“Wizard101 is so unique,” they said. “You’ll love it!” they said.
And you know what.. despite its flaws – of which there are some blatantly obvious ones – this game was significantly more fun than I had ever given it credit for.

Today, we’re taking a look at Wizard101. I was warned that while the game is free-to-play, there is a pay-wall present that severely inhibits your ability to play the game beyond the introduction. But do I ever listen to what people tell me? Pffft, no.

Wizard101 is an MMO developed by KingsIsle Entertainment, released back in 2008. Players take on the role of a student at Hogwa-wait, wrong game. At Ravenwood, a school dedicated to teaching kids how to hone their innate abilities as wizards.
Upon starting the game, players are asked a selection of questions that help discern your interests, and your affinity with different elements.
I had chat choose my answers based off of the kind of person they thought I was, and we ended up with an Ice element.

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and assume that’s because.. I’m pretty cool.

After selecting your magical affinity, you create your character. Options are fairly limited. You can customize a basic small selection of facial features.
Then you’re immediately thrown into a battle with Atilla the Hun, while being walked through the basics of combat.

Which I guess should be what we address first.
Wizard101 employs an interesting type of instanced, turn-based combat.
As a wizard, you build a deck of cards. These cards consist of monsters you can place onto the field – in face-up attack position, or-wait, wrong game.
You place down cards, which summon monsters for that turn and deal a set amount of damage to enemies. Every card, every monster has their own element, and as such, is both weak against, and strong against specific elements. If you ever plan on playing this competitively, it’d be wise to learn both your deck’s individual strengths and weaknesses.
Or just do what I did: Have a bunch of high level people join you, 1-shotting everything with cards right out of myth and legend.
As noted, combat is instanced. This means you can’t just walk out into the world and engage enemies other players are engaging like you would in traditional MMOs.
The combat is unique though, and as a fan of JRPGs, was actually a massive blast of nostalgia.

Graphically… I mean, I can’t deny that this game certainly leans towards looking incredibly dated. KingsIsle is an American developer, however, and Western MMOs never really excel graphically.
Even the best Western MMOs like The Elder Scrolls Online fail to live up to their Eastern competition.
Nevertheless, the game has this unique.. charm to it. Kinda like you’re playing a book out of your childhood. The headmaster reminds me of Merlin. We have talking animals. Cartoony villains.
I understand the target demographic wasn’t necessarily.. teenagers, young adults, or players who prefer competitive content like hardcore raids or PvP.

What the game DOES have a focus on though, is its narrative.
You’re introduced to a plethora of different characters over the course of the game. Each region has their own unique stories, and NPCs associated with them. Granted, I did only traverse through 2? 3 zones total. The reason for that is due to the paywall I noted earlier.

This world is segregated. Just like Final Fantasy XIV. Just like Blade & Soul, or Guild Wars 2. To access different zones, you’re required to move through small loading screens. And while they’re instanced from one another, you’ll encounter tons of players out playing the game.
Now, I mentioned that I only traversed 3 different zones total due to the paywall. Wizard101 advertises itself as a free to play MMO, specifically, a “Free Wizard MMORPG Game!”
They state that you’ll gain free access to most of the first world, Wizard City, but for those of us that wish to play beyond the first world, you’ll be required to purchase one of several different packages.
On the one hand, you can opt for a monthly membership that will unlock every zone. On the other, you can pay for zones separately. The latter option allows for you to retain access to zones permanently if I recall, whereas premium memberships do not.
Paying separately ends up much more expensive in the long-term, so if you plan on playing daily you’d honestly be better off with the premium monthly membership.
The main issue I have with this, however, is that after purchasing access to this content, you’ll have access as long as your membership remains active.
So if I’m in the middle of a zone when my membership runs out.. too bad. You’re done. Keep paying if you want to play more.
I have no issue with premium games. I had an active sub with WoW for a decade. I’ve had an active sub with Final Fantasy XIV since 2016. I’m also more than happy purchasing content. I purchased every expansion for ESO. For Guild Wars 2.
But when you advertise yourself as a free game, require you purchase access to new content, and then remove your access to the content when you stop paying? Nope. Either advertise yourself as a premium game, or allow us to purchase the entire game.
This just feels a little misleading. And I know this opinion is likely to upset some of you, but I can’t help how I feel.

In terms of content… there are a significant number of worlds players can purchase. Wizard City, MooShu, Avalon, Arcanum, Mirage, Wysteria, to name a few. When I Googled, I happened across approximately 20? Give or take a couple.
There are a large number of dungeons for players to enter. You seem to be able to run with groups of up to four players total. There are Gauntlets – which function similarly to dungeons.
There’s a functional PvP system over in the PvP Arena. There’s also a form of player-housing present: Dorm Rooms, Modest Private and Luxury Private homes. I’ve been trying to get a plot of land in Final Fantasy XIV for years – I feel like I’m in a perpetual state of homelessness in every MMO I play.

At the end of the day, Wizard101 was a very fun MMO.
The game definitely looks dated. Probably too dated for me to want to invest time into long-term.
The combat was incredibly unique, and left me feeling a sense of nostalgia – I love JRPGs. I loved them back when they were turn-based, and wish more JRPGs developed these days still utilized turn-based combat, as it required forethought. Tactics, more than reflexes.
However, I’m not fond of the business model utilized. I feel like it’s cheap, and a little misleading, when you go into the game thinking it’s going to be completely free and it isn’t.

Is this the greatest MMO? To some people, maybe. To me? No.

Combat – 5/10 The combat was fun, but waiting on members of your party to make their move took far too long and often left me sitting there bored. However, playing solo was a lot more fun. It just kinda.. defeats the purpose of playing an MMO if you have to play solo to have the engagements move at a moderate pace.
Graphics – 4/10 Graphically, well.. it had a unique charm to it, but felt like every “magic game” ever developed in the 90s and early 2000s.
Narrative – 5/10 The narrative.. was actually pretty solid. It was fun, it was quirky, and felt like something out of a childrens novel.
World – 7/10 The world is immensely large. There are so many different regions to explore, all with their own unique aesthetic and stories. But it’s all locked behind a paywall.
Content – 5/10 Realistically, you have access to the same features most MMOs provide us. So I’d say we fall in about average here.
Overall – 26/50

I had fun in Wizard101. I did. I was laughing hysterically throughout the story because of how silly it got at times. The voice acting was also pretty good, surprisingly.
The world was cute. The combat was unique. I wish I’d had access to more cards, though. Seeing the kinds of things that some of our viewers were summoning mid-battle though were incredible.
Is this an MMO I’d play long-term? No. It felt too slow for me, and I’m definitely not part of its target demographic.

Every person I’ve ever talked to that has played Dragon Nest for any length of time has told me that it was one of the best MMOs they’d ever played.

Today, we’re taking a look at Dragon Nest. This was arguably one of the most popular Anime MMOs of its time, providing players with some of the fastest most fluid combat, PvP and honestly.. some highly unusual animations.

I last played Dragon Nest in the middle of 2021. That was the first time in 5 years I’d logged into the game, and it had changed substantially in that period.
It’s been about 7, 8 months since then, and after logging in for the first time, not only was I presented with the most welcoming return
*show clip of returning*
But I was also gifted with even more powerful items. For reference, when I came back last year, I was given a powerful accesory that gave me tens of thousands of attack power, allowing me to 1-shot every monster, every boss up until level 70?
I stopped playing at level 87, and at the time, was 2, maybe 3-shotting bosses.
After coming back this time, I was given multiple additional pieces of gear that gave me hundreds of thousands attack power, and allowed for me to 1-shot bosses in the dungeon after the dungeon I was in. So I didn’t even need to run them.
I felt like Saitama. Just.. not bald.. and with booba.

This allowed me to catch up pretty rapidly, though. I proceeded to hit level 95 with absolutely no issue whatsoever, and due to that, no challenge.
This left me to do one of a few different things: Continue with the story, which took me to new areas, had me run dungeons I’d never run before, as I made progress towards hitting endgame.
Or I could pursue missions via the Mission Board. I could do my Awakening quests. Improve my class, unlock new skills.
But I was level 95 after what, less than 20 hours of playing the game? With a rudimentary level of understanding of my character, the systems present within the game, or, heck, the game itself.

Disregarding how overpowered I was upon my return, and how confused I was at this juncture, Dragon Nest is a great looking Anime MMO.
Aesthetically, it has a pretty unique style. Character models are more.. flat. Shaded. With less visible detail than in games like Aura Kingdom or SoulWorker.
But different games have different graphical styles, so it makes complete sense. The game-world is gorgeous. You’ll see enormous towns and cities, you’ll have epic fights with dragons, demons..

Speaking of combat, many players argue Dragon Nest has the best combat in the Anime scene. And I guess, let me preface this by stating that it doesn’t. That might be a contentious opinion – but we’re all welcome to our own, right?
I think games like SoulWorker and PSO2 New Genesis both have better combat in terms of an Anime MMO, but they also feel like completely different types of games.
Dragon Nest employs much more of a traditional action combat system. You bind your abilities to a variety of different keys, and have a fairly large hotbar, something that the 2 aforementioned games lack. SoulWorker is about binding a few abilities, and comboing them with other abilities.
PSO2 New Genesis has a very small pool of skills to pull from per weapon, but provides you the option of equipping multiple.
Combat in Dragon Nest feels pretty good – not over the top, with tons of special effects cluttering your screen but a little more tame.

Dragon Nest is a hub-MMO, meaning that combat always takes place within instances. The game itself isn’t entirely based around instances, however: Every town, every city, every zone is disconnected from one another via loading screens. But, with the exception of dungeons, the world allows for players to group up, to connect with and engage one another.
You’ll find players scattered around a variety of different areas. With the exception of the dungeons themselves, this looks and feels like any other MMO.
The bulk of the content though – dungeons, raids, PvP, are all instanced. Meaning that once you enter, you won’t be able to encounter other players. Grouping up, therefore, requires you formulate a group in anticipation of entering.
I think I moved through 6, 7 different towns in approximately 20 hours of playing, and each one not only looked incredibly unique, but were also very, very large. I couldn’t imagine this on an open-world scale like WoW.
The world itself, while very appealing aesthetically, and filled with NPCs and players.. still felt a little empty. I dunno if I’m the only one that feels that way or not.
There’s something satisfying seeing people out in an open-world partaking of the same content you are that just isn’t present in hub-MMOs.

This game, while it can feel a little empty at times, is absolutely filled with story. If you’ve been watching my videos, you’d know I dislike MMOs that don’t have a narrative. If there’s no story to follow, how are you supposed to become enthralled in the world you find yourself in?
How are you supposed to become attached to the different characters you meet? NPCs just become “generic old dude #1, generic booba lady #7, etc. etc.”
Look at Final Fantasy XIV and World of Warcraft. XIV has players actively playing BECAUSE of the story. And WoW has players constantly complaining how bad its story IS. This is evidence to how important a story is in an MMO.
Most popular MMOs have a strong narrative: XIV, WoW, ESO, Guild Wars 2, Lost Ark. I feel though a lack of a story is a detriment to a game. And especially an MMO, where you’re required to continue playing for months, years at a time.
It’s part of the reason many people come back to these games when new content drop. And Dragon Nest.. well, admittedly, this game has a ridiculous amount of text. Much of it is exposition, and I feel like the vast majority of it likely could have been easily summarized in 1/10th of the time.
It’s actually so drawn out, that I spend much of the game holding spacebar to skip the 33 successive windows telling me I need to go kill a goblin before returning to another 20 windows telling me thank you.

As this is a hub-MMO, the amount of content is relatively limited comparatively to games that offer open-world features. There aren’t world-bosses. There’s no open-world PvP.
There are dungeons – which is the bulk of the game. There are also raids to run for players who want more difficult content to play. And more than that, the dungeons themselves have several different difficulties.
Each difficulty increase is quite substantial, and is the difference between 1-shotting dungeon bosses and actually needing to dodge an attack here and there while leveling.
There is PvP, but regardless of when I queued for it, I couldn’t seem to ever participate. Active players give me the impression that players participate at certain hours – hours that I don’t stream, unfortunately.
And.. well, realistically that’s all I’ve ever done. Beyond that, I don’t think there’s really much more to it. Is there? If there are other types of content, please do let me know in the comments below!

At the end of the day, Dragon Nest is a very fun MMO.
This game looks great – granted, its character creator leaves a lot to be desired, and its selection of classes can feel a little.. excessive, given multiple of them have the same character models, weapon types and general playstyle.
The combat is great, but not nearly as good as many players make it out to be. Which goes to show that nostalgia plays a large part on how people perceive games, both new and old.
It’s a hub-MMO, so content-wise, it’s very limited. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty to do. I did find the gear they provided me to hit endgame as quickly as I did to be game-breaking. It made what is a fun, engaging game into something you pay 0 attention to.. because why would you?

Combat – 6/10 Honestly, for an Anime MMO this game has some pretty damn good action combat.
Graphics – 5/10 Graphically, the character models felt very flat, but everything else was vibrant and popping.
Narrative – 3/10 The narrative.. was excessive, and there was far too much exposition to enjoy.
World – 5/10 The world is pretty large. There are a plethora of different towns, cities and zones to explore.
Content – 5/10 If you factor in the sheer number of instances, then there’s an exorbitant number of things to do.. but disregarding dungeons and raids, there isn’t too much variety.
Overall – 24/50

Admittedly, Dragon Nest has a lot of things going for it. But at the same time, it has just as many things, maybe even more going against it, including a very low playerbase and accusations of extensive pay to win.
Have I seen it? Somewhat. Is it going to affect me if I play? Not at all. Unless I PvP. But I’ve learned better than to PvP in free MMOs. Not only is it unbalanced, but it’s just as unfair.

I played the brand new SUN Classic MMO.. so you don’t have to.
I know, I know. “Wow, Stix, I can’t believe how amazing you are. You’re my hero.” That’s what I’m here for. I don’t need recognition for it.

Today, we’re taking a look at a title that Webzen just released.. or re-released I guess would be the correct term. One of Korea’s most popular MMOs from back in 2007: Soul of the Ultimate Nation. However this time, they released it as SUN Classic, taking advantage of the “Classic MMO” hype.
And.. well, let me tell you that I can understand why the game shut down a decade ago.

Soul of the Ultimate Nation – which we’re going to refer to as SUN for the remainder of this video, is your traditional Korean MMO.
It makes use of gender-locked classes, race-locked classes and imposes quite a few limitations on the overall customization and freedom to play your character how you want.
For whatever reason, each race has their own name like “Luke,” and each clan has one or two different classes associated with them.
Clans in specific are restricted to a single gender. So new clan members must be grown in test tubes, otherwise there’s really no explaining why everyone looks the same.

I opted for the Elementalist, because I’m a fan of squishies.

This leads me directly to the combat.
As one would expect from an MMO released 15 years ago, SUN utilizes a tab-target combat system. You can either click enemies with your mouse, or cycle through enemies with your tab-key.
Animations and skill effects by today’s standards weren’t too good, but given I’m a fan of older games like this I honestly didn’t mind.
I will admit that movement itself felt very clunky. Especially in battle, when being forced to kite enemies – or later on, run from enemies entirely.
You had your camera bound to both your left mouse button and right mouse button. Typically, you hold your right mouse button to rotate your character while moving with your WASD keys, however, all that did in SUN was rotate your camera angle.
Instead, your left mouse button rotated your character, requiring you utilize your left mouse button for a variety of different things.
One thing I did like was that the game allows you to not only distribute your own statistics – Vitality, Intelligence, Strength, but it also allows you to spec into various different skills.
This provides you quite a bit of character depth – you can be a tanky fire mage, a squishy support mage with heals. Or somewhere in-between with a focus on ice AoEs and crowd control.
However even though I had opted to go a glass-cannon build, even up to level 20, I had encountered absolutely no difficulty or resistance in the open-world or in dungeons.
Mrs Stix and I moved through them with me tanking 20 to 30 monsters at any given time, barely needing to pop a potion to sustain myself, which made combat easy and boring.
Add onto that the “auto-combat” feature you see down the bottom of the screen just above my hotbars?
Yup, imagine a game being so incredibly grindy that the developers know you don’t want to actually play it thus they introduce a feature so you don’t have to.

Graphically, SUN isn’t a bad looking game. It doesn’t do anything to really set itself apart from games that released in the 2000s though.
When asked what this game felt like to me, I said it reminded me a lot of Lineage 2. Just a cheaper version of it.
Skill effects looked alright. My fire spells were literally tiny little puffs of fire, and the environments were flat.

Speaking of the environments, I’ll be the first to admit that the world in SUN is horrible.
The zones are segregated, much like Blade & Soul, Guild Wars 2 or Final Fantasy XIV. And that’s fine, I enjoy segregated MMOs.
However, while the game gives you the illusion of freedom, you are, in fact, severely restricted in what you can do and where you can go.
Zones seem open. They look like you can run anywhere, reach anything. You’re even given the ability to jump – something that feels almost entirely useless, as for the most part, you’re unable to seamlessly move between different levels of terrain.
You see that little ledge? It’s a 2 foot drop, but you can’t jump down. Instead, you need to run around a 45 second loop to get there, loot the item, then run 45 seconds back up the hill to talk to the NPC.
It’s a massive time sink that should not be present.

As a fan of narratives in my games.. SUN left me sorely disappointed. Interestingly enough, every dungeon we entered was narrated by some random ass lady that I didn’t recognize – fully voice acted, as well.
But.. I played from level 1 through to level 20 and saw almost no story. No reason to exist, no reason to progress through the game.
But at the same time, it makes sense. This is a highly grindy game like Silkroad Online, where story is an afterthought to the gargantuan grind that is present.
As someone who has very limited time, however, I find myself drawn to worlds that I can become enthralled in. This.. this was not one of them.

SUN Classic does do something well though: It provides players a plethora of things to do.
Every couple levels, there was a brand new dungeon to do. These dungeons could be done solo or in a group. And there were various types of dungeons you could queue for.
There was – at least up until level 20, a fairly substantial number of quests so while grinding is definitely something that is recommended, doesn’t force you into it, turning you away from what could potentially be an enjoyable experience otherwise.
You can craft right from the get-go, however as someone that loathes the feature in every game I play I chose to stick to obtaining gear from questing or dungeons.
You could enable your auto-combat feature and farm gear, farm items, farm money, farm experience out in the world. This is something I saw was very prevalent while leveling. There were 10, 20 people auto-engaging enemies at every quest hub. Which did admittedly make it a little difficult to complete the quests myself.
There were world bosses that you could kill – both Mrs Stix and I saw one of those first-hand. And when I say “first-hand,” I mean his hand, our face. And the bodies of hundreds of other players at his feet.
You can also gather ore, minerals.. there’s a lot to do while leveling, and I’m sure with the addition of raids and PvP, there’s even more to do at later-game.

While I was assured there was PvP present within the game, I did not, unfortunately, find out how to engage in it at my level. Which was disappointing, as I wanted to flex my unkillable overpowered little puffs of smoke over my enemies. Even if I looked like Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast when I fought.

At the end of the day, Webzen revived Soul of the Ultimate Nation and released it as SUN Classic in an attempt to not only take advantage of the hype surrounding “Classic MMOs,” but also as a means with which to bank on nostalgia.
It’s been a decade since the game shut down, which means enough time has passed where a new generation of MMO player might be interested in trying it out.
Combine the two together, and you have an active playerbase for a couple months, and it cost you nothing but fees for a single server.
This game honestly looks decent enough given when it was released. The limitations imposed on exploration were irritating trying to navigate around, but it isn’t the end of the world. They had auto-pathing so you could just alt-tab out and watch a Youtube video as you run to your objective.
I did only play SUN Classic for 3 to 4 hours, so this is an introductory look at the game as opposed to a deep-dive, so there’s no doubt plenty I missed. But with each quest taking 10 to 15 minutes worth of grinding to complete, I felt like I knew the direction the game was going.

Combat – 3/10 The combat was bland, slow, clunky and the camera made it so much worse.
Graphics – 4/10 Honestly I’ve seen much worse. Character models and armor actually looked much better than the world itself, though.
Narrative – 0/10 If I could locate it, I would’ve given it at least a 1.
World – 3/10 Flat, linear and empty. Hordes of monsters could be found around every corner but it served no purpose other than to extend play time by running you back and forth across the map.
Content – 6/10 There was actually a decent amount of things to do, with more to do later in the game.
Overall – 16/50 – This is by far one of the.. well, less interesting MMOs I’ve played. I know I didn’t invest nearly as much time into this as I perhaps could have but if a game after roughly 3 to 4 hours continues to get progressively worse, what incentive do you have to continue playing?

If you’ve ever wondered what it’d be like to play a Korean Path of Exile… then you’re going to need to keep wondering, as in the hundreds of hours I’ve spent playing the Russian, and now the North American version of Lost Ark, they’re about as similar as hands are to feet.
They both kinda.. look alike? I guess? Okay actually, in retrospect, that was a bad analogy. Let me try again.

You can walk on your hands, and pick things up with your feet. No, that really doesn’t apply to Lost Ark in this instance…

Well you get what I’m trying to say. Lost Ark is a very different game to Path of Exile or Diablo. It might have the same top-down isometric perspective, but it’s a very different beast!

Today, we’re taking a look at Lost Ark’s international release, having put hundreds of hours into the Russian version of this over the last year it’s a surreal experience to finally be able to play this officially in English.

Lost Ark is a top-down isometric MMOARPG – yes, you may have noticed that there’s an “A” in that acronym. That single letter is used to differentiate it from other MMOs – and stands for “Massively Multiplayer Online Action Role Playing Game,” something that is apparently different from an MMORPG like Black Desert or TERA that are.. well, action MMOs.
Lost Ark takes place in a fantasy medieval setting, with humans, elves.. furries, if you want to go that route.
There are multiple different classes, although – and let me preface this by stating that this is only at present – but the classes are gender-locked. Meaning that each class can only be played as a single gender. Much like Black Desert.
According to Smilegate, they are working on removing the restrictions on gender-locking, but we’ll have to wait and see whether that ever comes to fruition.
Character creation itself is fairly extensive. You can make some absolutely gorgeous characters.. and if you’re ugly like I am IRL, and you want to make something that accurately resembles yourself.. well, you can make some slightly less gorgeous characters. So we’re outta luck.

Lost Ark is a very different MMO than players are traditionally used to. And this is very evident by the sheer number of players trying the game out.
People have been eagerly anticipating this game ever since it was announced, and with Amazon’s infinite marketing potential – including every streamer opting to stream the game, there’s no wonder it achieved the concurrent numbers it did.
Again, Lost Ark utilizes a top-down isometric perspective. As opposed to the typical 3rd-person perspective we’re used to in our MMOs.
Typically, MMOs share the same control scheme: You use your mouse to rotate the camera, you use WASD to move your character, keys like C open your character page and B opens your inventory. You have abilities set to number keys or shortcuts like shift or control number keys.
In Lost Ark, you move using your left or right mouse button, abilities are bound to your letters, and your number keys are reserved for less important items or mounts.
This takes some getting used to. I can’t tell you how often I try to right click to rotate my screen so I can get a better view of something and end up running off like my dad did when I was a kid.
But hey, the good news? I have brothers and sisters I didn’t know about.
Honestly, it isn’t too difficult to acclimate to the difference in control style. I feel like it’ll always be a little awkward, but not enough where it’ll really have any kind of impact on my enjoyment of the game. Different is good. Not always, but in this instance, it is.

The world of Arkesia is an enormous place. There are over 10 entire continents to explore, with each continent having their own unique zones, their own unique cities, their own unique monsters, quests and purpose.
The zones themselves are small and linear, though, which is probably my single complaint with this game. I like large, open areas. Where you can wander in any direction. Find small treasure chests. Elite monsters you wouldn’t be aware of without exploring. Locate missable, optional dungeons.
Exploration is key to enjoying the zone you’re in, integral to fully becoming enthralled in the area you’ll be potentially spending hours in leveling. This is what made WoW’s zones so special.
Unfortunately, the map for quite a few zones consists of small, thin straight lines. Which I understand isn’t necessarily going to be an issue for everyone. Mrs Stix as an example likes it small, thin and straight.
But the world isn’t comprised exclusively of zones so small. On the contrary, zones get larger, and once you obtain the ability to sail your own ship, you have the entire ocean to explore. Which is exactly what I wanted.
The ocean is immense – it takes several minutes to get from where you are to where you want to be, and there are a variety of tiny little islands you can find scattered around the world that you can dock your ship at. This provides me that sense of exploration I was looking for.

Leveling is about what you’d expect. You follow through the main scenario, moving from hub to hub, region to region, stopping bad guys from doing bad guy things. Meeting new NPCs to join you on your journey.
Leveling is fast and fluid. I never felt like I was forced to do anything other than the main scenario if I didn’t want to, but I chose to pick up side quests wherever I could. It’s a force of habit. I don’t like hitting a leveling wall that halts your progression and requires you do side-quests because you’re too low.
Side-quests were very fast. They didn’t send me all over the zone, they were as simple as “kill a few monsters,” or “loot a few items.” I find it absolutely atrocious having to loot or eliminate 100 of the same monster or item. That isn’t fun. That’s a waste of time.
Leveling dungeons were fun. You could do them on Normal or Hard difficulties. Although admittedly – and this is both a PRO and a CON – both difficulties were doable solo.
Neither provided too large a challenge that a larger group was required to complete it. Not that queues for dungeons were an issue – with 1.3 million people playing, queues were instant. And since role-queues aren’t a thing, we don’t have to concern ourselves with those horrendous DPS queues.

Speaking of dungeons though, there is one other aspect of this game that I found to be underwhelming: The community. The number of threads I saw on Reddit from players playing through Lost Ark for the first time that were berated, insulted and verbally abused because they didn’t “skip” every scene in the dungeon was actually kind of disgusting.
I even saw this first-hand once or twice. Granted, not toxicity. More random people spamming “skip plz” over and over.
Generally, the community outside of group-content seemed fun, they seemed helpful, they seemed to be enjoying themselves. But players so focused on shaving a few minutes off of their completion timer at the expense of ruining other players’ first time experiences are entitled.
If running into other players that want to experience the content as it’s supposed to be experienced is an issue, there’s always solo-queueing.

When we see Korea is making an MMO we think 2 things: 1.) The game is going to look gorgeous and play incredibly well. And 2.) The game is going to have no story.
Lost Ark is different in that while the former holds true, the latter does not. On the contrary, Lost Ark has quite an interesting narrative. It’s voice acted. It spans every zone in the game we encountered over the course of our way to level 50.
And it actually made sense. Playing through Black Desert’s story, or Astellia‘s, Bless‘s, TERA’s… they’re all convoluted messes that you try and forget exist. Or, well, you don’t need to try to. You just end up doing it without realizing.
And while thankfully Lost Ark has a lot of story to keep you entertained long-term, it isn’t the only form of content worth looking forward to.

The game is filled with an immense amount of content to partake of. Sure, grinding to level 50 isn’t very difficult. On average you might get there playing casually within a few days. What comes AFTER level 50 is what’s important.
If you have a guide readily available, you’ve no doubt already been slowly working towards completing the goal of collecting all 233 billion Mokoko Seeds.
You’ll also want to start researching your fortress and crafting professions if you’re not strongly against crafting like I am. You’ll want to focus on completing Island quests and stories. There are Chaos Dungeons to run. Guardian Raids. Abyss Dungeons. PvP.
You might feel a little overwhelmed at times by the selection of content, but it’s all important to upgrading your item level. And the higher your item level gets, the more content you gain access to.
This is completely disregarding the creation of alts. Oh, you didn’t know you needed alts to keep up with other players? That’s so sweet. Although admittedly, alt maintenance isn’t nearly as bad as it is in games like World of Warcraft so realistically I can’t complain.

Speaking of PvP, there are 2 dedicated types of PvP in Lost Ark. On the one hand, you can engage another player in a duel. This can take place anywhere at any time and is a way of humiliating your friend because he hasn’t been playing very long and doesn’t understand his class.
Alternatively, there are PvP Arenas that are unlocked after progressing through the story. Normal Arenas have 3 game modes themselves. 3v3 team matches where players enter as a team. 3v3 individual matches where players enter individually and fight separate 1v1 matches. And finally, 6-player death matches.
You also have competitive Arena matches, co-operative battles, and custom games that you can play with your friends.
Interestingly, Arenas have their own builds completely separate from your field-build. Meaning that you’re required to build 2 different characters: One for when you’re out in the world questing, running dungeons, raids and PvE content. And one for engaging in PvP.

And for those of you, like me, who are too poor to afford a house in real life, then you can live out your fantasy of having your very own island in Lost Ark.
I’ve never been all too fond of player-housing in my games but I know Mrs Stix is. Which is why she’s always in charge of decorating our homes. I mean, I struggle at times dressing myself. But that’s what we have significant others for, right? To make up for what we lack.

At the end of the day, Lost Ark is an absolutely incredible MMORPG. Smilegate have chosen to do something completely different to what is traditional in our MMOs with this – something that was contrastingly different from the norm.
And it has worked out for them, being one of Korea’s largest MMOs and becoming the #2 largest game to have ever launched onto Steam.
They genuinely built something beautiful, something that not only looks visually superior to a large number of its competitors, but also plays substantially better.
Sure, zones might be a little snug and might not promote the same sense of grandiose exploration that I want but no game is infallible. You’ll always find fault with some aspects of what you’re playing, it’s impossible not to.
There’s likely a lot I’ve missed, but with how large and filled with content Lost Ark is, there’s really no helping it.

Is this the greatest MMO? To some people, maybe. To me? No. But it’s definitely one of the most fun MMOs I’ve played.

Combat – 10/10 I’d give the combat an easy 10/10. It’s just that good.
Graphics – 8/10 This is an absolutely gorgeous game. There’s no qusetioning that.
Narrative – 6/10 Honestly, it was much better than I would’ve expected of a Korean MMO but still nothing extraordinary.
World – 7/10 The world is massive and filled with varied environments. But the zones are too linear to fully enjoy.
Content – 9/10 There’s an incredible amount of content present that you’ll always have something to fill your time with.
Overall – 40/50 – Lost Ark is easily one of the best MMOs available right now. Given that it’s a free title, there’s even more reason to play it. It’s beautiful, it plays better than any other free MMO, and it’s updated regularly with new classes, regions and content.

Welcome back to another episode of “Is it worth playing?” A video series where we go through every MMORPG, good and bad in search for the best, and at times the worst games in the genre.

Today we’re taking a look at one of the longest-lasting Anime MMOs – a game that has withstood the test of time: MapleStory.
MapleStory was developed by Wizet and published by Nexon in South Korea in 2003. The game launched shortly after in North America in 2005, and has been one of Nexon’s leading intellectual properties since, driving various spin-offs like MapleStory 2, MapleStory M and even the MapleStory Fest.

MapleStory is a very unique type of MMO. It’s one of the few side-scrolling action titles within the genre, but where it’s competitors like Dungeon Fighter Online allow for exclusively horizontal movement, MapleStory allows for both horizontal and vertical exploration.

MapleStory is set in an enormous world. Yet the world is segregated off from itself, providing players small zones to navigate between each entirely interconnected via small portals.
And before you jump to any conclusions, let me point out that these areas – these zones are in no way instanced. On the contrary, you’ll find plenty of players engaging in content, leveling, farming.
So many in fact that – and I’m sure many MapleStory players can relate, you end up in fierce competition with them over who’ll get to ultimately keep the spawn of monsters.
This is where I believe open-world PvP would come in handy, and why MMOs like Black Desert have flourished. Other players in your way? Don’t offer them your hand. Offer them “a” hand. You know. Off of a cliff. Or onto your blade.

Speaking of PvP, let’s talk combat.
Side-scrolling MMOs don’t offer much in the way of exploration. That’s because you’re mostly given the option of moving in a very linear form. So these games are required to maintain player interest in other ways.
Combat and narrative are often the two main aspects they seem to narrow in on, and MapleStory is no exception to that.
Combat involves binding your abilities to a variety of different keys on your keyboard. As would be expected of any MMO or PC game, really.
Your abilities come in many forms. DoT’s or Damage over time skills, AoE’s or Area of effect skills, single-target skills, buffs, debuffs. I mean, as absurd as it seems at times, you’re given abilities that take up the entirety of the screen and deal massive amounts of damage.
These are my types of classes. I’ve always been fond of grouping up enemies and mowing them all down simultaneously. MapleStory allows me to really channel that – and on a variety of different classes.
Combat itself was very fluid. Abilities flowed effortlessly, spell and skill effects were very high quality, taking somewhat of a comic-esque form.
And the best part? There were so many different classes to choose between, with each and every class having not only their own unique abilities, strengths and weaknesses, but also their personalized, custom playstyle.
Where you often see classes in MMOs reusing many assets from one another – MapleStory doesn’t – well, I mean they might, but it’s done on a much smaller scale that I don’t really realize it.

I mentioned 2 things that MMOs like this focus on though, right? Narrative was the other.
MapleStory has a unique narrative that is specifically targeted and tailored to your respective class. Sure, there’s story that carries over between classes, but every class has their own unique identity in this game.
And I’m not talking just the odd quest here and there. I’m talking about entire storylines, zones directly associated with your class and your class only. The sheer amount of effort they’ve put into making sure every class has their own unique look and feel – going above and beyond skills and aesthetic appearances is surprising.
And while classes have their own unique story, while there’s a main story to follow – more or less – there are also side-quests and entire zones and stories disconnected from the world in the form of Theme Dungeons.
These are, at times, hilarious to move through and complete. Each having their own story to follow, their own cast of characters, their own monsters and subsequently their own rewards.

MapleStory has a unique graphical style to it. I’m not sure how many of you recall the Anime… I wanna say MMO here because it shares a lot of MMO features, but I guess it’s more of an online community that takes the form of a video game? Called Gaia Online.
MapleStory shares, in my opinion, very strong aesthetic similarities to Gaia Online. With the exception being that MapleStory is a horizontal-action MMO.
Environments look great – sure, the backgrounds have a tendency to repeat several times in a row between zones, as do the enemies, with enemies typically being different colors as you move through the zones in question, but every area – not zone specifically, but area, has its own unique look and feel to it.
Characters take the form of sprites. Chibi-like pixel art. Opinions seem to vary between whether or not the game is cartoon-inspired or Anime-inspired, interestingly enough. Honestly, while I can see aspects of both present, I’d say that it takes a lot more inspiration from Anime than it does cartoons.
Sometimes the backdrops look much more 3D than the characters themselves, as the environments aren’t as limited as the character models. But then again, this game is almost 2 decades old by this point and honestly? Graphically, it holds up exceptionally well.

There are hundreds of levels to grind through in MapleStory, with the leveling process taking the form of monster-grinding.
I’m well aware this doesn’t appeal to every type of player – as a matter of fact, I’m certain spending weeks, months even to grind levels on a variety of different classes isn’t the majority of players’ definition of a fun or engaging MMO.
Yet MapleStory has maintained a very loyal playerbase of players that have no issue with the grind. I spent about 10 days playing on and off for approximately 2 to 3 hours per day, and I think I made it to just a little shy of level 100. And that was 1/3 of the way to max level.
And let me tell you these were the easier levels to achieve, and done with XP potions from the cash shop. I didn’t wanna do this without the option of doubling my XP – I’ve been there, done that many, many years ago.
As grinding monsters is in essence the core of the game, I understand why most people shrug this game off when it comes to playing it. Well, that and the issues with Nexon ruining it just like everything they touch.
But for fans of grinding, there isn’t a better Anime game out there.

✔️ For its age, MapleStory holds up exceptionally well graphically. You won’t find another game that looks as good as this one does within its respective genre.

✔️ Its combat is still, even in 2021, some of the best in the side-scrolling MMO category.

✔️ The narrative is ridiculously expansive, encompassing not only the main story, but class stories, and stories disconnected from the world itself.

✔️ It also somehow continues to receive regular updates in the form of content and new classes.

❎ Yet even though the game receives regular updates, new players seem to shy away from playing it because of many glaring issues the game has, and has had for many years now.

❎ One of which is horrendous pay to win – something that Nexon loves to ruin all of their games with.

❎ While the combat looks and feels fantastic, that’s pretty much all you do in the game. Grind monsters, which grows tedious very fast.

❎ The leveling experience post-level 100 is pretty uninspired, as what made pre-level 100 entertaining was the variety of content to do outside of grinding.

Thankfully there are 2 different ways you can play MapleStory. You can go with the default servers, or the Reboot servers which are much more free to play friendly.
Regardless of what you choose, MapleStory is an incredibly fun game with some highly addicting mechanics that you won’t find elsewhere. From its combat, to its graphical style, to its narrative. This is a high quality title I would advise not overlooking.
Unless you dislike Nexon. In which case, go right ahead. ’cause at the end of the day.. it’s Nexon and they’re the same way with every one of their games.

I’ve never devoted as much time to RIFT as I perhaps should have. That was mainly due to how preoccupied I always was with my main games – games like Final Fantasy XIV or World of Warcraft.
However, after Mrs Stix and I began streaming 3-4 times per week over on Twitch, I found a new outlet with which to explore all these games I never had the time to in the past.
The best part of all of this was that you could all play with us, really getting the community involved.

Regarding RIFT, though? Man, where do I start.
RIFT is a free-to-play MMORPG developed and published by Trion Worlds from 2011 through 2019, where Gamigo took over.
Players were ecstatic: Trion was a terrible publisher, and they were of the opinion that any publisher was better than the game had. Unfortunately, Gamigo ended up being more or less.. Gamigo, and there was little if any noticeable improvement for the game.
However, even despite all of this, RIFT has maintained a solid playerbase of active players over the years, much to my surprise.

When beginning the game you’re required to choose a faction. The two factions are currently at odds with one another, and this functions much in the way of the Horde vs Alliance, Playstation vs Xbox, Red vs Blue. It’s a tale as old as time.
Then you sit through a drawn-out tutorial, which honestly, is an outdated mechanic that is no longer required in MMOs in this day and age.
Now you’re free to set out into the world and pretty much do whatever you want. Explore, fight, quest, PvP, run dungeons… or at least that’s what you could do, in theory.
One thing that was made abundantly evident after beginning, was that much of the game, much of the early-stages of the experience are obsolete.
Yes, there are giant RIFT’s that open from the sky, but nobody does them. Yeah, there are giant bosses that spawn throughout the zone, but they’re too difficult to combat alone.
Heck, Mrs Stix and I attempted to queue for dungeons, with some of our community watching the stream, and we couldn’t fill up the required amount of players to actually enter. We sat in queue for over half an hour, looking for a single player to queue for a dungeon with.
But that was okay, considering that isn’t how players level in the game anymore.

We were instructed to queue for “Intrepid Adventures,” as that is the only method of leveling that is worth doing all the way through until endgame. So we did. We queued up, and the queue popped almost instantly.
And that’s where we leveled. We queued up for hours of Intrepid Adventures every single RIFT stream and made it all the way to level 40, and it was one of the most mundane, monotonous, tedious leveling experiences I’ve ever had to sit through in the last decade.
You’re grouped up with 3, 5, 10 other random players and you kill monsters, loot items and basically face-roll over your keyboard with no coordination whatsoever and gain XP, level-up, and learn nothing about the game.
But the alternative is quest in the large, open world, run dungeons that require teamwork and basic knowledge of your class, and PvP to fight against other players.
To me, all of that combined with the Intrepid Adventures sounds like a much less arduous process to go through, but once again.. this is a case of everyone going the fastest, easiest route they possibly can to achieve the goal of hitting endgame with as little effort as possible.

Don’t get me wrong: RIFT is a solid looking game. I’ve never been all too fond of the character models, granted, but the world, the skill effects, the outfits, they’re all very pleasant to look at.
The combat is tab-target, and abilities are, for the most part, on a global cooldown so it functions primarily like World of Warcraft – one of the games that RIFT was first compared to.
These are skill-trees present, providing you quite a lot of control over your character. You have 3 skill trees, and fill them in according to whatever playstyle you’d like to utilize.
In doing so, you’re given access to more skills than I knew what to do with. By, what, level 20? I feel like I had 2 entire hotbars filled with skills and I had no idea what I was supposed to be using, what element I should be focusing on, if I should be DoTting, AoEing or single-target casting.
But at the same time that’s part of the fun – providing so much freedom and control over your character is something that players often request. There’s nothing more boring than everyone playing the exact same way, after all.

Unfortunately we didn’t make it to end-game. We dedicated the entirety of May 2020 to getting as far as we possibly could and honestly, RIFT just isn’t really holding up too well right now.
I know there are a lot of people that claim RIFT is dead. That’s not entirely true – the game isn’t dead, there’s still a dedicated playerbase that log in and level new characters, run content and continue to provide Gamigo an excuse to keep RIFT going.
But with the state the game is currently in right now? Yeah, I would say it’s definitely not worth trying in 2020. If you’re a fan of the game, I can say with certainty that nothing has really changed. Nothing has really been added.
If you’re a new player, then once again, you’re probably not going to get much out of beginning the game now. There is little, if any participation if you aren’t at end-game and if end-game is all there is to do in the game, it probably isn’t going to last you very long.

But that isn’t to say we didn’t have fun while playing.

Greetings and salutations my lovely little Bytelings my name is Wiggy and like I’ve said many times, if there’s any new relevant news of these upcoming
MMORPG’s I would inform you, and today there is!

Please do keep in mind that while there is new information, some of it is vague once again as Bless doesn’t like to give the full information on anything!
alright moving on!

Now, Bless Is as I know what a lot of you are waiting for, looking forward to and hyped about, for good reason as I’ve played it, live-streamed it and I personally found it to be a fun and refreshing MMORPG. With it’s in-depth pet capture system, immersive graphics and open world, bless is definitely
looking like the best upcoming MMORPG this year.

Now the new information was from a resent interview with Jae-hoon Jeon, which is the game director for Bless Online. In this interview he was asked “Bless as been in development since 2011, how will it compare in 2018 to other titles such as Black Desert or the upcoming release, AIR?” Jae-hoon Jeon, went on to say that Bless, differentiates itself for the other titles due to it’s unique combat style giving player’s full freedom over their skills and its hybrid nature. It doesn’t matter if you come across the same class wearing the same gear, at the same level, they could potentially play completely different due to the sheer variety of skill choices to make. Then of course you can take almost every monster found within the game world, that can either be a pet or mount. Lastly, he boast that there’s Realm v realm combat. As Bless Online has large scale PvP, where 100 players can verse another 100 players in a massive PvP battle that can take place on land, in the sky or on the sea. Which is interesting as this is the first time we’re hearing anything regarding the sea in Bless Online, or ariel combat for that matter, I do hope he elaborates more in the future as it’d be awesome to see ariel and sea combat, that would really set Bless Online apart from other MMORPGs!

Moving, the game director was then asked, when would we see an early access to the game? And will there be player wipes? And put simply there isn’t going to be a early access, only a soft launch, with said soft launch there will be no player wipes, everything you do will remain as you left it. He also continued to state, that the global version of Bless Online will have different content than the Korean version, with other significant improvements, once again however very vague as to what is actually going on.

Then he was asked the question you’ve all been waiting for, what is the payment model, is it F2P?  Answer is, probably not! Jae-hoon Jeon said, while they haven’t finalized there monetization plans as of yet, they don’t want there game to be P2W, and promise it won’t happen. They’re leaning towards a B2P model instead but once again, they haven’t fully committed to this idea, and are still deciding if its the best course of action.

Which is great news guys! While live-streaming Bless Online many of you had expressed wanting Bless to be a B2P title, even polls on Bless source had the
majority of the fan base leaning the same way, so while I can’t say that they were influenced by player feedback, as I didn’t interview them, it is coincidental. This is a good thing however, at least in my opinion. Since there’s only three things I believe would make Bless Online fail; One, It becoming a P2W cesspool. Two, Lack of content and updates. Three, lackluster combat, or general combat complaints.

The Action Role Playing Game (“ARPG”) genre is very straightforward in many ways, especially when it comes to comparing certain games to others within the genre. You could even arrive at the conclusion that all ARPGs are actually too similar, excluding the variety of in-game locations and design quality. They often include many familiar traits, such as gaining XP and levelling up, collecting loot, increasing stakes, and progressively stronger enemies.

Path of Exile (“PoE”) is guilty of using many of the usual ARPG tropes, but what makes it stand out from other games in the genre is that it constantly makes small innovations to the traditional ARPG elements that really add to the gameplay. As PoE gathers momentum, it offers several moments that can only be described as chaotic and downright grotesque. The plot itself is very engrossing, and the narrative keeps you engaged the entire time. Each class has its own backstory that will have you questioning what on earth is going on at many points throughout the game.
What you do know is that you are, of course, an exile – and you are in the worst possible place to be one.

When picking up an ARPG, you are probably expecting to see loot a substantial element of the gameplay. So how does PoE manage to stand out when it comes to loot? It is actually fairly conventional in terms of how loot drops. You’ll find items lying around here and there on your travels, and you will also receive loot when killing enemies, so it’s a pretty standard system for acquiring loot in an ARPG.
However, what matters in PoE isn’t how the loot drops, but rather what loot drops. Don’t expect this to be a typical ARPG experience in which you pick up just any weapons and armour for your troubles. In PoE, there is a far greater variety of items that can drop. Moreover, items have a tendency to remix in the areas that you are playing in, and can even be manipulated to affect the difficulty of the game along the way.

Path of Exile is rather notoriously similar to Blizzard’s Diablo franchise in many ways. One such similarity is the inclusion of socketed PoE items similar to the ones you may recall from Diablo II. Diablo II was an early pioneer of the socket system, in which gems can be placed into items to modify them, which gives players the ability to customize their own items instead of relying on new item drops to improve their gear.
PoE adopts this practice and takes it to the next level. There are many items throughout the game that feature coloured sockets, which opens up a whole new world of customizations and abilities to be assigned. Something as small as changing an item of clothing has the ability to change your character’s build, should you require it.

This is a minor point which builds on the preceding one, but it is certainly worth mentioning. If you are like me, and tend to go for the class with the heaviest guy and the heaviest weapon, then you you will be glad to hear that you are free to adopt this style in PoE. However, thanks to the socket system discussed above, you can adapt your character’s build to changing conditions as the need arises.
With the right combination of armour and customizations, you could switch from being a sword-wielding brute to having an arsenal of elemental magicks. Rather than having your character’s abilities tied to the class you choose, PoE prefers to base this on items that you can add gems to, thereby shifting the focus to increasing stats and away from unlocking skills. This offers a far more varied experience, compared to other games in the genre.

The fact that it is free to play might seem like a shallow reason to consider it one of the standout RPGs of 2017, but Path of Exile is an incredible value compared to other free to play games, and it will almost leave you feeling guilty for playing such a great game for free. PoE is a real treasure because you can sink a ridiculous amount of time into it, without having to fork over your hard earned money.
In the interest of full disclosure, PoE does contain microtransactions, which became an increasingly frequent, and increasingly controversial, occurrence in 2017. However, in PoE, microtransactions have no substantial beneficial or detrimental effect on gameplay, so feel free to completely avoid them and go about your business without spending anything.

To summarize, what made Path of Exile the most riveting ARPG of 2017, without even mentioning the huge expansion that was introduced, is that it takes what’s great about the ARPG genre and broadens the horizons of it tenfold. On top of that, it’s free to play, so all it asks for is some time and attention, without being too demanding at the same time.

Alchemia Story is an Anime mobile MMORPG from Asobimo, the developers of other popular mobile MMORPGs such as Iruna Online, Elicia Online, AVABEL Online and Izanagi Online and takes place in a large, fantasy world with unique combat and beautiful Anime inspired graphics.

The Elder Scrolls Online is fantasy MMORPG developed by Zenimax Online that was released back in 2014.

The Elder Scrolls Online, or ESO henceforth, is set in the same fictional world of Tamriel that all other Elder Scrolls games also occupy.
Featuring impressive graphics, large, open zones to explore, and action combat reminiscent of its console counterparts, it’s no wonder ESO is one of the most played MMORPGs on the market currently.

The Elder Scrolls Online, after 7 years in development, released to incredibly mixed reviews, to the surprise of the general MMO community.
People expected a game like Skyrim that could be played online – something people had been anticipating ever since its announcement.
People were initially turned away by ESO’s poor optimization, game-breaking bugs, inferior graphical stylem and surprisingly average combat system.
Many of these were overhauled and improved upon quite significantly with its re-release and rebranding under The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited, which met with much more critical praise.
Initially beginning as a Pay to Play MMORPG, ESO transitioned over to a Buy to Play model, following their desire to go in a new direction.
Being one of the most densely populated MMORPGs – housing over half a million active players in a given month, you’re bound to find many differing opinions on the game.
Therefore, in this video I plan on going over what I’ve experienced, talked about with people that actively play, and witnessed in The Elder Scrolls Online and whether I believe it’s worth playing going into 2018.

Graphically speaking, The Elder Scrolls Online looks and feels great. It isn’t up to the quality of Black Desert Online or Blade and Soul, but those are games built around their graphics.
Whereas ESO is built around the game itself.
That doesn’t in any way mean that the game looks bad – quite the opposite. It looks like better optimized, yet less resource intense version of an official Elder Scrolls title.
They manage to keep the feeling of the core Elder Scrolls game intact, but for a game with the funding ESO had – they definitely could have gone a step further to really push the limits of their engine.
At least, with regards to character models. Which is what I based the former part of this section on.
The overworld itself though – the world you run around in – that is beautiful. The varied environments, the sheer size of the world you explore, it’s all crafted so, so beautifully.

This is the part of the game I actually didn’t enjoy.
Sure, The Elder Scrolls Online has a good character creator, with a fair amount of character customizability options. That isn’t where the problem lies for me.
The problem lies behind the locked Imperial race.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying the character creator is poor or that it is in any way affected by the locked race, it is merely that I believe it should come unlocked by default.
Back to character creation however – you’re given quite a lot of freedom to customize your character.
Not only do you choose your base “class”, but you’re given access over the general build of your character, tattoos, facial hairs, scars and more.
Which is a fairly redundant thing to point out, sure, but facial hair, tattoos.. they assist in crafting the perfect character.
The only problem I have with ESO’s character creator is the fact that I can’t have my traditional “pretty” female characters. Which is a little sad.

Combat is fairly straight forward as far as action MMORPGs go.
If you’ve ever played an Elder Scrolls game before, then the look and feel of the combat should come as no surprise to you.
I’ve put hundreds of hours into Skyrim and ESO feels so reminiscent of it that it’s almost unbelievable.
So, while the combat isn’t fast, fluid and flashy like Black Desert Online, the combat is still entertaining to take part in.
Add on to that the fact that you can do so much with your class.. like being a heavy armor wearing mage, or a warrior that shoots fireballs with a stave.. mmm. God, I love ESO.

The Elder Scrolls Online occupies a mostly large, sandbox world.
However; at least with regards to the beginning of the game, ESO feels a lot more instanced than it really is.
As you progress through the game you’re given access to larger more open areas, allowing for more exploration and more collaboration with other players.
The game world that ESO inhabits is absolutely astounding. It is beautiful – absolutely beautiful. Couple that with the lush, varied environments, and you have one of the most beautiful game worlds in an MMORPG.

In The Elder Scrolls Online, there is a main story that you partake in that leads the player along through the game.
While traversing through each of the large zones, you’re given the option to follow through the zones storyline – something I believe really helps ESO stand out as an MMORPG.
I’ve played through a fair amount of the game so far on three separate characters so far, and I’ve enjoyed playing through multiple of the zones’ storylines, meeting characters specific to the zones you’re in, and making choices that affect the zone you’re in.
Occasionally you’re given the option to make choices in the game that affect the people you’re traveling with – I strongly feel that that is something missing in MMORPGs of this generation.
Something Guild Wars 2 did as well, although in a different way.

In The Elder Scrolls Online, PvP takes a unique form, in that to PvP, you must partake in something referred to as an Alliance War.
Alliance Wars are huge zone-wide battles that take place between what seems like millions of enemy players. But more realistically.. about a hundred.
To access PvP, you must first hit level 10. Then, players between level 20 and 50 gain a temporary buff that temporarily boosts their attributes in PvP to assist with the disparity between levels.
This doesn’t change the fact that more or less, you end up useless until level 50, however, as you’re essentially a meat shield.

There are plenty of things to do with regards to PvE in The Elder Scrolls Online. So, allow me to go through them one by one:
Dark Anchors – If you’ve ever played RIFT or Final Fantasy XIV – these function the same way as invasions do in those games. In essence – your goal is to drive back the forces at the invasion.
World Bosses – These you should be familiar with, as they are ever present in every MMORPG. I actually had a run-in with a world boss with a group of two other people, and we were met with swift and utter defeat.
Dungeons – What would an MMORPG be without dungeons, amirite? Oh, wait. Black Desert Online is what it’d be.
Public Dungeons – Essentially.. dungeons with random party members that can enter said dungeon and help you push through. Actually a cool feature, until you run into that one idiot that is ruining the experience for everyone.
Trials – 12-player challenges that have multiple, scaling difficulties. These function a little more like a raid than a dungeon, as the difficulty is more like a raid would be.
Arenas – Don’t let this fool you. Arenas aren’t aimed at PvP in ESO. Instead, they’re aimed at smaller parties of players, or even solo players that pit you against wave after wave of monsters with rewards at the end.
And.. then traditional leveling. Which I’m sure you’re aware of how to do.

The Elder Scrolls Online has a fairly traditional crafting system.
There are 6 professions in total; to progress through each crafting tier, therefore making the profession more profitable, you are required to invest skill points into your chosen craft.
Crafted gear is very useful in the game, and is generally usable in both PvE and PvP if you’re not obsessed with having the Best in Slot gear, and instead just want to enjoy your playthrough.
Therefore investing time into crafting is almost a requirement! .. but not really.

Some people might argue that PvP is endgame, and for avid PvPers, that holds true, sure.
For people with a more PvE-centric mind, however, outside of running dungeons and trials, there isn’t much to sate your appetite with regards to having things to do.
Sure, you can re-run dungeons and trials over and over to get better gear, to learn the dungeons better. You can explore the world. You can PvP.
But outside of that – there isn’t anything to do.
So if you’re not into PvP, and you’ve completed all the dungeons and trials on veteran, then you’ve essentially completed the game and are left waiting until the next large content update.

The Elder Scrolls Online is definitely a viable choice for an MMORPG to play in 2017.
Yes, the combat may not be up to par with games like Black Desert Online or Blade and Soul.
The graphics may also be inferior to people that enjoy that specific style of animation.
But ESO offers a lot to the MMORPG genre.
Large scale PvP. Fun, engaging PvE. Huge, open environments to explore, a variety of fun quests and storylines to progress through. Full voice acting.
There is so much ESO does right, that it’s no surprise it’s in the three most popular MMORPGs on the market. It deserves to be, and deserves to continue growing and flourishing into the future.

Operating System: Windows XP 32 bit
CPU: Core 2 Duo E4400 2.0GHz or Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4600+
RAM: 2 GB GB RAM
Video Card: GeForce 8800 GT or HD i7 2600
Hard Disk Space: 60 GB Free Space

Operating System: Windows 7 64 bit
CPU: Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz or Phenom 9750 Quad-Core
RAM: 4 GB RAM
Video Card: GeForce GTX 560 Ti or Radeon HD 6950
Hard Disk Space: 80 GB Free Space