Despite Exitium's obvious disdain for MMORPGs and (presumably) baseless hatred for EQ2, the game really is quite fun. It's obviously not a deep, involving storyline, nor is the combat system the X-Com/JaggedAlliance/SilentStorm type that I love.
I'm not gonna write a huge review here (my free time can be better spent playing it than talking about it :wink
, but here's a few good points to it:
- Combat includes "Heroic Opportunities". Rather than just turning on auto-attack and reading a book until the fight's over, you can start a sort of combo attack. They can be executed solo or with a group, but obviously a group with one of each archetype would do the best HOs. After initiating and triggering an HO, a wheel pops up with attacks required to complete the move. If the players successfully complete the HO before the timer runs out, a bonus feat will be activated (such as a powerful attack, or a temporary buff).
- Downtime is virtually non-existent. As long as you have a supply of food and drink on you (your character consumes it every 45? minutes automatically provided you've designated it for consumption), the most you have to wait is about 30 seconds. The better the food/drink, the faster the regen it provides.
- Soloing is possible from level 1 to level 50 (the highest). Yes, you need to group in order to do the really fun stuff (deep dungeon crawls, raids, ect), but it's very possible to solo the entire time you play -- particularly due to the lack of downtime.
- Some really great quest design. I won't lie and say that all the quests are unique. Most quests that I've seen are the traditional "Kill 5 gnolls" or "Take this book to Doolie Jones". But there are also some more inventive quests. Of particular note are the class archetype branch quests. Once you select the class you wish to become, you're given a mission related to that class. For example, my would-be Assassin in the evil city Freeport was assigned the task of sneaking into a house past a bunch of sailors and roaming guard dogs to assassinate their captain. If they spotted me, I would likely die.
Anyway, whether you like the game or not is your personal opinion. But I would advise you to put aside personal bias to at least see what the game's about before so thoroughly trashing it. :wink:
