Hero Online
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Hero Online | |
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| Developer(s) | Netgame |
| Publisher(s) | Mgame USA Inc. |
| Distributor(s) | Various |
| Platform(s) | Windows 98/ME/2K/XP |
| Release date | 2006 |
| Genre(s) | MMORPG |
| Mode(s) | MMO |
| Media | Download (ranging from 423 MB to 512 MB depending on source) |
| System requirements | Intel Pentium III 800 MHz CPU, 256MB RAM, 2GB Hard disk drive, Video 1024*768 32 bit color, Graphic card Geforce2MX or higher, Windows 98/ME/2000/XP |
| Input methods | Keyboard, Mouse |
Hero Online is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) produced by Netgame based on a story written by three generations of Chinese novelists. Hero Online is free to play with cash shop items available, much like The Legend of Ares, Scions of Fate, Silkroad Online and many other MMORPG's. The player, when creating a character, is not only able to choose the gender of his/her character, but what kind of weapons their character will be using. These weapon proficiencies may or may not affect the job class people will choose when they reach a certain level for job change. Each of the four characters specializes in his or her own weaponry. For example "The Ruthless Blade" character with the ability to wield a bow, swords and blades. "The Piercing Eyes" character with the ability to use Swords, Blades and throwing weapon. "the Overseer of Sky" Uses axes, rods, and spears, and "The Elegant Mystic" which uses gauntlets, spear and rods.
As of July 31st 2006, Hero Online had its official release and is no longer in beta.
Contents |
[edit] Story
Long ago, an ambitious ruler of China, after unifying the country and ending the chaos, sought immortality. This ruler, Qin Shi Huang, did whatever he could to obtain the status of a god, sacrificing over 500 youths and spending his entire life attempting for this goal. Yet like all mortals, he was nevertheless captured by death, and his entire life-work became shambles with his burning palace.
Much later, following the fall of Qin Shi Huang's dynasty, darkness shrouded the land in the form of Twelve Demons. While many great houses joined forces to purge the land of the Demons, they all met swift doom, leaving the land bare for the Demons to ravage. The Buddhist monks then summoned all the demon hunters of the land to do battle, but to China's dismay, failed. Even the Shaolin monks, legendary in their power and prowess, could not lift a finger against the Unstoppable Dozen.
Amidst the broken hope, a mysterious hero emerged. In a display of military genius, he lured the Twelve Demons into a carefully devised trap where 3,000 of his best men engaged the Twelve in combat. Even then, the battle took 10 long and arduous days, resulting in the death of all 3,000 of the hero's men. But their sacrifices weren't in vain, for the Twelve Demons had been defeated.
As to why they had attacked in the first place is still unknown, although it is rumored that they were after Qin Shi Huang's greatest possession, the Thousand Year Treasure.
Still, their tyranny was eradicated and the hero became renowned as The Great Dragon, the greatest fighter of all time. For 20 years, he established peace and justice throughout the land, leading a great house of warriors from all over the country.
The land once again fell into turmoil, however, when The Great Dragon was found in his wife's arms, dead. She was found eerily whispering to herself, "They're back... the Twelve of them have returned..."
News of the hero's death spread like wildfire across the land, instilling unbearable panic in its wake. How could the hero have been killed by his wife? What would happen to the land now that's he's dead? What did she mean by "The Twelve"? While the whole murder remained shrouded in mystery, one thing was absolutely clear in everyone's minds:
If "The Twelve" were the Demons, then the land would once again be in grave danger, and a new hero would have to arise.
[edit] Gameplay Features
Hero Online has many special features, such as quests written by various martial art novelists (and many created by Netgame themselves), and a storyline written by Kum Kan, featuring fantastic fighting skills like walking on water or flying over walls. Many other skills can still be discovered further along in the game. There is also a reward system that keeps track of how many monsters a player kills from log in to log out, resulting in rewards consisting of items, exp, and rank. Currently, there are 10 Dragon servers that players can play on. Characters are interchangeable between servers.
Stats
A character's stats are based upon three essential attributes:
Strength: Raises attack power, carrying capacity, and HP (character's health or "hit points" bar).
Dexterity: Raises all physical defense, skill defense, dodge rate, accuracy, and critical hit rate.
Intelligence: Raises skill damage, skill defense, and Chi (character's skill bar).
Along with HP and Chi, characters also have Internal Damage, which when accumulated causes irregularities in the character's stats, such as defense and attack damage. Internal Damage is often caused by critical hits by the enemy.
Leveling
The leveling system is unique in that it fuses the normal leveling of other MMORPGs with the ranking of traditional martial arts, utilizing "Kyu" and "Dan" to depict levels. 1 Kyu equals one level while 1 Dan equals 10 Kyus or levels. Thus, a character with a level of 2 Dan and 8 Kyu would otherwise be known as level 28. As of now the highest level one can achieve is 10 Dan, which means level 100.
Player vs. Environment (PvE)/Player vs. Monster (PvM):
Starting from the central city, Dragon Castle, players are required to venture out into other maps and defeat monsters for quests and for leveling. Players can fight monsters alone, or can party with up to a total of 6 people.
Player vs. Player (PvP):
Players can also participate in battles with other players, establishing karma and honor with the more you participate. Karma and honor have to do with the manner in which you kill your opponent, and they appear as titles next to your name. For example... civilian, thug, and novice are all titles associated with karma. Nameless, unknown, and skillful are titles associated with Honor. Karma is received or lost in battles from bounty hunting while honor is affected by faction battles. There are also PvP zones where anyone can attack anyone else freely. There are consequences, of course, to being defeated, such as experience loss.
Karma
When a player accumulates enough bad karma and is killed, there is a possibility for that character to be sent to "The Rock," a prison camp where the player cannot leave unless he or she works off their bad karma. This can be done either by bribing the warden, or doing manual labor, which consists of killing monsters and picking up the certificates they drop. Certificates can be genuine or fake, and only the real ones reduce your karma. Also, a player with exceptionally bad karma is unable to speak to NPCs or utilize the shops/bank in Dragon Castle and other normal camps. They can, however, use the facilities at a certain "Bandit Camp."
Bounty Hunting
Players can place a bounty on another player's head, paying money for other players to go and retrieve that bounty.
House
Players can create a house (or guild) at level 40, and invite anyone at any level. Fighting and killing members of other houses helps increase or decrease your honor rank. When the person is invited, they gain an affiliation with one of the sides (Zhuang or Shao). To make a house costs 10 million, and this can be done in Dragon Castle with House Manager Yeo.
Player Skills
Players gain certain skills depending on what job they choose at lvl 10; the job that you do choose dictates one of the two jobs that will have to choose (or not at all) at lvl 50.
For more details click here.
Maps:
Ho-Nam:
/ Central Highlands - Great Mine
Dragon Castle - Venom Swamp - Cave of Ruin
\ Spirit Spire
Sa-Chun:
/ Crimson Sky
/ Silent Valley - Crystal Summit - Deserted Temple
Southern Plains - Central Island - Mudo Island
\ Bamboo Mountain - Stone Valley
\ Tranquil Vale
Brief Description of each area
Dragon Castle - This is where everyone starts and many people usually come back here either for quests or to make a house/guild. There are wolf cubs and monsters lvl 1-7 (wolf cubs - thieves) here.
Central Highlands (referred to Mystic Hill on the website) - This is the place to venture to after training to about lvl 8 or 9. There are monsters from lvl 7-19 (black wolves, renegades.), although there is the Ancient Warrior there who is a lvl 20 monster.
Great Mine - This is the place where people go to mine, which is a lvl 50 skill. Lvl 50 monsters (Spiders) are usually around there to stalk on unsuspecting novices.
Venom Swamp - This is the place to go to after the Highlands. Monsters as well as Reindeers, Flying Lions, Great Wolves and Snow Tigers are abundants here- you can easily train from here until lvl 30. The first Cryptic Puzzle takes place here as well.
Cave of Ruin (Also known as Viper Swamp Cave) - While most players are around the lvl 30-40 area, there are two areas for leveling. This is one of them, and there are easy monsters in the form of level 29 bats up to level 40 Great Bats. But Bloody Swordmans are probably the greatest incentive to train here.
Spirit Spire (Also known as New Haven on the website) - This is the place that determines whether you will stay in the game or not, as this is known as a grinding area. There are quite a few monsters here, including Black Leopards, Viragos and up to level 40 monsters in the form of a Corrupt Monk.
Southern Plains - This is where the real fighting takes place. The main attraction here are the higher level equipment, as well as PvP in terms of houses 'known as Hero Battle' and there is also a portal to the higher level areas such as Mudo Island.
Central Marketplace - The Central Marketplace is a large marketplace where players can set up shops and leave their characters to stand there so that items can be sold. Also there is a tavern and Blacksmith, as well as a player arena where single people can fight each other under controlled conditions. The Central Marketplace can be reached through any Tavern anywhere for the price of a 1000 gold.
Silent Valley - Map for with level 70+ mobs and a boss that is used in the legend 2 quest.
Pets:
Only Hunters have the ability to tame pets. The two pet classifications are Combat Companions and Mounts for swift travel. What Hunters can tame depends on their level and taming ability. For example, Hunters can tame Black Wolves at 1st Dan, Grey Bears at 3rd Dan, Hawks at 4th Dan, and Tigers at 5th Dan. Besides a Horse, each class also has its own unique class mount. Only Warriors can ride Flying Lions, only Physicians can ride Snow Tigers, only Assassins can ride Great Wolves, and only Hunters can ride Reindeer. Pets also level on their own, evolving into impressive beasts as they reach higher levels. Combat pets level by fighting alongside the player. How much xp the pet gains is based on the number of hits the pet makes every three minutes. Similarly, Mount-type pets level as you ride them in combat. The mount acts as "Tank" (taking damage that would otherwise go to the player) and the amount of xp it gains is based on how many hit the player makes in three minutes while mounted.
Crafting
The crafting system in Hero Online is done by Blacksmith Jang in Dragon Castle or the one in Southern Plains or Central Market. By strengthening your items, they become stronger and are endowed with certain stats and abilities. Each time you strengthen an item, it receives a +number next to its name. For example, an item that's been strengthened twice will have a +2 next to the name. The types of stats and abilities the item gains depends on the mineral it is strengthened with, which can be picked up from monsters and quests. Such minerals can enhance dodge rate, hit rate, maximum damage, defense, etc etc. A new item named the Sky Dragon Scale has been added to the Hero Tavern, which allows you to retrieve your weapon if the strengthening fails. However, this does add -1 to the enhancements (a +3 would go down to +2, for example).
[edit] Characters
Hero Online has four characters that you can choose when creating your character. Though there is little customizability in the choice of characters, you have the option to choose your characters based on their weapon. More detailed customization is also available later on in the form of items.
[edit] Job Classes
Starting at level 1 Dan, players are allowed to choose a class. The skills that you will obtain will depend on the job you choose. At 5 Dan, players can choose a second promotion.
Physicans : Focuses mainly on status effects and healing.
Second Promotion:
Surgeon: Utilizes defensive skills to heal/protect themselves and their allies.
Combat Medic: Utilizes offensive status affecting skills to break down their opponents.
Hunter: Tames monsters to be pets, which can be traded to other players. They are also excellent at crafting.
Second Promotion:
Tracker: Seems to focus more on defensive skills.
Ranger: Seems to focus more on offensive skills.
Warrior: Uses skills that boost their own attack or defense.
Second Promotion:
Champion: Is able to boost their own attack and decrease his opponent's attack.
Musa: Is able to boost their own defense and decrease their opponent's defense.
Assassin: Employs life drain and stealth skills to defeat opponents.
Second Promotion:
Shinobi: Loves to decrease the speed and agility of their opponents.
Slayer: Loves to increase their own speed and agility.
