Global Agenda First Impression
February 2 saw the release of two MMORPG. Both have subscription fees, both offer PvP and PvE content, they include guns and are set in science fiction universes. The similarities pretty much stop there. Cryptic Studios’ Star Trek Online is geared to satiate the hungered trekkies out there, while Hi-Rez Studios hopes to appease the Team Fortress 2 crowd. The main content, philosophies and core mechanics couldn’t be more different.
Global Agenda starts players off in an optional tutorial that explains the basic features of the game, squad-based third person shooting. The developer used this normally boring ordeal to explain the world, how the player came into existence and their reason for being. It’s a creative way to introduce players to a game, one that tackles two problems. First off, it details the absolute basics of the game – movement, jumping, crouching, etc. Things that MMOG players know. Thanks to the interactive story running alongside the tutorial players are not bored to tears. I rather enjoyed learning about the world as I was making my escape. Too bad I haven’t seen any interesting blend of gameplay and story since.
Pros:
- Gameplay polish – Too many MMOGs are being released with all sorts of bells, whistles, trinkets and garnish, but no meat and potatoes. Global Agenda has offered polished gameplay since the closed beta period. PvP combat is fast, accurate, relatively lag free and well diversified.
- Mission briefings – Mission briefings are exactly what they sound like. Short, non-interactive descriptions of the various PvP locations that a player may find themselves a part of. The briefings not only describe the objective(s), including a fly-by, but why the scenario is an important asset to claim.
- Timed missions – It doesn’t matter which you enjoy more, PvP or PvE, both types of combat are timed. This may annoy some players, but it definitely gives everyone a sense of urgency to finish the goal. Players seem to be a lot less likely to stand around in PvE, and far more aggressive in PvP when there’s a clock winding down.
- Bit-sized gameplay – The combination of instanced and timed mission along with Global Agenda’s own matchmaking system means that gamers can get in and out of a play sessions very quckly. Global Agenda is a title that is easily digestible in small bits, and easy to level without a guild. That makes it a good game for casual players until level cap.
- Payload – As characters level up they unlock additional items to equip on their character. Gear only offers small upgrades, so a player’s defensive and offensive skills are paramount to the success of a mission. The diversification is as extreme as a few teched out items, or a jack of all trades character.
- Semi-dynamic encounters – In damn near every MMOG, running the same dungeon gets boring as soon as the players learn the ins and outs of pulls, encounters and line of sight abuses. The developers at Hi-Rez Studios mix it up a bit by changing the positions, mobs, pathing, level layout and even bosses for each instance. Traps and environmental damage make dungeons even more replayable.
- Stable server & quick support – No MMOG launches without its issues, some game breaking, others just tedious. Global Agenda’s launch was relatively smooth. Little to no lag, no queues and with enough population and level distribution to carry out any mission in the game. That being said, there were small issues present. Most of them were quickly hotfixed and patched the week of release.
- Diverse PvP arenas – Global Agenda launched choke full o’ PvP arenas. Players can join a good range of scenarios including payload, attack and defense, king of the hill, objectives and escort. And soon we’ll be able to decide what we want, instead of it being random.
Cons:
- Stupid AI – The artificial intelligence for the PvE NPCs is atrocious. Robots can easily die before reacting. They may hide or cower in plain view and they’ll die to the traps in their own facilities. Sorry, but these robots and elite assassins should know they’ll get squished or melted in their own facility.
- No world or universe – The Mission Briefing feature I touted above would make you think there might be a universe, but there isn’t. There’s no where to walk around and take in the sights. Even Dome City, the game’s home base, is incredibly boring. There’s lore sprinkled in from the website and a dash in the PvE system, but the briefings will deliver the majority of context the game has to offer
- Ranges on guns – Global Agenda’s successful ad campaign lambasted the cliches of most MMOGs, but the game has some itself, including range. Various, but not all weapons, have undisclosed range limitations. It’s incredibly annoying when a weapon is fired and it doesn’t reach the intended target.
- Uninspired specialization trees – One way to specialize your character is through skill trees. By selecting one tree over another a class can change quite dramatically. For example, a medic, your typical healer, can morph into a healer that can deal a dangerous amount of poison damage to the other team. The specializations are nice in theory, but the talents within them are uninspired. Want to heal more, then select Beam Heal Boost (+4% healing), or Jetpack Power for addition flight (-50% power cost). Then move on to Beam Healing Boost II (+6% healing) or Power Pool Increase (+50% power pool)! It’s not only a lack of interesting spells, but a lack of spells in general. In fact, if you ignore the tiers of spells, then the healing tree only offers seven unique options.
- Lose of XP – Losing XP as part of a death penalty is one thing, but losing it to a disconnect or crash is another. If a player is dropped from a PvP or PvE match for any reason they are sent back to Dome City. Their place in the battle isn’t reserved for when they return, and it isn’t filled either. Because Global Agenda awards XP upon the completion of a mission, getting dropped means you’ve been robbed of whatever XP was coming to you. It doesn’t matter if you left in the first ten seconds, or the last, nothing is awarded. I’ve been stripped of XP around a dozen times now.
- Crafting – It’s clunky, time consuming, expensive and unfriendly. Thankfully, Hi-Rez is already working on an overhaul.
- Non-unique characters – Compound the boring skill selection with few cosmetic options and you have many characters that look exactly the same. There are costumes available, but few players bother to pick them up due to costs and because the outfit isn’t that different.
- Poor windowed mode optimization – One of the loading tips is that the game runs in Windowed Mode. It does, it just doesn’t run all that well. The game will sit on top of the taskbar, you’re forced to alt-tab out of the game to capture your mouse, it has uninspired taskbar art and defaultly spouts its sound whether the window is active or not. I can’t find a way to stop the sound either. All of the issues are minor, but they need to be addressed.
- Bad auto-grouping – The various auto-grouping techniques employeed by the multitude of MMOG developers have often been hailed as one of the best features of their respective games. Hi-Rez Studios’ effort is not in that category. I understand that getting people in a mission quickly is the utmost priority, but I am willing to wait a few minutes to avoid three medics or three recons in the same foursome.
- Tutorial – The introduction was great, but that’s all it was. There’s far more complex features, tactics, abilities and choices that are left unexplained in Global Agenda. The title needs additional tutorials to help new to intermediate players morph in to powerhouses..
I’ve yet to get in to a solid guild/alliance to really dive into the Alliance vs Alliance part of the game. I was lucky enough to partake in some AvA matches with developers and players during beta, and it was fun. Essentially, AvA battles are large scale PvP missions against pre-made groups. I’ll have more on AvA for you as I gain more experience. To me, half the fun in AvA is making the tactical decisions on the hex grid. It forces the leaders to be true officers.
The core of Global Agenda offers a well polished, fast paced battle against player combatants or not-so-smart NPCs. The game shines when you’re in the heat of battle against other opponents. The rest of the title is lacking in comparison. That being said, Hi-Rez Studios gave players two months of free play while the company works out the kinks. I’ll be around for at least that long.
Check out the rest of our Global Agenda coverage here.
Global Agenda First Impression
February 2 saw the release of two MMORPG. Both have subscription fees, both offer PvP and PvE content, they include guns and are set in science fiction universes. The similarities pretty much stop there. Cryptic Studios’ Star Trek Online is geared to satiate the hungered trekkies out there, while Hi-Rez Studios hopes to appease the Team Fortress 2 crowd. The main content, philosophies and core mechanics couldn’t be more different.
Global Agenda starts players off in an optional tutorial that explains the basic features of the game, squad-based third person shooting. The developer used this normally boring ordeal to explain the world, how the player came into existence and their reason for being. It’s a creative way to introduce players to a game, one that tackles two problems. First off, it details the absolute basics of the game – movement, jumping, crouching, etc. Things that MMOG players know. Thanks to the interactive story running alongside the tutorial players are not bored to tears. I rather enjoyed learning about the world as I was making my escape. Too bad I haven’t seen any interesting blend of gameplay and story since.
Pros:
- Gameplay polish – Too many MMOGs are being released with all sorts of bells, whistles, trinkets and garnish, but no meat and potatoes. Global Agenda has offered polished gameplay since the closed beta period. PvP combat is fast, accurate, relatively lag free and well diversified.
- Mission briefings – Mission briefings are exactly what they sound like. Short, non-interactive descriptions of the various PvP locations that a player may find themselves a part of. The briefings not only describe the objective(s), including a fly-by, but why the scenario is an important asset to claim.
- Timed missions – It doesn’t matter which you enjoy more, PvP or PvE, both types of combat are timed. This may annoy some players, but it definitely gives everyone a sense of urgency to finish the goal. Players seem to be a lot less likely to stand around in PvE, and far more aggressive in PvP when there’s a clock winding down.
- Bit-sized gameplay – The combination of instanced and timed mission along with Global Agenda’s own matchmaking system means that gamers can get in and out of a play sessions very quckly. Global Agenda is a title that is easily digestible in small bits, and easy to level without a guild. That makes it a good game for casual players until level cap.
- Payload – As characters level up they unlock additional items to equip on their character. Gear only offers small upgrades, so a player’s defensive and offensive skills are paramount to the success of a mission. The diversification is as extreme as a few teched out items, or a jack of all trades character.
- Semi-dynamic encounters – In damn near every MMOG, running the same dungeon gets boring as soon as the players learn the ins and outs of pulls, encounters and line of sight abuses. The developers at Hi-Rez Studios mix it up a bit by changing the positions, mobs, pathing, level layout and even bosses for each instance. Traps and environmental damage make dungeons even more replayable.
- Stable server & quick support – No MMOG launches without its issues, some game breaking, others just tedious. Global Agenda’s launch was relatively smooth. Little to no lag, no queues and with enough population and level distribution to carry out any mission in the game. That being said, there were small issues present. Most of them were quickly hotfixed and patched the week of release.
- Diverse PvP arenas – Global Agenda launched choke full o’ PvP arenas. Players can join a good range of scenarios including payload, attack and defense, king of the hill, objectives and escort. And soon we’ll be able to decide what we want, instead of it being random.
Cons:
- Stupid AI – The artificial intelligence for the PvE NPCs is atrocious. Robots can easily die before reacting. They may hide or cower in plain view and they’ll die to the traps in their own facilities. Sorry, but these robots and elite assassins should know they’ll get squished or melted in their own facility.
- No world or universe – The Mission Briefing feature I touted above would make you think there might be a universe, but there isn’t. There’s no where to walk around and take in the sights. Even Dome City, the game’s home base, is incredibly boring. There’s lore sprinkled in from the website and a dash in the PvE system, but the briefings will deliver the majority of context the game has to offer
- Ranges on guns – Global Agenda’s successful ad campaign lambasted the cliches of most MMOGs, but the game has some itself, including range. Various, but not all weapons, have undisclosed range limitations. It’s incredibly annoying when a weapon is fired and it doesn’t reach the intended target.
- Uninspired specialization trees – One way to specialize your character is through skill trees. By selecting one tree over another a class can change quite dramatically. For example, a medic, your typical healer, can morph into a healer that can deal a dangerous amount of poison damage to the other team. The specializations are nice in theory, but the talents within them are uninspired. Want to heal more, then select Beam Heal Boost (+4% healing), or Jetpack Power for addition flight (-50% power cost). Then move on to Beam Healing Boost II (+6% healing) or Power Pool Increase (+50% power pool)! It’s not only a lack of interesting spells, but a lack of spells in general. In fact, if you ignore the tiers of spells, then the healing tree only offers seven unique options.
- Lose of XP – Losing XP as part of a death penalty is one thing, but losing it to a disconnect or crash is another. If a player is dropped from a PvP or PvE match for any reason they are sent back to Dome City. Their place in the battle isn’t reserved for when they return, and it isn’t filled either. Because Global Agenda awards XP upon the completion of a mission, getting dropped means you’ve been robbed of whatever XP was coming to you. It doesn’t matter if you left in the first ten seconds, or the last, nothing is awarded. I’ve been stripped of XP around a dozen times now.
- Crafting – It’s clunky, time consuming, expensive and unfriendly. Thankfully, Hi-Rez is already working on an overhaul.
- Non-unique characters – Compound the boring skill selection with few cosmetic options and you have many characters that look exactly the same. There are costumes available, but few players bother to pick them up due to costs and because the outfit isn’t that different.
- Poor windowed mode optimization – One of the loading tips is that the game runs in Windowed Mode. It does, it just doesn’t run all that well. The game will sit on top of the taskbar, you’re forced to alt-tab out of the game to capture your mouse, it has uninspired taskbar art and defaultly spouts its sound whether the window is active or not. I can’t find a way to stop the sound either. All of the issues are minor, but they need to be addressed.
- Bad auto-grouping – The various auto-grouping techniques employeed by the multitude of MMOG developers have often been hailed as one of the best features of their respective games. Hi-Rez Studios’ effort is not in that category. I understand that getting people in a mission quickly is the utmost priority, but I am willing to wait a few minutes to avoid three medics or three recons in the same foursome.
- Tutorial – The introduction was great, but that’s all it was. There’s far more complex features, tactics, abilities and choices that are left unexplained in Global Agenda. The title needs additional tutorials to help new to intermediate players morph in to powerhouses..
I’ve yet to get in to a solid guild/alliance to really dive into the Alliance vs Alliance part of the game. I was lucky enough to partake in some AvA matches with developers and players during beta, and it was fun. Essentially, AvA battles are large scale PvP missions against pre-made groups. I’ll have more on AvA for you as I gain more experience. To me, half the fun in AvA is making the tactical decisions on the hex grid. It forces the leaders to be true officers.
The core of Global Agenda offers a well polished, fast paced battle against player combatants or not-so-smart NPCs. The game shines when you’re in the heat of battle against other opponents. The rest of the title is lacking in comparison. That being said, Hi-Rez Studios gave players two months of free play while the company works out the kinks. I’ll be around for at least that long.
Check out the rest of our Global Agenda coverage here.
Allods Online First Impressions
If you never played Allods Online and were to see an in-game video or screenshot, you would most likely call the game, yet another WoW-clone. And you would be right, partially. Truth be told, Allods does “borrow” several gaming mechanics and concepts from Blizzard’s hit MMORPG, but the game is more of a mix-and-match than a complete rip-off. And, last but not least, Allods introduces several brand new features. The game is a free-to-play MMO by Russian developer Astrum Nival, the guys behind Heroes of Might and Magic V, Rage of Mages and Etherlords. Gpotato are responsible for porting it to North America and Europe. The developers have taken their job more than seriously, pouring the outstanding 12 million dollars into the production of Allods. So it’s no wonder the game became one of the best known free MMO’s to date, long before its release. Let’s get on with my first impressions of Allods Online.
Gameplay
The controls and interface of Allods are pretty standard. Keyboard movement, but there is also a click-to-move option included. The interface won’t give you much trouble, except the lack of a decent minimap and the quest tracker. The game does have a compass, but that doesn’t help much. Once you’re used to constantly opening and closing the map panel, you will forget about that too. As for the quest tracker, the problem is there is no way for you to disable tracking for just one quest, meaning you will either have to track all your quests at once, or hide the entire tracker. One thing that really helps are the small overhead icons for NPC’s, who, unlike other MMORPG’s, are visible at all times, even when you’re not looking at that particular NPC. Those icons will be displayed on the edge of your screen, and will constantly cycle around you. Point one with the mouse and a small text message will show up, giving a bit of information, including available quests and NPC function.
Speaking of quests, they are also pretty standard. Most of them revolve around killing a number of mobs or talking to a certain NPC, but most tasks are very quick and simple, you won’t have to spend more then 15 minutes on most quests.
The leveling itself is fast at first and after level 5 leveling becomes much more of a challenge. This is where the fatigue system comes in handy. In addition to normal experience, you also gain bonus experience referred to as fatigue. Fatigue can be used by talking to one of the many innkeepers across the world. Fatigue has a limit, though, so don’t rely on it too much.
Combat
Combat is fairly slow in Allods, being a pain at the start, but once you get the hang of your class you won’t have much problems with it. In my 15 hours of closed beta gameplay I had the chance to test out two classes, a Kanian Champion(human warrior), which I got to level 6, for the League and Arisen Summoner for the Empire, whom I leveled up to 9. I enjoyed my experience as a summoner much more than as a champion, partly because I prefer the mage as my class of choice. As a champion the gameplay was standard enough: charge at a distance(aimed shot if it’s cooling down) and then I just spammed skills in a row(whichever was available). The champion has a combat advantage bar that most skills use. You gain combat advantage by fighting, so yeah, it’s like the warrior rage in WoW. The Summoner, on the other hand, uses his summoned pet as a tank and casts from a safe distance in the meantime. Until the enemy decides to attack him, or his pet dies, that is. Than he has to make a run for it. I haven’t had enough party gameplay or PvP to comment on either of those yet, but I plan to fix that once the open beta rolls in.
Visuals and sound
Allods’ soundtrack was composed by the professional musicians Mark Morgan(who has also composed for television series such as One Tree Hill, Kojak and Killer Instincts, and video games such as Fallout and Planescape: Torment) and Vladislav Isaev. And it’s pretty easy to guess that. From the amazing main theme to simple background noises, everything finds its place perfectly and doesn’t get in the way much.
As for the game’s graphics, Allods will impress you, that’s for sure. The graphics are not only polished and have amazing design, but they also have a particular style, a mix of comic and fantasy. Yes, I mean it, Allods is practically flawless in the technical department. It’s had a stable closed beta so far, with just bit of lag, nothing serious.
Conclusion
My first impressions of Allods online are more than positive: a polished free MMORPG with great graphics, solid gameplay and amazing soundtrack. Put in the giant fanbase and great support and you’ve got yourself a winning MMO formula.
Allods Online First Impressions
If you never played Allods Online and were to see an in-game video or screenshot, you would most likely call the game, yet another WoW-clone. And you would be right, partially. Truth be told, Allods does “borrow” several gaming mechanics and concepts from Blizzard’s hit MMORPG, but the game is more of a mix-and-match than a complete rip-off. And, last but not least, Allods introduces several brand new features. The game is a free-to-play MMO by Russian developer Astrum Nival, the guys behind Heroes of Might and Magic V, Rage of Mages and Etherlords. Gpotato are responsible for porting it to North America and Europe. The developers have taken their job more than seriously, pouring the outstanding 12 million dollars into the production of Allods. So it’s no wonder the game became one of the best known free MMO’s to date, long before its release. Let’s get on with my first impressions of Allods Online.
Gameplay
The controls and interface of Allods are pretty standard. Keyboard movement, but there is also a click-to-move option included. The interface won’t give you much trouble, except the lack of a decent minimap and the quest tracker. The game does have a compass, but that doesn’t help much. Once you’re used to constantly opening and closing the map panel, you will forget about that too. As for the quest tracker, the problem is there is no way for you to disable tracking for just one quest, meaning you will either have to track all your quests at once, or hide the entire tracker. One thing that really helps are the small overhead icons for NPC’s, who, unlike other MMORPG’s, are visible at all times, even when you’re not looking at that particular NPC. Those icons will be displayed on the edge of your screen, and will constantly cycle around you. Point one with the mouse and a small text message will show up, giving a bit of information, including available quests and NPC function.
Speaking of quests, they are also pretty standard. Most of them revolve around killing a number of mobs or talking to a certain NPC, but most tasks are very quick and simple, you won’t have to spend more then 15 minutes on most quests.
The leveling itself is fast at first and after level 5 leveling becomes much more of a challenge. This is where the fatigue system comes in handy. In addition to normal experience, you also gain bonus experience referred to as fatigue. Fatigue can be used by talking to one of the many innkeepers across the world. Fatigue has a limit, though, so don’t rely on it too much.
Combat
Combat is fairly slow in Allods, being a pain at the start, but once you get the hang of your class you won’t have much problems with it. In my 15 hours of closed beta gameplay I had the chance to test out two classes, a Kanian Champion(human warrior), which I got to level 6, for the League and Arisen Summoner for the Empire, whom I leveled up to 9. I enjoyed my experience as a summoner much more than as a champion, partly because I prefer the mage as my class of choice. As a champion the gameplay was standard enough: charge at a distance(aimed shot if it’s cooling down) and then I just spammed skills in a row(whichever was available). The champion has a combat advantage bar that most skills use. You gain combat advantage by fighting, so yeah, it’s like the warrior rage in WoW. The Summoner, on the other hand, uses his summoned pet as a tank and casts from a safe distance in the meantime. Until the enemy decides to attack him, or his pet dies, that is. Than he has to make a run for it. I haven’t had enough party gameplay or PvP to comment on either of those yet, but I plan to fix that once the open beta rolls in.
Visuals and sound
Allods’ soundtrack was composed by the professional musicians Mark Morgan(who has also composed for television series such as One Tree Hill, Kojak and Killer Instincts, and video games such as Fallout and Planescape: Torment) and Vladislav Isaev. And it’s pretty easy to guess that. From the amazing main theme to simple background noises, everything finds its place perfectly and doesn’t get in the way much.
As for the game’s graphics, Allods will impress you, that’s for sure. The graphics are not only polished and have amazing design, but they also have a particular style, a mix of comic and fantasy. Yes, I mean it, Allods is practically flawless in the technical department. It’s had a stable closed beta so far, with just bit of lag, nothing serious.
Conclusion
My first impressions of Allods online are more than positive: a polished free MMORPG with great graphics, solid gameplay and amazing soundtrack. Put in the giant fanbase and great support and you’ve got yourself a winning MMO formula.
Earth Eternal Review
I think it would be best to start this post of with a few small, but vital details – Earth Eternal is a browser based game and yes, Earth Eternal is a real MMORPG. Not just a text adventure, with some graphics here and there. And last but not least – Earth Eternal is a World of WarCraft clone. We all know WoW wasn’t very original to begin with(don’t hate me), but it’s been a tendency lately to change the name of the game world, make a few graphical updates/remodels here and there and copy/paste everything else. But if you were to ask me: ,,Is Earth Eternal any good?”, then my answer would be: yes, definitely. Why? Read the review below.
A Technical Feat
I already mentioned that Earth Eternal is an free MMO, and its time to pay the developer Sparkplay its respects. The only thing you need to play Earth Eternal is a small browser plugin called ,,Spark Player” and you’re good to go. And being browser-based has its advantages, which Earth Eternal squeezes to the max. First – the web community. At any given time you can edit your profile information, signature, avatar, etc and other players can see them. When you’re not in-game you can just play one of the cleverly implemented minigames, and since its a browser game, practically any given PC can run it. And of course, you are in your browser, meaning you can just open up a new tab and google something while your character is resting. Graphically, the game is as pretty as it gets and is well designed in a comic-style. The soundtrack is fairly simple, most of the time its just static background noises.
Gameplay
Remember how I mentioned the game is a WoW-clone? I meant it. Anyone whose ever played the hit MMORPG by Blizzard entertainment will feel at home, as the controls, interface, quests, professions, everything is practically a remodeled version of WoW. One of the few noticeable differences are the game’s races who are, but are not limited to.. anthropomorphic animals. The game has 22 races in total, allowing for a vast character customization. We see a lizard, a rabbit, a raccoon, an owl, a robot, a cyclop, a yeti, a demon.. and many more. Unfortunately the only thing each race provides is a different look and thats all – no race exclusive classes, no racial skills, no nothing.. Moving on you customize your avatar a bit(colors mostly) and you’re ready to hop onto the newbie zone who is a small mushroom island. You do a few quests, repair your boat and are taken to the island to Corsica, where you can meet friends, explore, pick plants, kill plants, or do quests. And here is our next conclusion: the gameplay of Earth Eternal is not very advanced, but suits the job. It takes a surprisingly long period of time for you to get bored. The interface is taken to a minimum, everything is explained as simple as possible. But hey – the game is a browser-based WoW-clone where you can play as a goat, you can’t expect Baldur’s Gate. Skills are obtained through a skill vendor, grinding is taken to a minimum.. All in all, Earth Eternal offers a bit simplistic gameplay that is packed with repetitive content and does its job well. The game also lacks any kind of PvP, which only serves to declare that ,,its not hardcore” even more.
Community
One of the strongest sides of Earth Eternal are its community tools which not only take complete advantage of the platform, but continue both in-game and out. The game’s popularity is growing and on your way you’ll meet many people. The bad side to the casual goodness that is the game is in the form of the credit system, where at a certain point you will have to start wasting money in order to keep up with the pace. The game also has a clan system, where you will mostly make new friends.. I imagine you already got it but in case you haven’t – Earth Eternal depends a great deal on its community.
Sayonara
Earth Eternal is a wonderful and simple MMORPG for anyone. The game has its flaws, but the fact that it can be ran on practically anything and that its easily accessible only serves to tighten its casual style. You, as a hardcore gamer, may not like Earth Eternal but you could point it to someone whose never played an MMO and just wants to kill a few hours. Much better than text based games.
Earth Eternal Review
I think it would be best to start this post of with a few small, but vital details – Earth Eternal is a browser based game and yes, Earth Eternal is a real MMORPG. Not just a text adventure, with some graphics here and there. And last but not least – Earth Eternal is a World of WarCraft clone. We all know WoW wasn’t very original to begin with(don’t hate me), but it’s been a tendency lately to change the name of the game world, make a few graphical updates/remodels here and there and copy/paste everything else. But if you were to ask me: ,,Is Earth Eternal any good?”, then my answer would be: yes, definitely. Why? Read the review below.
A Technical Feat
I already mentioned that Earth Eternal is an free MMO, and its time to pay the developer Sparkplay its respects. The only thing you need to play Earth Eternal is a small browser plugin called ,,Spark Player” and you’re good to go. And being browser-based has its advantages, which Earth Eternal squeezes to the max. First – the web community. At any given time you can edit your profile information, signature, avatar, etc and other players can see them. When you’re not in-game you can just play one of the cleverly implemented minigames, and since its a browser game, practically any given PC can run it. And of course, you are in your browser, meaning you can just open up a new tab and google something while your character is resting. Graphically, the game is as pretty as it gets and is well designed in a comic-style. The soundtrack is fairly simple, most of the time its just static background noises.
Gameplay
Remember how I mentioned the game is a WoW-clone? I meant it. Anyone whose ever played the hit MMORPG by Blizzard entertainment will feel at home, as the controls, interface, quests, professions, everything is practically a remodeled version of WoW. One of the few noticeable differences are the game’s races who are, but are not limited to.. anthropomorphic animals. The game has 22 races in total, allowing for a vast character customization. We see a lizard, a rabbit, a raccoon, an owl, a robot, a cyclop, a yeti, a demon.. and many more. Unfortunately the only thing each race provides is a different look and thats all – no race exclusive classes, no racial skills, no nothing.. Moving on you customize your avatar a bit(colors mostly) and you’re ready to hop onto the newbie zone who is a small mushroom island. You do a few quests, repair your boat and are taken to the island to Corsica, where you can meet friends, explore, pick plants, kill plants, or do quests. And here is our next conclusion: the gameplay of Earth Eternal is not very advanced, but suits the job. It takes a surprisingly long period of time for you to get bored. The interface is taken to a minimum, everything is explained as simple as possible. But hey – the game is a browser-based WoW-clone where you can play as a goat, you can’t expect Baldur’s Gate. Skills are obtained through a skill vendor, grinding is taken to a minimum.. All in all, Earth Eternal offers a bit simplistic gameplay that is packed with repetitive content and does its job well. The game also lacks any kind of PvP, which only serves to declare that ,,its not hardcore” even more.
Community
One of the strongest sides of Earth Eternal are its community tools which not only take complete advantage of the platform, but continue both in-game and out. The game’s popularity is growing and on your way you’ll meet many people. The bad side to the casual goodness that is the game is in the form of the credit system, where at a certain point you will have to start wasting money in order to keep up with the pace. The game also has a clan system, where you will mostly make new friends.. I imagine you already got it but in case you haven’t – Earth Eternal depends a great deal on its community.
Sayonara
Earth Eternal is a wonderful and simple MMORPG for anyone. The game has its flaws, but the fact that it can be ran on practically anything and that its easily accessible only serves to tighten its casual style. You, as a hardcore gamer, may not like Earth Eternal but you could point it to someone whose never played an MMO and just wants to kill a few hours. Much better than text based games.
Karos Online Review
Karos Online is a free-to-play MMORPG, set in a fantasy world of Asmara. The game was developed by the Korean studio Galaxy Gate and is ported by NHN, the people behind the popular game portal ijji. While Karos may not be very innovative, the game offers a very clean and addicting gameplay that most players can enjoy in peace. If you are asking whether you should try to game or not, this Karos Online review should answer your questions.
Asmara
The world of Karos Online is stunning, to say the least. And not just graphic wise – the design is also breath taking and makes up for a unique experience in Asmara. Karos offers three playable races in total – Humans, Seroines and Shadows. The race of the humans doesn’t need any introductions. The second race, the seroines, is just a renamed version of the classical light elfs – pointy ears, unique hair color, love for nature.. As for the shadows – they are the game’s equivalent to dark elfs. But while this whole thing sounds promising, the character creation is a bit of a let down. Your options for customization are very limited and so is your choice for race/class/gender. Bladers and Rogues are male only classes while Mystic, Bowmistress, Paladin and Sorceress are female exclusives. That’s it, you can’t have a female Blader or a male Mystic.
First steps
Karos Online has serious problems with its basic guide. Its way too minimalistic and seems to have a mind of its own – it pops up whenever it wants. So my advice would be not to waste nerves on it and just turn it off, using the one on the website instead. But even considering the clunky guide, Karos makes a very smooth appearance and getting the hang of its mechanics is simple and requires little effort. The controls are standard – you can use both your keyboard and the mouse. But there is a catch here as well – the keyboard control is way too awkward and not handy enough. The interface is very clean and intuitive – you won’t have much trouble finding anything. Its the lack of direction that may cause troubles for newbie players.
Combat
If there is one negative thing about the combat system of the game, it’s how slow it is. Half of the blame goes to the lack of HP/MP regeneration while in battle, but even if that gets a fix the battle pace is still slow. If you can get over that you’ll find the classical combat mechanics known to most gamers. The battles are pretty tight, so any mistake could be your last. But the best advice I could give anyone who seeks to approach this game is – take any quest you can. This will help you level much faster than if you just keep on grinding and a large portion of the quests can be completed more than once, meaning you will always have at least one task to take care of.
Game Mechanics
Karos Online adds a few extras to the classical formula. The first one is the Fletta system. Fletta are permanent buffs, one for each element. Every time your Fletta point progress bar reaches 100% you will receive a Fletta point to invest. The game has a pretty solid crafting system, a fishing system and a mining system. Each one is pretty simple, but manages to deliver a much needed break from the grinding. And speaking of grinding – Karos has lots of it. Some may even call it a grindfest, which is partly true. All and all, Karos Online’s gameplay mechanics are pretty standard and solid.
PvP
PvP is the other key component of the game and it deals pretty well on that paragraph. PvP is not the right word actually, PK is more like it. Once you reach level 10 you can enable player kill mode, which will allow you to kill other players. But don’t think you can just kill whoever you want – player killing is punished by the moral system of the game. By killing others your moral value drops to a point where you will no longer have access to towns and you will be attacked by guards. But you can raise the moral bar again by just killing monsters. Karos also offers two other ways of PvP, which are not so direct – guild wars and mine takeovers. The first one we’ve all seen – you fight other player guilds. But the second one was obviously inspired by RF Online – you fight another player guild for domination over a mine and all its resources.
Technical details
I already mentioned how beautiful and well designed the world of Karos is, but you just have to see it. The character models look great, animations are well done, particle effects are simple but pleasant. The engine of the game isn’t very advanced but does its job perfectly. Now is the time to mention that every bit of the graphics are showered in bloom effects, which for some may be a plus but others may not approve it. As for the music – the background tracks are a joy and are really adequately placed. The only negative about the whole soundtrack of the game are the terrible character voices.
The end
Even with all its flaws and bugs, Karos Online is a great hardcore MMORPG. Fans of PvP-oriented grindfests like Lineage 2 should consider downloading the game, though casual players may find it being way too masochistic. The balance could use a bit of tweaking, controls need fixing, duels should be implemented, but thankfully none of the problems of the game are big enough to turn away anyone determined to join Asmara.
Karos Online Review
Karos Online is a free-to-play MMORPG, set in a fantasy world of Asmara. The game was developed by the Korean studio Galaxy Gate and is ported by NHN, the people behind the popular game portal ijji. While Karos may not be very innovative, the game offers a very clean and addicting gameplay that most players can enjoy in peace. If you are asking whether you should try to game or not, this Karos Online review should answer your questions.
Asmara
The world of Karos Online is stunning, to say the least. And not just graphic wise – the design is also breath taking and makes up for a unique experience in Asmara. Karos offers three playable races in total – Humans, Seroines and Shadows. The race of the humans doesn’t need any introductions. The second race, the seroines, is just a renamed version of the classical light elfs – pointy ears, unique hair color, love for nature.. As for the shadows – they are the game’s equivalent to dark elfs. But while this whole thing sounds promising, the character creation is a bit of a let down. Your options for customization are very limited and so is your choice for race/class/gender. Bladers and Rogues are male only classes while Mystic, Bowmistress, Paladin and Sorceress are female exclusives. That’s it, you can’t have a female Blader or a male Mystic.
First steps
Karos Online has serious problems with its basic guide. Its way too minimalistic and seems to have a mind of its own – it pops up whenever it wants. So my advice would be not to waste nerves on it and just turn it off, using the one on the website instead. But even considering the clunky guide, Karos makes a very smooth appearance and getting the hang of its mechanics is simple and requires little effort. The controls are standard – you can use both your keyboard and the mouse. But there is a catch here as well – the keyboard control is way too awkward and not handy enough. The interface is very clean and intuitive – you won’t have much trouble finding anything. Its the lack of direction that may cause troubles for newbie players.
Combat
If there is one negative thing about the combat system of the game, it’s how slow it is. Half of the blame goes to the lack of HP/MP regeneration while in battle, but even if that gets a fix the battle pace is still slow. If you can get over that you’ll find the classical combat mechanics known to most gamers. The battles are pretty tight, so any mistake could be your last. But the best advice I could give anyone who seeks to approach this game is – take any quest you can. This will help you level much faster than if you just keep on grinding and a large portion of the quests can be completed more than once, meaning you will always have at least one task to take care of.
Game Mechanics
Karos Online adds a few extras to the classical formula. The first one is the Fletta system. Fletta are permanent buffs, one for each element. Every time your Fletta point progress bar reaches 100% you will receive a Fletta point to invest. The game has a pretty solid crafting system, a fishing system and a mining system. Each one is pretty simple, but manages to deliver a much needed break from the grinding. And speaking of grinding – Karos has lots of it. Some may even call it a grindfest, which is partly true. All and all, Karos Online’s gameplay mechanics are pretty standard and solid.
PvP
PvP is the other key component of the game and it deals pretty well on that paragraph. PvP is not the right word actually, PK is more like it. Once you reach level 10 you can enable player kill mode, which will allow you to kill other players. But don’t think you can just kill whoever you want – player killing is punished by the moral system of the game. By killing others your moral value drops to a point where you will no longer have access to towns and you will be attacked by guards. But you can raise the moral bar again by just killing monsters. Karos also offers two other ways of PvP, which are not so direct – guild wars and mine takeovers. The first one we’ve all seen – you fight other player guilds. But the second one was obviously inspired by RF Online – you fight another player guild for domination over a mine and all its resources.
Technical details
I already mentioned how beautiful and well designed the world of Karos is, but you just have to see it. The character models look great, animations are well done, particle effects are simple but pleasant. The engine of the game isn’t very advanced but does its job perfectly. Now is the time to mention that every bit of the graphics are showered in bloom effects, which for some may be a plus but others may not approve it. As for the music – the background tracks are a joy and are really adequately placed. The only negative about the whole soundtrack of the game are the terrible character voices.
The end
Even with all its flaws and bugs, Karos Online is a great hardcore MMORPG. Fans of PvP-oriented grindfests like Lineage 2 should consider downloading the game, though casual players may find it being way too masochistic. The balance could use a bit of tweaking, controls need fixing, duels should be implemented, but thankfully none of the problems of the game are big enough to turn away anyone determined to join Asmara.
Fallen Earth Review
Since the release of Fallen Earth back in late Sept 09, I’ve been able to spend some time in this post-apocalyptic world and today I give you my Fallen Earth review.
Fallen Earth takes place in the wastelands of the Grand Canyon in North America and as with any post-apocalyptic game, food, fuel and resources are scarce. The game begins in an instanced tutorial that is meant to teach you the basic game play elements, which is accomplishes for the most part, although it is a bit light.
Right off the bat I could feel just how rough the game was and it wasn’t ten mins later when I started to run into some bugs. First my character was stuck in mid air and I wan’t able to figure out how to get the game to reset him, so I had to logout to fix it. The next bug was encountered on my first death. When you die you are automatically cloned and start in a clone tube, so after I died I was cloned back to life in one of these tubes, however was completely stuck and couldn’t get out. After a few mins of jumping and moving around I was able to finally get out, so at least I saved myself another restart.
Aside from those two instances, I haven’t really encountered any major bugs, however you will constantly see NPCs floating in mid air or buried in the ground. This really should be fixed by now, there’s no excuse to see that four months into a game’s release.
For those of you unaware, Fallen Earth is a FPS/RPG hybrid. It takes leveling and statistic elements of RPGs and combines it with an FPS style of combat. My problem is that if I’m playing an FPS I want it to feel like one. Fallen Earth does not feel like a normal FPS. Aiming is still based on your stats so it doesn’t really matter if you’re dead on with your shots, if your skills are low you’re still most likely going to miss your target. Fallen Earth feels like they took an RPG and incorporated a FPS style of combat, when it should of been the other way around.
Once you complete the instanced tutorial, you begin your adventure in a small intro town that will introduce you to other game elements such as crafting, mutation skills, attributes, etc. I was happy to learn that you can get your mount at level two and didn’t have to walk around for the first 20 hrs like most of todays MMOs have you do. You start off with a horse, but there are other types of transportation available, motorcycles, jeeps, quads to name a few and each has their own storage capacities that can be used to store weapons, armor or other items. Unlike most MMOs, your mount does not go with you when you die nor does it disappear when you get off. Where ever you leave it, that’s where it will be.
Like most MMOs, leveling your character is a major part of the game. With Fallen Earth it’s no different, however you will find that leveling your character is much slower than most other MMORPGs, especially early on. As you level you are given attribute points that you can use to build up certain skills and mutation. I believe you are given enough points to max our 3 different skills by the time you reach the max level.
The questing system is what you would find in any other MMO game. You have your fetch quests, kill 10 whatever quests, talk to this person, gather this, etc. The biggest issue with the questing system is you can only have one quest marker show up on your map at a time. So if there are two quests in the same location, you’d never know about it and would have to make two separate trips out to that location. You can of course scroll though your entire quest list to see where the markers are, however that is extremely annoying to do and if your in a bad spot can’t do it.
I’m not sure if that was done by design or not, but if you’re going to give the player tons of boring quests to do, at least allow us to see where they are all at once.
Once you have completed the quests in the intro town, about 20 or so, you should be around lev 5 and can now move on to the first real location. Again this was not a good first experience for me. When I entered the first major town, there were so many people that I completely lagged out. I dropped my graphics to the lowest levels and was still only getting about 5 frames per second. After about 15-20 mins of trying to gather some quests, I decided to quit for the day and try again at a different time. I’m happy to say the next time I logged in I didn’t experience the same issue and was able to finish collecting quests.
Aside from the normal everyday quest, there are PvP zones setup around Fallen Earth that are open combat areas. As you approach these areas you’ll get a warning message that says you are approaching a PvP zone and another once you enter the zone. Once inside you can partake in PvP combat as you would with any other MMORPG. There is no looting so you don’t need to worry about your stuff being stolen if you die.
Recently there was a graphical update to the game and I did notice a better looking game after the update which was nice, but in the end Fallen Earth did not win me over. After this review I won’t be going back to the game. Aside from being extremely rough around the edges, the FPS aspect of the game wasn’t quite what I was looking for. The questing system seemed like your generic run of the mill quest grinding and I felt there wasn’t enough of a storyline to keep me interested.
Fallen Earth Review
Since the release of Fallen Earth back in late Sept 09, I’ve been able to spend some time in this post-apocalyptic world and today I give you my Fallen Earth review.
Fallen Earth takes place in the wastelands of the Grand Canyon in North America and as with any post-apocalyptic game, food, fuel and resources are scarce. The game begins in an instanced tutorial that is meant to teach you the basic game play elements, which is accomplishes for the most part, although it is a bit light.
Right off the bat I could feel just how rough the game was and it wasn’t ten mins later when I started to run into some bugs. First my character was stuck in mid air and I wan’t able to figure out how to get the game to reset him, so I had to logout to fix it. The next bug was encountered on my first death. When you die you are automatically cloned and start in a clone tube, so after I died I was cloned back to life in one of these tubes, however was completely stuck and couldn’t get out. After a few mins of jumping and moving around I was able to finally get out, so at least I saved myself another restart.
Aside from those two instances, I haven’t really encountered any major bugs, however you will constantly see NPCs floating in mid air or buried in the ground. This really should be fixed by now, there’s no excuse to see that four months into a game’s release.
For those of you unaware, Fallen Earth is a FPS/RPG hybrid. It takes leveling and statistic elements of RPGs and combines it with an FPS style of combat. My problem is that if I’m playing an FPS I want it to feel like one. Fallen Earth does not feel like a normal FPS. Aiming is still based on your stats so it doesn’t really matter if you’re dead on with your shots, if your skills are low you’re still most likely going to miss your target. Fallen Earth feels like they took an RPG and incorporated a FPS style of combat, when it should of been the other way around.
Once you complete the instanced tutorial, you begin your adventure in a small intro town that will introduce you to other game elements such as crafting, mutation skills, attributes, etc. I was happy to learn that you can get your mount at level two and didn’t have to walk around for the first 20 hrs like most of todays MMOs have you do. You start off with a horse, but there are other types of transportation available, motorcycles, jeeps, quads to name a few and each has their own storage capacities that can be used to store weapons, armor or other items. Unlike most MMOs, your mount does not go with you when you die nor does it disappear when you get off. Where ever you leave it, that’s where it will be.
Like most MMOs, leveling your character is a major part of the game. With Fallen Earth it’s no different, however you will find that leveling your character is much slower than most other MMORPGs, especially early on. As you level you are given attribute points that you can use to build up certain skills and mutation. I believe you are given enough points to max our 3 different skills by the time you reach the max level.
The questing system is what you would find in any other MMO game. You have your fetch quests, kill 10 whatever quests, talk to this person, gather this, etc. The biggest issue with the questing system is you can only have one quest marker show up on your map at a time. So if there are two quests in the same location, you’d never know about it and would have to make two separate trips out to that location. You can of course scroll though your entire quest list to see where the markers are, however that is extremely annoying to do and if your in a bad spot can’t do it.
I’m not sure if that was done by design or not, but if you’re going to give the player tons of boring quests to do, at least allow us to see where they are all at once.
Once you have completed the quests in the intro town, about 20 or so, you should be around lev 5 and can now move on to the first real location. Again this was not a good first experience for me. When I entered the first major town, there were so many people that I completely lagged out. I dropped my graphics to the lowest levels and was still only getting about 5 frames per second. After about 15-20 mins of trying to gather some quests, I decided to quit for the day and try again at a different time. I’m happy to say the next time I logged in I didn’t experience the same issue and was able to finish collecting quests.
Aside from the normal everyday quest, there are PvP zones setup around Fallen Earth that are open combat areas. As you approach these areas you’ll get a warning message that says you are approaching a PvP zone and another once you enter the zone. Once inside you can partake in PvP combat as you would with any other MMORPG. There is no looting so you don’t need to worry about your stuff being stolen if you die.
Recently there was a graphical update to the game and I did notice a better looking game after the update which was nice, but in the end Fallen Earth did not win me over. After this review I won’t be going back to the game. Aside from being extremely rough around the edges, the FPS aspect of the game wasn’t quite what I was looking for. The questing system seemed like your generic run of the mill quest grinding and I felt there wasn’t enough of a storyline to keep me interested.
