ELYON (formerly Ascent: Infinite Realm) NA/EU CBT1 Closing Event

Channel:

Murasama

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Published on May 12, 2021 11:09:28 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIt_xQWB98o

Game:

Ascent: Infinite Realm (2018)

Duration: 14:46

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24 hours ago, the first closed beta test for the western version of ELYON came to a close. The game will be a buy to play title (published in the west by Kakao Games and developed by Krafton's Bluehole design studio) and is slated for release in the fourth quarter of 2021. Kakao Games held a closing event (A Song of Fire and Snow) at each factions foothold (fortress/base) in the level 33-36 zone (this is some of the video I recorded on NA from the Ontari faction base). Some special items were sent (higher quality mounts with faster movement speeds, footprint and glider effects, and a legendary grade glider). These are effectively previews of the sort of items that will be monetized in the cash shop. Additional cosmetics were available for purchase with gold via a special boutique merchant during the beta test; these were also previews of the types of items that will be sold for the various cosmetic slots (these slots are similar to the ones in TERA).

There was also a gathering at the Ontari and Vulpin boundary with the two sides engaging freely in PvP. Like RvR, the visual skill effects diarrhea can become over the top where you can't see anything. Decent enough setups have no client FPS drop offs with most of these open world battles until there are hundreds of players in combat (as was the case with the filled RvR's). Some of the custom extension work Bluehole did for this later build of UE3, has paid off in terms of eeking out as much performance from the engine including the near seamless stutter free transition (asynchronous loading) from open world to single player instance (and back again to open world) for some of the questing content.

While Kakao Games did send out a player feedback survey, it was highly targeted (which makes sense since there are some things that will be set in stone by design given that the game is already in service in South Korea). The survey didn't ask a lot of questions and only asked for detailed comments for initial/final impressions and about the voice overs. I'm still in the process of writing up a blog post summary of my impressions along with comparisons to the prior design iteration (when it was known as Ascent: Infinite Realm and was focused on a lot of aerial content along with the steam punk aesthetic).

While there were initial issues with the NA server (where I spent the first day playing on EU), I had an overall fun experience even though there were some things that I didn't enjoy (like the obvious layers of RNG in the gear progression system). Moving away from the prior LoS (line of sight) combat system to the more TERA-like (but not as fast paced) action combat, was an actual good move by Bluehole since it made the actual game play more fun (IMHO). The skill system is also more deliberate by design (you are limited by the amount of usable skills due to designed constraints on hot bar slots) where you will be using different skills and skill attributes depending on situation (this also provides a monetization avenue for additional skill preset unlocks as the game provided two by default). I'm pretty much looking forward to trying out the slayer class in CBT2 (and hopefully getting an actual preview of what types of items they will be selling in the cash shop).

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