Rakion: Chaos Force/Gameplay

Rakion is a free, three-dimensional, fantasy action online game developed by the South Korean company Softnyx. It was in a free "closed" beta testing from August 11 - 25 2005, in a limited group of countries (which included the United States, the UAE and at a later date, Europe).

It switched from development to open beta testing on October 13, 2005, which ended on December 1, 2005. At this point, the game began to follow a similar model to Softnyx's other MMOG, GunBound. Users may purchase "Softnyx Cash" with real-world currency and spend it on "Power User" status (which offers various benefits and unlocks further ingame purchases) or items that are often very powerful and not available to the non-paying public.

Gameplay
The gameplay of Rakion is similar to that of most third or first-person shooter games. Players use the WASD keys to move their character around the map, and the camera controls are third-person shooter style. The mouse is used for controlling the camera and attacking.

There are five different game modes: Stage, Team Deathmatch, Solo Deathmatch, Boss War, and Golem War. A level limit may be selected when making a game. There is also a "Basic Mode" option in games, which ignores added stats.

Each class has a melee attack, a ranged attack, and a grip attack.

Classes
In Rakion, a player may choose from five classes when creating a character: Warriors, Archers, Mages, Blacksmiths, and Ninjas. Each class has a melee and a ranged attack. Characters can transform into "Chaos Mode", a temporary enhancement acquired after attaining a certain number of kills. Players who have the ability to transform into chaos mode have a blue aura around them.

Warrior
Warriors use a longsword to deal melee damage and a dagger or throwing knife as a ranged attack. In Chaos Mode, warriors become blue humanoids with a double-sided sword that can be forcefully slashed in quick succession.

Archers
Archers use a gladius-like weapon to deal melee damage. However, the primary weapon for archers is their ranged weapon: a bow capable of firing arrows, which are the most-effective projectiles in the game. In Chaos Mode, archers transform into a white angelic figure that uses a bow with the capability of firing five powerful arrows at once that will throw the enemy a considerable distance upon impact.

Blacksmith
Blacksmiths are human-like figures capable of taking many hits before dying; however, they lack agility. They use a war hammer as their melee attack and throwing axes as their ranged attack. In Chaos Mode, Blacksmiths are golem-like and carry a flail.

Ninja
Ninjas use jitte as their melee attack, which is weak but fast. Their ranged attack uses shurikens, which can be thrown either in groups of three or nine. In Chaos Mode, ninjas become red demonic figures. The jitte becomes a short blade, while the amount of shuriken thrown increases to eighteen.

Mage
Mages are short humanoids. They use a staff for melee attacks. While using the staff, a mage can cast a row of icy spikes, a whirlwind(which blows nearby enemies away), or magical balls that can heal teammates. The ranged weapon is a short wand that can throw exploding grenade-like balls or cast flying fire balls that explode on impact (or a obstacle). The latter may only be cast after the mage locks-on to an enemy. A mage's grip temporarily freezes an enemy.

In Chaos Mode, the mage summons a giant puppet that it controls. The attacks available to a mage in Chaos Mode include faster flying balls and an ice attack with a much wider radius. Mages in Chaos Mode can also heal multiple teammates in the area around them.

Items
Rakion operates an in-game store, through which players can purchase various items using Gold. Gold can be earned by playing stages and multiplayer games. Items available for purchase include better equipment, cells, potions, and item-upgrading elements.

Most equipment and cells have level restrictions. Players must achieve the correct level to be able to use them. Potions, which do not have level requirements, can be assigned to hotkeys and have various effects. Potions may restore health, restore armor, knock enemies back, give Chaos points, or restore cell points.

Cells are creatures that can be summoned in games. They also appear as enemies in stages that must be killed by the player. Cells are capable of leveling up; with each level up, a cell becomes more effective: it gains more health, attack power, and speed. To summon a cell, a player must attain Cell Points by killing other cells, players, or Golems. Each cell requires a certain amount of Cell Points to summon; with each cell level-up, the Cell Points required to summon it increases. Players may summon a maximum of three cells in a game.

Items can be upgraded through an Upgrade system.

Game Modes
Excluding Stage mode, which puts all players on the same team, all of the game modes are PvP-based. A game can consist of anywhere from 1 to 21 rounds, and a round can last between five and twenty minutes. There are four types of PvP games in Rakion. The game will automatically balance the teams after a round by swapping the players with most experience points acquired so far in that game to the other team. This switch will only occur if one team has less players than the other. In both deathmatches (Team and Solo) dead players respawn after a 5-second period and have four seconds of invincibility when they respawn. There is also invincibility when newly arrived into the game. The Deathmatch modes have healing capsules and books that provide cell points; the other modes do not.


 *  Deathmatch (Solo): Solo Deathmatch is a free-for-all variation of team deathmatch. All players are on their own (though unofficial alliances are occasionally initiated), and the first player to achieve a specified amount of kills is declared the winner. In the event of a tie when time runs out, the first player to achieve the highest amount of kills for the round wins.


 *  Deathmatch (Teamplay): Almost the same as Solo Deathmatches, except that players are separated into teams. By default, twenty kill points are needed to win a round. People who play this game generally modify it to have more rounds and require more kills to get the most gold and experience. Not an overall rewarding type of game in terms of experience, but it is easy for newcomers and a good source of Gold.


 * Golem War: Players are assigned to a team in this mode. Each team has a Master Golem (with a red or blue aura, depending on the team), and in the center of the map there is a Golden Golem. The objective is to destroy the opponent's Master Golem, but there is a catch: Only the person that kills the Gold Golem can do significant damage to the other team's Master Golem; all other players do 1% of the damage they would normally do. To prevent teams "stealing" the Gold Golem from each other, it has separate health for each team. Unlike the other PvP modes, slain players do not respawn, and a team can also lose when everyone is slaughtered. If the time runs out and both Master Golems are still alive, the team with the Golem with more health wins the round. Golem War is the best way to make Gold and Experience in Rakion. Players also have more health in this mode to offset the permanent-death.


 * Boss War: The most recently added mode, it is a team-based headhunter fight. Each team has a boss that they must protect at all costs; if the boss dies the team loses the game. A team's boss is the person with the highest level on the team. It is not notable for giving experience, but the gold outcome is good. This mode does not have healing pickups, but Mages can still heal other team members (generally the boss).


 * Stage: A co-operative game mode for 1 to 4 players (depending on the stage) that lets you play a mission in your fastest way. After completing a stage level you get a grade ranging from S (Superb) to D (Dreadful), depending on how fast you kill all creatures, or how many of them you kill in allotted time. This is arguably the fastest way to get exp in Rakion (approximately 25,000 exp for all 48 stages if you S them all), but stages cannot be repeated to gain the same exp over and over. Unlike other modes, if you "lose" a stage, you receive no gold and no exp. You can, however, retry the stage to get a higher rank. The amount of gold and exp you receive, however, is the normal amount minus the amount that's already been gained from an earlier run.


 * Basic Mode: A setting which can be assigned to any non-stage game. All players' stats are reset (back to Level 1) for the duration of the game, and as such play with just basic stats. No cells can be summoned in this mode aside from the level 1 Normal, Bloody, White or Black Nak. The equipment of the player, however, provide an advantage, since the points are Active even in this mode.

Profanity filter
Saying profanities in-game causes the chat system to automatically replace them with the word "LOVE." Many players, though, are able to bypass this filter and continue their use of profanities.

Criticism
Rakion uses a similar online structure to another Korean based game, GunZ. Neither game runs on a dedicated server and instead makes the client act as its own server in a peer to peer network. Some critics have criticized Softnyx for this design decision since in places other than South Korea, the distance latency often creates unfair advantages over other players. Softnyx's only response to this is that Rakion is meant to be run as a LAN set up and not against geographically far away players.

Players have also criticized Softnyx's Power User and Cash systems, citing the opinion that it gives users of the systems too many advantages over those who don't.

Official Rakion Distributor

 * Rakion Australia and New Zealand - Official Rakion Distributor

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