Monato Esprit
I tried playing Monato Esprit. Firstly, it looks beautiful. It's a new game, and is going to look better than something four years old. There are a few new games that look great, partially because they're giving up on the market segment with older hardware. I don't think Isabel's computer could run this one at any kind of speed.
It has a decent tutorial section. You start out on their equivalent of Noob Island and they send you on a lot of quests. If Alice sends you to find Bill, you need to talk to Bill once to finish the "Find Bill" quest, a second time when he asks you if you're ready for the next quest, and a third time when he actually gives you the quest. Just a minor issue, though.
There's a decent range of appearance customization when you start. You choose a horoscope sign and season, as well. I mention this only because it gives you various bonuses. I do not like it when a game has you make what might be major decisions then makes you wait an hour before telling you what the consequences of that may be.
The game has a non-navigable mini-map and a manually controlled camera. The graphics settings are not adjustable.
I died while exiting a dungeon. When I got out, I didn't see any NPCs. I logged off. When I logged back on, I was in a new city. My spawn point was in a woodpile. I couldn't move. I don't think there were any GMs on. I'm not sure there was anybody on, actually.
Reading about it online, I found that the game's currency is MetaTIX, which can only be bought with real cash money. It costs money to go into some (most?) dungeons. The game hints that you can just trade things to other players, to avoid paying. The player base doesn't seem big enough to realistically support this. The literature mentions these being accepted in many different games, but Monato Esprit is the only one they actually name.
The game's classes include Harlequin, Hwarang, and Sheriff. It sounds like the design concept was "Let's take the awesomest stuff we can find and toss it all in". The Templar and Hwarang seem similarly tankish and I'm not sure what the difference between the Sheriff and Mage are, much less what the Harlequin actually does in game terms. Again, stuck in a woodpile.
It has a decent tutorial section. You start out on their equivalent of Noob Island and they send you on a lot of quests. If Alice sends you to find Bill, you need to talk to Bill once to finish the "Find Bill" quest, a second time when he asks you if you're ready for the next quest, and a third time when he actually gives you the quest. Just a minor issue, though.
There's a decent range of appearance customization when you start. You choose a horoscope sign and season, as well. I mention this only because it gives you various bonuses. I do not like it when a game has you make what might be major decisions then makes you wait an hour before telling you what the consequences of that may be.
The game has a non-navigable mini-map and a manually controlled camera. The graphics settings are not adjustable.
I died while exiting a dungeon. When I got out, I didn't see any NPCs. I logged off. When I logged back on, I was in a new city. My spawn point was in a woodpile. I couldn't move. I don't think there were any GMs on. I'm not sure there was anybody on, actually.
Reading about it online, I found that the game's currency is MetaTIX, which can only be bought with real cash money. It costs money to go into some (most?) dungeons. The game hints that you can just trade things to other players, to avoid paying. The player base doesn't seem big enough to realistically support this. The literature mentions these being accepted in many different games, but Monato Esprit is the only one they actually name.
The game's classes include Harlequin, Hwarang, and Sheriff. It sounds like the design concept was "Let's take the awesomest stuff we can find and toss it all in". The Templar and Hwarang seem similarly tankish and I'm not sure what the difference between the Sheriff and Mage are, much less what the Harlequin actually does in game terms. Again, stuck in a woodpile.