Alright, so I see there are tons of threads like this already, and that’s why I couldn’t select ONE to publish my feedback. Sorry =/. This is just my opinion, based on my feelings when playing this game and other mmorpgs. You may feel and/or think differently, so feel free to say I’m wrong and explain why. But please don’t expect me to always agree.
First, I must say I feel cheated by ToS and by everyone talking about it. People were announcing this as a successor to RO1, as “the game RO2 should have been”, and this is the only reason I wanted to play this game so much. So please, don’t feel mad on me for trying so hard to compare this to RO1, instead of considering this a completely separate game (that I see now it unfortunately is, but that’s not what I expected). And no, I didn’t expect this to have porings, or follow the same story… just the same (but improved) mechanics and style, or whatever I should call it.
I tried many other MMORPGs after (and along with) RO1, but not even a single one kept my attention for over 2 weeks. In my opinion, there are a few thing that make RO1 special (to me, at least):
- Its open world. I don’t need to follow a single story line to reach the end of the game. There are many cities I can start from, and there are many places I can choose to go from there. Actually, what “end of the game”? I never felt like there was an end in RO1, while in ToS the game is all about getting to the end of it, to the very last [main] quest. In RO1, I can’t just follow a sequence of quests that will give me all I need to complete the game: all the equipments, all the money, and all the exp. I usually needed to go separate routes to get the equipments I wanted, in VERY different maps. Sometimes, the best gear was dropped by the weakest of the monsters; other times, by the strongest MVPs. In ToS, I just kill the monsters the quests ask me to, and that’s enough to get the equipments for my level. Plus all the silver I need, all the gems, and so on. I don’t need to move to a completely different area to find what I need. It’s all so linear… and there’s absolutely no happiness in finding that nice piece of equipment, as you are EXPECTED to find it in your journey (or at least I guess so, since I’ve been finding everything I need until now)…
- In RO1, each city seems to have a “personality”. They are all so different from each other… Prontera, Payon, Morroc, Geffen, …, all memorable. And each new episode would release one or more new unique cities with new dungeons and fields, new monsters I would care enough to memorize their names; places I was always actually interested in getting to know better, because the feeling was different from the previous places. Klaipeda just feels like a place I go to get my equipments repaired and to sell my stuff. Other than that, it’s a city full of NPCs I use to advance ranks. Well, it doesn’t even feel good to have to step back into that city, I just do that because I need to.
- I left this to the end, because I think it’s the most important: RO1 makes you feel relevant to its story. Remember these episodes and events when they used to call all players in Rune-Midgard to help save the city or whatever? Every single character was in the same moment in time. It doesn’t matter if you are lv1 or lv99. You are important, you make part of the story. The players build it together. In ToS, everyone follows the same story, but everyone is in a different time in it. The world must be saved thousands of times by thousands of characters. They all finish it, but none of them actually saves the world. It is the same world before and after they save it. Story-based, there is no relevance to what the players do. And if you start a new character, go follow the exact same steps to save the world again! How motivating… So, I know in RO1 the story also wasn’t affected by the players’ actions, but yet it felt like you were part of the exact same story as all other players, not a completely separate one (separated by time).
So, I don’t feel like ToS is an MMORPG, because of this quest system. I know it is, but I don’t feel like it. It’s about feelings, not reasoning, so don’t try to convince me. It just feels like a (single player) RPG, or at the very most, a co-op RPG, if you join a party with friends to complete it. The only thing that makes it MMO is the fact it’s an MMO =P. I mean, definitions. Nothing else.
This is the kind of mmorpg I can’t enjoy. It’s the mmorpg that sitting in a city chatting with other players seems like a waste of time. I should just move to the next quest and try to complete the game ASAP. I wasn’t expecting a new Diablo, I was expecting a new RO, so I was very disappointed.