Last Wednesday
I've been wanting to play this game without having to shell out the fifty-dollars-plus-tax for something I might not end up liking. Thankfully, Trion has started handing out free trails and I just could not resist. There have been multiple positive reviews from credible gaming sources and I heard through the grapevines that this MMO was reminiscent of old EverQuest.
However...
Nice rendering. /sarcasm
tl;dr THIS ISN'T EVERQUEST /RAEGQUIT
To give Trion some credit, I was in love with the character customization. No other MMO I've ever played has allowed me to change my toon's height, facial structure, hair highlights, eye tilt, blahblahblah. Sadly, they only have about twelve different hairstyles, markings (depending on which race you pick), and makeup (I'm assuming this is just for the girls). Nitpicking set aside, I really felt as though I was given a chance to create my character and the chances of me running into a clone of myself in Telara would be slim to none.
BUUUUUUUUT! Why are all the races humanlike? The game has two races of humans, high elves, dark elves, dwarves, and these weird tribal-barbarian people. They all look like variations of the same damn model.
One other feature I liked was the soul vitality. Every time you were killed, your soul lost vitality by about 5 to 10 percent. This forced you to find a healer in a nearby town and have your soul restore for a whopping 99 silver before you lose all vitality (I did not play enough to see what actually happens when you drop to 0%). This kind of sends up a little red flag to the player saying, "BITCH, DON'T GET KILLED!" MMOs NEED to give their players consequences for their actions. Take EverQuest for example: When you die, you come back to life completely bare. You have to travel all the way to where you were killed and loot your own corpse. Still think that's a bit easy? Guess what, bud? You have a time limit. If you don't loot your corpse within a few hours, your corpse vanishes along with all of your precious gear. Not scared? Let's say you forgot to bind your soul in a nearby city? Oh. You're bond in Qeynos and you died in Fironia Vie? Enjoy your corpse run. wtb port to FV
The Soul Trees were a pretty nice change from how I'm usually used to spec'ing but could get quite confusing. Basically, you are allowed to choose from one of four classes (Warrior, Mage, Rogue, and Cleric). Each class has about six-eight subclasses. I decided to roll as Rogue and set my soul trees as Bladedancer with Assassin and Riftstalker as my secondaries. I also made a Cleric and had a Sentinel soul tree with Warden and Purifier. While I did enjoy playing the Rogue more than the Cleric, the Cleric was much easier to level on as soloing didn't seem to be a challenge for someone spec'd as a healer. Go figure.
I guess what really lost me was the lore. I don't like the fact that I'm some engineered/resurrected hero (I'm not being cute. EVERY time you pass by a NPC in the staring zone, they cheer and sing praises of your greatness) who gets sent back in time to stop some baddie from fucking shit up (Which is why the world is now in ruins). I mean, why can't we fight him now? You're engineering/resurrecting people! You could easily make an army of super, powerful newbs and challenge that dude. Argh. Not cool for us who love to RP while being true to the world's lore. /facepalm And two opposing faction, Trion? Like that has never been done in a fantasy-based MMO before. /looks at WoW and Warhammer Online
Speaking of RP, this game is sooo PVP-heavy, I don't even. For someone who is not too familiar with PVP, I felt pretty left out. About 65% of the servers are PVP servers. Everything else is a PVE or a mix. I just submitted myself to a PVE-RP server and hoped it would evolved into something with decent RP. Sadly, I don't think I'm going to be continuing my journeys in the world of Telara and I will never know.
And no, this is NOTHING like EverQuest. EQ doesn't hold your hand like this game does and I don't like having my handheld throughout a good majority of my gaming experience. Starting zones are okay, but afterwards, let me breathe. Please? Yes, I was greatly sadden by this misconception and want to nerdraeg at every person who compares this game to EverQuest. I suppose I'll just wait for EQ: Next to come out. If it ever does come out. I'm looking at you, Sony.
In conclusion, I will not be subscribing to this game. One, I don't have the time to submit myself to two different MMOs. Two, this game was a big disappointed after being pumped to play it. Three, this guy...
Click to viewNo, Trion. No.