Ace Online

Infobox VG
title = Ace Online
developer = MasangSoft
publisher = Yedang
game&game
GameForge4D
distributor =
designer =
license = Freeware
engine =
version =
released = May 26, 2006 (International)
shut down = December 26, 2007 (International)
genre = MMO 3D Space Shooter
modes = Multiplayer
ratings =
platforms = Microsoft Windows
media = Download
requirements = Pentium III 1 GHz equiv. CPU, 256MB RAM, Internet access, DirectX 9.0, 32MB 3D accelerator VGA card, sound card, 2GB hard drive space
input = Keyboard, mouse

Ace Online is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) with the characteristics of both third-person shooters and flight simulators, developed by MasangSoft and owned by Yedang.

History

Current different languages or version of the games license under different companies:
*Masang Soft - The original and current developer of the game, under Yedang.
*Yedang - Yedang owns all the publishing rights of Ace Online. Aside from licensing, it also host the servers for the Korean and international version. [Yedang Online press release (Korean) [http://www.yedangonline.co.kr/Home/PR/View.aspx?index=1&idx=306&page=3] ]
*YeTime Network Technology - YeTime holds the license for China. [Yedang Online press release (Korean) [http://www.yedangonline.co.kr/Home/PR/View.aspx?index=1&idx=311&page=2] ]
*VTC Game - VTC Game holds the license for Vietnam.
*GameForge - Holds the license for the European region. [Yedang Online press release (Korean) [http://www.yedangonline.co.kr/Home/PR/View.aspx?index=1&idx=750&page=1] ]
*Wicked Interactive - Holds the license for the North American region.

Previous versions:
*Gala-Net Inc. - Gala-Net Inc. until recently held the license for Space Cowboy Online to North America, South America, Europe, Oceania, as well as Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines. After MasangSoft was purchased by Yedang, Masang broke the contract with Gala, suspended this license and sold the rights to Yedang. Gala-Net's version of Space Cowboy Online shut down on 12-26-2007. [Shutdown Notice [http://sco-forum.gpotato.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=205521] ]

In North America, it was also known as Space Cowboy Online. Space Cowboy Online's client (1.06 GB) was made available for download on May 22, 2006, with two initial download options available. The official server launch was to follow three days later on May 25, 2006 at 19:00 GMT (12:00 pm PDT), but this initial launch time was delayed, and the servers instead went live after a delay of a little over twenty-four hours. There were three game servers available: "Joymus," "Hovernmus," and "Trimus," Trimus being the last of the three, added on August 9, 2006.

The Gala-Net version of Space Cowboy Online, which services North America, was shut down on December 26, 2007 during normal weekly maintenance. [Shutdown Notice [http://sco-forum.gpotato.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=205521] ] Complete details listed below. Yedang, the owner of all Ace Online's license, decide to run its servers themselves, as "Ace Online International" is officially for International players, with a single server, "Quasar", while Wicked Interactive hosts the North American servers, with new server named "Prelude".

In North America, Space Cowboy Online (International) originally launched in September, 2005, in an alpha release. By this time, Korea already had a full release of Episode 1. There were approximately six maps, one boss, and no mandatory PvP system in place: only duels, formation and brigade fights were available. Players could only play as members of the nation of Bygeniou. In November, 2005, Space Cowboy Online transitioned to Beta, officially called Episode 2. A second nation, Arlington, was added and pitted against Bygeniou. Neither Bygeniou nor Arlington could see or fight the other. In January, 2006, the Nation Wars system was added. From then on, the two nations were locked in an ongoing nation war. Nation War (PvP) is mandatory for anyone who selects a nation, and those who do not choose a nation cannot travel past the second map, "Tylent Jungle", and cannot do higher level standard, sidestory or scenario missions. New updates have provided a safe "Channel" (an exact replica) for every basic map/air space, creating areas that enemy players can not access. Higher level maps and major war zones (Bark City, Den of site A, and Den of site B being some examples of major war zones) do not have "Safe" channels.

Ace Online is also known as AirRivals in the European versions. Originally, the European versions were going to be called Flysis, but was not due to copyright laws. In Vietnam the game is called Phi Doi.

Gameplay

In "Ace Online", players pilot their own individual starfighters (called "Gears") throughout a number of maps, including terrestrial, lunar, and space maps. It has typical MMORPG elements such as leveling, currency, and a skills system. Ace Online is a largely Player vs. Player (PvP)-oriented game, with character leveling and item acquisition achieved through combat against Non-Player Characters (NPCs) and the completion of missions. As a player gains levels, more and more maps become accessible. Although a high level character will have better character attributes than most other players, no one at any level is invincible against other players in PvP. As in other MMORPGs, players can trade items, customize their gears, form parties ("formations") and guilds ("brigades"), and fight with other players via PvP combat. Almost all of the combat in Ace Online is aerial, from the third-person view. Players have the option to use the in-cockpit, first-person view by pressing on the "Delete" key once. This View is rarely used as it restricts vision of the pilot, by cutting down on his/hers peripheral vision as well as increasing difficulty in manuevering the gear.

When players create their account, they can choose from one of four different gears, each with very different play styles.

A gear's performance can be improved with purchases from the "Skill Shop". Skills range from healing skills, weapon enhancing skills and gear performance skills. The magnitude and the duration that the skill effects the gear depends on the level of the gear performing the skill.

New armour is also available at the "Gear Shop", but the armour can only be used if the requirements for that armour are met. The gear cannot take off if no armour is equipped. Armour can be enhanced using various recipes of materials gathered from monster drops which increases the "energy points" and "shield points". Certain enhancements have an additional boost to the "defense" or "evasion" percentage score of your gear.

Gears may use "Standard" or "Advance" weapons. The former are basic guns that use the crosshair for targeting, the latter are splash-damage missiles or rockets. Missiles are guided projectiles that require a lock-on to the target, but a Gear may avoid them by barrel-rolling. Rockets have a straight trajectory and cannot be avoided with a roll.

Other equipment includes radars, adhesives (non-critical items that boost the Gear in some way) and CPUs (accessories that improve a Gear's statistics)

Item shop and enchantments

Ace Online is a free-to-play MMO, with the option of buying in-game items via an "Item shop" that can be only accessed whilst in the "City" or "Supply Shop" from bottom right corner of the screen or the shop. In the International Ace Online version, you can only purchase the items from the "Item shop" using yecoins that has been bought through Yedang website via your Ace Online account. There are many items available to purchase that affect your gear's weapons (e.g change the trail effect of the missiles), stats (e.g resets or partial resets of stats), experience (e.g increase experience rate) or others for a limited time. This item shop was made available to players on June 23, 2006.

*Weapon Gamble - Allows weapons to be "gambled" and enchanted. This card randomly gambles the weapon stats with Prefix and Suffix to add extra attributes to the weapon. For example, a regular gamble card can give you any prefix or suffix (depending on the type of card) but you can get poor prefixes or suffixes but they only cost in-game currency. Super Gambles give an improved chance of getting better prefixes or suffixes from each card Super gamble prefixes and suffixes are only available from Super Gamble cards (aka 'SG sets') which must be bought with cash shop currency.

*Armour Enchantments - Armour can also be enchanted, but not gambled. Enchantments for armor are called "Shield Cards" or "Energy Cards". Shield Cards increase the shield bonus of the armor (+150 shield per card) whereas Energy Cards increase the Energy stat by +200 energy per card.

*Enchantment Limits - To limit the power of weapons and armour, only five enchantments can be applied safely to a piece of equipment. For the sixth enchant and onward there is a chance to break the weapon. However, there are enchant protection cards that are bought in the cash shop. These cards protect the item by only destroying enchants above five, not the whole item. These cards will work at any enchant level, however, since all enchants up to and including level 5 have a zero percent chance of failing, it is pointless to waste money on using enchant protection cards on the first five enchants.

PvP (Player vs Player)

There are various of different PvP systems in Ace Online:

Nation War

Ace Online offers a PvP system of "Nation Wars", which revolves around a point system: "National Contribution Points" (NCP). Every time an enemy gear is shot down, the shooter's nation gains 1 NCP. NCP are also gained for other events.

*Raids - Two factions (BCU and ANI) are separated by a series of airspaces (maps). Nation Wars involve a constant battle between the two factions to raid and defend these airspaces. A successful raid gaining airspace over the opposing force provides strategic and economical advantages. For example, the boss "Pathos" only spawns in the BCU map "Zaylope Beach"; whoever controls "Zaylope Beach" would have the chance to destroy it and receive its rare drops if "Pathos" should spawn. Battling over these airspaces often results in tens to thousands of NCPs gained for neither or both nations, speeding up the spawning of motherships (see below for motherships). A map being held by a large enemy force means restricted access for lower level players, meaning they can not access and level up in that specific map.

* Mothership Battles - As another part of Nation Wars, every time a nation gains an interval of 100,000 NCP (100,000;200,000; and etc.), a mothership is spawned deep in the homelands of the opposing nation. If the mothership is not completely destroyed in two hours, it will despawn. Successful destruction of the enemy mothership grants the attacking nation a 5% increase in recovery rate of energy, shield, and skill points, also allowing access to the "Hornian King Habitat" and "Eopi". Successfully defending a mothership does not grant the defender any bonuses; instead, it prevents the enemy from receiving the reward for destroying the mothership. The BCU mothership, Anubis, spawns in Tylent Jungle, while the ANI mothership Horus spawns in Reynard Beach. Bonuses obtained from destroying/defending motherships are reset at the end of every month, as are NCP's.

* Strategic Points - Strategic Points are spawned in a random map at random times, and it will despawn one hour after its spawn if not destroyed completely. An announcement is made to all players of both factions of the map the Point has spawned in. When a Strategic Point is destroyed, all participants in the assault force (anyone that was in the map or the map behind [dead or alive] upon destruction of the Strategic Point) gains a "SPI Capsule", which will give a random amount of monetary reward, ranging from 150,000 up to 300,000; and 300WP and his/her nation gains 500 NCP; and an additional 300 WP. When a Strategic Point is successfully defended until despawn, the defender gains 500 NCP and the "SPI Capsule" along with the 300 WP. Any nation's player that still loses the Strategic Point while being one map before/after the location of the Strategic Point will still gain 100 WP.

*War Points- Players can gain War Points from attacking/defending Mother Ships, and Strategic Points. War Points are a new in-game currency that allows players to buy unique items from the recently added Point Shop. These points can be used to buy stronger adhesives, new armors, and other bonuses.

Duels

Players can challenge other players in an 1 on 1 duel, or a formation battle (up to 6 players per formation).
* 1 on 1 - A 1 on 1 duel can be initiated by challenging another player and that player accepting the challenge, and vice versa. In a 1 on 1 duel, the two participants receive a 5 second warning, after which there is an unlimited amount of time to kill the other player; should one of the players die under any circumstance (being shot down by the other player in the duel, crashing into terrain objects, being killed by a member of the opposing nation, or being killed by a hostile NPC) then the surviving player is declared the winner; being disconnected results in a loss for the disconnected player, and moving to a different map will result in a loss, even if a player uses "Express city return portal" to teleport back to the city. Wins and losses are logged on a player's info for 1 on 1 duels.

* Formation Battle - A formation battle can be initiated by the command /formfight [formation leader] . A formation battle can only start if all members of both formations are in the same map, logged on, and the formation leader accepting the challenge (it does not ask permission from formation members). Once a formation battle request is sent, no new players may be invited to the formation; existing formation members cannot be kicked; and the formation may not disband. A formation battle is won when all members of the opposing formation have been eliminated under any circumstance (same as above in 1 on 1). When one member of a formation dies while the rest are still alive, he/she cannot re-spawn until the formation battle ends in either win or loss. Wins and losses for formation battles are not logged on a player's info.

Termination of service

On December 26th, 2007, as a request of Yedang, Gala-Net shutdown the service to North America. This was announced to the public with a letter from Space Cowboy's last active GM, "Xarfox". [cite web |url= http://sco.gpotato.com |title= Space Cowboy Online|author= GM Xarfox |accessdate=2007-12-07 |format= HTML |work= ] Failed verification|date=August 2008

Updated hosting

Yedang is now hosting an International version of the game, called "cite web |url= http://www.ace-onlines.com |title= Ace Online" Wicked Interactive is also publishing "cite web |url= http://ace.subagames.com |title=Ace Online" now for the North American continent.

Global Ace Online GM(s): udontknow, ThunderBird

Notes and references

External links

Official game websites
* [http://www.ace-onlines.com/ Ace-Online (ACE Online International)]
* [http://aceonline.ru/ Ace-Online Russia]
* [http://ace.subagames.com/ Ace-Online North America]
* [http://www.aceonline.co.kr/ Ace-Online Korea]
* [http://sco.gpotato.com/ Space Cowboy Online (International, shut down Dec. 2007)]
* [http://phidoi.vtc.vn/ Phi Doi Vietnam]
* [http://ace.yetime.cn/ Ace-Online China]
* [http://www.airrivals.de/ AirRivals Germany]
* [http://www.airrivals.net/ AirRivals Europe]
* [http://ace.winner.co.th/ Ace-Online Thailand]