Forsaken peek

Earlier this year I think Forsaken World (from Perfect World Entertainment) went into open beta. Back then I played through a few levels and then put the game aside again, not feeling particularly interested in continuing.

The game is still in open beta and since that first session I have re-visited it in a few more sessions and some more levels and characters, although still low level. The game setting seems to be mainly fantasy with a bit of steampunk-flavoured technology. The backstory involves a couple of gods who populated the world (named Eyrda) with a few races and generally nice things. But there were also the bullies, gods bent on destruction of Eyrda who were picking fights. The main bully and his followers had been defeated partially and driven back multiple times, but during that the other gods disappeared also. Traces and relics from these ancient powerful times can be found a bit here and there though.

The current setting has a powerful bully named Dysil leading something called Storm Legion with the intention of beating up and defeating the good guys. So that is where the player characters come in, to fight back and defend the goood side and find cool things that the old gods left behind.

I have some mixed feelings about this game. The game itself looks very nice, seems generally to be working well and has a bunch of features. But the character creation does now allow for much variation in the characters and there seem perhaps to be a bit too much guidance and easy play for me to really like it.

There are five races (Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Kindred and Stonemen) and eight classes (Warrior, Priest, Mage, Assassin, Bard, Protector, Marksman and Vampire), but you cannot mix and match the classes and races freely. Two of the races only have one class to choose from (Dwarf must be marksman, Stoneman must be protector) and two other classes are restricted to just one race (bard must be elf, vampire must be kindred). Combined with only a few customisation options many characters tend to look somewhat similar – at least if they play the same class.

Your friendly neighbourhood vampire

Each race have their own starting area, although at least humans and dwarves partially share there. This provides some starting setting, a few missions and some story elements for the reason the character is leaving to join the fight against the bullies.

By level 10 the starting area is completed typically and everyone travels to Freedom Harbor, which seems to be the main city/hub. This is a quite crowded place in some areas and there are a number of missions to introduce the player to additional features, such as jobs, pets, talents, mounts, prayers and other things.

My primary issues with the game are perhaps limited character customisation and that there is a bit too much guidance & easy-play – the game is helpful in telling you exactly what you can do at each level, where it may be appropriate to level, new features available etc. And doing missions does not leave much room for mistakes – in most cases to click on the objective and you auto-run there, click maybe a bit more and the compelte a mission, gain a level etc. Most mobs are clustered and waiting for slaugther in different areas – easy to dispose of and quick to respawn.

Perhaps this changes a bit in the various dungeons and higher level areas. I do like some of the classes and features, but so far it is not compelling to me to spend a lot of time in. Perhaps a quick visit every now and then works better.