Riders of Icarus - Mounted Combat MMO

[Kelimbror]

UPDATE: Open Beta/Soft Launch starts July 6.
Founder's Packs available Now
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Closed Beta started up this week for this new Korean MMO. At first glance, the word 'Nexon' may scare people away but honestly the game seems pretty awesome. It's a mash up of TERA/BnS and Archeage in terms of aesthetic and feel of combat. It is tab target, not full on action, but does have a combo system and interesting mobility.

However, the highlight of this particular MMO is the ability to tame wild creatures you see and use them as pets and mounts. This isn't like WoW taming, where you just click a button and poof, but instead is an entire system with differing costs and challenges associated with taming. Think more like how Avatar had the bonding with their mounts...this is the same.

The best part is that the mounts (called familiars) are integral to gameplay. They level up, have their own abilities which are different based on the mount, and are used in combat. Game is already insanely polished, optimized, and smooth. Movement and combat feel great, though not ground breaking as it falls into the previous age of MMOs

So if anyone wants to try this out, you should go sign up for open beta. I think there are sites giving away keys as well.

http://icarus.nexon.net/en

[Coldkil]

Questions right now.
- business model?
- lots of grind involved - or better why do i have to grind for?
- ingame shop?
- how's the leveling?

i need to know these basics; will check the website and maybe get a bunch of hours of gameplay. If it turns out like BnS, i got tired of it pretty fast, while graphics and combat was fun.

[Kelimbror]

I haven't looked at the shop yet. I'm scared, because it's Nexon, but no way to know for sure. I'll take a look this weekend. So far, leveling has been smooth. They have taken every advancement in MMO in terms of presentation and included it here. UI is easily customizable, 'F' key to interact and breeze through quest accepts/turn ins, objectives are smaller in number, quest log points to objectives in a non intrusive way, and the map color codes quest areas in stark contrasted sections.

Only level 5 after some time last night, so I don't know about the grind. I have a feeling both the grindy aspect and cash shop may tie into the taming points system in the future, but won't know until I get higher. Business model is F2P, unsure if a subscription will be offered at this time.

Nexon doesn't have a great track record for cash shop stuff, but they do have a good track record of publishing games that last. So that would explain the high polish and very smooth performance/controls.

[Calfredd]

How's the 3d combat? Most MMOs I played have had limited 3d mobility and so, poor 3d combat. How smooth is it?

[Baconeggcheese]

'Nexon'

Nope. nope nope nope. Nope.

What a piece of shit company.

[Kelimbror]

How's the 3d combat? Most MMOs I played have had limited 3d mobility and so, poor 3d combat. How smooth is it?

So far I'm still just on the ground, because I haven't gotten much time with it. I just wanted to get the info out so people could try to get in beta if they wanted. However, the physics already feel very specific to a game with heavy mount emphasis. The mounts have a good weight to them, but movement isn't restricted like in action combat games.

Flying did happen briefly in the tutorial and it felt rather easy to control (in a good way) so I can imagine that the combat would be easier than say Vashj'ir felt. So far two of the classes I tried had either a charge or a pull, both being melee, so that should help with orientation problems. Haven't tried a caster yet to see if autofacing happens to help smooth the transition.

I'll try to put in some more hours this weekend to give people a more detailed impression. To be fair, I'm not praising this as some MMO savior...but as we all like playing *all the games* I think more people should know about it. My wife is going bananas because her prime end game in all these MMOs is mount and pet collecting so she's quite excited at the concept.

If anyone else wants to try and give feedback here, be my guest. I'd rather this be more informational than a bashing session, but it seems party crashers have already started that trend.

[DeadmanWalking]

I've signed up for beta access, maybe I can stream it on twitch.

[Kelimbror]

I've signed up for beta access, maybe I can stream it on twitch.

Let me know how it goes. Curious what other people's impression of the gameplay is. Felt really cool to think hrm...I know they just taught me how to get mounts by capturing this unicorn, but there's a rad looking Wolf in the last zone...I wonder if I can make that my mount.

And yes. Yes you can make that wolf your mount.

[Yunru]

Here is a gameplay video:


It doesnt look anything special. Wow on flying mounts. (similar fight like when you need to jump from a dragon to dragon to reach the quest npc)

[zito]

it doesn't matter how good Nexon makes a game, they are shit and will nickle and dime everything with over priced prices.

- - - Updated - - -

Here is a gameplay video:


It doesnt look anything special. Wow on flying mounts. (similar fight like when you need to jump from a dragon to dragon to reach the quest npc)

That looks like trash, the flying part is irrelevant because your attacks auto face your target no matter where you are

it's a gimmic that doesn't do anything, cash grab at the most

[Kelimbror]

Here is a gameplay video:


It doesnt look anything special. Wow on flying mounts. (similar fight like when you need to jump from a dragon to dragon to reach the quest npc)

Yeah, except you are taming the things you jump on and using them to fly around and fight in the game world. Looks pretty cool to me. Hopefully I'll get to try it out this weekend. Not sure what level the flying kicks in.

[Jinxz]

Nexon + Korean game= nope nope nope

[Edge-]

Dunno why, but makes me think of Dragon's Prophet a bit. The were handing out a ton of beta keys but I'm kinda beta'd out right now, and have way too many live games to play, so I'll hold off on checking this one out till launch.

[Torgent]

I am trying to play the beta of this, have it installed and all, but the launcher32.exe stops working every time. I changed the compatibility of it as that was the only suggestion I found, but no luck. Anyone else have this problem?

[Kelimbror]

I am trying to play the beta of this, have it installed and all, but the launcher32.exe stops working every time. I changed the compatibility of it as that was the only suggestion I found, but no luck. Anyone else have this problem?

Are you running it from the actual shortcut for the game or from within the launcher? I found that I had to wait a good bit with the typical spinny wheel where it looked like it was crashing, but then the game loaded up. I also use the direct shortcut without the launcher open, running it as administrator.

Dunno why, but makes me think of Dragon's Prophet a bit. The were handing out a ton of beta keys but I'm kinda beta'd out right now, and have way too many live games to play, so I'll hold off on checking this one out till launch.

You are gonna miss some fancy outfits though. I know how much that pains you! But yeah, I haven't been doing any betas so I decided to give this a shot to support my wife's mount obsession. I know that personally I'll never play any MMO 'for good' so I gotta try them all.

As far as optimization and polish, including gameplay go, this game is pretty impressive. A lot of people like to poo poo what they think is old hat, like a lot of the usual suspects in the thread. I can tell you one thing though...this is miles ahead of Dragon's Prophet. I think this game is what I expected DP to be, but it wasn't.

[DeadmanWalking]

Well I got accepted to beta but no streaming allowed at this point.

[Calfredd]

Well I got accepted to beta but no streaming allowed at this point.

Holy crap so did I. Is it that easy to get into this closed beta or something?

[Kelimbror]

Holy crap so did I. Is it that easy to get into this closed beta or something?

Right now, yes. That's why I told everyone about this. It's not very well known at this point so they can use all the testing and exposure they can get. Unlike other companies, I think they actually want people playing and helping improve their game.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Besides the somewhat unique change in setting (3D playing field instead of stereotypical grass fields and mountain zones), it seems like just another tab target MMORPG (as you had already stated). The flying may have been more interesting of you weren't hovering in the air during combat most of the time (as opposed to actually dog fighting or flying around trying to get an the other's flank), as from the videos I've seen your basically just "standing/flying" still while you shoot at the opponent.

[Idoru]

Not sure about the combat, but could maybe get used to it over time. I liked combat in BnS better.

But collecting mounts alone might keep me coming back (unless unlocking slots becomes cash shop only).