War Rock

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War Rock
Image:WRsmall20070610.JPG
Developer(s) Dream Execution
Publisher(s) Nexon(Flag of South Korea)
K2 network(Flag of the United States Flag of EuropeFlag of India)
Lievo (Flag of Japan)
ABS-CBN (Flag of the Philippines)
Engine Jindo 3D
Version 5/22/2008 Update
Platform(s) Windows Me
Windows 2000 (officially but unsupported by International version)
Windows XP
Windows Vista (officially as yet, unsupported)
Release date 2004 (Flag of South Korea)
February 2007 (Flag of the United StatesFlag of Europe)
March 2007 (Flag of Japan)
September 1, 2007 (Flag of the Philippines)
2007 (Flag of India)
Genre(s) First-person shooters
Mode(s) Online game, Single player practice
Rating(s) ESRB:
Mature (M)(Flag of South Korea)
Teen (T)(Flag of the United States)
16+ (Flag of the United Kingdom)
Media CD (1)
Online download
System requirements Pentium III 800 Mhz processor, 512 MB RAM, Radeon 8500LE, Geforce MX 400 or better video card, 1.6 GB free hard drive space

A list of working graphics cards can be found here.
Input methods Keyboard, mouse, Joystick

War Rock (Korean: 워록) is a multiplayer online first-person shooter available free for download. Even though the download is free the game is ad-supported and requires registration and a valid e-mail to play. The registration form blocks mailinator and other disposable e-mails. The retail version comes with additional features in comparison to the free version. War Rock has low system requirements compared to other contemporary online first person shooters. This gives the game a lot wider audience, allowing casual gamers and those who do not follow the latest trends in PC gaming hardware to play.

The International & Filipino versions, in contrast to the Korean & Japanese versions, has no blood. K2 Network made this change to the International version so that the ESRB rating system would mark it as a T for Teen.

K2 ended its beta-testing on January 31, 2007 in preparation for the February 7, 2007 commercial release.[1]

Contents

[edit] Gameplay

The game is set in the midst of a civil war between the government of the Central Asian country of Derbaran and a rebel organization called the National Independence Union (NIU).[2] Players select between the two teams and engage in battles using 20th and 21st century military equipment, including a large assortment of infantry weapons and vehicles.[3][4]

There is a wide selection of weapons ranging from the Colt .45 to the PSG or the M134. The weapons are split up into different categories - for example, a sniper rifle can only be used by the Sniper character, and rocket launchers can only be fired by Heavy Troopers, although there are a few exceptions, including all secondary weapons.All assault rifles and automatic weapons can be used by Assault troops except the Aug( for snipers only) as well as Medics and Engineers. You start with default guns, but you can buy more guns with Dinars as you level. You will need to be higher levels for better guns too.

Upon entering a game, players choose from five character classes, consisting of Heavy Trooper, Assault, Combat Medic, Combat Engineer and Sniper,[5] although they can switch classes at any point in the game before respawning after dying. Players can also lease weapons from the armory using the in-game currency, Dinar, which are either earnt by playing games, or by buying a premium package. Some weapons have level restrictions, and are only available to premium customers. As of 11/21/2007, users may also rent weaponry with money directly from the game's Marketplace site, with no level requirements. Also, as of 1/2/08, PX items were available in the marketplace to premium and non-premium members alike. Players that have purchased retail will have an extra weapon forever for a certain class, along with some bonus equipment (typically Smoke Grenade x1 for all classes without the retail weapon and Med_kit 2 for Medic class, for which there is no retail weapon). Retail packs are limited edition boxes created to promote War Rock upon its commercial release. No new retail packs have been made, so they are in quite high demand amongst War Rock players, because of the advantages gained in game. For example, when a retail code is applied to an account, as well as a certain gun (either the G36C_D for the engineer, Accuracy International Arctic Warfare (AI_AW) for the sniper, M60 or FAMAS for the assault, the M249 for the Heavy Trooper, or the M134 minigun, also for the Heavy Trooper), but two months of Gold Premium was applied to the account for 2 months before April 30, 2008 due to the retail packaging mentioning VOIP functionality, but since it was added, retail codes activated after April 30, 2008 would only give the user one month of gold premium. Though to this day it is known that retail packs are in short supply.

War Rock games are divided into three modes of play: Close Quarters Combat, Urban Ops and Battle Group.[6] These differ in the size of the map, the number of respawns permitted and the availability of vehicles, with CQC being focused on small-scale infantry missions and BG involving huge battlefields with large numbers of tanks, transports, boats, helicopters and jet aircraft.[6] Objectives in the different game modes include capturing and defending key positions on the map, planting explosives on enemy targets, accumulating points in a team deathmatch-style game or a free for all match. For Deathmatch/Battle Group, there is also Conquest mode, making it necessary for each team to capture all the flags in the map, or whittle down the other team's points from 999. War Rock also offers a premium option, which gives you Dinar each month and offers more of the guns in the weapon store, buying premium also lets you make a room with custom names, private options, and any map available in War Rock. War Rock also features a list of servers which members can log into, so you can choose the closest one to you. Also, premium members have access to Vivox VOIP for ingame chat however it cannot be used by Free2Play users and as of June 1st 2008, will only be available for Gold premium users.

[edit] Reception

The International release of War Rock was a huge success (Due to its popularity for being free) according to game rating websites, scoring average ratings. IGN gave War Rock a 5.9 out of 10 rating, stating that it was "an ugly game" that suffered from graphical flaws and severe lag issues that ruined the enjoyment of the game.[7] It is very hard to earn dinar compared to the other shooting games. GameSpot gave the game a 5.5, criticizing the poor production value and claiming that the use of real-world money to obtain access to superior equipment was unfair, even comparing it to a pyramid scheme.[8] War Rock is currently the most downloaded video game on Download.com in terms of weekly downloads. [9]

[edit] Versions

There are also other "versions" of the WarRock game. All were developed by Dream Execution but are hosted by separate non-related companies which pay DE for a license to host servers in their regions. There are currently 4, the original Korean hosted by Nexon WarRock, the North American/European Release of (also known as international version) hosted by K2 networks WarRock (In English), Japan version hosted by Tecmo and the most recently created Philippines version hosted by Amped Network WarRock Philippines.

[edit] Controversy

[edit] Cheating

A program named PunkBuster was deployed to reduce the ability of hackers to cheat.[citation needed] However, its effectiveness has been questioned, as many players still feel that cheating is rampant.[citation needed]

[edit] Commercialization and maintenance

K2 frequently holds emergency maintenance and takes all servers down at same time. War Rock is criticized for taking servers down during most peak hours (2-6pm PST).[citation needed] However, it should be noted that War Rock is an international game and, as such, any time chosen for maintenance is a peak time somewhere.[10] Apart from that K2 is also criticized for making War Rock more commercialized by making guns available to premium members only.[citation needed]

[edit] References

  1. ^ End of Beta Announcements. K2 Network.
  2. ^ War Rock Episode 1 and 2. K2 Network. Retrieved on 2007-05-22.
  3. ^ Official War Rock Website - Armory. K2 Network. Retrieved on 2007-05-22.
  4. ^ Official War Rock Website - Vehicles. K2 Network. Retrieved on 2007-05-22.
  5. ^ Official War Rock Website - Branches of Service. K2 Network. Retrieved on 2007-05-22.
  6. ^ a b Official War Rock Website - Gameplay. K2 Network. Retrieved on 2007-05-22.
  7. ^ Onyett, Charles (2007-02-21). IGN: War Rock Review - High connection speeds beware. IGN. Retrieved on 2007-05-22.
  8. ^ VanOrd, Kevin (2007-02-26). PC War Rock Review. GameSpot. Retrieved on 2007-05-22.
  9. ^ Download number 1 (2008-02-15). Retrieved on 2008-02-15.
  10. ^ War Rock Supported Regions (2008-06-04). Retrieved on 2008-06-04.

[edit] External links