On Jumat, 05 Juli 2013
AdventureQuest Worlds by Artix Entertainment is the MMO version of
their grindy but addictive little flash based on-line game Adventure
Quest. Using the same technology, AdventureQuest Worlds has actually
attracted players who were not previously players of either
AdventureQuest, or the company’s previous foray into the MMO world,
Dragon Fable.
Simple, simplistic, grindy, yet engaging. It is definitely a casual MMO and one advantage of the game as it was in Adventure Quest, is that it is completely flash-based. Unlike some other browser-based games that still require a small client to be installed; you can play AdventureQuest Worlds on any PC with an internet connection and a web browser with a Java client. Yes, you can play it on an office computer during break and get a few hundred experience points.
The game FAQ tells you how many points are needed for each rank and level. As is usual in many MMOs, a player character can defeat a monster several levels higher and they very quickly learn what they can take on as Mob hit points are displayed when targeted – although you can’t tell how hard they will hit.
How to Play
Create an account, log in, and create your character. You have a choice of Warrior, Rogue, Mage and Priest. A few choices in character customization, but more can be done in-game with customization shops and armor. The art is akin to comic books cel-shaded art, with Japanese Manga influence. With that, and the play of a cut-scene with sound and music, you’re in the world – if you don’t choose to go to Noobshire first to learn how to play, you’ll spawn in Battleon and can choose to go to Noobshire by talking to that NPC right there in front of you. The one with the exclamation mark above her head.
Combat
is automatic – click to target, click to auto-attack, but skills and
spells must be activated and will have a cool-down period. Almost
everything takes gold in his game which luckily is easy to come by.
Quest loot and coins are automatically credited to your character but
other items are not, and you are given a Yes/No dialog box for looting.
The UI is clean and minimalist with simple icons identifying the usual worldmap (a world globe), options (two gears), temporary inventory (a sack) and permanent inventory (a bagpack). The Red/Blue heart is your rest button. That’s how you regain your health and mana, by resting. No potions and no potion spamming here, you have to sit for a bit. Luckily, health and mana regenerates quickly and there is little downtime for chatting.
One of the first things I noticed in game, is that there are two experience bars. One is for your level, one is for your class rank. I wondered why until I visited the trainers from whom you can pick up different classes and did a quest and picked up Pirate! The different classes are equipped and levelled separately. As there are 10 ranks currently to each class, many players play different classes and are able to bring different classes to a group or Boss Event by equipping that class. Class XP flows much faster than level XP, so it does not feel like a grind to level several classes.
To
improve your weapons, armor and indeed to be able to equip anything in
game, it has to be enhanced. This is done by going to the proper NPCs
and paying them gold. Be careful though, you can (I tried it) “enhance”
your weapon back to a Level 1 weapon. Armor is fluff (mostly), weapons
are not. The higher the level of your armor, the better defense it gives
you and the higher the level of your weapons, the better damage you do.
Most of the cooler items have some sort of animation associated. Bat
and dragon wings flap slightly, swords flame and sparkle, staves with
jewels wink and glow.
The World We Play In
Launched in October 2008, the world is not exhaustively extensive at this time, but new events are being added regularly which open up new maps, and some maps end up being added permanently. Readers familiar with Adventure Quest will recognize some of the areas, quests and characters that reside in the world, except that now they have all been re-imagined with the trappings of an MMO. That is the NPCs with exclamation marks over their heads, the number of items you have to retrieve, the turn-in rewards and XP, etc.
Travel around the world is running from map (screen) to the next map, clicking on each area of the world map (zone) and teleporting there, or if you have a friend online or are in a group, you can “go-to” a friend. It is safe to explore most areas of the world as most critters do not attack you, which is fortunate as I’ve run from zone-in, to the boss map to run smack in face to face with the boss mob and a few other players waiting to get enough doing the same quest to group and give it the smack down. However, if you venture into the “Uber” areas as a lowbie, all bets are off. Escape, however, is simple as each map is only as large as your screen. One interesting gameplay feature is that you don’t have to be part of the group or first engaged to get quest credit. You can jump in and assist other players.
Quests are temporary and only registered for that session. The results however, are permanent and written into your account. What that means is that once you log out, lag out or otherwise shut down your browser window, you lose your quest progress. Your quest journal is wiped clean every session, which can be very annoying if you’re only one item away from a turn-in, or you are interrupted before you can do a quest turn-in.
Death,
what death? Oh… you mean where you lay down when your health goes down
to zero and respawn at the zone-in? Death has no penalties, which is
good for a casual MMO, but that together with the lack of ambient sounds
and simple visuals means that the game is less immersive although no
less fun than games that do have sound and more complex graphics. It
could be an advantage to not being drawn so emotionally into an MMO.
Gameplay is quest based and players jumping from zone to zone on the worldmap may be surprised to find that they can’t get to the end of the zone because they are missing the quest. Grinding is possible and you can simply grind on harder and harder creatures to gain experience. There is an overarching storyline and a Lore Book which tracks your progress. The cut scenes are filled with humor, some of them pretty bad. When a huge undead skeletal dragon shows up in the sky, one knight says to the other “We’re so boned.”
Visuals / Graphics & Audio
It’s a flash based game and it looks as good as it can be. Animations are minimal. Facial animations? Forget-about-it. That said, there are some animated emotes including the always popular /dance and /wave and /point. The combat animations are actually much less lame than some truly spastic arm waving I’ve seen in other MMOs. I’m of the “Keep it Simple” school in that I believe having simple animation that works is better than complex animation that looks like someone dropped an earthworm down your character’s armor.
Audio is limited to “swooshes” and “thuds” with no environmental music or background ambient sounds. This said, a recent event for Friday the 13th – To the Bottom of the Sea – included cutscenes, voice-overs and songs re-sung (much more family friendly than the original) by Voltaire for AdventureQuest Worlds which maxed and crashed servers. The re-play was available for two weeks and for a flash-based game, I was impressed at how lag-free it was, but the lag on launch day must have been incredible.
Bugs, bugs, bugs & Community
Being a flash based game, all player data is kept on Artix servers and players can log into any server that is up and available. There are two “Moglin” safe servers that children under the age of 13 are limited to. Only drop-down menu chat is available on these two servers. Several others are a mix of drop-down menu chat and free chat – if a paying subscriber, or verified paid up member of one of Artix’s other games, yet several others are free chat as long as the email account is verified at registration, and one subscription server where subscribers get exclusive events and items.
There
are grouping and clan (guild) capabilities in game and a forum for
players. The subscriber server seemed to be a little friendlier perhaps
because no one had ever seen a level one noob there. However, zone into
almost any level appropriate zone and you’ll find players issuing you a
group invite to do the boss. The forums are friendly if not super busy
as are most players in game. One particular fun time was being invited
at level 2 to do a level 12 boss and another at level 5 to do a level 25
boss with 50,000 hitpoints. A pity I didn’t have the quest yet.
Although I was invited to join a few clans, I was not spammed with clan invites. The lack of trading and re-selling of player items also meant that there was no zone spamming of items and gold for sale.
What’s an MMO without bugs? The communications from the developers are all tinged with humor. A recent release was titled “Let loose the dogs (bugs) of war” with one item crossed out later and replaced with “This broke BAD” One frequent issue I encountered was the game freezing on moving from one screen or area to the next. The only way to get out of that is to close the window and log-in again. This is particularly annoying if you are working on a quest as you have to restart them.
Business Model
AdventureQuest Worlds is free to play – unless you want to have a pet, buy exclusive fluff armors, get additional storage space and play on the single Paying Customer server for the exclusive events. There are several different subscription packages which come loaded with Adventure Coins (the paid for currency), beginning with a three month membership plus 1,000 Coins for $19.95. The Adventure Coins can also be purchased separate from membership.
All items can be previewed before purchase and range from a Werewolf Morph for 200 AC to the ferret pet for 900 AC to higher level weapons that go for 2,500 AC. To keep the game balanced, purchased weapons are level 1 and have to be enhanced when you level, or may only be equipped if you are of level.
The one big difference between AdventureQuest Worlds and many other free to play games is that the items you buy with Adventure Coins are permanent. Even when you stop paying the subscription, you will still be able to equip the armors and weapons, show-off your pet(s) and you will retain the additional bag slots and bank space purchased.
Reviewer’s Opinion
For
a game that is pure hack and slash and item collection, AdventureQuest
Worlds is a fun little casual MMO. It may lack depth, have no
tradeskills or other career paths besides the adventure path and lack a
certain amount of immersion, but that doesn’t make it “un-fun” to play. A
good community accounts for much in and MMO, and hanging out in the
town during my lunch break, I watched the chatter. It was mostly about
someone’s cool armor or weapon, and where they got it from, and some
chatter about quests and boss mobs.
Permanent buys mean that gamers can pay for a short subscription and coins, buy the items he/she wanted such as that neat little ferret pet or additional inventory slots or flaming sword, then go back to playing for free – and who can argue with that as value for money?
Simple, simplistic, grindy, yet engaging. It is definitely a casual MMO and one advantage of the game as it was in Adventure Quest, is that it is completely flash-based. Unlike some other browser-based games that still require a small client to be installed; you can play AdventureQuest Worlds on any PC with an internet connection and a web browser with a Java client. Yes, you can play it on an office computer during break and get a few hundred experience points.
The game FAQ tells you how many points are needed for each rank and level. As is usual in many MMOs, a player character can defeat a monster several levels higher and they very quickly learn what they can take on as Mob hit points are displayed when targeted – although you can’t tell how hard they will hit.
How to Play
Create an account, log in, and create your character. You have a choice of Warrior, Rogue, Mage and Priest. A few choices in character customization, but more can be done in-game with customization shops and armor. The art is akin to comic books cel-shaded art, with Japanese Manga influence. With that, and the play of a cut-scene with sound and music, you’re in the world – if you don’t choose to go to Noobshire first to learn how to play, you’ll spawn in Battleon and can choose to go to Noobshire by talking to that NPC right there in front of you. The one with the exclamation mark above her head.
Combat
is automatic – click to target, click to auto-attack, but skills and
spells must be activated and will have a cool-down period. Almost
everything takes gold in his game which luckily is easy to come by.
Quest loot and coins are automatically credited to your character but
other items are not, and you are given a Yes/No dialog box for looting.The UI is clean and minimalist with simple icons identifying the usual worldmap (a world globe), options (two gears), temporary inventory (a sack) and permanent inventory (a bagpack). The Red/Blue heart is your rest button. That’s how you regain your health and mana, by resting. No potions and no potion spamming here, you have to sit for a bit. Luckily, health and mana regenerates quickly and there is little downtime for chatting.
One of the first things I noticed in game, is that there are two experience bars. One is for your level, one is for your class rank. I wondered why until I visited the trainers from whom you can pick up different classes and did a quest and picked up Pirate! The different classes are equipped and levelled separately. As there are 10 ranks currently to each class, many players play different classes and are able to bring different classes to a group or Boss Event by equipping that class. Class XP flows much faster than level XP, so it does not feel like a grind to level several classes.
To
improve your weapons, armor and indeed to be able to equip anything in
game, it has to be enhanced. This is done by going to the proper NPCs
and paying them gold. Be careful though, you can (I tried it) “enhance”
your weapon back to a Level 1 weapon. Armor is fluff (mostly), weapons
are not. The higher the level of your armor, the better defense it gives
you and the higher the level of your weapons, the better damage you do.
Most of the cooler items have some sort of animation associated. Bat
and dragon wings flap slightly, swords flame and sparkle, staves with
jewels wink and glow.The World We Play In
Launched in October 2008, the world is not exhaustively extensive at this time, but new events are being added regularly which open up new maps, and some maps end up being added permanently. Readers familiar with Adventure Quest will recognize some of the areas, quests and characters that reside in the world, except that now they have all been re-imagined with the trappings of an MMO. That is the NPCs with exclamation marks over their heads, the number of items you have to retrieve, the turn-in rewards and XP, etc.
Travel around the world is running from map (screen) to the next map, clicking on each area of the world map (zone) and teleporting there, or if you have a friend online or are in a group, you can “go-to” a friend. It is safe to explore most areas of the world as most critters do not attack you, which is fortunate as I’ve run from zone-in, to the boss map to run smack in face to face with the boss mob and a few other players waiting to get enough doing the same quest to group and give it the smack down. However, if you venture into the “Uber” areas as a lowbie, all bets are off. Escape, however, is simple as each map is only as large as your screen. One interesting gameplay feature is that you don’t have to be part of the group or first engaged to get quest credit. You can jump in and assist other players.
Quests are temporary and only registered for that session. The results however, are permanent and written into your account. What that means is that once you log out, lag out or otherwise shut down your browser window, you lose your quest progress. Your quest journal is wiped clean every session, which can be very annoying if you’re only one item away from a turn-in, or you are interrupted before you can do a quest turn-in.
Death,
what death? Oh… you mean where you lay down when your health goes down
to zero and respawn at the zone-in? Death has no penalties, which is
good for a casual MMO, but that together with the lack of ambient sounds
and simple visuals means that the game is less immersive although no
less fun than games that do have sound and more complex graphics. It
could be an advantage to not being drawn so emotionally into an MMO.Gameplay is quest based and players jumping from zone to zone on the worldmap may be surprised to find that they can’t get to the end of the zone because they are missing the quest. Grinding is possible and you can simply grind on harder and harder creatures to gain experience. There is an overarching storyline and a Lore Book which tracks your progress. The cut scenes are filled with humor, some of them pretty bad. When a huge undead skeletal dragon shows up in the sky, one knight says to the other “We’re so boned.”
Visuals / Graphics & Audio
It’s a flash based game and it looks as good as it can be. Animations are minimal. Facial animations? Forget-about-it. That said, there are some animated emotes including the always popular /dance and /wave and /point. The combat animations are actually much less lame than some truly spastic arm waving I’ve seen in other MMOs. I’m of the “Keep it Simple” school in that I believe having simple animation that works is better than complex animation that looks like someone dropped an earthworm down your character’s armor.
Audio is limited to “swooshes” and “thuds” with no environmental music or background ambient sounds. This said, a recent event for Friday the 13th – To the Bottom of the Sea – included cutscenes, voice-overs and songs re-sung (much more family friendly than the original) by Voltaire for AdventureQuest Worlds which maxed and crashed servers. The re-play was available for two weeks and for a flash-based game, I was impressed at how lag-free it was, but the lag on launch day must have been incredible.
Bugs, bugs, bugs & Community
Being a flash based game, all player data is kept on Artix servers and players can log into any server that is up and available. There are two “Moglin” safe servers that children under the age of 13 are limited to. Only drop-down menu chat is available on these two servers. Several others are a mix of drop-down menu chat and free chat – if a paying subscriber, or verified paid up member of one of Artix’s other games, yet several others are free chat as long as the email account is verified at registration, and one subscription server where subscribers get exclusive events and items.
There
are grouping and clan (guild) capabilities in game and a forum for
players. The subscriber server seemed to be a little friendlier perhaps
because no one had ever seen a level one noob there. However, zone into
almost any level appropriate zone and you’ll find players issuing you a
group invite to do the boss. The forums are friendly if not super busy
as are most players in game. One particular fun time was being invited
at level 2 to do a level 12 boss and another at level 5 to do a level 25
boss with 50,000 hitpoints. A pity I didn’t have the quest yet.Although I was invited to join a few clans, I was not spammed with clan invites. The lack of trading and re-selling of player items also meant that there was no zone spamming of items and gold for sale.
What’s an MMO without bugs? The communications from the developers are all tinged with humor. A recent release was titled “Let loose the dogs (bugs) of war” with one item crossed out later and replaced with “This broke BAD” One frequent issue I encountered was the game freezing on moving from one screen or area to the next. The only way to get out of that is to close the window and log-in again. This is particularly annoying if you are working on a quest as you have to restart them.
Business Model
AdventureQuest Worlds is free to play – unless you want to have a pet, buy exclusive fluff armors, get additional storage space and play on the single Paying Customer server for the exclusive events. There are several different subscription packages which come loaded with Adventure Coins (the paid for currency), beginning with a three month membership plus 1,000 Coins for $19.95. The Adventure Coins can also be purchased separate from membership.
All items can be previewed before purchase and range from a Werewolf Morph for 200 AC to the ferret pet for 900 AC to higher level weapons that go for 2,500 AC. To keep the game balanced, purchased weapons are level 1 and have to be enhanced when you level, or may only be equipped if you are of level.
The one big difference between AdventureQuest Worlds and many other free to play games is that the items you buy with Adventure Coins are permanent. Even when you stop paying the subscription, you will still be able to equip the armors and weapons, show-off your pet(s) and you will retain the additional bag slots and bank space purchased.
Reviewer’s Opinion
For
a game that is pure hack and slash and item collection, AdventureQuest
Worlds is a fun little casual MMO. It may lack depth, have no
tradeskills or other career paths besides the adventure path and lack a
certain amount of immersion, but that doesn’t make it “un-fun” to play. A
good community accounts for much in and MMO, and hanging out in the
town during my lunch break, I watched the chatter. It was mostly about
someone’s cool armor or weapon, and where they got it from, and some
chatter about quests and boss mobs.Permanent buys mean that gamers can pay for a short subscription and coins, buy the items he/she wanted such as that neat little ferret pet or additional inventory slots or flaming sword, then go back to playing for free – and who can argue with that as value for money?
