Source – Though not a “big” MMO compared to the current craze with everything TERA and NCsoft, this sleeper hit actually took the top spot of Most Anticipated MMO in some of the Korean gaming charts. A casual, horse-riding MMO developed by Ntreev, Alicia is a refreshing change from your normal daily MMORPG. Taiwanese website, Gamer (or Bahamut), publish a preview of the on-going 11days Pre-OBT, so let’s take a look!
Upon starting the game, players will have an option between the male and female characters. Note that each account will only consist of 1 character, as the main focus is on the horses. Players will be able to do some minor customization on his or her chosen character. Upon leveling, more costumes will be available in-game.
Players will then be able to obtain a horse as a gift from the stable’s owner. Everyone will get an identical horse at the beginning, save for the names. Initially, the horse will only be able to access some basic features, including tutorials etc. Upon hitting level 12, players will get the option to build his or her own racing tracks. As more buildings and structures are purchased, level will also increased, attracting other players to race at your tracks.
As for the racing details, I shall not go too much into context, as a simple video will briefly showcase how a race will be like. Take a look at the video below!
For the races, players will have a choice to compete with the in-game AI or with other players. There are 5 different modes, including the one with solo AI. For this mode, there will be 3 types of challenge available – Normal, Intermediate and Hard. The more interesting modes will be the Magic Challenge and Magic Team Challenge modes. If you played games like Mario Kart (I am a huge fan), you will love this!
For the Magic Challenge mode, players will be able to obtain a spell to disrupt a competitor’s progress. There are a few different kind of spells, and can be obtained when the charge meter is full or by picking it up randomly while racing.
For the Magic Team Challenge mode, players will be separated into the Blue and Red teams. While the rules are almost the same as the Magic Challenge mode’s, beware that magic attacks might hit your team members if not aimed properly! I am not very sure if this is actually a bug..
Next comes the Tournament Race mode. This is similar to the Magic Challenge mode, expect that all spells here will only be used to boost individual’s stats, like temporary increase in speed.
In Team Tournament Race mode, teams will earn points according to their speed. For example, if the Blue team’s members have synchronized speed gains for a period of time and fills up the meter bar, the whole team will gain a movement speed increment temporarily. If this happens, the other team’s meter bar will return back to zero. I can already see this game being used as a competitive MMO!
Once the character reaches level 2 (not the horse), players will have more options to interact with their horses. Players will need to start maintaining their horses’ cleanliness, monitor diet, play mini-games and heal them (fix their equipments etc) as well. If the closeness between the players and their horses are higher, the better bonus prize they get after completing races.
When the horses level, a skill point will be given. Yes, the horses need to be taught skills! There will be various passive and active skills to learn, and some skills will be of advantage at certain race tracks. THis will also test the players’ decisions!
So how do players get stronger, better horses with awesome stats? Nope, they won;t be sold or rented through the cash shop. When players reach level 10, they will have the option to put their horses up for… mating! Yes, players will have to do some research (breed, skin color, bloodline, chance to get pregnant or chance to get the target pregnant, behavior etc) on other players’ horse on the “mating market”, seeing if their breeds will result in a superior offspring. Players will then have to “rent” the targeted horse from the owner at an agreed price.
The offspring’s stats will normally take after more of the father’s (male horse). If the father has high agility, the offspring will most likely to have even higher agility when growing up! Currently, there is only the Korean server for Alicia, with no overseas service announced.
