Fantasy Earth: ZERO (Japanese: ファンタジーアース ゼロ) formerly known as Fantasy Earth: The Ring of Dominion is a massively multiplayer online game developed by Fenix Soft (original developers, Multiterm, were absorbed into Fenix Soft on September 1, 2007).
Several months after the release, Square Enix canceled the game because of severe lack of demand. The publishing rights to the game were later bought by Gamepot, where the game has enjoyed much greater success as they dropped the subscription based element present when under Square Enix's PlayOnline service, and became a "Free to Play" game. Having recently announced over 9,300,000 users.[citation needed] Revenue is generated using an in-game currency known as "orbs" which are purchased using real money, and can purchase items only obtainable using orbs.
Gamepot Japan established an IP block preventing players outside the region from playing.
The game started beta testing on February 23, 2006 and was re-released by Gamepot Japan on November 2, 2006. On April 3, 2007 Fantasy Earth started beta testing in China (Mainland). On June 3, 2008 it started the beta test in Taiwan.
US players were finally able to get in on the action when Fantasy Earth Zero was announced by Gamepot USA on January 12, 2010.[1] The first Open Beta for Fantasy Earth Zero in the US began on March 3rd, 2010 and ended on March 10th, 2010.[2] Players who participated in a Kingdom War in the first OB were eligible to receive a "Limited Edition" weapon in the 2nd Open Beta. The second Open Beta started on March 17th, 2010.[3]
The game is now LIVE as of 18 May 2010.
Overview
Fantasy Earth Zero is a 3rd-person action-MMORPG. There is a large emphasis on PvP on a massive scale. Armies of up to 50 players, each from their own Kingdom, can go head to head in a type of war known as "Kingdom vs. Kingdom." The KvK battles are balanced so that, on the battlefield, one side will have 50 players max and the opposing side will have 50 players. KvK battles are all held on the same server.
At character creation, they create a male/female scout, warrior, or sorcerer. Then, players must choose their allegiance; the Kingdom that they will fight for. This determines the King or ruler that speaks to the player on the battlefield and in towns.
You can also create clan/guilds to play with friends and cooperate with other people. These groups give special benefits.
One of the features of FEZ, that makes it different from most other fantasy-setting MMOs on the Free-to-Play market, is that attacks must be aimed manually and there is no auto-attack. Players manually aim at their opponent and then click the left mouse button to attack. Various special abilities become available to the player as they level up and gain Skill Points. Skill Points are spent to learn new abilities.
Gameplay
Fantasy Earth Zero has a Player-versus-environment element, but experience is awarded at a much slower rate in comparison to Kingdom vs. Kingdom battles.
Kingdom battles also have many elements that are similar to a RTS game. Players "mine" crystals by crouching next to a giant crystal. After a certain number of crystals are mined, players must trade crystals with each other to get the appropriate amount of crystals they need to build a structure or summon a unit of war. Units of war are essentially "Summons" like in Final Fantasy games, but the Wraith and the Giant require structures to be built before they can be summoned. When a player character summons a unit, they assume the form of the summon and directly control its action.
Buildings can be built on the battlefield and each has its own purpose. Obelisks are used to capture enemy territory. Gates of Hades are used to summon Wraiths. War Workshops are used to summon Giants. Arrow Towers fire arrows at the opposing side.
Official Site
http://fez.gamepotusa.com/
Intro Movie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2L1wLiA3y0
50 vs 50 PvP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8pz8M5ws0M
Posts
Allrighty, then... Starting up in the Blue nation, I like the lightning bolt icon. What? Its as good a reason as any other.
And it looks like their sage/king has a collection of scantily clad sprites. Whats not to love?
CyoteJim is the char name, hit me up if ingame, we'll see about, oh, I dont know, taking over the world, things like that.
Anyone have any impressions?
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
I tried this out a month or two ago and it kept my interest for a while, though eventually the repetition kinda set in
it's nice how quickly you can jump into the PvP, so for people interested, may as well give it a try
*only at that pimple on your nose and those glasses and oh my god look at that shirt and your mother is a slut and we're going to piss on your bike later today
The combat is monotonous and for the time I played, my skills looked mostly the same.
The tutorial is quick and to the point but when it was finished, I was lost. Sure, digging around more might have helped but I have played other free MMO's that don't require me to do so.
The dialogue was slow. I would have checked for an option to speed it up but I guess I was not thinking about that at the time. Also, the text boxes were really small when I was running it at a decent resolution.
This would be passable if the conversations were interesting or compelling to read, but they are not.
The character models look the same when wearing equipment. The biggest difference is in character height and the enormous breasts that the females have. The "young" body for girls has double d's, if not bigger.
For the most part, this game just did not click with me. Have you ever played a game and just could not get into it? This was that way for me. It is free but there are better free games to spend your time playing.
To be fair, I did not play too deep into the game. I just could not find any reason to though.
I am really tired so I apologize if none of that made any sense.
Excruciatingly small hitboxes require very low lag (below 100 ping) to reliably hit anything, players can bullshit out of danger and keep half a dozen others busy by spamming the side dash (which makes you invulnerable), you're basically forced to be incredibly shitty and a drain on you team until a high level, with apparently no way of gaining those levels unless you run many, many games against kitted out 30's.
Oh yeah and I really love finally slowing a Scout that's been annoying me, only to get disarmed for LITERALLY FIFTEEN SECONDS. And by the time I can slow them again, they can do it again.
Yeah no thanks. I tried playing this game all of yesterday, and I've decided that I really have better things to do with my time than play a game which actively seems to be trying to make me not have fun.
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
Here's the problems.
One, your character. You have all of maybe four buttons to hit. No, seriously. And thats with the "Here, have sixteen free levels! Why? We dont want anyone not participating and coulndt think of a good way around the tutorial."
Beyond that, theres no /healing/. Its all potions. Things move at ludicrous speed so its got the feel much like playing an old arcade beat-em-up, which is allright, in and of itself, except you're very clearly supposed to be playing an MMO, interface-wise. Yeah, it feels most like being a standard unit in Dynasty Warriors, now that I really try and put a name to it.
Plots a complete non-concern, the game makes no bones about it all being about the battlefields.
I really do feel comfortable saying "Its a barely functional mess." and calling it good, tell you the truth. Which is a shame, from a certain perspective the idea is good, it just had no player-user-friendly functionality built in at all.
This is pretty spot on. I played it for a month or so and it got really boring pretty fast. The idea behind it is cool, but the execution is poor. Also the game is like 5 years old and looks even older. It was released waaay to late here and just feels bad. Maybe if it had come out 5 years ago it wouldn't feel so terrible.