Tidak semua game yang terinspirasi dari waralaba besar mampu membawa semangat aslinya ke dalam pengalaman interaktif. Namun Dune: Awakening, proyek ambisius dari Funcom, tampil sebagai pengecualian yang patut diperhitungkan. Menggabungkan elemen survival, open world, dan multiplayer masif, game ini mencoba menangkap esensi dunia Dune karya Frank Herbert sambil menciptakan sesuatu yang benar benar baru bagi penggemar genre game bertahan hidup dan penjelajahan bebas.
Dune bukan sekadar padang pasir. Ia adalah planet penuh misteri, konflik kekuasaan, dan filosofi tentang kendali atas sumber daya yang paling berharga di alam semesta: spice. Dune: Awakening menempatkan pemain di tengah kekacauan Arrakis dan membiarkan mereka menentukan nasibnya sendiri dalam dunia yang terus berubah dan tak pernah memberikan rasa aman.
Arrakis Bukan Sekadar Latar, Tapi Lawan yang Abadi
Salah satu daya tarik utama Dune: Awakening terletak pada cara pengembang menghidupkan Arrakis. Tidak seperti game survival biasa hokijp168 yang memiliki lanskap statis, Arrakis adalah dunia aktif yang senantiasa berubah. Badai pasir bisa menghancurkan bangunan dan mengubur jalanan yang sebelumnya kamu kenal. Monster gurun seperti cacing pasir raksasa bisa muncul tiba tiba dan menghancurkan kendaraanmu. Tidak ada tempat yang benar benar aman.
Elemen survival dalam game ini diperkuat oleh kondisi alam yang ekstrem. Cuaca, suhu, dan kebutuhan dasar seperti air dan makanan menjadi tantangan utama yang harus diatasi pemain setiap harinya. Ini bukan hanya tentang bertarung atau mengumpulkan sumber daya, tetapi juga tentang bagaimana kamu beradaptasi dengan lingkungan yang sangat tidak bersahabat.
Pemain dituntut untuk belajar membaca tanda tanda cuaca, memanfaatkan struktur untuk berteduh, dan menggunakan teknologi khas dunia Dune untuk bertahan hidup. Ketika kamu menjelajah lebih jauh ke dalam gurun, Arrakis akan menunjukkan wujud aslinya sebagai makhluk hidup yang menuntut respek dan kewaspadaan.
Spice: Nafas Kehidupan dan Sumber Konflik
Dalam semesta Dune, spice adalah segalanya. Ia bukan hanya sumber energi dan kekuatan, tetapi juga pusat konflik antar faksi. Di Dune: Awakening, spice menjadi poros utama ekonomi, kemajuan teknologi, dan bahkan sistem progresi karakter. Mengumpulkan spice bukanlah pekerjaan mudah, karena selain dijaga ketat oleh musuh, aktivitas ini juga mengundang perhatian cacing pasir.
Pemain harus mengatur strategi dan waktu dengan bijak. Apakah kamu akan mengumpulkan spice dalam diam, atau membangun kekuatan militer untuk mengklaim lokasi strategis dan melawan pemain lain? Keputusan ini akan membentuk reputasimu di antara komunitas dan menentukan jalur cerita yang kamu jalani.
Salah satu fitur unik adalah bagaimana spice memengaruhi karakter secara langsung. Konsumsi spice dapat membuka kemampuan baru, memperkuat tubuh, dan memperluas persepsi. Namun seperti dalam novel, konsumsi berlebihan memiliki konsekuensi. Ini menciptakan dilema moral dan strategis yang jarang ditemukan dalam game survival.
Sistem Fraksi yang Dinamis dan Dipengaruhi Pemain
Tidak seperti game MMO survival yang hanya menyediakan fraksi statis sebagai latar belakang, Dune: Awakening memungkinkan pemain membentuk atau mempengaruhi jalannya fraksi besar di dunia Arrakis. Kamu bisa bergabung dengan House besar, membantu membangun kekuasaan mereka, atau justru menjadi pemberontak yang menantang dominasi aristokrasi galaksi.
Diplomasi, spionase, dan ekonomi menjadi bagian dari permainan yang sama pentingnya dengan pertarungan. Pemain bisa terlibat dalam perundingan antar faksi, sabotase misi musuh, atau bahkan menjalin aliansi rahasia untuk kepentingan pribadi. Dunia sosial dalam Dune: Awakening bergerak seperti papan catur besar yang terus berubah sesuai tindakan kolektif para pemainnya.
Selain itu, faksi juga memengaruhi akses terhadap teknologi, senjata, dan kendaraan. Bergabung dengan kelompok elit akan membuka akses ke teknologi mutakhir, namun bisa membuatmu menjadi target musuh. Sementara hidup sebagai independen memberi kebebasan total, tapi dengan risiko minimnya perlindungan dan sumber daya.
Pertarungan yang Menuntut Taktik dan Ketelitian
Dune: Awakening tidak menampilkan pertarungan sembarangan. Setiap pertempuran membutuhkan perencanaan, pemilihan senjata, dan pemanfaatan medan dengan cerdas. Senjata api, alat energi, perisai pelindung, dan kendaraan berat semua tersedia, tetapi tidak ada yang mutlak unggul. Setiap senjata dan strategi memiliki kelemahan dan keunggulan tergantung situasi.
Misalnya, perisai pelindung akan menahan proyektil konvensional, tetapi bisa ditembus oleh serangan lambat atau senjata jarak dekat. Ini menciptakan lapisan taktik yang mendalam dalam setiap konflik, baik dalam duel individu maupun perang skala besar antar kelompok.
Tidak hanya bertarung melawan pemain lain, kamu juga harus menghadapi bahaya dari lingkungan seperti badai listrik, hewan gurun mematikan, dan sisa teknologi kuno yang menjadi ancaman tersendiri. Semua ini menuntut pemain untuk selalu siap dan adaptif.
Eksplorasi dan Penemuan yang Tak Pernah Sia sia
Dunia Dune: Awakening sangat luas dan menyimpan banyak rahasia. Dari reruntuhan bangunan Bene Gesserit hingga laboratorium tersembunyi milik Ix, pemain didorong untuk menjelajah dan menemukan peninggalan masa lalu. Setiap tempat memiliki kisahnya sendiri yang tersimpan dalam catatan, artefak, atau peristiwa yang pernah terjadi di lokasi tersebut.
Menemukan teknologi kuno bisa membuka jalur progresi eksklusif, kemampuan langka, atau informasi penting untuk mengalahkan musuh kuat. Penjelajahan bukan hanya sekadar jalan jalan, tapi bagian penting dari strategi bertahan dan berkembang di dunia Arrakis.
Kebebasan Penuh dalam Membangun dan Berkembang
Di tengah kerasnya gurun, pemain diberikan kebebasan untuk membangun. Dari tenda sederhana hingga basis militer besar, semua bisa dikembangkan sesuai kebutuhan. Sistem pembangunan dalam Dune: Awakening tidak hanya kosmetik, tapi fungsional. Kamu bisa membangun pusat produksi spice, menara pengawas, tempat penelitian, hingga fasilitas pelatihan.
Sumber daya terbatas dan seringkali harus diperebutkan, sehingga membangun tidak hanya tentang desain, tapi juga strategi. Apakah kamu akan membuat basis tersembunyi jauh dari pusat konflik, atau membangun markas besar di titik strategis penuh risiko?
Selain itu, kamu juga bisa merekrut pengikut, NPC dengan keahlian berbeda yang bisa membantumu bertahan, mempercepat produksi, atau bahkan bertempur bersamamu. Semua ini memperkaya kedalaman gameplay dan menciptakan nuansa RPG yang kental dalam dunia MMO survival.
Kustomisasi Karakter dan Peran
Seperti dunia Dune yang penuh dengan identitas dan filosofi, Dune: Awakening memungkinkan pemain membentuk karakter unik dengan latar belakang dan spesialisasi tertentu. Apakah kamu akan menjadi pengintai, pedagang spice, pembunuh bayaran, diplomat, atau ilmuwan?
Pilihan pilihan ini tidak hanya kosmetik, tapi memengaruhi dialog, akses teknologi, bahkan hubungan sosial dengan NPC dan pemain lain. Sistem ini mendorong keragaman dalam komunitas dan membuat setiap karakter terasa hidup dan berbeda satu sama lain.
Kesimpulan: Dune Awakening adalah Evolusi Baru Game Survival MMO
Dune: Awakening bukan sekadar adaptasi dari dunia fiksi ilmiah legendaris, tetapi juga langkah besar dalam genre survival MMO. Dengan memadukan ekosistem dinamis, konflik sosial, ekonomi berbasis sumber daya langka, dan kebebasan membentuk identitas pemain, game ini menciptakan dunia hidup yang tak pernah diam.
Arrakis bukan tempat bagi yang lemah. Ia adalah panggung bagi petarung, pemimpin, pengkhianat, dan pencari makna. Setiap pasir yang terhembus angin menyimpan rahasia. Setiap langkah yang kamu ambil bisa menentukan nasib faksi, bahkan planet itu sendiri.
Dune: Awakening tidak menawarkan kenyamanan, tetapi menawarkan petualangan yang sarat makna dan ketegangan. Sebuah pengalaman yang bisa menjebakmu selama berjam jam, bukan karena repetisi, tetapi karena rasa haus untuk terus memahami dan menguasai dunia yang begitu liar, keras, dan indah ini.
Bagi banyak penggemar horor, Silent Hill 2 bukan sekadar video game. Ia adalah sebuah pengalaman, sebuah perjalanan ke dalam kedalaman batin manusia yang terganggu. Game yang dirilis oleh Konami pada tahun 2001 ini telah melekat kuat dalam sejarah sebagai salah satu mahakarya horor psikologis terbaik yang pernah dibuat. Lewat atmosfer toto macau 4d yang mencekam, musik yang menghantui, dan tema-tema emosional yang berat, Silent Hill 2 menghadirkan sebuah cerita yang tidak hanya menakutkan, tetapi juga memilukan.
saya ingin mengajak Anda melihat lebih dalam: mengapa Silent Hill 2 begitu abadi, dan bagaimana game ini mengangkat standar baru untuk genre horor, bukan dengan mengejutkan pemain lewat jump scare, tapi dengan menggerogoti rasa aman mereka secara perlahan—hingga habis tak tersisa.
Sebuah Surat dari Istri yang Telah Tiada
Cerita Silent Hill 2 berpusat pada James Sunderland, seorang pria biasa yang menerima surat dari istrinya, Mary. Yang membuat segalanya terasa salah adalah: Mary sudah meninggal tiga tahun lalu. Surat itu membimbing James ke kota berkabut Silent Hill, tempat kenangan indah mereka dulu tercipta—dan di mana kini, horor batin mengintainya di setiap sudut.
Apa yang membuat kisah ini unik adalah kedalaman temanya. Silent Hill 2 tidak berbicara tentang hantu dalam arti konvensional. Sebaliknya, kota Silent Hill bertindak sebagai cermin psikologis, memanifestasikan rasa bersalah, trauma, dan penyangkalan yang ada dalam diri James dan karakter lainnya.
Ini bukan cerita tentang melawan iblis. Ini adalah cerita tentang melawan diri sendiri.
Dunia Berkabut yang Mengisolasi
Silent Hill, sebagai setting utama, bukan sekadar latar tempat. Kota ini adalah karakter tersendiri. Kabut yang menutupi pandangan, suara radio statis yang memekakkan telinga saat musuh mendekat, jalan yang buntu tanpa penjelasan, serta suasana sepi yang mencengkeram jiwa—semuanya dikemas dengan penuh presisi untuk menciptakan ketegangan psikologis.
Kamu tidak hanya merasa sendirian di kota ini. Kamu merasa diawasi, dan lebih buruknya, kamu sendiri tidak tahu oleh siapa. Dengan minimnya cahaya, pergerakan yang terbatas, dan pacing lambat yang disengaja, Silent Hill 2 membangun atmosfer yang mengikis rasa amanmu dari waktu ke waktu.
Soundtrack karya Akira Yamaoka semakin memperkuat nuansa ini—melodi piano lembut yang menyayat hati, efek suara industri yang mengerikan, dan diam yang berdenting lebih keras dari suara apa pun.
Monster sebagai Manifestasi Emosi
Salah satu aspek paling ikonik dari Silent Hill 2 adalah desain monsternya. Mereka bukan sekadar musuh untuk dibunuh, tetapi adalah refleksi dari isi pikiran karakter utama.
Contohnya:
Pyramid Head, musuh paling terkenal di game ini, bukan hanya simbol teror, tetapi representasi rasa bersalah James atas masa lalunya. Ia tidak bisa dibunuh dengan cara biasa, karena ia adalah bagian dari James sendiri.
Lying Figure, monster yang tubuhnya dibungkus seperti straitjacket dan menyemburkan asap dari dada, bisa ditafsirkan sebagai simbol represi emosional.
Mannequin, makhluk berkaki dua pasang tanpa kepala, melambangkan objektifikasi dan ketegangan seksual James.
Tidak seperti game horor biasa, Silent Hill 2 memaksa pemain untuk merenungkan makna keberadaan monster, bukan hanya cara mengalahkannya. Ini adalah pengalaman horor yang lebih bersifat introspektif ketimbang reaktif.
Karakter-Karakter yang Rusak
Selain James, game ini memperkenalkan karakter-karakter lain yang semuanya memiliki luka batin tersendiri:
Angela Orosco, seorang gadis muda yang mengalami kekerasan seksual dari ayahnya, terjebak dalam siklus rasa bersalah dan keinginan untuk mati.
Eddie Dombrowski, pria yang mengalami bullying berat dan mengarah pada kekerasan terhadap siapa pun yang memandang rendah dirinya.
Maria, sosok yang mirip Mary namun lebih sensual dan impulsif—dia menjadi simbol antara pengganti Mary dan obsesi James yang belum selesai.
Setiap karakter membawa cerita kelam dan trauma pribadi mereka sendiri. Interaksi mereka dengan James tidak hanya menambah kedalaman naratif, tapi juga membuka berbagai lapisan emosi dan moral yang mengaburkan batas antara benar dan salah.
Multi Ending: Cermin dari Pilihanmu
Salah satu keunggulan Silent Hill 2 adalah sistem ending-nya yang tidak ditentukan oleh keputusan eksplisit, tetapi oleh cara kamu bermain. Apakah kamu sering memeriksa status kesehatan James? Apakah kamu menunjukkan perhatian pada Maria? Apakah kamu banyak menjelajahi area atau langsung menuju tujuan?
Dari tindakan-tindakan itu, game akan menyimpulkan arah emosional James—apakah ia mampu menerima kenyataan, apakah ia memilih untuk melarikan diri, atau bahkan apakah ia memilih untuk mengikuti suara kelam di kepalanya. Ada ending yang tragis, ambigu, dan bahkan ending rahasia yang konyol (seperti ending UFO), tapi semuanya memperkuat identitas naratif game ini.
Mekanika Gameplay yang Sederhana Namun Efektif
Secara gameplay, Silent Hill 2 memang tidak menampilkan sistem pertarungan kompleks. James bukan petarung, dan itu terlihat dari cara ia mengayunkan pipa besi atau menembakkan pistol. Gerakannya kaku, dan itu disengaja—untuk menegaskan bahwa kamu adalah manusia biasa, bukan pahlawan.
Puzzle dan teka-teki menjadi bagian penting dari game ini, memaksa pemain untuk memperhatikan detail, dokumen, simbol, dan bahkan metafora. Ada rasa kepuasan tersendiri ketika berhasil memecahkan teka-teki di sebuah apartemen angker, atau saat menemukan kunci di dalam kaleng makanan anjing.
Meski terlihat sederhana, semua elemen gameplay dibalut dengan narasi dan atmosfer yang kuat, menjadikannya bagian utuh dari pengalaman bermain.
Warisan dan Pengaruh yang Bertahan
Lebih dari dua dekade setelah perilisannya, Silent Hill 2 tetap dianggap sebagai puncak dari genre survival horror. Game ini menjadi bahan studi bagi desainer game, penulis naratif, dan bahkan peneliti psikologi.
Berbagai game horor modern seperti Amnesia, Layers of Fear, The Medium, bahkan The Last of Us Part II, meminjam elemen-elemen emosional, atmosferik, dan psikologis dari Silent Hill 2. Bahkan film-film seperti Jacob’s Ladder dan The Babadook kerap dikaitkan sebagai inspirasi atau saudara tematik dari game ini.
Dan dengan remake resmi Silent Hill 2 dalam pengerjaan oleh Bloober Team, harapan besar muncul untuk membawa ulang mahakarya ini ke generasi pemain yang lebih baru—tentu saja, sambil menjaga keintiman dan kedalaman emosional yang menjadi jiwanya.
Kesimpulan: Ketakutan Terbesar Ada di Dalam Diri Kita
Silent Hill 2 tidak menakutkan karena monster-monsternya, atau karena tampilannya yang suram. Ia menakutkan karena menyentuh ketakutan yang paling dalam—kesedihan, penyesalan, trauma, rasa bersalah, dan keinginan untuk memperbaiki hal-hal yang sudah terlambat.
Game ini mengajarkan bahwa terkadang, musuh terbesar adalah pikiran kita sendiri. Bahwa kota yang berkabut itu bukanlah tempat, melainkan perwujudan dari luka yang tak sembuh. Dan bahwa bahkan dalam kegelapan terdalam pun, selalu ada pilihan—antara menerima, atau tenggelam.
Setelah penantian panjang selama hampir satu dekade, Dead Island 2 akhirnya bangkit dari kubur pengembangannya yang penuh drama. Game ini pertama kali diumumkan pada 2014 dan mengalami beberapa kali pergantian studio pengembang, hingga akhirnya diselesaikan oleh Dambuster Studios dan dirilis secara resmi pada tahun 2023. Meski perjalanan data kingkong4d pengembangannya penuh liku, hasil akhirnya cukup mengejutkan—bukan karena inovasi luar biasa, tapi karena ia tahu persis apa yang ingin diberikan: kekacauan berdarah, aksi over-the-top, dan dunia zombie yang menyenangkan.
saya melihat Dead Island 2 bukan sebagai game zombie yang ingin memecahkan standar baru, melainkan sebagai perayaan kekerasan bergaya arcade di tengah dunia yang penuh warna dan kegilaan. Ini bukan game yang mendorongmu merenung, tapi game yang memintamu tersenyum sambil memutilasi zombie dengan cara yang paling absurd.
Dari Pulau ke Pantai: L.A. Jadi Neraka yang Terang Benderang
Berbeda dari pendahulunya yang berlatar di pulau tropis bernama Banoi, Dead Island 2 membawa kita ke Los Angeles (yang kini disebut “HELL-A”), yang telah berubah menjadi zona karantina penuh zombie. Wilayah seperti Beverly Hills, Venice Beach, dan Hollywood direpresentasikan dengan gaya semi-open world, memadukan pemandangan khas L.A. dengan kehancuran dan mayat hidup berkeliaran.
Salah satu hal paling menarik dari Dead Island 2 adalah kontras tajam antara dunia cerah yang glamor dan kekerasan eksplisit yang terjadi di dalamnya. Ini adalah game zombie yang tidak bermain di lorong gelap atau bunker bawah tanah—ia bermain di tengah sinar matahari, pesta kolam renang, dan toko-toko mewah yang kini dipenuhi darah dan isi perut manusia.
Dunia ini bukan hanya sekadar latar, tetapi juga penuh dengan misi sampingan, cerita lucu, satir sosial, dan detail dunia yang menambah imersi. Kamu akan menemukan influencer yang masih merekam video saat kiamat zombie, pesta elit yang berubah menjadi pembantaian, dan NPC eksentrik yang tetap berpegang pada gaya hidup Hollywood meski dunia telah runtuh.
Karakter: Slayer Penuh Gaya dan Darah
Dalam Dead Island 2, kamu bisa memilih salah satu dari enam karakter atau “Slayers”, masing-masing dengan latar belakang, kepribadian, dan skill unik. Pemilihan karakter ini berpengaruh pada gaya bermainmu, karena setiap Slayer punya kombinasi Stats dan “Innate Skills” yang tidak bisa diubah.
Beberapa di antaranya:
Dani – Slayer dengan kemampuan regenerasi saat membunuh dan serangan eksplosif. Cocok untuk gaya bermain agresif.
Jacob – Bertenaga besar dan ideal untuk pertarungan jarak dekat.
Amy – Cepat dan gesit, cocok untuk pemain yang suka taktik hit-and-run.
Tidak seperti RPG berat, kamu tidak akan naik level dan bebas mengalokasikan poin ke mana saja. Sebagai gantinya, game ini menggunakan sistem Skill Cards, di mana kamu bisa menyesuaikan gaya bertarung dengan mengatur kartu kemampuan aktif dan pasif. Sistem ini cukup fleksibel dan memberi pemain keleluasaan bereksperimen tanpa kompleksitas berlebih.
Sistem FLESH: Simfoni Kekerasan dan Mutilasi
Jika ada satu fitur yang paling menonjol di Dead Island 2, itu adalah FLESH system (Fully Locational Evisceration System for Humanoids)—teknologi pemotongan tubuh zombie yang memungkinkan pemain menghancurkan, mencabik, dan memutilasi zombie secara dinamis dan sangat detail.
Dengan FLESH, kamu bisa:
Menghancurkan tengkorak musuh secara perlahan.
Memotong tangan atau kaki sesuai arah tebasan.
Membakar, melelehkan, atau menggoreng zombie hingga hanya tersisa kerangka.
Mungkin terdengar sadis, tapi di sinilah letak daya tarik game ini. Dead Island 2 tidak mengambil dirinya terlalu serius. Ia adalah kartun berdarah dengan efek sinematik, dan setiap pertempuran terasa seperti pertunjukan kekerasan yang absurd. FLESH system membuat setiap senjata terasa berdampak dan menjadikan aksi pembantaian zombie sesuatu yang benar-benar memuaskan.
Senjata dan Modifikasi: Alat Kreatif untuk Kekacauan
Game ini memiliki puluhan senjata melee dan jarak jauh, dari katana, martil, pipa besi, hingga senapan dan molotov. Tapi daya tarik utama adalah kemampuan memodifikasi senjata dengan berbagai efek elemental, seperti:
Api untuk membakar zombie.
Listrik untuk menyetrum dan melumpuhkan.
Racun untuk efek area damage.
Asam untuk merusak armor dan kulit zombie.
Modifikasi ini dapat digabung dengan sistem FLESH untuk menciptakan pembantaian yang sinematik, misalnya: menyiram lantai dengan air, menyalakannya dengan percikan listrik, lalu menyaksikan zombie terbakar sambil kamu tertawa puas.
Kamu bisa memperbaiki, meng-upgrade, atau mendaur ulang senjata di Workbench. Tapi jangan terlalu terikat pada satu senjata, karena durability tetap berlaku, memaksa kamu untuk terus beradaptasi dengan kondisi pertempuran.
Cerita: Sederhana Tapi Cukup Seru
Plot utama Dead Island 2 mengikuti perjuangan karakter utama yang ternyata kebal terhadap infeksi zombie, dan mencoba mencari jalan keluar dari Los Angeles sambil bekerja sama (atau bentrok) dengan faksi-faksi yang bertahan hidup. Meski premisnya klise, penulisannya cerdas dan penuh humor gelap, seringkali mengejek budaya selebritas, gaya hidup mewah, dan obsesi manusia terhadap media sosial bahkan saat dunia hancur.
Cerita ini memang tidak mendalam seperti The Last of Us, tapi tidak pernah berniat seperti itu. Ia lebih condong pada gaya campy dan over-the-top, cocok untuk dunia game yang penuh warna dan darah.
Mode Multiplayer: Makin Seru dengan Teman
Dead Island 2 mendukung mode co-op hingga tiga pemain, memungkinkan kamu dan teman-teman menciptakan pesta zombie berdarah bersama. Walaupun game ini bisa dinikmati solo, pengalaman membantai zombie bersama pemain lain jelas menambah keseruan, terutama saat menghadapi gerombolan besar atau bos unik.
Namun, co-op di sini tidak mengusung sistem looting kompetitif atau kompetisi PvP. Semua pemain tetap fokus pada kerja sama, membuat pengalaman bermain lebih ramah dan santai, tanpa tekanan berebut item atau misi.
Visual dan Performa: Dunia Neraka yang Indah
Secara teknis, Dead Island 2 adalah game yang solid. Menggunakan Unreal Engine 4, game ini tampil dengan grafis yang tajam, efek pencahayaan dinamis, dan animasi musuh yang luar biasa detail—terutama dalam sistem mutilasinya.
Di PS5 dan PC, game ini berjalan sangat lancar dengan frame rate stabil. Dunia semi-open-nya terasa cukup besar tanpa terasa kosong, karena tiap area memiliki misi sampingan, rahasia tersembunyi, dan desain lingkungan yang memikat secara visual.
Desain zombie juga sangat bervariasi, dengan berbagai jenis:
Walkers – zombie biasa dengan animasi realistis.
Runners – zombie cepat yang sulit dihindari.
Crushers – musuh besar dengan HP tinggi.
Screamers – bisa memanggil musuh lain dengan teriakan.
Variasi ini memastikan pertempuran tetap menantang dan dinamis, memaksamu untuk mengubah taktik secara berkala.
Kesimpulan: Pembantaian Zombie yang Penuh Gaya
Dead Island 2 bukan revolusi dalam genre zombie, tetapi ia adalah penyempurnaan dari kesenangan guilty pleasure—game yang tidak malu menjadi gila, penuh kekerasan, dan mengedepankan hiburan murni. Dengan sistem FLESH yang inovatif, karakter penuh gaya, serta dunia penuh satir dan aksi, game ini sangat cocok bagi mereka yang ingin melepas stres dengan cara paling brutal dan lucu.
Kalau kamu mencari pengalaman naratif emosional, ini mungkin bukan game untukmu. Tapi kalau kamu ingin membantai zombie sambil tertawa, meng-upgrade senjata gila, dan menjelajahi neraka di tengah sinar matahari California, maka Dead Island 2 adalah pesta darah yang kamu butuhkan.
Di dunia RPG modern yang kerap didominasi game aksi dengan tempo cepat dan narasi yang ditentukan secara linear, muncul sebuah game yang berani menawarkan kebebasan mutlak, kedalaman cerita luar biasa, dan sistem pertarungan taktis berbasis giliran yang sangat kompleks. Game tersebut adalah Divinity: Original Sin 2 – Definitive Edition, mahakarya dari Larian Studios yang tak hanya diakui kritikus, tapi juga dicintai oleh komunitas penggemar RPG di seluruh dunia.
Dirilis pertama kali pada 2017 dan diperbarui lewat versi Definitive Edition pada 2018, Divinity: Original Sin 2 bukan sekadar sekuel, melainkan evolusi penuh dari genre RPG klasik dengan standar baru yang sulit ditandingi hingga hari ini. Dari segi narasi, eksplorasi, sistem pertarungan, hingga desain quest yang interaktif, game ini memberikan pemain kendali penuh atas takdir mereka—baik sebagai pahlawan, pengkhianat, atau bahkan dewa.
Dunia Rivellon: Panggung Epik Penuh Pilihan
Divinity: Original Sin 2 berlatar di dunia fantasi Rivellon, beberapa abad setelah peristiwa game pertamanya. Di masa ini, kekuatan Source—energi sihir kuno—dipandang sebagai ancaman karena menarik perhatian makhluk luar dimensi bernama Voidwoken. Kamu, sebagai salah satu dari “Sourcerers,” dijebloskan ke Pulau Fort Joy untuk direhabilitasi atau dihukum.
Namun, dari sinilah perjalananmu dimulai. Kamu bisa bermain sebagai karakter buatanmu sendiri, atau memilih salah satu dari enam Origin Characters, masing-masing dengan latar belakang, konflik, dan tujuan pribadi. Di antaranya:
Ifan ben-Mezd, mantan pembunuh bayaran.
Lohse, penyanyi yang dirasuki entitas jahat.
Fane, undead dari ras kuno yang terlupakan.
The Red Prince, bangsawan kadal dengan ambisi politik.
Sebille, elf budak pelarian yang haus balas dendam.
Beast, dwarf pemberontak dan kapten kapal.
Menariknya, setiap Origin Character bisa kamu mainkan atau rekrut sebagai companion. Mereka bukan hanya pengikut biasa, melainkan karakter hidup dengan dialog unik, pilihan moral sendiri, dan bahkan bisa bertentangan dengan keputusanmu.
Sistem Pertarungan yang Taktis, Interaktif, dan Brutal
Salah satu daya tarik utama game ini adalah sistem pertarungan turn-based yang sangat fleksibel dan penuh eksperimen. Dengan medan pertempuran yang bisa diubah oleh elemen seperti air, listrik, api, dan racun, kamu bisa menggabungkan efek secara strategis. Misalnya:
Gunakan sihir air untuk membasahi musuh, lalu sambar mereka dengan listrik untuk efek stun.
Hancurkan tong minyak, lalu nyalakan dengan api untuk menciptakan ledakan besar.
Gunakan kabut racun untuk menghalangi pandangan atau memulihkan undead.
Tidak ada sistem mana di sini. Sebagai gantinya, setiap karakter memiliki Action Points (AP) yang digunakan untuk bergerak, menyerang, atau menggunakan skill. Ini membuat setiap giliran menjadi teka-teki kecil—haruskah kamu menyerang, berlindung, atau memposisikan ulang?
Tambahan lainnya adalah sistem armor fisik dan sihir, yang melindungi karakter dari efek crowd control hingga lapisan armor habis. Hal ini mendorong pemain untuk tidak hanya fokus pada damage, tetapi juga kontrol medan perang.
Dan yang paling menyenangkan? Setiap karakter bisa membangun kombinasi build yang sangat variatif. Kamu bisa membuat necromancer penyembuh, tank summoner, rogue pyrokinetic, atau bahkan undead polymorph yang menyamar jadi manusia.
Eksplorasi dan Quest yang Bukan Sekadar Ikon di Peta
Berbeda dari banyak RPG modern yang memberi arah jelas ke setiap tujuan, Divinity: Original Sin 2 percaya pada curiosity-driven exploration. Tidak semua quest akan muncul di journal. Beberapa hanya muncul dari obrolan acak, mendengarkan warga, atau bahkan membaca surat di mayat musuh.
Quest bisa diselesaikan dalam banyak cara—bernegosiasi, menyelinap, membunuh, atau bahkan menghindari sama sekali. Setiap pilihanmu berdampak nyata, tidak hanya dalam bentuk reward, tapi juga bagaimana karakter lain merespons di masa depan.
Misalnya, kamu bisa membantu seorang penjaga menyelamatkan temannya dari racun, atau kamu bisa mencuri barangnya dan menyalahkan tawanan lain. Setiap tindakan bisa membuat kamu disukai, ditakuti, atau bahkan diburu oleh faksi tertentu.
Dan karena game ini memiliki sistem reputasi dan relasi antar karakter, kamu tidak hanya mengelola hubungan dengan dunia, tapi juga dengan anggota partymu sendiri. Jika kamu membuat keputusan yang bertentangan dengan nilai-nilai karakter companion, mereka bisa meninggalkan kelompokmu—atau lebih buruk lagi, berbalik melawanmu.
Fitur Unik: Co-op dan Game Master Mode
Divinity: Original Sin 2 – Definitive Edition mendukung co-op hingga empat pemain, baik online maupun lokal dengan split-screen. Setiap pemain bisa mengendalikan satu karakter dan memilih jalannya sendiri—bahkan pergi ke area berbeda secara bersamaan.
Hal ini membuka peluang untuk permainan kreatif dan kekacauan sosial yang menyenangkan. Temanmu bisa diam-diam mencuri dari toko sementara kamu sibuk berdiplomasi. Atau mereka bisa menikam NPC penting dan memaksamu bertarung karena reputasimu tercemar.
Tak hanya itu, Larian Studios juga menyematkan Game Master Mode, yang memungkinkan pemain menjadi dungeon master ala Dungeons & Dragons. Dengan fitur ini, kamu bisa membuat kampanye sendiri, menyesuaikan dialog, pertarungan, dan bahkan mengarahkan cerita secara manual. Ini menjadikan Divinity 2 sebagai platform RPG tabletop digital yang sangat fleksibel.
Penulisan dan Voice Acting yang Mendalam
Tak ada RPG yang lengkap tanpa narasi kuat, dan Divinity: Original Sin 2 berhasil menghadirkan penulisan kelas dunia. Dialog ditulis dengan humor, tragedi, dan kedalaman moral. Dunia Rivellon terasa hidup karena bukan sekadar latar—melainkan kumpulan kisah, konflik, dan pertanyaan etis yang menantang.
Semua dialog disuarakan penuh (fully voiced), termasuk narator altogel yang membawa nuansa seperti membaca novel fantasi epik. Aktor pengisi suara membawa kehidupan ke setiap karakter, membuat momen kecil seperti berdiskusi dengan kucing atau berdebat dengan iblis terasa imersif dan berkesan.
Kombinasi penulisan dan voice acting membuat setiap pilihan terasa berat. Kamu tidak hanya mengklik pilihan acak—kamu benar-benar memikirkan dampaknya, baik bagi dunia maupun hubungan personal dalam party.
Visual, Musik, dan Atmosfer yang Menyihir
Secara visual, Divinity 2 bukan game dengan grafis fotorealistik, tetapi menggunakan gaya artistik yang tajam dan elegan. Dunia fantasinya penuh warna dan detail, dari reruntuhan hutan magis, kota terapung di awan, hingga kapal misterius yang hidup.
Efek cuaca, pencahayaan, dan sihir terlihat memukau, apalagi saat kamu menggabungkan lima elemen di tengah pertempuran dan menciptakan ledakan yang memenuhi layar.
Musiknya—yang digubah oleh Borislav Slavov—menyatu sempurna dengan tema epik dan emosional. Dari nada harpa lembut saat menjelajah, hingga irama perkusi saat bertarung dengan naga, semuanya terasa sinematik namun intim.
Versi Definitive Edition: Lebih Baik dalam Semua Hal
Versi Definitive Edition dari Divinity: Original Sin 2 bukan hanya perbaikan teknis, tetapi penyempurnaan menyeluruh. Quest disempurnakan, dialog tambahan diberikan, dan balancing sistem pertarungan diperbaiki. UI lebih ramah pengguna, loading lebih cepat, dan bug-bug minor dihilangkan.
Tambahan lainnya termasuk peningkatan performa untuk konsol, mode PvP, dan fitur cross-save antar platform. Semua ini menjadikan Definitive Edition sebagai versi terbaik untuk memulai atau mengulang petualangan epik ini.
Kesimpulan: RPG yang Menetapkan Standar Emas
Divinity: Original Sin 2 – Definitive Edition adalah lebih dari sekadar game—ia adalah pengalaman interaktif yang kompleks, emosional, dan sangat fleksibel. Setiap pilihan, pertarungan, percakapan, dan strategi adalah milikmu sepenuhnya. Tidak ada satu run yang identik, karena RPG ini benar-benar memberi kamu kendali penuh atas kisahmu sendiri.
Bagi pecinta RPG klasik seperti Baldur’s Gate, Planescape: Torment, atau Pillars of Eternity, game ini adalah penerus sejati—namun dengan standar modern. Dan bagi pemain baru, Divinity 2 adalah gerbang yang luar biasa ke dunia RPG yang benar-benar berarti.
Dalam dunia game, jarang ada karya yang mendekati kesempurnaan seperti ini.
Dalam dunia game roguelike yang terus berinovasi, banyak pengembang mencoba memadukan elemen acak dengan genre-genre yang tidak konvensional. Namun, hanya sedikit yang berhasil menciptakan formula seadiktif dan sebrilian Balatro. Permainan kartu deck-builder ini mengambil dasar dari poker, memadukannya dengan roguelike yang ekstrem, dan kemudian menuangkan lapisan kreativitas yang tak terduga dalam bentuk Joker, Vouchers, dan Tarot Cards. Balatro bukan sekadar game kartu; ini adalah simulasi kekacauan yang terkendali, sebuah tarian angka dan keberuntungan yang akan membuat Anda terus menekan “main lagi” hingga dini hari. Mari kita selami lebih dalam mengapa Balatro adalah permata tak terduga yang telah memikat hati para gamer di seluruh dunia, mengubah cara kita memandang potensi genre roguelike.
Inti yang Familiar, Revolusi yang Mengejutkan: Poker yang Berubah Wujud
Pada pandangan pertama, Balatro tampak sederhana: Anda bermain poker. Tujuannya adalah mencapai skor tertentu dengan kombinasi kartu poker (pasangan, flush, straight, full house, dll.) untuk maju ke Blind berikutnya. Namun, di sinilah kesederhanaan itu berakhir, dan kegilaan dimulai. Balatro mengambil aturan dasar poker dan melanggarnya dengan cara yang paling menyenangkan dan strategis.
Setiap kemenangan dalam Blind memberikan Anda uang, yang dapat digunakan di toko untuk membeli Joker, Tarot Cards, Planet Cards, atau Vouchers. Ini adalah mekanisme inti yang mendorong roguelike loop. Setiap run adalah kesempatan untuk membangun dek yang semakin overpowered dan menciptakan sinergi kartu yang absurd. Anda akan mulai dengan tangan yang lemah, tetapi dalam beberapa menit, Anda bisa mengeluarkan straight flush yang memberikan jutaan poin.
Kematian di Balatro, seperti roguelike lainnya, berarti kembali ke awal. Namun, ada meta-progression yang cerdas. Mengalahkan Blind tertentu, mencapai skor tertentu, atau menyelesaikan tantangan khusus akan membuka Joker baru, deck awal yang berbeda, atau tantangan yang lebih sulit. Ini memberikan rasa kemajuan yang konstan, bahkan dalam kekalahan, memotivasi pemain untuk terus mencoba kombinasi baru dan mencari cara untuk mendominasi.
Joker: Sang Pembuat Kekacauan yang Brilian
Jika ada satu elemen yang mendefinisikan Balatro, itu adalah Joker. Ini adalah kartu yang Anda kumpulkan dan tempatkan di lima slot terpisah, masing-masing memberikan efek pasif yang dapat mengubah cara Anda bermain secara fundamental. Joker dapat memberikan bonus multiplier untuk jenis tangan tertentu, menambahkan chips (poin) pada setiap kartu, atau bahkan memanipulasi probabilitas kemunculan kartu.
Variasi Joker sangat luas dan kreatif. Ada Joker yang memberikan bonus jika Anda tidak menggunakan kartu tertentu, Joker yang meningkatkan kekuatan Anda seiring dengan setiap discard, atau Joker yang secara otomatis membuat tangan Anda menjadi flush jika Anda memiliki kartu dengan warna yang sama. Menemukan sinergi antara Joker yang berbeda adalah kunci untuk mencapai skor yang memecahkan rekor. Anda mungkin menemukan kombinasi yang memungkinkan Anda mencetak poin besar dengan high card sekalipun, atau mengubah pair sederhana menjadi score-generating machine.
Setiap Joker memiliki rarity yang berbeda dan efek yang bervariasi, memastikan bahwa tidak ada dua run yang terasa sama. Anda akan menghabiskan waktu berjam-jam untuk bereksperimen dengan kombinasi Joker yang berbeda, menemukan broken builds yang memungkinkan Anda untuk mencapai Blind yang sangat tinggi dan melihat angka kerusakan yang tak masuk akal. Sensasi menemukan Joker langka yang sempurna untuk build Anda saat ini adalah salah satu momen paling memuaskan dalam game ini.
Kartu Tarot dan Planet: Memanipulasi Nasib dan Memperkuat Dek
Selain Joker, Balatro menawarkan dua jenis kartu konsumsi yang menambahkan lapisan strategi yang mendalam: Tarot Cards dan Planet Cards.
Tarot Cards: Ini adalah kartu satu kali pakai yang dapat memanipulasi dek Anda. Mereka dapat mengubah kartu menjadi foil atau polychrome (memberikan bonus chips atau multiplier), menghapus kartu dari dek Anda, menambahkan kartu tertentu, atau bahkan meningkatkan level kartu jenis tertentu. Tarot Cards memungkinkan Anda untuk mengkurasi dek Anda, menghilangkan kartu-kartu yang tidak berguna atau meningkatkan kartu-kartu kunci untuk sinergi yang lebih baik. Ini adalah alat yang sangat kuat untuk mengontrol probabilitas dan membangun build yang konsisten.
Planet Cards: Ini juga kartu satu kali pakai yang secara permanen meningkatkan level dari jenis tangan poker tertentu (misalnya, meningkatkan level Flush atau Full House). Semakin tinggi level tangan, semakin besar bonus chips dan multiplier yang diberikannya. Planet Cards adalah kunci untuk mengkhususkan build Anda. Jika Anda menemukan banyak Joker yang mendukung Flush, Anda akan ingin berinvestasi di Planet Cards yang meningkatkan level Flush Anda, mengubahnya menjadi sumber poin utama Anda.
Mengelola penggunaan kartu-kartu ini adalah seni tersendiri. Apakah Anda menggunakan Tarot Card untuk meningkatkan satu kartu kunci Anda, atau Anda menggunakannya untuk membersihkan dek Anda dari kartu-kartu yang tidak diinginkan? Apakah Anda menghabiskan uang untuk Planet Card yang akan meningkatkan build Anda saat ini, atau Anda menyimpan uang untuk Joker yang potensial? Pilihan-pilihan ini menentukan arah run Anda dan seringkali merupakan perbedaan antara kemenangan dan kegagalan.
Chip, Multiplier, dan Eksponensial:
Sistem penilaian di Balatro terdiri dari dua komponen utama: Chips (poin dasar) dan Multiplier.
Chips: Dihasilkan dari nilai kartu di tangan Anda dan bonus dari jenis tangan poker Anda.
Multiplier: Menggandakan jumlah chips Anda. Ini adalah kunci untuk mencapai skor astronomis.
Banyak Joker dan Perks lainnya berfokus pada peningkatan multiplier Anda, baik secara additive (ditambahkan) atau, yang paling kuat, secara multiplicative (dikalikan). Membangun sinergi multiplicative yang memungkinkan Anda untuk menggandakan pengganda Anda berulang kali adalah bagaimana Anda mencapai Blind yang sangat tinggi dan melihat angka-angka jutaan atau bahkan miliaran. Ini adalah sistem yang mendorong pemikiran eksponensial dan seringkali membuat Anda terkesima dengan seberapa besar angka yang bisa Anda hasilkan.
Desain Minimalis, Efek Maksimalis
Balatro mengadopsi gaya visual pixel art yang sederhana namun efektif, dengan palet warna dultogel yang terbatas namun kontras. Ini mungkin terlihat sederhana, tetapi desain ini memungkinkan efek visual yang eksplosif dan tumpukan angka yang membanjiri layar tanpa terasa berantakan. Animasi kartu yang mulus, efek suara yang memuaskan saat Anda mencetak skor besar, dan musik latar yang menenangkan namun adiktif semuanya berkontribusi pada pengalaman yang sangat polished.
Desain suara patut diacungi jempol. Suara chip yang ditumpuk, suara kartu yang ditarik, dan suara notifikasi saat Anda mencapai skor target semuanya memberikan umpan balik yang sangat memuaskan. Musiknya, meskipun sederhana, sangat cocok untuk game yang adiktif ini, menciptakan suasana yang tenang namun tegang.
Replayability Tak Terbatas dan Kurva Pembelajaran yang Memuaskan
Seperti roguelike yang baik, Balatro menawarkan replayability yang luar biasa. Setiap run terasa unik karena variasi acak Joker, Vouchers yang tersedia di toko, dan Tarot/Planet Cards yang Anda temukan. Setiap run adalah kesempatan untuk menemukan kombinasi broken baru, menguji strategi yang berbeda, dan mencapai Blind yang lebih tinggi.
Kurva pembelajarannya sangat memuaskan. Anda akan mulai dengan hanya memahami dasar-dasar poker, tetapi seiring waktu, Anda akan mulai memahami sinergi Joker, pentingnya discard yang cerdas, dan kapan harus mengambil risiko besar. Ada lapisan kedalaman yang terus terungkap seiring Anda bermain, menjaga game tetap segar dan menarik bahkan setelah puluhan atau ratusan jam.
Ada juga berbagai challenge run dan deck awal yang berbeda yang dapat Anda buka, masing-masing dengan aturan atau batasan unik yang memaksa Anda untuk beradaptasi dan mengembangkan strategi baru. Ini memberikan tantangan yang berkelanjutan bagi pemain yang ingin menguji batas kemampuan mereka.
Mengapa Balatro Begitu Adiktif?
Daya tarik utama Balatro terletak pada perpaduan sempurna antara kontrol pemain dan kekacauan acak. Anda membuat keputusan strategis yang signifikan tentang build dek Anda dan bagaimana Anda menggunakan kartu Anda, tetapi hasil akhirnya juga dipengaruhi oleh keberuntungan dalam menemukan Joker dan draw kartu. Kombinasi ini menciptakan siklus “satu run lagi” yang tak terhindarkan. Anda selalu merasa di ambang penemuan build yang benar-benar gila, dan setiap kemenangan terasa seperti Anda telah berhasil menaklukkan sistem.
Balatro adalah contoh brilian tentang bagaimana game dapat mengambil konsep yang familiar dan mengubahnya menjadi sesuatu yang sepenuhnya baru dan adiktif. Ini adalah game yang sederhana untuk dipelajari, tetapi memiliki kedalaman strategi yang luar biasa untuk dikuasai. Ini adalah bukti bahwa inovasi kecil dalam mekanik inti dapat menghasilkan dampak yang sangat besar pada pengalaman bermain.
Kesimpulan: Sebuah Masterpiece Kecil yang Membuat Ketagihan
Balatro adalah sebuah fenomena. Ini adalah game yang membuktikan bahwa Anda tidak memerlukan grafis hyper-realistic atau anggaran pengembangan yang masif untuk menciptakan pengalaman yang mendalam dan sangat menyenangkan. Dengan konsep yang brilian, mekanisme yang adiktif, dan potensi replayability yang tak terbatas, Balatro telah mengukir tempatnya sebagai salah satu roguelike deck-builder terbaik yang pernah ada.
Ini adalah game di mana kegagalan adalah bagian dari proses pembelajaran, dan setiap kemenangan terasa seperti pencapaian heroik. Jika Anda mencari game yang akan menantang pemikiran strategis Anda, menguji keberuntungan Anda, dan membuat Anda terus menekan tombol “main lagi” hingga mata Anda perih, maka Balatro adalah pilihan yang tak terbantahkan. Bersiaplah untuk melampaui batas poker dan masuk ke dalam pusaran kegilaan angka dan kartu, karena sekali Anda mulai, Anda mungkin tidak akan bisa berhenti.
Dalam dunia game strategi dan role-playing, hanya sedikit judul yang mampu memberikan sensasi kepemimpinan, peperangan, diplomasi, dan ekonomi dalam satu paket yang utuh. Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord adalah pengecualian yang luar biasa. Game besutan TaleWorlds Entertainment ini menjadi pelengkap sempurna bagi penggemar strategi yang juga mendambakan pertarungan real-time dan simulasi dunia terbuka yang hidup.
Sebagai Glory United, editor dari EAXCO Gaming News & Esports, saya mengajak Anda menyelami dunia Calradia—sebuah benua fiktif yang bergolak oleh ambisi, perang saudara, dan kekuasaan yang terus diperebutkan. Dalam Bannerlord, Anda bukan hanya seorang pejuang. Anda adalah pemimpin masa depan, penakluk wilayah, pedagang ulung, atau bahkan diplomat ulung—semua ditentukan oleh cara Anda bermain.
Kembalinya Warisan Mount & Blade dengan Skala Lebih Besar
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord adalah prekuel dari Mount & Blade: Warband, salah satu game strategi cult-classic yang dicintai karena kebebasannya. Di Bannerlord, kita kembali ke Calradia, namun dengan latar waktu sekitar 200 tahun sebelum Warband. Ini adalah masa di mana Kekaisaran Calradic tengah runtuh, dan faksi-faksi mulai berebut sisa-sisa kejayaannya.
Dari awal permainan, pemain diberi kebebasan untuk menciptakan karakter dengan latar belakang unik—seorang bangsawan, bandit yang bertobat, pedagang keliling, atau pengembara. Setiap pilihan awal ini memengaruhi atribut, keahlian, dan peluang awal dalam permainan. Namun, seiring waktu, semua bisa berubah. Anda bisa menjadi siapa saja. Itulah kekuatan utama Bannerlord.
Simulasi Dunia yang Dinamis dan Penuh Interaksi
Tidak seperti banyak game strategi yang mengikuti alur linear, Bannerlord menyuguhkan dunia yang terus berjalan, bahkan saat Anda tidak ikut campur. Perang terjadi antara kerajaan, desa bisa dihancurkan, keluarga bangsawan bisa punah, dan ekonomi bisa runtuh. Semua ini terjadi berkat sistem sandbox world simulation yang sangat kompleks.
Setiap faksi memiliki agenda sendiri, dan Anda bisa memihak atau melawan siapa pun. Anda bisa bergabung dalam perang saudara, mengatur pernikahan politik, atau sekadar menjadi tentara bayaran yang menjual jasa pada pihak tertinggi. Dunia Calradia terasa hidup dan bereaksi terhadap keputusan Anda.
Sistem Pertarungan Real-Time yang Brutal dan Menegangkan
Salah satu daya tarik terbesar dari Bannerlord adalah sistem pertarungan real-time-nya tokped777. Ketika pasukan Anda bertemu musuh, Anda langsung masuk ke medan perang. Tidak hanya sebagai penonton strategi, tetapi benar-benar ikut bertarung. Anda bisa memimpin dari garis depan, menunggang kuda sambil mengayunkan pedang, atau menembakkan panah dari kejauhan.
Pertarungan ini sangat mendetail. Ada sistem damage berdasarkan lokasi, momentum serangan, jenis senjata, bahkan armor musuh. Skala peperangan juga mengesankan, dengan ratusan unit bisa bertarung dalam satu pertempuran besar.
Selain itu, ada juga sistem perintah taktis. Anda bisa membagi pasukan ke dalam unit, memberi komando untuk membentuk garis perisai, mengepung musuh, atau menyerbu. Kombinasi antara keterampilan individu dan strategi militer menjadikan Bannerlord bukan sekadar game perang biasa.
Manajemen Kerajaan dan Ekonomi yang Kompleks
Saat Anda cukup kuat, Anda bisa membentuk kerajaan sendiri. Inilah fase permainan yang membawa tantangan tersendiri. Anda harus mengelola kota, kastil, dan desa, memperhatikan ekonomi, keamanan, loyalitas rakyat, hingga diplomasi dengan kerajaan lain.
Bangunan bisa ditingkatkan, pajak diatur, garnisun ditambah, dan pemberontakan bisa dicegah. Namun, semua ini tidak berjalan otomatis. Keputusan Anda akan berdampak langsung. Misalnya, menaikkan pajak bisa mempercepat pembangunan, tetapi juga membuat rakyat tidak senang dan berisiko memberontak.
Selain itu, sistem ekonomi perdagangan sangat dinamis. Harga barang berubah tergantung kelangkaan dan permintaan antar wilayah. Anda bisa menjadi saudagar sukses dengan membangun karavan atau membuka usaha seperti bengkel dan pabrik di kota-kota besar.
Sistem Perkembangan Karakter dan Keluarga
Bannerlord juga memiliki sistem RPG yang mendalam. Karakter Anda dan para companion memiliki atribut, skill, dan perk yang bisa ditingkatkan. Ada banyak skill seperti One-Handed, Leadership, Trade, Tactics, hingga Charm yang semuanya berperan penting dalam kelangsungan hidup dan keberhasilan Anda.
Menariknya, game ini memiliki sistem pewarisan. Anda bisa menikah, memiliki anak, dan jika Anda mati dalam permainan, anak Anda bisa mewarisi kerajaan dan melanjutkan perjuangan Anda. Ini memberi nuansa legacy yang jarang ditemui di game lain.
Modding Community yang Aktif dan Kreatif
Salah satu kekuatan besar Mount & Blade sejak dulu adalah komunitas modding-nya. TaleWorlds secara terbuka mendukung modifikasi, dan ini terlihat dari banyaknya mod yang muncul hanya beberapa bulan setelah rilis.
Mulai dari perubahan visual, penambahan senjata dan baju besi, hingga overhaul total seperti mengubah setting menjadi dunia Game of Thrones atau The Lord of the Rings, semua bisa Anda temukan. Hal ini membuat Bannerlord menjadi game yang bisa dimainkan berkali-kali dengan pengalaman berbeda.
Grafis dan Performa: Peningkatan Nyata dari Warband
Secara visual, Bannerlord jauh melampaui pendahulunya. Model karakter lebih detail, pencahayaan realistis, efek partikel pertempuran menawan, dan lingkungan seperti pegunungan atau padang pasir terasa hidup. Kota-kota kini terasa ramai dengan NPC yang beraktivitas, tidak hanya sekadar pajangan.
Namun, skala permainan yang besar juga membawa tantangan performa, terutama dalam pertempuran massal. TaleWorlds terus memperbaiki performa ini melalui update rutin. Versi terbarunya sudah jauh lebih stabil dan optimal untuk PC kelas menengah ke atas.
Kesimpulan: Game Impian Para Penakluk Strategi
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord adalah perpaduan luar biasa antara game strategi, RPG, dan simulasi dunia terbuka. Bagi Anda yang ingin merasakan sensasi menjadi jenderal medan perang sekaligus raja yang harus menjaga kerajaan dari kehancuran, game ini adalah pilihan yang sulit ditandingi.
Ini bukan game yang memberi semuanya secara instan. Anda harus bekerja keras, membangun reputasi, bertempur, berdiplomasi, dan berpikir panjang. Tapi di situlah letak kenikmatannya. Ketika akhirnya Anda duduk di singgasana dengan puluhan kota di bawah kekuasaan, Anda tahu bahwa setiap jengkal tanah itu didapatkan melalui perjuangan.
Saya tidak ragu menyebut Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord sebagai salah satu game strategi terbaik yang pernah ada. Ini adalah game yang tak hanya memberi Anda cerita, tapi membiarkan Anda menulis kisah sendiri dengan pedang dan pena diplomasi.
Berbicara tentang seri game Hitman, yang terlintas pertama kali biasanya adalah aksi sembunyi-sembunyi penuh ketegangan, eksekusi target dengan berbagai cara kreatif, hingga petualangan penuh tantangan ala Agent 47. Namun, pada tahun 2014, Square Enix Montreal mencoba pendekatan baru yang unik dan mengejutkan para penggemar dengan merilis Hitman Go, sebuah spin-off yang mengubah formula aksi intens menjadi permainan strategi ala board game yang elegan dan penuh teka-teki.
Hitman Go bukan sekadar eksperimen kecil, melainkan transformasi besar dalam memahami kembali franchise Hitman. Game ini berhasil memadukan konsep stealth, strategi, dan puzzle-solving dalam sebuah paket minimalis namun sangat adiktif. Dirancang untuk platform mobile awalnya, Hitman Go juga hadir di berbagai platform lain seperti PC, konsol, hingga perangkat VR. Dengan gaya visualnya yang unik serta mekanisme gameplay yang simpel namun menantang, Hitman Go sukses menghadirkan pengalaman yang benar-benar segar bagi para pemain.
Visual Minimalis dengan Sentuhan Elegan
Hal pertama yang mencuri perhatian dari Hitman Go adalah gaya visualnya yang sangat berbeda dibandingkan seri utama Hitman. Alih-alih dunia 3D yang realistis dan detail, Hitman Go hadir dengan estetika papan permainan yang minimalis dan elegan. Setiap level ditampilkan sebagai diorama papan permainan dengan berbagai miniatur figur yang mewakili karakter utama, musuh, serta elemen-elemen lingkungan.
Desainnya dibuat dengan penuh perhatian terhadap detail, seperti meja kayu, potongan karakter yang tampak seperti figur plastik, hingga latar belakang papan permainan yang terlihat seperti ruangan dengan pencahayaan yang lembut. Gaya visual ini menciptakan suasana yang tenang dan santai, sekaligus memberikan kesan eksklusif yang jarang ditemukan dalam game berbasis strategi lainnya.
Warna-warna yang digunakan dalam Hitman Go juga sangat efektif dalam menyampaikan pesan serta tujuan permainan, di mana pemain bisa dengan mudah mengenali berbagai elemen penting dalam game, mulai dari posisi musuh, lokasi tujuan, hingga berbagai rintangan lainnya. Tampilan sederhana namun penuh gaya ini menjadi salah satu daya tarik utama yang membuat Hitman Go berhasil menarik perhatian banyak gamer yang biasanya tidak tertarik pada genre strategi.
Gameplay Puzzle yang Mengasah Otak
Walaupun hadir dalam bentuk sederhana, gameplay Hitman Go sama sekali tidak boleh dianggap remeh. Game ini dirancang dengan tingkat kesulitan yang meningkat secara bertahap, membuat pemain harus berpikir keras dalam menyelesaikan setiap level. Pemain mengontrol figur Agent 47 di atas papan permainan, di mana setiap gerakan dibuat dalam bentuk langkah-langkah sederhana, layaknya pion dalam catur.
Setiap level terdiri dari berbagai jalur yang sudah ditentukan, lengkap dengan penjaga yang bergerak secara otomatis mengikuti pola tertentu. Tugas pemain adalah mencari cara terbaik untuk mencapai target atau tujuan akhir tanpa tertangkap musuh. Meski tampak sederhana, mekanik puzzle dalam Hitman Go sangat menantang dan membutuhkan perencanakan matang sebelum pemain bergerak.
Tiap level biasanya memiliki beberapa tujuan tambahan seperti menyelesaikan level dalam jumlah langkah tertentu, tidak membunuh musuh, atau mengambil barang tersembunyi. Tantangan tambahan ini memberikan nilai replayability tinggi, karena pemain akan terus tergoda untuk mengulang level demi mendapatkan skor sempurna.
Adaptasi Cerdas dari Seri Hitman
Hitman Go bukan hanya sekadar puzzle biasa yang menggunakan nama Hitman demi menarik perhatian, melainkan adaptasi cerdas yang mempertahankan esensi franchise Hitman secara utuh. Elemen stealth dan strategi yang menjadi inti seri Hitman tetap hadir secara kuat dalam Hitman Go. Pemain masih harus berpikir hati-hati sebelum bertindak, merencanakan setiap langkah dengan presisi tinggi, serta memanfaatkan berbagai trik dan strategi untuk mengecoh musuh.
Berbagai elemen khas Hitman seperti penyamaran, melempar benda untuk mengalihkan perhatian, hingga eksekusi target dengan berbagai cara kreatif tetap tersedia dalam bentuk yang lebih minimalis namun efektif. Hal ini membuat penggemar lama seri Hitman tetap merasakan kesan familiar, sambil juga memperkenalkan aspek-aspek baru yang menarik dan berbeda.
Bagi pemain baru yang belum pernah mengenal Hitman sebelumnya, Hitman Go juga berfungsi sebagai pengenalan sempurna terhadap inti gameplay franchise ini, yaitu perencanaan strategis serta pendekatan stealth yang cerdas.
Musik dan Efek Suara yang Menguatkan Atmosfer
Selain aspek visual dan gameplay, Hitman Go juga menawarkan kualitas audio yang sangat baik. Musik latar yang digunakan dalam game ini sengaja dibuat minimalis, dengan nada-nada yang lembut namun menegangkan, mampu memperkuat atmosfer permainan yang penuh dengan strategi dan teka-teki.
Efek suara seperti langkah kaki, bunyi alarm, hingga suara ketika figur karakter bergerak dan berinteraksi dengan objek di papan permainan dibuat sangat jelas dan tajam, menambah rasa imersi dalam permainan. Bahkan tanpa adanya dialog atau narasi lisan, Hitman Go berhasil menyampaikan cerita serta situasi di setiap level dengan efektif hanya melalui kombinasi visual dan audio yang brilian.
Portabilitas dan Kenyamanan Bermain
Awalnya dirancang untuk perangkat mobile, Hitman Go memang sangat nyaman dimainkan di berbagai situasi. Desain gameplay yang berbasis giliran memungkinkan pemain untuk memainkannya dalam sesi singkat maupun lama. Ini menjadikannya pilihan ideal bagi mereka yang ingin menikmati permainan berkualitas tinggi dalam waktu terbatas, seperti saat bepergian atau sekadar mengisi waktu luang.
Ketika Hitman Go akhirnya hadir di PC dan konsol, gameplay yang sederhana namun mendalam ini tetap terasa nyaman dimainkan, berkat desain kontrol yang intuitif dan responsif. Bahkan, versi VR-nya menambah dimensi baru yang membuat pengalaman bermain semakin unik dan mengesankan.
Kesimpulan: Sebuah Eksperimen Sukses yang Menjadi Favorit Baru
Hitman Go adalah bukti nyata bahwa franchise populer pun bisa sukses ketika diadaptasi ke dalam genre yang sama sekali berbeda, selama eksekusinya dilakukan dengan cerdas dan kreatif. Melalui desain visual minimalis yang elegan, gameplay puzzle-strategi yang menantang otak, hingga audio yang mengesankan, Hitman Go berhasil memberikan pengalaman yang unik dan menyenangkan bagi penggemar seri Hitman maupun pemain baru.
Bagi para gamer yang menginginkan tantangan berbeda atau sekadar mencari game ringan namun tetap menguji kecerdasan dan kreativitas, Hitman Go jelas menjadi pilihan yang sangat direkomendasikan. Sebuah spin-off yang tidak hanya layak dimainkan, tetapi juga menjadi contoh bagaimana sebuah inovasi dalam dunia game bisa dilakukan dengan sangat baik.
Dalam beberapa tahun terakhir, industri game indie telah menunjukkan berbagai judul menarik yang tak kalah kualitasnya dengan game-game triple-A. Salah satu judul yang paling sukses mencuri perhatian sekaligus menuai pujian adalah Cuphead, game action-platformer besutan StudioMDHR yang dengan berani menggabungkan seni animasi klasik era 1930-an dengan gameplay penuh tantangan yang menuntut ketekunan dan kesabaran pemain.
Cuphead pertama kali dirilis pada tahun 2017 dan langsung mendapat sambutan positif dari kritikus serta gamer di seluruh dunia. Dengan pendekatan seni visualnya yang unik, terinspirasi dari kartun klasik era keemasan animasi Amerika seperti karya Fleischer Studios (Betty Boop, Popeye), StudioMDHR berhasil menciptakan dunia yang tampak indah secara visual namun penuh tantangan dari segi gameplay. Hingga kini, Cuphead masih menjadi salah satu judul favorit yang dimainkan dan terus mendapatkan apresiasi dari berbagai kalangan gamer.
Kisah Lucu namun Serius di Balik Petualangan Cuphead
Cuphead mengisahkan petualangan dua bersaudara, Cuphead dan Mugman, yang terjebak dalam perjanjian maut dengan iblis setelah kalah taruhan di kasino. Untuk menyelamatkan nyawa mereka, Cuphead dan Mugman dipaksa untuk menagih utang jiwa dari sejumlah karakter yang tersebar di dunia game. Meski terdengar cukup gelap, narasi game ini disajikan dengan sentuhan humor khas animasi klasik yang membuat setiap momen dalam permainan terasa ringan sekaligus penuh ironi.
Kisah yang sederhana namun efektif ini berfungsi dengan baik dalam menyatukan setiap elemen dalam gameplay, terutama ketika pemain menghadapi berbagai bos yang unik dan tak terduga. Alur cerita Cuphead tidak hanya sekadar latar belakang, tetapi menjadi elemen yang membuat pemain semakin termotivasi untuk melewati tantangan demi tantangan yang hadir dalam permainan ini.
Visual Retro dengan Keindahan yang Memukau
Salah satu aspek paling menarik dari Cuphead adalah gaya visualnya yang sangat berbeda dibandingkan kebanyakan game modern. Seluruh elemen dalam game ini digambar secara manual dengan teknik animasi tradisional frame-per-frame, lengkap dengan warna-warna klasik serta efek visual khas animasi era 1930-an. Efek grainy yang sengaja ditambahkan membuat Cuphead terasa autentik, seolah-olah pemain sedang menyaksikan kartun lama yang hidup kembali di layar mereka.
Setiap latar belakang, karakter, hingga ekspresi dan gerakan musuh dirancang dengan sangat detail. Animasi fluid yang ditampilkan pada karakter dan bos membuat Cuphead menjadi tontonan visual yang menghibur sekaligus memanjakan mata. Bahkan, berbagai elemen kecil seperti efek suara dan musik jazz klasik menambah kesan autentik yang membuat pemain merasa berada dalam era keemasan animasi klasik Amerika.
Gameplay Brutal yang Menantang Kesabaran
Meski visualnya yang imut dan lucu, Cuphead terkenal karena tingkat kesulitannya yang ekstrem. Gameplay Cuphead menggabungkan elemen run-and-gun klasik dengan pertarungan bos yang intens, di mana setiap pertempuran membutuhkan refleks cepat, ketelitian, dan strategi yang matang. Setiap bos dalam game ini hadir dengan pola serangan yang unik, kompleks, dan kadang tak terduga, sehingga pemain dituntut untuk belajar dari kesalahan dan terus mencoba hingga akhirnya berhasil.
Tidak jarang, pemain akan mengalami puluhan bahkan ratusan kali kegagalan sebelum akhirnya mampu mengalahkan satu bos saja. Namun, inilah salah satu daya tarik terbesar dari Cuphead: rasa puas yang luar biasa setelah pemain berhasil mengatasi tantangan sulit setelah sekian lama mencoba. Kesulitan tinggi dalam game ini bukan hanya sekadar menjadi tantangan tambahan, melainkan menjadi bagian integral dari identitas game ini yang membuatnya begitu menarik dan berkesan bagi para pemainnya.
Karakter Boss yang Unik dan Tak Terlupakan
Cuphead menghadirkan berbagai bos yang tidak hanya sulit dikalahkan tetapi juga unik dalam desain dan karakternya. Pemain akan berhadapan dengan berbagai karakter yang penuh warna dan imajinatif, mulai dari wortel raksasa yang agresif, kodok petinju yang lincah, hingga naga terbang yang memuntahkan api di atas awan. Setiap bos memiliki tema visual serta serangan yang khas dan berbeda, membuat setiap pertarungan terasa segar dan tidak repetitif.
Keragaman desain bos ini membuat pemain terus penasaran dan tertarik untuk melihat tantangan berikutnya yang akan mereka hadapi. Selain itu, pola serangan yang berubah di setiap fase pertarungan memastikan bahwa pemain tidak pernah merasa bosan. StudioMDHR berhasil membuat setiap bos dalam Cuphead memiliki kepribadian yang kuat, membuat mereka tidak terlupakan meski telah berhasil dikalahkan.
Musik dan Audio yang Menyempurnakan Atmosfer Game
Salah satu aspek yang tidak boleh dilewatkan dari Cuphead adalah kualitas audio dan musiknya. Soundtrack jazz klasik yang digunakan dalam game ini dirancang oleh Kristofer Maddigan dan direkam secara langsung menggunakan instrumen asli. Musik tersebut sukses menciptakan atmosfer yang pas dengan visual serta gameplay intens yang dihadirkan dalam setiap sesi permainan.
Efek suara dalam Cuphead juga patut diacungi jempol, mulai dari suara tembakan Cuphead, efek ledakan, hingga berbagai suara lucu dari karakter yang muncul di sepanjang permainan. Kombinasi audio dan visual dalam game ini memberikan pengalaman yang sangat imersif, membuat pemain semakin menikmati setiap tantangan yang mereka hadapi.
Mode Multiplayer yang Menambah Keseruan
Cuphead juga menawarkan fitur multiplayer kooperatif lokal, memungkinkan dua pemain memainkan Cuphead dan Mugman secara bersamaan. Mode ini tidak hanya menambah keseruan, tetapi juga memungkinkan pemain untuk saling membantu dalam menghadapi tantangan sulit dalam game. Meski begitu, memainkan mode multiplayer bukan berarti permainan akan jauh lebih mudah, sebab tantangan dan musuh yang dihadapi tetap hadir dengan tingkat kesulitan yang tinggi.
Bermain bersama teman menambahkan dimensi baru yang membuat gameplay menjadi lebih menyenangkan dan kadang memicu tawa di tengah kegagalan demi kegagalan yang dialami bersama.
Kesimpulan: Game Indie Brilian yang Wajib Dicoba
Cuphead merupakan bukti nyata bagaimana kreativitas, keberanian, dan ketekunan sebuah studio indie bisa menghasilkan karya fenomenal yang tidak terlupakan. Dengan perpaduan gaya visual retro yang indah, gameplay menantang yang memacu adrenalin, serta berbagai karakter dan musik yang sangat memorable, Cuphead bukan sekadar game biasa, melainkan pengalaman unik yang patut dicoba oleh semua gamer.
Bagi siapa pun yang belum pernah mencicipi Cuphead, game ini layak masuk dalam daftar wajib main tahun ini. Meski sering kali menguji kesabaran pemain hingga batas maksimal, Cuphead menawarkan kesenangan yang tak tertandingi serta rasa puas yang sulit ditemukan dalam game lain.
Di tengah menjamurnya berbagai judul game strategi dengan elemen tower defense, muncul satu judul menarik yang berhasil menarik perhatian para penggemar genre tersebut, yaitu Tower Dominion. Dikembangkan oleh studio indie yang inovatif, game ini menggabungkan elemen tower defense tradisional dengan berbagai fitur menarik yang mengharuskan pemain berpikir secara strategis dan kreatif dalam menghadapi gelombang musuh yang terus-menerus menyerang. Tidak hanya sekadar menempatkan menara pertahanan secara acak, Tower Dominion menuntut pemain untuk benar-benar memahami medan tempur dan menyusun strategi matang.
Secara umum, Tower Dominion menghadirkan sebuah dunia fantasi dengan berbagai ras dan faksi unik, masing-masing memiliki karakteristik serta kemampuan khusus. Pemain bertindak sebagai seorang pemimpin yang bertanggung jawab melindungi wilayahnya dari serangan para penyerbu yang datang silih berganti. Apa yang membuat Tower Dominion begitu menarik dibandingkan game sejenis adalah kebebasan yang diberikan dalam mengembangkan gaya bermain serta variasi gameplay yang membuat pemain tidak pernah merasa bosan.
Gameplay yang Menantang Kecerdasan
Salah satu poin utama yang membedakan Tower Dominion dengan judul tower defense lainnya adalah tingkat kesulitannya yang menantang namun tetap adil. Gameplay dalam Tower Dominion tidak hanya tentang menempatkan menara sebanyak-banyaknya di sepanjang jalur musuh, melainkan tentang menemukan keseimbangan sempurna antara serangan, pertahanan, serta manajemen sumber daya yang terbatas.
Setiap sesi permainan menghadirkan tantangan berbeda, seperti jenis musuh yang berubah-ubah, medan pertempuran yang dinamis, hingga berbagai kondisi khusus yang memaksa pemain berpikir dua kali sebelum memutuskan menara pertahanan mana yang akan mereka bangun terlebih dahulu. Strategi yang matang sangat dibutuhkan, mengingat Tower Dominion sering kali memberikan kejutan berupa gelombang serangan yang tiba-tiba meningkat tajam, menguji seberapa baik pemain merencanakan pertahanan mereka sebelumnya.
Selain itu, pemain juga harus pandai dalam mengatur sumber daya yang tersedia, karena menara yang kuat biasanya membutuhkan biaya lebih tinggi. Tidak jarang, pemain harus memilih antara memperkuat pertahanan yang sudah ada atau membangun menara baru yang mungkin lebih efektif melawan musuh tertentu. Dinamika ini menjadikan setiap keputusan terasa kritis dan penuh pertimbangan.
Varian Menara yang Beragam dan Unik
Tower Dominion menawarkan berbagai jenis menara dengan desain serta fungsi unik yang bisa dikombinasikan untuk menciptakan strategi pertahanan optimal. Setiap menara memiliki kekuatan dan kelemahan masing-masing, sehingga pemain harus benar-benar memahami karakteristik masing-masing menara untuk bisa menempatkannya secara efektif.
Contohnya, menara api mampu memberikan damage area kepada sekelompok musuh sekaligus, namun cenderung kurang efektif melawan musuh yang kebal terhadap elemen api. Sebaliknya, menara listrik sangat efektif untuk menghentikan musuh yang bergerak cepat, namun tidak begitu efektif melawan kelompok besar musuh. Kemampuan pemain untuk mengenali dan memanfaatkan kelebihan dari setiap menara ini akan sangat menentukan sukses tidaknya pertahanan mereka.
Selain itu, pemain juga bisa melakukan upgrade terhadap menara yang mereka bangun, menambah variasi serangan serta meningkatkan daya tahan terhadap serangan balik musuh. Proses upgrading ini tidak hanya menambah kedalaman gameplay, tetapi juga memberikan rasa progresi yang nyata sepanjang permainan.
Grafis dan Visual yang Menawan
Sisi visual Tower Dominion juga patut mendapatkan apresiasi. Meski berasal dari studio indie, game ini berhasil menghadirkan grafis berkualitas tinggi dengan desain yang detail dan menarik. Setiap elemen visual, mulai dari medan pertempuran, karakter musuh, hingga efek-efek visual dari berbagai serangan menara, dirancang dengan baik dan penuh warna sehingga menambah pengalaman bermain yang lebih menyenangkan.
Lingkungan permainan juga sangat beragam, mulai dari dataran terbuka, hutan yang lebat, hingga kastil-kastil kuno, membuat pemain selalu penasaran dengan medan baru yang akan mereka hadapi. Efek khusus seperti ledakan, tembakan energi, serta animasi pergerakan musuh juga menambah sensasi intens dari setiap pertempuran, menjadikan permainan terasa hidup dan penuh ketegangan.
Mode Permainan yang Variatif
Tower Dominion tidak hanya menawarkan mode campaign yang panjang dengan cerita menarik, namun juga menyediakan berbagai mode permainan tambahan yang mampu menambah replayability. Mode survival, misalnya, menantang pemain untuk bertahan selama mungkin melawan gelombang musuh yang terus meningkat kekuatannya. Mode ini sangat cocok bagi pemain yang ingin menguji seberapa jauh kemampuan strategi mereka.
Selain mode survival, terdapat pula mode tantangan khusus yang memberikan kondisi-kondisi unik, seperti terbatasnya jenis menara yang bisa digunakan, sumber daya yang sangat minim, atau bahkan mode di mana pemain hanya diperbolehkan untuk menggunakan satu jenis menara tertentu sepanjang pertempuran. Keberadaan berbagai mode ini memastikan pemain tidak pernah merasa bosan dan selalu menemukan tantangan baru setiap kali mereka memainkan game ini.
Fitur Multiplayer dan Komunitas Aktif
Salah satu aspek menarik lain dari Tower Dominion adalah fitur multiplayer yang memungkinkan pemain berkolaborasi atau bersaing dengan pemain lain di seluruh dunia. Mode kooperatif menghadirkan tantangan baru di mana pemain harus bekerja sama dalam menyusun strategi pertahanan terbaik, sementara mode kompetitif memungkinkan pemain saling berlomba untuk mencatatkan skor tertinggi dalam bertahan menghadapi serangan musuh.
Selain itu, komunitas Tower Dominion juga terbilang aktif dan ramah, sering kali mengadakan berbagai event serta kompetisi yang diadakan secara reguler oleh pengembang. Dukungan penuh dari developer dalam hal update konten, patch balancing, serta berbagai tambahan fitur yang diminta oleh komunitas juga membuat Tower Dominion tetap hidup dan terus berkembang.
Kesimpulan: Tower Defense yang Wajib Dimainkan!
Secara keseluruhan, Tower Dominion adalah sebuah judul game tower defense yang menawarkan pengalaman bermain menyenangkan sekaligus menantang. Gameplay strategis yang mendalam, visual memikat, serta berbagai fitur menarik seperti mode permainan yang variatif hingga multiplayer membuatnya layak dimainkan oleh penggemar genre strategi maupun pemain baru yang penasaran dengan dunia tower defense.
Dengan kombinasi elemen-elemen tersebut, Tower Dominion mampu memberikan pengalaman gaming yang penuh tantangan namun juga menyenangkan, menjadikannya sebagai salah satu game strategi indie yang patut untuk dijajal oleh para gamer di tahun ini.
Buyer or Seller, while pressing the Dispute button, cancels all automation. From that time, we have a communication system ready for both sides. The administration is aware of every dispute and has access to the communication between Buyer and Vendor. If both parties cannot agree, Admin decides which side is a winning side. The buyer can also close and finalize the Dispute unassisted, anytime while it is open. Please keep in mind that every Vendor should have personal Terms of Service, and we can try to push the Vendor to execute them. Royal Market is not reliable for the quality of an item. If the Buyer got purchased item but is not happy about the quality, the fair is to finalize the order but leave Neutral or Negative feedback with the proper description.
Royal Market Report System
In case you suspect something, don’t like something, or think that you was/may get scammed, you got the option to: report a vendor, report a buyer, report a listing, report a custom shop, report a support agent, report a bug or any type of problem. All you have to do is click on the Report button located in: each listing, each custom shop, each buyer profile, each seller profile, each support agent profile. Once you clicked the Report button, please be very specified and include as much information as possible. Once the admin reads out the support he will either Accept it or Reject it. You will be notified of both. Accepted/Rejected reports will be displayed into the reported user profile once solutioned by the admin. Reports will affect user rating if Accepted and will not affect the ratings if Rejected.
Royal Market Referal Program
Join our REFERRAL Program to get endless streams of income. Recommend Royal Market Market and earn commission on each purchase or sale.
All you need to do is to go to /myprofile/refferal , copy your refferal link and share it around. This way you will get your own, unique Invitation Code which you can share with others. If user creates an account and use this code while signing up, he becomes your referral.
We are very generous and we offer 50 % off our commission.
How does it work ? Once you have referred coupe of users and they either become vendors or start buying products, once the deal / order ends successfully 50 % off the earned fee ( currently 3 % global market fee ) will be automatically transferred into your specified withdraw wallet ).
You can view your referral statistics and referral list here: /profile/refferal
Sales From Other markets
We have built a nice feature in order for you vendors and buyers. Now, total sales from other markets are counted and displayed into all your listings, into your profile, into your custom shop and it will be displayed after your name, example: Vendor (0) (0) – first (0) represents total sales on Royal Market, second (0) represents total sales on other markets. For example, if you had 200 sales on Empire market, 300 sales on Alphabay market and 150 sales on Dark Market, it will show as this; Vendor (0) (650) ( which is visible almost everywhere on the market ) Total sales on other markets will be also displayed into your listings, profile and custom shop.
Have stats from other markets that have not been imported ? Create a support ticket and request it.
WHY MY CUSTOM SHOP SHOWS AS INACTIVE AND DOESN’T APPEAR IN /SHOPS?
When your Custom Shop status shows INACTIVE that means you did not:
Set a name ( that will generate a one time link for your shop / the name and link can never be changed so chose carefully )
Set a description
Set a cover image
Add at least 4 listings to your shop
By completing all the above steps will activate your custom shop, send a notification in the live feed that your shop has been enabled and list it under our /shops page. Same rules apply for advertising/future your custom shop into our homepage, it needs to be customized before.
How to trade on Royal Market
Buying on Royal is extremly easy and safe. We are offering multiple payment options and a smart escrow system. All you have to do is select the product you want to buy, add it to your cart, insert your shipping details or any additional info that will be encrypted automatically using vendor’s public PGP key, click Update, click Purchase and select your prefered payment option.
Pay directly – means that you will be see a wallet and the ammount you need to deposit into our escrow system in order to mark your order as Paid ( Please note, you have only 3 hours to submit your payment due to coin price changes, if you fail to do so, your order will be automatically cancelled )
Pay with market balance – If you have already deposited into your market balance or have balance from cancelled orders or won disputes, you can simply use this option to pay for your product.
Combined payment – If you do not have enough market balance to cover your total order cost, you will be redirected to a payment page where you will be asked to pay the remaining balance to cover the total order cost.
How long does it take for orders to Finalize
Currently, orders will be automatically finalized if buyer won’t mark them as Delivered within: 14 days for Psyhical orders 5 days for Digital orders Each order has its own timer shown within your order details page, if you did not receive your product and your order is abtout to autofinalize, please start a dispute to stop the timer.
Withdraws
Withdraws can take from few minutes up to 24 hours. Withdraws are checked each time before being processed for security and against scam reasons. Please do not create a ticket if your withdraw is not processed for lower then 24 hours, if your withdraw time will exceed 24 hours, do create a ticket.
Disputes Solve
It depends on each dispute. Disputes needs time to be processed since evidence needs to be provided. It may take from few days up to 1 week to get your dispute solved, depends on your answering time. If you did receive your order as a buyer, you can always Cancel your dispute witch will release the funds to the vendor.
Vendor Bond
Currently the vendor bond fee is set to $1000 and it is not refundable.
Custom Shop
Currently opening a Custom Shop costs $750 and it is not refundable.
502 Timeout Error
All you have to do is wait few minutes and click “New Tor circuit for this site” within your tor browser, try all our alternative links:
Tor Market is a simple darknet market created to make trading less risky than using the large well known darknet markets. History has shown that the larger a market website grows, the more headwinds it faces to continue operation. When they eventually fail, users often lose a lot of money. The goal of this site is to maintain stability and uptime for the long term.
Many past darknet markets have implemented their wallets live, accessible to the web server so once hacked it is impossible for them to recover. This site implements the wallet and payment systems in a separate location isolated over the TOR network. This is a direct pay market, which means there is no balance of funds maintained on the market.
Tor Market is free for anyone to create a buyer account. To become a vendor a bond payment is required on Tor Market. Bond can be waived for established vendors on Tor Market.
Some features of the market are: 2FA login, no-escrow, single payment for multiple orders, product cloning, stock quantity management, vendor order queue to reduce rate of new orders, custom products for a single buyer, automatic payments to vendors using unique addresses for enhanced privacy, export order list, private URLs, very simple and quick order process, feedback system.
To prevent deanonymization of users there is no use of client side scripting languages. This means you should have javascript disabled when visiting this site.
The website operator provides an escrow service and dispute resolution so vendors receive funds after buyers have finalized their orders.
The security of funds is top priority and is achieved by separating the wallet from the web server. The web server has no way to contact the wallet or even know its location. The code is custom written by authors with experience in web application security. PHP is not used.
The market provides a solution for vendors to advertise products and manage the order process, while minimising costs by using a shared platform. Most of the features have been added to simplify order managment by vendors, while the buyer feature set is minimal.
Cryptocurrencies supported on Tor Market
Bitcoin, Litecoin, Monero, Zcash are the only payment methods. Vendors set the payment methods they accept on each product. Payments by the market to users are always made in the same currency that the order was paid with.
Read more about the technical differences on Tor Market.
An order becomes paid after payment has sufficient blockchain confirmations. These are the confirmations required for each payment method. BTC: 3 LTC: 10 XMR: 12 ZEC: 18
Bitcoin transaction basics on Tor Market
Bitcoin is the worlds slowest database and performs only one update approximately every 10 minutes. Each update is a collection of payment transactions and updates are only done by miners. When your bitcoin wallet makes a spending transaction, it will show a reduced balance but the spend has not yet actually occurred until the time when a miner adds your transaction to the database, usually within the next 10 minutes. Your wallet is broadcasting a request to spend and offering a fee to miners to perform the database update with your transaction. Although your wallet balance is reduced, this is a wallet interface anomaly and you still own/control the funds. After some time, when your transaction is added to the bitcoin database by a miner, this is described as being confirmed or receiving a confirmation. The receiver of the funds can not spend them before a confirmation has occurred. If your request to spend did not offer a sufficient fee it could take much longer than 10 minutes because miners will ignore your request. It could take days or weeks for your spend to confirm. Many wallet software programs have features to increase the fee to help it confirm faster. More info about this here.
If you have made a bitcoin payment to this market and the payment has no confirmations, the market cannot provide any assistance because the market does not yet own the funds. We can’t return the funds to you because we don’t have them yet. This is confusing for new users of bitcoin because most wallet software shows the funds as being spent when in reality the sender still owns/controls the funds using their wallet. ie it is possible to resend the funds to a new different address during the time before it confirms. You will need to investigate the features of your wallet to see if the fee incentive to miners can be increased on an unconfirmed transaction to allow altering the spend.
How to avoid your account being hacked or phished
Bookmark this website and always use the bookmark for future access. Official URLs will always be announced with a PGP signature. If you use links provided by someone else, such as on a forum or wiki, they may be links to a fake (phishing) site which looks identical to the real site.
Turn on 2FA (two factor authentication). This will require you to decrypt a random string of characters every time you login and when you make account settings changes. When 2FA is turned on the encrypted message shows the legitimate URL. If you compare this to browers URL and it differs, it means you are logging into a phishing site. This is a very effective method to identify if being phished because it is very difficult for the phisher to combat this protection. 2FA also minimizes the impact of a phisher stealing your login details – they can’t change some settings and enforces a time limit on how long they can control the account for.
Ensure the NoScript plugin has javascript disabled.
The phisher first makes informational clearnet websites about Darknet Market news and links and markets the site to top of Google search results. The links point to their own fake markets.
A fake market phishing site steals your login credentials and presents payment addresses that they own within a real-time fake construction of the market. A more technical name for this would be an “active attack MITM proxy”. The phisher will use your login details to connect their server to the real market and obtain a realtime feed to make you think you are visting the real site and make you believe nothing is wrong. It is nearly impossible to tell if you are logged into the real site or a phishing site by looking at the content. You must check the URL , especially characters at the end, just before the “.onion” to verify a match to the real URL.
If you don’t have a Tor Market bookmark saved, use two or three well known sources for the URL. If all sources show the same URL then it is very probable legitimate.
Record in your password manager this markets PGP key details. If you do this and verify every order you make has a correctly signed payment address, you will never loose money. It is very quick and simple but few buyers take the 10 seconds to check before they send their money away.
This is the message displayed when your account is created on Tor Market.
The are many fake copies of this market that regularly steal bitcoin from new users that have not verified the URL. Ensure you obtain a valid URL from the forums (link in left sidebar) or a reliable source such as DarknetLive or Dark.fail.
When instructed to pay for an order, the Bitcoin address always begins with a 3. If the Bitcoin address does not begin with a 3 then you have logged into a fake site and will lose your Bitcoin.
Important – Save the Tor Market public key (link /publickey) because it will give you a way to authenticate information in future to avoid being scammed. All orders will show a PGP proof of ownership of the Bitcoin address. If you always verify this proof on every order, you will not lose money to scammers.
Read the help page (/help) and ensure you understand the terms auto-finalize, no-escrow order, finalized order. The meaning is the same across all markets. This market does not provide you with a wallet. You must make a Bitcoin transaction for every order, or set of orders. This is to maximize security so no Bitcoin is stored on the market.
Create your own PGP key and save it in Account Settings. This is needed if you ever forget your Tor Market password.
Explanation of PGP for authentication purposes
PGP solves the problem of proving your are seeing data that was created by the market and not someone else who is trying to impersonate the market or modify the market. In most cases if you have the correct URL then you can be 99% sure that what you are seeing is real. But suppose the market was hacked, or had a type of bug (XSS) that allowed parts of the site to be altered, or the TOR keys were stolen. These are ways an attacker can change the content of the website you see even when using the correct URL.
Most likely the attackers objective is to steal funds and by market design the only way they can achieve this is to provide buyers with different bitcoin addresses that attacker owns, when ordering. The solution to prevent this – the market provides PGP signatures of the payment addresses on every order. Even if the market is completely taken over by an attacker, if you know how to use PGP to verify data then you can detect that the market is compromised and avoid paying the attackers bitcoin address.
The attacker will probably remove the section of the page that shows the PGP signature, so if you don’t see a signature on the order view then you know the market was hacked. Or they will make their own signature with their own key, which will fail validation if you know how to check it.
The verification process: first you need to have saved the market key. The best time to do this is when signing up. But what if the market was already hacked when you signed up? Therefore you need to verify with another source that the key you saved is correct. Visit Darketlive and Dark.fail to ensure the Tor Market key they store is the same as the key here. Now you are sure you have the correct key saved, going forward any PGP signature data on this market that you verify will always show it was signed by that key you have saved in your PGP software.
Order states
Order states change based on events like payment being received. Some states change automatically such as paid or expired states. Other states such as shipped, finalized are manually set by the vendor, customer or administrator.
This diagram shows all possible state transitions of an order.
When an order is in one of the finalized states, there is no way to reverse the process or make any changes. Funds will have been paid out already and the market is no longer be involved. So if problems with the trade remain, the buyer and seller must resolve it themselves.
All orders have an attribute named delivered which should be updated by the customer when their package arrives. For escrow orders it can be updated at the same time as finalizing. For no-escrow orders, click the Delivered button to update it. The delivered attribute has no effect on payments. It is only for informational purposes and helping detect problems with vendors.
When viewing an order or a list of orders, the status field may have a solid border , a dashed border , or no border. Before an order has status paid, it will be either payment pending or expired. In these two states, the border style indicates zero payment, payment less than required, or sufficient payment. The dashed border means payment has been received but is less than required. The solid border means sufficient payment was received and the order state will soon change to paid when it has enough confirmations. No border means no payment seen.
Lost passwords
You will need to create a new account to send a support message. Create a PGP clear signed message using the key belonging to the account that needs password reset. By providing a clear signed message, support is able to perform the reset faster on Tor Market.
For buyer accounts PGP is the only acceptable proof of identity. Phishers know everything about their victims so no information you provide can prove your identity other then signed messages.
Note, if you have logged into a phishing proxy website in the past then the phishers will know your password.
Product feedback
It is safe to leave feedback because the system hides the identity of who left the feedback and also what other products that customer purchased. Only the vendor knows which customer left the feedback.
The buyer usernames displayed in feedback are hashes but additional data (salt) is added to the hash input which differs for each vendor. So the buyers hashed username is different for every different product they leave feedback on. This means that a vendor who has received feedback from a customer, cannot determine all the other vendors that the customer purchased from by looking at feedbacks of other vendors.
Market rules and policies
Product listings must be medications, drugs and drug paraphernalia.
No fentanyl or its analogs.
No fake drugs or inaccurate descriptions.
No USA vendors on Tor Market.
No impersonating other vendors. Avoid similar vendor names.
Do not deceive other users of the system on Tor Market.
Do not program automated requests without asking permission first.
Personal information in messages, orders, and support tickets must be encrypted with PGP. This includes tracking numbers, and address details.
If a vendor does not visit this site for 7 days and not in vacation mode, their products listings may be automatically disabled.
The administrator may remove product listings and disable accounts to enforce these rules.
Payments owing to buyers from refunds, expired, or declined orders will be held for 21 days waiting for buyer to enter the wallet address. After 21 days the funds may be removed from the system.
Russian vendors can request a lower commission rate of 3.5% on Tor Market.
Buyer rules
Do not create orders that are left deliberately unpaid.
When you receive your package, promptly Finalize to expedite vendor receiving their payment.
Do not send spam messages to vendors. Messages should be product related.
Feedback left on an order should be specific to that order. Therefore you should not alter historical feedback from good to bad based on a newer order.
Vendor rules
New vendors go through a trial period to assess their suitability on this market and if there are multiple customer complaints their ability to sell and the bond can be revoked. This rule applies even when the vendor is not deliberately scamming, ie they could be ignoring orders and causing problems in other ways. New vendor accounts that appear to have characteristics of scams may be frozen before any orders received and their bond held for six months.
No doxxing customer information.
Vendors must not ask buyers to finalize early unless their account has been given permission to create no-escrow products. Result is immediate account closure with no warnings.
Shipping information such as time between order being placed and expected shipping date must be clearly described in the product listing or vendor profile.
Vendors must not set status to shipped prior to day of shipping.
When accepting an order, the vendor is confirming that they can fulfil the order and delivery details could be decrypted, and shipping options are correct.
When you have products available for sale, you need to login every 4 days to avoid orders being withdrawn by the customer.
Only make products available for sale if you have the product ready to ship. Occasionally you may sell out elsewhere so can’t fulfill an order. Vendors who decline orders are reviewed and may loose vendor status if it happens without good reason.
The vendor must respond to a customers refund request in the form of Tor Market messaging and maintain consistent communication until the issue is resolved otherwise escrow funds will be paid to the buyer.
When vendors are out of stock for an extended time they should hide the product listing to keep the site uncluttered. Please try to minimize products showing that are not purchasable.
Only one product listing per product is necessary. Clones and duplicates should be made hidden or configured with a custom buyer.
Avoid use of all-caps when listing products and make it descriptive of the product. ie “MDMA” is acceptable but not “MOLLY ON SALE NOW SHIPPING NEXT WEEK”.
No advertising for direct deals or listing products that are advertisements for another website.
Asking users to communicate directly with you (ie wickr) is deemed suspicious because scammers typically use this technique. Keep communication on the market because if any disputes occur they will be resolved easier.
You are advised not to run multiple accounts selling the same product. Operating multiple vendor accounts is permitted but if they sell the same product, it can appear suspicious and it wastes the customers time. The market may decide to close down your accounts to avoid wasting customers time.
Buyer help on Tor Market
Buyer fees
There are no fees for buyer accounts. Vendors pay a commission on their sales.
Order payments
Each product purchase results in a separate order and each order has a unique bitcoin (or litecoin) address. The usual method of payment is to pay each order’s bitcoin address. There is no shopping cart but orders can be aggregated into a group for payment; this is described next. When bitcoin transaction fees are high, paying for multiple orders can be expensive. If you have multiple orders to pay, it can be more efficient to use a wallet that supports paying multiple bitcoin addresses in one transaction. This is called payment batching and will allow you to pay less in bitcoin transaction fees.
There is also a Tor Market feature called multipay. The market allows you to pay for two or more orders by paying a single bitcoin address. This is even cheaper than payment batching. To use multipay, first create two or more unpaid orders. Now at the top of the order list, a button will show ‘Multipay using bitcoin’. Clicking this will show instructions on how to pay all your unpaid orders with one payment. Basically, it sums the total owing of selected payment pending orders. If this total is paid to the bitcoin address of the oldest payment pending order the server will change all those orders to paid.
There are some differences to be aware of when using multipay compared to standard order payments. Although the market accepts over-payments both for standard orders and multipay, any over payment with multipay is absorbed by the market. Vendor payouts from multipay orders are always set using the order price. Therefore, if you pay extra thinking the vendor will receive extra, they will not. The vendor will always receive the same payout amount no matter what you pay. Same with refunds – the maximum refund amount is the order price.
Using multipay can help buyer privacy on the public blockchain. The benefit occurs when ordering from different vendors and paying them using multipay. The vendor will have difficulty discovering your transaction details like your source wallet address because they do not know how much you paid in the multipay transaction.
Signed payment addresses
The payment address you see on an order is unique and will not exist yet on the blockchain. The order shows you a PGP signature of the order address. Buyers should verify the PGP signature is valid and signed by Tor Market key. Provided the signature is valid you can be sure your funds are being sent to the correct wallet and not an address belonging to a hacker or scammer on Tor Market.
Expired, under-paid and over-paid orders
When the order is created you lock in a price, then have 24 hours to ensure payment confirms on blockchain. If payment is received after the payment window expires, your order will be set to state expired.
If payment arrives within the 24 hour period, the vendor is obligated to process your order. Past 24 hours, the exchange rate may have changed too much from when the order is created and the vendor should have the option on whether to process the order or not. When the order expires the vendor has another fixed time delay where they can choose to process the expired order. During this time the buyer cannot configure a refund. If the vendor chooses not to process the order, then the buyer can enter a refund address after the fixed time delay.
When orders are under-paid they will also become expired. If you have under-paid, then make additional payments to the same order address to cover the order price. There is no problem if you over-pay an order, but once status is paid you cannot be refunded any overpayment unless the vendor declines the order.
Vendors have the ability to convert expired orders into paid. They can also make payment pending and expired orders change to paid when a order is slightly under-paid.
Ensure your payment transaction has a sufficient fee to allow it to confirm on the blockchain before the order expires. Some wallets have RBF (BIP125) support which allows the payment to be sent again with a higher fee to speed up confirmation.
Sometimes the blockchain can become congested and orders may expire due to having zero confirmations in the 24 hours after order creation. In this case the market cannot do anything until the payment receives a confirmation. Once funds confirmed, vendors have the chance to process the expired order and after that, the market can return funds to buyer if vendor doesn’t process the order. The bitcoin protocol allows you to reverse the transaction if it has zero confirmations and return the funds to your wallet (double spend to replace the prior transaction). But if your wallet does not support this action, the funds are stuck in limbo until they eventually receive a confirmation.
Expired orders are generally refunded to the buyer unless the vendor or admin makes it become paid. The buyer enters their refund address on the order view page.
Tor Market Payments to already paid orders
Once a vendor accepts an order, the market will not register any further payments to the order address. Vendor receives the amount of money that was shown as being received at time of accepting.
So if you keep paying old order addresses of finalized orders (or shipped, accepted orders) then the money is lost. The market system will not be aware of more payments made. Any transaction that does not have the required number of confirmations at the time vendor accepts, is ignored and will never register receiving the funds.
With crypto-currencies you must be very careful about paying the correct address because transactions are irreversible, and the blockchain has no safety for mistakes.
Encrypted postal addresses
It is strongly recommended to use PGP to send postal address details on Tor Market. Other darknet markets have been compromised and customer postal details exposed because the customer did not encrypt their address. If you don’t want to install PGP then there are web based alternatives for encrypting messages but those sites may record what you encrypt. ie https://sela.io/pgp/
The address field can be left empty when ordering products such as ebooks or when you have already given the vendor your address.
Old orders and deleted orders will have the address field deleted from the database to further increase privacy.
Auto-finalized orders on Tor Market
Orders autofinalize one week after they are shipped to ensure vendors receive payment when the buyer forgets to finalize the order. The Extend autofinalize button will delay autofinalizing when you are still waiting to receive the product. This option appears in the three days leading up to the autofinalize date.
Finalizing early
Finalizing before receiving the product bypasses escrow and there is no way to be refunded.
No escrow orders
A single product listing may have both escrow and no-escrow price options. “Escrow: no” or “Escrow: optional” will show on the product listing. When a no-escrow order is choosen, after being paid the funds are immediately allocated to the vendor instead of being held until you finalize. Therefore no dispute resolution is possible – the market cannot assist you with no-escrow orders after the vendor has accepted the order.
If you don’t want the added risk of buying no-escrow, choose a different vendor or ask the vendor if they will create an option to buy with escrow.
When you choose to purchase a no-escrow product you will be warned – This order will automatically finalize upon vendor acceptance. Any shipping problems or disputes will have to be resolved directly with the vendor and the market cannot mediate conditions of sale.
When you receive a no-escrow order, click Delivered button so the vendor and market can keep track of undelivered packages, and provide an early warning of problems to other buyers.
Refunds
When the order status is changed to “refund requested”, then the vendor must approve the amount and a payment will be scheduled.
To specify a refund address once order is “admin finalized”, “refund finalized”, “withdrawn” or “expired”, view the order details and look for a button that allows entering the refund address. Refunds will be paid out same day or on the day after you specify the address. Payments occur at a random time. You can expect a confirmation on the blockchain within 24 hours after payment broadcast.
Withdrawing and cancelling orders
During the first hour after order creation, the order may be cancelled provided no payment is seen. Use this feature if you made a mistake choosing options for the order. Cancelled orders do not allow refunds so it is important to never pay funds to a cancelled order. After the first hour the order cannot be cancelled and it can only be removed by waiting until it expires. Once expired it can be deleted.
Sometimes a vendor will go missing and you may decide to be refunded instead of waiting for the vendor to return. After 72 hours (3 days) you will have the option to withdraw the order. Click the Withdraw button and you will be able to enter a refund address. They are given three days because during weekends the vendor may not login to accept new orders.
Vendor help
Vendor accounts cannot make purchases. This is to prevent de-anonymisation of vendors.
Vendor account creation and bonds
Register a new account with no purchase history – there is a reason markets keep buyer and vendor account separate. With the new account, purchase the bond. Once bond is paid, your account will change to vendor type within ten minutes. The bond is refundable (the exact amount paid is returned) after six months from the purchase date if a good sales history is established. To be eligible for the refund, the account must have generated some sales. The bond is to dissuade the vendor trying to scam customers and the bond may be forfeited for breaking the rules.
Also the bond will be held and not released for six months if any products appear to be deceptive. Basically if it looks like a possible scam, your account is locked preemptively before you can sell anything. You will receive the bond back after six months because the market could have made a mistake in assessment.
Record the details of the bond payment because when the account is changed to vendor type the bond purchase order will no longer be visible.
Waiving bond for established vendors
13th June 2022 time expectation for processing waiver applications – after you complete the application form it may take one week before verfied. Usually done during weekends.
Bond waiver is possible when you have a vendor account already on another market. It needs to be recently active with sufficient sales volume and feedback to gauge reliability. To prove identity, load the PGP key into account settings and then either turn on 2FA or else use the verify procedure. Your account displayname and PGP key must match other markets. Complete the application form, then send a support ticket asking for the account to be changed to vendor type.
If you have not been active selling in the last three months on any market, we do not give a vendor account. In that case first establish some recent sales on another market before applying here. Each verification can take over 15 minutes of work due to finding a working URL, CAPTCHAs, creating account, searching for the PGP key and profile, reviewing sales and feedback. There is often a queue of vendors requesting verification. Therefore it could take a week before the verification is done. You need to keep visiting this market while waiting for the verification. If we see you stopped visiting we assume you lost interest and won’t proceed with verification.
Commission
Commission is 5% of the funds paid to an order. The only other fee is the withdrawal fee. This changes each week and is displayed to vendors in nav bar. Each time you receive a payment from the market, the withdrawal fee is deducted to cover miner fees.
Listing products
Stock available must be specified on each product. When orders become paid then the product stock value is reduced automatically until the product listing changes to sold out.
Disabling sales can be done in different ways.
Vacation mode will disable sales of all products.
A product stock value can be changed to 0.
A product can be set to disabled. It will still show in product lists but customers cannot purchase it.
Using the vendor order queue settings to limit the number of new orders.
Hidden products are only accessible to someone that knows their URL and do not show in product listings. Hidden products can also be located by entering their ID (uuid) into the search box.
Custom buyer products – a product can be configured so only one buyer can see it and purchase it. This option was added to ensure custom products are private and do not show to everyone. The vendor doesn’t need to send the buyer any info about locating a custom product. It appears to the buyer in their product list.
When taking photos for product listings, do not use your everyday phone. Use a dedicated phone/camera. This protects against correlating sets of images taken by the same camera that are publicly accessible on sites such as Facebook.
Examples of how the form fields effect the purchase options the buyer sees.
No-escrow permission
No escrow products are those which have the no escrow setting enabled. On the product form, each unit price will have a no-escrow checkbox on the right. Without permission, the no escrow checkbox is absent. Historically once a vendor reached 200 orders they could apply for no-escrow permission but this policy was dropped after exit scams kept causing too much trouble. This market will rarely give no-escrow permission now. The vendor would need to have it elsewhere as a requirement, or have exceptional trade volume / revenue. If the vendor meets the criteria and asks for no-escrow, a review of order processing is done (check following rules), and must not have history of disappearing letting orders withdraw, or a lot of declined orders, or complaint tickets.
Receiving payments
When the order is finalized by the customer, you need to click Set address on the order view to specify your wallet address for receiving payment. To automate this, you can specify your wallet address in account settings, then you will be paid automatically.
Payments from finalized orders will be processed at least once per day at a random time. If multiple orders have been finalized the amounts owing are summed and you will receive a single payment.
A network fee will be deducted from your payment. The network fee will show in the navigation bar for vendor accounts (if the fee is not zero). The network fee only changes on Monday (UTC time), then remains constant for the week. In most cases, the fee is deducted once per bitcoin transaction. When you have multiple orders being paid out to the same receiving btc address, one bitcoin transaction is used and the fee deducted once. However, if you configure a different bitcoin address on each order and they are paid at the same time in one transaction, you will pay more in fees because the fee is charged for each unique bitcoin address.
When the withdrawal fee is cheap you may want payments sent to you as soon as possible after the order finalizes. But when the withdrawal fee is expensive you can save money by configuring payment settings so send your payments less frequently.
Advantages of receiving your payments less frequently is your wallet will be cleaner and have less UTXOs. This means when you eventually spend from your wallet, the transaction sizes will be smaller (less inputs used) so your future spends from your wallet will cost less in miner fees. Also it helps with privacy making it much harder for the buyer to follow the trail of funds to your Tor Market wallet.
After the payments are broadcast by Tor Market, you can expect a confirmation on the blockchain within 24 hours. You can see the transaction id of your payment by viewing the order. To ensure a confirmation in that time frame, payments may be re-broadcast by the market wallet with a higher fee. Most wallets allow spending unconfirmed payments and that could be an option for you if the blockchain is congested and you want to spend the funds without waiting for a confirmation. If you do try to spend your unconfirmed funds, you must set a high fee to ensure a quick confirmation.
When customers over-pay an order, the vendor will receive the over-payment, less commission calculated on the paid amount.
All order payments for every vendor go into the escrow wallet and payments are generally paid out from this same wallet. The source bitcoin addresses of your payment are selected by the wallet algorithm and will be addresses from other orders placed on the system.
Automatic payment settings on Tor Market
Each payment method (Bitcoin, Litecoin, etc) has a settings page allowing vendors to setup automatic payments from finalized orders. You save one or more addresses and your payouts from orders will be paid to these addresses.
The objective of the payment settings is to give vendors control of when they get paid to help minimize withdrawal fees, and to improve privacy by minimizing address re-use. The automatic settings promote the use of fresh addresses being used each day or week. This makes wallet analysis more difficult. It is recommended to uncheck the checkbox option ‘Re-use address’. This option was added to replicate old behaviour when it was not possible to save multiple payout addresses. For Bitcoin and Litecoin automatic payments, you should save multiple payout addresses and keep replenishing the set with new addresses as they get used.
The automatic system does not assign a different address to every finalized order. It uses the same address over a 24 hour day UTC time. The reason is that a separate address for every order would reduce privacy by making amounts easier to spot. It would also cost more in withdrawal fees. Therefore over the period of one day UTC time, it assigns the same address to orders as the finalize.
Every finalized order on Tor Market has a schedule setting (daily, weekly, etc) that determines when the payment will be made. The automatic system sets the schedule onto the order at finalization time, using your current payment settings. It can be changed later by viewing the order and clicking ‘Set address’ button. Delayed payments such as daily, weekly will be paid just after midnight UTC time.
The Immediate schedule on Tor Market means it will be immediately queued waiting for the remote payment server to synchronize the data set. The payment server runs batches of payments, usually ten or more batch runs daily. Blockchain congestion effects the frequency of payments. More detail in receiving payments section.
Disputes and refunds on Tor Market
When the customer wants a refund, the vendor and the customer try to resolve the issue. ie re-ship, return goods, partial or full refund. The customer can change the refund amount they request. When it is something both parties agree on, the vendor can accept the refund amount and funds are paid out. Or the buyer can cancel the refund request and finalize.
If no agreement is reached, the market decides how to distribute the money in escrow. In the case that the vendor has ignored a refund request, the market may approve the customers refund after 7 days. The vendor must respond to the customers refund request in the form of Tor Market messaging and maintain consistent communication until the issue is resolved.
Archiving orders
The archive button simply removes the order from the order list and you need to click the Show Archived button to see it. An archived order can be moved back again to the main order list page by Unarchiving it. This can be helpful to keep track of which orders need attention. ie Shipped orders can be archived so the order list only shows orders that need processing.
Bitcoin mixing
Should vendors mix their payments from Bitcoin and Litecoin orders? If you need to spend the funds and that process reveals your true identity, you may want to mix the funds first. Monero and Zcash have privacy features built in to the protocol. The following describes Bitcoin and Litecoin mixing.
Buyers can see funds being paid out to vendors by watching the blockchain. Mixing is the process of making it too difficult to use blockchain analysis alone to follow the funds.
In the first step of being paid by Tor Market, you can avoid the buyer following the funds by choosing to be paid in batches instead of one payment at a time. When paid once a week for example it will be harder for the buyer to see which payment out of the Tor Market wallet was to you.
The cheapest and less risky way is to self mix (rather than using an anonymous service) but the process is time consuming. This is done by holding accounts on several websites that allow bitcoin transfer into a pool of funds and out again as different coins. For example, crypto exchanges. Using TOR or a proxy when using the websites means no site will know the user identity. Funds are sent through a chain of these exchanges.
PC wallet => online wallet 1 => online wallet 2 => online wallet 3 => PC wallet 2
This is analogous to having multiple bank accounts with anonymous identities. As the funds flow through the chain of accounts it becomes very hard to trace without co-operation from all the companies to provide their log files of transactions in and out. The more wallets in the chain the harder is it for someone to get all the logs. Using geographically diverse websites will help more (ie China, Russia, Venezuela) because no juristiction has authority everywhere. You would need to vary the amounts throughout the process.
Other methods can be used such as coinjoin algorithm which is implemented in at least two wallets – Wasabi is one. A wallet with coinjoin ability will allow you to participate in building a large transaction with other users of the same wallet software. The outputs of the transaction all look identical and there should be no way to know who owns each output. Since bitcoin lacks sufficient privacy, use of coinjoin wallets is needed for many general use cases such as an employer running payroll to prevent the employees knowing the salaries of all the other staff. Or to prevent each person you have transacted with from knowing how much bitcoin you own so they can assess whether it would be cost effective to kidnap or forceably take your keys.
Avoid using mixing services (aka tumblers) like Helix because it is not known how effective they are, or what is their motivation for running the service. Some of these services have failed to adequately mix coins.
Technical details
The majority of the order processing code has been in use since Sept 2015 and is well tested. As a multi-vendor market it has been running since early 2018.
Architecture
What does the Tupolev Tu-95, AK47 rifle, and Tor Market have in common? An engineering philosophy.
The architecture consists basically of two separate systems.
The public system running the market web server and TOR has no bitcoin private keys stored. It only holds a list of payment address strings in the database. The market server provides an API for retrieving data about payments owing.
An isolated payment server running the private bitcoin wallet(s) , locked down with minimal software installed. It only runs a wallet process, TOR and an application to process payments from data retrieved via the market API. It connects out to the market web server API over the TOR network. This helps to conceal the location of the bitcoin wallet so even the market webserver can never access the payment server.
There is a tradeoff engineering decision in the design of a market between ease of use with fast withdrawals, and security of the wallet. On most markets since Silk Road the web server process interacts directly with the bitcoin daemon process. With these markets, account balances, functions like withdraw are handled by the bitcoin process – the webserver has a direct connection to issue instructions without delay. The web server has full control of the bitcoin process so if the web server is hacked by an error in the developers website code, it leads to full control of the wallet. The advantage of this setup is functions like withdraw and account balance happen without any delay. Refunds and reallocating funds from a cancelled order to a new order do not involve the blockchain which is cheap, convenient and fast. However this design has a disadvantage that it becomes a huge lucrative target for hackers to steal the funds off the market. The Tor Market design puts security of the wallet ahead of other requirements by moving wallet off market, and therefore loses features of fast, cheap payments and simple refund procedures.
There is no support for bitcoin multi-signature addresses because it is difficult and time consuming for most buyers to use.
System security
With Tor .onion addresses, https is not necessary because Tor ensures you are connected with the real authenic website and not a fake one. Tor also handles end to end encryption between this website and your Tor Browser to keep communication private. Traffic never leaves the encrypted Tor network. Provided you enter the .onion URL correctly Tor will take care of network security and privacy for you.
Theft of escrow funds would be extremely difficult because the public server doesn’t store bitcoin. A hacker would need to modify the database to have their own bitcoin addresses so payments go to the wrong recipient. Any database tampering to effect payments made by the market would likely be detected by the scripts on the payment server that process payments. Security checks use the blockchain database as an immutable record of payments received to ensure payments out are based on trustworthy data that hasn’t been compromized. Buyers paying into the market can use PGP to ensure wallet addresses are authentic and not served up by a phishing proxy.
Periodically the escrow funds are replaced with fresh coins from Chaumian CoinJoin. This means that anyone who has paid into the wallet so they can analyse it, will have a limited window in time between their payment and when all the funds are replaced, to follow transactions. Then the trail stops and it’s like a new wallet was started. This is a work-in-progress because it means all users must cease using their old wallet addresses too.
The web server does not hold any PGP private keys. This means PGP encrypted messages in the database can’t be decrypted, even if a full copy of the Tor Market server is obtained.
The web server (and all systems used in maintaining and administering tor Market) have full disk encryption and use the most secure open source operation systems (not Windows, or Apple).
All network access to the web server is through TOR and includes additional hops though other networks in addition to TOR. This means that network traces of the server do not reveal any users or operators of the server. All servers that process traffic from Tor (ie market HTTP traffic) have DNS resolver set to lookup via TOR. General outbound traffic to the internet is restricted with firewall rules. These precautions are to avoid any inadvertent outbound traffic that would reveal IP addresses.
Session data (cookies) are all stored client side, signed and encrypted. No session data is stored on the server. This gives speed improvements and additional security because database leaks cannot reveal session tokens.
Crypto currencies technical
Litecoin, Monero and Zcash were added because their network transaction fees are cheaper than Bitcoin. At times the Bitcoin network can be too slow and expensive so alternatives are needed. Compared to Bitcoin, the other payment methods are riskier to hold funds in and their main advantages are as fast, cheap transactional currencies, not long term stores of value.
Zcash has very good privacy. No other crypto-currency has better privacy than Zcash, hiding both transaction amounts and addresses. With Bitcoin, to make some details of a transaction private requires building a special type of transaction called a Coinjoin. This requires specialized software that coordinates with other users contributing to the transaction. Using Zcash is much better alternative to Bitcoin coinjoins in terms of privacy.
There is only one software implementation of Zcash that supports shielded transactions, called zcashd. zcashd is a full node and stores the entire blockchain. Desktop wallets ZECwallet and Zepio are graphical frontends to zcashd.
Monero has better privacy than Litecoin and Bitcoin. It obscures inputs to transactions by adding additional dummy inputs, and hides the amounts transferred. The addresses used in a transaction are visible on the blockchain for analysis but the blockchain overwhelms the analyst with too much data , much of it fake. This has the effect of bloating the blockchain and causing transaction fees to be relatively high because transaction byte sizes are bigger than other blockchains. The Monero blockchain has been de-anonimized before when its privacy features were weaker. Many of the old transactions prior to 2017 were revealed by researchers.
Although Litecoin, Monero and Zcash offer many advantages over Bitcoin, they are not decentralized in the same way Bitcoin is. Decentralization is what protects against censorship and theft of funds by government.
In summary, Bitcoin is the best way to safely store value long term. Other crypto-currencies can offer cheaper transaction fees and privacy features but it is advisable to exchange them for Bitcoin instead of holding them, in all cases other than short term holding.
How Tor Market generates payments
This section applies to crypto-currencies that support transaction replacement and tx fees are expensive. Currently this only applies to Bitcoin. If the bitcoin transactions for buyer refunds and vendor payouts are broadcast but awaiting confirmation, more payouts may arrive for the payment server to pay. Instead of making new separate transactions, the old transactions are replaced. This process keeps repeating and the transaction gets bigger as more payments get rolled in. Each replacement is broadcast with a higher fee on Tor Market.
You can try spend any payout funds before they are confirmed, but ensure you set the fee high enough to confirm quickly. If you set a high fee on your spend but it is still not confirming then during this time the market will stop making any more payments to you. Your payouts will start being paid to you again only after your spend transaction confirms, or is discarded from mempool. Suppose your spend transaction (of unconfirmed funds) uses a low fee. Then your spend is in the mempool waiting confirmation along with the market’s transaction that paid you. In this case where it has a low fee, when the market replaces its transaction (as above) then your spend in the mempool is orphaned and discarded from mempool. Your spend is effectively reversed and your wallet should return the balance to pre-spend. A problem occurs when you spend with a high fee, but not high enough to confirm. This prevents the markets automated payment system from making further payments to you.
To prevent your wallet spending unconfirmed funds, look at wallet settings. Some wallets consolidate inputs in the background, making transactions that pay itself.
In summary, if Tor Market pays you and it hasn’t confirmed yet, avoid spending these unconfirmed funds. Wait for a confirmation before spending. If you try spend unconfirmed funds, ensure you provide a very good fee so it confirms quickly. Because once you spend unconfirmed payout funds, it stops the payment server algorithm from making further payments to you.
Black Pyramid Market is the next-generation market, giving the avarage dark-net user one of the most efficient way to shop online. We focus our attention on security, innovation and user-friendliness in order to bring out the perfect balance between sophistication and simplicity.
We do not restrict users in their choice of action and offers multiple features, variations and packages to please everyone on Black Pyramid Market.
While combining some of the most famous features seen on previous markets on top of adding our personal touch, we are ready to provide the world with a quality service.
Rules of Black Pyramid Market
As we want to offer you the best shopping experience, we have strict rules. Scammers and hackers are banned without warning. We are constantly monitoring our systems with the help of human staff and informatic algorithms to detect such behaviour.
The marketplace is only meant to sell drugs and digital services. We do not restrict the origin of products on our platform. Besides this, the following goods are STRICTLY FORBIDDEN on the marketplace:
Ammunition
Animal pornography
Anything in relation to social or “Teen leaks”
Bombs
Child pornography
Fentanyl and derivated drugs
Explosives
Human organs
Human trafficking
Living animals
Murder for hire
Snuff films
Terrorism related products
Toxins or lethal poisons
Weapons
Offering these products is not allowed on Black Pyramid Market.
Does Black Pyramid Market have a forum?
Our forum will be deployed slightly before the end of 2021.
Introduction to Black Pyramid Market
We are glad that you have found your way to Black Pyramid Market and want to support you as best as we can.
If you feel overwhelmed by all the information and do not know where to start, don´t worry. Everyone started at this point and you are lucky you found our First Steps guide.
Below we will help you with the most basic things to make your first order.
For enhanced security, we advise you to install and start the operating system Tails as described here.
Setup your Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) for encryption as described here.
Decide if you want to use Monero, Bitcoin, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash or Dash. You can get some general information in this chapter and all about buying Bitcoin here.
If you want to use Monero have a look here how to setup your local Monero Wallet GUI.
If you want to use Bitcoin have a look here how to setup your local Electrum wallet.
Further instructions will be soon added regarding LTC, BCH and DASH crypto-currencies
You are ready to create your fist order. Select a product you would like to purchase as explained here.
After you found a product you would like to buy, simply press the checkout button and follow the instructions. Make sure to encrypt your address as described in this guide.
When you have to pay your order. For Monero see this guide and for Bitcoin have a look here.
Congratulations, you have successfully made your first order. In case of questions or problems do not hesitate to contact your vendor.
It is also recommended to have a look at the next chapters to get a better understanding about security, payment, shipping and other topics.
HOW TO ORDER
1. Select a vendor and a product
You are probably visiting Black Pyramid because you would like to purchase drugs or digital services. We can definitely help you with that. However, before placing your order, you have to decide which product or products from which vendor you would like to buy.
As lots of different products from different vendors are offered, this choice might not be that easy. First, you can choose a product category that is interesting for you or perform a seach with a keyword. Once on the search page , feel free to apply some filters. For example, you can filter for all the products that would be shipped to your country by selecting the destination country in the “Shipping To” filter.
When selecting a product you would like to buy, do always also have a look at the vendor, selling the product. Read the vendor description and refund policy and have a look at the ratings of the concerned vendor.
Besides this, you can also contact the vendor directly to ask questions. Black Pyramid Market has a very unique conversation system based on the same design as most of the current smartphone chat-apps.
When you have finally decided on which product you would like to buy, continue with the next section to place your order.
2. How to order Prerequisite
We do not force user to have 2fa-authentifcation enabled to place any order but we storngly recommend such practice. If your account gets hacked on black pyramid market, it will be your own responsability.
The order process on Black Pyramid has been simplified to the maximum.
Once you are on the product page you want to order, simply click on the checkout tab to roll down the checkout window.
Select the number of items you want to order along with the appropriate shipping option. Click on the “Next” button.
An overview of the pre-total and total amount will be displayed. Choose with which crypto-currency you want to checkout.
If you have sufficient balance on your wallet, you can choose to checkout with your on-site balance. If not, just use the “Payment on checkout” option. ( refer to this guide to enable the on-site wallet and deposit money on your Black Pyramid wallet )
After double-reading and accepting the rules of the vendor, enter your shipping information as described here. Click on the “Checkout” button.
The payment information will be displayed. Transfer the chosen coins to the displayed address.
After the payment transaction is confirmed the vendor will accept and ship the order. Make sure to not let the auto-finalize timer run out before the package arrives as described here. Once you received your order, you should mark it as received.
As a last step leave a rating for the order on Black Pyramid Market.
Congratulations, you have made your first order on Black Pyramid. If there are any questions unanswered have a look at the other chapters of our documentation or contact your vendor directly. For technical problems please contact the Black Pyramid Market Support.
3. Cart-less market / Multiple orders
We did not judge necessary on Black Pyramid to add a ” Cart “ feature for multiple reasons.
Our wishlist feature doesn’t require our users to load any extra page, making it easier for anyone to bookmark and order from it’s wishlist.
Black Pyramid offer a dual choice of payment-type: with you on-site balance or payment on checkout; which makes it easier for anyone to order whatever items from whoever, at any time.
To order multiple items, simply process to the checkout of the first item before checking out on the second one, etc etc… The good news is that you don’t need to wait for the payment confirmations before placing a new order . Suit yourself to as you you wish !
4. Payment on checkout time-frame
In an effort to prevent crypto-currency rate fluctuation to further impact the final price, be aware that you have to complete your payment within 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, if our system hasn’t detected a single confirmation, the transaction will be cancelled.
If for any reason you manage to send less money than needed, our system will simply credit the money on your Black Pyramid Market wallet once the total number of blockchain confirmations has been reached. Feel free to replace your order after that
On another hand, if you send more money than you should, there is no guarantee about the excedent refund. Feel free to contact us at the support if you think you have made such a mistake.
So please make sure to always pay the exact amount within the requested time..
5. How important are vendor terms and conditions on Black Pyramid Market?
During a dispute, Black Pyramid staff has the authority to issue a veto to determine whether or not the terms of the vendor are fair.
Please make sure to read the rules and product description carefully before placing your orders. In case of questions contact your vendor directly.
All about finalization
Order finalization on Black Pyramid Market
When speaking of finalizing an order it is meant to close this order and in most times to mark the order as received. This is important as the vendor will get paid with this step in an escrow payment system.
What is auto-finalize?
As said before, the vendor will receive your payment after you finalize the order. For a general payment explanation do also have a look here.
Because some customers are totally busy and enjoy their received order, they may not mark the order as received after receiving it. Therefore, there is an auto-finalize timer for each order. When this auto-finalize timer runs out, the order will be finalized automatically and the vendor will receive the payment.
This timer depends on the type of order ( physical / digital / auto-shop ) and the vendor’s right ( FE / Escrow ): Different auto-finalization timers
16 days for physical orders
5 days for digital orders
24 hours for digital auto-shop orders ( delivered instantly )
Auto-finalization timers only concern escrow orders. Orders that have been finalized early are not concerned.
Do not worry, if your order gets delayed due to delivery problems. You can easily extend once the auto-finalize date by 5 days for physical products and 2 days for digital items ( auto-shop excluded ) at the order page. Within this step please contact your vendor directly to check if there are maybe some known problems. Warning
Always open a dispute before the auto-finalize timer runs out to find a solution. During a dispute the funds are safely locked until it is solved.
What is Finalize Early (FE) on Black Pyramid Market?
Finalize Early, or short FE, means that as soon as the vendor marks the order as shipped, the funds will be transferred to the vendor. This means that the order will not be protected by escrow if something goes wrong. Black Pyramid will also not be able to help you as we have no access to the funds which are already transferred to the vendor. Warning
Be aware of the risk of Finalize Early orders and prefer escrow if you can.
However, only FE-allowed vendors can offer FE on our platform. In this sens, our system mitigate and prevent further risk of problems with an FE order.
There are some reasons for vendors to request FE, like the risk to have money stuck in the system for a long time when e.g. shipping to remote countries. Some vendors do also offer overweight or have some special FE offers to share their advantages of FE.
A vendor is asking for Finalize Early on Black Pyramid Market
FE is only allowed for FE-allowed vendors on Black Pyramid and available as a payment method.
Asking for FE during an escrow order as a non-FE-allowed vendor is strongly forbidden. It is a clear violation of the marketplace rules. Please report vendors who ask you to do finalize your order before receiving it.
Order problems
What if my order does not arrive on Black Pyramid Market?
First, please be patient. There are a lot of orders which get delayed due to delivery problems. The first thing you should do is to extend the auto-finalize on the order page.
Please note that you can only extend the auto-finalize date once per order. Have a look here to get more information about order finalization.
Do not forget to contact the vendor directly and open a dispute before the auto-finalize timer runs out if your package has not been delivered yet. Note that tracking information is often only provided after a certain amount of time as explained here.
What is a dispute?
You can dispute an order if there is any problem with it that can not be solved together with the vendor. For example your order does not arrive or the wrong product was shipped. Please note that it will not be possible to start a dispute after the order was marked as received or has been finalized automatically.
A dispute does also pause the auto-finalize timer of the order. However, if not already extended please extend the auto-finalize date manually on the order detail page if your order is simply delayed.
In the dispute message, please explain briefly the problem with the order. It is easier for our staff and the vendor to solve the problem with all needed information at hand.
After opening the dispute, Black Pyramid will have a look at it and assist you with all needs. The vendor will also be able to see the dispute and comment in the dispute.
Cancel an order Prerequisite
As a buyer you will be able to cancel an order until the vendor accepts it.
Sometimes it is necessary to cancel a order. You can cancel an order by yourself until the vendor accepts the order. After this, your money will be refunded automatically to your on-site wallet unless you have specified a refund address ( PGP is mandatory in this case ).
Unaccepted orders are never automatically cancelled on Black Pyramid, giving vendors a bit more flexiblity if they have important things to deal with in real life. It is all up to you to press the cancel button as a buyer if you run out of patience. If an order is not shipped within 3 days after being accepted by the vendor it will then be canceled automatically. You will probably get a message from the vendor why the order has been canceled, if not just ask your vendor.
Ratings
All about ratings
Ratings are a great way to appreciate the quality of the vendor´s services and products. Please contribute to this system by submitting a rating after each order. If you have too many unrated and completed orders, you have to submit a rating for these before creating a new order.
There are vendor and product ratings. The vendor rating is for describing the overall shopping experience with the vendor, excluding criteria of the product. The product quality and everything else related to a product can be described in the product rating. Have a look below for an overview of applicable criteria.
Please do only rate an order as negative if you had severe problems. Every vendor will try to find a suitable solution for you. It sometimes happens that an order gets lost, but this is the risk of shipping which does not depend on the vendor or the market. Keep in mind to not submit order or product ratings before you have received the order. It makes no sense to submit placeholder ratings.
In case of an unjustified rating, the market may disable or remove this rating. If there should be any problems with unjustified ratings, please contact support.
Vendor rating criteria
You should consider the following criteria while rating the vendor:
Shipping time (excluding postal service issues, e.g. COVID-19)
Packaging (especially the stealth)
Communication with the vendor
Overall reactivity and feeling
The following should not be taken into account:
Price
Postal service issues
Product quality regarding its effect and taste
Anything related to the market
Product rating criteria
You should consider the following criteria for a product rating:
Product delivered as described
Polluted product, e.g. weed with extenders.
Product quality regarding its effect and taste
The following should not be taken into account:
Shipping time
Communication with the vendor
Anything related to the market
Rating from the vendor
Besides the rating from the buyer, which is publicly visible for everyone, the vendors do also rate their buyers.
You can see the rating from your vendor on the order detail page of the corresponding order or on your buyer profile page. If there is no rating yet, it means the vendor did not submit one yet.
By this, buyers can earn trust and build up a good profile for themselves, as the ratings from vendors can also be seen by other vendors.
Can I finalize my order and leave my feedback later ?
Yes, this is one of the unique feature of our market. If for any reason you need more time to rate your vendor and the products you ordered, you can first finalize the order and leave a feedback within 60 days.
Can I change my rating?
Yes, we allow buyers to change rating once after the order was already rated. You will only be able to change the rating from a negative to a neutral or positive one, but not from a positive to a negative one. In such cases or if you have already changed the rating once, please contact support.
According to a report from Chainalysis, 2022 cryptocurrency mixers use have reached an all-time high in 2022.
Chainalysis is a member of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Innovators community, Chainalysis is a leader in blockchain analytics. They are an extension of governments, they provide services to law enforcement agencies and hire former feds as employees.
According to the firm, crypto mixers are receiving record amounts of cryptocurrency in 2021 and 2022. According to the Chainalysis report published on July 14, 2022, on April 19, 2022, crypto mixers received “an all-time high of $51.8 million worth of cryptocurrency.” A chart provided by Chainalysis reveals that mixers received roughly $24 million worth of cryptocurrency on the same day in 2021.
Mixers are legal
In the report, Chainalysis laments that mixers are legal “despite their utility for criminals.” In 2020 FinCEN, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said that cryptocurrency mixers are legal and considered money transmitters under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and they must comply with the same regulations as other money transmitting services. These regulations they must comply with include maintaining a strong anti-money laundering compliance program and following “Know Your Customer” (KYC) rules for Money Services Businesses.
“Given that increased privacy is the whole point of using a mixer, it seems unlikely that one could implement those compliance procedures and retain its user base. “
Types of Transactions
So far, in 2022, 23% of funds sent to mixers came from a cryptocurrency address associated with illicit activity. Illicit transactions accounted for just 12% of mixer activity in 2021.
According to Chainalysis these are the categories of illicit activity they tracked.
“What stands out most is the huge volume of funds moving to mixers from addresses associated with sanctioned entities, especially in Q2 2022.”
In April 2022 (Q2), the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Hydra Market. Transactions from addresses linked to Hydra Market accounted for 50.4% of all funds moving to mixers from sanctioned entities in 2022.
Chainalysis, which is a neutral source when it comes to discussions about financial privacy, believes that mixers “present a difficult question” to “members of the cryptocurrency community.”
“Virtually everyone would acknowledge that financial privacy is valuable, and that in a vacuum, there’s no reason services like mixers shouldn’t be able to provide it. However, the data shows that mixers currently pose a significant money laundering risk…”
Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology have lead a new research that has traced two genetic variants to ancient Neanderthal relatives that can affect how well drugs are metabolized. It is hypothesized these ancient Neanderthal genes may account for some differences in therapeutic drug activity from person to person.
While Homo sapiens are currently the only species of humans who inhabit the Earth, that wasn’t always the case. For hundreds of thousands of years, a whole family of ancient humans shared the planet from mysterious “ghost” species and Denisovans, to the more commonly known Neanderthals.
Homo sapiens won the ancient evolutionary battle in the end, but there are still many traces of these ancient species in our DNA. You see, modern humans apparently got along very well with different species at various time in history, and traces of Neanderthal DNA is still found in many people around the world.
Sometimes these ancient Neanderthal genes are beneficial. A 2020 study, for example, found one in three European women carried a Neanderthal gene variant that codes for progesterone receptors in women. This meant those women were likely to experience lower rates of miscarriage and increased fertility.
Ancient Neanderthal
But sometimes these Neanderthal genes are less helpful, as highlighted in this new study which identified a pair of variants linked to decreases in drug metabolism. The two Neanderthal gene variants reduce the activity of key enzymes that metabolize a number of different drugs.
The research indicates carriers of these genes are “slow metabolizers,” and likely demonstrate decreased metabolism of drugs. This includes “antidiabetic drugs (e.g., pioglitazone), statins (e.g., cerivastatin), anti-inflammatory drugs (e.g., ibuprofen) and chemotherapeutic agents (e.g., paclitaxel).”.
Hugo Zeberg, lead researcher on the study, said there are possible clinical implications for carriers of these genetic variants. Standard doses of drugs such as blood-thinner warfarin and anticonvulsant phenytoin could become toxic in some people with certain kinds of low enzymatic activity.
“This is one case where the admixture with Neanderthals has a direct impact in the clinic,” said Zeberg. “Otherwise therapeutic doses can be toxic for carriers of the Neanderthal gene variant.”
It is estimated around 12 percent of people in Europe could be carrying these genetic variants. The researchers ultimately don’t indicate these findings should directly influence clinical practice, but instead can be used to help explain how different ancestries can effect therapeutic outcomes.
A man in Brooklyn NYC was charged Wednesday with selling heroin and cocaine on the dark web in exchange for bitcoin and running a door-to-door drug delivery service in New York, federal authorities said.
The man Edison Hernandez, 46, allegedly sold drugs under the pseudonyms “dragoncove” and “Nino” on darkweb markets including Silk Road, AlphaBay, Dream Market and Wall Street Market for about six years starting in 2013, prosecutors from the Eastern District of NYC said.
The accused vendor became a highly rated vendor on the darkweb, which allowed customers to grade dealers on factors such as quality of the product, reliability and volume.
He was able to evade law enforcement for years by using pseudonyms and accepting payment in bitcoin.
The darkweb vendor then worked with two other suspected vendors, 42-year-old Michael Caruso and Raymer Ynoa, 32, to sell cocaine, methamphetamine, ketamine and MDMA in a door-to-door delivery service in Manhattan and Brooklyn for three years starting in 2019.
The suspects advertised their service as “Nino & Viktor’s Pastry Shoppe” and they allowed customers to order drugs over encrypted messaging apps. A delivery person would then allegedly hand off the drugs after the deal was set up.
They all face a maximum of 40 years in prison if convicted.
A fourth co-conspirator, Irvin Hernandez, was charged in a separate criminal complaint with working for the delivery service.
The suspects were expected to appear in Brooklyn NYC federal court Wednesday afternoon. Attorney information for them was not immediately available.
NYC Attorney
“Hiding behind the dark web, encryption services, or bitcoin will not stop this Office from rooting out those who flood our communities with illegal and hazardous narcotics,” Breon Peace, the US attorney for the Eastern District of NYC.
AlphaBay market is an auction-style darknet marketplace for drugs and other black market items. You can obtain a seller account and put listings for the community.
NO harming others (hitman service, murders etc.). We do not conduct or condone any violence through Alphabay market website.
NO guns/guns discussions (even for self-defense). Reinforces rule #1.
NO terrorism related products, services or propaganda. Regardless of what you think or feel about a topic or country or anything, this is not the place for it especially if it involves hate or violence. We are a place of business, constructive community discussions and opportunities. Reinforces rule #1 and #2.
NO erotica/porn/softcore of any sorts (logins for major sites are okay). Child porn, animal abuse videos cover this rule – we have never previously allowed anything like this and we will not start doing now as it is something we strongly oppose that on Alphabay Market.
NO fentanyl or fentanyl-laced/based substances (even if it is done ‘correctly’). We no longer allow fentanyl or substances laced/based on it due to buyer safety. Greedy & amateur vendors have ruined this for everyone on Alphabay Market.
Interesting fact, in the US street-dealing and DNMs have been blamed by mainstream media for the opioid crises while ignoring the companies which create OxyCodone and the likes, which not only amount for the majority of deaths but also unfortunately are the start journey for many addicts.
NO Covid-19 vaccines/cures or vaccines of any sorts. There is no real way for Staff to check these products as the effects of taking it can vary person to person.
NO any Russia/Belarus/Kazakhstan/Armenia/Kyrgyzstan-related activity (people, organizations, companies, critical infrastructure, non-profits, governments) or citizens data. We are now specifying which other CIS countries can NOT have activity of any sorts or data related on this website.
NO ransomware selling, recruiting for access to deploy ransomware or ransomware discussions.
NO hate-speech against any religion, culture, skin colour, profession. Try being polite and respectful of others. When you are not towards another user, specify a constructive, logical & preferrably fact-based reason(s) why that is the case.
On Alphabay Market no doxing of any kind regardless if you are buyer or seller. Releasing other peoples’ information is strictly forbidden and it will result in an immediate ban on Alphabay Market.
NO outside escrow sales on Alphabay Market. For safety of both buyers and sellers we warn you that making a transaction outside of our secure escrow is 100% your responsibility. If a vendor/buyer is asking you to do that he might be attempting to scam you, immediately report that user.
NO advertising for non-approved off-market services or websites. Non-vetted and especially off-market services or websites can not be advertised under any circumstances. You MUST seek approval by Administration before linking your website (on your listing, forum profile signature etc.)
We may change, add, remove or otherwise alter in any sort, shape or form the Rules and Terms of Service without the need to notify any user. It is the responsibility of the user to keep an eye of the global website rules at any given time and Staff will not accept excuses such as ‘not being up to update’ with rules when e.g. placing warnings via our warning system for breaking of certain rules.
Global Buyer Rules / Terms of Service on Alphabay Market
Adhere to all global AlphaBay market rules. No exceptions.
Attempts to scam other users or vendors can result in being given warning points, account limitation or permanent ban – all on a case-by-case basis and per discretion of Staff.
NO sending spam, unwanted messages or links through Conversations (Private Messages) on the platform. To prevent abuse & spam as a new buyer you will have a limit of 12 conversations (excluding dispute/escrow conversations or conversations started by another user).
As your account ages, you are more active and most importantly your Trust Level (TL) increases that limit will become higher. For true conversations experience, use the Forum to contact vendors/other users. Marketplace conversations are meant to be short and they self-delete if inactive.
NO Trust/Distrust begging. Trust Level works by taking into account many factors but most importantly what is the trust factor of a user who has clicked Trust or Distrust on a given profile. As a buyer you can politely ask vendors to rate you ‘Trust’ if they feel like it.
Harassing them or other users on the platform for this is NOT ALLOWED. Revenge ‘Distrust’ by one or multiple individuals against one or several individuals is also NOT ALLOWED on Alphabay Market.
Disputes require any buyer to respond within 3 days (72 hours). If buyer does not respond, the ADR will be cancelled, a live moderator will be assigned to the dispute and most likely rule in vendors favour.
NO hacking or abusing the platform whatever the reason. Security testing, hacking, attempting to manipulate the system is NOT ALLOWED unless a permission has been obtained from Administration. We encourage bug testing and have our own bug bounty program but only to those who apply beforehand and request permission are eligble for rewards.
Dispute decisions by Staff are final. If you believe Staff has mistreated you or rulled incorrectly you can always create a ticket and encrypt your message with PGP only available to members of Administration. While we can not reverse the decision of that specific dispute, we can take a look into the Staff members to ensure our high quality standars are met and applied fairly for everyone.
If your account becomes limited you can ask Staff for reasoning. It should be reflected through warning points in your profile. You will not be able to buy listings etc. Most notably you will have your wallet access frozen until your account limitation is removed or you get banned.
If your account is banned in almost all cases you will receive nothing. All of your funds will be forfeited. Rare cases where you will be allowed to withdraw funds would be where you would prefer account ban instead of account deletion etc.
Global Vendor Rules / Terms of Service
Adhere to all global AlphaBay market rules. No exceptions on Alphabay Market.
Attempts to scam users or other vendors can result in being given warning points, account limitation or permanent ban – all on a case-by-case basis and per discretion of Staff.
NO sending spam, unwanted messages or links through Conversations (Private Messages) on the platform. To prevent abuse & spam as a new vendor you will have a limit of 1000 conversations (excluding dispute/escrow conversations or conversations started by another user).
As your account ages, you are more active and most importantly your Trust Level (TL) increases that limit will become higher. For true conversations experience, use the Forum to contact buyers/other users. Marketplace conversations are meant to be short and they self-delete if inactive.
NO feedback padding of any sorts. If our systems alert Staff such actions are being taken it can result in being given warning points, account limitation or permanent ban – all on a case-by-case basis and per discretion of Staff.
Becoming a vendor requires few easy steps and a vendor bond. Only very established vendors can request bond waiver as we do not have much trust in feedback by other marketplaces.
NO Trust/Distrust begging. Trust Level works by taking into account many factors but most importantly what is the trust factor of a user who has clicked Trust or Distrust on a given profile. As a vendor you can politely ask buyers to rate you ‘Trust’ if they feel like it. Harassing them or other users on the platform for this is NOT ALLOWED. Revenge ‘Distrust’ by one or multiple individuals against one or several individuals is also NOT ALLOWED on Alphabay Market.
Disputes require any vendor to respond within 3 days (72 hours). If vendor does not respond, the ADR will be cancelled, a live moderator will be assigned to the dispute and most likely rule in buyers favour.
NO hacking or abusing on Alphabay Market whatever the reason. Security testing, hacking, attempting to manipulate the system is NOT ALLOWED unless a permission has been obtained from Administration. We encourage bug testing and have our own bug bounty program but only to those who apply beforehand and request permission are eligble for rewards.
Dispute decisions by Staff are final. If you believe Staff has mistreated you or rulled incorrectly you can always create a ticket and encrypt your message with PGP only available to members of Administration. While we can not reverse the decision of that specific dispute, we can take a look into the Staff members to ensure our high quality standars are met and applied fairly for everyone.
If your Alphabay Market account becomes limited you can ask Staff for reasoning. It should be reflected through warning points in your profile. You will not be able to create new listings, edit listings, all your listings will be deactivated, no new orders etc. Most notably you will have your wallet access frozen until your account limitation is removed or you get banned.
If your Alphabay Market account is banned in almost all cases you will receive nothing. All of your funds will be forfeited and if there have been victims of a scam, the funds will be equally divided between them. Rare cases where you will be allowed to withdraw funds would be something like your products being inferior or you getting rejected by the market etc.
Purchasing Rules / How It Works / Safety Guidelines
All purchases you make within our marketplace are through our Escrow System. When you click ‘Confirm Purchase’ your money will go into an escrow for protection of both the buyer and the seller. Neither party can withdraw the money until the sale is finalized.
The money stays safe in escrow until you confirm you have received the goods to the advertised standard and you are satisfied with it. Once you release escrow the money goes to the seller and the sale is finalized. This means you can not dispute or get your money back once the sale is finalized.
If for some reason the goods are not satisfactory or there is another issue then you can choose to dispute.
Unlike other marketplaces we have the Automatic Dispute Resolver (ADR) system to speed-up the dispute process. When you dispute first the ADR system will be available to you to instantly work out a solution with the vendor directly, no waiting for moderators, no delays.
It is basically a proposition system between buyer and seller involving extending escrow time, full refund, percentage refund or replacement options. Both parties can accept or deny proposition(s) from the other side.
We STRONGLY RECOMMEND using ADR because it is exactly the same steps a moderator would take during a dispute without the need to babysit both parties. Even if you do not reach an agreement with the vendor, you would know where you stand or you would have tried certain options like reshipping/replacement of goods.
The system has been designed to ensure quick resolution if needed by moderator by looking at what has already happened. Our experience previously has shown us over the years that a system like ADR is the future of how marketplaces will handle their disputes.
If for some reason, at any given time ADR does not work for you and you can not reach an agreement or simply refuse to use it at all, there is always an available moderator to look into it in less than 24 hours.
Disputing a sale can damage your reputation as a buyer if your reason for disputing is not good. Some small issues can be simply reflected on the rating you give the vendor at the end of the sale. Reasons like ‘I changed my mind’, ‘I miscliked’, ‘I didn’t read listing refund policy’ are NOT ACCEPTABLE
Escrow will auto-finalize after a certain period. Please release escrow as soon as you have received and are satisfied with the goods. Always delaying until the last minute to release escrow or always leaving it up to auto-finalize will hurt your reputation as a user (Trust Level).
Sales of digital items auto-finalize in 2 days (48 hours).
Sales of physical items auto-finalize in 7 days (168 hours).
If you have not received your goods before the auto-finalize time then dispute the order and using ADR select to extend escrow time. Doing that ensures moderators do not get clogged up with disputes where basically they have to wait until the first package arrives and everyone can get fair and fast dispute resolution.
If a seller asks you to send coins outside Escrow system DO NOT SEND IT. Transactions outside of Escrow are NOT PROTECTED and it is at your own risk
If you have not received the goods or the goods are not what you expected/other issue and the seller asks you to finalize the sale regardless of what he/she is promising DO NOT FINALIZE IT. Raise a dispute and deal with it there. If you finalize a sale prematurely and get scammed for some reason you can raise a report against the vendor but your funds are not recoverable.
Sellers which have been verified with a good track record can have on rare cases Finalize Early (FE) listings. FE means you bypass escrow and you directly pay the seller. FE is given only to trusted and vetted sellers but it is entirely up to you to do your research and are completely certain you trust the seller.
If you feel the seller has scammed you and the listing is FE instead of Escrow mode then quickly create a report on the user and the listing. If the vendor decides to run off with your money and a lot of buyers have created reports, it will get flagged to ScamWatch/Staff to quickly limit sellers account and stop the scam from occuring.
We highly recommend you PGP encrypt your shipping address on your own. This small but important step can stand between you and getting a knock on the door by Law Enforcement (LE).
You can find the sellers PGP key on their profile or shown just before you purchase. We have an automatic function to encrypt address/buyer notes but it is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED you PGP encrypt notes on your own.
!!! VERY IMPORTANT READ ALL FURTHER DOWN !!!
Save the following recovery key. Once you have submitted that you accept the rules of the website, your account will be bound to that wallet recovery key. The wallet recovery key is the only way to access and recover your funds in case of attack or raid on our servers, network, infrastructure or detention/arrest of administrators.
Several dedicated and automated systems are progressively checking if the website is down, if the servers are raided, if specific network node is offline, and other hidden factors which help us determine if everything is alright and not tampered with in any way (from system files, to disk cloning, to USB injection attempts, to network sniffers, even routing attacks). We have taken many months to build and perfect the system (AlphaGuard) as well as beta test it and we are very proud of our achievement. All requests and queries are done in anonymous and decentralized way with a stealthy, custom and multiple-algorithm-changing approaches to avoid detection or being used against us in future in some form. We have additional systems to monitor the systems which monitor the websites which use totally different methods to check it.
Question: Why do you need as user wallet recovery key?
Answer: Let us take the theoretical scenario if any our systems detect an anomaly. Our systems will go into lockdown mode. Lockdown mode has to be disabled by administrators manually within 72 hours otherwise the systems launch the wallet recovery mode. Through different channels on the Internet will be posted the onion and/or i2p addresses of the withdraw pages.
The withdraw pages are standalone and require 3 pieces of identification to allow withdraw of the funds: username, password, wallet recovery key. You CAN NOT do anything without having all 3 elements. After you have entered your information you will be granted with a field for your public or internal XMR address which you must fulfill. You CAN NOT choose to withdraw small pieces of your wallet, the wallet does not give that option or specify how much you want to withdraw. You WITHDRAW ALL FUNDS AT ONCE NO MATTER HOW BIG OR SMALL THE AMOUNT IS.
Several weeks after withdraw mode has been running (we are not specifying for security reasons but it is more than 2 and less than 8), the self-destruct mode will kick-in which will ERASE ALL DATABASES, FILES, SYSTEMS AUTOMATICALLY. Once completed that will be the end of it. No way to recover anything ever again, not for customers, not for us, not for Law Enforcement (LE).
We take our and the security of our customers as top priority and we will not allow any kind of attacks to be successful in penetrating our defense layers. We are prepared with automated and tested systems alongside 24/7/365 administration/security to respond and react to any type of breach or even anomaly in set of operations.
NOTICE: In the theoretical situation which we described above if the password you are entering is not working, a very likely solution will be that you changed your password before we made a backup or the system can not reach one of the latest backups so it reverts to an older one. Ensure you save at least your previous password to avoid such scenario. All passwords are hashed in accordance to security language best practices and techniques, we rely on proven and tested methods plus crypto and do not roll our own mechanisms for obvious reasons.
DO NOT lose the key above or you will NEVER BE ABLE TO ACCESS YOUR FUNDS IN CASE OF EMERGENCY. NEVER EVER disclose your wallet recovery not to other users, not to even staff or administrators. The key is for your eyes only.
Question: Why do you need account recovery phrase?
Answer: The account recovery phrase is used to recover/reset your password. It is used in case forgot your password and you need to proof account ownership. Accounts which have PGP 2-FA (two-factor authentication) enabled will only be able to recover account by accessing their PGP key and decrypting a message to prove they are indeed the owner.
Your account recovery phrase on Alphabay Market is:
DO NOT lose the phrase above or you will NEVER BE ABLE TO ACCESS YOUR ACCOUNT AGAIN. That phrase is the only way to reset your password if you do not have PGP 2-FA enabled. We STRONGLY RECOMMEND enabling PGP 2-FA (two-factor authentication) to ensure highest level of security.
If you DO NOT agree to these rules CLOSE THIS PAGE AND LEAVE THIS WEBSITE. You CAN accept the rules and disagree with them at the same time BUT you MUST FOLLOW THE RULES AT ALL TIMES NO EXCEPTIONS regardless of how you feel about them. Any time you feel the rules are not fair you can either engage in constructive conversation with community members and staff or LEAVE THIS WEBSITE if no change is possible at that time.
The rules/terms of service are available at any time by adding to the URL /rules once authenticated. There is a link in My Cabinet too under Misc / Other section.
By clicking the button below you acknowledge that breaking any of the aforementioned Global AlphaBay Rules/Terms of Service WILL RESULT IN A PERMANENT BAN WITHOUT NOTIFICATION.
Mega Darknet Market is a new market developed in Russia. Mega Darknet Market currently supports multiple languages and does not require vendor bonds when applying for a vendor account or an invite to register to the Mega darknet market. Mega Darknet market supports 2FA, Pgp encryption, and accepts multiple cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, and Monero.
Incognito Market is a simultaneously secure and simple to use darkweb market. Incognito market was built to remove the danger of buying drugs on the streets.
Incognito Market is a market built to make the danger of buying drugs on the streets almost non-existent. To build a safer market for our users, we implement these rules. Anyone found breaking these rules will be penalized according to moderators’ discretion, usually involving a ban and blacklisting from the market. The allowed products on this market are mainstream narcotics of the Stimulant, Psychedelic, Dissociative, Benzodiazepine, Research Chemical, Entactogen, Opioid, or Cannabinoid classes, as well as alcohol and tobacco products, and assorted paraphernalia for growing, synthesis, manufacture, consumption, or similar activity related to these substances.
1: No sale or offer of gore or pornographic materials. In this context, “gore” is defined as any media (be it picture, video, or other, electronic or physical) that involves the abuse or harm of any person or animal, whether living or dead, and “pornographic materials” is identified as any media (be it picture, video or other, electronic or physical) designed to be sexually appealing to a certain group. The ban on pornography also includes child, animal, or harm-based media.
2: No sale or offer of weaponry, arms, or toxic/explosive materials and substances, including but not limited to:
– Guns (including handguns, rifles and shotguns), even if for decorative or collecting purposes or for the purposes of hunting animals or self-defence. Ammunition and add-ons for firearms (including rifle scops, laser pointers, or modifications) are also banned.
– Bladed weapons (including machetes, swords, axes, bayonets, knives, daggers or improvised bladed weapons), even if for decorative or collecting purposes or for the purposes of hunting animals or self-defence.
– Explosives (including incendiary devices, grenades, bombs, land mines, pipe bombs, car bombs, and IEDs).
– Any chemical that has poisonous, irritant or solely harmful capabilities (such as, but not limited to, pepper spray/Mace, chlorine and similar gases and chemicals, or any poisonous compound such as ricin or cyanide).
– Non-lethal but still harmful weapons such as police batons, Tasers/stun guns, or clubs.
– Apparel such as bulletproof or stab-proof vests, riot gear, helmets, gas masks, ammo belts and pouches, bulletproof material,
– Information about the synthesis of banned chemicals and substances, or information about, blueprints for, or materials for the creation of any of the above banned items and substances is also banned.
3: No sale of malware or fraud methods or items. Fraud and malware as a whole is disallowed on this market. The term “fraud” is also used here to encompass counterfeit money or items, fake IDs/passports/driver’s licences, or the sale of items gained via carding or similar fraudulent methods.
4: We disallow any sale of fentanyl or its analogues and related chemicals, including carfentanyl or products containing fentanyl or carfentanyl. Any vendor found to be selling products containing fentanyl or carfentanyl under a different name to circumvent this rule will be promptly banned.
5: No sale of fake, underdosed, dishonestly labelled, inactive, dangerous, or low-quality product.
6: No sale of live or dead animals, in whole or in part, including both regular pets or exotic animals. This includes ivory, bone, teeth, fur, feathers, skin, claws, organs, or bodily fluids. This rule also encompasses the sale of living or dead humans or of human parts, including bones, teeth, hair, skin, organs, bodily fluids, for any reason. This is not a market for human trafficking or buying tiger-fur rugs.
7: No advertising or sale of services related to harm of another human being or animal, whether real or fake. This includes advertising or selling media of harm or abuse (see rule #1), hitman services, red rooms, torture services, mental, physical or emotional harm, stalking, etc.
8: No doxxing, extortion or blackmail. Anybody, whether vendor, buyer or other, found to be engaging in this practice will be banned immediately.
9: No scamming, whether by vendor or buyer. Our team takes this very seriously, and perpetrators will be banned.
10: No directing buyers away from the market to direct deals or other markets in their public profile. Also, vendors found to be directing buyers away from the market escrow to scam via direct deal or other method will be banned.
11: No phishing or impersonation of staff, vendors or buyers on the market to confuse, trick or steal from any users of this market.
12: No malformed inbound or outbound crypto transactions whether intentional or unintentional.
13: No spamming, including but not restricting to the following functionalities: messaging, ordering, listing and support.
14: Incognito market team reserves the right to modify these terms.
Knowledge Base
Getting Started on Incognito market
How do I sign up?
Click “Register Now” to go to the sign up page. There, you need to select your username and password, you’ll be required to re-enter your password in case of typos. After filling out the captcha field, hit “Register”.
If everything was done correctly it’ll take you a page displaying your unique secret word and your mnemonic key/phrase, please save them securely. Your account secret will be displayed to you along with your mnemonic if your signup is successful.
How do I sign in?
Buyer/Vendor: Enter your username, secret word generated on registration, and your password. Do the captcha then hit “Login”.
Employee: Enter the vendor’s username and the token given to you from the vendor. Do the captcha then hit “Login”.Deposits
How do I deposit funds?
Click the coin icon on Incognito Market the right side of the navbar, a popup will appear. Select “Deposit” to go to the deposit page. Click “Request New Address” to generate deposit addresses. Note that you should always PGP-verify your mirror to ensure you are not on a phishing site. You have six hours to confirm your funds on the blockchain network.
How long do I have to wait until the deposited funds appear on the market wallet?
We require one confirmation for Bitcoin and two confirmations for Monero on the blockchain network. Your balance will be credited within twenty minutes after the criteria is met.
Why hasn’t my balance been updated?
There are three possibilities for this. First is that the address you deposited to either has a typo or is not generated by us. Second is that the transaction has not been broadcasted or confirmed yet. The last possibility is that the confirmations failed to be done within the six hour limit as specified on the deposit page.
What will happen if I send multiple deposits?
All deposits that are received by the deposit address within the time limit will be added to your balance.Withdrawals
How do I withdraw funds?
Click the coin icon on the right side of the incognito market navbar, a popup will appear. Select “Withdraw” to go to the withdrawal page. Click “New Withdrawal” to start a new withdrawal. Select the withdrawal currency and amount then click “Withdraw” to proceed.
What are the withdrawal limits on incognito market?
There is a minimum withdrawal amount of 0.001BTC for Bitcoin and 0.0002XMR for Monero to prevent dust withdrawals on incognito market.
Why can I only withdraw once per hour?
This limit is in place to prevent load or deanonymization attacks on our crypto servers.
What are the withdrawal fees?
We do not charge withdrawal fees, only blockchain transaction fees are deducted. For Bitcoin, the transactions’ confirmation targets are set at two blocks. For Monero, we use a flat fee of 0.0001XMR incognito market.
How long do I have to wait until the withdrawals are processed?
Withdrawals are usually processed within twenty minutes by our systems on incognito market.
What does “analyze receiving address” do?
This queues the receiving address for a fund cleaness check on our blockchain analysis service: Antinalysis.Listings
How does the “random” option in listings and vendor list work?
A random seed is generated every time you sign in, and stays with you for the session until you sign out. The reason for this is that each listing gets a chance to be at the top of the list while not messing up the pagination.
What does “Finalize Early” or “FE” marked on listings mean?
This means that the vendor has good vendor history and is granted a privilege that allows their revenues to skip the escrow process. These orders are finalized automatically after the vendor marks the order as shipped. Note that FE deprives the buyer the chance of disputes, so please purchase at your own risk.
What does “AF Time” on the listings mean?
Discussed in detail in the Orders section below.
What does “Fent-Free” banner mean?
Fent-free listings mean that the vendor uploaded a photo containing a part of the item, a handwritten timestamp, and a negative fent strip in one of the listing image slots. If a listing is labelled “Fent-Free” but does not include an image as mentioned, please report it to us via ticket immediately.Checkout incognito market
How do I checkout an item?
On the individual item pages, fill in the quantity, select the currency and shippin options, and click “Checkout Now”. You will be redirected to a new page with the listing and order summary. Please fill out your shipping information and the captcha. Click “Confirm Checkout” to proceed.
What do the two payment options mean?
Deduct from incognito Market Balance: Funds will be deducted from your onsite wallet balance immediately.
Lock Order & Deposit: The order will be marked as “Unpaid” and will be available at the same total price for two hours to allow the buyer to deposit the exact amount of crypto onto the site.
Should I use the autoencrypt functionality?
No you should always manually encrypt your shipping information manually before submitting them. Auto-encryption is only there as a failsafe in case you forgot to encrypt by accident.
How do I checkout a dead drop order?
Simply send the longtitude and latitude of the reference point and the radius to the vendor. The vendor will select and send a coordinate within the range, along with an instruction on how to retrieve the item after the item is marked as Shipped.Orders
What are the order statuses and what do they mean?
Unpaid: The order on incognito market is locked and will be available for two hours after being created.
Pending: Order on incognito market is submitted successfully, but there’s no action on the vendor’s side yet. Orders in this status can be cancelled by the buyer for a full refund without a dispute.
Accepted: The vendor acknowledges the order and chooses to accept the order. Vendors most likely are getting your product ready and wrapped up before shipping at this point. Starting from this status, orders require a dispute to be refunded.
Shipped: The vendor marks this order as shipped. The order funds enter escrow, and the AF timer starts counting down when the status changes to this. Note that FE orders do not have this status since the escrow process is skipped.
Refunded: The order is terminated with the funds returned to the buyer. This can be done either by the vendor or by the moderators.
Auto-Finalized: The order is fulfilled with the funds finalized automatically to the vendor due to the AF timer exceeds.
Finalized Early: The order is a FE order and the vendor has marked the order as shipped. Funds are finalized to the vendor.
Finalized: Buyer receives the order, found no problems and releases the escrow funds to the vendor.
What is the auto-finalizing timeout or “AF Time”?
It is the timeout until the escrowed funds are released after the vendor marks the order as shipped. The timeout is between six and twenty-four days, which is set by the vendor per listing.Disputes
How do I open a dispute?
Click the “Dispute” button on the order you wish to open a dispute on. A threeway chat betweem the vendor, buyer and moderators will be opened.
What are the possible outcomes of a dispute?
The order might get unfrozen, refunded, or have it’s AF timer extended by a week.Apply Vending
How do I apply to be a vendor?
Simply register an account on the market and click the “Apply Vending” button in the navbar. Select your application type and send us your application on the market. Your PGP public key fingerprint will automatically be used to fetch your vendor history. Also, please be sure to include a PGP-signed message that includes a brief introduction about yourself, either a list of your current and former markets, what you sell, or a link to your Recon page should suffice. Applications without this will be ignored.
What is the vendor bond?
Currently, there is a 300.00USD bond for new vendors on incognito market, as displayed in the application page. Established vendors can set up shop on our market for free, while new vendors are not allowed on the market until a bond is deposited to protect our users from scammers.Vendor Panel
How does the bulk listing work?
Bulk listings allow vendors to add listings with multiple pricing options for different amounts. In other words, offer discounts for larger quantities. i.e. “if ordered more than 10 units, multiply price by 70 percent” means that when the buyer orders more than 10 units, he gets 30 percent off as a discount.
What are the limitations on the images uploaded?
Only jpeg/jpg format are allowed due to limitations on our processors that strips EXIF and resamples the images for security reasons. The total upload size for each form must not exceed 5MB.
How do I set shipping options?
You can find shipping options in the settings tab, they are set on a per-vendor basis.
How can I access Incogbot on jabber?
Currently, we only provide jabber bot service to vendors. The setup and information will be in the settings panel once you are authorized. Please follow the instructions to get your jid whitelisted.
How can I generate employee tokens?
You can find the employee settings in the settings page. Please remember to press the “Update” button to save the settings.
How can I set my account to vacation mode?
You can find the vacation mode settings in the settings page. Simply flip the switch and press save.Exchange
How do I initiate an exchange?
Simply type in the amount you want to exchange and click market order, or if you want to specific a rate range, please use the limit order functionality. These should work like normal exchanges.
What are makers and takers?
Makers are liquidity providers on incognito market, aka the orders inside the liquidity pool. Takers are the users that execute/transact with the existing orders. There is a 2% fee on makers to incentivize users to reduce the total pending exchange orders.
Are there any hidden fees?
The rates are decided by the maker, we only charge a 2% maker fee, so if you market order exchanges, you can do it for free.
Another member of EastSideHigh has pleaded guilty to his role in a “highly sophisticated” darkweb drug trafficking operation.
Allante Pires, 25, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to manufacture, distribute and possession with intent to distribute MDMA, Ketamine, and Alprazolam. Pires and his co-conspirators Binh Thanh Le and Steven McCall were accused of selling drugs on the darkweb as the “EastSideHigh” vendor.
EastSideHigh Investigation
The details of court documents show an extensive investigation into EastSideHigh. As a part of the case, federal law enforcement officers intercepted drug packages, conducted persistent electronic and physical surveillance, communicated with EastSideHigh in an undercover capacity, and purchased drugs from the vendor on different darkweb marketplaces.
The Federal investigators, including postal inspectors with the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), launched started investigating EastSideHigh in June 2018. The law enforcement officers investigating the darkweb vendor conducted multiple controlled purchases from EastSideHigh on Dream Market. These purchases helped investigators identify the defendants.
After they identified the defendants, investigators conducted physical surveillance and placed GPS tracking devices on their vehicles. Customs intercepted packages of pill binders that suppliers had shipped to addresses frequented by the trio. Le had registered a business with the name “BL Productions” (Binh Le) using the address of an office space in Stoughton, Massachusetts. State police recovered trash at the locations frequented by the defendants and found drug residue on packages, materials used in drug manufacturing, and empty mailers that someone had shipped to the Stoughton address. Some of the open mailers listed a fake name as the recipient. Customs had seized packages of LSD, MDMA, and Xanax pills that international suppliers had shipped to the Stoughton address with the same fake name as those packages recovered from the trash.
In February 2019, an undercover Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agent notified Postal Inspector Gina Gentiluomo that EastSideHigh was trying to exchange Bitcoin for cash. The HSI agent communicated with EastSideHigh through a secure messaging application about the exchange. Inspector Gentiluomo then contacted the vendor, posing as the money launderer.
Hotel Meeting
In March 2019, Inspector Gentiluomo and another postal inspector (UC) met with Le at a hotel. The parties agreed to exchange $200,000 in Bitcoin in a wired hotel room. After Le had sent the Bitcoin to the address provided by the feds, the second postal inspector pretended to be having problems with his cellphone. He asked Le to open the wallet application on his phone and verify that the transaction had been completed. Le handed his unlocked phone to the postal inspector. After the postal inspector had possession of Le’s phone, postal inspectors and state police entered the room and detained Le.
After being advised of his rights per Miranda, Le voluntarily provided law enforcement officers with his password.
After detaining Le, other officers approached Pires’ Mercedes, which was still in the hotel’s parking lot. They detained Pires and asked him about the keys on his key ring. Pires identified one as the key to the office space in Stoughton. Other law enforcement officers executed a search warrant at the office space where they encountered McCall wearing a respirator.
The police searched the office space and found found 11 pounds of ketamine, 5,000 grams of ecstasy pills, packaging materials, two digital scales, two heat-sealing devices, a pill press, and $114,700 in cash. They also found a laptop with the EastSideHigh profile on Wallstreet Market open on the screen. The police also seized 18 kilograms of MDMA and more than $200,000 in Bitcoin by the end of the investigation.
Le pleaded guilty to conspiracy to manufacture, distribute and possess with intent to distribute MDMA, Ketamine, and Alprazolam. On March 10, 2022, a judge sentenced Le to eight years in prison and three years of supervised release. The judge ordered Le to forfeit more than 59 Bitcoin, $114,680 in cash, the proceeds from a 2018 BMW M3 sale, a pill press, and a currency counter.
McCall has a plea hearing scheduled for June 28, 2022.
In the criminal complaint, Inspector Gentiluomo points to the existence of a “music” video on YouTube titled “MTS – ALL FOR THE GANG.” The video, uploaded by MTS Entertainment on January 3, 2019, contains “various individuals of interest to law enforcement.” Gentiluomo learned about the video on January 11, 2019. Part of the video was filmed at the office space in Stoughton. A pill press is visible in the background of the scenes filmed in the office space. The postal inspector wrote that the bag beside the pill press contained powder.
Login
