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REVIEW - My first thoughts.
MMO_REVIEWER
Member Posts: 371
Hey there!
So I picked up the CBT yesterday and started playing, and I think it'd be safer if i gave a disclaimer first. I'm going to be completely and brutally honest.
To start off the games launcher was a pretty standard launcher. It just had news and a start game button. Not much else. But its just a launcher no room to complain there. Started the game and it wasnt in full screen mode. Unless your monitor is really big you wont be able to see the entire game window. The login screen wasn't the best login screen I've seen. Honestly, in my opinion, it was terrible.
I logged in and tried to create a character. Half of the classes were greyed out(I'm guessing it was an error they were working on at the time so its not going to hurt the review) and i couldnt see the "create character" button because it was below the screen as the game was still in windowed mode and I didnt have a way to change it. Character creation was extremely shallow. You had 3 face choices and 3 hair choices to choose from and some skin tones(about 10 of them). Not a whole lot of diversity. About 15 minutes into the game i found 23 people that looked exactly like me and 10 that looked like me with a different skin tone. Doesn't do a good job to make you feel Unique. I started playing and I noticed that I could see EVERYONES damage that they were doing. I thought it was a glitch, but it's an actual option that can be turned on/off in the settings. I'd imagine that if you kept it on and decided to do a dungeon with a massive group you wouldnt be able to see the ground for all the numbers.
Getting items, weapons, and armor in the game isn't hard; At first. Then once you hit about lvl 6 or 7 and you need some better gear, but you cant kill higher level stuff you have to go buy/ craft. If your not rich your not going to be able to dish out 50,000 carat for a new sword or daggers. So you'll more than likely end up crafting your stuff. Crafting is the most painstakingly long process I've ever seen in an mmo. Ofcourse you need certain materials to craft things but these materials cannot just be bought or dropped form an enemy. You have to craft that too! or mine it! So you'll spend a few HOURS mining endlessly to get "Reinforcing Agents" for your weapon. Which by the way the agents dont come up very often; unless your lucky.
Quests in the game are...wierd, for lack of a better word. When I took my first quest I was a bit confused. In most mmo's you get the window with the quest description and an accept or decline button. Instead in this game you get the quest window with the description and then a dialogue box at the bottom of the window(that you may or may not notice) That has the npc's text in it. you have to flip through the text to the end and then click accept. Took me a minute or two to realize that. Some quests, at the moment, are broken. I've been trying to turn in this one quest for a while now but can't. But this is a beta so I cant complain. It's what i get for being a beta tester 
Ofcourse I have to talk about PK mode. PK mode is about the only reason to play this game. Quite literally. PK is unvoluntary, a bit rude, and FUNNY AS HELL! Nothing spells fun like running up on a person fighting a mob and killing him just because its a saturday, and he happened to be there. But dont PK too much because you MV level will drop. Especially if you kill low-level players. My MV is currently -52,100. And my name is dark purple. I'm guessing thats a bad thing. I got a friend of mine to watch me PK and he nearly died laughing. I think I killed the same player 3 times! But all joking aside PK seems like a broken feature at the moment. It's completely involuntary. If your in the wrong place at the wrong time...oh well. Theres no real defense against PK'ers except keeping a high level player around(level 25 is preffered). Either that or just stay in town. But that will get you no where.
After about 5 hours of questing, killing, PK'ing, and ruining peoples day I have to say that my first impression is a solid 2 Shitting Donkeys
out of 5. With mediocre graphics, involutary PvP, odd questing and buggy player movement The two shitting donkeys is well deserved. I would've given it one if it weren't for PK mode. I think I'll go PK some more. Just to rain on everyones parade.
Cheers!
See you in beta
MMO's are the ark of the gaming world. Let it take us in new directions.
Comments
they greyed out chars at creation screen is because not all the classes where available in CB1.
There are more complex crafting systems than this one Lineage 2 & Atlantica came into my mind right now.
Except that it's pretty much like you said especially the moving/pathing system which really pissed me off
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. A. Einstein
What you said about the mining, reminds me of the time-sink factor in RF Online's mining. The worst part about it, was the failure rate of not only crafting, but loosing ur resources, and even breaking weapons/armors/shields when implementing various Talics into their slots (I guess that's probably similar to what you said about Reinforcing agents).
TY for the review btw.
Playing a hour in this game, I noticed that this game does have some potential in it but it really needs to improve the mouse orientation. I really didnt like the fact that to move the camera with your mouse, you used the left click instead of right click. WIth that also in mind, you cannot even click on anything when your running around, have to stop running then you can lick on a target or something which makes pvp in the future seem to be a very weak component if cannot target while moving. That has to be fixed hopefully, but i thought the graphics were pretty nice for a f2p and I agree that the quests are really cheesy and difficult to follow since it takes the whole screen and hard to read the words since they go from left to right of the screen...i mean talk about uber sized letters.
I would give it 2.5/5 for the very first CBT though and hopefully the next CBT or OB will improve dramatically with the mouse and quests.
http://hushwolf.mybrute.com
Judging a game by playing for 5 hours in the first closed beta. Isn't that the perfect example for "Judging a book by its cover"?
I've played this CB for 2 hours and I can't make an opinion. There are lot of bugs (it's a beta, right?) so you can't make a proper review, and even more if you have only spent 5 hours in the game. And it's a free PK game so be prepared to kill or been killed.
Furthermore, it's common to increase drop rate, XP, crafting and other things during the beta test to allow the testers to test the most things in a small amount of time. So don't focus of these parts of the game because they'll change them for the release.
Let some months passed before making a constructive review.
I'll test it later when most of the bugs will be solved and when more gameplay will be added (some character's classes aren't implemented yet). For the moment, I don't have an opinion about it. Wait and see.
What i like in this game that it has some little features that make it different from other f2p mmos.
Fletta system even though I think it's bugged atm it is not something you see in most mmos and can make some classes different from each other.
There is a dungeon with lvl required lvl1!!!!!!! in what f2p do you see a dungeon at low lvl? NONE!! yes it has some bugs but gms are active in forum and even made a competition for people who find bugs and posts them clear enough.
Bank system can be upgraded 3 times with ingame gold not with some stupid cash shop item, you can have 4 or 5 bags(forgot exactly) so you can have a lot of space without the need of using real money.
Bank has 2 types were to store one for the current character and the other for all characters in account which is a great way to transfer items and/or share them.
It's in closed beta so you shouldn't make any conclusions yet i'm no longer playing it because i don't like playing for a while a game that will wipe and have me restart form beginning again so i'll wait.
forgive me my ignorance, but is this another f2p korean grinder? im not saying its bad cause of that, i actually enjoyed a horrible grinder (9dragons) for several months ^^
MMOs currently playing: -
About to play: Lord of the Rings Online
Played: Anarchy Online (alltime favorite) and lots of f2p titles (honorable mentions: 9Dragons, Martial Heroes, Dekaron, Atlantica Online)
The cap atm in closed beta is 25 and it can be reached in 24 hours probably.
Dunno the real cap later when it goes live.
hmm not bad, might try it at a later (more polished) stage of developement
MMOs currently playing: -
About to play: Lord of the Rings Online
Played: Anarchy Online (alltime favorite) and lots of f2p titles (honorable mentions: 9Dragons, Martial Heroes, Dekaron, Atlantica Online)
Well i got my bow up to a +6..It took allot of scrolls but i did it..I tried to get three bows to a +7, they all failed and destroyed the bows..I guess it is safe to say you can go up to a +6 with out destroying your bow..My Armor is a +5 have not try to pass the breakage point yet..Fishing for a Gold fish, took me a hour to catch for crafting Mats..Caught more "Rare" golden frogs than i did gold fish..Whats even strange, no one knows the Market Values on Rare items, so selling items going to be fun for awhile..I am glad there only 3 days of testing..I hope they take months to fix there broken game before going into CB2..Good write up OP..The game is not bad ..Just needs allot of work yet..
Mod edit spelling
Some people rob you at gun point..Others will rob you at "Ball Point Pen"
Thanks for responding all.
MMO's are the ark of the gaming world. Let it take us in new directions.
-deleted-
MMO's are the ark of the gaming world. Let it take us in new directions.
Never mind, responded on topic title not what you said.
OMFG!!! I am STILL laughing so hard I am crying..I can hardly type..Shitting Donkeys...WOOT!
Are you suggesting coconuts migrate!?
A lot of people are saying that this game has potential if tuned properly and bugs are fixed, but then again... doesn't every game have potential under those circumstances. I did play for around 10 hours total and the game needs a DRASTIC overhaul before CB2 even. Questing interface (especially with at least hints or guidelines involved), selling interface (right click selling and fixing the drop position would be nice... definitely got tired of trying to move an object and having to hit that box dead-center). Gear progression needs an overhaul as well; although upgrading gear is generally a nifty feature, you shouldn't have to be committed to doing so as early as Karos online makes you. The graphics seem to be more tuned to ambient effects rather than actually good graphics (swaying trees and flowers, etc. instead of better texture mapping, character design, spell design...). I imagine that this game needs several months if not a year before it will be a decent/good game just due to the severe amount that needs to be smoothed out........... and don't even get me started on losing loot due to underground NPC pathing : /
4 days for original beta? Odd!
Then they haven't shown any visible progress since that beta closed.
Makes on wonder how serious they are about getting the Open Beta done.
Hope that they get their act together very soon OR go do something else.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!
I like the game so far, but I look at it as a Unpolished Lineage 2, or at least thats what the game feels like to me.
This was the first CB so its got a ways to go but It looks great, it has potential, we'll just have to see how it turns out.
I think what are going to make or break this game are the little things.
Edit: and just to add... most people have a Large Monitor capable of handling the windowed mode, not sure how many people have a like 17" monitor and have a computer capable of playing a game of this caliber.
___________________________________
"Not your Average Noob"
©Signore 2005
Still no news on when the Second Beta will be opened.
Looks like someone was UNPREPARED to do a REAL Beta Test.
This smells more like a Pre-Alpha Test.
Was too busy on a deadline to play in a 4 day test.
From this long time Computer Programmer of nearly 32 years, Beta Tests are designed to be done JUST before the software is to be released... not to be on an indefinite delay.
I wish them well. Looks like a broken promise to me.
I'll remain patient and give them until next Friday, September 11, 2009 before the game gets deleted from my PC.
...
I deleted it. Much better FTP games comming.
I deleted it when I logged out for the last time...
I'm sad to say that this won't be a game that i'll be keeping in my game book...
MMO's are the ark of the gaming world. Let it take us in new directions.