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Dragon Nest patch brings players to the Edge of Darkness
Nexon's latest free-to-play dungeon-crawling beat-'em-up (look at all those hyphens!) Dragon Nest received a lovely new patch today. The update brings players a load of new content, including the Edge of Darkness dungeon, the Daredevil Faire (and its associated dungeons), and the 1v1 PvP ladder. In addition, the patch brings a number of new items to the Dragon Vault, including Item Protection Jelly to protect your gear from failed upgrades, a Marketplace Pass for the auction house fiends, and six new costumes for each class. The Edge of Darkness is a level 15 dungeon and is divided into the Rozin Sanctuary and the Jealous Atrium. The Jealous Atrium is unique in that players must contend with wave after wave of monsters rather than progressing through the dungeon traditionally. The players must protect the Goddess' statue from the enemies while simultaneously eliminating them all. Any player who dies in the dungeon cannot be resurrected, and the dungeon ends only after players have eradicated the 24th wave of enemies, or all players have died. The Daredevil Faire, meanwhile, offers dungeons for a wide range of character levels, and these dungeons reward players with tickets that can be redeemed for a variety of prizes. And finally, the 1v1 PvP ladder is now open, allowing players to prove their PvP superiority by rising in the ranks of the PvP ladder. The fights aren't just for bragging rights, though. Players will be rewarded with Ladder Points for winning matches. These points can be exchanged for a variety of items to help assist the player in future endeavors. For the full details, check out the patch notes on Dragon Nest's official site.
The Game Archaeologist and the Nights of Old Winter
Here's a question for you: How much do you really, really have to love a game to pay $8.00 an hour to play it? Considering how much we tend to whine about a flat $15/month fee, I'm guessing the answer is, "Only if it loved me long time." And yet, in 1991 this wasn't considered crazy extortionist practices -- it was dubbed "Being a pioneer." While online RPGs were nothing new by then, nobody had tackled the jump from text-based RPGs (MUDs and BBS doors) to graphical games due to the technology (limited modem speeds and access) and funding involved. It took the efforts of a Superfriends-style team to make this happen with Neverwinter Nights: Stormfront Studios developed the game, TSR provided the Dungeons & Dragons license, SSI published it under its Gold Box series, and Aol handled the online operations. Thus, 19 years ago -- six years before Ultima Online and 13 before World of Warcraft -- the first multiplayer graphical RPG went online and helped forge a path that would lead to where we are today. With only 50 to 500 players per server, Neverwinter Nights may not have been "massively," but it deserves a spot of honor as one of the key ancestors to the modern MMO.
