So here is my initial assessment of Cloud 9. So far, I have put in about two days into it and am lv22. Rho hit 14 or so in one day of playing. The level cap atm is 35, although the forums tell me that a big content patch will come and boost it to 50 in about a week or so.
Good news for me, since it's a week of time to catch up to the cap so that I'm not lagging behind.
The good:
Quests. There are tons of quests. So far, in 22 levels, if you do all the quests, you will level up. Some of them may be just kill xx to get yy EXP, but nonetheless the quests will level you up (and there are no repeatable quests). The grind is pretty easy, with pretty fast levelling rates. Compared to GF, you level around the same speed.
Map. WOW. Just WOW. I love it. It's easy to use and it has a pull down list of every mob in the area. It will mark where mobs are, so no more struggling to find where the required mobs are. (This even includes the level of the mob.)
JUMPING. REAL JUMPING, FOLKS. You can jump over rocks and such; it's just that some fences are too high and your jump seems kind of low altitude. It is a real jump system though. :O
Pets and Mounts. You can get both. A pet fights for you. You can evolve it and equip it with skills. A mount is what you ride, and it takes damage for you. Both can be levelled, and they are amazing little side things to enhance the game play.
The bad:
Overhyped customization. Yes, you do have the ability to customize your skill trees, but it was more limited than they made it out to be. The Class subtree only has a bit of skills, and the Subclass subtree supposedly has very few skills (that are not even the skills you would get with that class if it was your main), and thus are very limited. For your main, you follow basically one of two weapon types and just max that, making it two types for each class basically. No real huge customization, as it would be in your best interest to follow your weapon line. Oh yeah: and there are no stats. This was pretty bad for me. T_T
Camera. It suffers the same problem as GF, with using WASD snapping your camera. It's not as brutal as the immediate snap like GF, but it swivels over pretty fast.
Support (and lack there of). Just wow. This game is brutal to get working. Both Rho and I had troubles getting it working. With no technical section on the forums, it was brutal getting our clients to work. The GMs are like ghosts: potentially exist, but impossible to find. Kind of reminds you that, in most MMOs, the GMs are not so there for you...for better or worse.
Browser's Loading. I hate this. You can't skip the patcher and are forced to load the game through their website. Makes me sick.
(Aaro Note~ : This was Pearz' own problem. You need to load the game through the website, but you don't have to patch every time. Just that once.)
The unknown:
PVP. I haven't tried PVP or PKing, so I wouldn't know. From what I read: the second and, later, the third continent will have have Open PK against the other faction (there are two main sides where you pick one at start), whereas now the only way you PK is transforming into a monster. (Aaro Note~ : So this means that you can kill a mob, potentially get a transform item, and then transform into a monster. You can go hit players and they can hit you back; remember that monsters are generally weaker than players of the same level.)
Crafting. From the looks of it, EVERYTHING can be crafted, much like in GF. Whether new and better stuff will be added later is unknown. I haven't had time to tamper with the crafting system due to my need to be a grind whore (and with all these assignments due, too D:). Along this train of thought, I've barely scratched modding weapons either.
Summary:
Overall, I find it decent. It's nothing amazing or horrible...yet, so I'm going to keep going at it for a bit longer. I want to at least get subclasses and tamper a bit with PVP first before I pass the final judgement. Those are two major factors. If you want to join me: IGN is Pearz and I'm of the Primus Faction (blue at the start). If you pick the other, you can't friend or team me, and we will be eternal enemies (all the characters on your account is of the same faction).
On a side note about GF: Apparently, the AP prices are ridiculous. *points to AP drain prediction in my review* HAT TRICK? 3 for 3 so far; how far will I go?
~Pearz
Good news for me, since it's a week of time to catch up to the cap so that I'm not lagging behind.
The good:
Quests. There are tons of quests. So far, in 22 levels, if you do all the quests, you will level up. Some of them may be just kill xx to get yy EXP, but nonetheless the quests will level you up (and there are no repeatable quests). The grind is pretty easy, with pretty fast levelling rates. Compared to GF, you level around the same speed.
Map. WOW. Just WOW. I love it. It's easy to use and it has a pull down list of every mob in the area. It will mark where mobs are, so no more struggling to find where the required mobs are. (This even includes the level of the mob.)
JUMPING. REAL JUMPING, FOLKS. You can jump over rocks and such; it's just that some fences are too high and your jump seems kind of low altitude. It is a real jump system though. :O
Pets and Mounts. You can get both. A pet fights for you. You can evolve it and equip it with skills. A mount is what you ride, and it takes damage for you. Both can be levelled, and they are amazing little side things to enhance the game play.
The bad:
Overhyped customization. Yes, you do have the ability to customize your skill trees, but it was more limited than they made it out to be. The Class subtree only has a bit of skills, and the Subclass subtree supposedly has very few skills (that are not even the skills you would get with that class if it was your main), and thus are very limited. For your main, you follow basically one of two weapon types and just max that, making it two types for each class basically. No real huge customization, as it would be in your best interest to follow your weapon line. Oh yeah: and there are no stats. This was pretty bad for me. T_T
Camera. It suffers the same problem as GF, with using WASD snapping your camera. It's not as brutal as the immediate snap like GF, but it swivels over pretty fast.
Support (and lack there of). Just wow. This game is brutal to get working. Both Rho and I had troubles getting it working. With no technical section on the forums, it was brutal getting our clients to work. The GMs are like ghosts: potentially exist, but impossible to find. Kind of reminds you that, in most MMOs, the GMs are not so there for you...for better or worse.
Browser's Loading. I hate this. You can't skip the patcher and are forced to load the game through their website. Makes me sick.
(Aaro Note~ : This was Pearz' own problem. You need to load the game through the website, but you don't have to patch every time. Just that once.)
The unknown:
PVP. I haven't tried PVP or PKing, so I wouldn't know. From what I read: the second and, later, the third continent will have have Open PK against the other faction (there are two main sides where you pick one at start), whereas now the only way you PK is transforming into a monster. (Aaro Note~ : So this means that you can kill a mob, potentially get a transform item, and then transform into a monster. You can go hit players and they can hit you back; remember that monsters are generally weaker than players of the same level.)
Crafting. From the looks of it, EVERYTHING can be crafted, much like in GF. Whether new and better stuff will be added later is unknown. I haven't had time to tamper with the crafting system due to my need to be a grind whore (and with all these assignments due, too D:). Along this train of thought, I've barely scratched modding weapons either.
Summary:
Overall, I find it decent. It's nothing amazing or horrible...yet, so I'm going to keep going at it for a bit longer. I want to at least get subclasses and tamper a bit with PVP first before I pass the final judgement. Those are two major factors. If you want to join me: IGN is Pearz and I'm of the Primus Faction (blue at the start). If you pick the other, you can't friend or team me, and we will be eternal enemies (all the characters on your account is of the same faction).
On a side note about GF: Apparently, the AP prices are ridiculous. *points to AP drain prediction in my review* HAT TRICK? 3 for 3 so far; how far will I go?
~Pearz
