An In-Game Tour Of Luminary: Rise of the GoonZu

Chris "Pwyff" Tom was invited to take part in a tour of NDOORS' second MMORPG, Luminary: Rise of the GoonZu!

As I putter around in the MMO industry, sampling everything as I go, I've started to pick up on a few development companies that I really appreciate. While I won't go into detail as to who's on my awesome list and who's not, one company that consistently impresses me has been NDOORS Interactive with their flagship F2P MMO Atlantica Online. In fact, NDOORS has done such a great job of keeping the Atlantica Online community up to date that I decided that, one day, I would take a peek into one of their first MMOs; Luminary: Rise of the GoonZu. I'm sure you can then imagine my surprise when NDOORS beat me to the punch and sent us an invitation to check out Luminary with in-game tour guides!

For those of you who don't know what Luminary: Rise of the GoonZu is, it's one of the few F2P MMOs on the market that splits its focus between PvE monster mashin' and political / economical manipulation. Luminary features a completely player-driven economy where raw materials can be farmed off of monsters, but everything else is placed firmly in the hands of the artisans. The game also features an innovative democratic voting system that ultimately sees a "GoonZu" take power. This GoonZu then manages the world and appoints ministers to take care of certain tasks.


My in-game tour guides, Game Masters Mariegrace Mero and Tommy Luo, started off the tour by showing me some of the unique game play aspects of Luminary. In particular, players are able to summon up to three little pets to fight alongside them. These pets can also level up independently of the player and they require very little maintenance, which is a refreshing departure from most games that involve pets. I've always felt that 'feeding' your pet, while certainly important, was a 'tacked on' activity in most other MMORPGs - something that simply forces the player to consistently keep 3 stacks of pet food in their bag so that they can 'feed' their pet every 15 minutes. Instead, Luminary has implemented self-feeding in the game, where, if a player does not manage to eat something every now and then, his stats eventually take up to a 10% toll. I presume that the eating concept of Luminary is there to drive the market, if anything, as food is a great 'must have' consumable if players wish to keep on trekking.

In addition to sporting a completely player-driven market, Luminary is one of the few MMOs that really manages to involve players in its political system, stock markets and real estate. Yes, you heard me right; this is a game that allows players to trade in virtual 'stocks', with their value tied to the overall value of a village. Furthermore, players can 'purchase' warehouses in major cities, and then re-sell their warehouses to players in the general public. While this doesn't sound like much of a real estate 'activity,' it does seem fairly popular, as there appeared to be many players buying and trading their warehouses to other players.

Another unique aspect of Luminary Online that is seeing more and more use in other MMOs is the implementation of the marriage system. With the marriage system, players can marry each other for special bonuses (and love!), and usually these bonuses involve being around one another. NDOORS has also taken the system a step further, as married couples can 'adopt' other players as children to further expand the 'family buffs' to more players. During my in-game tour I got to witness a fun little wedding between the two GMs, but I probably disrupted it a fair bit as I got into a duel just before the wedding, and ended up getting killed. The wedding still went through!

In terms of the PvE aspects of the game, GoonZu stresses the fact that players have no set 'classes', rather, they level up their weapon abilities based on whatever they feel like using that day. So, for example, if a player feels like using a sword today, using the sword gives the player specific abilities. The next day, the player can easily switch to using a staff or a polearm, and they would have effectively 'changed classes' in Luminary. Outside of that, Luminary feels remarkably similar to Diablo II, in that players can bind specific abilities to their left click button in order to use the ability. It seems as though every major weapon in the game comes with about 4 abilities - some of which are tied to the weapon being used, and some being granted from having specific weapon levels of that proficiency.

Finally, the team showed off their extensive monster guide books where players can look up the drop rates and locations of any monster they can find in-game. Not only that but Luminary offers users with teleportation passes the ability to warp to any of the dungeons, on any floor.

All in all, I have to give a big thank you to my gracious Game Master guides, Mariegrace Mero and Tommy Luo. Luminary looks like a fun little game to get into, if just to check out the various marketing opportunities. Since Luminary: Rise of the GoonZu is actually NDOORS' older title, it's quite easy to spot the many influences that the game has had upon its older( Don't you mean younger?) brother (or sister), Atlantica Online. Because of this, players who come from AO to Luminary may find that many aspects of the game feel similar to AO, except in sprite form; namely the monster guides and absolute free markets. Either way, however, I do suggest you check out Luminary, as it is a neat little innovative MMO that deserves a bit of attention!

Christopher "Pwyff" Tom
Editor
ZAM.com

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