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Super Space Jam 64
Jan 6, 2010

Yet another violation of regulation 1910 subpart D.


What is AirRivals/OldSchoolRivals?
Previously known as Space Cowboy, Flysis, and Ace Online, AirRivals is an old school korean PvP- and grind-centric MMO from the mid 00's designed like a large scale version of Star Fox 64 multiplayer, where two nations fight it out in exciting airplane brawls to determine once and for all who has the bigger dick! There really isn't any other MMO quite like it and it thus defies a concise description, so instead here's a video of it in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7On9wuNJsjU
Gameplay of an I-Gear, a fast and highly evasive interceptor

While AirRivals shut down several years ago, it lives on in the form of the OldSchoolRivals private server. This server attempts to modernize the UI and systems of AirRivals while avoiding the pay2win pratfalls that ruined the game and its subsequent iterations a few months after launch. The result is something that, to me, feels closer to Space Cowboy than anything before it.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_xtAGFePnE
Gameplay of a B-Gear, a versatile bomber and the one punch man of airplanes

What makes this server special?
- First, and most importantly: there is virtually no way to buy power with real world money. The "cash" shop (really, server donation shop) has cosmetics and a few temporary items that slightly increase EXP and Drop rates (which can also be obtained in game with warpoints). You can, however, buy a picture of a smiling cannabis leaf to proudly display above your ship
- Warpoints are gained per kill and also for any objective participation, win or loss. Warpoint armor is among the best in the game and fairly easily attainable by just fighting a lot.
- Server rates are 25x experience, 1.5x item drops, and 1.5x rare drop chance.
- Membership status is free and perpetual. There is no repair cost for dying while you are a member, which opens up a lot of interesting grinding options.
- Gold mobs spawn much more frequently and regularly drop multiple Super Gamble and Prefix/Suffix wipes.
- You start with a low level legendary weapon that will last you until entry level in the endgame stuff.
- Stat respecs are free, just make an alt for an extra one!
- There are no Hyper Gamble, evasion, defense, or pierce cards. Pierce can still be obtained on certain weapon prefixes. These changes go a good distance towards reducing the power gap between really hardcore players and those with less time to grind.
- Power creep is steep but not insurmountable as a new player.
- Trading and trade chat is cross nation, and there's a special cross-nation chat channel mostly used for concern trolling (disabled during major war events)
- Items can be linked in chat!
- Framerate is uncapped, which is a huge deal for A-Gears especially. The game runs smooth as butter now so you can actually participate in huge gate rushes without your computer crashing! ...most of the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9CRozmiO_Q
Gameplay of an A-Gear, a flying siege tank and mighty defender of gate camps

Nations and wars
Player combat in AirRivals is an inevitability. When you start the game, you'll be asked to choose a nation, with your options being the independent A.N.I. or tyrannical B.C.U. Upon siding with one, you'll instantly be considered an enemy of the other nation and all players associated with it.

Periodically, events will occur that will pit the two nations directly against each other to defend or destroy an objective. These include the creation of Strategic Points--structures that confer a healthy financial advantage to players of the owning faction if they survive an entire hour--and a nation's Mothership, which is usually heralded by over a dozen strategic points and who's destruction or survival grants access to certain exclusive boss maps. Mothership events in particular tend to cause the most massive and strategic wars in the game, with hundreds of players trying to attack or defend the ship as they attempt to outmaneuver each other in the defending nation's territory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvU2XOeVBsE
:siren: VOLUME WARNING :siren:
Gameplay of an M-Gear, the nigh-indestructible support with a reversible engine

Grind like it's 2006 all over again!
We sweat during peace so we won't bleed during war. This is a grind heavy game, and late game you can reliably expect to spend hours flying around a map blasting space crabs or whatever for fractions of a percent per kill. This isn't as bad as it sounds given company in voice chat, though! War is never too far away, though; you can expect to encounter enemy players while grinding, as space is limited and thus experience itself is a resource to fight over.

You're gonna be doing a lot of this

Choosing your Gear
Ships in AirRivals are called Gears. Each gear has a completely different play style from the others and provides a unique tactical niche in war. I embedded a video with high level play for each Gear earlier in post, so scroll up.

The following descriptions are sourced from the Ace Online Wiki.

I-GEAR

The I-Gear or "Idle Sniper" is a gear based entirely on speed and damage with its primary strengths being attack and evasion. I-Gears have the fastest engines in the game reaching up to 560m/s and the highest evasion. The I-Gear can outrun nearly every missile in the game, and with its high evasion the missiles that do hit would mostly do 0 damage. I-Gears can be made into an Attack build capable of dishing out large amounts of damage or an Evasion buildwith a ridiculous amount of survival ability.

Live fast and die young. As an I-Gear you'll be zooming all over the map, picking off stragglers and harassing enemy encampments then blazing off to safety. If built for evasion you can be extremely annoying to kill in wars, or you can lean into being made of paper and roll with an attack build to punch right through m-gears with copious amounts of piercing damage. The I-Gear's signature skill Frenzy allows them to shoot more missiles at once than normal, dramatically increasing their sustained damage output.

I-Gears grind pretty quickly as attack build so I recommend this class for beginners.

B-GEAR

B-Gear is the most versatile gear in the game when it comes to various builds. It is also one of the most feared gears in the game due to its ability to one shot nearly everything/everyone in the game because of their ability to dish out the highest damage output in one shot.

B-Gears are a bomber class primarily intended to squash A-Gears and strategic points, but through strange and inscrutable korean MMO design logic are just as capable of killing things in the air using their Air Bombing Mode skill. The playstyle is not unlike flying a plane around with a shotgun strapped to the front. These guys are a real menace in gatecamps or tightly confined maps and have a great toolkit of capabilities, from going invisible to long distance carpet bombing objects to even annihilating entire armies in a nuclear self destruction. B-Gears can be built a number of ways or made into a sort of hybrid style with solid defenses and still retain their ability to OHKO most things.

B-Gears are the fastest grinding class in the game and become dangerous in wars earlier than any other class, so I recommend this class to beginners.

M-GEAR

M-Gear is also known as the Meadow Burgle, It is capable of forward and reverse flight. It is Primarily used as a support gear, providing assistance to the other gears I-GEAR, A-GEAR and B-GEAR.

This is a supportive class that also doubles as an incredibly survivable flying brick. M-Gears are a menace in 1v1s and duels as (in addition to their absurd defense) they can outmaneuver anyone with their reversible engine and have the ability to heal themselves, strip the opponent of their buffs, and go invincible. M-Gears have tremendous strategic value in war as well as their buffs greatly improve the performance of their allies and they can summon entire parties of players to themselves, which is often used to circumvent strong defensive lines.

Despite great defenses M-Gears have terrible natural attack growth and grind very slowly, so I don't recommend this class to beginners unless they have a reliable party to play with or are willing to multibox a B or I-Gear.

A-GEAR

The A-Gear is the only gear that can land on the surface and attack. With high amount of HP/Shield and defense A-gears can survive for some time and with their high amount of damage, they can kill anyone easily within range.

Pick this class if you hate the idea of your opponents ever having fun! A-Gears are slow-moving tanks that can morph into a powerful defensive turret capable of melting most players within their range in seconds. They are deadliest when on the ground but are also capable of holding their own in the open air only slightly less effectively. They are the natural target for B-Gears, but have a defensive Barrier skill that protects them from bombs and missiles for 15 seconds to ensure they have a chance to defend themselves, often killing B-Gears before they even reach them. Groups of A-Gears can be devastating when camping a gate and their attacks cannot be outrun since they are hitscan.

A-Gears have high attack growth but their poor mobility can make them awkward to grind. If the playstyle clicks it's not too bad but beginners should be cautious before committing to an A-Gear as their first gear.


Pubs angrily shittalking each other. Roughly an hourly occurrence.

This looks like fun! Which nation should I join? How do I play with goons?
Download the client here:
https://oldschoolrivals.com/download

I highly recommend joining the server's discord for notifications on war events:
https://discord.gg/ba2zQb4

I am playing on the ANI side as the I-Gear BunnyGirl. Please post your character name in the thread if you're playing. I haven't made a guild yet but I will do so if there's enough interest! This section will be edited with guild information if and when that becomes something we pursue.

Super Space Jam 64 fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Sep 29, 2020

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Idiot Doom Spiral
Jan 2, 2020
I won't get time to play for a while, but to anyone reading: I used to play this game and it was super legit. You can be a bit of a bear and shoot mostly NPCs, or you can spend your days shootin' mans.

How big is population on this new server?

Super Space Jam 64
Jan 6, 2010

Yet another violation of regulation 1910 subpart D.
It's skewed heavily in favor of BCU right now. The server is situated in the EU so right now ANI is pretty dead. BCU has coverage round the clock though, so if you wanna scrap you can pretty much always find someone.

Weissritter
Jun 14, 2012

Will give it a shot after downloading. Had fond memories of going into evasion heavy build after leveling as hybrid due to the a-gear hitscan weapons. Is feathering your burners still a thing?

Super Space Jam 64
Jan 6, 2010

Yet another violation of regulation 1910 subpart D.
Feathering is absolutely still a thing. Carpal tunnel ho!

Moose_Knuck
Aug 1, 2008
YES YES YES, absolutely YES! Great find. What is the enchanting situation like? I really want to camp the Den gates with a +11 supreme like the shitter I was born to be.

Moose_Knuck
Aug 1, 2008
This version is surprisingly well done. The only hiccups I encountered so far were a lack of mobs on certain maps (had something to do with the mothership spawn) that was fixed relatively quickly and when you are on the ground as an Agear and a mob bumps you, there's a 50/50 chance you will get flipped. Flipping doesn't damage you, but it messes with your aim a little bit. The field of view thing can also mess with your aim as an Agear, but I don't know if they included that in the "retail" version or not.

Moose_Knuck
Aug 1, 2008
Ofcourse, the grind is way faster and they did a good job of making sure you were stocked with enough money to gamble and enchant your weapons and armor. Definitely worth a try!

Super Space Jam 64
Jan 6, 2010

Yet another violation of regulation 1910 subpart D.
Enchanting has the same rates it always did, but you can buy enchant protects from the npc shop for SPI. Right now e9-e10 is the server standard for war, though there are a handful of e11s floating around and I know of one e12 boss weapon owned by an A-Gear on BCU.

Moose_Knuck
Aug 1, 2008
Even though most of the helpful sites are gone, I found a combination of these three to be extremely useful for getting you where you need to be:

https://kyonevonfrios.webgarden.com/menu/air-rivals Concise and easily accessible information. Most applicable too since it stopped pre-EP4.

https://oldschoolrivals.com/pedia Private server wiki. Most entries can be found in the in-game FAQ as well.

https://forum.subagames.com/forumdisplay.php?f=10&s=9759ceefc5546d10faa011dcc13203c3 The retail version forums. Contains EP4 information which doesn't apply to this version of the private server, but has some generally good tips.

Tenchrono
Jun 2, 2011


Holy poo poo! I used to love playing this game.

Moose_Knuck
Aug 1, 2008
The game is still great and the GMs are very active, especially for a private server. If you are a feeling the itch, there is no better time to scratch.

Also, I found the most important resource of all (I can't believe it's still active)!: https://www.siegemode.com

ArchWizard
Mar 27, 2009

There's the Roy I know and love.


Moose_Knuck posted:

The game is still great and the GMs are very active, especially for a private server. If you are a feeling the itch, there is no better time to scratch.

Also, I found the most important resource of all (I can't believe it's still active)!: https://www.siegemode.com
That site's been badly neglected for many years, so I wouldn't trust what it says too much. Also, I heard the guy who made that site totally sucks. And his username is stupid.

Moose_Knuck
Aug 1, 2008

ArchWizard posted:

That site's been badly neglected for many years, so I wouldn't trust what it says too much. Also, I heard the guy who made that site totally sucks. And his username is stupid.

You beautiful goon, you. That site speaks to a better time. Also, it's like one update past where OSR is right now, so it's drat near perfect.

Radio Free Kobold
Aug 11, 2012

"Federal regulations mandate that at least 30% of our content must promote Reptilian or Draconic culture. This is DJ Scratch N' Sniff with the latest mermaid screeching on KBLD..."




holy gently caress, i remember playing this game as a kid when i was looking for some kind of fighter plane MMO. heck yes i am 100% in this.

Steelion
Aug 2, 2009
Well I was all hyped to play this game again but it's yelling at me about having Cheat Engine installed, but I definitely do not have that or anything of the sort installed lmao

Steelion fucked around with this message at 03:47 on Oct 16, 2020

Unhappy Meal
Jul 27, 2010

Some smiles show mirth
Others merely show teeth

The good old days of shooting goons at gate camps, and side-eyeing the guy in my guild spending $400 a month on the game.

I actually tried going back to the Ace Online version recently, but the grind once you hit the moon was just too much so an increased rate server with the cash shop stuff linked to PVP sounds great.

Super Space Jam 64
Jan 6, 2010

Yet another violation of regulation 1910 subpart D.

Steelion posted:

Well I was all hyped to play this game again but it's yelling at me about having Cheat Engine installed, but I definitely do not have that or anything of the sort installed lmao

I had this issue, it's due to it being present in the registry even after uninstall. Here's the fix:

OldSchoolRivals discord posted:

Basically cheat engine leaves a registry entry, which this game uses as one of it's many methods to determine the person isn't cheating. It should remove it on proper uninstallation but alas, some versions seems to leave some junk behind.

1) Hold down windows key, then R.
2) In "Run", type in "regedit"
3). HKEY_CURRENT_USER>Software
4). Find the name of the cheat engine
5). Right-click, delete

The OldSchoolRivals install should now work (remember run as administrator)

nothingxs
Sep 7, 2005

Do as you like. It's not my job to kill you.
I joined the game with an I-Gear on ANI, just like the old days (character name Celica).

A bit of a resurrection of an old thread, but I wanted to gauge interest in this game still, since I'd like to revisit SCO/Air Rivals/Ace Online again, and the most fun I had playing it was with goons, after all.

Super Space Jam 64
Jan 6, 2010

Yet another violation of regulation 1910 subpart D.
I still log in from time to time, I got to level 92 and it's fun to zip around and blast dudes occasionally. I would be more active with more players but perhaps this game's glory days are gone, never to return

Frozen Pizza Party
Dec 13, 2005

Downloading now, I'll be playing as Beardie, an M-Gear because I hate myself.

PathAsc
Nov 15, 2011

Hail SS-18 Satan may he cleanse us with nuclear fire

PISS TAPE IS REAL

I don't know how I missed this thread, I've been dying to play this again.

Super Space Jam 64
Jan 6, 2010

Yet another violation of regulation 1910 subpart D.
Heck, if people are playing again I'll play too! My I gear is level 92 or something, and I play on ANI. Give me some usernames to add as friends!

PathAsc
Nov 15, 2011

Hail SS-18 Satan may he cleanse us with nuclear fire

PISS TAPE IS REAL

I'm installing today, I don't guess starting over will be too bad seeing as I'll be playing with goons again!

PathAsc
Nov 15, 2011

Hail SS-18 Satan may he cleanse us with nuclear fire

PISS TAPE IS REAL

Oh god, I need to get back on ace so I can remember wtf I was running last on my builds and how I had my shortcuts set up. Might even have to dig out the old computer to see what my gamepad settings were lol. I can't wait to kit, roll, and tp my way into the hearts hatred of the pubbies :getin:

ANI forever

In as PathAsc and PathAscSA

MrTheDevious
May 7, 2006

Ahh nostalgia, you cruel bitch

Super Space Jam 64 posted:

I had this issue, it's due to it being present in the registry even after uninstall. Here's the fix:

Heads up, that's the ONLY check the game does, so you don't even need to uninstall CE. Just delete that registry key before you fire up the game each time

Photosyphilis
Jul 17, 2014

Science rules!
I missed this thread too. I didnt play too much during the old rgx days, but I came back to it and grinded the hell out of it. Found the thread and I've been on the server a couple days. Anyone got a brig started?
Add me GraybeardSA

PathAsc
Nov 15, 2011

Hail SS-18 Satan may he cleanse us with nuclear fire

PISS TAPE IS REAL

I haven't had a chance to play lately but if I do and get up there enough before others I'll make it if it ain't there yet.

nescience
Jan 24, 2011

h'okay
How active are goons on this thing?

PathAsc
Nov 15, 2011

Hail SS-18 Satan may he cleanse us with nuclear fire

PISS TAPE IS REAL

No idea, I keep getting distracted and not playing, I'm bad and dumb

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Super Space Jam 64
Jan 6, 2010

Yet another violation of regulation 1910 subpart D.
I haven’t played in a few years but I would be happy to hang out if anyone wants to chill while grinding. I would be very much down to join a SA brig too.

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