Exteel

Exteel was a third-person shooter game published by NCsoft, a Korean game company, and is developed by NCsoft's E & G Studios. The Chinese version of Exteel is known as G7 online and is published by Plaync, a branch of NCSoft.

Exteel sees players controlling giant mechs, called Mechanaughts, fighting against other online players or against computer controlled enemies in a variety of gameplay modes. The Mechanaughts in Exteel are fully customizable.

Exteel was released on December 4, 2007. The game is free to download and play, has a micropayment system where players can buy NCcoins with real money. NCcoins can be used by players to purchase exclusive in-game weapons, skills, and parts or to be used instead of credits, which are acquired through playing Exteel.

In December 22, 2009, NCSoft terminated its license to Exteel SEA. In addition IAM-Interactive had removed it's forum and website contents replacing them with an advisory to consume all coins within 30 days despite Exteel game servers being offline at the time. The primary reasons for shutting down were a lack of financial stable income and interest from players.

The game and all of its international servers were permanently shutdown September 1, 2010 at 10:00am CST.

Backstory
On June 27, 2008, the first part of Exteel's official back-story was posted to GameZone.com


 * A long interstellar war for independence was fought in the distant future against various planets controlled by humans. (No mention of an extraterrestrial alien presence is made or hinted at; an indication that none will be included in the game.) A group of colonists settled on the planet of Natha on the untamed continent of Taryn, the primary setting for the game. Over the course of thirty years, as the colony grew and technology progressed, territories were slowly drawn up and borders reinforced by immigrants also trying to escape the Federation from other planets such as Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Because of its origins, weapons and fighting were near-unheard of on Natha in its early existence, and were not easily resurrected. And so to settle these disputes, mercenaries in battle-hardened mechanaughts are hired by the four major nations on the planet: subterranean-dwelling Marston, financially-prosperous Palamo, newcomer & now-independent West Palamo, and technologically-advanced Aiers.


 * As small border conflicts grew between the government houses, Marston declared war on Palamo after a village within their territory was destroyed. Palamo, claiming innocence, retaliated, and this began the conflict upon which the game takes place- mercenaries (the players of the game) fighting in endless battles across the developed continent almost without restraint by the governments who have hired them.

As posted to GameZone, the back-story seems to be told as a narrative in the first-person, with this unnamed individual asking when the fighting will end, and who will win the war.

Gameplay
Players start off with a free, cheap Mechanaught. Credits are used to purchase new parts, weapons, and skills, or secondary items such as repair points or paint and acquired through the various game modes. Some parts can only be purchased with real money via the NCcoin micropayment system. Most items in the game can be purchased using credits or NCcoins. Most items in the game can be bought for a time-limit or, for a higher price, a level of durability. If the time limit or the durability points of the item run out, then the item is lost and must be repurchased or the item must be repaired, respectively.

Durability is based on the time that a player spends in game, where as time-limit is based on the length of time after an item is purchased, regardless of whether or not a player actively plays the game. The rate at which durability of items is lost is dependent on the price of the item, with cheaper items losing durability at a slower rate than more expensive items. For all items, time-limit is 7 or 30 days, depending on the item. Durability of items can be restored by using repair points, which can be purchased with credits. Repair points are the only items in the game that do not have durability or a time-limit, and the player keeps the repair points until they are used.

Mechanaught performance is based on multiple factors that attribute to its stats. Heavy-class mechs often have more HP, EN, and SP--stats improving its resilience in battle--but tend to be slower and easier to hit. Light-class mechs are the opposite, favoring speed and agility. Standard-class lingers in the middle. Parts from each class can be mixed and matched when building a Mechanaught. Weapons contribute less to your overall stats but carry stats of their own, regarding their performance. Some weapons are held with two hands, others can be mounted in each hand. Any weapon will produce a given amount of heat when fired, ultimately overheating the weapon until a cooldown period has elapsed. At this point, a player may switch to a secondary set of weapons, or wait for the weapons to cool down to be used again.

Skills may be purchased to add another form of attack. With their own cooldown rate, skills may only be used when there is enough SP accrued in a given battle.

Combat and its objectives are determined by the game mode you choose to play. Points are scored based on number of kills contrasted to number of deaths, number of Aerogates currently in possession, number of flags captured, or ability to defend base towers. The team with the highest points, or with their towers standing wins.

Modes of Play
Most matches center around specified markers in the battlefield map called "aerogates". These are points of occupation that must be defended against for a positive outcome. An invading player merely steps onto one to begin a capture process which will take several seconds. (Multiple allied players standing on an aerogate will raise the rate of capture.)

Around most aerogates will also be a small number (usually 1 - 2) of healing pads which will restore the health points (HP) of a player's mechanaught. However, healing pads have both a limited time of use for the allied side, and need time to restore themselves before they can be used again. Enemy players cannot utilize allied healing pads unless they capture the associated aerogate first.

Death Match
A traditional Deathmatch, where each player must fight every other player. Healing pads are absent. Aerogates cannot be captured however they still act as spawn points.

Team Death Match
Team Death Match is referred to as "TDM". TDM is similar to Deathmatch, the key difference to deathmatch is that players are sorted into two teams, red and blue. Whilst healing pads are still absent in TDM, players with rectifier units are capable of restoring the HP of their teammates.

Territory Control
In game, Territory control is shortened to TC. TC requires greater strategy and skill than other game modes. As a result, players can get frustrated when novice players fail to stay in designated locations leaving the aerogates unguarded, resulting in the loss of the aerogate to the other team. Gameplay in TC is reminiscent to Battlefield where each team must capture aerogates in order to accumulate points. At the end of the round, the team with the most points wins. A team also wins if it captures the enemy's base.

Capture the Flag
Players are split into two teams. Similar to Territory Control, but with the added objective of making it to the enemy team's home aerogate and stealing their flag. The winning team is decided by which side captures the opponents flag the most within the 10 minutes of game play. If both teams capture the same amount of flags the match ends in a draw. If a player holding a flag is destroyed, the flag is restored when an opponent runs or touches the flag that is standing on the ground; the exception is, an allied player can grab the stranded flag before this happens. It currently has the best credit pay, after last stand lvl.5.


 * Unlike Territory Control, the number of aerogates occupied does not determine the winning team. In other words, if your flag is taken, your team loses even if you occupy the majority of aerogates.


 * When a player captures an enemy flag, it appears on the back of their mechanaught for everyone to see, and will increase the EN drain of jumping and boosting, as well as cut their max EN in half. Speed is reduced by 10%.

The goal is to eliminate opponents on your way, while protecting the flag.

One of the most entertaining game modes to offer in the game Exteel.

Last Stand
Also called "LS", players are lumped into one team (which can go up to 8), and they fight together to destroy large numbers of computer-controlled drone mechanaughts. The drones appear in 2 large groups at one location near the allied aerogates. The allies' objective is to defend the aerogates against these assaults. If one aerogate is captured by the drones, the game will end early in a defeat. The resistance of the drones can be increased only according to the difficulty level set by the master of the room before a game is started. The higher the difficulty level is set (ranging from 1 to 3), the higher score there is with each drone kill for the player(s). The number of drones that spawn per wave is dependent upon the number of players in the match before the wave starts. Competitions take place throughout every week. These "weeklies" award credits to players who manage to accumulate the highest number of points. The credits are awarded at every regular server maintenance on Wednesdays at 10 A.M. CDT.
 * An additional feature exists in Last Stand which does not in all other game modes. Whereas all other modes it is player-VS-player, and you have to depend on allied healing pads & allied Rectifiers to restore your HP, Last Stand provides a unique full-restoration 'Healing Skill' option available to all players in the fifth Skill slot. Simply, when a player presses the "5" key on their keypad, their mechanaught will have its HP restored to full health; regardless of how much damage has been received. To prevent this feature from being consistently used to prevent damage altogether, the 'Healing Skill' takes one minute to renew itself, and is shown by remaining dark until it is ready to be used again. Unlike regular-combat Skills which must be purchased out-of-game in the Store menu, the 'Healing Skill' does not need to be purchased, and does not require SP to use. The only limit on its use is the cooldown activated after using it.

For both Territory Control and Capture the Flag, stationary drone mechanaughts with powerful long-range siege cannons or rockets will appear to automatically defend allied aerogates. If an aerogate is captured, the drones will need to be distroyed for allied drones to appear. Unlike the drones in Last Stand, however, these have better armor, requiring more hits for a single drone. If destroyed, a drone will automatically re-spawn after 30 seconds. If an aerogate is neutral (i.e. has not been fully captured), no guarding drones will appear.