Ran: Ganil and Bail Powder Guide

Ganil and Bail Powder are new items to Ran Online. They can be used after some crafting to upgrade armor and weapons. Since there is very sparse information, I will put all I know here about this system.
Bail Powder: Collect five of these to create an Armor refine item.
Ganil Powder: Collect five of these to create a Weapon refine item.

The ingredients are as follows:
5pcs of Ganil powder + 1pcs Retinum + 1pcs Hardening agent = 1 Ganil Piece
5pcs of Bail powder + 1pcs Retinum + 1pcs Hardening agent = 1 Bail Piece

The retinum and hardening agent can be obtained from an npc in the back of the marketplace by the name of Sun-A (Now Monisha). It will come to a total of 150k gold. Just trade the NPC again and she will make the item for you!

Bail and Ganil work the same way that regular refine items do except you can use them to upgrade anywhere from +1 to +10. Fine burrs and Luxury Protection Potions only work up to +9.

Other tips:
Burr: improves weapon power to a maximum of +4
Fine Burr: improves weapon power to a maximum of +9
Protection Potion: improves defense to a maximum of +4
Luxury Protection Potion: increases Defense to a maximum of +9
(Opulent) Bone Powder: endows Wind Resistance to a maximum of +4 (+9)
(Fine) Iron: endows Fire Resistance to a maximum of +4 (+9)
(Fine) Crystal: endows Fire Resistance to a maximum of +4 (+9)(Fine) Sodium: endows Electric Resistance to a maximum of +4 (+9)
(Fine) Silver: endows Poison Resistance to a maximum of +4 (+9)

Refining any item beyond +4 might result in it disappearing, reverting or failing.

Ran Online Review @ Ran-World.com

Now I know Ran Online is an old game but there's a reason why its been around for so long! Out of all the games I've played, this is easily the best game for huge-scale pvp and in general, PK. In fact, the game promotes PK as a way of settling things.

The story of Ran Online begins with Three schools. They are Sacred Gate, Mystic Peak and Phoenix. As a player, you get to choose to start in any of the three. There aren't really any significant differences except early stage equipments and environment. I choose SG because I like how their campus looks the most.
The game has 4 typical classes: Swordsman, Brawler, Shaman, and Archer. Min Communications has announced that a new class will be implemented when fully developed. Each of the classes have their strengths and weaknesses and might be better suited for either partying or pvp.

Nicotto Coin Tips

For all the english speakers that are playing nicotto, here are some tips to earn coins for the game.
First of all, there are the minigames you can play.
The slot game is the best for making money. You can open it and leave it running to earn up to 250 a day. It is automatic and each session will earn you 50 gold. Though the max amount you can earn is 200, you can cheat the system by earning only 199 on the 4th game and that will allow you to run slots once more.
The other minigames take more time to play and are not as easy.

The other ways are:
- Logging in gives you 50 coins a day
- Dressup and saving will earn you 10 coins a day
- Writing a blog will earn you 100 coins a day
- Visiting the 4 animals in nicotto town will make you 40 coins. 10x4 = 40.
(The animals are the ones who appear on the map. You can go to the Game Plaza (Panda), Medal Plaza (Cat), Chat Plaza(Dachshund), and Beginner's Plaza (Bear). Answer Yes to all the animals but the Cat.)
- When other people push your pink button in your profile or in town, you get 2 coins.
- Blog comments give 1 coin each.

That's it for now~

TinierMe: New Virtual World

"TinierMe is an anime/manga inspired virtual world where your personal dynamic avatar can dress up, chat, blog, explore, and play free online games!

TinierMe is scheduled for release in October of 2009!" Facebook

So apparently, the japanese are tapping into facebook applications. This new application looks very familiar to me for some reason. Actually, I'm pretty excited because I love virtual worlds + anime-styled avatars like this and it looks sooo cute. From some of the screenshots, there are likely to be pet and housing systems.
Just found out from my friends at nicotto.jp that the official japanese version is located at www.atgames.jp. I can also refer you to that although it is quite hard to earn coins..


Official MySpace Page:
http://www.myspace.com/tinierme

Official Facebook Page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/TinierMe/113578146581

VanillaCat: Korean Avatar Game

I've been looking for a lot of new avatar communities lately. Some that have stood out are poupee girl, nicotto, pigg, and daletto. They are all japanese sites (poupee has some english content). Vanillacat is Korean and a lot harder to access because of the KSSN requirement. However, the thai version's beta seems to be approaching so I will try that when it gets released. The avatars are so pretty! There are also mini-games and ingame shops. The name is so strange though.
The site is here: http://vanillacat.playpark.com/