A little something about myself before I start: I played RO very late in its lifespan and never got to truly experience what made it so popular in the first place other than through the OST. This game, being a spiritual “sequel” to RO, I’m glad I was able to participate in the closed beta last year.
In the beta, I rolled a Wizard and Cleric, with the Wizard as my main. I got her to Rank 6 before stopping after toying with the Necromancer. I just couldn’t understand why the PvE in this game felt such a huge chore and little interest keeping me in the area I’m stuck in questline-wise. Now, it has dawned on me: 99% of the NPCs are boring, non-quirky, and repetitive in any of their meaningful dialogue. The theme of this game(in the towns at least)passes the player a sense of despair and slow burning hope but that should not mean we see the occasional pixie dream girl personality or “muscle head” man. But no, too much generic.
Sadly, after closed beta ended, I suffered a HDD crash and lost supplementary evidence of NPCs potentially interesting in the form of screenshots. However, these “interesting” NPCs lack any interesting dialogue and those bland in design but have said some intriguing lines that actually grabbed my attention and wanted me to know more about him/her. Ultimately, the only thing I look forward to in NPCs are those with character art tied to them, then it at least tells me they are a major plot character in the questline. I find that depressing in context as I admire good art but selfishly prioritize good writing, plus the fact that so few people appreciate good dialogue or writing in general.
As a writer and writing critic, my greatest value are how characters are handled. While I see the occasional typos, with the most common one being gender-affiliated nouns(female characters are often labeled “He” or “Him”), I applaud IMC for the English translation work - it’s pretty good punctuation-wise! I just want better NPCs. It’s vague, but the last time I actually felt for a character for once was in one of the Pilgrimage quests where the NPCs were obliviously suffering a curse relating to the Seven Deadly Sins and ended up transforming.
I, again, vaguely recall IMC asking if the community would want VA, but while I’m ok with the thought of such - I have played Blade and Soul and even the interesting VA work(if not cheesy)could not save the PvE in that game being so boring but nonetheless, it was something I appreciated.
This game is not the one I brought up though. I can’t help but feel this game is pretty story-based more than monster grinding and farming. While I acknowledge the story in this game, you know you messed up when so few of the NPCs grab you; even the important ones that you forget whatever the plot in this game is.
I know, I know. The world in ToS is so massive and quests in so many areas, you cannot make every NPC appear interesting, but at least give them a story that matches their personality, or give them more personality in fact. Just make me care or even hate the NPCs I’m forced to work with. I would like to see a English localization revisit with this in regard in the future.
