Ace Online

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Space Cowboy Online
Developer(s) MasangSoft
Publisher(s) Yedang
game&game
GameForge4D
License Freeware
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows
Release date May 26, 2006 (International)
Genre(s) MMO 3D Space Shooter
Mode(s) Multiplayer
Media Download
System requirements Pentium III 1 GHz equiv. CPU, 256MB RAM, Internet access, DirectX 9.0, 32MB 3D accelerator VGA card, sound card, 2GB hard drive space
Input methods Keyboard, mouse

Ace Online is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) with the characteristics of both Third-person shooters and flight simulators, developed by MasangSoft and owned by Yedang. In North America, it was also known as Space Cowboy Online (known as SCO). Ace Online is also known as AirRivals in the European version.

In Ace Online, players pilot their own individual starfighters (called "Gears") throughout a number of maps, including terrestrial, lunar, and space maps. It has typical MMORPG elements such as leveling, currency, and a skills system. Ace Online is a largely Player vs. Player (PvP)-oriented game, with character leveling and item acquisition achieved through combat against Non-Player Characters (NPCs) and the completion of missions. As a player gains levels, more and more maps become accessible. Although a high level character will have better character attributes than most other players, no one at any level is invincible against other players in PvP. As in other MMORPGs, players can trade items, customize their gears, form parties ("formations") and guilds ("brigades"), and fight with other players via PvP combat. Almost all of the combat in Ace Online is aerial, from the third-person view. Players have the option to use the in-cockpit, first-person view by pressing on the "Delete" key once.

In North America, Space Cowboy Online's client (1.06 GB) was made available for download on May 22, 2006, with two initial download options available. The official server launch was to follow three days later on May 25, 2006 at 19:00 GMT (12:00 pm PDT), but this initial launch time was delayed, and the servers instead went live after a delay of a little over twenty-four hours. There are currently three game servers available: "Joymus," "Hovernmus," and "Trimus," Trimus being the newest of the three, added on August 9, 2006.

The Gala-Net version of Space Cowboy Online, which services North America, was shut down on December 26, 2007 during normal weekly maintenance.[1] Complete details listed below. Yedang, the owner of all Ace Online's license, decide to run its servers themselves, as "Ace Online International" is officially for North American players, with a single server, "Quasar", while Gameforge host the European servers, with new servers named "Helix", "Orion" and the newly created "Auriga".


Contents

[edit] History

Current different languages or version of the games license under different companies:

  • Masang Soft - The original and current developer of the game, under Yedang.
  • Yedang - Yedang owns all the publishing rights of Ace Online. Aside from licensing, it also host the servers for the Korean and international version.[2]
  • YeTime Network Technology - YeTime holds the license for China.[3]
  • VTC Game - VTC Game holds the license for Vietnam.
  • GameForge - Holds the license for the European region. [4]

Previous versions:

  • Gala-Net Inc. - Gala-Net Inc. until recently held the license for Space Cowboy Online to North America, South America, Europe, Oceania, as well as Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines. After MasangSoft was purchased by Yedang, Masang broke the contract with Gala, suspended this license and sold the rights to Yedang. Gala-Net's version of Space Cowboy Online shut down on 12-26-2007.[5]

In North America, Space Cowboy Online (International) originally launched in September, 2005, in an alpha release. By this time, Korea already had a full release of Episode 1. There were approximately six maps, one boss, and no mandatory PvP system in place: only duels, formation and brigade fights were available. Players could only play as members of the nation of Bygeniou. In November, 2005, Space Cowboy Online transitioned to Beta, officially called Episode 2. A second nation, Arlington, was added and pitted against Bygeniou. Neither Bygeniou nor Arlington could see or fight the other. In January, 2006, the Nation Wars system was added. From then on, the two nations were locked in an ongoing nation war. Nation War (PvP) is mandatory for anyone who selects a nation, and those who do not choose a nation cannot travel past the second map, "Tylent Jungle", and cannot do higher level standard, sidestory or scenario missions. New updates have provided a safe "Channel" (an exact replica) for every basic map/air space, creating areas that enemy players can not access. Higher level maps and major war zones (Bark City, DenA, and DenB) are excluded. There are currently no safe channels on air rivals server: Auriga


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[edit] Gears

When players create their account, they can choose from one of four different gears, each with very different play styles.

  • B-Gear - Specializes in air to ground combat, with a powerful bombing mode.
  • I-Gear - The fastest and most evasive gear, primary air-to-air fighter of the game.
  • M-Gear - The support gear - High defense and good healing/buff skills.
  • A-Gear - Specializes in ground to air combat, with a powerful siege mode.

[edit] Skills

All gears have that can be purchased from the "Skill Shop." They can be used to improve gears' performance. The magnitude and the duration that the skill effects the gear depends on the level of the gear performing the skill. There are healing skills (M-Gears only), weapon enhancing skills (all Gears) and gear performance skills (all gears). You can increase the skill points (SP) available for use by adding stat points to spirit. Higher level skills use up more skill points to perform skills.

The way a skill is used puts it into one of two main categories. Buff skills have a flat SP cost for a fixed duration. Toggle skills can be turned on and off at will, but cost a certain amount of SP per second while active. If a player dies, all skills are deactivated, and any additional duration on buff skills are lost without the SP cost being returned. When a gear dies, that gear loses M-Gear formation buffs until the M-Gear reapplies the buffs to the formation he is in. A patch added skills that require special cards (Special Skill Opening Card and Finishing Move Skill Opening Card) to unlock. These skills are: Berserker and Chain Rolling for I-Gears, Big-Boom and Invisibility for B-Gears, Purify, Invincibility, and Full Recovery for M-Gears, and Hypershot, Camouflage, and Shield Paralyzer for A-Gears.

[edit] Equipment

[edit] Armour

There are armours available for your gear that can help to increases the Gear's "energy points" (health) and "shield points". From the start of the game your gear has an armour already and you can buy new armours from the "Gear shop," but the armour can only be used if the requirements for that armour are met. The gear cannot take off if no armour is equipped. You can enhance the armour using various recipes of materials gathered from monster drops which increases the "energy points" and "shield points". Furthermore, certain enhancements have an additional boost to the "defense" or "evasion" percentage score of your gear.

[edit] Weapons

There are two types of weapons: Standard and Advance weapons.

Standard Weapon

Standard weapons are basically guns, aimed with the movement of the mouse for the crosshair. There is one set of standard weapons shared by B, I and M gears, and a different set for A-gears. Different types of standard weapons have different stats and probability. Examples are "Twintail," an automatic-type weapon for B, I or M-gears, and "Jackhammer," a mass drive weapon for A-gears. A-gear standard weapons are considerably stronger than those of the other gears, as they are the primary weapon of those gears in most situations.

Advance Weapon

Advance weapons are missiles (B, I and M-gears) and rockets (A-gears). These weapons generally cause more damage than standard weapons of similar levels, with the exception of A-gears. In terms of missiles, these require locking on to the target by bringing them within the "valid angle" of your crosshairs, defined by the missiles statistics. Once locked on and launched, it will travel towards the target with the specific speed of the missiles, following after them, and detonate on impact or after having traveled a set distanced (defined by the missiles range). Induction angle is the angle at which the missiles can turn once launched towards the locked target. The larger the induction angle, the tighter angles it can turn. Missiles can be avoided by "barrel rolling", performed with a double tap of one of the direction keys. If executed with the proper timing the missiles will fly past and disengage lock on. Rockets launched from the A-gear can only travel in straight trajectory and cannot home onto the target thus can be easily avoided.

[edit] Radars

All gears require a radar to inflict physical damage to another gear/NPC, with the exception of B-Gears (They can use bombing mode). A Radar is required for an advanced weapon lock and standard weapon lock.

[edit] Adhesives

Adhesives are non-critical items that boost the player in some way.

  • Permanent Adhesives - These adhesives stay on the gear until un-equipped. They add either extra shield, energy, or fuel to a gear.
  • Temporary/Timed Adhesives - also called charms in the game. They are items that give a gear extra attributes for a certain amount of time. These can vary from 30 minutes to 5 hours. Some give extra attack capabilities, some increase the recover rate of certain field, and others range from faster gaining of experience to drop rates of rare items.
  • Mark - Marks are an item purchased using Gpotatoes (Thorium (creds/credit) - AirRivals(AR)). When equipped, a two dimensional (sometimes animated) image is visible above a player's gear when flying, and above the character of a player in the city. The mark will face the direction the player equipped to it is facing.
  • President Adhesive - As a bonus for being the leader of a nation, the president receives a president adhesive. It displays an animated symbol of their nation above the president's gear/character, as if it were a normal mark. If, however, the president is wearing another mark, it will still show up under his nation's logo. The president adhesive also adds extra 10,000 shield points, often making him or her almost invincible to lower levels and small groups of gears.

[edit] CPUs

CPUs are accessories in the game that add extra stats to a gear. There are three types: Regular, Unique, and Killmark (KM).

  • Regular CPUs - start at level 1, and a new CPU exists every 5 levels until level 20, at which point CPUs will exist at every 10 levels, at 30 levels, 40, 50, etc.
  • Unique CPUs - a "drop" from killing bosses and certain characters in the game. They all have a requirement of level 1, which means anyone can equip them. They give many more stats than any regular CPUs would give until level 60.
  • Killmark CPUs - made from combining 150 or 300 killmarks with a corresponding cube, depending on the level of the killmarks. Killmark CPUs exist at levels 12, 22, 42, 62, and 82. [6]

Killmark CPUs give a considerable amount of stat bonuses considering their level requirements.

[edit] Item shop and Enchantments

Ace Online is a free-to-play MMO, with the option of buying in-game items via an "Item shop" that can be only accessed whilst in the "City" or "Supply Shop" from bottom right corner of the screen or the shop. In the International Ace Online version, you can only purchase the items from the "Item shop" using yecoins that has been bought through Yedang website via your Ace Online account. There are many items available to purchase that affect your gear's weapons (e.g change the trail effect of the missiles), stats (e.g resets or partial resets of stats), experience (e.g increase experience rate) or others for a limited time. This item shop was made available to players on June 23, 2006.

  • Weapon Gamble - Allows weapons to be "gambled" and enchanted. This card randomly gambles the weapon stats with Prefix and Suffix to add extra attributes to the weapon. For example, a "give you any fix but you can get poor fixes but they only cost ingame currency. Super Gambles gives an improved chance of getting better fixes from each card (Super gamble fixes are only available from Super Gamble cards (aka 'SG sets') which must be bought with cash shop currency.
  • Armour Enchantments - Armour can also be enchanted, but not gambled. Enchantments for armor are called "Shield Cards". Shield Cards increase the shield bonus of the armor (+150 shield per card). there are also energy cards that increase that stat (+200 energy per card)
  • Enchantment Limits - To limit the power of weapons and armour, only five enchantments can be applied safely to a piece of equipment. For the sixth enchant and onward there is a chance to break the weapon are enchant protection cards that are bought in the cash shop these cards protect the item by only destroying enchants above 5 not the whole item they work at any enchant level

[edit] PvP (Player vs Player)

There are various of different PvP systems in Ace Online:

[edit] Nation War

Ace Online offers a PvP system of "Nation Wars", which revolves around a point system: "National Contribution Points" (NCP). Every time an enemy gear is shot down, the shooter's nation gains 1 NCP. NCP are also gained for other events.

  • Raids - Two factions (BCU and ANI) are separated by a series of airspaces (maps). Nation Wars involve a constant battle between the two factions to raid and defend these airspaces. A successful raid gaining airspace over the opposing force provides strategic and economical advantages. For example, the boss "Pathos" only spawns in the BCU map "Zaylope Beach"; whoever controls "Zaylope Beach" would have the chance to destroy it and receive its rare drops if "Pathos" should spawn. Battling over these airspaces often results in tens to thousands of NCPs gained for neither or both nations, speeding up the spawning of motherships (see below for motherships). A map being held by a large enemy force means restricted access for lower level players, meaning they can not access and level up in that specific map.
  • Mothership Battles - As another part of Nation Wars, every time a nation gains an interval of 100,000 NCP (100,000;200,000; and etc.), a mothership is spawned deep in the homelands of the opposing nation. If the mothership is not completely destroyed in two hours, it will despawn. Successful destruction of the enemy mothership grants the attacking nation a 5% increase in recovery rate of energy, shield, and skill points, also allowing access to the "Hornian King Habitat" and "Eopi". Successfully defending a mothership does not grant the defender any bonuses; instead, it prevents the enemy from receiving the reward for destroying the mothership. The BCU mothership, Anubis, spawns in Tylent Jungle, while the ANI mothership Horus spawns in Reynard Beach. Bonuses obtained from destroying/defending motherships are reset at the end of every month, as are NCP's.
  • Strategic Points - Strategic Points are spawned in a random map at random times, and it will despawn one hour after its spawn if not destroyed completely. An announcement is made to all players of both factions of the map the Point has spawned in. When a Strategic Point is destroyed, all participants in the assault force (anyone that was in the map or the map behind [dead or alive] upon destruction of the Strategic Point) gains a "SPI Capsule", which will give a random amount of monetary reward, ranging from 150,000 up to 300,000; and 300WP and his/her nation gains 500 NCP; and an additional 300 WP. When a Strategic Point is successfully defended until despawn, the defender gains 500 NCP and the "SPI Capsule" along with the 300 WP. Any nation's player that still loses the Strategic Point while being one map before/after the location of the Strategic Point will still gain 100 WP.
  • War Points- Players can gain War Points from attacking/defending Mother Ships, and Strategic Points. War Points are a new in-game currency that allows players to buy unique items from the recently added Point Shop. These points can be used to buy stronger adhesives, new armors, and other bonuses.

[edit] Duels

Players can challenge other players in an 1 on 1 duel, or a formation battle (up to 6 players per formation).

  • 1 on 1 - A 1 on 1 duel can be initiated by challenging another player and that player accepeting the challenge, and vice versa. In a 1 on 1 duel, the two participants receive a 5 second warning, after which there is an unlimited amount of time to kill the other player; should one of the players die under any circumstance (being shot down by the other player in the duel, crashing into terrain objects, being killed by a member of the opposing nation, or being killed by a mob) then the surviving player is declared the winner; being disconnected results in a loss for the disconnected player, and moving to a different map will result in a loss, even if a player uses "Express city return portal" to teleport back to the city. Wins and losses are logged on a player's info for 1 on 1 duels.
  • Formation Battle - A formation battle can be initiated by the command /formfight [formation leader]. A formation battle can only start if all members of both formations are in the same map, logged on, and the formation leader accepting the challenge (it does not ask permission from formation members). Once a formation battle request is sent, no new players may be invited to the formation; existing formation members cannot be kicked; and the formation may not disband. A formation battle is won when all members of the opposing formation have been eliminated under any circumstance (same as above in 1 on 1). When one member of a formation dies while the rest are still alive, he/she cannot re-spawn until the formation battle ends in either win or loss. Wins and losses for formation battles are not logged on a player's info.

[edit] Game Music

Ace Online does have its own game soundtrack, optionally you can play your own music, supports mp3 files, into the "Music" directory wherever you installed Ace Online (Default: C:\Program Files\Yedang Online\Ace-Online\Music). The playlist will be arranged into alphabetical order of the file names.[7]

[edit] Termination of Service

On December 26th, 2007, as a request of Yedang, Gala-Net shutdown the service to North America. This letter from Space Cowboy's last active GM, "Xarfox," is currently featured on the main page.

"Dear SCO Community,

For some time now, a large majority of you have been crying out for answers. The lack of content updates, the continual updates made to Ace Online overseas, and my diminished presence in the SCO community. I am writing this letter to give you all the answers you seek and deserve, however these may not be the answers you wanted to hear.

As some of you may know, Ace Online is now owned by another publisher. Gala-Net was given a cease and desist letter from this publisher, requesting that we shut down Space Cowboy as they now possess the rights to the game within the US region. We here at Gala-Net immediately resisted this claim and began to take action. Several plans and proposals were formed by us here at Gala-Net, and I was sent to Korea in an attempt to negotiate some sort of compromise.

Gala-Net has fought for one of two goals. Either the continuation of our service in the US complete with updates, or the voluntary transfer of your characters to a new publisher.s service. We recognize that many of you have spent a significant amount of your time in our game worlds. It is this very reason for which we fought with great resolve. Unfortunately no compromise was able to be reached, and no transfer could be agreed upon.

For the past few months the SCO forums have been filled with complaints and angry posts regarding the status of the game. These posts are written by players of every gear, every faction, and every country of the real world. Many of you have taken note of my patience during this era of flaming and hatred.

I have patience with the anger of this community because I share that anger with you. Space Cowboy is a game of great potential. It has been a game of recreation, a game of solitude, a game of friends and comrades, a game of conflict and competition. In my time here working on SCO, I have seen leaders succeed and fail, I have seen heroes rise and fall, and I have seen brigades form and dissolve.

I have done everything within my power to fight for Space Cowboy, and I do not possess a single regret regarding my work here. Gala-Net has been incredibly supportive in my fight for SCO, however unfortunately, sometimes passion and hard work just isn't enough.

Space Cowboy servers will be shutting down on 12/26/2007. Gala-Net cares deeply for our users, and we wish to provide those who have supported us with various forms of reimbursement. E-mails will be sent out in the coming weeks to your respective email addresses detailing any reimbursements that your account is eligible for."[8]

GM Xarfox. Space Cowboy Online (HTML). Retrieved on 2007-12-07.

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ Shutdown Notice [1]
  2. ^ Yedang Online press release (Korean) [2]
  3. ^ Yedang Online press release (Korean) [3]
  4. ^ Yedang Online press release (Korean) [4]
  5. ^ Shutdown Notice [5]
  6. ^ Killmark CPU recipes[6]
  7. ^ Forum - Music Player [7]
  8. ^ Shutdown Notice (Front Page) [8]

[edit] External links

Official game websites

Informational fansites