Board the Servers: Kartuga opens the beta for 3 days

Attention Kartuga Fans: From the 24th until the 26th of April we will deactivate our Kartuga Closed Beta Key System. Therefore, everyone will able to test the game without a key – simply register, or if you already have, log in and you can set sails in Kartuga’s beautiful pirate setting. This way we can test our servers the hard way and see how many players at once we can handle without performance issues. So, everybody wins: You as players can try out Kartuga before the official launch, we will gain valid info on our system’s stability.

We are also interested to see what will happen with the newly introduced rankings, when so many new players at once start the game. We noticed that some of you already appreciate the rankings very much and love to add just one more PvP-session to improve their rank. But the newbies don’t need to worry – our updated matchmaking will keep all sessions as fair as possible, with everyone having similar skills and levels of proficiency. ‘Cause the beautiful thing about Kartuga is that not only the level of yours and your teammates’ ships defines if you win or lose, but rather your abilities and the way your team cooperates. More than once I’ve experienced teams with higher overall levels loosing, because the seemingly weaker ones showed great teamwork. Well, during the “Board the Servers” days week, you can see for yourselves – have fun!

Kartuga Alpha Challenge: 16 Players – 6 Nations – 1 Game

We have been waiting a long time for this: Last Saturday, 16 different players from six nations visited the InnoGames office for an exclusive battle. During the Kartuga Alpha Challenge they fought for valuable prizes in an epic tournament of three rounds. At the end of an exciting fight, Hans was lucky enough to overtake Szymon in the very last minute and won an iPad.

We were already overwhelmed by your interest in this competition. When we announced it here on the blog to a yet small community, we were definitely not thinking that some hundreds of users would be interested in visiting us here in Germany. There were applications even from Chile and New Zealand. Staying in contact with the 16 people who won the lottery and discussing the details of their travel with them was already the first exciting thing about the event. Szymon from Częstochowa (Poland) came with his father in a caravan – a 1,600 km trip! Grega from Ljubljana (Slovenia) rode on night trains for 14 hours. And at the end, they all showed up in time. Thanks a lot for taking part!

For us it was especially interesting to see the players’ reactions to the game. So far, it has only been played internally and at some point, it is very hard to remain neutral and objective about your own game. One could say that there was a lot of positive tension in our office before the event. Thus, we were of course a bit relieved that our visitors agreed with our point of view. Every one of the 16 participants really liked the game; especially the beautiful 3D graphics of the game were praised a lot.

Still, players also gave very valuable feedback – there were some suggestions to improve scoring and balancing of the game, for example. Those areas were part of the reason we wanted to have this event in the alpha stage of the game. Now, we are able to implement valuable feedback into the development process of the game.

We would once again like to thank all participants for joining our Alpha Challenge. We hope to see you all in the game very soon!

The Style of Kartuga

Our graphic artists have been extremely productive recently. They have created some great artwork which perfectly shows off the style of the game. There is actually a lot to discuss about this topic, because in Kartuga there are three regions, each with an individual look. They are called Ithosian, Imperial und Kartugian. Today, we proudly release the first two pieces of art which show the Ithosian and Kartugian regions.

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Kartuga – Episodes of an Office Battle III

You might have read about my first two defeats in the Kartuga Office Battle. Both times, my stubbornness has tricked me and I simply did not cooperate well enough with my teammates.  Kartuga’s answer appeared on my screen: “Fabio has killed you” – fair enough. Luckily not all of my mates messed it up like me. Despite my noob mistakes, we’re still on track. It is 915:876 for team red, but a Kartuga match goes up to 1,500 points and team orange surely has not thrown in the towel yet.

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Kartuga – Alpha Challenge: InnoGames is looking for the ruler of Seven Seas!

Buccaneers take note! You’ve probably already read one of the many previous Kartuga blogs. After hearing about the intense naval battles, amazing graphics and challenging quests,  what do you think about testing the game exclusively, before the official launch gets started? Continue reading

Kartuga – Episodes of an Office Battle II

As you read in my previous blog, my last Kartuga experience was quite bitter. Here is the continuation of our office battle and my attempt to take revenge on Fabio.

The countdown has begun. There are only a few seconds until I can engage in the battle. Of course now self-doubt is plaguing me – How can it be that I was the first to sink?  What went wrong? The answer should be obvious. I played in the truest sense of the word unskilled. Continue reading

Kartuga – Episodes of an Office Battle I

In our upcoming Action MMOG Kartuga, you will fight intensive naval battles for domination on the Seven Seas – in an astonishing 3D environment. In order to prepare the game as well as possible, we are currently testing various aspects. So today, I would like to share my experience about an epic battle in the InnoGames office with you.

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