Twelve Sky

Twelve Sky, often referred to as 12 Sky, was a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). It is Korean developer Alt1's first released game set in the Oriental Fantasy universe launched in its home market in 2004.[1] Aeria Games announced Twelve Sky Closed Beta on September 5, 2007.[2] The Closed Beta date was set to be on September 18, 2007.[3] Twelve Sky then went into Open Beta on October 12, 2007.[4] AeriaGames announced the closing of the game on April 6 on their forums. The game officially closed on April 30, 2010 with their item mall closing on April 13, 2010.[5]

Developer(s)Alt1
Publisher(s)Alt1 and Aeria Games and Entertainment
Designer(s)Alt1
Platform(s)Windows
Release
Genre(s)Oriental Fantasy MMORPG
Mode(s)Multiplayer, Online

Gameplay

Starting A Character or a Play Session

As with other MMORPGs, players control a character avatar within a game world, exploring the landscape, fighting monsters, completing quests and interacting with NPCs or other players. Twelve Sky does not require the player to pay for a subscription.

Each player can have 3 characters on a single account, with multiple accounts possible. To enter the game, the player must select a server. Each server acts as an individual copy of the game world and players can enter them freely with any character. Servers are all Player versus player (PvP) where open combat among players is common while including all aspects of Player versus environment (PvE) where players can defeat monsters and complete quests. On any server a player may create characters belonging to only a single faction; Guanyin,Fujin or Jinong on any single account.[6]

To create a new character players must choose between the factions of Guanyin,Fujin or Jinong. Characters from the factions can communicate and trade with only players of their faction and form guilds with only their faction. The player selects the new character's faction as Guanyin, Fujin or Jinong. Player can also choose gender and hair style/color and their avatar's name. Each faction has a unique appearance and set of skills available to them and players much choose their play style based on the attributes of the separate factions.

On-Going Gameplay

Once the character has finished the character creation, he is placed into the world of Twelve Sky and can immediately engage in Player versus Environment battles. The player can engage in Player versus Player battles in certain areas. Creatures in the world drop items or money which can be exchanged for goods at stores or at player created markets.

As the player gains levels, they receive stat points which may be used to upgrade the four stats: Strength, Dexterity, Vitality and Chi. Characters may also form or join guilds. Characters in the same guild have a private chat channel, a shared guild name, guild storage and possibly battle in duels.

Much Twelve Sky play involves questing. These quests, also called tasks or missions, are usually available from non-player characters (NPCs). Quests usually reward the player with experience points or items. It is also through quests that much of the game's story is told. Some quests are linked by a common theme, with the next quest triggered by the completion of the previous, forming a quest chain. Quests commonly involve killing a number of creatures, gathering a certain number of resources, finding a difficult to locate object, speaking to various NPCs, visiting specific locations, interacting with objects in the world, or delivering an item from one place to another.

While a character can be played on its own, players can also group up with others in order to tackle more challenging content. In this way, character classes are used in specific roles within a group. When a character dies, it resurrects in the most recent "safe" location as a re-spawn point. When a character dies to a monster, there is a possibility of dropping items the player has equipped, allowing retrieval of lost equipment.

Twelve Sky contains a variety of mechanisms for Player Versus Player (PvP) combat. Each server allows player versus player combat in certain environments. In these environments, players can attack each other at almost any time or location. On all servers there are special areas of the world where free-for-all combat is permitted. Battle arenas, for example, allow all players to engage each other without fear of penalty or loss of rank.

Setting

Twelve Sky is a Massively Multi-Player Online Role Playing Game. It takes place in a 3D-representation of the world of Middle Ages China that players can interact with through their characters. The game features three main homelands, one for each faction. In this game world, players use their characters to explore locations, defeat creatures and complete quests, among other such activities. By doing this, characters gain experience points. After a set amount of experience points have been gained, a character gains a level and new stat points, opening up the option of learning new skills and using new items, exploring new areas and attempting new quests. Although the game world remains reasonably similar from day to day, locations have changeable weather such as dust, snow and storms.

A number of facilities are available to characters when in towns and cities. In each major city characters can access a warehouse in order to deposit items, such as treasure or crafted items. Each warehouse is unique to that character, with players able to purchase additional storage space. In the major cities of Twelve Sky, players can expect to see player hosted booths.

Some of the harder challenges in Twelve Sky require players to group together to complete them. These usually take place in dungeons and other difficult areas that a group of characters can enter together. This allows players to explore areas and complete quests with other players outside the group.

Development

Twelve Sky was first released by GigasSoft in Korea, 2004. Since then it has expanded to China and now Japan and North America.[1] The game was designed to be an open environment where players are allowed to do what they please. Quests are optional and were designed to help guide players, allow character development, and to spread characters across different zones to try to avoid what developers call 'player collision'. The game interface allows players to customize appearance and controls and other modifications.

Regional Variations

ALT1 distributes Twelve Sky in the following countries: Korea, China.[7]

Closing of the AeriaGames Version

Aeria Games, the publisher of the English version of Twelve Sky, announced the closing of the game on April 6, 2010 on their forums, and officially closed the game on April 30, with their item mall closing on April 13.[5]

Early Engine

Gigassoft was established at 8 December 2002 by C.E.O Changwoo-Hong and 15 employees. Now, Gigassoft is grown as the game software development company with 75 employees. We developed the Twelvesky with G3D game engine (based on the Open GL) which was developed by C.E.O Changwoo-Hong. We developed the next generation game engine the GXD (based on the Direct X) and adopted it into Twelvesky So the Twelvesky was updated. We are developing the Fusion Fantasy MMORPG which is focused on the battle system and developing the Casual genre game so we will have various game.[8]

References
  1. http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/811/811659p1.html
  2. "Aeria Games announces Twelve Sky CB".
  3. http://12-sky.aeriagames.com/node/56
  4. http://12-sky.aeriagames.com/node/73
  5. "Closing of the AeriaGames Version". Aeria Games and Entertainment. Retrieved 2010-04-17.
  6. http://12-sky.aeriagames.com/guide/factions
  7. "Twelve Sky Download Page". Aeria Games and Entertainment. Retrieved 2009-01-29.
  8. http://www.gtrade.or.kr/buyer/company/gigassoft.do?member_id=gigassoft
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