Hi guys, there might be a possible Yakisoba gathering this Saturday 9th Aug 2008 if cara decides to come down to SG from Malaysia. Yeah I know it’s a little sudden, but hey blame cara for the surprise inspection. The Malaysian Yakisoba division needs to check with the Singapore division.

I’ll need to hear from you guys whether you will be able to make it or not. Discussion can be found here.

It’s 4 days into August and still no news from the GM team from Atlantica. This is by far the biggest stinker, comparatively to a certain company that kept promising and then pushing back the release of an important patch to one of the most over-hyped games, which eventually this particular game died on its on because everyone was shafted by the creator of the game. Including the company that owns the publishing rights to it.

But still, we have got sources pointing to a few dates. WarCry Network announces a August 7 release. And someone on the forums claims to have a “friend” working in nDoors saying that August 13 is the actual date.

Whatever the date is, the admins are still keeping tight lipped. Not exactly a good way to qwell fans of such an awesome game.

Ragnarok Online will perhaps be a game that I will forever remember. If it wasn’t for that game, I wouldn’t have met some of my most closest online friends. That would include my most abled right-hand man, Crimz.

What better way to revive it (aside from playing on imba Private Servers or playing that trashy excuse for a game, RO2) than to have it brought over to the Nintendo DS? Source from 1up.

After seven years and several million players, Ragnarok Online, the Korean online game that is still the most popular MMORPG in Japan in terms of registered players, is expanding from the PC to the Nintendo DS. GungHo Works, a new console-gaming division of GungHo Online Entertainment (the outfit that runs Ragnarok in Japan), unleashed this week the first details about Ragnarok Online DS, a fantasy role-playing game that retains a surprisingly large chunk of what makes the PC game so interesting in the first place.

Basic gameplay is exactly the same, although some concessions have been made to make the game’s largely offline story mode more approachable. The main game has you controlling Ares, a mild-mannered kid who wants to start up his own guild and be a great adventurer like his father; you make this happen by recruiting party members and carrying out quests in the realm of Rune Midgard, building up your gang to the point where they earn new jobs and more powerful skills.

This is the first time that Ragnarok has been released for a non-PC platform — which GungHo head Kazuki Morishita says is “something we had hoped for since before online service began [in Japan]” — and the publisher is doing everything it can to make the adventure accessible for new gamers. The Nintendo DS version runs largely off the stylus, which serves the same function as the mouse in the PC game. You tap the screen to attack enemies and retrieve items, and the game occasionally asks you to draw circles and other designs in order to pull off spells and skills. Ragnarok veterans have little to fear: Most of the jobs from the MMORPG are available, along with two brand-new jobs — Dark Knight, which lets you unleash special moves that sap your hit points, and Shaman, which puts magic from a wide variety of elements at your fingertips. The DS Ragnarok also has an extensive online component — up to three people can team up over a wireless or Wi-Fi connection and challenge the Tower of Mirages, a 50-floor randomly generated dungeon that’s home to untold treasure and decidedly mean-looking monsters.

Ragnarok Online DS is due out December 18 in Japan for 6,090 yen; no U.S. release plans have been announced.

Testa posted a picture on our forums giving us a reason why we should wait for Blade and Soul. And I certainly think he did it quite well under the belt.

And think the members are right to say that this game needs to be renamed to Swords and Boobs.

In Atlantica Online, you start off by choosing your hero character. You have the choice of either becoming a Sword, Spear, Axe, Gun, Bow, Cannon or Staff user. Once you choose your weapon speciality, you cannot change them anymore (unless you opt for cash item, which is still not implemented atm).

Fortunately, the weapons are not gender specific. You are free to choose the sex of your own hero, and we all know having a gunner chick beats a male gunner anytime. This however, is the only time you get to choose any gender. The mercenaries that you will have to hire to form your team are gender-locked to their roles.

Here’s a rundown on the classes:

• Sword

The Swordsman has the best survivability of all classes, which makes him the natural tank class. His attack is rather strong, but it can only affect a single non-flying target in the front row, so he should not be solely relied upon for offense. His magic skill is the Flame Sword, an attack that again only affects a single foe.

• Spear

The Spearman can attack a single non-flying foe in the front row. If there is another foe in the same column directly behind the target, that foe also receives damage, although less than the original target. His magic attack is a lightning spear which damages and slows down two foes in the same column. The Spearman has medium defense.

• Axe

The slow-moving Viking can attack a single target in the front row. If that target has one or two neighbors in the same row, then those also take some damage. This character has many hitpoints but low defense, especially versus magic. Its magic move can freeze foes for few turns.

• Bow

Despite bonuses to evasion, this character’s low health make it unsuitable for the front line. It is a potent counter for enemy spellcasters though, as the powerful single-target attack can reach every foe, regardless of its position in the enemy ranks. Its magic move is Silence, which prevents foes from using magic for a two turns.

• Gun

The Gunner wields a musket and carries rather low protection. This character can damage an entire column of foes, with foes in the front absorbing taking most of the damage. Its magic move is a stronger version of the regular attack.

• Cannon

The Artilleryman is armed with a hand-held cannon. Its standard attack covers a cross-shaped area, although with a rather low attack power. Its magic move damages foes and reveals their remaining hitpoints for a few turns.

• Staff

The Shaman has both healing and damaging skills to support the party. Due to low health and defense, this character is best placed away from the frontline.

Crimz posted on our forums regarding an upcoming Korean MMO called Blade and Soul, which just totally catches our breath and balls. Featuring 4 races and 8 classes, coped with extremely titating graphics, insane action base gameplay and a very oriental character design.

When I first saw the character art for it, I’d swear they were from Manga Carta. The game engine is based on the Unreal Engine 3, delivering the same kind of quality that top end PS3 games have delivered.

‘Blade&Soul’ is an Oriental Martial Arts MMORPG that breaks the traditional confined and monotonous game plays, providing the gamers a completely new experience. It is expected to open a new dimension of MMORPG through ‘game environment alteration,’ ‘expansion of tasks that a character can carry out within the game.’

The Oriental world portrayed by its unique graphics, diverse stories embedded in Oriental fantasy tales, and maximized action that has never been witnessed in online games until now will lead gamers to a completely new experience.

Product Information
Publisher: NCsoft
Developer: NCsoft
Genre: Oriental Martial Arts MMORPG
Website: –
Release date: N/A

Main Characteristics

• Oriental Martial Arts Action: It is full of symbolic and well known Oriental martial art elements such as ‘Energy Ball’, ‘Inner Energy’, ‘Swift jump,’ etc. The important themes of Oriental martial art fantasies such as justice and chivalry are richly spread throughout the game by means of martial art.

• Oriental-features: Breaking away from the traditional medieval fantasy world, it takes an Oriental mysticism as the background environment. The basic world-view is based on the Korean myth ‘Song of Genesis,’ and the factions within the game are also modeled after Korean mythological characters

• Constantly Changing Environment: Within ‘Blade&Soul,’ many conditions change according to the play of the gamer, on the other hand, the environment creates diverse situations for the gamers. This system will provide the gamers with a new experience that has not been witnessed until now.

• Powerful Action: The main motto of battles within ‘Blade&Soul’ is ‘super powerful action’ that can distinguish itself from existing games. Players can knock back opponents and use diverse fancy skills according to the condition the gamers are posed in. The game aspires to provide battles that are enjoyable even by just watching them. Everyone can enjoy the battles of ‘Blade&Soul’ through simple comtrol.

The video of the game speaks for itself. The latter half of the video will make you come buckets, guranteed. But hold on to your guns. This game is far from reaches the shores of the Korean community, much less the English community.

But this sort of destroys a lot of MMO out there, rendering rather bland looking eh?

The Atlantica team recently released a couple of screenshots and a video of the latest v2.0 update. The update includes new continents, new npcs, new weapons, new monsters, the ability to ride mounts, and more.

This is pretty unnerving considering the fact they have yet to announce when exactly in Aug does the next beta start. If you ask me, the game is pretty polished already in CBT. There were barely any badly translated text, with an exception of a few mangled quest.

Anyway, here’s some of the screenies released.

Alright, so you’ve heard about me talking about Altantica Online. What’s so great about this game other than its gigantic 2.15gb file size to download? Firstly, if you’re tired of the same old hack and slash, nuke and grind MMOs out there, and you’re looking for something new, then you’re in luck.

Altantica Online is a crossbreed between Final Fantasy Tactics, Luminary and a dash of Silkroad Online. It’s a turn-based MMO where you control up to 9 recruitable characters. Finally a game that requires you to think a little before you act. Your character lineup and their position is vital to your survival. Put a Gunner out in the front and she will get mowed down faster than you can say Bang. Recruit an army of 9 melee characters and discover how they can’t hit Flying type monsters (which appear very frequently late in the game).

Atlantica Online also offers Luminary’s in-dept economy and town management systems. Aside from managing your characters and their growth, the game offers you to take control of game market. Almost everything can be bought from the market. Most items have a fixed market price and this helps controls insane inflations that many MMOs have (ie, Granado Espada). Players would usually sell under the market price and this helps newer players purchase what they need and continuously simulating the economy.

Refining in this game is painless, all items have 100% success rates all the way to +10. All you need is the equipment and an equilivant equipment and the enchantment stone. Weapon and Armor loots comes in Equipments boxes that you random for. Keep what you need, and sell what you don’t need.

People who love crafting will be pleased to know that this game is very crafting-centric; basic needs like potions and food all the way to weapons and equipments to even scrolls and bullets can be crafted. Crafting levels also can be taught from player to player (provided the learning player has the experience), and the teaching player recieves exp for doing so.

This game also promotes guild activities. There are many features of the game only available to players with guilds such as guild quests, town control, usage of the training centres, town quests, collecting taxes from players who use your town’s facilities as well as NPC residents living in your town. Towns in this game by the way, are named after actual countries (Which is why some guilds fight so hard to get Tokyo, lol).

Guild members grind guild quests to earn guild points which in turn allows guild leaders to bid control for towns around Atlantica Online. The winning guild gets to control the town for 1 year (game time) and as they farm more town quests to improve the towns, they get to increase taxes for all the facilities available in the town. Highly populated towns by players = more taxes gained = more money earned. NPC residents pay taxes monthly (game time), which officers can draw to pay their salaries. Money making in this game is easy.

Atlantica Online also offers players the opportunity to bet on AI-controlled battles in Arenas to earn money everyday (10am Singapore time). The payout is very lucrative. PVP Tournaments based on level brackets are also held daily together with the Arena and prize monies are very attractive. All of these events are part of the game and not engineered by the GMs, which means you don’t have to wait for GMs to get their lazy asses off to organize one.

The learning curve in Atlantica Online however, is steep but not difficult to master. The interface takes some time to get used to, but as soon as you get use to it, this game is almost perfect. Graphics in this game is suprisingly good for a tactics game.

If you’re looking for a game that will last you for a while, this is the game. We’ll be here for a long while, from the way I see it. Join Yakisoba if you want a closely knitted guild when the next beta starts!

We here at Yakisoba’s very excited about resurecting our blog once again to fill it up with more posts about ourselves and the games that have caught our eyes. A couple of members will join me in writing articles, while the rest will churn out ideas and news on our forums.

I took a trip down memory lane, reading our old Granado Espada posts, and I have to admit, we are pretty damn awesome. Hahaha. But what’s more awesome is how this guild has bonded us like no other experience. A plate of fried Japanese noodles is all it took.

Today, our active members stands at around 15. A far cry from the original 100-ish members, but nevertheless continuing to keep the flames alive, and moving from one game to another game whenever time permits. Sadly, we no longer are able to keep up to our “insane hardcore grinding” title.

But we’ve decided for now to move to Altantica Online to play. As soon as the next OB starts, we’ll be there and we hope people out there will join us. I’ll talk more about the game in post to come.

Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Team Fortress 2

• Fixed team switches on Attack/Defense maps spamming the console
• Fixed the Kritzkrieg not working on servers with crits turned off
• Fixed some clipped localized strings in various in-game dialogs
• Fixed several cases where files were synchronously loaded while the game was running
• Fixed a shutdown crash in the material system
• Cached rendering of item model panels to improve performance, in particular while weapon selection was visible
• Added a gear symbol behind the health bar for Engineer buildings, in both target IDs and freeze panels
• Players killing themselves will now give a kill credit to the last enemy who damaged them
• Fixed grenades, rockets, and flamethrower being able to fire through grates at round starts
• Fixed players being killed and creating ragdolls during team switches
• Fixed various exploits and performance problems in CP_Badlands, CP_Well, and CP_Fastlane
• Removed health bonus from the Backburner

I’m saddened by the removal of the health bonus. I admit it makes the Pyros a little imbalanced, but hell it made suicide charging into a Heavy more fun.