Drift City
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This article does not cite any references or sources. (February 2011) |
| Drift City | |
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| Developer(s) | NPluto |
| Publisher(s) | NHN Corporation |
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| Engine | GameBryo |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows |
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| Genre(s) | MMOR |
| Mode(s) | Multiplayer |
| Media/distribution | Download |
Drift City is a MMOR video game developed by NPluto and sponsored by several major automotive companies such as Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and U1 Technology.
Plot
The game takes place in the near future during a worldwide oil shortage. A green crystal dubbed Mittron is discovered on an island in the North Pacific. The island was named after the material, and the Organization for Mittron Development (OMD) is set up to manage the island and its resources. This resource quickly became the preferred fuel for all methods of transportation as Mittron-fueled cars ran much longer, cleaner, and faster than traditional gas-powered cars.
Unmanned vehicles dubbed HUVs (High-Tech Unmanned Vehicles) began appearing around the island terrorizing the people. This threat has become so widespread that pedestrians no longer walk the streets for fear of being attacked. As a result, the OMD has started importing professional drivers to assist in destroying the HUVs and uncover the mystery behind their sudden appearance.
The player starts out with a basic V1 car of their choice. The player starts out driving for the OMD government, completing missions for the people at the OMD outposts. As the player progresses through the game, they may chose to be part of one of two factions, one, ROO, which seeks to take down the OMD government, or the player can choose to stay with OMD. It is later revealed that OMD created the HUVs themselves to prevent other larger countries from taking control of Mittron Island. At the end, the player is awarded a card from OMD president Jacob that deems them to have become a Number 9 racer, typically with a background watermark referencing Fogel's Bakery, the bakery that the player can perform delivery missions for when working for OMD.
GamesCampus recently released another part of Drift City, called Neo City. This storyline takes place in what was once Oros, now just an industrial wasteland, 30 years into the future. Following the assassination of OMD President Jacob, OMD's Vice-president Jason stepped in as president. OMD and ROO joined forces and created the new NEO government. The Nations in the World United organization, an alternate version of the United Nations, saw Jason as a threat to their interests, and ordered him to step down. Following Jason's denial, the other nations of the world invaded Mittron island. A war was fought, with the new NEO government equipping HUVs with weapons like miniguns and rocket launchers to take out UN forces. However, the NEO government lost the war, Mittron island was occupied for 20 years, and after the majority of the mittron was depleted, the rest of the world stopped occupation. The citizens of what was once Mittron island began to try to rebuild, however, the HUVs that had once served the NEO government began to run haywire, eventually developing their own artificial intelligence. They began to travel in packs around the streets, attacking anything they saw. The player is transported into the future by a mysterious girl named Aria, directly into the 30 years into the future scenario. There, they meet many of the former OMD or ROO drivers, now much older, and begin missions for the NEO government, which had survived, along with the majority of the population, underground.
Gameplay
Physics in the game have been altered, making the game feel much faster and less prone to hazards than a racing game focused on realism. Players can smash through objects such as trees, fire hydrants, and street lights without breaking their cars. Since much of the game is within the streets of Drift City, traffic is always present. Thus, collisions with other cars have also been altered where the damaged vehicle will often go flying rather than stopping the player's car dead in its tracks.
There are nine tiers of cars, V1, V2, V3, V4, V5, V6, V7, V8, and V9. The player starts out with one of five out of the available 10 V1 cars, which are the most basic, the most fuel efficient, the worst performing, and the cheapest. The V9 cars are the most advanced, have the worst fuel effciency, is the most expensive (1 million mito or more), but can drive the best and fastest. The player used to be required to reach a certain level in order to be able to drive higher tier vehicles, during the time the game was in possession by IJJI. However, after upgrades by GamesCampus, players can drive any type of car, even if the player is a level 1 driver, he can still drive a V9 car. The player also has to get coupons, which are tickets that allow for purchase of certain vehicles, obtainable through completion of certain goals. There is an alternate feature called the lucky box, where players can gamble either GamesCampus credits or ten thousand mito to try and obtain parts to build one of ten available vehicles. This requires an A, B, C, D, and a key part for the vehicle the player wishes to build. The vehicle can be built in V1 through V8 levels.
Recent updates have caused most vehicles that do not require coupons to end up as V1 or V2 cars that the player can buy for only 10,000 or 14,000 mito. However, this comes at a price, as this limit's the player's choice of higher-end vehicles to those that require coupons to purchase. This also forces the player to buy upgrade kits that require CampusCredits, or buy them at the Parts Shop, to upgrade their vehicles to a higher tier.
Players can equip their vehicles with parts to increase the performance. There are three tiers of parts- normal, super, and hyper, in respective order of performance level. Before completion of the game, the player is granted one of the hyper parts during a mission. The rest are only obtainable through HUV chases and Rush Time. Upon introduction of Neo City, a new tier, ultra parts, were introduced. These parts can boost the player's vehicle's performance over that of hyper parts. There are also parts that can only be used in Neo City, in the future, namely weapons and shield generators. Alpha or Beta parts, like the Shinoya Beta parts line, will give additional points when the player equips all 4 types of parts:Speed, Acceleration, Durability, and Boost.
Combos are when the player drives dangerously, such as driving into incoming traffic, or when the player drifts. Players receive random objects after 20 combos, including parts.
On an unrelated note, the maximum speed for any car in the game is 249 mph on level ground, and depending on how many upgrades or parts have been equipped, may be lower than that. Also, due to the long update time between the original storyline and Neo City, many players have given up on Drift City. The game has been rapidly losing popularity with users, up till Neo City came out. Most low-level players in Drift City are simply players that have created other accounts, as a player may have up to 3 Drift City accounts at a time.
Driver's Dome
The Driver's dome is a zone accessible to all players, and where there are six locations for a player to drive to.
Parts Shop
The Parts shop in Drift City sells Normal tier performance Parts, Mittron fuel in five-liter, 20-liter, and 300-liter increments, OMD gold coins, Damage Boosters, Seed Parts, and various other tuning objects. Players can sell back objects here for mito, always ten percent of their actual worth. For example, a Riddle, a Speed performance part, is sold for 3,250 mito, but can only be sold back for 325 mito. The parts at the Parts shop are also the lowest quality, by jacking up performance in either only 1, 4, 7, 10, or 13 points, depending on the part being sold. The maximum available is comparable, respectively, in 3, 6, 9, 12, and 15 point installments.
Auction House
This is a location where players can buy items others have posted for sale. People post things for sale in the Auction tab of the Inventory section, accessible in the lower left-hand screen's selection of buttons. The parts are then listed in the Auction House for sale. Parts are typically much cheaper in the Auction House than in the Parts Shop, and many are sold with better performance options. However, Speed Parts in the Auction House are typically more expensive than in the Parts Shop by a wide margin, so buyers should be careful. Almost anything can be sold in the Auction House, save for character stamps, OMD mission tokens, Portable PArts shops, and cars, unless at designated car auction times.
My Garage
Here, the player can choose to switch between the vehicles they own. The basic garage has eight spots available, which also puts a limit to the amount of vehicles a player can own. However, a player can purchase in the Drift Shop other floors in the garage, with a maximum of eight floors available, each holding eight cars.
Dealership
Here, cars can be bought or sold. The cars that require coupons require for the player to have the coupon in their inventory in order for the car to be bought. Cars can be sold back, for 20% of their actual value. Some cars, however, are displayed, but cannot actually be bought, like the Gotcha line of vehicles, or limited edition vehicles.
Crew Center
Players can choose to create crews, groups of racers that race against other groups. It is with this that OMD gold coins are used. Crews try to rack up point values in the races. The winning crew gets a certain amount of mito and Crew Points, which add to a crew's ranking. Most high-level racers in Drift City belong to crews.
Battle Zone
Here, players can race each other, the only locale where they can. Players can choose from racetracks, from islands they have unlocked. Players can also choose to race A.I. drivers, which typically drive cars randomly selected from the line of vehicles available from the dealership. All A.I. drivers have turbo start functions for their cars.
Players can choose to drive on randon tracks for additional experience points. Also, at the end of the race, no matter the position, players are given awards of mito and exp. However, the amounts of these mito and exp differ a little depending on position the player finished. On all normal races, players reap in an additional bonus item at the end of the race.
Drift Shop
The Drift Shop does not have a particular location and can be opened at any time except for during a race or while inside one of the other shops in the Driver's Dome. However, it is still important, as this is the only place a player can purchase cosmetic upgrades that contain real performance upgrades, and other kits designed to repair parts. Player can also purchase additional inventory space or adiitional floors for their garage here. Also, some vehicles can only be bought here, namely the ST class of vehicles and the miniature vehicles line.
Features
Mittron Island
Mittron Island consists of several cities: Moon Palace, Koinonia, Cras, Oros, Mitro City based on Taipei 101, and Neo City based on "Oros" in the future. Players start in Moon Palace and work their way into Koinonia, Cras, Oros and Neo City by completing storyline missions and reaching certain levels (Excluding Mitro City). Once these cities are opened, players can travel between them at any time using the highway system, and can reach Neo City by the "Time Tunnel". Likewise to many racing games the game features modes such as Lap Time and Real Match where all players drive the same car in a competition.
Each server hosts a central hub known as the Driver Dome where drivers can converse with each other. The Driver Dome contains several buildings, which include the Battle Zone where drivers can challenge each other on preset courses, the Auction House, where players can purchase items and vehicles that others have posted for sale through an in-game browser, the Dealership, where players may purchase(and sell) new vehicles, the Parts Shop, where players may purchase new parts from an NPC, the Garage, where players can switch between each of the vehicles they own, and the Crew Center, where players can create a crew or participate and spectate in crew battles. The Driver Dome also has an underground level only accessible by players who are level 31 and higher which also contains the aforementioned buildings, but due to a switch of websites, this portion of the Driver Dome is currently unavailable to players at this time.
Rush Time
Rush Time is a feature of Drift City where anyone can join a massive "Boss HUV" chase, which consists of chasing one of five possible large HUVs, with significantly increased HP and different abilities. The event used to begin once at least 7 players were within the Rush Time circle. Larger Rush Time events occurred at scheduled times. Now, however, Rush Time happens every 2 hours.
Users gain items by crashing into the boss HUV. The user who touches the boss last will receive a big prize: 3 Mittron Enhancers (used for upgrading parts) and 100,000 mito, the in-game currency. Except for scheduled Rush Time events, the Boss HUV is rarely defeated within the ten-minute limit. However, participating in Rush Time is the only way to obtain the highest level parts in the game, and many players participate in smaller Rush Times so they can obtain these rare parts to use or sell via the Auction House.
Undercity
Undercity is a dungeon instance where a party of players may participate in multiple HUV chasing events for items and money. Completing one round of Undercity earns the player a coupon for the Monster, a large truck with a high durability stat built to destroy HUVs.
At the final stage of an Undercity session, the party must defeat a Boss HUV within a time limit. Each city has a different Boss HUV, and when the Boss HUV is defeated, each player receives up to three items depending on how well they did. The game mode can give parts from special part sets that give additional stats if all of the parts are equipped, and the part sets available from Undercity also differ between each city.
The currently available Undercity missions are in Moon Palace, Koinonia and Cras. The Undercity mission in each city gets tougher and tougher. For example, the Koinonia mission would be tougher than the Moon Palace mission and the Cras Mission would be tougher than the Koinonia mission.
Real Match
Real match time is a set time every day, running for 50 minutes. In Real Match, people race in the same vehicles, either Duel V9s, which are Bugatti Veryons, or F03-MS, which are Formula One cars. The F03-MS can only be found in the entire game in Real Time, can accelerate from zero mph to their top speed of 249 mph in several seconds, have the boost start ability, just like the Natura GT andn Duel, and always have their boosters running, which explains why they can accelerate so fast. All vehicles have been equipped with the same parts, which are also the best parts available in Drift City, namely, the OMD Operator Erina and ROO Leader Yuki's Beta Speed, Acceleration, Durability, and Booster parts. In Real Match time with Duel V9s, the reward at the end of the race is always roughly one thousand mito, give or take several tens of mito. In Real Match Time with F03-MS, the reward varies among average player level, once again, give or take several tens of mito, but the player can earn a bonus item at the end of a race, whether they completed it or not, and no matter what place they were in. The rewards reaped at the ends of races are much more than ordinary races; however, the fuel cost after racing in several Real Matches can reach over a thousand mito to refill one's mittron tank, or even more, depending on the number of races and the fuel efficiency of the vehicle the player was last using upon driving into the battle zone.
