A Girl Can Dream: Holiday Wishlist 2009, Part 4

So, December has come and it's time for presents once again. The "A Girl Can Dream" posts are, well, pretty much exactly what it says on the tin: they're stuff I wish I could buy for myself. The sorts of things that make me sigh and say, "Oh if only I had [insert obscenely large amount of money here]; this is what I'd do with it."

None of these entries have absolutely anything to do with advertising or what-not. It's a wishlist. That's all.

HOLIDAY WISHLIST PART 4: ATLANTICA ONLINE

I thought my interest in Atlantica Online was waning, but...well, seeing as something brilliant happened to me just today with regards to this wishlist - I'll keep going, hahaha.

1. KITTY BAG

This accessory is one of the most sought-after items in Atlantica Online. You carry a cute kitten in a knapsack on your main character's back; there's a little rod with a fish hanging off a hook, and every now and then the kitty bats at the fish. Stat boosts: Attack Power: 400-500, Vitality: +70, Defense: 500. Random drop from Wild Cat's Pocket Watch.

2-3. LUCIFER'S WINGS / MICHAEL'S WINGS

After the Kitty Bag above, these two back accessories rank on the must-have list. The character on top has the Michael's; the one on the bottom has the Lucifer's. The Lucifer's Wings were the first wing-type items to come out of the game, and for a few people, are still the coolest ones, though rivaled closely by the Michael's Wings. No, they neither flap nor allow you to fly - but they make you look GOOD. Stat boosts: Lucifer's Wings - Attack Power: 350-450, Vitality: +60, Defense: 500; Michael's Wings - Attack Power: 450-550, Vitality: +80, Defense: 500. Lucifer's Wings are a random drop from Pledge of Citratus; Michael's Wings are a random drop from Gabriel's Deliverance.

4. SCARLET COSTUME HORNS

Okay, here's the deal. Here is a female main character wearing the full Scarlet Outfit set i.e. Costume + Horns. (And Lucifer's Wings for good measure.) The Costume is self-explanatory; the Horns give the white hairstyle, the cross on the forehead, the pointed ears, and the namesake horns. All three items used to be on my wishlist.

Until this morning. I'd been idly looking at the world broadcasts in my server, and found a message stating that someone wanted to trade hir Scarlet Costume for a Changshan Costume.

If you remember how I got my Changshan Costume, well, you can see where this is going.

Got LUCKY again in terms of costumes. After the trade was completed:



Now I wish that I could obtain the same luck with regards to the head decoration.

Stat boosts: Scarlet Costume - Vitality: +50; Scarlet Horns - Vitality: +50. Each item is a random drop from Iris' Promise.

***

Do you spend real money on virtual items? Tell me about your MMOs and the items you want.

Watch out for the rest of the "A Girl Can Dream" posts. :)

Meeting the Kindly Ones in Atlantica Online

Hey! How is everyone? My apologies for the brief hiatus. I did go and take a quick vacation over the holiday weekend - I needed to rest, recharge, and ready myself for the thrill and the stress of writing a novel for the first time.

Today, having fulfilled my daily word quota for NaNoWriMo by lunchtime, I've been leveling my axe main character in Atlantica Online. The previous blog post already mentioned that the game is celebrating its first anniversary since going commercial. All sorts of cool things have been going on since but I really, really like the current 200% EXP bonus imposed on all servers.

[Oh, and as of this morning, Titan server and the Grand Championships are back online. Hopefully they aren't glitching up any more.]

Today I completed all of the main storyline quests surrounding the world tree, Yggdrasil. The monsters hew rather closely to the Norse mythologies. You fight trolls and gnomes and Valkyries, and a few other monsters needed for mercenary recruitment, such as wolves and seals (seals?).

Anyway, if you're following the main game storyline you'll eventually be sent off to battle the three Norns in succession. The WHAT now? Oh, that would be Urd (the Past / the Crone), Verdandi (the Present / the Mother), and Skuld (the Future / the Maiden). In short, the Kindly Ones personified.

They're plenty tough if you're battling them at the minimum level of roughly 96 or so - unless, of course, you're smart and deploy some tactics against them. Have a title that gives you attack and defense boosts in effect; you'll have just enough time to finish all three within the standard 60-minute time limit for a title. Use good scrolls to kill their minions more quickly; in my case, I used Meteor Strike and Judgement scrolls.

All three have rather massive AoE spells so be ready for them. Have proper armor and weapons.

Spellcaster Urd is the first of the three that you need to fight.

Archer Verdandi comes next.

And spear-user Skuld rounds out the trio.

Having finished out the Yggdrasil main storyline, I think I'll wait a few levels before returning to tackle the Lady Knight recruitment quests. I've already got an LK anyway. Great investment, the LK - it's really easy to see why so many builds include her.

Next up, the trials and travails of the Constantinople Battlefield. *sigh* Guess I'll park my girl in Istanbul and see about the storyline quests. (And yes, I'll save doing the Janissary recruitment quest for when I'm over the Level 100 hump.)

Trick/Treat/Trip

TRICK: Your blog author the cat at her office's Halloween party.



That set of kitty ears has got to be, bar none, THE best costume item I've ever picked up. Got it at a con some time ago, and it's still going strong. I keep wearing it despite the attractions (*shrug*) of tiny little beribboned top hats and bonnets.

***

TREAT: Atlantica Online celebrates one year since commercial launch!



Read all about the treats, tricks, and shenanigans all November long - HERE.

Damnit, though, I missed the birthday giveaway thinger. The Internet connection was spotty and blechly earlier this morning.

***

TRIP: As if the pressure of joining National Novel Writing Month for the first time wasn't enough....



That, by the way, is the current working summary and plot of the novel I intend to write beginning tomorrow, November 1.

The "trip" comes from the part where I'm thinking about blogging the NaNo experience. (AFTER I clock my daily 1667+ words, of course.) I figure I'm in a neat position for the tale-telling - I'll be living part of my dream and I have a blog where I can tell about living the dream. I guess I'll try to put a NaNo-type entry every week or so.

***

And so to enjoy the last day before the dream begins! (I REALLY hope it doesn't turn into a nightmare! Wish me luck!)

Stopping traffic Changshan style

...That's just how I roll, haha.

I got REALLY lucky last Friday (the day before the dreaded patching >.< bleah). Someone in my nation was looking to trade hir Changshan outfit for a Jiangshi one.

I happened to have one and I was looking to trade too.

So off I toddled to that player's location (se was in hir guild town) and hit the trade button, and below are the results.


Who says redheads CAN'T wear red? *evilgrin*


One hot axer coming right up....

Okay, next problem is earning the money for the matching hat. But then again, I'm guessing people will be preferring to hold on to their spare costumes and headgear for now, what with the new features added to the game and all, including the Clothes Book.

In Atlantica Online, Dungeon Crawls You!

Wikipedia weighs in on the dungeon crawl:

A general style of adventure or scenario in fantasy-type RPGs, where heroes navigate a labyrinthine environment, battling various monsters and looting any treasure. Ther term is also used to refer to a specific title where the only thing to do is essentially go through a dungeon repeatedly in order to collect specific items or loot drops, with at least one boss battle involved.

The style has been carried over into the MMORPG business, and many titles involve this type of adventuring, usually in the form of a quest line. Some titles may refer to dungeon crawls as "raids".

In Atlantica Online, there are a few types of dungeon to crawl through. "General" dungeons are the ones you need to go through to complete storyline-related quests, usually because an NPC requires that the boss be killed and/or drop a specific item in order to complete the objectives.

"Shadow" dungeons are specialized versions of the general ones. They feature mainly in mercenary recruitment quests. Shadow monsters are tougher/stronger versions of their general counterparts, and usually join battles i.e. main+mercs vs. three teams of enemy mobs.

"Upgrade" dungeons allow a player to receive specific all-around boosts as quest rewards, such as rings that boost all stats, allow a player to access new skills, etc.

"Guild" and "Nation" dungeons are, as you might guess from the title, for very large assemblies of players, with substantial boosts in rewards such as EXP and exclusive item drops.

"Miscellaneous" dungeons are those areas where other things happen: fishing, waiting on Free League matches, special events, etc.

One very popular category of dungeons, though, is the "Individual" dungeon, which becomes available to players from level 90 and onward. So-called because it can be run SOLO if you have very good equipment and a lot of scrolls, players prefer to do these crawls in the standard party of three formations.

Individual dungeons normally feature a map shaped like a ring: there's a starting point, there are two paths leading away from the starting point, and the paths converge in the area where the dungeon boss spawns. The party must clear ALL the mobs in order to get the final rewards.

I'd been chickening out on the concept of doing an individual dungeon because I thought I had crap gear - but after recently trying one out for the first time, I think I'm hooked, haha! Together with a friend and her guild officer, I did the raid for the level 90 individual dungeon, the Forbidden Abyss.


Meet the boss of the Forbidden Abyss, the Dead Sea King. Yeah, he's massive. My team is the one nearest foreground.

With two of us taking one side and the third running the other, we cleared the mobs, then took out the boss, leaving us with 27 minutes to spare out of the one hour time limit. Yes, we got the final rewards.

There's a lot of money and good items coming out of individual dungeons so it's no surprise that they're awfully popular. I've got to do another one of those real soon.

One Year in Atlantica Online

On October 7, 2008, I decided to take the plunge into the world of Atlantica Online, the instance-reliant, turn-based strategic/tactical MMORPG from nDOORS. The game turned out to be my eyes-wide-open, no-road-map, jump-in-at-the-deep-end introduction to the entire genre of turn-based tactics games, and continues to be a wild ride and a lot of fun for me.

A few months back, the game implemented a special "birthday" mechanic. The in-game system marks the real-time date of birth of a character created on any of the servers, then gives away a special Birthday Gift Box every time that birthday is reached.

I began life in Atlantica Online with a swordswoman named Takako. She was my very first main. She was the unlucky character who suffered all the faults of the above-mentioned I-have-no-idea-what-I'm-doing approach: cracked-out build, lack of money, misuse of stamina and inability to follow quest lines, etc. etc.

Having moved on to a female axe main, Takako helps out with storing other items and - more importantly - generating money for the axe main.

From PJ Goes Pop!

Meet Takako. Top row, first image: Takako in action stance at the character select screen; the redhead character behind her is my current main. Top row, second image: the in-game message board that says "Happy Birthday, Takako!" Bottom image: Takako meets the Birthday Acong - sort of a mascot for Atlantica Online, which in this version gives away birthday gifts to characters.

The birthday gift box, when opened, gives out a random cake item, which when consumed can have any number of good effects. The birthday gift also includes enough EXP for each character in the formation to advance another level.

The next character looking forward to the birthday gifts is my axe main, created in January-ish of this year. I hope I can get her to benefit from the EXP bonus by the time that comes around.

I'm happy to have spent one year in Atlantica Online, and I hope to continue playing for a long time yet. (And I'm very interested in the upcoming Power Saw mercenary, called the Punisher, so I'm definitely sticking around long enough to at least TRY to get him!)

Atlantica Online: New Patch Rocks Out

The picture is a screengrab from an Atlantica Online mini-site that discusses the details of the new patch, Van Gogh's Gallery. In the photo: the first mercenary capable of using the Instrument weapon class, Paganini the Minstrel. Details below.

I guess I should be glad I'd finished lunch before checking out the details for the latest patch to the MMORPG Atlantica Online, "Van Gogh's Gallery" - I might've done multiple spit takes at my PC otherwise.

In keeping with its long-standing tradition of references to the history and culture of the real world, the latest content update will now allow players to explore the world of that master painter, Vincent Van Gogh.

The developers really took the idea of Van Gogh to heart with this patch: the background of the mini-site is recognizably one of that artist's most famous works, The Starry Night.

Lots of new features come with this patch, and the important ones include the raising of the level cap (from 120 to 130), a new set of armor and weapons for the level 130 set (Dragon God Equipment), new dungeons, and more.

Funny how they gave Paganini a bit of a sex change, eh? The real Paganini, the celebrated Italian violinist, violist, guitarist, and composer Niccolò, is remembered for being one of the most accomplished violin virtuosi, as well as for his technically challenging and imaginative compositions.

The AO version is a sexy young woman with a penchant for leather and a long blonde ponytail, and is the NPC who starts you off on the quest to recruit the Minstrel. It rather puts me in mind of a funny picture: the developers playing a lot of Guitar Hero / Rock Band while conceptualizing the new merc.

A few caveats:
- The patching better be an uneventful and easily-done deal. I don't want to be staying up at all hours of the night and babysitting the home PC just to make sure it all loads properly. Patching DONE. Silly me, I forgot that I'd been preloading the patch while playing all day yesterday, so I only had to complete the actual patching process. Hit a few glitches on the way, but there were helpful threads in the forums, so that got sorted out nicely.
- No more bugs in the code that cause the game to crash, PLEASE. We've had periodic problems with that since the August Hwarang patch; things were really bad in the first few weeks since lots of people were reporting game crashes. Turns out it was something in the code that caused memory leaks. I hope there are none of those this time. UPDATE: Jury's still out on this one. We'll see in a day or two.

For more details, see the patch notes: HERE.

I can't wait to go and see what's new in Atlantica!

Life After the Party Part 4/4

A long overview/review in four parts; part four.


Top image: Granado Espada login screen; bottom image: Atlantica Online login screen.

SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES
One amusing set of similarities between GE and AO lies in their settings. GE is located in an alternate-universe version of our own reality: the Old World features countries named Oporto, Vespanola, Correa, and Katai, while the New World boasts of locations named the Bahamar Swamplands.

(Oporto = Portugal; Vespanola = Spain, Correa = South Korea, Katai = China; the Bahamar Swamplands are an allusion to the Commonwealth of the Bahamas and its tropical setting.)

On the other side of the coin, AO is set in a fantasy version of the Northern Hemisphere: towns include locations such as Manila, Saint Petersburg, and Chicago, while dungeons are set in wonders of the world and locations of interest such as the Taj Mahal, the Valley of the Kings, and the fabled pirate-infested coves of the Caribbean Sea.

Since both games have heavy graphics and AI loads they both require better computers and Internet connections. Additionally, GE's soundtrack works best piped through good speakers, in order to showcase the quality of the music. Other game bloggers have recommended going better than the recommended computer specifications given for both titles to maximize performance, making for a better playing experience.

Comments on both GE and AO from Filipino players attribute a kind of "learning curve" to the two titles. For one thing, the entire idea of the one-player-multiple-characters concept is like nothing else encountered in other locally-released MMO titles; the exceptions being those who had previously been exposed to Final Fantasy, its successors, and/or Tactics-type titles.

Titles of this sort call on players to have certain skills in strategy, long-term thinking, tactics and decision-making. It's best to make plans right at the outset: what makes a good family/formation at the newbie stages? What changes are required in order to survive in the endgame? On creating an account in either GE or AO, one must already be thinking about everything from starting equipment to working within the in-game economy to making plans for which extra characters to recruit and the order of recruitment, and all the way until the level cap is reached. And then what does one do when one reaches that cap?

Were that it were possible for more people to try new experiences even in online gaming. And for now, barring the continued progression of the genre as a whole and new advances in gameplay, GE and AO stand on the cutting edge, offering whole new levels of gaming experiences to casual and dedicated gamers alike. Both games come highly recommended and serve as groundbreaking titles.

***

These blog posts are dedicated to several friends and fellow gamers, and particularly to Mistress Hrin. Inspired by the musings of the MMOtaku.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Life After the Party Part 3/4

A long overview/review in four parts; part three.


Images in order from top to bottom. Top, a high-level female axe warrior in armor; second, the same character wearing a Jiangshi Outfit; third, mounts allow characters to travel more quickly and can be traded on the in-game market; fourth, encounter with an enemy mob; fifth, the first turn of combat; sixth, resting on the map and showing the UI.

PATH TO ATLANTIS: ATLANTICA ONLINE
In creating AO, nDOORS followed a different path. A player took control of a main character, and saw only that character while moving through the world maps. However, that main character could recruit mercenaries to assist him/her in combat situations. Progression through the game will eventually require one player to control a full team of nine characters: one main character plus eight mercenaries.

A notable addition to AO's complexity is its reliance on instance-reliant, turn-based strategic/tactical gameplay. Enemy groups are transported into an instance to battle; battle proceeds as per the classic rules of turn-based combat, where the enemy groups move in turn and alternate until one side is defeated.

Both enemy groups can use items or abilities to summon up to two more allied groups; this means that some battles are large-scale productions of 27 vs 27 (3 players and 24 mercenaries versus 27 enemy monsters in Player vs Environment, or another group of 3 players and 24 mercenaries in Player vs Player).

As with GE, many of the mercenaries in AO can be recruited as the storyline progresses, with their recruitment quests helping to advance the plot.

Both GE and AO have earned awards at home and abroad for their innovative take on online gaming and for their rich gameplay experiences. New titles employing the one-player-multiple-characters strategy have been announced to follow in their footsteps, including the recently-revealed Fantasy Zhu Xian from Perfect World Co. Ltd.

Now let's zoom in on what makes these sorts of MMORPGs click.

Part 2
Part 4

Life After the Party Part 2/4

A long overview/review in four parts; part two.


Images in order from top to bottom. Top, a novice Granado Espada family of Scout, Musketeer, and Fighter outside a town; second, a mid-level team of Scout, Fighter, and Wizard in a dungeon; third, a squad (group of families) in combat against enemy mobs; bottom, another squad fighting a raid boss.

ENTER A NEW WORLD: GRANADO ESPADA
Designed by Kim Hakkyu, Granado Espada (known in North America as Sword of the New World) invited players to explore an alternate-universe reality, with a backstory mirroring the real Age of Exploration (15th to 19th centuries) and countries with similar names to actual nations. Players were invited to set sail from an Old World toward a New, forming "pioneer families" and conquering new lands.

The genius of the concept lay in the emphasis on the pioneer family. To bring that experience to life, the game was designed so that a single player could control up to three characters at once. Unique gameplay features made it possible for a player to either micromanage each of the three characters, or take control of one primary character while the other two followed AI commands.

In addition to making it possible for a single player to control a three-man basic adventuring party, GE also took a cue from the Final Fantasy titles, and allowed the recruiting of additional characters encountered throughout the storyline. Thus, the range of characters available for use expanded from the game's five stock classes to a wide range of other characters, each with his or her own specializations.

With GE already pioneering the MMORPG field in terms of one-player-multiple-characters gameplay, it was only a matter of time before other companies followed its lead. In 2007, another Korean gaming developer, nDOORS Corporation, took up the challenge, putting together the concept of its flagship title, the fantasy MMORPG Atlantica Online.

Part 1
Part 3

Life After the Party Part 1/4

A long overview/review in four parts; part one.


Top image: a "periodic table" of Final Fantasy characters; bottom image: World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King login screen.

INTRODUCTION
In general, most video games are easy to understand in terms of the relationship between the player and the character: one player controls one character. The player either completely micromanages the character, or calls on the game's AI to help automate certain types of behavior.

But talk about Role-Playing Games, and the idea of the party becomes a necessity. Travel alone, and face instant death; join an adventuring group, and gain an increased chance of surviving. The early RPG video games made use of certain boosts and AI-controlled allied characters or summons in order to aid the player and the character, but fell short of allowing the player control of an actual party.

And then along came a little something called Final Fantasy. For many video game enthusiasts, the idea of being one player controlling a party of characters was influential and revolutionary, increasing the fun factor, replay value, and mental flexibility of games and players alike. The Japanese have since gone on to enshrine the concept among their plethora of video game tropes, and the West has followed suit (see: Bioware).

The same progression may now be underway in that group of video games known as Massively Multiplayer Online Games - and in particular, the large segment of those titles that are RPGs.

Pioneering MMO worlds such as those of Ultima Online and Everquest operated within the one-player-one-character paradigm, and also allowed players to join together in groups: parties, guilds, alliances, nations. Following in their footsteps: World of Warcraft. and many, many others. Some MMORPGs even take the progression of group size to its logical limit, allowing entire servers to unite against global threats.

In 2006, the progression took a step futher, with the introduction of a Korean title that was eventually ported throughout the globe: IMC Games Co., Ltd.'s fantasy MMORPG Granado Espada.

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Atlantica Online: Jiangshi Outfit GET.

So, there was only ever one real outfit I wanted to get from Atlantica Online: the Jiangshi Outfit. See the picture to the left. Ain't my girl smashing? :)

Costumes in Atlantica give some boosts to stats and, of course, change the look of the character. I got lucky during one of the last major events and got an item X that I sold off for the gold that I needed to buy this lovely dress.

The Jiangshi Outfit also gives me the giggles because it looks a whole lot like that worn by a mob in Ragnarok Online. A girl wearing the Jiangshi Outfit looks like a Munak, while a boy looks like a Bongun. Even more so with the matching hat accessory.

Now, excuse me while I power up my girl to level 90 and beyond.

Recent journeys in search of the lost Atlantis

After a few days off from playing Atlantica Online owing to OS crashes, I'm back in the MMO saddle again. Typically this means doing quests - typical quests mean killing mobs - and at the end of it you have to kill one more thing, the boss mob.

So here's the most recent boss fight I did.



Meet the Machine Goddess, the final boss of the Sunken Machine Shrine dungeon. Recommended levels for these maps are late 7x-early 8x. Although, if you peer closely at the top screenshot, you might be able to see that the boss has an orange name.

In AO as in many other MMOs the color of a monster's name in the field changes according to the level of the person fighting it. The color chart in AO runs something like this (this is a personal estimate):

Red - you're in way over your head. Mob is at least ten levels above you.
Orange - manageable in a party or if you have a good formation. Mob is at least five levels above you.
Yellow - can be done, but you still have a chance of getting owned. Mob is at least three levels above you.
White - equilibrium achieved. Mob is just about at the same level as you.
Green - easily killed. Mob is at least five levels below you.
Blue - don't bother, unless for a quest or for leveling new mercenaries. Mob is at least ten levels below you.

The colors adjust in shade according to the relative level of the monster. If you're at my level or so, for example, beginner mobs are dark blue; 10x mobs are dark red.

I like my build to be more geared towards fighting mobs instead of other players, so I was able to take out this boss and finish the quest line, though not without incident as you can see in the bottom screenshot: got two front-line mercs killed in the process. Statuses on the boss include Freeze.

Now that I've almost made 8x I need to spend a lot of money to upgrade armors and mercs themselves. Oi. *facepalm* That's going to be a lot of gold down the drains.

A Brief History of PJ the MMO Player (mostly MMORPGs)

2003 until around 2005 - With the introduction of Ragnarok Online in the Philippines, my BF's group of friends becomes a fanatic online guild / playing group. Like many other Pinoy gamers, RO was my very first MMORPG experience. Taking note that 2003 was like the Stone Age of the Internet in this country, we soldiered on for a few years despite crap connections and the onerous burden of having to pay to play.

2005-2006 - After the group began to drift out of Rune Midgard, I began to try my hand at other online games. I still have fond memories of Gunbound and the shooting wars that reminded me so much of Scorched Earth. My major MMO title at this point changed to Silkroad Online. (Was rather into wuxia at the time and jumped at the chance to swing a glaive / guan dao around.) This was how I met some fellow online gamers and bloggers, including that rather memorable letter-to-the-writer that meant meeting the MMOtaku.

2006-ish - Brief flirtations with several MMO titles, including Pangya. Spent a rather long time trying to wrap my brain around my MMORPG of the time, Rappelz. Yes, I did the quests to get a pet; not much point in playing Rappelz if you're not going to be accompanied by a retinue.

2007-2008 - My LONGEST and most involved stay in an MMORPG title, as I became a dedicated player of Granado Espada. I achieved a small sort of online-games fame because of the blog Granado Espada: Dispatches from the New World. Writing as the NineMoons Family, I became very interested in blogging professionally, as well as in playing the hell out of the game.

Eventually, though, I drifted out of Granado Espada (local game management not up to scratch). The blog is still readable, but only as an archive; there is no more interaction (comments and chatbox all disabled).


This screenshot shows my current main character in Atlantica Online. She's on Macedon server. She's a level 7x axe user; I've just disabled the weapon display feature.

Late 2008-present - Crash course time: I'd never played any turn-based tactics-type games before. So I was totally unprepared to become a massive fan of my current MMORPG favorite, Atlantica Online. Where in Granado Espada a player could control up to three characters via the gameplay mechanics, the system in Atlantica Online will eventually *require* a player to control one main character PLUS his/her retinue of eight mercenary characters.

Having been forced on a temporary hiatus from the game because of work and a few sick days, I DESPERATELY miss playing. I must make some time to continue the quest line I'm on in the Hidden Machine Shrine - and I am VERY excited to see my character change to a new set of armor and weapons. (Although the in-game expenditure is going to HURT, knowing I've got to re-outfit the entire party of nine....)

What makes me love Atlantica Online so much? The storyline, the landscapes, the quests, and most importantly its grounding in the real world. Yes, it's a fantasy world, but you get to interact with people like William Tell, Stradivarius, Howard Carter, Joan of Arc, and many more. Almost every named NPC and mercenary has a Wikipedia entry, and that's not mentioning the fact that boss fights WILL include Dracula, Tiamat, Erzsébet Bathory, and even Al Capone!