For those unaware 91.8 The Fan wouldn't exist if it wasn't for a game entitled Pangya. The game itself has sort of a long history with myself and Kibs playing for roughly four years now. When both of us originally met through Sandgolem, we started a podcast together entitled "Into The Rough". There's a domain squatter on the original URL now since we let it expire since we had all moved onto other things.
My old Pangya blog entitled "
Tiki's Spellbook" can still be found inactive if you're curious enough.
The game has traded several publishers throughout the years. Originally released by Ntreev in Korea, the game came to the US through OGPlanet. We gave a lot of flak to OGPlanet when they had the game, but honestly considering their contractual agreements I'm more supportive of the time they had the game. Some things were changed and Westernized like character names (for example "Azer" became "Uncle Bob", which is far more fitting in my opinion) as well as some features we got increasingly late.
About the time many of us let go of the game was after the release of Pangya: Fantasy Golf for PSP (which is great, I would highly recommend picking it up even as a rent), but near the beginning of the new publishers Ntreev USA taking over.
Ntreev allowed us to take our old items, but we quickly lost all of our in game money. Shops, guilds, and other things were closed for a lengthy time. They also introduced a second system to get rares entitled the Gacha System when previously it was Mr. E-Card (which still exists but as Scratchy Card and seems to recycle the older rares over and over). Overall, a lot of us decided to give up the PC game.
I still play the PSP version, and I have to admit it's wonderful. I have the Wii versions, but I'm pretty terrible at them. They don't have the sort of control you can get from the handheld or computer version. Regardless. I do hop onto the computer version every three months or so (granted I also played on the now defunct European servers, Korean, and Japanese servers more often).
The game is essentially golf, which sounds boring. I thought as much, too... but the game makes you challenge yourself over other people. There's a lot of complexities that some people won't appreciate while others will really enjoy that aspect. Level in this game doesn't matter, and even items you can get with Pang (in-game money) versus Cookies/Astro (paid for money) aren't all the different in the long run. Once you get to a degree of consistent HIOs and -30 scores the game becomes all about gambling.
I can say earnestly that between Kibs and myself we probably spend an easy ten grand on the game. I'm not even exaggerating since a hundred to two a month on rares can become quite a big deal. Obviously we went overboard, but it's still a fun game for those who are willing to try.
03-16-2011, 12:39 PM
Linear Mode
