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RFO game future uncertain IMO
After beta playing for about 2 weeks, trying out several classes and 2 factions I can only advise to wait for the Reviews about 1-2 months after launch before buying RFO.
RFO would need a lot of work, and currently the communication with the Devs does not indicate issues can be expected to improve soon or drastic.
Unlike the advertisement, who shows RFO as PVP heavy, the truth is you will spend 95% of your time PVE grinding, as the game is right now, and I find this quite misleading. RFO has the potential to be a good game, but some issues are just far beyond todays's standart,
1) The UI, espeically chat window is not configurable, there is only one channel for everything, no ignore list, no ingame mail. It is one of the worst UIs I have seen so far.
2) The grind after lv 20 grows slow and boring. It is not the long time you need to grind in itself, it is just totally boring, simplisitic and without any appeal. You use 1 or 2 types of attack over and over, most attacks only differ in animation, but no discernable difference. Coming from complex games like SWG, EQ2 or WOW you will feel the game like early alpha stage.
3) Graphics are stunning, design is cool, BUT this game is a new low in matters of unique characters and gear. 4 faces, 4 haircuts and every 10 levels one same set of new armour for everyone. It's really attack of the clones. No named items either, so you totally lack the feeling of being more than soldier number 732813.
4) Potion spamming is distracting from combat and strategy, it is quite an inferior way to handle healing IMO. RFO PVP battles usually are decided who has the most potions, there is very little strategy there right now.
5) Especially Bellato players attract by far the most immature audience I have seen so far in an MMO. I can't stand playing that faction without turning off area chat altogether. Codemasters devs have not quite done much to counter this yet, maybe because they know boys between 12 and 16 years will be a mayor target group. If you are above 20, play Cora or Accretia.
Conclusion: has the potential to be a good game with another half year hard working. If CM goes with the game as it is I perdict it will fall flat on the nose in western market. You must really love mindless grind to enjoy this game.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Comments
In response....
RFO is FFXI, but with PvP. Albiet, the depth of FFXI is far deeper. The entire story of RFO centralizes around a massive ongoing battle between the 3 races. That is what makes it PvP heavy. It doesn't mean that you're going to be PvPing all the time, but it does mean that PvP is allowed *anywhere*. It's a MMO, of course you're going to spend 95% of your time leveling (ie. PvE).
1) You are correct, the UI leaves a ton to be desired. I hope that they give it a face lift. At least more channels and a ignore list.
2) I think you're missing the point in *how* to level in this game. You should *not* be focusing on your XP, but instead your PT. The XP will come, if you follow the quest line, but you should be constantly maxing out your PT points as much as possible. This means, that you will be switching between meele, ranged and casting all the time. Which means that you are constantly changing your playstyle. The more PT that you have, the stronger your character. For example, spiritualists (mages/casters) should really think about leveling their Ranged PT points as it will give you more FP (mana). Lastly, I would rather have a focused set of abilities to work on and level up, than have so many that I don't know what to do with them.
3) The graphics are great and appealing. But, I for one do not care that the armor sets are limited. In FFXI, you had the same "problem", but this helps to improve server load and lag times for users. I would much rather play a game full of 'clones' with no lag, than play a game at 15 fps where everyone has a unique set of armor.
4) I'm mixed on the idea of potions. It *does* make trying to fight someone 1v1 ridiculous, or having a bunch of lowbies try to take out a higher level character. But, this doesn't stop or hinder the mass PvP battles that I've seen happen during the Chip Wars. I'd rather see a healer role, like the white mage in ffxi, but I do not want the grouping to be a ridgid as ffxi was. The rigid party makeup in ffxi was the main reason why I stopped playing ffxi. Also, I love not having any downtime.
5) The community right now is probably not going to be representative of the release community. There are aspects of each race that will attract the 'immature'. In the community forums, there was a huge thread about the Cora leaders being immature and harrassing others with the /Race chat. So, *shrug*, I hope this gets better.
Overall, I am having a really good time in this game. I wish that the people who were 'spoiled' with WoW start to see that this is a completely different game than WoW. Not every mmo needs to be as easy to get through as WoW is. I'd rather take my time and be apart of the world and adventure with my friends. And to blast those tin cans and bella donnas away! hehe
Well, I don't condemn the game. It HAS it's appeal, while it never will be a killer game subscription-wise like WOW. I think some issues could resolved right off with some tweaking of the ingame stats and UI overwork. I still wonder why every friggin game company tries to re-invent the wheel again, when good ways have already been discovered.
After experiencing the best MMO ever IMVHO, pre-cu SWG, MMO history was a constant descent. All MMOs on the horizon 2006 so far are steps WAY backward!
Less character customization, less quests, less places, less ways to play. DDO is a huge instance, Vanguard a step 50 years back to EQ1 gaming, RFO is Lineage 2 minus appeal... its disheartning to see this. Back when UO and SWG came, I thought MMOs would become ever better in the coming years, but it seem the contrary to me.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Agree with most above.
Graphics are good however the environment (general world) is no rich enough to fully immerse you in the way that some other mmogs do.
The gameplay (the grind) is exceptionally linear with no sense of travelling over a large new world. It feels like you are playing the game in a shoe box to me.
The individual character types are well defined in the blub and marketing spin, but when you actually get into the game youll find that there is very little difference between the characters (once you strip away the veneer of what they look like) in term of their fighting styles. sure casters cast, rangers fire stuff from range and warriors fight in close, but certainly at lev 0-25 as a caster you can stand toe to toe with mobs and blast them to hell - i dont know many mmogs where the traditionally weak caster class can do this so easily. This spiols the game for me. when you see three reasonably competent warriors taking on a caster of the same level toe to toe and coming off worse you know the class distinctions are pants.
The potting situation is truly dire. A large reason for the above but also for me it makes a mockerty of pvp. Spend all night AFK mining buy a shed load of pots and it seems to me you are almost impossible to kill in pvp against many players several levels above you. Contrast this with the time honoured situation of having to bail or run or die if confronted with strong opposition that adds a danger factor to your gameplay and involves some skill and judgement.
The quest system is dire. no imagination has been spent on this, it is just a string of the types of quests we have all come to expect in less well designed or older games, where someone has just lazily copied the basic format of kill x number of y. To add to the frustration here, you have to endure several paragraphs of complete guff to get your quest objectives and if you are a half way decent or informed player you've probably been grinding on the quests target mob for a while before you are served with a quest to kill said mob - once you have done youll be rewarded with a pile of stuff you need to sell to the shop cos it is bugger all use to you.
you dont pick up cash in this game, rather a mindless stream of differently named tokens that clog up your bag and have to be sold for cash like a normal object. cash resides always in your bag never on the ground so to speak. A pointless inclussion if you ask me that just wastes your time detracts from your enjoyment of the game and generally hacks you off.
On drops, the graphics are pants. No imagination here every drop is a 3d semi transparent thing.
youll find fighting larger mobs, of which there are a few in the game, interesting. You cant adjust the camera angle so youll spend a lot of time looking at the mobs feet and unable to manoevre away from them becasue your mouse pointer is almost always going to engage the mobs footprint on the screen not that of the surrounding countryside. This isnt just annoying but it also prevents you from controlling a battle becasue other mobs can pop into your vicinity on respawn or through their own programmed movement patterns and hey presto your fighting three of the buggers with no way of exiting the situation other than to fight and pot or teleport away - not exactly sophisticated tactics.
the views are poor. you can be wandering through waht looks like open countryside when bang suddenly a mob the size of the empire state building magically appears in front of you. all a bit silly really and again extremely frustrating becasue you feel half blind all the time.
On skills - sure the array sounds intriguing or impressive but in the game, they are a disappointment - with a levelling system based around building skills over gaining xp you never quite know what to level and how without the fear of gimping your character - sure that will change with the collective wisdom of the community but the whole setup lends itself perfectly to helping to drive away many a new player. the system again sounds great but its implementation leaves a bad taste in your mouth. how can you customise a character and why would you bother over hours of gameplay if the end result is largely indistiguishable in gameplay and aseems to make little difference in pvp situations ?
Try the game but dont buy it yet. sure yuoll prob just about squeeze the cost of purchase out of the game if you play for a month and then leave, but there are probably other things to spend your time on right now.
Caveat Emptor