MMORPG - Dragon Nest

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Winnow
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MMORPG - Dragon Nest

Post by Winnow »

I mentioned briefly on another thread that I was playing Dragon Nest but I'll go into some detail on this fun, soon to be released, free to play game.

First, it's a Korean game that is in beta in Korea, Taiwan and China. North America beta isn't far off. I was able to get myself and my gaming partner into the Chinese beta. Dragon Nest was about as challenging to get into as the Aion chinese beta was except you also need a Chinese ID to play (don't ask!). Someone has put together a very good English patch that they update after each new official game patch. While the game stats and item stats are perfect and UI is all English, the quest text is just mass translated from chinese/korean which makes it fairly understandable, enough to get by and complete quests on but I'll be looking forward to the US release to see exactly how the story goes.

Game Controller (or traditional keyboard/mouse controls)

This game will be a great primer for Tera (another Korean MMO due out soon). It has true aiming so you need to point where you want to cast your spells, shoot your arrows, etc. The game has built in support for the Xbox 360 controller for Windows and it's what I use. I've got to say, it's been great being able to kick back in my chair and play instead of being hunched over my keyboard and gamepad. The controls are well designed. You can get to pretty much everything easily except for chat. I use voice chat so that doesn't affect me much. Selecting your skills is easy. four buttons (skills 1-4), hit both bumper buttons = (skill 5), hold left bumper + buttons 1-4 (skills 6-10). (D-Pad down/up adds 10 more skills to same buttons) Movement. Left joystick moves you, right joystick, free look (aiming). All of your main windows (profile, quest, skills, inventory, etc etc) are easily accessed as well. (Hold D-Pad left +buttons 1-4 = 4 menus) (Hold D-Pad right + buttons 1-4 = 4 more menus) D-Pad Up frees up your right joystick for mouse mode to click on whatever you want on the screen) Right Bumper jumps your cursor to the nearest active text/buttons for easy selection) Loving the Xbox controller for window combined with this game. I'm going to have a hard time going back to a traditional keyboard MMO. If the game designers plan with a controller in mind, you can have an excellent MMO gaming experience.

Game Play

As mentioned above, you can't just button smash in this game (well you can a little depending on instance difficulty rating you choose, more on that later!). You need to target your attacks/spells. I'm currently playing the sorceress so I'll give some examples. I have two standard, very weak attacks. A button = staff attack, B button = secondary attack (Spell book, Orb or Doll) These A and B (left/right mouse) attacks are also heavily used on the defensive. You have skills that allow you to roll around, dodge, etc after and before getting hit. Double tapping your joystick (or ASWD keys) also allows you to swiftly move side to side or back/forward to dodge enemies, of which many charge, or maybe swing a huge weapon that you can actually dodge if fast enough. If some big MOB knocks you on your ass and stuns you, you don't have to just sit there, you can try to roll left/right to avoid another hit, crawl backwards, etc. Your A/B Right/Left button are designed to allow for a lot of different skills that are situation related.

On Offense, I have 7 main spells so far I use at level 15. (there's nothing earth shattering here, just figured I'd list a them)

1. Flame Worm

Directional Flame attack. Direct line, thin flame attack. Nice for single targets or targets lined up. (I'll note here that the spell effects are very nice in this game)

2. Whirling Staff

Close rage cone area attack. While Sorcerers are low on defense, you don't just sit back and cast in this game. When the mobs are up close you can do some damage. All attacks seem to have at least some sort of stun affect in this game. Some longer than others. It gives you just enough time to get off your next skill if planned right.

3. Glacial Spike

Short Range Cone damage. Thinner cone, more damage than Whirling Staff. Another nice spell to keep close mobs at bay for a moment or to finish them off. Has chance to temp freeze mobs.

4. Poison Missile

Slightly longer range, wider cone attack that has DOT and also can hit stunned mobs on the ground (which the first three would miss)

5. Force Explosion

Almost always my opening attack. Long range attack that hits a decent size circle area. This skill's range becomes active just about the same time you hit agro range so right as the mobs start heading toward the party, I soften them up with a medium damage AOE boom.

6. Shock Wave

Another great close combat spell. Sorcerers can't take a beating but they can sure dish out damage up close in this game. Similar to Borderlands Firefly...run into middle of group of mobs, hit force shock and blow them every which way. Pretty high damage with knockback.

(I chose to be and Elemental Lord at level 15 so the next spells are part of that branch. Force User is the other option)

7. Fireball

Love this spell. You need to wait 3 seconds for the fireball to develop. If you don't wait, the spell has almost no range and less damage. If you wait the 3 seconds, you've got a high damage directional attack with good range. Even better is that you can hold that fireball, and aim so you don't have to launch it right away. Seeing as there is a 3 second delay, this is highly useful as the battlefield changes. I can crank up a fireball right away and then survey the situation, and then launch it when I see the best target(s).

8. Glacial Wave

Somewhat defense spell. Ice shards come up through the ground blocking an attacker from you while also doing some damage.

Video of the Sorcerer Spells here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgyyOC5FYoY

I just hit level 16. These are the active spells I have up to the point of choosing my specialty branch. There are also about the same number of passive skills or skills related to the A/B Right/Left Mouse attacks/defense.

All of these skills are able to be increased in effectiveness using skill points.

As an example of battle, I'll usually start off with Force Explosion for high damage long range attack, follow up with a Flame Worm as the mobs run toward he party, then hit them with Poison Missile, Blow them back with Shock Wave, pick out a prime target and hit them with high damage Fireball and then use various Whirling Staff, Glacial Strikes until my other skills are refreshed. That's with all things going well. Of course, you've got mobs with some seriously long ranges attacks, boss mobs that like to charge and bowl you over, special attacks that knock you all over the place, etc.

The fighting in this game is a ton of fun. It's very satisfying. In some situations I can be a one man (well woman, classes are gender locked) wrecking crew but this game shines when playing with others. My Dragon Nest partner is an Archer and has a bunch of great skills as well. There are a lot of ranged attacks to make things interesting. Boss battles come down to tactics which sometimes end up ping ponging the boss back in forth in order to get off ranged attacks which are useless up close. Mobs DO NOT stand still in this game. They circle, split up, come at you from various directions. Archers will stay up on a hill and rain arrows on you while you break down barriers. The AI isn't anything special but it's enough to require strategy.

The cities are live/open with all other players. Everything else has been instanced so far. Servers have channels to cut down on the crowds.

Groups are 1-4 in size. You get XP bonuses the more players you have in a group. Every time you enter an instance, you can choose EASY, NORMAL, HARD, MASTER or ABYSS. Five choices every time you enter and instance. Each level will have a recommendation. For example. Easy (level 10, 1 player) Normal (level 10, 2 player), HARD (level 12, 2 players), Master (Level 12, 4 players) Abyss (Level 14, 4 players) Besides difficulty, loot is affected. You have D, C, B, and A grade loot. You may not see anything above C on an Easy run. Hard would provide opportunity for B loot. On top of this, you're instance run performance is rated. You can receive an A B C or D grade on how your party performed in the instance which impacts the quality of loot as well as the number of chests at the end. On top of that, you are also individually rated on your contribution. You have a running total on kills/damage which can be compared to others in your party. Very nice party/instance system.

This will be a free to play game. One way to get you to pay is that when you finish a instance, there might be two or three chests. Someone that paid their monthly fee can pick two chests while the freeloader can only pick one. This is before the chests are revealed to be bronze, silver or gold in quality. The chests are separate. You don't compete for them (each party member is presented with their own chests to choose from). What does happen though is after you choose your chest, the three chests are revealed. There may be gold chests, there may be bronze, or silver. You don't know before you select. After the reveal you see what you choose, and then the loot inside each chest is revealed so you know what you missed out on as well as what you got. This is one of the better ways I've seen to have a free to play game that allows access to the same loot while enticing a player to pay their monthly fee in order to have a better chance/more loot. But you still have a chance at the same quality loot as a paying customer. Nice. There's also a large store where you can buy mounts, costumes, and the usual enhancers so the company can make some money. And of course, if you have a poor friend, most of the drops are tradable, you can just give them stuff.

Atmosphere

The game does have cartoony style graphics but the environments are very polished. The game looks great. This is not your typical Freebie game. UI, Animations, Detail, Quests, etc are all excellent. Aesthetically pleasing to look at with attention to detail.

Classes and Gender Lock

Guess you have to deal with it if you want to play. Sorcerer and Archer are Female. Cleric and Warrior are Male. I like playing female chars but will end up trying out a cleric or warrior at some point.

Outside of Combat

This is a full fledged MMORPG. Skills, Crafting, Enchanting, etc. You can enchant your items up to +6 with no consequences. after +6 your item may be destroyed so just don't enchant past +6 if you hate that sort of thing (which I do)

Quests

The story seems pretty good. All I can see is broken English and can't understand the voices so I have to go by the cutscenes and jibberish text. Many of the quests are multi parted so you may be chasing someone or something through multiple instances. The main Campaign/Quest is well defined and easy to follow. You can stick to it up to a point but eventually you need to level up in order to continue. We got up to the level 16 Campaign Quest after just hitting level 14 and couldn't proceed farther until we hit level 16. There are a shit-ton of side quests. I'm really impressed with how many quests there are to do. No need to just sit somewhere and grind (which you can by just repeating instances). Even the side quests often have multi parts to them. On top of all these quests, there are many bounty boards around which give you various level quests. There are also ~six changing daily quests you can hit up for more XP/loot/fun.

Characters

There are only four classes with each having two advanced branches. A lot of people will look similar to you. There is opportunity to have a unique look but that's definitely not the main focus of this game. I'd say the focus of this game is getting together with up to three friends and having a blast hitting up a ton of fun instances with very entertaining combat. With the five levels of difficulty built in, you can easily solo this game if you want. The scalability in difficulty is noticeable. I've noticed in a party of two, we usually choose hard mode that is one or two levels above our level. Had a bad day and don't want that kind of intensity? Take a breather and do Easy instances and then head back to Hard+ when you feel like it. I really like the way this game is put together.

Armor/Weapons are class specific. That cuts down on loot squabbles. You can also set a particular Grade of item or above to be rolled on or it can be auto-looted class specific, random, etc. Nice group controls. You can set password for your group to avoid unwanted people and also set group size so if you did want an extra one or two but maybe not 4. Loot is also color coded ..White common, Green, better, (that's as far as I've gotten on loot so don't know the other colors..think blue next). I don't think the letter grade of loot is directly related to color class of loot but not entirely sure. I've seen B grade white drops.

Appearance

While Disney/Anime-ish in appearance, your avatar looks nice and moves well. You have two layers of clothes. First layer is stat based General level, second layer is Costume/Appearance based. While the general equipment is the stat heavier one, the costume items also have stats to a lessor degree. The Costume layer effects appearance.

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This is the General Layer

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This is the Costume Layer. The stats listed in the screen shots aren't related to layer, I wanted to show two different sets of stats in the shots. There's also a few pages of PvP stat info. The text running into the numbers is due to this being an English hack.

The costume layer is influenced a lot by the Cash Store. You also get free gift store items each level mailed to you in game. I've already gotten two full free Costume layer outfits. I like the two layer system. You can be happy with improving your gear while also maintaining whatever appearance you want.

If anyone cares, there are mounts in the game.

If you choose to use the keyboard/mouse, the controls are pretty standard to MMOs with the exception that you can't use your mouse to move. (well maybe you can as just about everything's customizable), you need to use the ASWD keys which I really don't like. I'd get around that with my Saitek Game Controller but
the 360 Controller works so well with this.

This is not a free roaming MMO. There are open cities and some central hub areas that are open but everything else is instanced.

Voice communication seems like the way to go for this game but the Chat system is full featured. You can create your own channels, etc, there's a Guild System as well , guessing mostly due to PvP which takes place in arenas with stat tracking, etc.

Emotes are limited but well done. There's also a Duke Nuk'em type voice macro system that has six voice alerts, stuff like (follow me, stop, etc)

One thing I thought might be annoying but turns out that I like is that the characters yell out their spells. "Force Explosion!" coming from a animated girl type voice is kinda funny...sounds more like something you'd do while sitting on the can. For some reason, the Sorcerer yells out most of her spells in English so it's actually helpful sometimes for the other player to know what you're doing via audio as they may not be looking your way in game. The archer yells everything in Chinese so I don't have a clue what's going on until I associate the jibberish with the skills.

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To add to:

Main Storyline Campaign/Quest
Side Quests
Bounty Boards
Running Instances

there's also Stages you can enter with you or your group that are like mass wave attacks. Dragon Nest sure seems to understand that people want things to do.

You'll also see the tab for Master/Apprentice in that shot. I haven't tried it but I believe it's what you'd think it is...allowing friends that aren't the same level to play together. Not 100% sure on that yet.

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Here's the Quest Window. While the unedited translation and formatting of the text is bad, the look and feel of the UI is excellent. Like some other games, complete sets provide bonuses. You can see a staff that I've enhanced a few times on the right.

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This is an example of a side quest. I cleared out most of my side quest before logging last night so this is the only one to show. It's a collection type quest with the reward going in the Costume later so you can get some actual use out of it while not impacting your big stat items.

There's also a ton of achievements to earn in the game.

General, Community, Hidden Achievement, Mentoring, Stage, Combat, Daily Achievements, Weekly Achievements. Some of the Daily/weekly Achievements have rewards associated with them.

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There's eight pages of Titles, with stat bonuses, you can earn doing various things. You also get bonuses for collecting all of a particular set of titles.

This is also good example of the funny direct translation of text.

I like the Quest tracking indicators on screen as well. It's just a simple arrow that points in the direction of the quest start/end point with a number displayed in Meters for how far away it is. Each quest has it's own arrow/distance. Nice clean design.

I don't think North America has much longer to wait. Probably a month or less. I think some people are going to have a blast playing this game. It's got the depth of a full fledged MMORPG but lends itself to easy, short sessions with friends or solo. It's UI/combat being designed from the start to work with a360 game controller is another huge bonus for casual gaming. You can couch game with this one. This one needs to be played to be appreciated.

If my text didn't get you pumped up for this game, maybe this video will:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLL-mnONzWg

Here's a level 10 Sorceress doing hard mode solo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOXqtU1tDKs

Shows the chest/loot thingy i was referring to earlier. Also reminds me of Gauntlet. Loot drops galore.

An early Archer level (9) Boss fight showing level chooser and loot drop chest thingy, etc:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RyQfJN9H-M

Nice reference page for info:

http://dn.mmosite.com/
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