Showing posts with label GamesCampus. Show all posts

Yo Disconnecters,

This is my first message here so bare with me. Just posting this because AxtTreiber aka SpearDriver is on vacation.

At the current moment there is nothing special going on, on Games Campus. Only thing going on at the moment is the Item Mall Auction. Its the same as the previous one, this week you can pm "Versteigerer" with your bid for certain items. The original message can be found here: Click Here

The items and days are as followed:

Monday till Wednesday (02/05/2011 - 04/05/2011):
2x 7/1000 Hp into Life Weapon Ornament.

Wednesday till Friday (04/05/2011 - 06/05/2011):
1x 30 day Premium Package.

Friday till Monday (06/05/2011 - 09/05/2011):
4x Jade Separator (adds 1 slot to weapons or deco's)

Person with the highest bid in gold gets the item. All auction days run from 14.00 on the start date till 14.00 on the ending date. Items will be placed in your bag at the end of the auction if you got the first place in the bidding and the gold will be removed automaticly.

P.S. I hope you have a nice vacation SD.

This is what you get for giving three day bans to hackers...



Yes, he's running around with another plus 10 bracers. That is what you get for a 3 day ban.

You get a player who comes back and hacks himself another weapon. I took that shot around midnight last night and I would normally send it to GamesCampus, but Camlost clearly no longer cares.

So, what are we playing next?

- AxtTreiber

Games Campus has discovered promotional prices and until the 10th of this month at noon a few items are on sale in their coin mall, but I kind of have to ask, why?

First the items and prices.

[ewig] Decos fallen von 680 auf 470 CC
90 Tage Taschen der Gespenstergeister fallen von 280 auf 200 CC
365 Tage Taschen der Gespenstergeister fallen von 950 auf 620 CC

Camlost announced this promotion in the Games Campus forums. It's in German of course and for those of you who don't speak German the first item is the Forever Deco reduced from 680 Campus Coins to 470 coins. What is that, about a 30% discount? That's cool, I would like another deco for PvP and 470 coins is about 5 euros. I can afford that.

There are a wide variety of Forever Decos available and unfortunately Games Campus doesn't provide a good looking image of each of them. A nice image would make it easier to choose the one you want. One of our members complained about that on their forum. Maybe more people need to complain?

The other items in the promotional sale are the 90 and 365 day bags that a character can equip. I've never bought those in the past but some people seem to need them. Those are also priced at about a 30% discount.

If you're interested to buy these things, and can't navigate the coin mall because it's in German feel free to whisper me in game (AxtTreiber) and I'll help you find the items you're looking for.

Now back to my rather cynical question of, why should be we buy these things? Ok, a PvP deco would a nice luxury if I could build one, but so far I can't. Drop rates are so low that I can't get enough gold together to buy the ornaments that I would attach to a PvP deco. I've already spent over 5 million gold at the CC3 Black Market and I didn't get the ornaments I wanted for my normal dodge deco.

The way I see it, there is no reason for me to buy another deco right now.

The other factor to think about is the (Vietnamese) hackers. I've reported a couple of them just to see what would happen. Nothing happened. I just saw one of them using the Hangzhou map chat. That's the same map where I saw him repeating quests yesterday.

I don't expect Games Campus to ban hackers based solely on player reports, but the server side software for this game keeps a log of all player actions and there is a search tool for that log. All the actions of a single player can be reported over a period of time with that search tool. Hacks such as repeating quests can easily be proved.

If nothing is going to happen to the hackers, I see no reason whatsoever to spend money on this game.

- AxtTreiber.

Yes, they are a disease and they are contagious. The 9D German server from Games Campus now has a sizable number of them at fairly high levels, for that server anyway.

The problem with this disease is that the Vietnamese players don't view 9Dragons as a game. For them it's a business. It's a chance to make some real world money by selling their gold and precious drops to the gold sellers who also infest almost every MMO out there. First of course, they have to get that gold and those drops.

Low level maps don't have much of a drop rate for gold and goodies on any version of 9Dragons, even if it's particularly bad on 9D Germany. The Vietnamese solution is to level hack, by repeating every quest they possibly can. It's a lot faster than grinding and they have identified quite an interesting array of quests that can be repeated. I personally watched a guy repeating a quest from the Bisha tavern yesterday, and the same guy was repeating The Disturbance of Shimei I very early this morning.

The in-game items that are easily sellable are the drops from the important bosses in the Cave of the Conqueror. The Defense trink, the HP trink, Blood Beads, Karma Plates, high damage wrist bands, etcetera. The Vietnamese have no problem with hacking the game any way they can in order to out-damage anyone else who might want those items too. These are mostly memory hacks using small, precise applets to repeatedly reset memory locations to allow faster recast, or higher damage while their characters are on the attack.

So far GameGuard isn't able to stop these applets from altering specific memory addresses during game play.

This became a problem over night, at least for me, because I couldn't sleep again last night. My AxtTreiber character was EC2 so at 4:30 this morning I decided to take a run at the def trink boss in the Cave of the Conqueror. Well, I would at least go camping for a while. When I got there I found a group of well known Viet players camping too. I had a pretty good idea what would come next but I stuck around anyway. I think I got called a lot of dirty names too.

A couple more known Viet players came and went, and after an hour or so the boss spawned. We were all over it immediately of course but the boss was dead as fast as it spawned. I think I got in 4 hits, and that's just not normal. The nuker behind me seemed to be on auto-cast, and the others around me had to be doing 10 times the damage I was doing.

I've done a lot of boss hunting in the last few days. I know how long it takes to kill one, even the easy ones. This was just unreal. I didn't get any external wounds from the boss because she wasn't alive long enough to hand it out. I've never seen anything like it. Fortunately there was no drop or I would have been really upset.

Games Campus would like to keep the gold sellers out of their game. Who can blame them, and that's why our drop rate is so miserable to begin with. Campus can go after the gold sellers themselves, and cut off their IP access to the game, and eventually all proxies too, but I would suggest Campus is going to have to do the same with the foot soldiers who are willing to sell their gold and precious items for cash. Fortunately they are easy to identify.

It's your move Games Campus.

- AxtTreiber

I bought a Paysafe Card today and I can't believe how simple it was. First off, I didn't know where I could buy these things so I went to their website, which transferred me to a German version of the website. Right on their front page was a search engine where you can type in as little as your postal code and you'll get back a map showing all the retailers in your area who sell these things. It turns out that the local shop where I buy my weekly lottery ticket also sells these things.

Who knew? I sure didn't.

The guy at the shop actually used the same machine that prints the lottery tickets, to print my Paysafe Card. There is a 16 digit pin number on the card which you enter into your Games Campus account. There is a link to that on their forum, under CampusCredits Kaufen. I simply followed the links, entered that 16 digit number and voila! I have 2750 Campus credits.

I sure wish we had this sort of a system available with Acclaim. I always used my credit card with them but I never like to use that for small purchases, particularly with the exchange rate difficulties that Acclaim saddled us with. I bought a fair number of their coins at the start of each year and stretched them out over the year by buying coin mall items when they were on sale.

Of course, I lost everything (including over 6 months of premium play) when Acclaim pulled the plug on us. Because I had spent the coins I didn't get any refund from them, even though I never got to use those items.

Strangely enough, a number of G1 players wish the assholes at Acclaim were still in business. I don't. I'm glad they're gone and I've moved on to Games Campus and 9D Germany even though I have to start over on a character. Spending 25 euros today will help an awful lot.

Now what to spend those credits on? Hmm, perm deco, some xp cards, a few courier passes would be nice...

- AxtTreiber

The German version of the game goes live today at 4pm local time. You'll have to work it out for yourself what that means for you, because I don't know what timezone you live in. They actually said, "4pm or so" but these guys have been really good so far about working to an announced time. They are German after all.

This brings up a couple of things, in particular for this league. I would like to try to restart our league as an English speaking league on that server. An experienced player doesn't actually need to be able to speak German to play there. TS did just fine in the beta test. He only rarely asked me for a translation on anything, but that is sort of the point. Between us and the Restless League there are plenty of bi-lingual people We could make this work if we work together.

To that end I would like to hold our annual Christmas Hide'n Seek event in Hefei, of the German server. I have 6 BE as prizes from the Games Campus forum quiz that went on last week. The first 5 people to find me will get one. I'll be masked of course, and I'll probably have a few people as decoys too. I suggest 4pm local time, on Christmas Day. This is a league only event, and hopefully we will have that formed before Christmas Day.


You can find me in game today on a character called AxtTreiber, a germanized version of AxeDriver. Hit me up with a friends request and lets party up. Keep in mind also there is a guide to that start map here. Games Campus is now calling that map Bambusdorf, or Bamboo Village.

Games Campus announced what they are planning for the server settings and I'm thinking it's a bit of a mixed bag. It's not all good news, but it's not all bad either. For starters it will be a PvE style server with player versus player action limited to Bloody Plains. That suits me just fine. Hopefully we'll get war events often enough to attract players there regularly.

The experience rate for the server will be 2x the base rate, which is not particularly good. They know that the G1 rate is higher than that. Games Campus has also said that experience rate events won't be all that common, not even weekly, although they are planning for some special events like Christmas. I expect a lot of new players will quit after it takes longer than a day to level up. The no-lifers won't care.

The skill experience rate will not be quite as high as it was for the beta test, but at 3x the base skill rate it will still be fairly easy to get skills up to the C6 level, using cheap clan map manuals. After that things will get slow of course, and I think we can expect to see more than a few people using skill trainers or lego robots. The Games Campus people haven't said one way or another if they'll allow their use. Of course the insane skills are still going to be insane to level up.

The drop rate will be returned to normal low rates, and I'm not sure this is so good either. There will be fewer players here than in any other version of the game. That means fewer drops collected, sold, traded, and used. It could take quite a long time to get Wan Daye's Blue Jade Seal for instance. Manuals, Tomes and skill books will probably be fairly rare too, until players are high enough to run the higher dungeons.

Otherwise the Games Campus people are promising more updates to the game, with new material, clothes, maps, weapons and more. They seem to think that some of this will help to make up for the lower experience rates. We'll see. I hope Games Campus understands that they are the last chance for this game. They are the 4th publisher of this game for the western markets, and every one before them failed, some in a more spectacular fashion than others.

We players have another choice in playing 9Dragons. We can start new characters here, or put up with the absolute bullshit coming from GamersFirst. I'll be starting a new character on the German server and see how it goes.

Sometimes you just have to be persistent. I found this post on the Games Campus Forum this morning.

Eine offizielle Ankündigung zum Thema Serversettings (Exp-Rate, Skillrate, Droprate und PvE/PvP) gibt es am Freitag.

"An official announcement on the topic of server settings will be given on Friday."

I may not like their decisions on these topics, but at least I'm getting what I asked for in my last post! I'm sure their answers will raise another series of questions, but I really wonder why other gaming companies can't communicate like this.

I checked the various forums for the game this morning, as I usually do before going in game, and found this post from a regular on the Games Campus forum. ForestWolf gives us a link to a German language online gamer publication. The article says pretty much everything that Games Campus has already told us, but with one little gem. The game is restarting on the 21st of the month.

Why can't Games Campus tell us this sort of thing directly, in their own forum?

Unfortunately this sort of thing has been the mindset of all the publishers of this game so far.

The Peeps Don't Need to Know (so we won't tell them...)

Games Campus has some basic decision making to do in the next two weeks, and we players would like answers.

1. What are the experience rates going to be set to?

During the beta test we had the old, low Acclaim rate, but it was a beta test so who cares. The characters have since been wiped. With those old, low rates we at least got regular events with raised xp rates. Are we going to see that here?

Acclaim later permanently raised xp rates, by lowering the required experience to level up for each level. They did that when the level cap was raised, with new maps and new material. Are we even going to have the LiaoDong, Ice map, or Tibet map to play with?

2. How about skill experience and drop rates?

We had some really nice rates for these during the beta test. Except for the insane stuff, most skills were easy keep up to their level cap. It was possible to buy the items needed from NPC's, elixirs to make good weapons and it was easy to get good clothes. Map collections were easy to fill too, and that helped a lot. Will this continue in Open Beta? I sure hope so.

3. Refining rates?

I tried to refine several weapons during the beta test. The results weren't good but as long as the drops rate provides a good supply of Blood Essence, nobody minds too much. Still, it would be nice to make a least a +7 weapon, when you take three identical items and hope for the best. One of them breaks at +4, the next at +5, the next at +6. Games Campus isn't going to sell a lot of Dragons Tears/Scales with those refining rates, unless they're priced at about 50 cents each.

4. Items from the Korean version?

There are a variety of items that have never been released into the western games. We can see the screen shots from their game, and a few people can read Korean too. Clothes with elemental resistance, or slots? Slotted Wan Daye weapons? Those would sure be nice, and there are a lot more items out there.

5. PvE or PvP?

The western versions of the game have never had a balanced PvP system, and for that reason alone I think it should be confined to Bloody Plains at least until we get some balance. Who really wants to be the target of a pimply-faced, snot-nosed 14 year old with attention deficit disorder, and a super powered nuker?

I for one will not pay 10 cents for that sort of gaming pleasure.

I could go on and on about the issues in the game, and the decisions that need to be made. I can even accept that these basic decisions haven't been made yet, but at the very least I would hope that once these things are decided, that Games Campus will tell us directly how things are going to be run in their version.

That means "tell us directly, in your forums, and not in some obscure online gaming magazine that half your potential customers can't read anyway".

The German version of the game is closing its Beta test on Wednesday afternoon, and all the existing characters will be deleted at that time. There isn't any set date yet when they'll open with their open beta version, just a note in their forum that says "shortly before Christmas". Christmas is only 3 weeks away, and I don't really know how much "shorter" you can get.

But it's obvious they have quite a number of bugs to fix first. There have always been bugs in this game, but the bugged quests are a must in terms of being repaired before the open beta can go head. That will take some time, and we all know how slow Indy21 can be at times. Hopefully they won't break anything else in the mean time.

Anyone else remember the fiasco at last year's Christmas event with Acclaim?

Games Campus is giving away a number of rewards as well. Anyone who even logged in during the Beta will get a 7 day premium for free. If you reported a bug or made a suggestion in that time you'll be getting a 30 day premium for your work. And apparently a small number of people will be getting a 90 day premium for outstanding work. I'm hoping I'm on that list for the Zhangzhu quest guide I wrote. We'll see.

The last event for the Beta test is another GM PvP event starting at 6pm local time tonight, running for an hour. Screen shots would be welcome. Please post what you get in the comments section. There are more rewards too. Anyone who kills a GM will get 2 XP cards per kill when the game restarts later this month.

I'll update this when I get an exact date that the game will re-open.

- AxtTreiber

Last night Games Campus, the publisher of the German version of the game, managed to provide their players with level 100 template characters. I have to wonder how they did that. Games Campus has only been online with this game for a couple of weeks. Ok, everybody got pretty much the same characters. The last character that everyone created was turned into an EC4 Heavenly Demon nuker (for black clans), or a Wu Tang warrior (for white clans). We all got +12 weapons and some of the skills were set to C12 as well.

They messed up a few things of course. Nobody had any sort of epithet so you had to go out and do a couple of quests for a good one. The Lightning Fist epithet is easy to get at EC4, and so is the Punisher of Demons epithet. The HD nukers didn't have much for shields either. The low level Chi shield was C12 but the more useful VE shield wasn't trained at all.

The nuker I got was wearing beggar clan boots, and the rest of the clothes weren't all that good either, but at EC4 you can make level 5, or 300 defense clothes and that was one of the first things most people did. I also went and bought some poor mans slotted clothes from the seamstress, and made a quick trip to the Black Market in CC3. It cost me 10 million gold to get a bunch of extra dodge ornaments.

The build on the nukers wasn't all that good either. It certainly wasn't set up for last nights PvP event against the GMs. The Hefei quest to change your build was still available and a lot of people went and did that too. The template characters didn't have any karma either, but the Bloody Plains Flowers quest was available, so you had your choice of good karma or bad. I have some of the old FD and RC level bad karma relics so that's what I used.

Even with all the good and bad that went into these template characters I can see why Games Campus did things this way. I'm a reasonably good cook and a couple of times I've had to cook for some large numbers of people. I don't have any problem to do that, but everybody is going to be eating the same thing!

In other words, this situation isn't quite the same as what GamersFirst is facing when trying to get our Acclaim characters back, or give us a template character that resembles what we used to have. In the end it was a good test of the template characters idea, but obviously Indy21 and the publishers are going to have to put more thought into the idea.

I don't know when Games Campus is going to go live with an open beta version of the game, but I sure hope they have the bugs fixed, particularly the bugged quests, before they think they're going to make any money on the game.

So, how did you do in the GM PvP event? Does anyone have any screen shots for us?

- AxtTreiber

The guys at Games Campus had planned this patch for yesterday, but let us know it would be delayed a day both in their forum, and on their Twitter account. It's kind of interesting to see a 9D related Twitter account that is active. I have to wonder how other game publishers with "community liason" staff can't manage to inform their players what's happening with game development.

The first change in today's patch is some text updates for various things, including some quests, and Zhangzhu. If you have been using the English language text file with the German client, I suggest you switch back to the German language text file before down loading this patch. I don't have any reason for suggesting that, it just seems prudent to me.

There is a new quest on the Shi Zhang map, so there is probably a similar one on the white clans map too. There could be a problem here for players using the English language text file. This is a "new" quest, and the text probably doesn't exist in that text file. The NPC is a peddlar claiming to represent Wan Daye. On the black side you have to kill 7 bandits that are nearby and you get your choice of clan relevant weapons, including a set of bracers that are usuable by hybrid players.

The weapons do a little extra damage and give 3% speed and are designed for OC level players, so they aren't a bad little gift item. The bracers I got are marked as "combinable", so supposedly they can be slotted too. I tried that and couldn't figure it out. You probably need to use a Jade Separator just like you do with a Hermit weapon.

Apparently the "Mindful Son" quest series is now fixed too. Edit: No it's not.

And lastly, those damned good and annoying invisible walls that were all over the place are finally gone! I personally tested the gate from the Brotherhood clan map to Shi Zhang, all of Hefei, and the gate from Shi Zhang to Datong.

If you see something that still needs a fix please let us know in the comments section. I know that the Games Campus staff have been reading this blog, so they will find your reports here too.

- AxtTreiber

This new version of the game is totally German, and that is obviously going to be a problem for some people. It was mentioned in the comments section yesterday that you can replace the NDTEXTDB_DE.XSD in your game folder/data/script with the US version of that file, and you get everything in English again, except the new material.

The tutorial map, Zhangzhu, is completely new so I don't recommend you replace that text file until you've finished the grind on the first map. It's heavily quest based and the text goes missing if you replace the German text file with the English language file. To help players with that new material we've put together a quest guide. Anyone with any corrections or more information is invited to post in the comments section and I'll add things as I get them.


Like usual, all quests start with the large blue exclamation mark, and further steps in the quest use a question mark. Just keeping that in mind makes each quest easy. I'll give the German language name of the quest and a simple translation, and the NPC name where the quest starts.

Erste Begegnung (First Meeting): Tan Xiao (Tutorial/Collections)
You get told to distribute your 10 attribute points, and come back.
Reward: gold, xp

Bitte von Tan Xiao (Request from Tan Xiao): Tan Xiao
You are given beginners Lightfoot and Meditation. Deliver food to her Father, then back to Tan. She then explains meditation, chi breathing, etc.
Reward: xp

Gib eine Waffe (Give a Weapon): Tan Xiao
Tan sends you to the Hermit, where you select black or white clans, and then the actual clan. He gives you a weapon too.
Reward: a weapon, xp

Anfanger-Axtangriff (Beginner Axe Attack): Hermit (Accupressure Buffs)
The Hermit sends you to your clan trainer for your first active skill. Other forms of this quest name depend on the weapon type, such as Schwertangriff (Sword Attack). You don't just talk to your clan trainer, you select a skill from him and then go train on the training posts nearby.
Reward: xp

If you chose to go vagabond in the game you'll have these 2 quests forever marked as incomplete because you didn't select a clan from the Hermit in Gib eine Waffe. It is still safe to do the Gib eine Waffe Quest though. Doing this quest does not make you a clan member. That is still handled the old fashioned way for each clan.

Bitte von Wei Wu Min (Request from Wei Wu Min): Wei Wu Min (Innkeeper)
Kill 5 foxes.
Reward: LS4 relic, gold, xp

Sabelberg, Schwertwald (Saber Mountain, Sword Forest) Wei Wu Min
Talk to 2 women of the village.
Reward: xp

Der Wunsch eines Madchens (A Little Girls Wish): Wei Xiao Wo (Little Girl)
Collect a fox hair and a fox tail. (with so many people starting the game now, you don't even have to kill a couple of foxes. just go pick the items up from the ground...)
Reward: lollipops, xp

Schwester des kleinen Madchens (Sister of the Little Girl): Wei Xiao Wo
Deliver a hair brush from the little girl and get told off by her older sister.
Reward: xp

Mittlepunkt der Welt (Mid-point of the World): Wang Xiao Ri (Wan Daye's Servant)
Go to Hefei and speak to Wan Daye.
Reward: Bambu Roll, xp, 4 pocket 50 Defence clothes

Das Land ist in Aufruhr (The Land is in Uproar): Tan Xiao
Go talk to your clan trainer. Wannabee BoT get sent to Kill 3 Moonkids. Other clans might have a different target.
Reward: LS2 relic, xp

Besuch bei der Liga der Bettler (Visit the Beggars): Zhu Shi (Beggar Clan)
A beggar tries to distract wannabee black clan players. I'm sure the stinking white clans get the better treatment from a clan trainer from our side. Too bad they never listen. Oh well, we'll just have to kill them. (but you'll still have to go to the Beggar map to finish this quest)
Reward: xp

Das Land ist in Aufruhr II (The Land is in Uproar): Wei Xiao Wo
The Little Girl sends you to talk to a few clan trainers.
Reward: xp

Einem jungen Mann Arbeit Verschaffen I, II, III, IV (Create Work for a Young Man): Xiao Jin Lai (Storekeeper)
This is the stupidest series of quests ever. Just follow the quest marks and click through them. You will have to run to Hefei and speak with a couple of NPC's to get a pretty good relic.
Reward: gold, xp, backpack, relic

Hanstoff von Xiao Guo Xiao (Hemp Cloth of Xiao Gu Xiao): Xiao Gu Xiao (Seamstress)
Collect 5 pieces of cloth from female bandits.
Reward: xp pill, xp

Das Gepack von Fang Yuan (Backpack of Fang Yuan): Fang Yuan (Shao Clan)
Talk to the Sacred Flowers Clan Trainer, then get the backpack from the Moonkids.
Reward: 2 relics, xp

Der Bergkonig (The Mountain King): Tan Xiao
Talk to the village headman.
Reward: relic, xp

Hilfe von unbekanntem alten Mann (Help from an old man): Hermit
Change your point distribution if needed.
Reward: none

Kiste der Banditen (Bandits Chest): Tan Xiao
Collect Bambuspfanne and return them to Tan Xiao.
Reward: Bamboo Item, xp

Besuch bei der Bruderschaft (Visit the Brotherhood): Chuan Lang
Just like it says, go talk to an NPC on the clan map. Each clan has a version of this quest.
Reward: xp

Das Hobby des Dorfobersten (Hobby of the Village Headman): Wei Chun Xin
Talk to the Hunter and kill 5 each of 2 types of wolves.
Reward: gold, xp

Das Gegengift fur den Vater (Antidote for a Father): Wei Xiao Wo
Talk to the doctor and kill 5 snakes.
Reward: xp pill, xp

Im Kampf Getotet (Died in Battle): Wan Xiao Ri
Talk to the big sister, and get told off again. Hey, it's free XP.
Reward: xp

Hilfe fur den Toa-Alchemisten (Help for the Taoist Pharmacist): Xiao Zhi You
Collect 8 firewood from the stumps at 137, 208. Collect 5 Wild Gingseng at 123, 90
Reward: level 1 elixir, xp

Alter Weiser in Bambus-Wald (Old Wise One in the Bamboo Forest): Wei Wu Min
Go talk to the Hunter.
Reward: xp

Gestohlener Honig I, II, III (Stolen Honey): Wei Chun Xin
Go talk to the Hunter again, and again. Buy him a bottle of the blue liquor. Then he talks. Eventually you get the orders to go kill the bear.
Reward: xp, epithet

Kung Fu Trainieren (Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting!!! Ooo, Ah!!!): Wei Jin Xiao
Go talk to various NPCs (again).
Reward: gold, xp

Die Axe mit Zermalmendem Chi (The Axe with Grinding Chi): Tan Xiao
Talk to various NPC's, including one in Hefei, about the weapon that can split a massive rock.
Reward: xp

Den Felsen zerstoren (Destroy the Rock): Jiang Qibao
You get a windgram from Hefei to pick up a weapon in the village. Destroy the rock and save the kidnapped soldier by killing 6 each of 2 types of Bandit.
Reward: gold, xp

Chi an andere ubertragen (Donating Chi): Xiao Zhi You
Talk to the Hermit. He makes you Chi Breathe.
Reward: xp

Verruckte Banditen (Insane Bandits): Tan Xiao
Kill 10 Bandits
Reward: strength ambrosia, xp

Plotzlicher Tod am Platz (Sudden Death): Tan Xiao
Kill the Mountain King Zhang Zhong.
Reward: xp, epithet

Die Ankunft des Drachen (The Beginnings of a Dragon): Tan Xiao
Every NPC on the map wants to talk to you because you're a hero.
Reward: Ginseng powder, xp

Bier Trinken (Drinking Beer): AxtTreiber
Go get a beer. You earned it.
Reward: beer

And that ends our not so short tour of the Zhangzhu, or the Diamond Mine as it's sometimes called. I hope this guide helps. You know, we're always looking for good writers and artists for this blog. If you would like to help out, please let me know.

- AxtTreiber (and RedCross for that awesome graphic!!!)

I'm not all that impressed with the way GamersFirst is handling 9Dragons. In fact, I don't know any player that is all that happy with GamersFirst. Fortunately we now have another option for our 9Dragons habit. The Games Campus version is available in a beta edition which means it's in a test phase. All characters created now will be wiped before the actual game play goes live. I don't think everyone playing now actually understands that.

TS and I started playing this a couple of days ago and it's going quite well despite the fact that TS doesn't speak German. I think that any reasonably experienced 9D player with Google Translator on hand will do just fine in this version. I think TS has only asked me for a couple of translations so far.

I've seen a few of our old friends (hi Mayen!) in game too, and a number of people have addressed me as SD despite the fact that I'm using a germanized version for the name of my new hybrid, AxtTreiber. TS is being as creative as usual with his character name.

The servers seem to be in great shape. I've only experienced a couple of momentary lags while lightfooting and I've never noticed a thing while grinding. The GM tools work and GM's are in game answering questions in English and German, and they are looking at problems too. For instance, the gate from the BoT clan map to Shi Zhang is blocked. It's sort of strange because you can easily go from Shi Zhang to Tai Shan. But the GM's came, took a look and made a few notes about it. That's why it's a beta/test phase after all. They even teleported a few players to Shi Zhang while they were there.

While we're playing this beta/test phase there are several events planned and they have been made public on the forums. How is that for a nice change? Events, planning, and posted to a public forum? It's refreshing. The Games Campus edition of 9Dragons has been described as the Korean version of the game with the US stat system. I'm not sure how accurate that is about the stats system, and I'm not going to do a detailed comparison. I just wanna play without any headaches.

There is some new material too. The tutorial map is a story of its own and is worth doing. There are new drops there that can be traded with a resource NPC (the tutorial NPC actually) for some goodies, some new quests, and some nice items for doing those quests. You can come out of the tutorial with a reasonable weapon, 4 pocket 50 defense clothes and your choice of a couple of epithets. It feels like a nice start, even for a veteran player.

Another topic dear to us is the disconnections issue. We are the Disconnected League after all. I haven't been disconnected yet by the game, not even on a map jump. I still get my 24 hour disconnection from my ISP though. There's nothing I can do about that.

There is no anti-hack system in place yet, but they know about it. Actually one of the players complained about this in the Games Campus forum and made certain to mention the problems we've seen in the G1 edition with the Viet players. The nice thing about the replies were that no one yelled RACISM, no threads were closed, no posts deleted, and no one was banned from the forum. Compared to the treatment we players get on the G1 forums this too is really refreshing.

Of course we were all happy to see G1 when they came on to the 9Dragons scene, and nobody is all that happy now. We were all convinced that they couldn't be worse than Acclaim, and they are. So I'll watch closely to see how things develop with Games Campus for now.

Still, they couldn't be worse than G1, could they? Could they?

Update: These guys just got even better. They announced almost 4 hours in advance that the server would be coming down for a mini-patch. But that isn't all they announced! In the forums they announced what they are trying to fix, and when the time of the next patch is likely to be.

- SpearDriver2