As I might have said quite a few times[1][2][3], I love exploring and creating new worlds. Games are some of the best tools for this hobby, since the creators spend a lot of time designing their worlds with explorability as one of the main focuses. I just discovered a game that reminded me a lot of DragonFable. Its name is AdventureQuest Worlds (published in 2008). My brother says that both games were made by the same creators called Artix Entertainment. They have also made other games, the third most notable being MechQuest.
Well, without further ado, let's get into it!
I like the name Yorumi, so I'll be playing there. It sounds like the African language called Yoruba. I have a Steem friend who speaks it. I may try to learn it sometime.
The game starts with a cinematic. I love cinematics and this one seems very high quality :) I do hate, however, the fact that the introduced characters don't seem to support a cause, such as recovering some holy territory or defending their right to do something, but just "HURR EVIL DURR EVIL". Plain and unapproachable.
Dragons and skeletons are destroying the world and my character appears too! She doesn't do much, but we're just starting. :) The ambience is very immersive, the design is amazing, props to the painters and UX developers.
Aaaand, uugghhh, I have a faction. I like to decide these things by myself. U_U The world is too big and there are too many possibilities to have our opinions already be set in stone by a creator looking to entice me toward immersion.
The design is 2D, there's a Runescape-style chat, I have some basic skills (2 available out of 6) and... I am a hero! My character is literally an assassin, dressed in black, mouth covered, armed to the teeth and trained to destroy, and I am a hero.
Overall, I'm laughing at everything, not an exaggeration. Whenever I look at the background or the details of the movements of anything, they are all ridiculously amplified. Look at this scene, for example.
They wanted to build the setting and left this 3-second bit on repeat. Too cute.
And this is the attack animation.
The character runs toward the mark and the mark trips and dies. Stealthy! But this is actually a bug. The normal animation is slashing down with the swords or stabbing with both ot them at the same time. The character still jumps up. Only one death animation.
There is also a remote auto-select mode where you click the attack you want to make at the bottom of the screen and the game decides whom you want to attack.
It's pretty neat but the automation destroys any hope of immersion. Seriously, I'm not even sure I want to keep playing it. But let's do a little bit more, see if I can find something that makes it worth it. :)
My first quest!
That Bone Berserker looks much stronger than the other ones. I love his axe with shiny red imprints. He has a nice white beard, horns, a very thick armor. Wait, he's a skeleton with a beard? I suppose they wanted to make him more like a Nordic barbarian than a boney weakling.
Unfortunately, he was just as weak as the other one. One hit, he's down and I have a sword called Venom Head, very fitting, and a hammer called Bonehead Bludgeon.
The sword has the same stats as my dagger, but the hammer seems exciting!
It's an "Awesome Rarity" that apparently makes the latest victim a certain kind of pet that helps you in battle. It also looks very awesome! It's like a bone wand made of finger bones and a skull-like thing. I wonder what that is supposed to be, but it looks a bit like the skull of a giant insect.
The badge to the right is also pretty neat. Ever since I started drawing, I wanted to create badges and/or decorations like that. I even learned how to make gold and emerald textures for the precious metals and stones.
I click equip aaaand....
NOPE. You have to pay to have awesome stuff. Since you're poor, have a mediocre day, Ms Sharon, on you go *pat on the shoulder*.
I think that the badge means "premium content". That's why it was so neat. 😢
I found a nifty shop that will buy the hammer.
250 gold. I imagine that gold is pretty devalued in this world if one first-quest hammer will give me a whole bag of gold coins. I actually checked and have like 20,000 coins as a default. I'm a rich merchant! In a country where gold is as common as lollipops. Wait, do they have lollipops? I think that if I sold lollipops I could make a fortune, since there are less of them than gold coins.
You know what's also devalued?
Praises!
This sword is gifted to the most promising heroes who train in Oaklore Keep.
most promising heroes
I imagine that there are tens of thousands of players in this game, or were at some point in time, and they all walked by this same shop where the only tool that is sold, and a tool that is cheaper to buy than the sale of any basic item that you have (be it the ones you started with or the ones you get from quests) is not some average tool but the gift that is given to the "most promising heroes".
Well, this is the end of this journey. The characters can be pretty cool:
But this world doesn't seem very deep. Mind you that this is my first impression. There's probably a lot more to it, some great sceneries, some humour. I would expect some angels and demons to be hiding around the set waiting to pull a prank on the noobsters. And perhaps there's even a couple philosophical questions along the line, though I doubt it.
Well, this was it. The hike ended up being much shorter than I expected when I started this post.
Leave a vote and a comment below with your thoughts! :) I'm eager to read your opinion on today's journey.
You can also come and chat with me on Discord if you want.
