The Free MMO Überlist (updated: Oct 11)

Mith · April 2008

The link to Goonzu in the OP goes to the Japanese version - the version in English (I forget whether it's specifically NA or what) is at http://luminary.ijji.com/ and called Luminary: Rise of the Goonzu.

It focuses on the economy, trading, and player governance more than most games. Unfortunately, most of your time is still spent grinding mobs, which is about as exciting as Progress Quest but requires you to be around to click on new targets.

Aldo · April 2008

Thanks for the info.

Xanathus · April 2008

http://www.playrohan.com/

Rohan Online is a PVP-based MMORPG which is currently in closed beta but is actually open for anyone to sign up and play. There's going to be a player wipe on the 9th when it goes into open beta.

Graphics are alright and the grind isn't too bad because there are quests (kill X of enemies and/or retrieve Y of drops), and the classes are balanced enough so that all are useful. The game also encourages limited PKing for exp and partying as well because each member gets extra exp in a party.

Aldo · April 2008

added. :3

Xanathus · April 2008

Ok it's not actually going into open beta on the 9th, it's only closing then. I don't have a clue when it's going to reopen again.

Aldo · April 2008

Xanathus wrote: »

Ok it's not actually going into open beta on the 9th, it's only closing then. I don't have a clue when it's going to reopen again.

Right. I'll throw it under "Promising Titles" if they're going to stay closed for a longer period of time. I'll try to keep an eye on the PA thread, but info in this thread is also appreciated.

Fiaryn · April 2008

So how is this Lunia nonsense and do we have any people playing it? It sounded kind of awesome, but I hesitate to get into any of these without some PAers to fuck around with.

Spoiler:

Aldo · April 2008

Fiaryn wrote: »

So how is this Lunia nonsense and do we have any people playing it? It sounded kind of awesome, but I hesitate to get into any of these without some PAers to fuck around with.

Spoiler:

:winky:

I play the game every now and then. Aldi in game.

Lunia is very casual/solo friendly, though. As long as you're good at dodging and timing your attacks you can beat most missions.

Liquid Ghost · April 2008

Lunia was a bizarre experience. From what I can tell, it was more like a four-player co-op game where the slots are completely open and basically anyone can just drop right in and play as one of the three characters that you didn't choose. In the middle of each mission, there's a scene where your party is sitting around a campfire at night and you can decide to either continue with that same crew or slip off into the void and find another. I think the group that I was in re-entered the first mission several times in order to level up and farm the end boss a little bit, so you can definitely go that route if you'd like to grind a little in preparation.

Bewildered_Ronin · April 2008

Saw your entry on 2moons and thought you might like to know a bit more about it. It's based off Dekaron, a Korean MMO. Perry was asked to head the team to port it over to English, so it's not really developed by him. It's supposed to be a "mature MMORPG for adults" having high levels of violence and profanity. It does have severing of limbs and such, but the words "mature" and "adult" seem to attract middle school-aged kids like moths to a flame. The profanity is a bit ridiculous and is out of place in some instances, and this comes from someone who normally cusses like a rum-drunk sailor.

Gameplay-wise, it's okay. A definite grindfest. Once you get to higher levels it can get pretty intense and the attack animations/spell effects look really cool. Fun for a while, but it really does get old pretty quick, IMO.

Aldo · April 2008

Bewildered_Ronin wrote: »

Saw your entry on 2moons and thought you might like to know a bit more about it. It's based off Dekaron, a Korean MMO. Perry was asked to head the team to port it over to English, so it's not really developed by him. It's supposed to be a "mature MMORPG for adults" having high levels of violence and profanity. It does have severing of limbs and such, but the words "mature" and "adult" seem to attract middle school-aged kids like moths to a flame. The profanity is a bit ridiculous and is out of place in some instances, and this comes from someone who normally cusses like a rum-drunk sailor.

Gameplay-wise, it's okay. A definite grindfest. Once you get to higher levels it can get pretty intense and the attack animations/spell effects look really cool. Fun for a while, but it really does get old pretty quick, IMO.

Okay, thanks for the information. Now I'm really convinced I'm not going to play the game. XD

t Liquid Ghost: that's a pretty good description of the game. The little storyline is an interesting twist, but it doesn't really work because the story is stupid.

Aldo · April 2008

I was stupid and forgot to add Ikariam to the list. Consider it rectified now.

Also: go play this game ( www.ikariam.com ) it is sweet.

Fiaryn · April 2008

Aldo wrote: »

I was stupid and forgot to add Ikariam to the list. Consider it rectified now.

Also: go play this game ( www.ikariam.com ) it is sweet.

Join us.

JOIN US

Aldo · April 2008

I got an invite for some sort of steampunk-ish MMO from Asia, but their site is horribly uninformative. It's called Neosteam. I could check it out, but it looks like just another retarded korean grind mmo. :?

I don't understand why they all get an English release these days.

omega71 · April 2008

I got that invite as well, I cant sign up or in to the site though..

Xanathus · April 2008

Use Internet Explorer. Yeah I know.

omega71 · April 2008

Naw I got it in Firefox...I was trying to create the username too early..I just waited till it hit the 24th and made it fine...

downloading it right now

Aldo · April 2008

I downloaded it from Gamershell without any problems.

Aldo · April 2008

Hmm, the game comes with Xtrap, the same anti-hacking software used in Knights Online and Sword of the New World. It's one of those software pieces that scan your whole PC, so it's a bit iffy. A quick google search doesn't turn up any lamentations, though. Well, okay, besides some cheaters who complain their game doesn't work.

Aldo · April 2008

Now, I dunno about you guys, but they've got the art style down. If only there was a way to turn the bloom down and the viewing distance up. Anyway, great art direction in my humble opinion:

Spoiler:

Gameplay itself: mouse only, controls are not up to par with modern titles, but maybe things will get better over time. This is a rather early build, I believe. I'm level 9 now and I've got 2 special attacks that do a shitton of damage and auto-attack that is a bit slower. I haven't been able to get myself killed on mobs of around my level, although some lev 15 monsters I ran into at lev 6 almost got me. Nothing out of the ordinary there. (stupid Koreans grrrr) Plays like all the other MMOs, with the caveat that it goes a lot faster now, you'll rip through your enemies at lower levels. Which makes the grinding okay, I guess.

Grind: Eh, not more than say ... WoW, which is to say that it could be better.

Awesomeness: there's a gigantic turtle walking around a field, if you talk to it it swallows you (not depicted) and you get to fight *inside* the beast.

Also: when you interact with an NPC/metro the game turns into a sort of cinematic mode wherein there's no UI besides the menus you open with hotkeys. Looks pretty decent.

Engrish: Horrible, simply horrible. Half the game isn't even translated, some NPCs start off in Engrish and half way through it starts talking Korean. Spelling and grammar obviously aren't a main concern for the developers.

Conclusion: Pretty cool for at least a few hours. I'll play some more soon. If you are an explorer like me you should really give this try, it has some unique environments and it's fairly save to travel around.

*edit: I'm going to put it down under promising titles, the game is still fully under development.

Laonar · April 2008

more screenies

Glal · April 2008

I'll agree with Aldo on all of those, except that in my case the game will lock up my computer randomly, requiring a hard reset. Letting it sit there for a while will result in a "your graphics card got caught in an infinite loop!" error in the Windows logging system post-reboot.
Wish I could find a way to fix that, as far as generic Korean grinds go I was rather enjoying this one (the intro animation is great fun, if obviously WoW inspired in the second half, and I like the music whenever it hits).

Aldo · April 2008

Glal wrote: »

I'll agree with Aldo on all of those, except that in my case the game will lock up my computer randomly, requiring a hard reset. Letting it sit there for a while will result in a "your graphics card got caught in an infinite loop!" error in the Windows logging system post-reboot.
Wish I could find a way to fix that, as far as generic Korean grinds go I was rather enjoying this one (the intro animation is great fun, if obviously WoW inspired in the second half, and I like the music whenever it hits).

Hm, the official forums are a joke and I don't know of any resources, so I can't help you out there.

I'm looking forward to the third neutral faction, they look pretty interesting.

Laonar: I'll take some more screenies when I play again later today. I'll see if I can find one of those heavy armed turtle pets as well, they're amusing.

Glal · April 2008

Apparently, their spyw... cheater detection service can clash with AV programs (I wonder why :rolleyes: ). Might explain my issues, and the latest crash.
God, the lag from Europe is terrible though. Good thing click-to-move doesn't require low latency.

Aldo · April 2008

I'm from Europe as well and I didn't have a *lot* of lag yesterday evening, mighta been lucky, though.

Hrmm, I don't like those anti-cheat programs one bit, but they come with the territory, I guess. o_O This one doesn't have any lasting effects though, for as far as I know.

Xanathus · April 2008

You can turn off bloom by unchecking the pixel shaders checkbox in options.

Also, can anyone else login? The login window disappears after I enter my username/password and nothing else happens.

Glal · April 2008

Site or game?

Aldo: do you use the same name in-game? I just saw an Aldo run by.

Xanathus · April 2008

Nevermind, I'm in now. I had to restart my router to get a new ip address. By the way which kingdom are you guys on? My current character is in Elerd (the second one) but I'm going to reroll a new one.

Glal · April 2008

I'm in the first one.

Aldo · April 2008

I can log in just fine. o_O

Also: two more screenies for those interested

Spoiler:

*edit: yes that was me Glal.

I didn't notice you.

Glal · April 2008

I'm Alain in the game, so you wouldn't have. I took a screeny of you running past though.

Aldo · April 2008

Glal wrote: »

I'm Alain in the game, so you wouldn't have. I took a screeny of you running past though.

!!!
paparazzi

Asamof the Horrible · April 2008

The interface and some of the art style of those screens really remind me of RFonline.

Aldo · April 2008

Asamof the Horrible wrote: »

The interface and some of the art style of those screens really remind me of RFonline.

Isn't that a gamengame game as well? =/ Pretty sure those games copy/paste a lot of from each other.

Aldo · April 2008

After playing some more I got really bored with it. Mostly the fact that mobs of around your levels die without a sweat, but if you go only one level higher than what you are "allowed" to attack you all of a sudden to a lot less damage. It also works the other way around: when a low lev mob attacks you they do 0 damage and you one-shot them.

Really boring in the longer run. Still, it's a better game than half the game on that list. =/

Glal · April 2008

I like the fact that your health regenerates at a sensible manner, at least at lower levels. I hate how a lot of Korean MMOs lately seem to think that player friendly means having loads of health... but crappy regen, forcing you to either sit around or chug potions non-stop.

Aldo · April 2008

Glal wrote: »

I like the fact that your health regenerates at a sensible manner, at least at lower levels. I hate how a lot of Korean MMOs lately seem to think that player friendly means having loads of health... but crappy regen, forcing you to either sit around or chug potions non-stop.

Yea, they got that part right.

Still, the game is kinda painful to play, mostly because of the shitty pathfinding.

Glal · April 2008

Haha, yes. I loved it when my character got stuck in an awkward corner, then I spent 10 seconds clicking everywhere until I finally hit a direction where my hitbox didn't collide with an obstacle right away.
Still, I do kinda dig the graphics despite being low poly and low texture resolution, and I really dig the quest flags that tell you where your objective is. Also, getting eaten by a whale and suddenly finding yourself inside it was awesome.

Lots of neat ideas, it's just a shame that in the end it's still a Korean game. How come they toss out so many free&mall MMOs, but over here the free ones seem to be more like 1980's experiments in masochism than casual friendly?

Aldo · April 2008

I was wondering about that myself, gamengame in particular is coming out with a shitload of games.

Hypothesis: they release a lot of games that all work on the same server structure: they hope there will be a game for everyone between that big pile and that people will purchase some things from the cash shop then. This is assuming that the licenses to these games are dirt cheap. It's like those budget bins at the local games shop: most games are shit, but as long as you purchase one title they're going to make a few cents profit. As long as everyone does that they're happy.

It's weird shit, though. Mostly because a lot of these games look and play alike.

Dis · April 2008

*Awaits for the day F2P MMO gets better and Pay to Play MMO like WoW gets threaten...

Personally I don't mind paying to play...
It's just that paying to play monthly kinda makes me commited to that game only and makes me ignore my other console games etc...

The good thing about free MMO is I won't feel commited to play it since I am not paying monthly fees for it...

*wish silly pay monthly MMO adopt hour based plan instead of silly monthly fees...

*quit wow at 70 with S1 Arena Gear cos he hates raiding...
*quit GW after Propehecis, Factions, Nightfall and didn't start Gwen...

Penny Arcade

The Free MMO Überlist (updated: Oct 11)

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