So perhaps Last Chaos wasn't quite my cup of tea, but I'm signed up with an Aeria account now anyway, so thought I'd have a poke about in the rest of their portfolio. I'm glad I did actually, and I'm not sure it's entirely fair to judge the whole network by one unlucky first-play. Next on the list is Shaiya: Light and Darkness.
Also free-to-play, and as part of the greater Aeria experience, one account seems to cover it all, which is quite convenient - just download it and go.
Aeria Games: Shaiya Download
No further details necessary, and it's a little under 1GB in size, so put the kettle on!
In the beginning, the goddess Etain created the world, the Dragons, the Nordein and the Dumianas. She didn't like the Nordein and gave them the old heave-ho. The Dumianas began to have serious doubts about Ineffability at that point, (quite understandably), and their disbelief weakened her to the point where a successful assassination attempt by said Dumianas caused a bit of a pantheonistic ruck. The two halves of the slain goddesses' soul eventually came out on top and promptly set about war with each other. This is largely conducted by proxy, via two new factions of Dumianas, the Elves and the Vail (Who look a lot like Drow to me), and these old sparring partners were later joined by the Humans and remaining Nordein (Surprisingly Ogre-y, if you ask me), respectively. These races allied and become the Alliance of Light and the Union of Fury, and now wage constant battle for the future of Teos, and ultimately, the extinction of one goddess.
Three Good Things:
- Avatars:
The various characters look and feel pretty well done. Being a somewhat superficial type, with mildly worrying misogynistic tendencies, I went right for the Dark Elf Hottie, but much of the character design and animation stands out as of a surprisingly higher quality than you'd expect from a free-to-play knockabout of an MMO. I particularly liked the double-tap left/right and backward flips and cartwheels, which seem to serve no obvious combat purpose, but do look damned cool.
Actual combat attacks look smooth and well crafted, and although all the Vail have a tendency to run about everywhere in a chiropractically improbable hunched over 'skulk', this is probably a design choice, rather than a balls-up in Poser! The Nordien on the other hand lumber about in a suitably massive way, which also works well.
This extends to the NPCs as well, and certainly what I saw of the initial Union of Fury lands seemed to have a unique and baroque style that made roaming the lands quite a distinctive experience, so much so that I didn't even get that irritated to see that many of the monsters had been shopping in the Anne Summers Hand-To-Hand Combat Lingerie Department, again, a feature that normally just makes me start giggling, but which didn't here. It fit, somehow.
- Battle:
PvP is very much a built-in factor in this game, and at all levels, you'll have access to a portal that will take you to an appropriately levelled Borderlands map. These zones are less reminiscent of WoW's Battlegrounds, and the rigidly structured Rugby Matches of those, and much more in the nature of the 'good old days', of Taren Mill and Crossroads battling, which I quite liked. The resulting battles can be a bit chaotic, and mirror those old zerg-games; two lines of enemies facing off, the edging forward, and the sudden cataclysmic discharge of mayhem. If you miss the type of PvP that was once had at Taren Mill, have a look here - it seems to live on.
It seems the PvP has a bit of a purpose too - victories contribute in some fashion to a big Goddess progress bar, which when filled, grants a hefty buff to all members of that side, wherever they are. A nice touch that gives it all a bit of meaning.
Those that want nothing to do with it need not fear, as the mayhem seems kept to it's own special places, and large normal zones also exist in which to do the usual adventuring; an implementation I quite like, entirely consensual, and with some place else to go when you aren't in the mood. (I'm not sure if at the top end, this distinction is maintained, mind you.)
An interesting and relevant feature is the treatment of Alts; upon creating your first character, you have to pick a side, Alliance of Light or Union of Fury. After that, you can only make an alt on the other side if you delete all your existing characters first, making it all a bit of a commitment, but preventing the scourge of alt spies, which is important in any kind of PvP-based game. On the other hand, it does mean that I have no idea what the Humans, Elves or their lands are like, having never seen them. Think carefully before choosing your side!
- Difficulty:
A novel idea; Shaiya asks you to pick a difficulty during character creation; Easy, Normal, Hard and Ultimate. Easy is capped at Lv30 and has some off-limits special abilites. Normal is capped at 50, and you have to unlock Hard by doing just that. Presumably Ultimate is Lv50 Hard to unlock. As the world itself is shared by all these different characters, I can only assume that the primarily difference here is rate of XP gain, and perhaps reduced stats. I'm a tourist, so went with Easy, and found that to be of a fairly comparable rate of XP gain to WoW, so Normal is probably harder work, and the other two are for masochists! These advanced levels seem to have floating icons above their players, allowing you to reap the appropriate kudos from those around you for picking a harder road to travel.
Related and worth mentioning, each class, when picked in character creation, shows a series of bars, allowing you to see how well suited that class is to Party work, Soloing, and how good at Attack and Defence it is. I wish more games would do this, allowing the player to make a somewhat informed choice right form the word go. I only remember seeing this kind of outright admission in Anarchy Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online previously; everyone else just lets you make critical playstyle blunders in the dark.
Three Bad Things:
- Engrish:
Like Last Chaos, it seems the localisation was a bit of a rush job, and most of the NPC dialogue, tutorial help and tooltips are quite painful to read. Perhaps it is just me, one of nature's pedants, but while in Last Chaos, this kind of thing was just one more wave in a tsunami of mediocrity, it bugs me here as the rest of the game is quite good. "Liquid Medicine" Merchants? Green "Abels"? Being addressed by a stately pallorous waif-like fellow in very vampireish clothing with 'What's up yo?' It all seems a bit of a shame really.
Mind you, the rudimentary quest journal does at least colour in '5 Frost Breath Succubi' in a different colour, allowing the casual reader to get right to it. It is unlikely that you are supposed to take tea with them...
Also, stop doing line-bre
aks mid-word in the con
versation windows! Grr!
- AFK:
As in Last Chaos, they've gone with the Player-As-AFK-NPC-Merchant thing again, which still winds me up. I'm not really in any position to comment on the finer economic aspects of Shaiya really - I've been getting by on quest rewards so far, but then again, I am quite litterally playing EZ-Mode. It probably is important for the more serious players to shop around for good gear, and at least here, they've designed The Selling Place to be some place on it's own map, ala EQ's Luclin Bazaar, rather than the spot where brand new players first wake up!
I still see no need for it at all, mind you, when countless other MMOs have shown how simple, convenient and useable, any kind of basic Auction House can be. Still, in this case, the main Union City where all the AFK people are, can happily double as a social space and if it all annoys you, as it does me, just don't go there. Out in the main zones, this stuff is nicely out of sight and out of mind.
- Micropayments:
Quite unfair on my part, this one. The game is indeed free to play, but has extensive micropayment stuff built all the way in. There's even an in-game button you can press to open up the RMT Shop window. As an example, 499 AP (Which costs approx $5 US, through the Aeria website), will buy you a potion that increases XP by 1.5x for seven days (Not sure if that's online or realtime). This stuff is the pillar on which the game is built, and presumably, can afford to be run. Which is fine, but there are boosts to be bought in all manner of stats, and given the PvP nature of a large part of the game, well, draw your own conclusions. Suffice to say there were folks in the first borderlands on the opposing side, who seemed more or less invulnerable to me, even taking my innate suckage in to account! Highly suspicious.
It does rather seem possible to, if not precisely buy your way to the top, then certainly lubricate the wheels of progress a great deal with cold hard cash. Seeing GM Broadcasts that read like sales pitches is a bit disconcerting too, if you aren't use to it. They'll come on an announce some 'event', which largely seem more like limited edition 'Buy now or miss your chance!' once in a lifetime deals, to me.
Perhaps it is just me; I'm not used to this way of doing things, being a dyed in the wool Subscriber in my MMOs so far, and at the end of the day, it is a question of this 'Self Discipline' thing I've been banging on about of late. If I'm happy with the basics, then that's fine, but given the very up-front business model of the Aeria network, perhaps it is a bit naive to expect to be the best without putting in a bit more, and financial, commitment in than simply downloading for free and scoffing at the lack of subscription. To be fair, I've not encountered any gameplay situations which absolutely required that I pay up to progress, but then again, I've not got that far in.
A matter of personal preference, clearly, and at the end of the day, the servers have to be paid for somehow. To it's credit, at least there are no in-game ads to worry about - other than the ones broadcast by it's own staff anyway.
After Last Chaos, I was pleasantly surprised by this one, proving to be a solid alternative to World of Warcraft, if a bit rougher round the edges and a touch more primitive. In this case, the term 'WoW-clone' seems to be a very accurate description, and players of that will find a lot of similarities here, but also a lot of interesting and unique takes on the same basic game. And it's free, so that's a bonus. (Well, as long as your willpower remains strong, anyway. Not that there is a lot of shame in chipping in toward the game's continued existence, mind you.)
I can see myself keeping this one on and dipping in there now and then, and while not perhaps quite a strong contender for my time as a more mainstream MMO I pay monthly for, the whole thing does make for a nice change of scene on my off-nights.
Final Verdict: Not bad at all, and definitely worth a look. Probably not an 'Only Game' though.
Also on Aeria's books are Twelve Sky, a "Martial Arts MMORPG" apparently, Project Torque, some kind of "Racing MMOG", and Dream of Mirror Online, a "Social MMORPG". I expect I'll get to those soon enough.
(Except for the last one, DOMO, which apparently actively blocks EU IP addresses, probably for some draconian regional redistribution reasons. Either that, or they've seen me coming...)
There is certainly something compelling about free-to-play MMOs, I'm starting to find...