Ndoors Interactive, the publisher of Atlantica Online and WonderKing, announced today that they will be giving away more than $30,000 in cash and prizes to players over the course of two mega-events this summer. And yes, one of the prizes is a brand new Chevrolet Camaro.

Between now and August 31, 2010, players of Atlantica Online can enter to win the afore-mentioned car, as well as a Razer keyboard and mouse, a Bose speaker system, or even a coveted Alienware laptop. Peter Kang, the CEO of Ndoors, said about the giveaways, “These Summer Events serve as a ‘thank you’ to our community… We are looking forward to watching gamers compete for prizes and we can’t wait to award one lucky player with a brand-new car.”

Ndoors Interactive’s other MMO, WonderKing, will also be part of the festivities. Starting on July 7, players can enter raffles and collect special tokens to receive in-game items, experience bonuses, gift cards, and much more.

Both Atlantica Online and WonderKing are free-to-play. Atlantica Online is a strategic, turn-based MMO, while WonderKing is a 2D side-scrolling MMO. For more information on the Atlantica Online “Play, Win, Drive!” event, visit their contest website.

Ndoors has revealed the next update for Atlantica Online. It’s mostly a series of minor tweaks and improvements like fixing old quests and adding new ones. Players can experiment with more formations now that up to two Hwarangs, Minstrels, and Punishers can be used in a single formation. Now word on when the patch is coming, though, but you can expect it to be soon. More information on Atlantica Online here.

Atlantica Online is one giant MMORPG! Just a few days ago we informed you of the new housing system. But it seems we were just getting warmed up. Last month NDoors picked up a grand prize winner for the “create your own mercenary” contest, along with five runner-ups. Now the developers want to show you the winner. As some of you may know the winner of the contest, Symban, will have his creation brought to love. His creation is called Camilla: A Vampire Countess derived by the effects of the Oriharukon device in Bran Castle, she floats through the air, draining life from other players to sustain her existence. Camilla looks every bit the part of a Vampire Countess, with jet black hair contrasted against her snow-white skin and blood-stained lips. Players will be able to learn more about this mercenary as we near its release. Congratulations, Symban.

The popular j-rpg styled MMO Atlantica Online will receive its very own housing system. This new feature will be introduced on the game’s Korean servers on April 22nd and will eventually be released on the international version as well. Once released, players will not only be able to customize their own houses, but visit other people’s houses, have dinner together, or just talk. Players can also hire mercenaries for their houses to serve as..cooks and if you invite another player over to share a meal, you will both receive buffs. How social!

Free Korean MMOs are notorious for being grindfests with little to show for your time at the end of the day. With that in mind, a lot of MMO gamers might catch a glimpse of Atlantica Online and simply ignore it. After all, it’s got the same anime-style graphics as all the other games; it’s free; and doesn’t look at all compelling at first glance.

But here’s the kicker: Atlantica Online has turn-based combat and is actually quite different to probably anything else you’ve ever played out of Korea. Don’t believe me? Keep reading this review…

If you think of Final Fantasy or other console-based Japanese RPGs, you’re on the right track with Atlantica Online. Take those style of games, stick them in an MMO context, along the lines of an environment like Guild Wars, and you’re halfway there.

You start the game by selecting your main character (choosing between archers, spearmen and even gun and guitar-toting characters), and then recruiting a few party members (or “mercenaries”) before embarking on one of many kill/fetch quests, such as “kill ‘x’ monsters” or “kill monsters to find ‘x’ item(s)”. Don’t worry; these quests are simply to teach you the basics of the game and get you up to speed with what is, essentially, a PvP experience once you blast through the first phase of the game.

Starting in “Division 18”, your goal is to work towards “Division 1” through fighting other players in an arena environment. When not fighting in the arena, you can travel the countryside – which is essentially an alternate version of Earth, with fantasy-style areas named after real world places, such as Beijing, Moscow and even Detroit.

Combat is very cool. You are given 30 seconds to make all the moves you can across up to nine party characters before the balance turns to your opponent and they get 30 seconds to hammer you – so while the game is turn-based, it’s still fast and you really need to be on the ball to maximise your strategy against your opponent.

In all, this is a solid strategy game with some strong PvP and guild elements. On the downside, the setting is a little bizarre and a touch cutesy, like most games coming out of Korea. If you can see past that, however, this is a very, very good free game and, I guarantee, quite different to what you’re used to seeing produced out of Asia.

We’ve all done it before, going back to a past MMO that we either quit or swore we never come back to.  In most cases it seems that there’s a particular MMO that we go back to, whether it’s your first MMORPG, a game where your best/highest level character is, or it could just be the last MMO you played.  For me, I usually end up going back to the last MMO I’ve played.

There’s a few reasons why I tend to do this.  For one, many of the people I’ve gamed with are still playing, I still remember how to use my character and how the world works, so there’s less to relearn.  Going back to a game I haven’t played in 2-3 yrs feels like I’m almost starting over.  New expansions, new items, classes, balance changes, plus your guild might not even be around anymore or if it is it might be with a bunch of people you no longer know.

However not everyone is like me, there is definitely something special about the first MMORPG you’ve played or I should say played for a prolonged period of time.  It’s the place you created your first serious character at and when you return it gives you a feeling of coming home.

Since having quit Warhammer Online about a month and half ago, I’ve dabble with Atlantica Online which just didn’t do it for me.  So once again I’m MMOless and decided it’s still way to early to already be thinking about going back to Warhammer.  I’ve been thinking about trying out a older MMO like Dark Age of Camelot or Planetside, but I’m not sure if I could get over the old school graphics, it might be too much of a distraction for me.  Any suggestions, I’m open to new and old games, PvP plz

Since having let my subscription to Warhammer Online lapse, I’ve moved on to Atlantica Online, a free turned based MMORPG in the style of Final Fantasy games.  Currently I have a level 28 character, but I’m not sure how much longer I plan to say with Atlantica.  The game has an extremely weak story line and so far I’ve only seen 3 types of quests, but we’ll get into that later.   The game does have a ton of features and options to keep you busy, but from my point of view it seems like it’s just one big grind.

Questing – Having reached level 28 I would have thought I would be doing more than just 3 types of quests by now.  So far the only quests I’ve seen are tutorial, fetch and kill quests.  Tutorial quests are actually very good and I’m glad they have them, some are extremely easy and should never have been created, but for the most part there useful.  As I said earlier there are a ton of features and options in the game so it’s good to have these tutorial quests to help you learn the game and yes even at lev 28 I still get many tutorial quests.  Fetch quest are exactly that, deliver this or go talk to that person and you’re done.  Then there are kill quests which either tell you to go kill x number of these monsters or kill a boss.  That’s it.  I’m not sure if there are other type of quests later on, but having played to lev 28 at this point it’s pretty sad those are the only types of quests I’ve seen.

Traveling with Auto-Move/Teleports - One of the features that you’ll uses pretty much the entire time you’re playing is auto-move.  Basically when you get a quest you don’t have to do anything except click the auto-move button, then you can go make yourself something to eat or watch TV.  The auto-move feature will take you exactly to where you need to go, so when you come back all you have to do is talk to the person or kill the monster then click auto-move again and it will take you back to turn-in the quest.  Honestly Atlantica is unplayable unless you have a TV in the same room because a good portion of your time you’re not even playing, you’re just waiting for auto-move to take you to where you need to go.  Later on in the game you’ll get Teleportation Licenses, basically these allow you for 1 day (in game time) to teleport anywhere you have already been, which is great cause it saves you a ton of time, however they’re expensive so you won’t be using it all the time.

Above is a screenshot of one of my auto-move runs.  I had to go to Rome to use the warehouse so I could store some of my items, since I don’t have enough money to buy a teleportation license I had to run back to where I was questing.  As you can see it took about 27 mins, 27 mins!  While a bit on the high end it’s nothing unusually to have 10-15 min auto-move times.  While I like having auto-run cause I’d rather the computer run for me than having to waste my own time, it makes me wonder why they even have a 3D game world to begin with.  Why not just make it a top down map where you move from locaton to locaton similar to Mythos.  There’s no monster agro so unless your character runs directly into a monster your fine.

Combat PvE - Combat is the best part of the game, if you like eastern style RPGs like Final Fantasy you’ll feel right at home. Atlantica allows you to have up to 18 mercenaries in your group which I actually feel is way to much.  Right now I only have 6 and feel like that’s enough, so I couldn’t imagine worrying about 18 units.  The problem with Atlantica is that it makes PvE combat extremely boring, the monster you fight are way to easy unless you go way past your level then you die.  The only time I feel like I have a challenge is when I’m fighting a boss, but the great majority of you’re time you’ll be grinding monsters.

Combat PvP - PvP combat is a lot more fun than PvE.  The game gives you many options to participate in PvP, you can challenge someone that’s near you,  go to the challenge board to find an open challenge or participate in the battle arenas which start every 2 hrs or so.  Winning a battle you’ll be awarded items and XP, there’s no looting so you don’t need to worry about losing your items.  Free leagues are battles that take place in the Rome arena where players of similar rankings fight over a 1 hr 40 mins time span to determine a winner.  I’ve participate in a few of these although I haven’t done well yet.  One of my biggest grips is that even though they put users of similar rankings together that doesn’t mean there similar levels.  I was lev 28 with 6 merc and I had to fight a lev 33 char with 7 mercs.  Not only did the user have an extra merc to fight with, but they were all 5 levels higher than my guys, so obviously I got my ass kicked.   This seems to be a very common occurrence as most of my PvP battles have been one sided.  On another note once the League ends your stuck in Rome, so for me that means I have a 27 min auto-run back to where I was questing.

Crafting – While I haven’t done much crafting so far, it basically works the same way as most crafting systems with one exception.  Once you have gathered your ingredients, you need to build up work-load points to actually craft the items. The way to build work-load points is to either fight monsters or get work-load scrolls for winning PvP fights.  I honestly hate crafting in MMOs, just a huge grind fest, so I tend to not do it.

Basically I’m not seeing the potential in this game, it seems like all you do is quest grinding.  Since Darkfall seems to be having 1001 problems, I’ll probably continue playing Atlantica from time to time when I’m extremely bored.  I really hate quest grinding so unless the game starts offering other things to do I don’t see myself lasting.

Having recently let my subscription to Warhammer Online expire, I am once again MMOless which is unacceptable.  I’ve let some time pass and have taken a look around to see if anything catches my eye and something indeed has, Atlantica Online.  Having played the more traditional MMORPGs as of late, Warhammer, LOTRO, Conan, I was looking for something different.  I was actually interested in playing a MMOFPS, but didn’t really find anything that wasn’t either old or not really a MMO.  Atlantica Online seems to be getting good reviews and is definetly nothing like Warhammer Online which is good cause I’m tired of that format.

I’m a huge fan of Finaly Fantasy Tactics and similar games and seeing how Atlantica Online is a turned based tactical fighting RPG where you can control up to 18 units I figured I’d give it a go.  I just signed up and am downloading the game as I type this so I’ve yet to actually play the game, but I’m excited.  Anyone have any tips for me?

I had a chance to play Atlantica Online earlier this week in-between being sick and playing Warhammer: Online. For a game that is in beta, it seems to want to be treated as a game that has been already released, claiming in its advertisements: “Love it, or we’ll give cash for your character!” This caught my eye specifically and made me want to try the game, not because I wanted to love it; I figured I’d hate it, since I’m a bitter shell of a man, and could get some cash out of it. However, if you take a look at the details of the ‘offer’ it sounds more like they’re trying to get cheap power-leveling out of their players than actually convince you to play. Offers aside, we’re here to discuss my first impressions, so let’s get on with it!

Graphics/UI: 5/10 – ‘Meh’

The graphics are nothing innovative. They’re similar to most eastern games on the market. This game is particularly similar to Sword of the New World, a MMORTSRPG(?) I had the chance to try last year. I don’t normally review games at the login screen, but this one wants to be. I had never in all my years seen a login screen with so many, many random colors. I think it was depicting a large-scale battle, but to me it seemed like an orgy of fairies and daemons on a rainbow chessboard. Once I survived the seizure-inducing login screen, it was time to create my character. Character customization is very limited, not only at the character screen but in-game as well. I only had about five hairstyles to choose from, two outfit types, and a…weapon? Well, anyway, once in-game the graphics didn’t get that much better. After playing to about level 10(I think), I had gotten quite a few pieces of armor. Instead of evenly distributing them between myself and my mercenaries I figured I’d put them all on my “visible” character to upgrade his appearance. Where’s my helmet? Where are the new pants I got? The character looked exactly the same as it did before I equipped anything on him.

Now, let’s make something very clear. The game needs to have low system requirements in order to function properly, as battles will eventually become very, very large. This is not why the game’s graphics are ‘meh’.  World of Warcraft and Warhammer: Online both had relatively low system requirements when released as compared to the available technology at the time. However, the way they depicted their characters, the landscapes, the spell effects, was very original, and relevant to the world they were basing the game on. Atlantica Online just seems to have copied and pasted a combination of Lineage 2 graphics, with Sword of the New World graphics, and other eastern games. That’s harsh, perhaps, but it seems to be the way the game wants to be treated. “Old MMOs not ‘WOW’ing you?” it proudly boasts in its advertisements, suggesting that they have something new and refreshing to offer. It certainly isn’t in the graphics department.

Gameplay/Chat/Community: 5/10 – ‘Who’s my special little boy?’

This section of my first impressions review will not focus on the combat aspect of the game. That’s a separate aspect altogether as they seem to want it to be. As soon as you start playing, the game will assume that you don’t know how to use your mouse or keyboard and will simply ‘lock’ you to the tutorial NPC. It will explain the world to you a little bit, and how to get started on completing your first quest. This is where the game also makes another assumption: it seems to believe that you’re too dumb to find battles on your own, so it will go find them for you. That’s right, there’s an ‘auto-move’ option that will automatically move you to your active quest’s objective. From there, all you have to do is either talk to NPC X or kill monster Y.

Perhaps an aspect that the tutorial should have expanded on was how to use the chat interface. I kept seeing only one person in my chat log, and they seemed to be talking to themselves. Not in the sense that there was no one else for them to talk to, but in the sense that they seemed to be answering questions and holding a conversation while there was no one else in the chatroom talking. Maybe I didn’t know how to use the chat, or maybe the game packs an auto-ignore feature that will ignore people it knows you won’t like automatically.

Now, one feature I sort of liked is the player’s ability to post in-game advertisements that are displayed at the top of your screen for goods and services players are interested in trading or selling(some services which I didn’t understand, such as ‘teaching pants’). This automatically made me think that goldsellers would be filling these advertising spaces with goldselling links. At the same time, though, it’s much less intrusive than those long whispers we get on other games, or the huge chunks of text in public chatrooms. If the feature were to be moderated, goldselling advertisements could be removed almost immediately.

Battle system/leveling system: 6/10

At last we come to Atlantica Online’s innovative feature. Okay, now that we’ve had a good laugh, it’s serious time. Let’s talk about how the battle system works:

• When you right click a mob to attack, a Final Fantasy-esque transition will take you to a battle sequence.
• You select the character you want to ‘move.’
• You then choose what you want your character to do. There’s attack, use item, use magic, all the standards.
• You will have a time limit, after which the enemy will make their move.
• You are now taking turns hitting each other with random things until one group is dead.

This is supposed to be the best part about Atlantica Online. Strategic turn-based combat that makes you think carefully about what you’re going to use on your opponent for maximum efficiency. The timer was so short, however, that I found myself frantically clicking enemy monsters while hitting “q” over and over so that every now and then a magical ability would go off. I had 4 characters to move on a 15 second timer. It completely removed the ’strategic’ part out of combat. Not to mention, it took me ten levels to figure out how to remove that annoying camera thing in battles where characters would take a ’solo.’ A ’solo’ is when your character decides he’s better than every other mercenary there and will take up the whole screen to show off his magical abilities in greater detail. Problem is: the timer is still running during this sequence, so if your guy decides to summon Knights of the Round or whatever, then by the time the sequence is over, so is your turn.

The combat system ended with me hitting two buttons over and over. I felt if I hooked up a Rock Band drum peripheral to my computer I could get through the battle easily by dropping some freestyle beats. My characters seemed to be a lot stronger than anything they encountered, so there was no need to think on anything. It’s a race to see how fast you can click enemy targets with a 15 second limit. Last thing, what’s up with the looting? When the mobs are dead, I have to loot them to claim my prize, but there’s usually 4-6 mobs to loot, and it uses up a character turn to loot a mob. So if all 4 of your mercenaries can move in a given turn you can loot 4 mobs, then you have to wait until the enemy corpses make a move before you can loot the remaining ones. What the hell?! Why even given corpses a turn?

The leveling system also had me a bit confused. I know each mercenary gains levels and they’re all displayed in the UI outside of combat. A lot of things required “level 20″ and it made me wonder what exactly that meant, though. An average of the levels of all your mercenaries? The level of your main character? Another thing was the random number in brackets next to my name. I saw it on every new player I ran into. I figured it wasn’t my level since it said “18″ and my character’s level at the bottom clearly said “Lv.1″. In the end, I decided it was my character’s age. A strapping young lad with a cannon on his back and a pocket full of dreams.

Overall: 5.5/10 – Nothing further, your honor.

Even though the game is still in beta, it seems to be advertising proudly things that it can’t really offer. If you hated the game, and want to take them up on their offer for cash, you have to get to level 50 first. “Old MMOs not ‘WOW’ing you” I see what you did there. Thanks, but I’d rather go back to World of Warcraft and endure the tedious scripted instances with several  people who didn’t know a giant beam or orb was coming right at them, and that it wasn’t a good thing.

In the end, if you like these types of games, you know, the free, eastern, copy-paste-insert-item-mall-instant-cash games, then you might have some fun with this one. It’s a little bit different than other released MMOs, even if it’s not innovative in  any way whatsoever.