this was using Valve's source engine.

http://mmohut.com/editorials/vindictus-interview

Back before the Early Access beta for Vindictus began, I sent over a short question-and-answer style interview to Nexon about the game and they finally got back to me. The Early Access for Vindictus began on September 15, but the actual open beta begins October 6. There won’t be any wipes during or after the early access beta. To learn more about Vindictus check out the MMOHut Vindictus review or simply read the short Q&A below:

Omer Altay (OA): Hi, this is Omer from MMOHut.com – I’ve actually had a chance to play Vindictus a bit during closed beta and had a lot of fun. Can you please introduce yourself and tell us your position over Nexon / Vindictus?

Nexon (NX): Hi Omer. Thanks for taking some time to speak with me about Vindictus. My name is Chris Gyselinck and I’m the Assistant Producer for the North American version of Vindictus.


OA: Can you tell us what makes Vindictus different from other MMORPGs today?

NX: The first thing that I think players will notice about Vindictus in comparison to other MMOs currently on the market is definitely the fast-paced action and combat. Vindictus has gameplay which is closer to that of a hack-and-slash console title because there is no auto-attacking or targeting an enemy, pressing a button and waiting until the monster falls down or fades away. Instead, everything that happens onscreen is a direct result of what the player does with a mouse and keyboard or with a game controller. Vindictus also features some really unique and fun elements such as destructible armor and environments, as well as the ability to pick up just about any item in the environment, including some of your fallen enemies, and to use that item as a weapon. Vindictus really increases the interaction and pace of gameplay in an MMO and I think it has the potential to shift the way players view the category as a whole.

OA: There’s a lot of interaction with the environment in Vindictus and visually speaking, Vindictus is easily one of the best looking MMORPGs out there. What was your experience working with the Source Engine?

NX: Valve’s Source Engine is a really great engine in a lot of ways. For example, because Source has such robust and realistic physics, the environmental interaction which you mentioned becomes possible. If I, as a player, throw an enemy into a stone pillar, that pillar is going to crumble into various chunks of stone which might finish off the enemy for me as the pieces come crashing down on its head. Then, I can pick up one of those stones and use it to knock out another monster. This sort of interaction gives you a nearly limitless amount of choices in how to approach battles and, of course, adds some gleeful, “Oh my god, did you see what I just did?!” types of moments. On top of that, the Source Engine isn’t a “system hog,” so Vindictus can deliver some top-notch visuals without having ridiculous requirements to run the game.


OA: We here at MMOHut had a lot of fun playing the Vindictus Closed Beta. What kind of feedback have you guys received from the community so far?

NX: So far, we’ve gotten some really great feedback from the Vindictus community. It really is amazing to see how strong of a fanbase the game has already built. When we took the game to Comic-Con, we had people coming back throughout the day just to get another chance to take on the Gnoll Chieftain. For Closed Beta, we were unfortunately able to accept about 10 percent of the people who were qualified because the interest in the game was so high and we received so many applications. The group we were able to accept for Closed Beta provided some really great feedback and seemed to have a lot of fun with their first taste of Vindictus. Overall, we’re really proud of the community the game already has and we’re looking forward to seeing that community grow as we move on to our next steps.

OA: I’m sure a lot of people are curious – Why change the name to Vindictus from Mabinogi Heroes?

NX: We felt it was important, for our North American audience, to give the game a name which distinguished it from our other title: Mabinogi. While Vindictus and Mabinogi have stories built on the same Celtic mythology, they are two completely different styles of games. Both have great gameplay and really cool features, but they are also very unlike each other. When looking at the title, we wanted something unique which captured the feeling of “Brutal Elegance” which is pervasive throughout the game. The name “Vindictus” felt, to us, like it captured that feeling.


OA: During the closed beta, only two classes were playable, but there were 5 slots available in the character creation screen. Will all five be available during open beta or will we have to wait until release?

NX: I really can’t comment too much on this, other than to say that we will be introducing our third character, a mage named Evie, very soon. We haven’t yet made any announcements about future characters.

OA: What does Nexon have in store for PvP in Vindictus? Will there be PvP rewards?

NX: We have not yet made any official announcements regarding PvP, but we are definitely planning on introducing some fun new features to the game in the future.


OA: The game’s prologue has cinematics and voice acting – will we see more of that later on in the game or in future updates? The dialogue in Vindictus was surprisingly good, near perfect actually. How was it like localizing the game?

NX: Our in-house localization team did an excellent job of translating the dialogue and text and tweaking it so that it felt natural to our English-speaking players. Plus, we worked with a really great sound team here in the US called, “Chaotic Content.” They found us some very talented voice actors who were able to bring those characters to life. Getting the sound right in a game can be very challenging, but when you have a stellar team like Chaotic to work with, it feels more like fun than work. A few members of our production team even got to play extras and bark out a few lines of, “Yes, Sir!” Hopefully, we’ll have the chance to do it again for future updates.


OA: A small gripe of mine with Vindictus is that the classes are gender-locked. It’s not a big deal, but do you guys plan on addressing this or keeping it as is?

NX: The gender-lock was included to remain consistent with the lore on which we based the story of Vindictus. Currently we have no plans to change that aspect. However, within the character subsets, we will have tons of options for customization that will enable players to put their own personal touch on the way their character looks.


OA: I know you guys haven’t officially announced the release schedule for Vindictus yet, so if you can’t answer this last question it’s not a problem – but can you give us a ballpark estimate on when Vindictus will begin its open beta? Can we expect it in 2010? Will the next round of closed beta be more inclusive? I know a lot of people wanted to try Vindictus during its first round of closed beta, but weren’t able to.

NX: We just recently opened our Early Access to Open Beta, which will run until Oct. 6. We have given away keys to all of our Closed Beta testers and will be giving away some keys through external sites. What’s really cool about this beta is that when a player registers his or her key, two additional keys will be emailed to that player, which they can then share with friends. Also, any characters created during this beta will carry over into the Open Beta and even into the Official Launch.

OA: Thank you for your time! I’ve been having a lot of fun with Vindictus in closed beta and look forward to playing it some more in Open Beta.

NX: Thanks, Omer. We’ll see you again in Colhen soon!

Nexon also publishes Dungeon Fighter Online, MapleStory, Combat Arms, and Mabinogi

[Akiyama]

Ha. Wow. So it is..

[Lebzile]

You sure are slow, bro. I noticed it the moment I noticed my characters eye would bug out and roll back into their head, no joke. Looked creepy as fuck. Lol

[Akiyama]

You sure are slow, bro. I noticed it the moment I noticed my characters eye would bug out and roll back into their head, no joke. Looked creepy as fuck. Lol

Nah, I didn't play many source engine games, really. So I wasn't able to pick that out.

[Lazytowner]

That's the first part of Vindictus that interested me, lol.

As soon as I thought "Source Engine....real time combat..." I decided I wanted to throw my wallet at Nexon. :/

Since I played XI in 2006/07 it always struck a nerve when I would be killed by the saaaame dull mechanics of open-world MMOs.
"Damn I wish I could dodge that -- this mob is slow as fuck anyways."
*determined by a statistic*
"Bullshit, how is my character whiffing 2 inches away from the mob"
*determined by a statistic*
"Oh....this guy has great gear, he must be pretty decent at most video games"
*LOL NOPE, SPENDS DAYS AT A TIME DETERMINING STATISTICS*



I've been interested in other online rpg's in regards to a "This is as close to what I wanted...I guess" mindset, but playing this and reading about things to come in-game make it hard to look elsewhere now. I'd hate to bring up FFXIV in here again, but yes, it was my most anticipated game to play because of the focus on positioning and attack range.

Then, I went through Gnoll Chieftain for the first time. It blew me away that I could roll away and even actively block an attack from him and not have to depend on a character statistic and a number generator for a dodge or block. My dream game came out of nowhere. >:[

[Insanecyclone]

Pro tip:

Get Meditation to rank A and stack INT(helps w/ AP on meditate) the next time you log off. The AP amount at the end of each mission becomes less and less as time goes on so getting this to rank A needs to be done asap.

[Lebzile]

No, Meditation is a terrible skill and waste of AP. It really is and this is coming from testing on the korean servers.

The time reduction is worthless. It would take more than a full year (that's over 360 days) for rank A to pay for itself.

Personally, I'll just use the AP it would take to raise the skill in something more worthwhile.

[Insanecyclone]

Oh well, I still find it useful for when I'm not online. I plan on maxing out every skill Fiona can get down the road.

[Lebzile]

I think Market is fucked again, just bought something for 80k only to have it not show up to my mailbox, gg.

[Lazytowner]

No, Meditation is a terrible skill and waste of AP. It really is and this is coming from testing on the korean servers.

Personally, I'll just use the AP it would take to raise the skill in something more worthwhile.

Damn it, I screwed up.

Hope there's not a set amount of earnable AP. If so I'd like to reset. :/ That was one of my worries while I was bringing Meditation up to Rank B lol

[Lebzile]

Yay, finished my Spider Cloth set for my Evie. Hope she gets released on Oct 6th.

[Akiyama]

Spider cloth set? ;o damn, what level are you? I'm only 18 on East server. I really should play some today...

Also, is it still really laggy? or any improvements?

[Lebzile]

26, Juro on West.

Not much lag for me recently, then again the community has died down since people are hitting cap, doing everything and having nothing to do other then run Tyrant a million times.

[Lazytowner]

I haven't seen any lag outside of people with pathetic 2002 Bellsouth DSL connections some of these users have.

[Akiyama]

26, Juro on West.

Not much lag for me recently, then again the community has died down since people are hitting cap, doing everything and having nothing to do other then run Tyrant a million times.

Ah.. I have a level 14 Sword/Shield chick on West, but I lag a bit there with my SHITTY AT&T FASTACESS DSL INTERWEB so it's a bit shitty at times, but eh.

I haven't seen any lag outside of people with pathetic 2002 Bellsouth DSL connections some of these users have.

I don't really lag much on East, and fuck you. It's all I can get in my area :/It's not 2002 interweb though. It's a whole 6MBit! ._.