TLBB ( Dragon Oath Europe ) – gameplay review

Site: http://tlbb.eu.changyou.com/

Here you can read my preliminary Dragon Oath post.

Dragon Oath, known also as TLBB (Tian Long Ba Bu) is a Chinese MMORPG recently made available around the world. I played on the European servers so my impression is related to them only.

I downloaded and started the game with great expectations so when I saw the camera rotation restrictions I was a bit disappointed. The game camera is not freely rotated like other Asian MMORPG games, you can freely rotate around your character but the min and max camera height are very close and you look at the game from a certain angle. I really prefer to have much freedom of movement and to see larger area around my character, this helps a lot in PVP battles or even in standard PVE gameplay.

Graphics
As most Asian games TLBB has beautiful and eye catching graphics. Players can enjoy fantasy sceneries and Chinese themed towns. I spent some time just sight-seeing and walking mindlessly around the world.

Gameplay
Your character starts is journey in a beautiful Eastern town with many NPC and missions. In fact your starting town is large enough to get lost several times. This is not a problem because you can easily find a NPC or coordinates by clicking on it in the quest window or on the map. The game start with quests and you will have to do more and more quests. I prefer simple grinding but quests give you more experience and you level up faster through them. At some point somewhere around level four or five you must kill some mobs. The mobs on the first environment map are relatively weak, character level 5 easily kills level 10 enemies. Anyway quests give you more experience. There are treasure boxes all around the map, even in towns. You can open them and get their reward. Soon your inventory will be full of some boring stuff like bread (equivalent to potions in other games) and so on.
After two hours running mindlessly doing quests I was level 10 and I was allowed to join a class. I selected a pyromancer because I like to have strong attack and I don’t care for defense or hit points. There is no quest for joining a class, you just need to select join from the class representative menu after talking to him. After joining a class I receive a bunch of teleport tokens to go directly to my class palace.
The skills of pyromancers are awesome but you are overpowered against mobs even without skills.
I almost forgot about pets. You will have a mission to level up an ugly bunny. I really don’t care about pets in games but now they are fashionable. Leveling up your bunny is easy enough, you need to kill two level 1 mobs. Capturing your next pet – a duckling is also easy, I succeeded from the first try. But if you bring your pet to fight higher level mobs they will attack it rather than you. After joining a class you can claim a pet from the representative. I got something like hedgehog.

Classes

• Pyromancer - For weapons Pyromancers use spears and falcons. They give up defense for a short in order to have a powerful attack. They have the most powerful attack of all nine classes in TLBB.
• Lotus Order - Lotus Order members use single or dual one-handed swords. They have ability to absorb damage and to heal.
• Royalty - They prefer to use their finger than any weapon. Anyway their weapons of choice are Fan and Chakram. They have skills to stun the enemy or reduce his spirit abilities.
• Minstrel - Minstrels rely on devices and traps to fight the enemies. Their weapons of choice are Fan and Chakram.
• Taoist - Taoists use single or dual one-handed swords.
• Voodoo - Voodoo members use single or dual one handed swords as their weapon. They are the weakest as physical strength and so they rely on poisons to inflict damage. They have strong defense against spirit.
• Assassin - Assassins master the physical and ice attack, they prefer to do quick and powerful combo hits. They have a skill to become invisible. Their weapons of choice are fan and chakram.
• Beggars Alliance - They use combination of moves and each hit increases the damage of their next attack. They can use poisons. They use falcons and spears.
• Shaolin - They use falcons and spears. They have good offensive and defensive powers. 

DragonSky

Site: http://dragonsky.aeriagames.com/

DragonSky is martial arts MMORPG game published by Aeria Games. The game is fast and action oriented, with many cool features like massive PvP battles, duels, bounty hunting, guilds, story-line quests, crafting and much more.

The game world represents an ancient China with some beautiful, fantasy motives. Two well-known fractions meet each other on the battlefield – Tigers and Dragons.

Gameplay
DragonSky have a little different system for characters and skills – there are no classes and any character can learn any skill. Leveling up and getting rank experience in game is achieved through killing monsters. Some items or equipment require your character to be a particular level or higher before using them. DragonSky has one more type of experience – Zen experience. You can acquire Zen experience through meditation. Zen experience influence learning of different martial arts and some skills.

The game has four different weapon types: Fist, Sword, Spear, and Hammer. Each weapon group has five martial arts associated with it.

Shot Online

Site: http://shotonline.gamescampus.com/

Shot Online is a free-to-play, sports MMORPG game featuring golf simulation. Sport MMORPGs are relatively rare and this is the first golf game I ever see. I am not really into sports, even online but the game looks cool and entertaining.

Gameplay
The game allows up to four players to tee off together, players can trade between them, gain experience and in-game currency from completing holes and have fun. Characters can level up and gain skills through in-game training. The game offers even quests and events.

Classes and Characters

Player can choose between seven classes: Zygmunt, Shaoring, Erda, Belzebuit, Wotan, Albus and Camilla.

Trailer:

Angels Online Trailer

Angels Online - 2D MMORPG with lots of angels, robots, pets and fun.

Merry Christmas!

Neverland Online – Survival Guide

Neverlnd Online is a free-to-play 2D MMORPG. The game don’t need an installation, you can play it in your browser window.
The game is interesting and requires some thinking.

The gameplay is somewhat complex with many choices and options, and many newbie players stop playing after some time.

At the beginning you start with selecting a character. All characters can learn any skill but every class has its strong and weak points. Here are the classes and the corresponding skills and powers:
Male and female Rangers are best at Valor and Fortitude power.
Both Assassins’ best power choices are Confidence and Insight.
Elemtalists’ power choices are Fervor and Delusion.
For both Taoists you must choose Grace and Aura.

What does it mean?
The skills in Neverland Online are grouped in types or let’s use the term powers. Learning one type of power will allow you to learn its corresponding skills. For example with Valor you can develop Devil Bane, Desperate Strike, and Warlord’s Great Sword.
To open the power window go to Status (or press C) , and select the Power tab. There you can level up your powers. At the beginning select one power type, appropriate for your character class and level it up.

To level up skill you need a skill book at the appropriate level, corresponding power with the necessary level and skill rank. To rank a skill you must practice it – use it in battle. At the beginning your skills won’t do more damage than your regular attack.

Stat points
Stat points affect your character damage, defense, hit points, mana points. To open the stat points menu go to Status menu (or press C), and select the Ability tab.

Stat points:
Strength – increase physical attack damage
Stamina – max HP, defense against spells, increase heal spell effects
Agility – hit chance, physical attack critical chance, dodge chance against physical attack, higher probability to attack first
Intelligence – spell damage and max mp
Faith – max rage points, spell hit chance and critical chance, defense against physical attack, evasion
You have three buttons beneath the stat points – Damage, Balance, and Survival. They are quite convenient if you don’t know how to allocate your points.

Leveling up
Neverland Online has many quests and they give more than enough experience, rewards and game knowledge. If you are newbie, focus on quests. The NPC that has quests for you will have giant exclamation mark above its head. You can find all quests in progress and all available quests from the quests menu – the last icon at the bottom of your game screen will open it.
There are many different quest types – fighting mobs, catching pets, crafting, delivering messages, learning skills, and even quiz.

Pets
To catch a pet you need to press Catch during battle. You can’t catch a creature whose level is higher than you. Catching baby pets is very easy – you just need to select catch on the action menu. For normal pets you need to do some damage before catching them. Be careful no to kill them because you won’t be able to catch them.
You need to feed your pet regularly or it won’t be loyal to you and won’t appear in battle. You can restore the pets loyality and cure it at one of the NPCs. This NPC in the first town is Healer Quinny Boa.
To view and update pet stat points go to the pet menu. From there you can select See details to view more information, skills, wisdom, and so on.
The first pet, that worth some time is the brown bear.

Battles
The battles in Neverland Online are turn based. Who will attack first depends on characters agility. You have a menu with available options – Auto, Skill, Capture, and so on. You can select to use item like healing pot but you will lose one turn.

Luna Online – mmorpg review

Site: http://luna.gpotato.com/
Status: Free-to-play

Luna Online is a colorful, anime-styled MMORPG published by gPotato. The game has cute, fun graphics and relaxing atmosphere. If you like to spend some time in a tale world, this MMORPG is for you.
Do you have problems to fight cute, little monsters? (Am I cute?)

Gameplay
You can choose you character race, appearance and class. There are three available classes at the beginning, and 52 classes in total so players can customize their character development in details.
When you fight monsters you gain experience and level up, at each level you get stat points and skill points. To learn skills you need skill points, gold and to reach a certain level.
The monsters drop both whole items and parts for creating items. You can construct and reinforce different things.

Classes
You have three classes to select at the beginning – Fighter, Rogue, and Mage. At level 20 each of them can advance to a new class. Not all classes are accessible from all races. Leveling up is not very fast, for two hours intense playing and doing quests I was only at level 8. Today I’ll try to reach level 20 and obtain a profession – Elven Mage.

Community
You can actually find many people playing the game. I was surprised to see so many characters selling and buying things at the shop area in Alker Harbor.

I’ll spend some more time in game before evaluating my impression. I am not exactly the type to like chibi characters but the game took my attention and I enjoy my playing time a lot.

MLB Dugout Heroes - sports MMO game trailer

Warrior Epic

Site: http://www.warriorepic.com/
Status: Free-to-Play

Warrior Epic is an action, 3D, fantasy MMORPG with not so usual gameplay. Players can lead an army of warriors through solo, PvP, or multiplayer adventures.

The game lacks the standard, persistent world used by must of the MMORPG games. It has a lobby, where players create and host games; team up with other players to fight in missions.

At the beginning you can play an easy, tutorial mission to grasp the controls and the gameplay.

The first chapter starts with six possible classes and later players unlock much more. Starting classes are: Assassin, Devotress, Dungeon Archer, Illusionist, Pangolan, and Pit Fighter.
New players start with Pit Fighter – somewhat boring character, relying on brute force and close combat.

Classes:


Hall
Each player has his own hall, where he can requite and equip warriors, prepare battle strategies. The halls are customizable, you can add more rooms, and artifacts.

Trailers:

Dark Elf – browser, turn based strategy game

Site: http://www.darkelf.eu/

Dark Elf is a multiplayer, browser strategy game. It combines medieval and fantasy nuances, and is loosely based on the film "Lord of the Rings".

The world map is enormous; players can view their own lands, other players’ lands, fortresses, heroes.

At the beginning, you start with a small kingdom and few soldiers. As time passes, you conquer more lands; build fortresses and magic towers, train heroes. There are several playable races - Men, Barbarians, Orcs, Uruks, Necromancers, Magi, Elves, Dark Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits, and Ents. Every race starts with different amount of initial resources.

The game objective is to conquer lands from other players and defeat the evil Dark Elf, a tyrant, ruling the world.

Mini Fighter Online Preview

Site: http://global.netmarble.com/minifighter/

Few days ago, Netmarble announced an Open beta of their game Mini Fighters Online is going to be launched on December, 17.

Mini Fighter Online is a fast, 2D, side-scrolling MMO game centered on fighting.
The gameplay vary from quest and boss mode to fight challenges with other players.

It is fast and addicting game, already a hit in Korea.

Screenshots:

FreeStyle Street Basketball - sports MMO

Site: http://freestyle.gamekiss.com

Are you tired of the standard MMORPG games? Do you like to try something new? Do you like sports? Do you like street basketball?



FreeStyle Street Basketball is a sport MMO or can I say MMORPG. The game is based on the hip-hoop style of street basketball.

Gameplay
The gameplay is fast and addictive. The matches are quite fun.
Players obtain experience, level up, get stronger and faster. You gain in-game money after each match and with them you can buy clothes or other fun items.

Update
Today GameKiss announced a major update, going to be launched on December, 15. The update will add new items, new skills, replay mode, and public mode.

Gameplay Video

Ether Saga Online

Site: http://eso.perfectworld.com

Ether Saga Online (ESO) is a free-to-play MMORPG by the creators of Perfect World, Perfect World Entertainment. The game features beautiful, anime-like graphics with some cool in-game systems.

Many gamers find the ESO play style somewhat similar to Perfect World style. The game has many quests and leveling up through quests is fast enough. So, although the game is Korean, the grind level is relatively low.

Races and Classes:
Players can choose between there races – Renzu, Shenzu and Yaoh.

Classes:

• Dragoon – uses lance and heavy armor. Dragoons are the tank equivalents.
• Rogue uses dagger. Rogues are damage dealers.
• Mystic – healer class.
• Ranger – uses a bow, and can cast de-buffs. Another DD class.
• Conjurer – equivalent to battle mage, DD class.
• Shaman – something between healer and tank. Your shaman character can cast buffs, tanks, fights. Uses hammer and heavy armor.

More game features:

• Quest and Navigation Systems are integrated; you will always find where your quest target is located.
• Element Leveling up – as you level up, you will receive points that can be assigned to specific elements. The elements have different properties and will affect greatly your gameplay.
• Skills – each class has unique skills. Characters receive additional skills, related to the day; they were created (birthday skills). Also ESO offers group skills for player guilds.
• Pet System – but lately almost all MMOs have pet systems. Do you have a pet home? I have cats … Together with the pet system comes the fusion system – something like morph system, players can fuse with their pets and gain new abilities. (I want to have cat ears and tail in the real life)
• Monster Card System – another morph system, you can collect monster cards and transform into the respective monsters. 

Screenshots:

Kung Foo - the parody online

Site: http://foo.perfectworld.com/

Few days ago, Perfect World Entertainment announced their new MMO - Kung Foo. For now, from anything I learned about the game it is going to be fun and parody oriented.

Their first tweet says:
"Preparing to launch a new game, Kung Foo! The game will be a parody game focused on providing a fun spoofy atmosphere for the community."
(You can track the game on twitter - kungfoogame.)

And the teaser site says:
"Kung Foo! is a fun MMO that parodies everything from Kung-Fu movies to game shows. Embrace the foo in you. Only at PerfectWorld.com."

Magic World Online

Site: http://mwo.enjoymmo.com/

Magic World Online is yet another free-to-play MMORPG. It has plain, 2D graphics with not much character customization – the only choice is the character class, gender and fraction. This is maybe the only drawback of the game. MWO brings memories of Diablo 2 with its graphics and gamestyle. The game interface is relatively convenient, if you need to go on some map coordinates, you can click on the map and your character will go there. The skills, stats and so on windows are intuitive, even newbie players wont face difficulties.

Characters
At the beginning you can make a choice between four starting classes – Warrior, Archer, Summoner, and Mage. Later all of the classes have multiple possibilities for specialization. The first class change is at level 15. My first character was summoner and I was pleased to see actually useful and powerful summons, even the first elf.

Class Tree

• Warrior
  
  
  • Berserker (15)
    
    • Dire Warrior (30)
      
      
      • Devil Rider Warrior (50) - Unregenerate Demon (65)
      • Storm Warrior (50) - Thunder Storm Demon (65)
      
      
    
    
  • Shadow Knight (15)
    
    • Temple Warrior (30)
      
      
      • Great Hero (50) - Heroic Mars (65)
      • Knights Templar (50) - Saint Cavalier (65)
      
      
    
    
  
  
• Archer
  
  
  • Bounty Hunter (15)
    
    • Jungle Ranger (30)
      
      
      • Sniper King (50) - Sunsmashing Ares (65)
      • Dragon Slayer (50) - Sunscreening Master (65)
      
      
    
    
  • Stalker (15)
    
    • Assassin (30)
      
      
      • Night Lord (50) - Capricorn Sage (65)
      • Dark Fiend (50) - Scorpio Progenitor (65)
      
      
    
    
  
  
• Summoner
  
  
  • Necromancer(15)
    
    • Nature Guard (30)
      
      
      • Undead Manipulator (50) - Ghostdom Sage (65)
      • Necromancer Master (50) - Dragoncalling Master (65)
      
      
    
    
  • Illusionist (15)
    
    • Soul Manipulator (30)
      
      
      • Devil Beastmaster (50) - Illusion Angel (65)
      • Golden Beastmaster (50) - Falling Angel (65)
      
      
    
    
  
  
• Mage
  
  • Fire Mage (15)
    
    • Flame Magic Mentor (30)
      
      
      • Firedragon Pontifex (50) - Dragonbaking Master (65)
      • Flame Oracle (50) - Blaze Pluto (65)
      
      
    
    
  • Ice Mage (15)
    
    • Ice Magic Mentor (30)
      
      
      • Ice Dragon Oracle (50) - Freezing Uranus (65)
      • Ice World Pontifex (50) - Frosty Neptune (65)
      
      
    
    
  
  

Bot
The MWO client comes with a built in bot, which puts aside some of the game grinding. Even while I write this post, the bot is working hard for its food. It is highly customizable and I actually like it. Of course if you are not careful enough, the bot can get your character killed easily.

Quests / Experience / Drop
The game has many different quests. Players start with an intro quest and meet their class master in it. The experience and item drop are enough to keep the game entertaining. You can level up relatively fast and if you get bored you can leave the bot to do its job.

Monsters
Players meet a variety of monster types in game. There are some monsters with special aura, marked as elite – they are stronger than normal mobs but they drop more and better items.

Mass gaming, castle sieges
I haven’t met many players at the low level towns and fields. And I haven’t been on a siege as you can guess. I look forward for one though.