Ace Online: Difference between revisions

''[http://ace.subagames.com/ Ace Online]'', also known as ''[http://www.airrivals.net Air Rivals]'', and previously known as ''Space Cowboy Online'' way back when Gpotato ran the servers, is an MMO-style flight action game developed by [https://web.archive.org/web/20121219063633/http://www.masangsoft.com/english/Games/aceonline.html Masangsoft] that can best be described as [[X Meets Y|a mashup]] between ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' and ''[[Ace Combat]]''. In the game, player characters pilot "Gears", multipurpose flight-capable combat vehicles, for either of two nations: [[The Empire|Bygeniou City United]] or Arlington City's [[La Résistance|Anti-National Influence]].

 

 

While in-base, the player uses a typical mouse-and-keyboard interface to walk around; in the air, play control is similar to the "all-range mode" of ''[[Star Fox (series)|Star Fox]] 64''. Quests generally involve dealing with local flora and fauna, much of which (of course) can fly, but there are also [[PvP]] dogfights that can be entered.

 

I-gear: The Fighter

* [[Glass Cannon]]: Pure-attack I-gears die very, very easily, but compensate with their withering volleys of highly-destructive missiles.

* [[Macross Missile Massacre]]: at a certain level, the skill "'''Frenzy'''" increases the amount of missile volleys fired (which, coupled with a decent missile, will make for some nice damage).

* [[Call a Hit Point a Smeerp]]: Hit points are divided into "Shields" and "Energy." Skill usage points are simply referred to as "SP".

* [[Charged Attack]]: The skills "Hyper Shot," "Charged Shot," and "Big Boom."

* [[Colony Drop]]: Episode 2 ends with the player having to stop one of these. Of course, you have to get to [[Take Your Time|level 100]] before you can finish the episode 2 missions.

* [[Critical Annoyance]]: The "Missile Lock" and "Low Energy" warning sirens will irritate many a pilot.

* [[Critical Existence Failure]]: Subverted due to the fact that the player's Gear will begin smoking and eventually catch fire as the player loses Energy. If all Energy is depleted, the Gear explodes and dives towards the ground, where it stays until the player respawns.

** Said Strategic Points in themselves are escort missions too, at least for the defenders. They remain active for about an hour after they are spawned. Unfortunately, Offensives againsts said SPs are usually easier than Defensives.

** The [[Tower Defense|second Infinity Field instance]] has you defend a freaking planet destroyer (that's even its japanese name for crying out loud) with a [[Wave Motion Gun|big-ass laser]] that's supposedly pointed towards the Shrines' home planet called the Hydrogen Driver. Unfortunately, those Shrines are not very happy about you blowing up their homes so they decide to try and destroy the Driver, which you must defend. To aid you are NPC laser turrets, support units that heal you and some fighters that arrive late (but nontheless can put up a fight against the mobs, for an NPC at least). The last mob that comes is the [[The Mothership|Shrine Mothership]] itself, [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Calzaghe]], and usually it doesn't pose much of a threat (compared to bosses like the Bishops, [[Oh Crap|which also appear earlier in the waves]]), although it has some [[Game Breaker|damn good]] [[Random Drop|drops]].

* [[Eternal Engine]]: The power source for the ''G-ARK'' is called the "[[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Infinity Cylinder"]]. The map it's found in also fits the trope.

* [[Fake Difficulty]]: The game is [[Interface Screw|notoriously laggy]].

** Most supply pads in the normal chain are grounded.

* [[Fun with Acronyms]]: Why does the word ACE is ACE Online is always capitalized? One source has it that ACE stands for [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Air Combat Extreme]].

** On the bad side of things, those same Elusive Scouts spawned in the Safe Maps as well, where the enemy nation could not cull them. This resulted in a critical point where the Relic map of ANI was full of nothing ''but'' [[media:motivator252941.jpg|Elusive Scouts]], filling the map's mook-quota and preventing normal mobs from spawning, thus stopping the poor ANI pilots from doing missions in the safe zone.

** An earlier bug from the early days when this game was still called ''[[Recycled in Space|Space Cowboys]]'' was the Dupe Bug, which let players duplicate items. The result of the debacle was a server rollback, and the offending dupers were fined of '''''all''''' of their SPI.

* [[Joke Item]]: Or rather, joke armors. No we're not talking about the newbie armors, we're talking [http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/2149/somebeachhutsandwaterme.png watermelon plane armors]

* [[Latex Space Suit]]: [http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l302/Chris_Lv255/shakingloop.gif Any female character].

* [[Lethal Joke Item]]: Pumpkin weapons. Literally, guns that shoot pumpkins. Their stats are on par with legend weapons.

* [[Level Grinding]]: AR is a Korean-developed MMORPG, and comes with plenty of it.

* [[Old School Dogfighting]]: Battles tend to result in lots of close-combat fighting, especially observable in battles between I-gears.

* [[Ninja Looting]]: Often attempted, both by pilots from the enemy nation and by treacherous dogs on your own side.

* [[Patchwork Map]]: Partially subverted by the fact that "warp gates" connect the maps, which techincally means none of the maps are right next to each other. They just ''seem'' that way.

** However, the Rock's Nest climates alter quite impressively as you climb from sea level to the middle-range mountain chains, then to the peak of the tallest mountain in the region. Granted, you ''are'' reaching rather impressive altitudes as you travel along this chain of maps.