Sword Of The New World - 17th Century MMORPG

Esh

Sword Of The New World

K2 Network, Inc. (www.k2network.net), an online game publisher, announced today that it is bringing Korea’s most popular and highly decorated massively multi-player online role-playing game to North America and Europe this summer. Winner of the 2006 Grand Award for Best Game in Korea, Granado Espada, which will be titled Sword of the New World (www.swordofthenewworld.com) in the U.S. is developed by famed developer Hakkyu Kim, the creator of Ragnarok Online.

“Sword of the New World is truly an MMORPG player’s dream come true,” said Grantley Day, Vice President of Product Development at K2 Network. “It is alive with beautiful artistry, baroque-inspired architecture and enchanting music, and, of course, the multi-character control system.”

Licensed to K2 Network by Hanbitsoft, Sword of the New World is developed by imcGAMES, which is headed by CEO Hakkyu Kim, the creator of Ragnarok Online, one of the world’s most popluar MMO’s with more than 25 million subscribers. A fantasy MMORPG whose story is modeled after Europe’s exploration of the New World, this gorgeous, original title allows players to create and simultaneously control a family of characters utilizing the excusive Multiple Character Control (MCC) system.

This innovative fantasy adventure lavishly unfolds its luscious graphical style through a rich and compelling story comprised of thrilling missions and quests. Swept by an exotic New World fever in the 17th century, this fictional yet profoundly historical exploration of the new found continent includes features that are all-new and exclusive to the U.S. version of the game.

K2 Network’s version will offer a new character customization feature with hundreds of costume options, while an improved control scheme and in-game tutorial makes controlling multiple characters familiar and comfortable (for MMO players). In addition, the game includes an all-new story with hundreds of new quests.

Key Features of Sword of the New World:

• Control three characters simultaneously While most games allow you to level just one character at a time, Sword of the New World allows players to develop, mix and match a team of three distinct characters simultaneously.
• Combat Get the best of both types of MMO worlds with Player vs. Environment (PvE) and Player vs. Player (PvP) combat fully integrated into gameplay. Sword of the New World also includes additional combat options, Family vs. Family (FvF) dueling and City vs. City (CvC) in specific arenas.
• Stunning audio and visual offerings Alive with beautiful artistry and baroque-inspired architecture and fashion, the game offers stunningly attractive characters with inspiring clothing and armor sets. Evocative music completes the diverse atmospheres found throughout the game’s many locations.
• Multiple Character Classes with unique stances and skills Character classes include the traditional melee champ Fighter; the spell-casting Wizard, and the dual-purpose assassin and healing Scout, with more classes to be announced later. Each class can learn and perform unique stances and unlock advanced skills.
• Free Trial and Premium Editions Download and play the trial version of the game for free or buy the premium, boxed copy for additional content and gameplay experiences.

I'd post some screenshots but I can't seem to find any outside of the site. If I knew the Korean name for the game I could probably dig them up.

Anyhow. The premise looks fun. Nice to see something outside of sci-fi/fantasy.

Edit: Pictures!

Houk the Namebringer

The title is stupid as hell. Controlling multiple characters sounds awesome.

SageinaRage

Damn! I'm already hooked on Voyage Century, with its 'wooden ships, iron men' motif. The theme is pretty much all that's keeping me playing - I don't need another!

Esh

SageinaRage wrote:

Damn! I'm already hooked on Voyage Century, with its 'wooden ships, iron men' motif. The theme is pretty much all that's keeping me playing - I don't need another!

Can you explain what's going on with the last picture on this page?

Food

Sounded neat until I saw the screen shots. An MMO based off the exploration of America is a great idea, but I want it to be more realistic. This just looks like Final Fantasy characters playing dress-up.

Edit: Okay, I see now that it's a fantasy world inspired by the real life discovery of the new world. Still not what I'm looking for, but the j-rpg artwork makes more sense in that context.

Jelloblimp

Esh wrote:

Sword Of The New World
(...)
I'd post some screenshots but I can't seem to find any outside of the site. If I knew the Korean name for the game I could probably dig them up.

Anyhow. The premise looks fun. Nice to see something outside of sci-fi/fantasy.

Granado Espada.

I remmember seeing the first version of english website; ALL text was posted as jpegs, no frames, horrible mangled engrish. Now you understand what they are writing, text in flash can be forgiven since more & more sites have started doing that.

I should have some old preview movies shown by devs regarding costumes & some model shots, be back soon.

Edit: http://youtube.com/watch?v=tx8v5yN8lH4&mode=related&search= movies!
http://www.granadoespada.sg/ old (dead?) site

TSU0999

This game sounds very interesting, and I'm liking the multiple character control.

Esh wrote:

Licensed to K2 Network by Hanbitsoft, Sword of the New World is developed by imcGAMES, which is headed by CEO Hakkyu Kim, the creator of Ragnarok Online, one of the world’s most popluar MMO’s with more than 25 million subscribers.

Wait..what?

piL

TSU0999 wrote:

This game sounds very interesting, and I'm liking the multiple character control.

Esh wrote:

Licensed to K2 Network by Hanbitsoft, Sword of the New World is developed by imcGAMES, which is headed by CEO Hakkyu Kim, the creator of Ragnarok Online, one of the world’s most popluar MMO’s with more than 25 million subscribers.

Wait..what?

It's amazing if this is true for multiple reasons. There's the fact that it's a shitton of people, and then there's the fact that I never hear about these kinds of things. Then again, it might have that marketing scheme where you pay for things with real money to account cost is cheap or free. That could reflect multiple accounts/person, or the fact that I can get my friend to play without him having to commit too much real money.


Anyway, I like how many MMOs are moving towards this setting. It's a cool period to be fantasized. I like pirates, I like the setting, and I like the idea of multiple characters. I will probably watch this for a bit and enjoy it for a couple of weeks at some point before I realise that it's not for me.

Morninglord

piL wrote:

TSU0999 wrote:

This game sounds very interesting, and I'm liking the multiple character control.

Esh wrote:

Licensed to K2 Network by Hanbitsoft, Sword of the New World is developed by imcGAMES, which is headed by CEO Hakkyu Kim, the creator of Ragnarok Online, one of the world’s most popluar MMO’s with more than 25 million subscribers.

Wait..what?

It's amazing if this is true for multiple reasons. There's the fact that it's a shitton of people, and then there's the fact that I never hear about these kinds of things. Then again, it might have that marketing scheme where you pay for things with real money to account cost is cheap or free. That could reflect multiple accounts/person, or the fact that I can get my friend to play without him having to commit too much real money.


Anyway, I like how many MMOs are moving towards this setting. It's a cool period to be fantasized. I like pirates, I like the setting, and I like the idea of multiple characters. I will probably watch this for a bit and enjoy it for a couple of weeks at some point before I realise that it's not for me.

Ragnarok Online took over korea for like, forever. It was Koreas Wow and the upcoming Ragnarok Online 2 is like World of Starcraft to them.
There's a shitton of koreans in korea. Also that might not be taking into account those playing in korean netcafes where its pay by hour as you play no subscription necessary.

Reynolds

The art style certainly looks interesting. I'd love to play a demo or whatever someday soon.

Rhaka

Was this that MMO with the *really* fruity looking Warlocks, and flintlocks? Because that sounded pretty awesome for random Korean stuff.

Pb

Oh shit, this is Granado Espada. I didn't realise they had changed the name.

Rhaka

Ah yeah, Granada Espada, that was it. Neat.

Meiz

Yay, I've been looking to get into some Yaoi sometime in the never.

Lethardicus

FINALLY, wow, took em long enough. i heard of this game years ago, also made me wonder why they renamed it sword of the new world, considering, your guys can use guns too. Granda Espado sounds way cooler....

firekiun

Someone edit the title to include the original name, then may be we get more discussion =p

Monoxide

Morninglord wrote:

Ragnarok Online took over korea for like, forever. It was Koreas Wow and the upcoming Ragnarok Online 2 is like World of Starcraft to them.
There's a shitton of koreans in korea. Also that might not be taking into account those playing in korean netcafes where its pay by hour as you play no subscription necessary.

I think it's actually including those, and worldwide players. They're probably going by accounts created to get numbers like that. I know it's huge in Korea, but 25 million active subscribers would just be incredible.

rayofash

I've been waiting for the english version of this for a long time. It better be good.

Jacoby

I've been waiting for an MMO to have a theme like this for ages. Add that to the fact that I love having goons to order around (CoV Mastermind FTW!) and I'm so freakin' in!

Dee Kae

Esh wrote:

SageinaRage wrote:

Damn! I'm already hooked on Voyage Century, with its 'wooden ships, iron men' motif. The theme is pretty much all that's keeping me playing - I don't need another!

Can you explain what's going on with the last picture on this page?

.... What?

Wait, what?

Oh... haha. That's enjoyably out of place.

Suriko

Oh god, I remember looking at this during Korean beta and thinking "Oh god, this shit looks awesome. Too bad it'll never be released here."

...

Muskets, a neat setting, multiple character control and good customisation options (yeah ok, I like dressing up my characters) make me happy in good places.

JCM

Esh wrote:

SageinaRage wrote:

Damn! I'm already hooked on Voyage Century, with its 'wooden ships, iron men' motif. The theme is pretty much all that's keeping me playing - I don't need another!

Can you explain what's going on with the last picture on this page?

krapst78

Esh wrote:

K2 Network, Inc. (www.k2network.net), an online game publisher, announced today that it is bringing Korea’s most popular and highly decorated massively multi-player online role-playing game to North America and Europe this summer.

Looks like K2 is taking a lot of liberty in claiming the game to be Korea's "most popular and highly decorated" MMORPG. If you check the daily Korean online game traffic ratings at www.gametrics.com you'll see that this game doesn't even come within the top 30 most played games in Korea.

The game Granada Espada had a lot of hype here in Korea as one of the "Big Three" MMORPGs to come out last summer (the other two being SUN and Zera). Unfortunately all three of failed to live up to their expectation and failed to make a significant impact to the MMO market. All three fell into the typical mold of Korean MMORPG grindfests and were dismissed by most people here as more style than substance. Hopefully they were able to do some considerable gameplay changes because the setting wears out fairly quickly once you've started killing the same mob for the hundredth time.

Couscous

I don't know moonspeak so the gametrics site doesn't help me. Are MMORPGs really that popular in Korea?

s3rial one

17th century MMO? Cool.

Controlling multiple characters? Cool.

Anime-styled? Impossibly uncool.

Delzhand

I love the art for this game, but I cannot believe that it will be good. Look at pretty much every korean MMO ever - gorgeous artwork, shit to mediocre gameplay.

See also:
Lineage II
Maplestory

Zephyr_Fate

This is actually called Granado Espada. It's been out since late 2005 in Korea.

And RO definitely has 25 million subscribers. Just look at the absolute fuckload of private servers.