Priston Tale

"Priston Tale" is a 3D fantasy MMORPG that centres on action-based role-playing. The game, which originated in South Korea, was initially developed for the local market. It was created by Triglow Pictures Inc. (now known as Priston Inc.) and has since been published for Japan, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, England, Philippines, Brazil and the Spanish-speaking countries. In 2004, the English version of "Priston Tale" went out of public beta (in which it had remained for nearly 2 years) and became a commercial pay-to-play game. On May 17th, 2007, Priston Tale announced free-to-play service for everyone; instead of paying for the game, Priston Tale has a cash shop in which players can pay real money for game items. As of September 30th, the English server for Priston Tale will close and a new Canadian Company Subagames, will resume service for the English server. [http://eng.pristontale.com/Customer/NewsContent.aspx?index=1&num=782]

Some of the features of "Priston Tale" include a clan system, in-game shops, eight character classes - all of which can use every item available if they have the correct upgraded statistics (with the exception of armour, robes, and orbs) - a four-tiered skill system for each class, item upgrades, a simple yet involving battle system and an easy to use interface. "Priston Tale" is also intensive in potion using, and dying is moderately easy. The experience loss per death also tends to climb quite steeply (experience loss is based on a percentage of obtained experience), mirroring the ever increasing experience needed to level.

The amount of players participating in Priston Tale had been on a slow but steady decline; however, when free-to-play arrived, many people rejoined the game and many new players came in, as well.

Gameplay

Gameplay consists mostly of leveling up, though there are several activities players can participate in that are essential to the game. Some of these activities are:

*Trading: Buying and selling items. Players usually find this necessary in order to gain money and equipment otherwise unobtainable from NPC merchants.

*Clans: Players can join clans, in which teamwork prevails. They are the core of the social community of the game. Clans can also participate in special events created for clans only. Clans can be made once a player reaches level 40 or higher.

*Bellatra: Bellatra (formerly known as Survive or Die) is a competition in which 4 teams with members of the same clan are forced to fight monsters until 2 teams are declared finalists. These 2 teams will continue fighting monsters until the last one survives. The winning team is chosen by whichever one has the higher amount of points. Teams receive points by killing monsters and monster bosses. The Boss monsters give higher amounts of points. The winning team's Clan Chief acquires rights over the Bellatra by gaining the ability to modify the monsters when the Chief fights next, by receiving an income from Bellatra, etc.

*Bless Castle: Bless Castle is a Player vs. Player activity in which one clan holds and defends the castle from all other participating clans, which can use siege equipment.

Equipment

Throughout the game, the characters progress through a series of levels and acquire skill points. As they progress they get different items, such as weapons and armour, to help them in their quest of achieving the ultimate warrior. Items of this calibre usually require a larger amount of skill points in an area than the previous items.Armour in general helps the character stay alive longer by giving them different attributes. Weapons in general help the character defend themselves or attack any monster they wish with a lot more force.

At the same time, there are certain specifications as to when players may use such weapons and armour. These are mostly based on level and stat requirements. Also, there are certain specs for armour and weapons so that they may achieve their great performance and special stats. These may be found in game, written on the armour or weapon. (E.G. Fighter Spec, Knight Spec, etc.)Different Classes use different weapons; for example, the knight mainly uses two-handed swords and blades, whereas the Archer uses bows. The different items players may obtain with specs determine which types of character classes use them. Most swords will come as Knight or Mechanician spec when most wands/staves will come as Magician Spec or Priestess Spec.

There is more information on the official Priston Tale website.

Priston Tale 2

The sequel to Priston Tale was released in February 2008. It looks to change and improve on many of the things featured in its predecessor. The development team stated at one point that they were "inexperienced" and had "learnt a lot" from the first version and that the second has had much better planning. Screenshots of the new game from E3 2006 depict many recognizable characters, enemies, and environments, albeit altered significantly. It uses unreal graphics engine.

Currently, Priston Tale 2 has only been released in Korea, and is not yet available in English. Player response in Korea has been very good, with over 30,000 players online simultaneously on the 1st day of open beta, and 40,000 players online simultaneously as of the 3rd day. The game still maintains popularity and is competing with SP1 and Twelve Skies for market share, with tens of thousands of players online simulaneously at any given time.

Yedang Online has contracted with various publishers and localized versions (including North America) will begin beta service in late 2008.fact|date=June 2008

Laxe Lore

Laxe Lore is a new game based on the original Priston Tale. Although not a sequel, it can be considered a redesigned version of Priston Tale, or a side-story. It borrows from many of the predecessor's characteristics, but includes a redesigned user interface and many new features. It includes 40 different advanced character classes based on 8 basic classes. As of March 2007, it has been released under the Alpha Testing Phase. All classes were available to play and all the skill masters were present, although some skills did not function correctly and most skills were blocked completely. Yedang's site states that in 2006, it sold the Chinese rights of Laxe Lore to Yetime. It is unknown has happened there to Laxelore, but it seems the game never took off.

Official Links

* [http://eng.pristontale.com Official English/Japanese Priston Tale Site - English service terminating on September 30th]
* [http://pt1.subagames.com Official English Priston Tale Site starting October 2008]
* [http://www.pristontale2.com English (Europe) Priston Tale 2 site]
* [http://pt2.subagames.com English (North America) Priston Tale 2 site]
* [http://www.laxelore.com Laxe Lore Official]
* [http://ll.yetime.cn/ Laxe Lore Official Chinese site]