Dragon's Nest

I want just ONE awesome game of awesomeness like phantasy star was....

Well, FFXIV is looking pretty similar in play style, but it is pretty heavy on graphic requirements (unless you play it on PS3). Only difference is that you don't just press one button+up/down to shoot/cast, you have to slide between spells/attacks, sorta like fable, but its a hotkey bar style.

After browsing 4story's website and forum, its looking kinda crummy (lots of mispellings on the site, lame item names [Bow of Smartness, really?], crappy community, etc.), but I'll give it a chance tonight.

well the fighty system did look kinda weak... and I still cant get over the jon mistaking clint eastwood for honest abe...

The priest looks kinda cool with the whole turning into a bird thing, but yeah. Its feeling a bit like a retarded inbred child of FFXI+WoW.

I know man, Clint is nothing like Abe, totally different ethics. Just imagine a DBZ fusion between them...

I see a hat and fistycuffs...

I see your avatar.

I see your face!

Tried 4 story last night... It was horrible. The game has no music and the color choices for the text and UI gave me a headache. The actual mechanics were also a bit buggy. I give it an F-- .

Hero Online also sucks, there is only one male body type and its some super beefy bearded guy. It crashed before I could play, so I deleted it.

I'm trying 9dragons now, it looks promising.

F-- that's pretty rough... that's like making failures look good... thats like punching a nun in the face, its just wrong... bad wrong...

I might have been a bit rough on it... Its not that its the worst MMO I ever played, but it doesn't feel like something I would play for very long. It feels more like they made it to get money from the cash shop and ignored all creativity.

the capitolist way!

This 9Dragons doesn't like Vista. I'm installing it the second time now, after following a guide on their forums. Hoping I don't have any more xkernel issues.

well good luck your trial is anticipated...

I've read their mechanics in-depth and I think I'm going the Tai Chi route, as either hand to hand or healing. Nick is going to try Tai Chi sword style. I'm wondering what the 3 advanced styles are exactly, sounds like animal styles+pet, iron shirt, and fan+weapons. Good thing is that you can get one of them and one of the normal 6 styles. I figured you'd like the Beggar style, the hand to hand type is drunken monkey boxing.

well that is the type most like my own... survivalism, the basis of the fight or flight mechanism, sounds kinda cool actually how good is the customization of the chars?

Char customization is pretty standard, set faces and hair styles/colors. One thing I don't like is that it is click to move. Otherwise, its not bad. The economy is pretty crappy as far as I've seen, people with 25 million gold is a sneeze to others. I kinda like the training ethics, but so far its not spectacular, I've not even started a style yet though.

so its just another wash out... yay only like an hour and a half til trip beginning!

So far I'd give it a C- at most, despite how much I hate "click to move" games. Its visually like a PS2 game, and runs quite well on my new machine. I kinda like the mini-games they throw in, it breaks up the action a bit, and will probably be less tedious as my leveling slows down.

Essentially, each time you learn a new move you have to practice it with a mini-game. In this minigame there is a horizontal bar with a ball that slides across it, and you want to get it into the red area of the bar to progress in the move. Its not exceedingly difficult, so far I've not had a problem. There is also a mini-game on each major level-up. There are 18 major level-ups, and 12 minor ones between each major one. This mini game is about chi-breathing and consists of mouse clicks corresponding to colored ovals on the screen, together they represent a chakra. You simply have to right click, left click, or click both at the same time depending on the color. So far this is pretty easy too. If you happen to fail the mini-game you can try it again after a short while.

It might be worth keeping installed as doing something every now and again, but I don't think I could play it for months at a time like another un-named game.

Ok, believe it or not, I think I might have found an action "hack 'n slash" MMO. Its also free to play, apparently. Its Dungeons and Dragons Online. Yeah, sounds super nerdy, but supposedly pretty good. You actively attack, can dodge roll and stuff, and dungeons have traps to disarm, etc. I might give it a try later on, but I suspect the download size to be huge.

I'll let you know how it turns out, and if a controller might work.

magic missle time! ha ha haa... I want a mace that looks like a book and has +4 knowledge but _10 knowledge status effect on enemies.... because knowledge is power.... and knowing is half the battle G I JOOOOOOOEE!

There has been new information released on this game. The American site has been released.

http://dragonnest.nexon.net/

I think they are trying to target a summer release of this year.

Dragon's Nest now has Closed Beta applications on their main webpage, in the top left hand corner (just use your maplestory log-in).

I signed up a while back, but I haven't gotten a confirmation email, so I'm assuming I didn't get in. They did push back the actual closed beta till June, so maybe they pushed back when people receive confirmation, but who knows. Closed betas are buggy anyway, and it shouldn't be too long till open beta comes out.

Awesome news for Dragon Nest! In foreign versions of the game, they have implemented a fatigue system that limits how long you can play. It was just announced HERE that they would be utilizing a different system called the Empowerment System in Nexon's version. They haven't specified the details yet, but it basically sounds like a WoW-esque EXP system where you get an EXP multiplier for staying logged off for a while and then logging back on. While it still rewards taking a break, there will be no hard cap on the amount you can play.

Pretty good for a company that is known for making stupid decisions.

Thats cool. The exp system in WoW is clever a psychological trick. Normally on some games you'd get 100% exp for so long then it'd go down to 50% exp. So, to make players feel rewarded instead of punished, they made it 200% for so long and then "return" it to 100%. They also do this with their patches on game balance, etc. where it might look like your class's damage is getting better, but its actually getting nerfed.