Treasure Abyss

Treasure Abyss' goodbye message I was on a quest last year for a Facebook game that was really a game, especially some sort of RPG. The great thing about Facebook games is that there are so many of them, that there’s bound to be a couple that appeal. I fell pretty hard for Treasure Abyss, a whimsical RPG from gaming giant Namco Bandai that let you create a party formed from your character and those of your friends and kill dragons and other stuff. I sunk a lot of time and a fair bit of money into the game. I don’t mind paying for games if I’m having fun. ...

Dragon Age Legends One thing you gotta say about Dragon Age Legends: like the single player games upon which its based, in Dragon Age Legends you Get. To. Kill. DRAGONS. (Warning: link goes to Facebook). Unlike, say, Dungeons and Dragons Online, where I have yet to kill a dragon. The one you see in the tutorial is little more than a tease. It’s fighting a mind flayer, though, and we HAVE started killing those in our static group, but the name of the game isn’t Mazes and Mind Flayers Online now, is it? ...

It’s been a few months since the last significant content update to Namco-Bandai’s “Treasure Abyss”, when they added the Samurai class and the associated “Tower of the Samurai”, wherein lay the components for creating the Samurai class weapons. Since then, there’s been precious little to do on the TA front. Namco-Bandai released some appearance armor for players who recruit more people to the game, but the low stats gear was inappropriate for dungeon crawling, and I haven’t seen any of my friends, not even the low level ones, wearing even one piece. ...

Around the end of October each year, every game world is taken over by the dimly remembered remainders of an old harvest festival, All Hallow’s Eve, AKA Hallowe’en. The ancients sucked at making abbreviations. Star Trek Online wants to remind us that there’s something scarier than the spectre it might join its cousin, Champions Online, in the “Freemium” payment model. The third episode of the Devidian arc, ominously titled “What Lies Beneath”, comes out Saturday afternoon, on the day before Hallowe’en (AKA Halloweeneen, I guess). Should be a fun adventure tramping around in the bowels of an ancient space station looking for blue, soul-sucking ghosts. ...

A big “thank you” goes out to the kind folks at Namco Bandai, who sent me this very cool Treasure Abyss wallpaper this morning. It features the characters who pop up now and then on their Facebook Wall to introduce new features or dungeons. Namco Bandai has kindly offered to let me post this up on the blog. The folks up on the upper left are clearly mages. To the right, a warrior meets a thief. On the upper right, a class we haven’t yet seen romances the bartender. A healer class? We can hope. Note the brace of turkey legs hanging above the bar. Mmm. ...

Namco Bandai’s social RPG Treasure Abyss may have started off slowly, but the Japanese gaming giant has kept expanding the game, in some good and some not-so-good ways. Good stuff first. Two new high level dungeons – The Catacombs (for players level 30 and up) and Tower of the Samurai (for players level 40 and up) – provide some challenge and the chance of new gear for high level groups. The Catacombs allow for the crafting of the Ifrit Staff for mages. The AE-casting weapon finally makes mages not only viable, but a necessity to any group. The Catacombs also introduced Great Swords for warriors, a weapon with incredible hate gain, and the Cursed Dagger for thieves, which does nothing, unfortunately, for their role in a group. ...

I’ve been wanting to write more blog posts, but every time I sit down to write about Minecraft, I end up playing Minecraft, and then it’s suddenly midnight. If you’ve managed to avoid all the Minecraft hype over the past few weeks, I hope it’s warm and cozy under your rock. The basic premise is, you’re plopped with nothing into the middle of a world that is fully moldable and destructible. At night, The Monsters Come. You must first build some sort of shelter and hide before the sun goes down. ...

Quick Edit: Namco Bandai just added “Adventurer’s Flags” to the Treasure Abyss cash shop. These allow you to plant a flag in the dungeon so you can return to that point later. Pretty handy for farming Dragon’s Nest, especially the first couple encounters on floor 8 which drop pretty much everything you need for the Giant Sword. Also, the slot machines are a lot faster, and candles now show how much candle power they will restore. Dungeons are markes “CONQUERED” on the map after you have cleared them. ...

Bandai Namco’s co-operative dungeon crawling game Treasure Abyss dropped a much-needed expansion on a treasure-starved world Wednesday; along with it came a lot of changes, major and minor. Treasure Abyss is, to rewind a little, is a (shudder) Facebook game. You form an adventuring party from you and your friends, and battle monsters in a variety of dungeons of increasing difficulty. I wrote a little about it a couple of weeks ago. Since then, it’s been subject to continual balancing and has become a fair bit harder. ...

I thought I would never find a game on Facebook that tied together social gaming and RPGs. This whole experiment with Facebook games has typically been one spam-filled sim game after another. Frontierville, City of Wonder, My Empire, Virtual Villagers – all share the same half-hearted copying of better single player games combined with a financial urge to turn the player into a whining beggar who is a burden on their friends. ...