Luvinia Launch Tour

Luvinia Launch Tour

Chip Smith, Outspark’s PR Manager, and “Mecha Rambo,” one of Luvinia’s GMs, recently sat down with MMOHut to give us a tour of the new features in Luvinia’s open beta and launch.

The Item Shop

The item shop opened Thursday, September 22, giving players a chance to access special gear and boosts in the game for the first time, namely costumes and mounts (some of which are also obtainable in game). Costumes come in two pieces, head and body – Chip explained that they kept the costume slots limited to help players feel like they are buying a complete, unified costume, rather than having to buy several pieces to make a matching set. Both costume pieces range from the cute and playful (like civet costumes) to the serious and class-bound (like scout’s outfits), and go over the player’s current armor.

Mounts are another main feature also available in the cash shop (players do get a permanent mount at level 10). Mounts come in three varieties, which can be upgraded with certain crafting materials. Mounts – and costumes, too – come in either 7-day or 30-day purchases in the shop. All of them can also be made permanent through the use of Planar Essences and a special synthesis box in game. These planar essences come sometimes from special events, and are otherwise available in the cash shop, but expect to see at least 100 of these required to make a mount permanent.

Enhancement & Cards

The tour also showcased how gear can be improved in Luvinia Online. Each item in Luvinia comes in one of five grades – gray, blue, green, purple, and orange, from most common to most rare. All items can be enhanced through the Enhancement system. With specific enhancement items, players can raise the stats of their gear, all the way to +20. There are four grades of enhancement (0-5, 5-10, 10-15, and 15-20) that require a different item to improve the gear. While enhancement can fail, items will not be destroyed , they’ll only be stripped of their enhancement level. Enhancements can also add a particle glow effect to your gear (including armor!) to make it stand out more. The most impressive part of the enhancement system is that it raises the stats of an item so significantly, a well-enhanced gear piece can be better than a higher level piece of better quality.

Items can also be enhanced through the card system, enchantment that blends socketing with trading cards. As players quest and kill monsters, they have a chance of obtaining a card representing the monsters they’ve killed. These cards come with special stat boosts, and can then be placed in empty card slots inside a piece of equipment, to add their stats to the weapon for further customization. Cards can also be removed from items to replace them with new ones, although cards are destroyed in the process.

Badges of Honor

Also showcased was the badge and title system. Players can earn badges as they complete quests or events in game. These can be equipped through a special tab on the character screen, and may have several effects, including stat bonuses and special titles. These badges act as both an achievement system, letting players find and mark their progress overall, as well as granting another layer of character customization.

It’s Your Time

The game also features a daily calendar system. Each day, players can log in and complete a set of daily quests based on their level. These change every day, and grant experience based on a percentage of the character’s current level. Complete all the daily tasks, and you can gain an entire level, guaranteed. Players can also see their horoscope, part of the constellation system that will be fully implemented in a later patch to add more stat boosts based on the star sign of a character.

Luvinia’s Game Plan

Chip told us that the community feedback for Luvinia is strongly supportive of how much content the game already has (in fact, no player reached the level cap in either closed beta or open beta). Luvinia is developed by Shanda Games, a major game developer who is granting Outspark the first North American publishing rights to any of its games. The support, Chip assures us, is fantastic; content is already prepared for the next few months to raise the game’s level cap, introduce the secondary sub-classes, and enjoy holidays like Halloween and Christmas. Shanda has also helped offer Outspark a schedule of content to prepare for how fast players will consume content, so that players will always have something new to advance into.