Rollerbeetle Racing (arena)

Rollerbeetle Racing is a mini-game featured in the Canthan New Year special event.

In this game the player takes the form of a Rollerbeetle. This match has six teams: Blue, Red, Yellow, Cyan (actually called turquoise), Purple, and Green, each consisting of a single player. This is not a "normal race," though, as the player may use skills to boost speed and skills to slow down and hinder competitors.

Getting there
Characters access the outpost by talking to the Rollerbeetle Trainers in Shing Jea Monastery, Lion's Arch and Kamadan during the Canthan New Year event, and the Gamer Weekend. During the Second Birthday Celebration it can be accessed from the Great Temple of Balthazar.

Skills
The player's normal skillbar is replaced with a fixed skillset as follows:


 * 1) Rollerbeetle Dash: For 5 seconds, you move extremely fast.
 * 2) Harden Shell: For 4 seconds, you cannot be knocked down.
 * 3) Ram: For 2 seconds, all adjacent enemy rollerbeetles are knocked down.
 * 4) Distracting Lunge: All of target Rollerbeetle's Skills are disabled for 5 seconds.
 * 5) Spit Rocks: You spit rocks at target rollerbeetle. If they hit, that target is knocked down.
 * 6) Rollerbeetle Echo: For 20 seconds, this Skill is replaced with the next Skill you use. Rollerbeetle Echo acts as this Skill for 30 seconds.
 * 7) Rollerbeetle Blast: Target rollerbeetle is knocked down.
 * 8) Super Rollerbeetle: For 10 seconds, you move extremely fast and cannot be knocked down.
 * "Fixed skillset" does not mean you can not move the skills around to better suit your racing needs.
 * Ram also provides a speed boost similar to that of Dash where as Rollerbeetle Dash provides a speed boost similar to Sprint.
 * Rollerbeetle Blast and Spit Rocks have infinite range however Spit Rocks should be used when target is in Line of Sight

How It Works
Players become a rollerbeetle and then race along a standard track, using skills to advance their position. Players can only move with the keyboard, as mouse movement is disabled. Following works, but the pathing is poor, with the beetle running into barriers rather than moving around them. Given that mouse movement is disabled, the pathing limitations are likely intentional. It is possible to turn on auto-run and use right click camera spin to turn.

The first three skills (Rollerbeetle Dash, Harden Shell, and Ram) are available at the start of the race and recharge whenever the racer passes one of the seven checkpoints.

Touching a bonus power box (a large crate with a question mark on each side) will randomly charge one of the other five skills. This may select a skill which is already charged, in which case opening the box will have no effect.

RRPM
The scale of which a player's rollerbeetle speed is based upon. During a rollerbeetle race, a bar will appear, showing the player's current "RRPM", or "Rollerbeetle Rotations Per Minute". The exact mechanics of rollerbeetle acceleration are currently unknown; however, as a rule of thumb, it seems rolling uphill decreases RRPM while going downhill increases them. Therefore it is generally best to use speed boosts when going uphill. When you enter a puddle of water, the RRPM tends to slow down due to the Water environmental effect. It is said that going over rocky terrain vs. grass also slows you down. Sometimes on a flat area you became slower/faster with no terrain difference.

Scoring
At the start of the race every player starts off with 600,000 points. For each additional second it takes for a racer to finish, they lose 1,000 points. This means that all scores are actually times measured in seconds to three decimal places.

Beetle Customization
You can customize the look of your beetle's shell by speaking with Hokusai (Beetle Design) at Rollerbeetle Racing (Location). It costs 100g to change the design and the change stays tied to the account even if you leave the racing area.

Rewards
Gamer Points and Victory Tokens are awarded for different places:

First place receives 7 Tokens and Gamer points, as well as 50 Balthazar Faction, +50 Balthazar Faction for a "Flawless Victory," and +50 Balthazar Faction for every 5 wins in a row. Second place receives 5 Tokens and Gamer points. Third place receives 3 Tokens and Gamer points. Fourth place receives 2 Tokens and Gamer points.

Additionally, the players with the top 100 scores at the end of the Canthan New Year 2007 event received a Miniature Greased Lightning.

Environmental effects

 * Water: Reduces speed by half.

NPCs

 * 10 Canthan Peasant
 * 10 Kurzick Peasant
 * 10 Luxon Peasant
 * 10 Merchant
 * You can actually talk to the Merchant during the race, he sells mostly Canthan stuff but also Bottle of Rice Wine and Red Bean Cake (400g each for both).

Trivia
The mechanics of this mini-game seem to be similar to those of the Mario Kart series.