Filed under: Atlantica Online

Ndoors Interactive has taken the wraps off their Mercenary Madness contest, which invites players to submit designs for a new Atlantica Online character. The contest winner will not only nab the thrill of seeing their design brought to life inside the strategic turn-based MMORPG, but also a nifty chunk of real world loot including artwork of their design autographed by Atlantica developers and as yet unnamed game merchandise.

"Our community has always played an important part in shaping Atlantica Online," said Ndoors CEO Peter Kang. "We want to further their involvement with the game and show our appreciation for their feedback by literally letting them become part of the design process."

Players have until March 22, 2010 to submit designs, which should include the following:

• Type of mercenary (existing classes only)
• Name of each mercenary upgrade (Initial Name, level 20, 50, and 80 Upgrade Names, and Hero Name)
• Back story of mercenary character
• Description of mercenary's appearance (images are encouraged)
• Mercenary skill names and descriptions

All entries should be submitted to event at ndoorsinc dot com. Full event rules can be found here and you can download a submission template here.

It's that time of the year, and love is filling the air. Cupid's arrow hit Atlantica Online big time with the introduction of the Love Struck event, taking place Tuesday, Feb. 9 through Tuesday, Feb. 23.

During the event, players can roam through Atlantica Online and purchase Cacao Beans from Wandering Merchants. These Cacao Beans, in addition to a few other ingredients, can in turn be crafted into sumptuous Valentine's Chocolate. Possible options and ingredients can be found in the Crafting Skill menu, under Food. Also, a player's food crafting rank must be at a level 1 or higher. Want to know more? Keep reading for specific info on available event items.

Atlantica Online has rolled out another content update to the game, giving every player what they've longed for: the chance to beat the stuffing out of an impressive number of crab people. That's really what everyone wants out of a game, so we should all just go home and kill crab people. Of course, there were a couple other elements improved or expanded in the game's update, but who cares about little things like new skills and improved competition ranks when faced with a dynamic new cluster of enemies?

Leaving aside the awesomeness of getting to beat up homarids in Atlantica Online, the update is quite substantial, with a lengthy set of patch notes available on the official site. Players can enjoy augmented health points to extend the length of engagements, as well as the aforementioned new skills and competition ranks. The game has also streamlined its system of Mana Stones, combining and simplifying the Repair, Enhance, and Enchant stones to make life easier for players.

If all that's still not appealing enough to you, the fishing system has been improved, which might wind up bringing you back to crab people yet again. Take a look at the full notes to see all the additions and updates with this latest patch.

On the list of all-time classic burns, "we don't want your money" is pretty far up there, especially when it's a charity saying it. Atlantica Online has been burned pretty badly. We reported recently on the company offering an in-game grab bag in the game's item mall that would result in donating an unstated amount to Child's Play. Unfortunately, due to negative feedback, Child's Play has requested that they be withdrawn from this charity drive.

Why would players complain about donating to charity? Some facts have surfaced, chief among them the official statement that the donations would be 5% of gross revenue. For a $40 purchase, only two dollars actually wind up going to charity, which feels a bit duplicitous when one of the main selling points is a charitable donation.

Atlantica Online's official announcement is almost petulant -- it boils down to the company stating that they wanted to just do something nice before complaining players ruined it for everyone. Although the announcement goes on to state that they will look for an alternative recipient of the donation, for the time being none is listed. It's sad news all around, even in light of the popular charity's record donations this year.

Admit it. At least once when you were shopping for this year's frenzied rush of consumerism, you took advantage of a "buy one get one free" deal or something similar for yourself. You got a present for the person you were shopping for and a little something extra on top of that, nothing wrong with it. Even though the holidays are thankfully receding into memory, though, you can still get a bit of that rush of something for you and something for others in Atlantica Online for a couple more days. Ndoors Interactive is offering a set of in-game stocking stuffers that also donate a portion of their profits straight to charity.

The stocking stuffer randomly contains one of 30 rare item sets, all of them having various positive boosts on any Atlantica Online character. In addition, each one purchased also has a portion of the revenue from that sale donated to Child's Play, a well-known gamer-centered charity that has continue to skyrocket in donation volume over the years. The only catch for the stocking stuffer is that you have to move quickly -- the pack is disappearing from the store after December 30th, just in time for the new year. And, really, isn't it worth getting that one last rush of being kind to others while being kind to yourself?

It's time for this newest installment of NDoors Interactive's bi-weekly developer journal for Atlantica Online here at Massively. We've covered so much already, but now we're treated to some detailed info on their winter holiday event. Here's what they had to say:

This Christmas season we are proud to bring back Santa's Villa to our players. During this holiday season, players who are over level 20 and have been playing for at least an hour will receive Mistletoe. This item, when exchanged for a Santa Villa Ticket, will give players access to all the treasures that lay inside.

It's not very often that we get to announce that an American player won an international gaming championship! RobinSwan from the US server of Atlantica Online went to capture the gold this year in the Game and Game World Championship (GNGWC), a collection of events focusing on different MMOs and featuring the top gamers from around the world.

Robin went to trump 16 competitors from Europe, Vietnam, North America, Korea, South America, China, Japan and Thailand to take the prize of $5,000 and the gold medal for the Atlantica Online event. Robin's winning mercenary combos included a stun-lock/DoT combination of the Musician and Shaman to close the final match against Liu from China.

We've got an exclusive Q&A with RobinSwan about his winning techniques after the break, so come along and learn some PvP tactics for Atlantica Online.

NDoors Interactive has a brand new content patch for Atlantica Online, and it introduces players to a brand new storyline. The "Call of the Wild" patch will lead players to Coyote's Valley, the home of the Great Bear tribe and the druids that serve as their defenders.

The Great Bear tribe has lived in Coyote's Valley for 400 years, enjoying a peaceful existence, but that's about to change: "...a malevolent mastermind plans to unearth the powers buried deep beneath the land to leverage for his own evil gain." Players in groups of up to eight people will fight alongside the Great Bear tribe in an attempt to stave off the invaders. If you are level 100 or above, you will have a little extra help available to you. Raging Wind is a young boy, but one of the druids who harness the power of the land to help defend the tribe. Players at a high enough level can recruit him as a mercenary to join your party.

The "Call of the Wild" patch is available now.

It's time for this newest installment of NDoors Interactive's bi-weekly developer journal here at Massively. We've covered so much already, but now we're excited to see some news of a shiny new class, called the Druid Mercenary, and the Grand Canyon Dungeon. Here's what they had to say:

Atlantica Online is proud to present our newest addition to our growing list of mercenaries, the Druid. In our next patch, players who have reached level 100 will be able to begin the recruitment quest for this axe wielding mercenary.

It's time for this newest installment of NDoors Interactive's biweekly developer journal here at Massively. We've already covered the Stimulus Package event and the game's one-year anniversary, so now we turn to the upcoming Thanksgiving event. Here's what they had to say:

Thanksgiving time in Atlantica Online has never been so festive, as we are introducing two new in-game event items this year. Players will be introduced to an NPC who will offer them a special Thanksgiving quest. The rewards for fulfilling that quest are new additions to your formation, as well as a new clothing item for your avatar.

Atlantica Online just celebrated its first year in the US, but the free-to-play game apparently had another trick up its sleeve -- namely, allowing players interested in the game a chance to get in and start playing even faster. After all, it can be obnoxious to download a client and wait for it to patch through updates when you just want to dive in and get to playing. Ndoors Interactive has just launched the game's lite client, a way for a smaller initial download to let you start playing the game as fast as possible.

The new client's trick is to only frontload the first twenty levels of play while downloading the rest via background processes. This allows new players to log in and start playing their character faster, but it can cause issues for existing players who might be at a higher level (and the press release specifically suggests avoiding the lite client if that's the case). For everyone who hasn't started the game, it's an interesting way to make the startup more accessible and significantly faster. Consider taking a look over the weekend, and possibly getting in on some of the one year celebration goodies Atlantica Online has to offer.

It's been one whole successful year for Atlantica Online in the US, and Ndoors Interactive is ready to celebrate with special bonuses and in-game events throughout this November. The first of many celebratory specials offers players a 200% experience boost, something sure to make everybody pretty happy. Then, there's the weekend in-game events, followed by new in-game items, a special Thanksgiving event, a fan art contest and we're guessing a lot more.

So, to recap: oodles of extra experience and rare new items, along with fun holiday and anniversary distractions. Oh, right and even a fan art contest for the creatively inclined types. Yep, seems like a particularly awesome month for Atlantica Online players.

In fact, for more deets from Ndoors themselves, check out the official word on all the in-game events and such after the break.

The good folks at NDoors Interactive have begun a new bi-weekly Atlantica Online developer article here at Massively where they'll showcase the latest and greatest news they'd like to feature to the Massively readers. This week, it's all about a new event where the prize is a snazzy set of in-game wings as teased in the header image, and shown in its entirety with another exclusive image after the jump. Here's what they have to say about the event, the wings and their game:

NDoors Interactive Inc. currently has an exciting opportunity for players to join the highly acclaimed MMO, Atlantica Online with their newly launched Stimulus Package Event. Atlantica Online delivers an RPG style battle system and a lush world that incorporates characters that players might find familiar, such as, Caesar, Charlie Chaplin, Beowulf, and many more. However, instead of controlling just one character, players have the opportunity to lead a party of nine unique mercenaries into battle, such as, the inventor, Da Vinci; the pirate, Anne Bonny; the minstrel, Paganini; the Spartan, Leonidas; and many more!

The Stimulus Package Event is an opportunity for players to try out the game and have a chance to win 500 Gcoins by simply referring friends while exploring the world of Atlantica. As a special prize, the individual who has the most referred invites will receive a special item, the Blessed Argos' Wings. The next top five players with the most qualified referred invites will each receive normal Argos' Wings.

Hwarang. No, please, don't ask us how to pronounce it. We tried looking it up and not even Google wanted to tell us exactly how to say it. But, this new unpronounceable mercenary is the latest addition to Atlantica Online.

Hwarangs are taken straight from the history books, like most of Atlantica's mercenaries, as they were an elite military unit from 10th century Silla (an ancient Korean kingdom.) In the game they will be represented as potent archers with a high offensive capability but low defense. Hwarang units also have the option of sacrificing themselves in battle to buff the rest of the mercenaries under your command.

Hwarangs aren't the only thing coming with this patch, however, as the Atlantica team has made the difficult decision to increase the minimum system requirements in order to cut down on load times and increase client optimization. This move has been made in order to make sure the client can perform in areas with high population counts, as that has been a hang up of the game in the past. Only a small minority of users should be affected by this change, but it will be a wealth of benefits to all other users operating in high population areas.

The full patch notes are available on Atlantica's website, if you wish to delve into the many changes and fixes.