Please excuse the lower quality of the promotional art, most of these are wallpapers no longer available for download from official sources. Much like the game itself.
As you can tell from the beautiful artwork, a lot of effort went into the marketing campaign surrounding this game. It was pitched as an MMO magical horse racing game, and there was a lot of interest surrounding it in South Korea.
Not only was there beautiful artwork, but there was also a fast food tie-in paired with a celebrity endorsement of the game:
At a glance, the game had a lot going for it. After all, having a great deal of marketing from big names and beloved fast food joints is great for brand awareness. Surely, this is the beginning of a beautiful IP which wins the hearts of players from all over the world.
Those photos were taken in March 2011, if my sources are correct. However, in February 2014, the game permanently closed its official server due to a lack of funds to keep it going.
Here’s the official announcement from the developers regarding closure of the servers in early 2014:
So, what happened? Money. Or, a lack thereof to justify keeping the servers open.
Ntreev Soft itself had been running on deficits for years; which has led them to closing their doors in February 2024 for good.
While financial reasons appear to be the main reason for the game’s closure, I wondered what it was about the game itself that was no longer profitable throughout its run. For a game that had a solid marketing team, it’s bizarre that it ended up closing down after three years. They could’ve broken into the mobile market long before Star Stable Online did.
They didn’t. As a matter of fact, they didn’t release outside of South Korea. I get the feeling that had they marketed this game to western audiences, they would’ve seen a lot more success.
Let’s get started with the positives of this game.
The in-game Avatars for the main characters look alright. This is one of few games where the male Avatar isn’t boring to look at, and comes with his own decent selection of outfits.
And that’s just a fraction of the outfits that you can assemble (with in-game currency you win from races, of course). Whoever designed the outfits really nailed it with this game.
There’s also a ton of hairstyles to choose from. Luckily, if you’re not happy with the color of your hair you can modify via the Chat log.
However, I do wish there were more skin tone options. Maybe someday, after the game comes back (if it does). Otherwise, they’re some of the best ones I’ve seen in any equestrian game.
As for the horse models.
I love the fact that the horses only come in real world coat colors, because it allows the variety of wings that appear in the game stand out more. Especially the seasonal ones. The animations for their tails and manes in action are lovely, but sometimes the longer manes clip into the armor sets you can purchase from the shop (with carrots).
Gameplay
Alicia Online has a fun tutorial mode for new players. It’s engaging, direct and easy to follow. Although I wasn’t good at pulling off sliding dashes, the controls were fine for the most part during the races themselves.
The racetracks have a nice, vibrant, pastel color scheme that I also find nice. There’s enough variety to keep you entertained for the 25 race grind.
I like the magic races over speed, because they’re more chaotic with the inclusion of magic spells to sabotage your enemies. If you’ve ever played Mario Kart, you’ll know what I’m talking about because the races are exactly like that.
However, may the Lord save you if you choose to do speed race centric daily tasks for gems. You’ll need friends willing to endure those with you, because finding anyone on the servers willing to do those is a lot harder than it sounds.
Now, onto the negatives. Keep in mind that my critique is not an attack on the admins who run the private servers, but rather it is directed at the original developers at Ntreev. I don’t fault Alex (the admin who runs/ran the private server for close to a decade), as he has to deal with the cards he was given with the game’s coding. We’ll talk more about the state of the private server a little further down. I’m also aware that, supposedly, Alicia 2.0 was a lot worse than people remember it to be. I cannot verify that statement as I wasn’t present to witness what 2.0 was like.
My first complaint is that, while the horses have beautiful models I wish there was more variety outside of the coat colors. I’m aware there used to be a shire inspired model
and a donkey that were rideable at one point in 2.0.
Waiting rooms
Who was the sick fuck at Ntreev that thought it’d be a great idea for online races to be the only way to level up?
really hate that the only way you can gain experience is through online races. If you’re a new player, be prepared to lose a lot of races by people with higher levels than you. I wish that you could gain experience from racing with NPCs, and that you can complete daily tasks offline.
That way, you’re not stuck waiting ten minutes at a time in between races waiting on someone to finish taking a dump or whatever they’re doing.
Another thing that sucks is getting booted out of a room because of some asshole waltzing in and asking for his friend to be included in the room. Go make your own room if you want to race with a friend that badly.
I digress, let’s move on.
Story (lack there of)
The other major issue I have with it is the lack of a main quest story. I don’t think I’ve ever played a story without a story of some kind. Even some of the early Atari games had something resembling stories for players to latch onto. I guess Pong doesn’t have much of a plot, and neither does Mario Kart come to think of it.
Even so, for an MMO fantasy horse racing game I was half expecting there to be some kind of story quest that would give me a reason to continue playing. However, after a few weeks of play sessions, I got bored.
I’d talk about characters but there’s nothing to talk about. Maybe Stato and Thomas? They don’t have much to say, I’m afraid. Neither do I. I’m sure there’s some extended resource in Korean that delves into their backstories, but as there’s no way to access it I have no comment.
For what they are, they’re okay. They give you some daily tasks, that’s about it.
Breeding
The breeding system is fine for the most part, or at least with what I can recall. As long as you’re not breeding for a specific color of horse with maxed out potential, cream coat and the curly gene, it’s serviceable.
Armor
There’s a lot of flashy, cool armor sets that you can put on your horse to race with.
So why is this a negative?
Because they expire. Even if you paid 50k in carrots for each sets they expire after a few days. I suspect that this was once an underhanded microtransaction to force players to keep spending real world money for sets that they should have rightfully had full ownership of.
Very sneaky of the original developer team if my assumptions are correct.
Final thoughts
Although I love(d) this game, I can see why it didn’t have the holding power that it could have had.
It seems to me that not only is this game a bit unforgiving to new players desperately trying to level up in order to unlock more mechanics, but there were a lot of microtransactions in places where it shouldn’t have existed. These transactions would force players to keep logging in if they wanted to keep the sets they worked hard for.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of players quit back then due to frustrations from all of these problems. The fact that there’s only racing and breeding to do is another factor in players likely quitting after a couple weeks.
It’s a shame because the IP itself has a lot of potential to be a really interesting fantasy equine game. I wish there was a way to help the private server admin gain full rights to the IP, so not only could he make a profit from his efforts but that he’d also be able to release the game on Steam and other platforms. I imagine he’d also add in a lot more additional content, since he’d have the money to hire more hands to help out.
I say that because it doesn’t seem like there’s any other way this game is officially returning. As mentioned earlier, Ntreev Soft closed their doors permanently in February 2024.
Shoutout to AliciaonHeart for gathering information regarding the early marketing of this game. It really helps with adding context to this game’s rise and fall.
Unfortunately, as of writing, the private server has been down since early July 2024 and it’s likely going to be down until the developer says otherwise.
CORRECTION: I was wrong about not being able to gain EXP from NPCs. You can, I just forgot because it’s been so long.
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