The announcement of Ashes of Betrayal came very recently, and already we have a target date of June 17th for release. The turnaround on Aika's upcoming expansion has been more than acceptable.
Take a look at the full announcement on the official site, and get your blades sharpened for the newest PvP venue in Aika. The real limitations will come once the match starts with the competition heightened by the fact that there are no respawns within the arena.
While that might sound a bit limiting - especially with only two windows open per day - the wide brackets and rotating schedule should allow everyone a shot at the match. The battles are geared to 100 players on each side, with each team duking it out until only one remains standing.ĭivided into four level brackets, the Aitan Arena pits two teams against one another with a maximum capacity of 200 players on a first-come first-served basis. Aika has decided to take the plunge, but not on a small scale - the Aitan Arena doesn't go halfway. If everything is set up nicely then they show off the strengths of the game at their finest if there are flaws, it's a bit like highlighting them with a magnifying glass. In a game focused on PvP, arenas can be a tricky things.
Just email those over to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a brief description. What thrilling mysteries and legendary treasures lay ahead? I'll never know - my pickup group wiped on the first pull and then my game crashed on run #2." Oh, the fun of beta.Īre you taking part in a beta that you'd like to show off? So long as the NDA is down on the game you're playing, we'd be glad to post your screenshots. who writes in to explain the scene to us: " It's always exciting when a band of adventurers joins forces for the first time at an entrance to a new dungeon. This image is from the recent closed beta of Aik a, and comes to us from Jacob J. Thankfully, at least it's not a metal bikini. Then you have the waifish girl in her bright pastels. First, there are all the muscular men in their black and silver armor, all ready to go. We have to admit, the combination in this screenshot was pretty amusing to us. Now the game is on the verge of open beta (which will bring some fun new features to the game), and the Aika team was very busy at GDC this week, but Christina found some time to sit down and chat with us again.įollow along after the jump as we delve into the PvP and politics of Aika, as well as what we have to look forward to in open beta and launch. We recently took a look at Aika in First Impressions, and enjoyed a talk with Community Manager Christina Kelly during Aika's second round of closed beta testing. Innovative features such as the Pran - the fairy familiar that is proving to be one of the most popular parts of the game - and an intricate PvP system have given Aika a solid seat in the "one to watch" category. The free-to-play MMO arena is rapidly losing the stigma of shallow, uninteresting games, and Aika is shaping up to be a perfect example of that. Often times I appreciate a game more as I get over the initial knee-jerk hump, and as I explore the game and it's systems more.Īika, the upcoming free-to-play game from gPotato, is one that's been attracting quite a bit of attention lately at Massively. But if there's one thing I have learned over the years, it's to give a game some time to grow on you like a new album or new movie. Upon first glance, Aika Online from publisher gPotato seems to be of the usual suspects, a grindy game filled with slightly dated graphics and music that demands turning the volume down immediately.
the list goes on and on.īut one has to admit that the stereotypes exist for a reason, and it is only until recent years that FTP games have begun to take on a level of quality that usually had to be paid for.
There are so many high-quality games out there now, games like Wizard 101, Runescape, Free Realms, DDO, Mabinogi.
As someone who has played scores and scores (if not a hundred) free-to-play games, I know how hard it is to convince someone that all of them are not click-to-move grinders, with horrible cutesy graphics and over-the-top 8-bit music playing in the background.