To celebrate the New Year, IGG has opened a new map in Tales of Pirates called Prison Island. According to the company, it's a place where players "can enjoy extreme PK."
There is no beautiful scenery, only ferocious monsters everywhere. You are supposed to survive on this dark, desolate island, and fight against any potential enemies.
If you're curious about how to get into or out of the prison, keep reading after the jump.
IGG has released a new trailer for GodsWar Online, its first foray into 3D MMORPGs. This video focuses on the class skills of the priest. Here's some information on priests straight from an IGG press release:
Priests are holy men who have the powers of Heal, Area Heal, Mana Shield, Dripstone, Holy Light and Stalagmite Skills. As the envoys of the Gods, they can heal injured friends as well as releasing teammates from bad effects, thus priests play a key role in a team. Likewise, even though they may be in considerable danger when venturing by themselves, they can also easily defeat enemies with their water element force.
You can download the video here. If you'd like to learn more about priests, warriors, champions or mages, you can check out the class introduction page here.
Joyce Zhou over at IGG has completed the second entry to her ongoing Developer Journal series that she's writing 
exclusively for Allakhazam. In this installment, Joyce talks about the struggles that the team had during development on The Lost Atlantis. Aside from the initial challenges, he writes about the design process that was eventually adopted and of course, the end result.
We have introduced some details about how we designed the scenery for Blue Sea in the last development journal. In fact, after we decided the game direction and the overall graphics style for the new expansion, we began to design the new scenes while also recruiting new staff. Today, we are continuing with the introduction about how we’ve designed the Shining Coast.
Generally speaking, developing a game includes creating a game proposal, preparation for the preliminary stage of design, large scale designs, tests and element combination, and public tests. It is a complicated project to develop a game and it requires a detailed plan before the formal designs are ever conceived. That’s why we needed a proposal which set up the game type and style, game graphics, development process, and technical support. The game proposal sets the general principles of the whole game. At the very beginning, we decided that the Lost Atlantis should be cute and full of oceanic elements because Angels Online has always prided itself on its cute graphics, game scenery, modern robots and classical buildings.
IGG has created a Myspace page for Aurora Blade, its first browser-based MMORPG, and is enticing players to join it with the offer of a 2X Exp Card. All you have to do is add Aurora Blade as a friend on Myspace and then post post in this thread in the AB forums. You have until Jan. 30 to take advantage of this opportunity.
Also, IGG is offering a chance at a $50 or $20 gift card to Amazon.com if you add Aurora Blade as a Myspace friend. All of the information can be found in this blog post. Of course, you also have to make a blog post on your own Myspace page about Aurora Blade to qualify. This contest ends Jan. 1.
A new server will open in Tales of Pirates on Dec. 18 called "Burning Sea."
IGG will also be holding the standard events accompanying the new server launch, including:
Event I —Double Exp Carnival
Event II —You Play, We Pay
Event III—Leveling Contest
If you're a Tales of Pirates fan or a new player, try out the new server to enjoy the festivities.
IGG has announced that the world of Angels Online will soon be filled with in-game events to celebrate the Christmas season.
One of the events, "Christmas Wishes," began yesterday, while the rest all start throughout the week. You can find all the information reagrding the holiday extravaganza here, including in-depth lists outlining all of the rewards you can obtain by participating in the events. You can also read the press release after the jump.
Version 1.38 recently went live in Tales of Pirates and contains many new additions to the game, including features, apparel and quests.
There's now a head-gear forging system, an "Honorary Treasure Chest" to reward players who prove themselves in guild wars and a new map called "Island Prison."
You can read more about Version 1.38 here or in the press release below.
Players on the Ragnarok Online forums are calling out Aurora Blade, a web-based game entering closed beta this week, for ripping off aspects of other games, including World of Warcraft, Ragnarok Online, Maple Story and LaTale.
Kotaku has some more information, as well as some comparative screenshots. Also, Shacknews has some more comparison screenshots, including ones that compare Ragnarok and Aurora Blade creatures, and others that show the similarities between World of Warcraft and Aurora Blade class icons.
IGG has posted in the Aurora Blade forums to explain they only host the game, and another company developed it and reserves all copyrights to the designs and artwork. IGG further states that any discussion of this matter on the forums is against forum rules and could lead to bans for repeat offenders. The full post is after the jump.
Aurora Blade will be entering closed beta on Friday. You can receive an activation code here.
