Tag Archives: InnoGames

Kartuga Reloaded – Update includes first and only server reset

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Ahoy Pirates,

We were so excited when we officially started Kartuga’s Closed Beta at the end of February, and the first players started exploring the oceans. Since then, our development team has continued to work diligently on the game and incorporated new features, improved existing ones and applied lots of minor bug fixes. All this would not have been possible without your active support! Whether in blog comments, on Facebook or on the official forum, you have always given us useful feedback, brought forth new ideas and reported bugs in the game. For this, we want to thank the entire community of Kartuga!

Let’s talk about the update we just published – In short: It resets all server data. For you, this means that all of your characters start at level 1 again, With an emptied inventory and your current rank being deleted. Crucial to this decision was mainly the idea of fairness: Many of you have already played one or more characters extensively, reached a high level and obtained powerful items. Furthermore, from now on, you’ll be able to purchase gems, which was also not possible before. Therefore, it would be unfair to all new players who were not yet lucky and couldn’t participate in the closed beta. In addition, some of the changes that we now made, were much easier to implement for the programmers, because of the reset.

Your login information, social contacts and friends lists remain, of course, so that you can get back to normal immediately after the reset. In addition, I can promise you that this will be the only time we reset the server and your characters. Everything that you earn from now will remain! Therefore – Anchors Away! From now on, it counts!

Between realism and fantasy – the Design of Kartuga

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A computer game is a very complex thing with many different parts. Starting with a general idea of what kind of game it should be, the game designer thinks about what could be fun and what not. After many discussions, ideas and preparations, the programmers will create the first playable version of the game. They are the guys who write the code and make sure that there are no bugs which would destroy all the fun. Sound designers create the background music as well as the sound effects with the goal of an appealing atmosphere.

For me, the graphic design of a game is the most important thing, though. The game could be really good on the programming side and could have an awesome sound, but when the graphic is bad, I won´t play longer than a few minutes. That´s why I am so happy with Kartuga´s great and piraty graphic design. Our designers wanted a style between realism and fantasy. They wanted Kartuga to be a world which is absolutely plausible in itself, but the players should also be able to explore mysterious places and beautiful paradises.

The guys did indeed a great job with this, as you can see in the area trailer, for example:

With every game start, the slightly caricatured look, the bright colors and nice textures let me sink into another world. Besides that, our graphic guys were able to integrate many different graphical facets into the worlds of Kartuga. Because of the great design, I always know if I am in the oriental waters of the Empire of the Sun or shipping through mysterious Kartu. I am still fascinated by the beautiful world and sometimes I lose myself in dreams of the beautiful beaches…

Board the Servers: Kartuga opens the beta for 3 days

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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!

Get ready for tight battles! Kartuga Community Event has started!

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Before some time we have already published a video about the quest system of our pirate game Kartuga and exposed some information about the story:

Now it’s time to focus again on the PvP part of the game:

Cheers of victory or crushing defeat – a round of Kartuga’s domination mode can evoke a wide spectrum of emotions. Matches are often decided within the last few seconds. You’re not paying attention for one second, and the enemy team takes over a control point, shifting the odds in their favor. Sometimes I felt like biting my keyboard, because my team lost a seemingly secure victory. Exactly those situations we’d like to capture in our first Kartuga community event: We want Screenshots of your closest game results. It doesn’t matter if you were the ones that managed to snatch the victory or if you had to admit a close defeat against your opponent – what counts is the difference between the teams’ scores, which should be as low as possible. If you have a screenshot of such a result, please visit our Kartuga forum. Here you have to post your screenshot in this thread. The closest three games posted will be rewarded with diamonds: 1500 for the first place, 1000 and 750 for the respective second and third. Only conditions are: Only one screenshot per player and the game took place after april 16. Our event ends at April 26th – so go out, play domination and take screenshots, there are diamonds waiting!

Kartuga: Raiders of the Lost Treasure

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Regardless if you rather duel in heated PvP matches or like to do missions for NPCs, our pirate action game Kartuga offers both. You probably have realized by now, that some of the quests are quickly finished, and invite you to try out some of your skills, while others are longer and turn out to be part of a larger story. Those main quests; or story quests, will lead you through the five large PVE areas of Kartuga. Passing remote islands and beautiful beaches, aspiring pirates shouldn’t lose focus for their goal: The lost treasure chest of Kartuga!

According to rumor, it contains a mysterious item, which might stir the balance of power on the oceans. But be warned: searching for the treasure won’t be without danger. On several occasions, you will get caught in the crossfire between enemy factions. The Ithosian Trade League, the Empire of the Sun and Kartu Qucha are trying to get their hands on the powerful treasure. On your travels you follow the tracks of infamous pirate John Greybeard, last known owner of the chest. Further and further you’ll sail, meeting new allies and foes, experiencing wild sea battles, power struggles and vicious treason. During your wild hunt over the oceans you’ll encounter powerful elite enemies, like Robert the bloody or Gondom the Shipwrecker. In order to defeat them, the right tactic and lots of skill are vital. So, better pack lots of ammunition, equip your finest cannons, and get ready for treasure hunting!

In this Video we show you how the quest system of Kartuga works and fight against one of the elite enemies:

Kartuga Dev Letter, no. 1

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In the recent weeks, I told you a lot of my experiences with our new pirate game Kartuga. Now it’s time to hand over the word to the people who developed this great game. Please find below a letter from the Kartuga Dev team, informing you about the current status of the game and their plans for the future.

Kartuga Dev Letter, no. 1

Fellow pirates!

We as the developers of Kartuga would like to address you, our loyal players, with this first Kartuga Dev Letter. The purpose of this letter is threefold: we’d like to give you an insight into some current numbers, and we’d like to let you know what we are currently working on regarding future updates of the game. Finally, we would like to thank you for your interest in Kartuga, and for your absolutely awesome support so far – keep on looting, plundering, and roaming the seas!

The reception of Kartuga was absolutely great, we are really overwhelmed by the enthusiastic player base that has been building up since the start of the closed beta, and even before that. Let us substantiate the great acceptance by some key numbers we’ve been tracking so far:

During the course of the closed beta, you have been playing for an accumulated 1.76 million minutes (that’s an astonishing 3.3 years!), you have been playing 3000 PvP matches, and have bought over 30 million cannon balls!

Current Development

We’re of course not going to rest on our laurels – here’s what we are currently working on to improve Kartuga (some of these improvements have already been implemented with Wednesday’s patch):

  • Matchmaking has been improved, favoring slightly longer waiting time over large gaps in levels between opponents
  • The stability of both client and server has been increased – this should already have become effective
  • Filling up matches if someone left the match has been made better and more fair

An Outlook on the Future

In the future, we will tackle the following features – and of course we’ll continue to fix occurring bugs. A big thanks goes out to all of you who have helped us with their reports – keep up the good work!

  • A ranking will be implemented
  • The options menu will be improved drastically
  • A feature many of you eagerly await will come: customizable controls will be introduced!

Listening to our Players

Finally, we have been summarizing your valuable feedback over the last weeks, and we will focus on the following areas to make Kartuga an even better game:

Many players have expressed their wish for a better chat, and we will work on making the chat more convenient to use

  • Some of you have been wondering whether the progression is not too fast, and we will look into it to guarantee long-time motivation and somewhat slower progression in terms of levelling
  • Of course we would like fair and square PvP battles, and would like to limit the loopholes for abuse as much as possible – nobody likes to have a team mate just being afk for the experience, and we will try to find ways to limit such abuse

We hope to have provided you with an update regarding our work and future plans for Kartuga – stay tuned, keep on playing, and please continue to provide us with your feedback – it is very important to us, and we’ll keep on listening to your suggestions, criticism, and improvements.

Sincerely,

The Kartuga Developers

Kartuga: new update improves match-making system

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The canons are hot, your opponents despair and your ship keeps getting more powerful – The closed beta of Kartuga is running very well and thousands of players are fighting for supremacy on its vast oceans. Now there is another reason to be enthusiastic. Our developers just released a new update fixing some issues and improving the whole gameplay.

I’m looking forward to the new match-making system. You may have recognized that the difference between the players’ levels rose. So there is a risk that the battles become uneven. The new update is designed precisely to fix this. In the future, we want only very similarly leveled players to compete against each other. To achieve this, the time was extended in which the system can take to match up players. This will increase the chances of the system finding more appropriate opponents, and the frustration factor will drop considerably. The update will also ensure that you never have to play alone against two opponents.

Those who want to learn more about this patch, and upcoming ones can visit the official forum.

Oh, and if you are still getting this message in the game, “We are currently undergoing maintenance – please check back later” then clear your cache. Once you do that, everything should work!

Attention Pirates: New beta keys available!

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For some time now pirate captains all over the world roar “Fire away”! Thousands of pirates fight exciting sea battles and try out various character builds. No easy task considering the three totally different classes Protector, Engineer and Destroyer and a total of over 80 Skills to choose from. Whoever did not have the chance so far and wants to try out our brand new pirate game should register on www.kartuga.com and use this key:

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After you have logged in, you can pick your own class. If you are not sure which class to choose, check out our new skill video in which we present the skill trees of the classes:


After you have solved the tutorial, you start in a lovely harbor. Now you can start to take on quests and fight NPC’s. If you prefer to fight against human players, you should select the domination or destruction modes. As soon as enough players have queued for a pvp match the battle starts.

The domination mode is about area control. Each team tries to control as many control points as possible. For each captured position your team gains a constant stream of points. The team that first reaches 2500 points wins.

The destruction mode is about planting a bomb. The bomb spawns in the middle of the map. If you collect it you have to bring the bomb to your enemies’ bomb spots. Once you have arrived, you goal is to arm the bomb and wait for the explosion. But attention: While the countdown is running, you opponents still have a chance to disarm the bomb.

You see there are a lot of things to discover in the world of Kartuga, so be fast and join the game!

 

Use Kartugas skill trees to build your own battleship!

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When you currently walk down the corridors of our offices, you hear the sound of fighting ships everywhere. The reason for this is our new pirate action MMOG Kartuga. Two weeks ago the closed beta started and since then all hell has been breaking loose.

Reason enough to present you the games skill trees. Beforehand the facts: You can choose from more than 80 different active and passive skills divided by the three classes Protector, Destroyer and Engineer.

Let’s start with the engineer: You have the choice between the skill trees Tinker, Atlanticus and Buoy Master. If you invest your skillpoints into the Atlanticus-build you are able to heal your mates – extremely practical in tight battles. As a Tinker you can specialize on debuffing enemy skills to take most of their attack power. The Buoy Master relies on powerful Buoys which attacks individual enemies, or accelerates allied units.

The Protector is the strongest class in terms of defense, with his skill tree divided into Bulwark, Wrangler and Suppressor. If you have chosen to put skill points into the Bulwark, you can look forward to a massive armor which makes you nearly unsinkable. The Suppressor-build is slightly less armored but features the precise and deadly “Watery Grave” skill. If you choose the Wranger, you counts on melee skills like “Feel My Pain” and can always be found on the front line.

The Destroyer possesses Raider, Ravager, and Brawler. As a Raider you are nimble and highly maneuverable. The Brawler is the melee of the Destroyer builds. With its “Fiery Shield” and “Rapid Fire”, you have the ability to cause some real chaos. Anyone who ever wanted to use the “Aimed Shot” should choose the Ravager. This skill focuses mainly on shooting from a distance and a lot of kills are guaranteed.

So you see there are a lot of different skills and variation options, each with strengths and weaknesses. There is no PERFECT way to skill your character.

SO: Try out different options and see which fits to your play style. The good thing is, that you are able to reset the entire skill tree and put the earned points into other abilities.