Lost in the leveling event

I've been very quiet here because of the Prius Online leveling event. I'm on week 4 of the 4 week challenge and I can say that unless myself, my internet or my computer dies, I will complete the challenge to obtain a free mount.

The challenge was that for each week long period, we were to start a new toon, level it to 25 and get a job change.

Week 1: Huntress ---> Amazon
Week 2: Occultist ---> Mastermind (boy toon...booooo)
Week 3: Gunslinger ---> Duelist
Week 4: Minstrel ---> (4 more levels and I'll decide)

Next Wednesday, I'll have to make the final decision on which one of my toons receives the permanent mount.

I can honestly say that even though I've done the low level quests on 4 toons now...I still like the game. Unfortunately, when you hit 25, you're open for pvp...which in this game, is apparently limited to random ganking at this point in time. I do hope they change that and make some more entertaining pvp options. I'm sooooo not a fan of the random gank. I like my pve leveling and my pvp arenas.

The pvp seems to be the biggest drawback to the game so far. My second biggest problem with it is the gender-lock on character creation...and if that's a big issue, the game must be fairly decent, right?

Knowing me, once the challenge is over, I'll drift on over try try out some other games. But I do like this one. It's definitely worth trying out and it's still in beta, so I expect there to be a lot more content and good changes made.

Prius Online Leveling Incentive

I've been quiet lately because Prius Online has been keeping me occupied. Currently, there is a leveling incentive going on, in which you can obtain a permanent mount if you complete the objective...I'm tryin...

More later.

Eden Eternal Open Beta

It's back on...and my little cleric is just about to hit Level 16. No more freebies from the item shop. Oh well. At least I got a special title with buffs for reaching L30 in Closed Beta.

Next up: Prius Online by gPotato

I'm not a huge fan of most gPotato games, but I'm willing to give them a chance. They're bound to hit a home run eventually, right? So, now I'm trying out Prius Online.

Character Creation:
My initial impression is that this may be a server-based pvp system, since I chose the "Aurora" server and am noticing that at least one of the races available hails from "Aurora" and none seem to hail from "Requiem" (the other server name). Once again, classes are gender-locked. Boo.

Available character models:

• Hume Gunslinger (female)
• Los Mas Berserker (male)
• Hume Occultist (male)
• T. Ayin Shadow Templar (female)
• Ayin Legionnaire (male? Dude looks like a lady!)
• Beriah Minstrel (female)
• Lon Femina Huntress (female)

After you create your own toon, you choose the look of your "Anima"...which looks to be like a child companion. We shall see.

Pros:

• Fairly attractive character models to choose from.
• Cute Anima.
• Cute graphics.
• Character movement is smooth and reasonably realistic.

Cons:

• Gender-locked classes without a lot of customization.
• Can't see the back of your toon (or Anima) when you're creating. Not a huge deal, but I like to see what hairstyle I'll be staring at from behind in case I hate it. What!? I'm a chick!
• Opening cinematic is blurry and the text often rolls by so quickly, you don't have a chance to read it.
• Voice acting drowned out by music at times during cinematics...and there sure are a lot of cinematics, at least in the beginning.

Quick Notes: First Impressions of Last Chaos

I'm trying out Last Chaos by Aeria games today. I'm not sure how far I'll delve into this one. It's already annoying me for various reasons. I'm going to start keeping a running tab of pros and cons and post it up later.

Pros:

• A chick in a hot cowgirl outfit is standing near me. Gotta love fun outfits. It's probably an item shop thing though and I try my best to avoid spending money on my FREE GAMES. I do, however, get suckered in on occasion when something is just too awesome to resist and I have a little money I don't feel guilty about wasting on a game. Oh and the hot cowgirl is inviting me to her guild. She seems less stalkerish than the guy I ran into on the other server. Yay! (of course, the hot cowgirl is really a male rogue gender-locked as female, but I won't hold that against him.) hehe

Cons:

• Movement is hindered a lot by the edges of objects that don't look like they should cause a problem. Running near a rock can stop you dead in your tracks, so you have to stop, turn around or back up until you can unhook your toon before moving on. Yucky!
• As I mentioned in my earlier post, character creation is very limited in customization and gender-locked. Boo!
• Whispering is weird...well, to me anyway. You do it with "!" I stood around like a darned noob trying to figure out how to reply to someone who spoke to me. I need the big neon flashing NOOB sign  over my head...oh wait, there is one. I'm graced with "LastChaos Newbie" over my head. Nice.
• Mana goes too fast.
• First dungeon is L5-20, but not marked as a party quest. I attempted it alone, but got attacked by multiple monsters and had to keep kiting them around the room to kill them. Annoying.

After an hour of play, I'm not finding enough redeeming features of this game to want to continue. I do like the people I've met on the EU server, but they're not enough to make me want to keep playing.

Overall impression: FAIL

I'm sure there are some nice aspects of the game, but if it's not catching my interest after an hour, I move along.

Ahhhh, Summer!

I was reminded today of why being a gamer in the summer months is less appealing. *sigh* Yes, the kids are out of school and that ups the "annoying player" factor by a bit. Don't get me wrong. There are many, many great kids out there who are polite, awesome gamers. Unfortunately, the ones who are loud-mouthed and/or annoying stand out more.

I met a very nice young man today...14 years old. No, I didn't ask. He saw me, put himself on follow to me and started asking me a ton of personal questions...A/S/L. I told him it was all too much personal information to be discussing with a stranger and asked him if his mama had taught him that. He said yes, but kept following me around asking me questions.

It's really hard for me to concentrate on learning the interface of a new game when there's someone following me around asking me questions, so I started a new toon on another server just to quite the voices. Maybe I should have been stern and told him to leave me the **** alone, but I try not to be too horrible to people...especially kids and he just wasn't believing me when I told him I didn't want to talk about my personal life.

So...whatever...I'm starting fresh. We'll see if I can get the hang of this interface. I'm trying Last Chaos by Aeria Games, at the moment. I'm not sure I'm digging it. I'm having a really hard time finding quests and there doesn't seem to be an auto-run feature. Yeah, I'm spoiled by those. Character creation is severely limited and classes are gender-locked, so no female knight for you! I'm trying the mage (a female toon).

I'm gonna go make myself a cup of coffee and see if I can avoid stalkers for a little bit.

Eden Eternal Closed Beta is OVER!

Boo! I went to log in to Eden Eternal today, only to find out that Closed Beta is over. I don't play often on weekends, so I missed the announcement AND the last day. Now, I'm anxious for Open Beta's start. Hope it's a not terribly long wait.

I believe all characters will be wiped and we'll be starting fresh, with more content. I look forward to that. I will definitely continue playing when Open Beta starts.

I guess this came at a good time...I'd just joined a guild that I didn't feel particularly at home in and I was planning on quitting today. Now, I don't hafta. Heh!

While Eden Eternal is down between Betas, I plan on checking out Iris Online by gPotato.

Ooooh, Shiny! ...and "Eden Eternal" Closed Beta

Brand new blog...looking kinda bare. I guess I'd better get a post on it, so it's not so noobtastic.

So, my latest adventure is the closed beta of a new MMO called Eden Eternal published by Aeria Games. This is a free, "item-shop" based game. I lovez me some free games because I can try as many of them as I won't without the commitment of giving out my CC for subscriptions.

Character Creation: Meh...it's fairly limited...like many free games. Currently, the only race available is Human, however, there are four more potential choices, which I suppose will be implemented as beta wears on. You can be male or female and get a smattering of face types, hairstyles, hair colors, skin tones and eye colors to choose from, or you can get a random look.

Within the Character Creation screen is a preview for Class Outfits. Outfits in this game are set by class and level of class. If you start as a Magician, you get a magician outfit...the same as every other magician, but I'll go into that more later. The preview feature here, allows you to see what the outfit for your chosen class will look like at it's highest level, so it can be mildly entertaining to see what all the high level outfits look like. What?! I'm a chick. I like clothes!

Class Selection: On the Class Selection screen, you get two options of a starting class: Warrior or Magician. This sounds very limited, but it opens up a LOT later. I, personally, really dislike playing melee classes, so I chose the Magician. Next, choose a "Heroic Trait" to help define the strengths of your character.


Note: Something important to realize is that in this game...one character fits all. You can literally be ALL classes in one toon. My magician only started as a magician. As she leveled, she got more and more classes which opened up to her. Here is the complete list of available character classes:

• Warrior - Knight - Templar
• Thief - Martial Artist - Blade Dancer
• Hunter - Engineer - Ranger
• Cleric - Bard - Shaman
• Magician - Illusionist - Warlock

Notice how the classes are grouped in threes. The first class in each grouping is the primary class, the others are sub-classes in the menuing system, but are each entirely separate and able to be fully leveled.

The reason, I bring this up, is that choosing the right Heroic Trait for your intended "main" class is important. Take a moment to look over the classes and heroic traits and choose the trait which best defines your class and play style.

For my magician, I chose the Heroic Trait "Apostle" which grants INT +10 and M-ATK +5%.

Game Play and UI: Yay! It's not one of those games where you can't adjust your camera angle. I HATE those! Eden Eternal allows your full camera movement and the controls feel smooth and fluid. Bonus! ALL elements of the UI are moveable! Nice! Multiple actions bars are available and they can be locked if you have a bad habit of click-dragging spells off at inopportune moments. On the downside, the action bars are numbered 1 thru 0. I'm not a fan of this, as I have a Razer Naga Gaming Mouse that uses buttons 1 - 12. Two whole buttons I'm not utilizing. Boooo! What can I say? I'm spoiled.

Right-clicking an objective in your quest tracker auto-routes you to the objective whenever possible. This feature is awesome for those of us who like to get up and make a salad while we're running off to the next quest area. If you don't like auto-routing, you just don't hafta right-click. Opening your map with the "M" key and left-clicking where you'd like to go will also auto-run you to a destination. Yay!

Battling and questing are pretty standard, so I won't bother going into that. Early on in leveling, you're given a quest reward of a little pug pet which loots everything for you and doesn't aggro mobs when it runs up next to them. Yay! Looting made easy! At level 25, you're given a quest which allows you to train your pet to help you fight as well. Kinda nifty. You just have to keep its durability up by feeding it when it's hungry. Not as annoying as it sounds...and even if you don't feed it, it still loots for you.

I'll go more into the game in my next post, but overall first impression is really good. I'm enjoying myself playing this game! Alas, now, I must tend to real life for a bit. Later! :-)