Rise and Shiny recap: Earth Eternal
Each week Rise and Shiny asks you to download and try a different free-to-play game, chosen by me, Beau Hindman. Some of the games will be far out of your gaming comfort zone, and some will pleasantly surprise you. We will meet each Tuesday and Friday night at 8 PM Central time, with a recap column on Saturday. I welcome any suggestions for games, either in the comments or at beau at massively dot com.
I have been a fan of Earth Eternal since participating in the very unplayable closed beta, but never really got far beyond the first few levels. Lately, though, I have fallen in love with the toy-like nature of the game; it's bright, shiny and plastic. It can run on a netbook (I know, I ran it on mine) and looks pretty good considering the low hardware requirements needed to run it. While I have to admit being initially turned off by the "furry" nature of the game, I later found the community to be almost completely helpful and friendly. I'm glad I decided to take a deeper look at the game over the last week.
At first glance, any modern gamer might laugh at the simple graphics of the world. Then, some frustration might set in as graphical lag and rubberbanding makes it seem as though her supercomputer is, at times, inadequate. Fortunately, the developers have taken a lot of time in tweaking the client, and have recently included a fully downloadable version to help with load times. During earlier beta, loading literally prevented you from playing. I remember logging in and leaving for a day of work, only to come back to see that I hadn't made it to the character creation screen yet! Nine times out of ten I would give up and never see any game time. But, after frustration forced me out for a while, I was happy to return and find that I could actually make a character, and then found myself going through the basics of combat.
The real spell had not been cast until recent months, as the official website became more slick and polished than most free-to-play games. The cash shop started to include neat appearance-slot options, and the developer team began to communicate with their players more than most mega-MMO developers do. The team seem a little more in-touch with the new-fangled tools of today's plugged-in youth, posting to Twitter and Facebook often, and even filming a couple informational (if not D.I.Y.) videos. They even have a live, constantly updating stream of activity on their official page that states things like "So-and-so has completed such-and-such quest!" To be blunt, it's nice to see a company that actually communicates with their audience so frequently.
Once you get through the website and used to the cartoony, furry-style characters, the gameplay starts to grab a hold of you. I love how easy the game is to understand. Underneath the seemingly basic exterior, though, lies a game that allows the player to make a lot of choices. Do you want to be a warrior who heals? Go for it. How about a healer who uses archery? Feel free. As you level you earn basic ability points that can be put into any one of the basic abilities from other skills trees. At level seven I controlled a warrior who also had the ability to heal and to resurrect his teammates. You can keep adding points into the same abilities, making them more powerful or accurate, or you can play the jack-of-all-trades and try out a bit of everything.
There are limits, however. The most elite of skills are reserved for those who specifically chose that class, but there are still enough skills to become a unique and powerful character. Don't worry if you start to run out of skill points, because you can always spend a few dollars in the cash shop and gain more.
Speaking of the cash shop, it's stocked with your standard backpacks and experience potions, but also with higher-priced items like full sets of appearance armor and name changes. I like the fact that the developers decided to offer so many different items for a range of prices. I actually love being "nickel and dimed to death," since I like to put down one larger chunk of money to be chopped up and spent over several weeks.
Nothing is perfect, however. Earth Eternal has two main issues that certainly annoyed me and my friends.
The first real issue is the fact that new players always start out in a completely unique part of the world. If you want to join your friends, you must go not only through a standard tutorial island but also through a second newbie area before joining the "real world." We had plenty of confusion about these starting areas, and eventually had to start brand-new characters just so we could play together. I understand the need to segregate new players sometimes, but to cut them off entirely from the rest of the playerbase and to force them to go through two lower level areas before they could join their friends is almost too much. Let me skip the tutorial and get to the action, even if it means that the mobs might outlevel me a bit.
The other huge issue is the amount of rubberbanding and combat lag that was common during most of our sessions. Granted, the issues were much improved since the closed beta, but at times it was still frustrating enough to make my wife want to give up melee combat. The mobs seemed to know when Branclem, a constant reader and fellow game-explorer, would fail on spell castings, appearing suddenly at his side. When the combat does work, (which is most of the time) it is fun. There are some nice spell effects, too, but the common lag spikes were enough to make me remind myself: "It's still in beta...it's still in beta."
Once you settle into a good group and do some leveling, you will find a surprisingly deep game that can be played for absolutely free. The low system specs make it a good candidate to introduce to significant others or family members who are new to MMOs, and the more in-depth game mechanics give veteran gamers something to chew on.
As usual, the question of the week is: will it stay on my hard drive? Yes, yes it will. For a long time, I will bet. While there are some glaring issues with the game, the developers seem on top of things and progress has already been satisfying. I imagine the game in a year or two, and see myself still playing it.
Over the next week we are going to be looking at Eternal Lands, an indie fantasy MMO, with a bit of a Diablo feel to it. My in-game name is Beau, so add me. We will be gaming together on Tuesday and Friday nights, at 8 PM Central Time, USA.
Now, go log in!
