(03-26-2014, 09:51 AM)Clover Wrote: [ -> ]My impressions about Blade & Soul are actually the opposite. Combat didn't impress me at all (I prefer Mabinogi:Heroes and Tera). The world feels quite dead and uninteresting, and thus the only attention to detail I've seen is on female character models *laughs*. I didn't feel that towns were alive, I couldn't interact with anything. All I could do was kill stuff, for there's nothing else going on in the maps I've visited. The fashion system is also non existent.
Perhaps I just didn't play it enough, but as far as I know, later gameplay is more of the same: kill stuff in maps where nothing else is going on. I have followed this game's updates, and every new update seems to be related to... new bosses you can kill. Exactly like Tera, and there's a reason why Tera isn't my favourite game, amazing as its combat system and character designs are.
The only thing I really like about B&S is the RP I've been having in a Spanish RP forum, and the very good character creation. The game itself is very meh for me. I'd give it another try if it was released in English, but I doubt I'd last much.
It's worth noting that it's a game that changes immensely based on which class you play, since they all have very different mechanics (summoner hardly plays anything like kung-fu master which hardly plays anything like assassin, etc.). And yeah, at low levels the small moveset is limiting, but that's not much different from most other MMOs at this point in time.
And the world feeling 'dead' is, again, a theme park MMO issue. FFXIV isn't any better in this regard, nor is any other theme park MMO I've played in recent memory. The amusing thing is that GW2 tries so hard with its "dynamic events" but it just ends up making the facade even more obvious when the same shit happens over and over and over and over and over and over and over...
The closest thing to a game world that feels "alive" to me has been EVE Online, and that's a sandbox MMO, so not even in the same ballpark.
Of course I have high hopes for EQNext, but that's a long way off still.
(03-26-2014, 10:11 PM)Alanth Wrote: [ -> ]I never could understand how someone could knock on a game's questing mechanics or combat without, you know, playing the game. Â
I mean art style, yeah. Â It's COMPLETELY love it or hate it. Â I obviously love it. Â Hyper-stylized games last much much longer than anything going for even semi-realism and the environments have more personality than a lot of games out there. Â But you've never quested in the game or fought anything so how can you comment on combat or questing?
Watching videos and reading impressions is enough. Perhaps a bit of a knee-jerk reaction on my part, but many of the impressions I've been reading do not paint a pretty picture.
(03-26-2014, 10:54 PM)Aysun Wrote: [ -> ]"A picture is worth a thousand words." My words in response to those pictures are: 'wtf is that,' 'augh so toony' and 'icky game-breaker'! It's interesting to see everyone's varying preferences around here. XD
Fortunately, there are three other less-cartoony races in the game.
But the point was to illustrate the range of the character creation more than anything else.
Also, Lyn >>> Lalafell. Sorry, I just can't get past the rotundness. They're cute, but I'd never want to play as one.
(03-26-2014, 11:57 PM)Lost River Wrote: [ -> ]So far, aside from Second Life, Aion, and Perfect World International, no MMORPG gave I've played had detailed character creation than those games; of course if APB wasn't garbage (fixed, but still terrible now that its FTP with the new cash shop grabs), I'd mess with that. I spent hundreds of hours on that game's creation system in just its short month's span before it went away.
Believe it or not, Blade & Soul's character creation is
even more detailed than Aion's. With four unique races (though they are all variants on human, like most eastern MMOs). It's pretty crazy.
Between that, Aion, Dragon's Dogma, Soul Calibur V, Champions Online, and more besides, I've been pretty spoiled on the character creation front lately. It's really, REALLY hard for me to go back to games with weaksauce character creation now, especially since I prefer to play gender-ambiguous characters, which is really quite difficult in games where the gender-binary is enforced and there are no body sliders.
Speaking of APB... it was great, except for the enforced minimum breast size. I probably would have spent more time with that game if they actually let me make a flat-chested female character. Feels like a waste to have all those options, and then this one option is so limited that it may as well not be there...