Gemscool
27th November 2012, 05:58 PM
zOMG! | Gaia Online (http://www.gaiaonline.com/zomglanding/)
Was it worth the wait?
[/spoiler] for VIDEO:
For those who have been with GaiaOnline since the early days, one will rememebr how people always talked about how Gaia should make a game like 'Towns' that was well...actually a GAME! (Towns is an older feature on Gaia where you can walk around with your avatar and collect bugs and stuff an interact with other people by text chatting....and that's about it)
Gaia, as it gained popularity (and therefore corporate sponsors, as well as money through it's for-real-money purchase 'donation' items) put this idea into production. They one day promised this would be a reality. Many teasing announcements of "The zomg game is in progress!" It's going to be great!" "It's launching soon!" over a period of about 3 years,the game is finally here in Open Beta.
Was it worth the wait?
I was a member of the closed beta testers before it was released to the Gaia public, and I can honestly say when it was in this phase I was not overly impressed. The controls were non responsive, there was lag, server timeouts, glitches, etc. But somehow in a short period of 2 months from when I was in closed beta to the launch they fixed most of that.
What they have here is a pretty decent MMO. It's not Final Fantasy (also the 'storyline' is not exactly noteworthy), but it's a lot of fun and involves strategy and community to progress in the game. Also remember it is FREE and loads right offline like a Flash Game. My rating is not higher or lower because it is free, I am rating it based on the game itself, but if you want to know if I'd have paid money for it, after spending time with it and having fun, I think I can say if it was 9.99 or under to buy the program I'd have bought it. If that matters to you opinion wise.
Onto the fighting system, the important part of the game! I have played various RPG's and it's pretty interesting and different system. There is a lot of strategy involved and I am enjoying how the system works. Like many MMO's, players can form crews and swarm in around enemies. The system of attacks, healing, and powerup moves are all based around a "rings system". You can equip and use up to 8 rings at a time which you choose and collect from the many available attack/healing/support rings
I need to talk about WHY they went with a system like this, an how it function following form, and a creative way to deal with it. Since the big part of Gaia is gaining various items to outfit your avatar (to make it look like what you want physically), the way in which they made these attacks happen was limited and could not involve animating the avatar too specifically. Nor could these weapons change the normal physical look of the avatar, and neither could certain clothes or items change your stats. So they devised powered up 'rings' (which being so small you would not see them on the avatar anyway, so imagine they are there XD ). So therefore when you attack with a Mantis Ring, for example, a sword appears out of nowhere, your avatar twisting around with some deforming animation, and it disappears after the attack is done. A Healing ring makes special effects appear, etc....
You equip up to 8 rings at a time (one for each finger). When you start you are given a choice between 9 starter rings, so you end up with one attack, one healing, and one support ring. There are many more rings to find and collect, with all kinds of effects. Think of it as having two pokemon at your disposal, you can only have 8 attack or support moves at a time so you have to choose wisely. You can store more rings so if you wanna change around your sets if you are going to be in a crew as a healer, you can grab more healing rings.
I was impressed at HOW in depth the play mechanics went in this game. There are things like 'ring sets' where if you equip 4 specific rings onto one hand, you gain a stat boost of some kind. Like I have a character with the 'medic' set, which gives faster health regeneration.
You level up by putting experience orbs you gather into chosen rings, powering them up. The scale is from 1.0 to 10.0. Your overall 'level' is determined by the average of all your equipped rings individual levels. An empty slot counts as a base level ring (1.0). by randomly getting orbs from vanquished enemies. You do NOT get experience orbs for every enemy killed, they are randomly dropped...the game keeps you from falling behind in that it encourages you to complete NPC assigned quests. You gain orbs from these, and if you do all the quests in an area before going onto the next 'higher level' area, you usually are at an adequate level for which to move on.
The environments are quite lovely, and for those who follow the world of Gaia and it's original characters it's a big treat to walk around Barton town and talk to the characters like it's a living breathing world.
A big part of what makes the game fun is interacting with OTHER humans. (I would hope in an MMO this is a big part of the game)... The game encourages interaction and for you to form crews by making bosses too hard for one person to defeat by themselves if they are around the expected level for that zone. Many support rings only work on OTHER PLAYERS, and some affect you as well as people around you. You gain temporary minor stat boosts by chatting with others and being in a crew through "G'di" power (which goes up as you do those things). Being a loner and killing stuff all by yourself and not talking to anyone or helping them with support rings? This 'G'di" power drains out, so you lose those helpful lil stat boots. Go back to some people and it replenishes. You CAN play alone but that's really missing the POINT of the game, you'll completely forget all about your "G'di" boosts cause if you naturally talk with others and are helpful or form a crew the way the game intends, they are up all of the time anyway.
Also cool I liked was the fighting game-eske RAGE bar system for the rings. As you whack away at enemies you gain rage. Your rage bar has three levels and MAX. You can hold down and charge up a ring and unleash a higher level of it's ability, resulting in a higher attack power (for attack rings), longer effect (support ring) or more health (healing ring). Most satisfyingly is that each level has a DIFFERENT animation, usually a fancier one obviously. Each ring therefore has 4 animations. So you'll wanna use these rage levels to impress people around you and look cool at the same time.
Flaws, besides the lag when a lot is going on on screen and the fat his game is still BETA, include that you can buy rings off Gaia marketplace that people have leveled up. So if you have a lot of gold and are lazy you can easily snag some high level rings and be uber at at point in the game you want. Of course, at the prices they are you would have to have been on the site for a looong time or have bought donation items with real money and sold them.
I have not even touched on the quests, map, kinds of rings, and extensive loot/item forging systems either, so you can see there is a lot to this little FREE online flash MMO.
Although, I CAN say if you are not interested in the humor of Gaia or it's community, this game will not be enjoyable to you. It is not aimed at LITTLE kids, just so you know though, I'd say the age demographic is for at least 13 and up, with older gamers getting the most strategy enjoyment out of the game and the younger set liking the community aspect and hack 'n' slashing stuff.
Some will be lured to play the game and get INTO the Gaia's storyline world, and others will not be interested and therefore not be interested in this game. Basically you just gotta try it. And there is a lot here to see.
[spoiler=open this] for skrinsut:
http://images.bbgsite.com/games/images/zomg/s_zomg_001.jpg
http://images.bbgsite.com/games/images/zomg/s_zomg_002.jpg
http://images.bbgsite.com/games/images/zomg/s_zomg_003.jpg
http://images.bbgsite.com/games/images/zomg/s1l.jpg
http://images.bbgsite.com/games/images/zomg/s2l.jpg
http://images.bbgsite.com/games/images/zomg/s3l.jpg
http://images.bbgsite.com/games/images/zomg/s4l.jpg
http://images.bbgsite.com/games/images/zomg/s5l.jpg
http://images.bbgsite.com/games/images/zomg/s6l.jpg
pilih server alarmskeeter
gk mungkin repost http://static.kaskus.co.id/images/smilies/reposts.gif
tolong di rate ya http://static.kaskus.co.id/images/smilies/sumbangan/008.gifhttp://static.kaskus.co.id/images/smilies/sumbangan/008.gifhttp://static.kaskus.co.id/images/smilies/sumbangan/008.gifhttp://static.kaskus.co.id/images/smilies/sumbangan/008.gifhttp://static.kaskus.co.id/images/smilies/sumbangan/008.gif
gk nolak melon http://static.kaskus.co.id/images/smilies/melons.gif
</div>
Was it worth the wait?
[/spoiler] for VIDEO:
For those who have been with GaiaOnline since the early days, one will rememebr how people always talked about how Gaia should make a game like 'Towns' that was well...actually a GAME! (Towns is an older feature on Gaia where you can walk around with your avatar and collect bugs and stuff an interact with other people by text chatting....and that's about it)
Gaia, as it gained popularity (and therefore corporate sponsors, as well as money through it's for-real-money purchase 'donation' items) put this idea into production. They one day promised this would be a reality. Many teasing announcements of "The zomg game is in progress!" It's going to be great!" "It's launching soon!" over a period of about 3 years,the game is finally here in Open Beta.
Was it worth the wait?
I was a member of the closed beta testers before it was released to the Gaia public, and I can honestly say when it was in this phase I was not overly impressed. The controls were non responsive, there was lag, server timeouts, glitches, etc. But somehow in a short period of 2 months from when I was in closed beta to the launch they fixed most of that.
What they have here is a pretty decent MMO. It's not Final Fantasy (also the 'storyline' is not exactly noteworthy), but it's a lot of fun and involves strategy and community to progress in the game. Also remember it is FREE and loads right offline like a Flash Game. My rating is not higher or lower because it is free, I am rating it based on the game itself, but if you want to know if I'd have paid money for it, after spending time with it and having fun, I think I can say if it was 9.99 or under to buy the program I'd have bought it. If that matters to you opinion wise.
Onto the fighting system, the important part of the game! I have played various RPG's and it's pretty interesting and different system. There is a lot of strategy involved and I am enjoying how the system works. Like many MMO's, players can form crews and swarm in around enemies. The system of attacks, healing, and powerup moves are all based around a "rings system". You can equip and use up to 8 rings at a time which you choose and collect from the many available attack/healing/support rings
I need to talk about WHY they went with a system like this, an how it function following form, and a creative way to deal with it. Since the big part of Gaia is gaining various items to outfit your avatar (to make it look like what you want physically), the way in which they made these attacks happen was limited and could not involve animating the avatar too specifically. Nor could these weapons change the normal physical look of the avatar, and neither could certain clothes or items change your stats. So they devised powered up 'rings' (which being so small you would not see them on the avatar anyway, so imagine they are there XD ). So therefore when you attack with a Mantis Ring, for example, a sword appears out of nowhere, your avatar twisting around with some deforming animation, and it disappears after the attack is done. A Healing ring makes special effects appear, etc....
You equip up to 8 rings at a time (one for each finger). When you start you are given a choice between 9 starter rings, so you end up with one attack, one healing, and one support ring. There are many more rings to find and collect, with all kinds of effects. Think of it as having two pokemon at your disposal, you can only have 8 attack or support moves at a time so you have to choose wisely. You can store more rings so if you wanna change around your sets if you are going to be in a crew as a healer, you can grab more healing rings.
I was impressed at HOW in depth the play mechanics went in this game. There are things like 'ring sets' where if you equip 4 specific rings onto one hand, you gain a stat boost of some kind. Like I have a character with the 'medic' set, which gives faster health regeneration.
You level up by putting experience orbs you gather into chosen rings, powering them up. The scale is from 1.0 to 10.0. Your overall 'level' is determined by the average of all your equipped rings individual levels. An empty slot counts as a base level ring (1.0). by randomly getting orbs from vanquished enemies. You do NOT get experience orbs for every enemy killed, they are randomly dropped...the game keeps you from falling behind in that it encourages you to complete NPC assigned quests. You gain orbs from these, and if you do all the quests in an area before going onto the next 'higher level' area, you usually are at an adequate level for which to move on.
The environments are quite lovely, and for those who follow the world of Gaia and it's original characters it's a big treat to walk around Barton town and talk to the characters like it's a living breathing world.
A big part of what makes the game fun is interacting with OTHER humans. (I would hope in an MMO this is a big part of the game)... The game encourages interaction and for you to form crews by making bosses too hard for one person to defeat by themselves if they are around the expected level for that zone. Many support rings only work on OTHER PLAYERS, and some affect you as well as people around you. You gain temporary minor stat boosts by chatting with others and being in a crew through "G'di" power (which goes up as you do those things). Being a loner and killing stuff all by yourself and not talking to anyone or helping them with support rings? This 'G'di" power drains out, so you lose those helpful lil stat boots. Go back to some people and it replenishes. You CAN play alone but that's really missing the POINT of the game, you'll completely forget all about your "G'di" boosts cause if you naturally talk with others and are helpful or form a crew the way the game intends, they are up all of the time anyway.
Also cool I liked was the fighting game-eske RAGE bar system for the rings. As you whack away at enemies you gain rage. Your rage bar has three levels and MAX. You can hold down and charge up a ring and unleash a higher level of it's ability, resulting in a higher attack power (for attack rings), longer effect (support ring) or more health (healing ring). Most satisfyingly is that each level has a DIFFERENT animation, usually a fancier one obviously. Each ring therefore has 4 animations. So you'll wanna use these rage levels to impress people around you and look cool at the same time.
Flaws, besides the lag when a lot is going on on screen and the fat his game is still BETA, include that you can buy rings off Gaia marketplace that people have leveled up. So if you have a lot of gold and are lazy you can easily snag some high level rings and be uber at at point in the game you want. Of course, at the prices they are you would have to have been on the site for a looong time or have bought donation items with real money and sold them.
I have not even touched on the quests, map, kinds of rings, and extensive loot/item forging systems either, so you can see there is a lot to this little FREE online flash MMO.
Although, I CAN say if you are not interested in the humor of Gaia or it's community, this game will not be enjoyable to you. It is not aimed at LITTLE kids, just so you know though, I'd say the age demographic is for at least 13 and up, with older gamers getting the most strategy enjoyment out of the game and the younger set liking the community aspect and hack 'n' slashing stuff.
Some will be lured to play the game and get INTO the Gaia's storyline world, and others will not be interested and therefore not be interested in this game. Basically you just gotta try it. And there is a lot here to see.
[spoiler=open this] for skrinsut:
http://images.bbgsite.com/games/images/zomg/s_zomg_001.jpg
http://images.bbgsite.com/games/images/zomg/s_zomg_002.jpg
http://images.bbgsite.com/games/images/zomg/s_zomg_003.jpg
http://images.bbgsite.com/games/images/zomg/s1l.jpg
http://images.bbgsite.com/games/images/zomg/s2l.jpg
http://images.bbgsite.com/games/images/zomg/s3l.jpg
http://images.bbgsite.com/games/images/zomg/s4l.jpg
http://images.bbgsite.com/games/images/zomg/s5l.jpg
http://images.bbgsite.com/games/images/zomg/s6l.jpg
pilih server alarmskeeter
gk mungkin repost http://static.kaskus.co.id/images/smilies/reposts.gif
tolong di rate ya http://static.kaskus.co.id/images/smilies/sumbangan/008.gifhttp://static.kaskus.co.id/images/smilies/sumbangan/008.gifhttp://static.kaskus.co.id/images/smilies/sumbangan/008.gifhttp://static.kaskus.co.id/images/smilies/sumbangan/008.gifhttp://static.kaskus.co.id/images/smilies/sumbangan/008.gif
gk nolak melon http://static.kaskus.co.id/images/smilies/melons.gif
</div>