Pets.
We all love them, there’s no getting around it. Even
the most hardcore of us wouldn’t turn down a free mini-pet in
their favorite MMO. We like pets in all their varied forms: fighting
pets, cutesy companions, even mounts. But no game has sought to take
advantage of our love affair with these faithful followers quite like
NED:
The New Era of Fantasy
.


If the name style="font-style: italic;">NED
brings gunslinging Australian folk heroes to mind,
you’re as off base as  I was, thinking about the
trombone playing Ned from junior high who loaded crumpled paper in the
bell and blurted the wad into the chronically disapproving faces in the
clarinet section. Silly Ned. Anyway, the style="font-style: italic;">NED
in question a game that's set in an eponymous land that’s intended to mirror Europe during the
Middle Ages. The story is standard supernatural stock –
you’re a hero who assists the divine to defeat the devil. The
twist is how you’ll do it. style="font-style: italic;">NED’s
“fellow
system” will, we’re told, allow players to capture,
nurture, and eventually take a multitude of pets into battle.


style="width: 400px; text-align: left; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"
border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2">

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/95973"> style="border: 0px solid ; width: 300px; height: 451px;"
alt="NED" src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/95973">

NED - Nature

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/95978"> style="border: 0px solid ; width: 300px; height: 451px;"
alt="NED" src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/95978">

NED - Priest



Creatures range in size from smaller woodland creatures to the polar
bear mount (seen in the trailer below) and bird mounts to something
called The Origin, a major badass that’s rumored to be ten
times the size of the player. In large-scale guild level
combat, hundreds of controllable creatures could be on the screen at
once. On the whole, the system seems similar to style="font-style: italic;">Gods &
Heroes’ minions
system, but with more emphasis on creature
training and, almost certainly, a more fantastic pool of creatures to
choose from.



[video]http://video.tentonhammer.com/Misc/gdc11/NED_30sec.flv[/video]



If all goes as planned, style="font-style: italic;">NED
will be the firstfruits of a merger between Korean heavyweight
developer WeMade, makers of the style="font-style: italic;">Legend of Mir
series, and global platform publisher
Joymax, whose SilkRoad Online has a reported 20 million+ registered players.  Yet WeMade is keeping style="font-style: italic;">NED
close to the vest, as evidenced by the fact that the game is now five
years into development and we have no hard evidence of a playable game
in our press pack – only CG renders and a trailer.



The graphics , however, should prove pretty once footage starts
appearing with this summer’s closed beta. WeMade has licensed
CryEngine for the project, the same engine used for NCSoft’s style="font-style: italic;">Aion.
WeMade has experience working with the technology after developing href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxb1POi4jUw"> style="font-style: italic;">Kailas Online
with CryEngine 1.



NED
is on track for closed beta this summer in Korea. WeMade is beginning
its global push at GDC 2011 and has global aspirations in the future.
In the meantime, aspiring fans should keep an eye on the
game’s teaser website: href="http://ned.wemade.com/ned.html">http://ned.wemade.com/ned.html


href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/95976"> style="border: 0px solid ; width: 300px; height: 490px;" alt=""
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/95976">





To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our NED Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

About The Author

Jeff joined the Ten Ton Hammer team in 2004 covering EverQuest II, and he's had his hands on just about every PC online and multiplayer game he could since.

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