May 29th, 2008, 05:02 AM
So far the game is pretty fun. It's a very BETA game, though - tons of really strange graphic bugs and stuff that - while it doesn't kill the game - really smacks of rush-to-release. Then again, that's so enormously typical of any MMO released ever.
The best way to describe the game so far is a combination of Guild Wars and traditional MMOs - there are multiple instances of towns and areas, but unlike Guild Wars, leaving town doesn't leave you cold and alone. In the newbie zone, you can choose to work at 'day' or 'night', and the latter will let you travel around all alone with easier enemies.
Quests so far are your typical MMO choreboy bullshit - find X item here, kill 20 of enemy Z, etc. I still am on newbie island, though, and will continue to be marooned here until level 20. There's a level cap at 80, and after maybe 6 hours of playing, I'm level 13 or so. Combat for warriors is pretty satisfying after you wrap your head around what's really going on - until then it seems a little too crazy to understand what's happening on screen. Instant-kill moves are fucking wicked. Dual-wielding different weapons is cool as shit, too, and when you attack left you use the right weapon and vice-versa, and you swing them both around and bring them down on someone for the center attack.
The writing for the dialogue is well-written and totally non-engaging. The voice acting is absolutely terrible, but I hear that that shit stops entirely after you leave the newbie island anyway.
Adventuring in the wilderness is kinda cool since you can leap all around and find your own way to various locations, but the great outdoors is more confined to paths than some wholly open-ended worlds like Lineage 2 or WOW.
You can ride horses, rhinos, and mammoths. Guilds can build 'entire cities' of buildings and shit, and the rhinos and mammoths can plow through them and break shit up.
There are naked boobies.
Graphics are pretty good, but run a little worse than they should. From what I hear, the way it runs now is MUCH improved over even yesterday, when they introduced a new patch.
The game installs on 2 DVDs which takes a ton of time (the game whole is 32 GB), and then you have to download 700 MB of patch updates.
Character gen is above average - about 20 hairstyles, 20 facial marks, 20 body marks, and then complete face and body morphing.
The game's M rating and pay-to-play system seems to be keeping a few members of the younger crowd out, which is a godsend.
MORE BULLETINS AS EVENTS WARRANT
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