Most of the pictures posted in my blog were taken using my Sony WX5, Nokia n73 and 7610 handphone.
If you have any comments pls leave on my cbox.
27 September 2008
Street Fighter 4
Recently theres a hoo-ha at the arcade, cause of Street Fighter 4's release. Using toshiba LCD TV and wireless link connection, players can challenge each other from different machines.
Price for playing now is $1 (2tokens) per credit. Nice 3D graphic, especially on the SPECIAL moves part. And... there is Akuma hidden inside.
Closed Beta: October 15th, 2008 Grand Opening: November 1st, 2008
Servers
Akram Online
Channels
Sea of Souls: Capacity 2500
Server rates
2x Experience 1x Zuly drops 1x Item drops
What is Akram Online?
Akram Online is a vision of what we believe Rose should be -- or should have been from the beginning. We will be making substantial changes to the game over time. We've always felt that Rose was a wonderful game with some fatal flaws, and some of those flaws were compounded by the private server market when most of them went high rate. The game is lacking in a number of regards, but mainly in alternatives to grinding for levels. The thing is, the game is far more complete at low levels than it is at high levels, so creating a high rate server makes no sense (in my opinion). Why rush people to an end that doesn't really exist?
We have a number of plans for this server not the least of which is actually having an End Game plan, something to actually strive towards and to make the higher levels fun to play. The idea is to make the game fun no matter what level you are, rather than just making it a race to the end for PvP dominance. To that end, here are just a few of the things that are in the works and their status as of right now:
Blue armours. These are completely inserted and implemented in the server and client files. We intend to recolour these armours as well in order to give a little more variation to the look of Rose. The blue names you are used to are all in game but their stats have been changed to make them more relevant to all classes. These new armours will be dropped exclusively by a new mob.
Kings. We are adding more kings throughout the game to add to variety. These kings, when killed, will randomly spawn the new mob that drops the blue armours. Keep an eye out for them (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
New games. Two games currently in development are Capture the Flag and Team Tag. We all know what Capture the Flag is; Team Tag is a game where a random person is chosen as "it" and chases down and kills the other players. When killed, you are respawned as "it" along with the other person. The game continues until all but one player is "it" -- that player is crowned the winner.
Union Wars. These always needed a great deal of work, in my opinion. Some changes we have planned include two Union Wars a day as well as Planetary Union Wars (meaning that there will be a level-restricted war on each planet). One thing about UW was that it ceased to be fun for new players since high level players are untouchable to them. If we separate Union Wars into level breaks, then everyone can participate and have fun. More HP will be added to defenders' crystals, along with other changes aimed at making them substantially stronger. As it was in most servers, the defenders very rarely won Union Wars -- defeating the purpose of having them to begin with.
Unions in general. There are two possibilities for how we will be handling Unions and the fact that people "Union hop" during War times. I personally see that as a flaw -- Unions are supposed to be about loyalty. Therefore, we will either remove the option to leave a Union entirely or create a fee system where jumping from Union to Union ceases to be profitable. All Union shops will carry the same items as well, so there is no need to join a different Union to get a different item.
Episode Quest. The Luna section of the Episode quest has already been written -- we are working on implementing it now. We will strive to continue this quest as time allows and hopefully keep up with the community's leveling progress.
jRose items. Most of the jRose items will be implemented into the game as fashion or common clothing. However, some of their items are simply not worth implementing (as they do not suit the Rose environment at all, in our opinion) -- and we have no intention of introducing garbage into the game for the sake of unoriginal content.
Fixing current game issues such as the unique-dropping GMG and Samurai Spirit. Hopefully, such issues will be fixed by server opening.
PvP. We would like to implement more automated PvP games (as described briefly earlier). Also, we'd like to make PvP more "fair," and to this end, we will be addressing the problem of balancing skills. A cool down to Vital Waters will likely be added as well.
New Gems. All of the gems from naRose have been added, though their stats may have been changed slightly in order to better reflect Akram Online's version of Rose.
Complete rework of Prison. This is not a priority because I honestly don't see people reaching this level that quickly, but the way it is now is just stupid. Being able to level that quickly in that level range was never intended.
Nerfing of charms in general. Charms should only help you out occasionally -- they should not be a means of leveling.
End Game (for lack of a better term)the main reason you should consider Akram Online!
One thing we firmly believe is that the biggest mistake the original Rose developers made was starting the game without an End Game in mind, or at least one that we can determine by examining the game in any of its forms to date.
With that in mind, Akram Online DOES have a direction. The plans are to continue the episode quest as mentioned above -- but with a twist. The quest will have multiple choices and paths that you can follow. How you choose to conduct yourself and the paths you choose will determine the final alliance of your character. What does that mean? Well, in a nutshell, there will be a good and an evil side to Rose. After you reach a certain point in the Episode quest, your character will be permanently aligned with one of the two sides. You don't get to make this choice consciously -- rather, it is a culmination of the decisions you made during the entire Episode quest, and perhaps during other side quests as well.
The "End Game" will be the beginning of a monumental battle between Good and Evil, between Arua's Angels and Hebarn's Horde. There will be specific skills and armours based on your alignment; these will, of course, be relevant to their respective alignment. For example, a Hebarn's Cleric would lean towards damage and debuffing skills, whereas an Arua's Cleric would lean towards healing and support of their fellow warriors. Artisans would have special crafting skills allowing them to create alignment-specific armours and weapons.
There will be wars similar to the current faction wars, pitting one side against the other in a battle to the death, with appropriate rewards to be distributed to the victors.
In early planning, I also envision home towns for each side -- towns with relevant NPCs and functions. I would ultimately like these towns to be PvP-enabled, meaning that you would require guards to ensure that the opposing faction does not attack your town and wipe out the shops.
We truly believe this idea gives Rose a purpose -- a reason to continue to play and something to look forward to as well.
What Akram Online is NOT
Akram Online is NOT Seven Hearts version 2. We are mainly the same people with very similar ideals, but, rest assured, we intend to change a number of the things that we felt went wrong with Seven Hearts.
We are not a high rate server nor a PvP server. I apologize to those fans of Seven Hearts Gaia that feel they're being abandoned, but I truly believe that, if you look closely at the changes we're making, there will be more than enough PvP for anyone -- and as I said before, High Rate Rose just doesn't make sense. The argument that it is better for the casual player will be irrelevant to our server, given that the point of Akram Online is to make the game fun no matter what level you are, rather than forcing you to be top level to be competitive.
A sensitive matter
We have a capable staff and we have the tools and the will to not only make this project a reality but also to make this the most enjoyable Rose server ever made. Unfortunately, what we don't have right now is a bank roll. I believe this is a sensitive matter because honestly it may make some of you think we aren't serious or we can't compete. Stating this issue in public is something I need to address because I am looking to the community for help in this matter. I have come up with a rather controversial plan. What I am going to do is ask for donations in advance of the server opening. These donations will have some benefits over normal donations and they are personally guaranteed by me. If, for any reason, the server does not go live, I will personally refund every donation made to get us started. After the server goes live, the donations become non refundable -- but at that point we will have already accomplished what we had set out to do.
If you choose to make a donation in advance, you will receive the following as a big "Thank you!" for a minimum $50 donation:
One set of donation gear of your choice, with random stats geared to your job of choice. In other words, you can pick the set, but the stats are still random. This set includes 4 items of your choice (sorry if there were misunderstandings that this was a complete set of 6 items) One non-tradeable Akram Online logo GP cap. (In game of course, lol) A Pioneer forum tag. (This will not be available to anyone once the server goes live) Access to closed beta testing of the main server. Reservation of your character names. Any donations below the $50 minimum will receive regular donation credits to their accounts when the server goes live. So, if you can only afford $10, you aren't left out and we do appreciate your help. As far as the minimum $50 part, you may claim two Pioneer packages maximum. Anything you donate above $100 will, again, be credited to the account of your choice when the server goes live.
