Blah, got distracted by Pokeemanz. The game does that to me. >_> Anyvay, here are my retrospective musings on MapleStory, LaTale and Dungeon Fighter Online, the three MMOs I've played since about 2006 (in that order). I'll just list what I liked and didn't like about each one, to kind of gather my thoughts about them. They'd be all scattered around otherwise and probably escape from me.
MapleStoryLiked:
+ Huge world, great sense of exploration
+ No cooldown time between skill or item uses
+ Bright, colorful graphics and cute char/monster design (though obviously not always cute; see: Evil Eyes
)
+ Simple yet perfectly expressive facial emotes (the WTF emote = best emote EVAR)
+ Large enough population that you can find friendly people who'll talk to you, even if they don't know you
+ GIGANTIC selection of cash shop fashion items
Hated:
- Grinding
- More grinding
- Yet moar grinding
- Did I mention the unfairly steep leveling curve?
- Takes forever to get to third class, when you learn actual good skills...
- ...which means you end up spamming the same skill over and over for months because most of the first and second class skills are useless
- Skills can only target up to 6 monsters at once, which makes large mob control annoyingly difficult, if not impossible (though the new Aran class can hit up to 12, whoopity doo
)
- Char can only walk at one speed and can barely even jump...
- ...which makes it way too easy to suffer touch damage, which I also hate
- Too easy to permanently screw up your skill and/or stat build with no way to fix it other than cash shop items
- Almost no visual char customization whatsoever outside the cash shop
- Even if you DO get cash shop fashion items, they expire after three months, which is bullshite
- Jump quests are a nice idea done sadistically wrong (I bet they did it that way on purpose)
- Not enough quests, and existing quests give too little exp (though I heard there are more now)
- Only things to do besides do quests or grind are crafting (useless and way too expensive to do), scrolling items for resale (mind-bogglingly expensive hobby), or play one or two stupid little card game-type things (lame)
- The rest of the huge population besides the friendly bit is mostly n00bs and morons (MESORZ PL0X!!!!11one)
- Said n00bs and morons can loot your drops if you're not careful
- Massive hacking problems and no real effort by Nexon to stop them...
- ...which causes even bigger problems when the all the best maps are being hacked 24/7
- Speaking of which, there aren't enough good maps to go around, period
- No truly free market, requires a cash shop item to open a stall
So yeah, Maple. Not exactly my favorite game in the world. I'm also still slightly bitter at the fact that I was so bloody addicted to it for about half a year that I ended up spending like 130 bucks in the cash shop before the addiction finally wore off and I quit. St00pid addictiveness... >_>
LaTaleLiked:
+ Much better controls than Maple, can run and jump properly
+ Bigger, more detailed sprites than Maple, and just as colorful
+ Each class can use multiple weapons, each with different skills that actually feel different
+ Very few completely useless skills, and no useless attack skills
+ Combo system encourages you to use all your skills, though you can't just spam one anyway, due to cooldown times
+ Possible to completely reset skills using only a reasonable amount of in-game money, which encourages experimentation
+ Tons of quests even at mid levels, with very good rewards
+ Some fashion items available for in-game money
+ Cash shop fashion items don't expire
+ Decent crafting system
+ Weapon and armor upgrade system
+ Never noticed any hacking to speak of
+ Item drops are invisible to other players, so no looting
+ Can open a short-term free market stall with just a very cheap in-game item
Hated:
- Leveling curve eventually turns to a grind, just not as fast as Maple
- Good quests peter out eventually, too
- Item cooldown times make it easier to get killed (the skill cooldown times are tolerable, at least)
- Stat point gains per level are random with no way to reset, so you can theoretically get screwed by the system
- Not a very large world, don't get that same sense of exploration
- The best maps are overcrowded here, too
- Same annoying touch damage as in Maple
- Nothing to do at higher levels besides grinding and crafting, which requires grinding to get the items to do it
- Not anywhere near as many cash shop fashion items as Maple
- Very slight lag can cause you not to be able to run-jump and grab ropes (which makes it impossible to do the Mario Bros.-style jump quests)
- Fairly small population, usually not all that sociable
- Awkward controls for picking up drops (requires multiple button presses and can get you injured or killed if you're not careful)
LaTale was a better game overall than Maple, I thought, but the fact that the world is small really limited its long-term appeal for me once it turned into a grind. I didn't play it for quite as long as a result.
Dungeon Fighter OnlineLiked:
+ Excellent control system, feels just like an old-skool beat-em-up like Streets of Rage or Final Fight; even more fun if you play with a control pad, like I did
+ Each char type can choose from a few different classes, with a lot of skills per class
+ Great variety of skill types, which make each char type and class really feel different to play
+ Huge, detailed sprites with great, flashy attack animations
+ Good, more mature-style monster design
+ Great character portrait art, too, even for NPCs
+ English voice work is actually pretty good
+ Very fair leveling grade, could even be called easy
+ Craptons of quests, so very little grinding at all
+ Actually learn good skills fairly early on
+ No touch damage - monsters have to hit you with their attack animations to hurt you, meaning you can dodge or counter if you're skilled
+ Instance dungeon-style implementation completely removes the issue of hackers and looters ruining your game
+ Daily token system works like coins in an arcade game, so no penalty for dying (dying is actually a nice way to reset your HP and MP, if you can spare the token; I did that many times XD )
+ Cash shop fashion items give you stat bonuses, too
Hated:
- Instance dungeons mean no fully connected world, so no exploration sense at all
- No in-game visual char customization whatsoever, just like Maple, though unlike Maple, you can buy cash shop fashion items from other players in the free market with in-game money (at inflated prices)
- Can't buy HP or MP potions from NPCs; you can only get them from drops, quests, or the free market (this fact drove me BONKERS later on)
- Need a cash shop item to open a free market stall, like Maple
- Very small variety of cash shop fashion items...
- ...which are assigned to you AT RANDOM. You buy a token for a certain type of item (e.g. hair, pants, etc.), but the item you and its stat boost are totally random. BOOLSHEET.
- Some bosses and even many later regular enemies are aggravatingly hard, which is compounded by your inability to buy more potions
- Items cooldown times here, too
- Small population which almost never talks. Ever. You can play for months without seeing a single public conversation occurring; I think I did
- Literally nothing to do but beat stuff up
I enjoyed DFO and its active control scheme a lot for a while, and actually almost got up to the initial lvl 40 level cap, but a few of the bosses at that point were hard to the point of unfair. They'd kill me three times and use up all my tokens for the day in like five seconds if I wasn't careful, so between that and the fact that I was running out of potions AND in-game money, I got sick of it.
</rant>
Summary of the above rant goes in the next post, just for the hell of it.
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