A Reason for Optimism? Hunter's Kingdom (Japan)

I don't think many of you have ever played the original Japanese version of Fiesta Online called "Bright Kingdom", I never did, but from what I've heard/seen it was fairly similar to what we had with a few tweaks here and there.  Unfortunately, for reasons unknown to me, at some point Bright Kingdom failed and its doors and windows boarded up and shut down.  This was probably back in 2009 if I remember correctly.

So with great surprise did I find out that "Fiesta" is seeing a revival, or as the trendy Hollywood-types call it, a reboot, in Japan!  Going with the new name, Hunter's Kingdom, I'm guessing they kept the "Kingdom" part to evoke some familiarity with their players of old, while changing the name slightly to make it appear fresh, new, and exciting.

So what does this mean for us on OutSpark's service?  My hope is that we start seeing more updates and on a grander scale.  Looking at the screenshots on the Hunter's Kingdom (I'll refer to it as "HK") website, there are some variants to the game we enjoy, like this update to Roumen:

Carrier Pigeon system and the New Roumen

Roumen looks... WOW.  Different!  Gone is the sorta half-and-half Town/Battle Zone where the Slimes and Mushrooms are.  The town is simply that, just a Town.  It has the familiar kind of bullet shape of most traditional port towns with the widest area being the ocean side.  The architecture has also seen what looks to be a tremendous upgrade over the old.

Introduced in HK is also the "Carrier Pigeon" system, known here as the AutoRun feature for the low level questers.  Perhaps this feature was developed for the JP market, and just test driven by us.  I haven't had a chance to try this feature out myself, but having used it in other MMOs it has positives and negatives.  Positives are that you don't have to spend time searching for places, mobs, maps, etc.. just click and you auto-run there.  Negatives are that you don't have to spend time searching for places, mobs, maps, etc.. just click and you auto-run there.  Haha, no I'm  not going mad, yes, I said the same thing twice.  Having this feature, in my mind, discourages exploration.  We already have a feature that highlights where mobs are on your map, I thought that was enough.  Anyway, it's both good and bad, just depends how you want to see it.

Stat-Bonus Title Sytem

Also seeing a difference is their Title System.  Currently, our titles are just that, Titles.  They provide no benefit to wearing them other than it shows some exclusivity in that you accomplished whatever parameter it was to acquire it.  In some other MMOs, whatever title you currently wear provides some benefit, possibly an EXP boost, a drop boost, bonus HP, whatever.  It appears that HK is following suit.  Looking at the images, you notice there are bonuses down at the bottom as the character swaps titles out.  Hopefully, we see some port of this also.

Reputation System

Hunter's Kingdom also features a Reputation System.  I don't know if this differs from our Monarch (Master/Apprentice) System at all, but it appears like you can earn different items through an NPC which includes some armors and Mounts.

Old "New" Charm Icons (bleh!) and Trickster Artwork

It looks like the HK players will be using the "New" buff icons that we protested so profusely about.  I'm so glad that we got the old ones back.

There are several really cool anime-style drawings of each class (like the Trickster [Joker in HK] posted above), but unfortunately, only the Archer looks true to the in-game character.  Geez, I wish my Mages looked like that!  That Cleric reminds me a lot of Belldandy.... hmm.

So how will their version, as far as skills go, differ from ours?  I really have no idea.  The previous version, from what I heard, had some skills that we never saw.  I don't know if what they are offering is the same or not.  We'll just have to wait and see.

Now, I'm sure you're asking if I plan to play there, well honestly, I doubt it.  It would be nice to maybe play for a day, or a week, just to see the differences, but the OutSpark servers, and Bijou specifically, will always be home.

Personally, I do think that this launch back into the Japanese market will be a win for us here.  With a new influx of players generating more revenue, I'm hopeful that OnsOn can hire more in-house developers to meet the demand.  Cynics of course will think that this will just stretch the existing OnsOn staff members more and result in less updates and less fixes, but hey, I'm always optimistic!