I have the good fortune of trying out World of Warcraft during its China Beta (which is still going on, by the way). And after trying out that game, I just couldn't get myself to play this game more than 30 mins at a stretch. I am not sure when this game came out but its gameplay mechanics are somewhat weak, even when compared to Everquest I.
The biggest problem for this game is probably how its played out - you are thrown into this world without any introduction, whatsoever. Yeah, I know there is loads of material on this site and the manual but you got to have something to get you going in a MMORPG world. Its just insane how you just start the game and you are given a character with a quest page. Whats the importance of your character ? The game doesn't compel to start exploring - its just not immersive.Period.
The graphics are decent, no where near other modern games, but a huge improvement over Ragnarock. The textures are a little jagged on edges and could use a little filtering (I think this game doesn't support AA or AF since both of them didn't make a huge difference). And somehow I had framerate issues with this game in the starting ,even though my system specs are far better than recommended ( P4 2.4C, 512 MB Ram and a 128 MB NVidia 6800 with Win XP Sp2). I have to try out different configs to test out whats the problem there.
I can't comment on the questing a lot since I haven't done a lot there. And since these are only impressions, I don't think I will go into much detail here. The sound effects are good and the occasional music is done well.
I don't know what will be the monthly fee for this game when it is released across the various retail stores but I hope its free because I can't imagine anyone paying anything to play this game. Why ? Because even superior games like Ultima Online are free.
The funniest fact about this game is that its been released in other parts of Asia now and its going up against a monster like World of Warcraft in countries like Korea and China. How does it even hope to compete against last years "Game Of the Year". And I hear that even Everquest II might be released in those parts.
I don't want to judge this game yet since I haven't played enough of it but from what I gather, this is not going to be a pleasent experience. But you know what, I am going to try and "get into" this game. Its being a long time coming and I don't want to miss out on the oppurtunity to play with fellow Indians. This just has to be done.
PS : I hope the moderators don't take this as trolling since these are just my honest opinions of this game - I don't intend to start a flaming war of anykind.
