Astonia
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| Astonia III | |
| Developer: | Intent Software |
| Publisher: | Intent Software |
| Release date: | March 18, 2002 |
| Genre: | MMORPG |
| Game modes: | Multiplayer |
| ESRB rating: | Everyone |
| Platform: | Windows |
| Media: | Download |
| System requirements: | Windows 95, modem, 300 MHz CPU, 4MB video card, DirectX 3.0 |
| Input: | Keyboard and mouse |
Astonia is a medieval fantasy MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game). It is developed, published, and maintained by Intent Software. The most recent version, Astonia III, launched in 2002 for Microsoft Windows and is played in a third-person isometric view. It came from the Astonia 2 an earlier MMORPG made by intent software which is now on several other sites and canbe downloaded for free.
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Gameplay
The start
In this game you can play a Mage, a Warrior, or a combination of them called a Seyan'Du. You start in a little fortress in the city Cameron, where you first have to help a lady called Lydia get a potion the thieves stole from her (she's having a small hangover). After this simple task is finished, you start helping her father by retrieving four skulls that are scattered around skeleton lairs of the city of Cameron.
Aston and penting
As you progress in the game, you leave this small and unimportant city and come to the capital, Aston. Here you find most of the game's players walking around, always busy. Here's also the university, where you can learn different professions. A big part of the game is called the Pentagram Quest, and it is usually referred to as "penting". When you pent you kill demons of sizes you can handle (if you cannot, you better run to the easier ones), by pressing stars (pentagrams). When you press a star, demons pop out. Of every round a random star is decided, and if you are lucky you press the one that solves the quest, rewarding you with more experience, and all active pentagrams deactivate, and more demons pop out. The reward of penting, besides experience points, is drops. Drops are equipment that demons drop, sometimes just rubbish that you sell to poor vendor Jeremy in Aston, and sometimes delicious items that you can either use yourself or sell for a big amount of money.
Labyrinths
Now penting is the biggest part of the game, there are also a few other interesting areas, such as the labyrinths. There are five different labyrinths, the first one a simple task in a snow landscape, the second in a more maze-like area where you have to walk around pressing big "slabs", third one is in the darkness, fourth one underwater, and the fifth one in a cemetery. When you finish them all you can challenge the gatekeeper. There are two kinds of gatekeepers, the arching one and the seyaning one. If you beat the arch one, you get your cape, and also a new skill: Rage for Warriors and Duration for Mages. If you beat the Seyan gatekeeper, you restart the game as a Seyan'Du, who has the advantages of both Warriors and Mages. They are usually played as Warriors but with the two spells Magical Shield and Bless.
Random dungeons
Random dungeons are another part of the game. These exist from sizes level 10 to level 99, and they really are mazes filled with skeletons. Your goal here is to find the continuity shrine which blesses you from experience if you do them in right order (or else they won't function), or other shrines that can, for example, weld two of your pieces of equipment together.
Mines and the army
There are also mines, where you can find silver and gold to enhance your equipment. You can also enroll the army which is just a way to get experience, mainly used for high levels in the game. They bribe advisors and then go to the governor and get a mission, usually the "Insane" one. The insane is solved when:
- an amount of demons of a certain level has been killed in the Pentagram Quest or,
- an amount of silver has been dug out of the mines.
An insane will give you approximately one sixth of a level, and can take from about two to six hours to finish.
Equipment and skills
The most important skills for the Warrior is Sword, Attack, Parry and Immunity, and for mages Dagger, Lightning, Magic Shield and Immunity. For seyans this would be like the warriors. There are a big list of skills among these, such as less important ones such as Bartering, which makes you negotiate better with non-player character vendors. Unlike many RPGs and MMORPGs you don't only raise skills when you level up but as often as you want to. You can save up experience and raise those skills that are higher than others (and thus costing more to raise). There are eleven slots of equipment:
- two rings
- sword
- amulet
- hat/helmet
- vest/armor
- cape
- belt
- bracers/sleeves
- pants/leggings
- boots
The average Astonian
Most players in Astonia are quite greedy and rarely help you. There are however people that will help you, especially if you play as a female character. Players tend to brag about their stuff, and they don't mind joking about how much time they spend in the game. Another noticeable tendency is the excessive amounts of Internet slang, such as "lol" appearing in nearly every sentence, and smileys are here and there. It takes some time to get into all the abbreviations of the skills, such as:
- int = intuition
- wis = wisdom
- hp = hitpoints
- end = endurance
- api = attack / parry / immunity
- lf = lightning (flash)
- bart = bartering
Price
This game is not free to play, although you do get a 28-day trial when you create a new account (which you can fill with 25 characters). If you wish to contiue play and unlock many important functions of the game, you have to pay. The price is a little less than $10 USD a month, and there are a few budget variants if you pay for three, six or twelve months at a time. AFGSDGsdgasdfsadfsahga wetweat52365
External links
- Astonia Home page (http://www.astonia.com)
- Encyclopedia Astonica, a fan page (http://www.encyclopediaastonica.com)
- Orickruns-an Astonia Resources and Tips site, free hosting for clans (http://www.orickruns.com)