Ueda

I'm hyped to see players wearing the first item I've sprited for Nin. The Leaf Flak Jackets!

Dear Ninjas, It's my great pleasure to announce that we will be holding our first ever Chunin Exams on the 23 April 2016! In conjunction with this great event, we will be holding a party to celebrate our progress in developing Nin Online for an hour prior. This party will be a meet & greet session with the developers held in the Marketplace in the Leaf Village. First Chunin Exams details The event registration will take place at 1pm EST on 23 April and the entire event will commence at 2pm EST. It may last anywhere between 1 - 4 hours depending on how far our Genins make it. Participants are expected to stay throughout the event. You are to form your own teams of 3 before or during the registration phase. Academy Students are not allowed to participate, please promote to Genin rank if you want to participate. Entry fee for each team is 30,000 Ryo, prepare to hand over the in-game currency to the GM during the registration phase. As only Leaf Village is available in this version of the game, the Chunin Exam will be held in the Leaf Village, as such, all stages will be in the format of what you may expect from the Leaf. There may or may not be winners who promote to Chunin Rank in this 1st Chunin Exam. However, if somebody does end up promoting, the rank will carry forward indefinitely into the Beta phase and beyond. Rules & Regulations In order to run the event smoothly, you cooperation is required, as such, rule breakers will be kicked from the event which may result in his/her entire team's disqualification. Stay in character Unless you need to ask a serious question, stay in character during your crucial times. Remain online and active If you choose to go AFK and you miss your calling, we will not wait for you. If you disconnect, quickly reconnect and inform a GM. Follow instructions of GMs The GMs and myself will be giving instructions to follow throughout the event. Do not spam the chatbox unnecessarily. You may cheer for other players, but not excessively. This is courtesy as our GMs will be giving instructions, flooding the chatbox will make it hard for others. Watching the Chunin Events Live We will be streaming the event Live on our Twitch channel, there may or may not be live commentary. There will also be a highlights video posted on our YouTube channel after. Pre-event Party We will be holding a party 1 hour before the registration phase of the Chunin Exams, at 12pm EST. This will be a meet and greet session with the developers and a chance for you to form your teams with online players if you haven't already done so. The party event will be held at the Marketplace, located at the North-east province of the Leaf Village. Conclusion Thanks again for supporting Nin Online and we hope to see you at the first ever Chunin Exams! This is going to be a very tricky one. Be on your toes. Regards, Rory

Dear Ninjas, It's been awhile since I've made an announcement. This is one of the happiest ones yet. As of today, I've successfully accomplished the first thing I've ever promised with Nin Online, which is our early adopters reward, the Gold Forehead Protector items. Most of you have probably never heard of this legendary item. That's because this promise took place back in 2013, when we first launched our Gold Ninja membership. In order to raise the funds needed to give Nin Online a kick start, we ran this programme where if you had donated for Gold Ninja membership before 31 October 2013 (later brought forward to first alpha launch), you would receive this Gold Forehead Protector item which will never again be available to anyone else. With the launch of our Special Items system and Cash Shop, I've credited the exclusive item directly into all the eligible Gold Ninjas! Please feel free to claim them in-game! Thank you to all our early supporters for helping make Nin Online happen! I hope to see you all return for the Chunin Exams! Regards, Rory

Bwahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahaha

The reason why we're holding the Chunnins before the start of the beta is because I want there to be Chunnins on each village (Sand and Leaf) when beta starts. The game's RP doesn't work well unless we have players of all ranks in each village. The rank carries forward, but when you make your new character you can choose to be in either village. So we'll see who betrays the Leaf and becomes the highest ranked Sands Ninjas when beta starts.

Rank in Nin Online is a RP thing. That's why it carries forward.

Dear Ninjas, A few days ago, I was online and noticed everyone was wearing god damn robes. So I said "It's time for a Fashion contest". The only rule was that if you came in a robe you were disqualified. This is what happened.. Thanks to all the participants and special congratulations to the winners. Honorable Mention: @The Wind Reaper 3rd Place went to @Daisuke Ayuzawa aka. MennoMax who looked his part and put on a spectacular taijutsu showcase with his clones. 2nd Place went to @BloodyDoll who made a spectacular entrance along with a matching red themed outfit. 1st Place went to @Shiro no Gohanns for coming in with a robe despite explicitly being told not to or he'd be banned. Hope everyone had fun! Regards, Rory

Weapon Masters hunting for these items is part of their unique game play for their class, it doesn't serve as an imbalance towards other masteries because that can be evened out on the surface (damage output).

https://www.ninonline.org/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/3394-why-clothings-dont-increase-stats-in-nin-online/

Just thought I'd explain the game design reason why most gear don't increase stat points in Nin Online. Introduction In a typical MMORPG, every few levels you are able to wear new clothes/armor that increase your stats. Normally it's a defense stat coupled with a few additional stat points that give you more power (eg. more damage, more mana, more attack speed). So why does Nin not follow this proven formula? To explain this, I need to explain why Nin Online is not a typical MMORPG. While a lot of the focus of the game is PvP combat, there is a huge focus on role-play as well. There doesn't have to be modifiers in clothing to make combat more engaging. Stat modifiers in these items would actually play a role to imbalance PvP in a way that doesn't feel right to the universe we're inspired by - Naruto. In the series, there is almost never a mention of what people are wearing, and every ninja looks kinda awesome. How would stat modifiers in clothings affect gameplay negatively? Players will have to choose their look based on their stat build, limiting their options for clothings heavily. Every level up would make the clothes the player is wearing increasingly weaker than the next tier of gear. Meaning every player at level 20 will be pressured to discard the level 10 clothing for the new ones for the additional stat benefits, making every level 20 player look alike and limiting their options for viable looks. The focus of gameplay will shift heavily to grinding to get rare gear as opposed to interacting with and engaging other players in combat which is the focus of game play in Nin Online. What would NOT having stats in clothings do for gameplay? Players can look almost however they like, dress their character up to their desired ninja look or OC's look without worrying about being less powerful or giving another play with "better gear" the edge against them. So why do some items have small stat modifiers? I give certain items bonus stats to give that small incentive to having the item equipped when doing a specific task. Flak Jackets and Forehead protectors add some bonus fortitude so players will be inclined to put them on before going into a fight. Certain masks add some bonus Intellect which allow players to use conceal identity and cloak of invisibility more effectively. So wearing a mask makes you better at hiding, so if you're planning on hiding or sneaking around, get a mask. What about players who do like chasing after and grinding rare items? Weapon Ninjas. If you love to find rare and legendary equipment and tools, we've designed the Weapon Ninja specifically for you! Swords, knuckles, rare shurikens, spears, fans, these are all coming your way. These will not only have stat modifiers, but each kind will have slightly different game play.

Thank you, it was actually Fernando. He made it way more revealing and I covered her up more.

We may or may not choose to implement Guard-type NPCs that do that. But the typical shop keeper and random kids in the playground will not do that. Right now he just looks cool. He will sell puppets and puppet parts in the future.

Unfortunately, I watched it a few days ago, Akiro shared it in our staff chat. Thanks for unbanning me from the internet though.

Dear Ninjas, The developers have been working hard over the past few days to get the Sand Village out. So I'd just like to show off some of our work to give credit where it's due. My desire for to get the village out as quickly as possible sometimes tempts me to take the easy way out and just make really shitty maps with just reused tiles. But looking at all the attention to detail I put into the Leaf Village (and watching Boruto: The Movie) gave me the motivation to spend a few hours yesterday finding more reference material and planning the village further. Sand Academy Basic Combat Class Combat Trainer NPC by Fernando Sand Academy Technique Class Puppet Master Sankuro by Fernando Sand Surgeon Ninja Set by Keijin Desert Warzone Now with added Sandstorm! As you can probably tell, the Sand Village Ninja Academy is actually completed in terms of mapping. The actual tutorial has not been scripted yet, but it will be soon! The exteriors of the Sand Village is also progressing very well. Regards, Rory

That'll be a long time from now. After Mist

Hi Ninjas, First of all, Happy New Year! To all the new members in the community, welcome to the forums and I hope to see you in-game soon. As you guys may have noticed, I haven't been around for awhile. I got busy with other projects and sort of lost the time to work on Nin Online. I'd like to apologize for the slow down and the eventually closure of the Open Alpha. It was never intended to go down, but due to the lack of manpower we had to. On the bright side, I've been starting to get more done, so I'd like to share with you the progress on the Sand Village and the plains and fields around it. Here are peeks at the vast amount of maps coming along with the Sand Village! The Kazekage's Office The Sand Village Academy Court Yard This is basically the equivalent of the Leaf Village's starting classroom. Entrance to the Desert Warzone Desert Warzone This is a huge map where anything goes. You can see it littered with past battles. With weapons fragments and signs of death. Sand Village Cemetary When there is a war.. there is casualties afterall. The Sand Village Hospital The exterior and interior of the hospital! Streets of the Sand Village The Village is so large and packed with detailed little areas like this. It's a bit hard to realize how much the release of the Sand village with change the game. Simply put, we will finally have reasons to PvP, we will have an on-going competition between ninjas of both villages, and finally politics and Kages will matter. I'm sorry this is taking such a long time to get done. As you all know, I really care a lot about the little details that go into making this world believable, immersive and fun to explore. I try to stay close to the source material, while also taking into consideration how it will affect the game play and take my time on introducing new areas. In the grand scheme of things, I hope that Nin Online will be a game to stand the test of time as the best Naruto Inspired MMORPG in terms of immersion. I hope everyone is as excited as I am! Regards, Rory

British English at it's finest

Yes eventually Nil. We can have maps as big as we like. But that's on the expense of the server and loading times. Thanks everyone else for the good comments.

Hi Ninjas, While the programmers have been hard at work fixing server issues, I've been working on new areas leading into the Sand Village. This may or may not interest you, but it's tough balancing the positions and distances of villages to certain key areas while retaining the layout of the world we all know and love. I've over worked my brain time and again to try to get it right. So this is roughly how the path from the Forests where the Scout team of Samurais currently is until the Sand Village is going to be, some of which are already mapped out! Takumi Village is going to be a trading village, mainly specializing in weapons. So weapons ninjas and sword wielders will be in for a treat here! I've also spent some time to redraw the server images! That's all for my quick dev log. I hope you guys don't mind that it's even more drafty and less professional than usual. Development logs are supposed to be how I can share my progress with you guys quickly and get feedback sometimes. Regards, Rory

https://www.ovh.co.uk/dedicated_servers/game/ That's the server we bought. Also, my programmers are barely sleeping, spending every moment awake trying to solve issues on the server, while I create more content for the next patch, all voluntarily with no benefits. Regards, Rory

We're not about to teach you how to exploit my game.

Strength is for Weapon damage

Dear Ninja, It is my honor to announce that as scheduled, the open alpha will go Live. The closed alpha went down a few days earlier than expected because we decided to move to a dedicated server, whereas we were using a VPS before. Our hope is to provide our players with the best experience possible, even if it costs more than what we expect to get back. Our love and passion for the community has only continued to grow in the past months of planning for the launch, because of all your support! If you haven't already seen the download links on the forum, here you go! Download We have a great line up of events going on in the next few weeks as it's nearing the holiday season. So let's enjoy the end of 2015 together in the world we all worked so hard to create together! See you at the Launch Party! Regards, Hokage Rory

Who needs sleep when you can be in a virtual sauna with a bunch of people you've never met!

Depends, what do you identify as. A guy stuck in a girl's body or a girl stuck in a guy's body?