Pathos Vignettes

Jerult’s brows furrowed.

“With yourself?”

“Yas. It’s harder than you think”

“Really?”

“Yas. Cuz it’s really hard to look with your eyes closed and, also, cuz your eyes were closed when you hid, you don’t really know where you are”

Jerult’s brows knit tighter.

“I can imagine”

“Would you like to play?”

Tentatively, Jerult closed his eyes and placed his meaty palms over them.

Mearaid took a step forward with her arms outstretched in front of her.

“Oh!, oh, I’ve found...

“No. No, that’s not me”

She pivoted 90 degrees to the right and walked forward.

Jerult, eyes closed, considered what he would like for supper that evening.

Squinting to see, she traced all the minute dings and scratches on the ring. That traced her life with Detlef since he had given it to her all those years ago. As she always did, she gently rubbed her thumb over the scratches, trying to smooth them away. But in truth? They were memories.

A knock on her door and she quickly pulled the ring from her right hand and moved it to its proper place on the left.

“Come in”

She watched in the mirror as Willem came to stand behind her.

"And where were you last night, young man?"

"Oh, Caitlin from the village needed some help in the hay barn and it got late so..."  He shrugged his shoulders and grinned. She tried to put on her disapproving face. She failed.

"They're ready for you mother"

"And Charlotta?"

"Forcibly separated from her books. You'd best hurry or she'll start without you"

Reaching behind her she squeezed his hand "I'll be along shortly"

As he left, she checked her appearance in the mirror one last time.

Don't grieve too long. Four little words. Detlef's words.

Words that were far too small to bear the weight they carried.

Taking a deep breath she moved the ring back to her right hand and kissed it. She let out the breath and left her room to begin another day.

“Believe what you will, Hyron. And I’ll do the same”

The fire popped and he brushed the ember from his breeches before it could take hold.

“Seriously though. What? You’re a paladin. You 'ave to believe in somefing. Somefing more than just joy, anyways” Hyron hadn’t mimed the air quotes but Daifon could hear them nevertheless.

He was right. You can’t just believe in a feeling. Daifon tried to gather his thoughts, all of them, no filter; he tried to order them but not judge them. Even thinking was a potential heresy to him now. When your mind is at war with itself, who wins?

“I believe that joy is transcendent. I believe that it is a redeeming thing. But, I believe that joy can only be experienced from a position of innocence”

“All true, ‘cept for that innocence malarkey. So what?”

Indeed. So what? It was a question Daifon had asked himself more than once. And yet?

“Purity”

It was a single word. It didn’t even have very many syllables. But it had a power. It had meaning.

“A child feels joy. Untainted by artifice or by motive. It is a simple thing, a holy thing, a clean thing”

“We all feel it, Daifon. Not just kids or dead-heads. We all get to be top of the world sometimes”

“No, we don't. Because what do we do once we’re there? We take pride, we exult, we greed; we want more. We pollute it”

“Course we do. We’re grown ups ain’t we? Got more on our mind than just 'appy thoughts. You’re just naive, Daifon”

“No Hyron. I’m not. And that’s the problem”

“Come again?”

“Staying pure is easy when you have nothing to taint with. Staying pure amid the thoughts, the plans, the conjecture and analysis? Setting all that aside and learning to just be? There, my friend... there is a land worth living in”

The war-forged, designation OX, waded through the swamp muck with mechanically ruthless efficiency and stood - a bulwark against the tide.

Dunk raised his weapons above his head and roared his ancestral challenge to any and all who would oppose them.

Ea, the tiefling, was dancing around her foe, twin axes mesmerising and confusing until they suddenly bit and tasted blood.

To her left, Mearad saw Stinbe look up from his reading in annoyance. Almost negligently, he gestured and twin streamers of transient paper flew across the battlefield. He turned his attention back to the page.

Behind her, Iella’s voice came to a coda and the gnoll leader suddenly froze. His raised arms halted in the middle of gesturing to his hunting party. A little smile crept across Mearad’s face as she quietly lit a bonfire underneath the paralysed gnoll leader.

It was hard to tell from this distance but she imagined she could taste the terror in his eyes. Yes, these were going to be good friends to have some new adventures with.

Meanwhile, from above the clouds, a wise face looked on. It was framed by silvery hair and it looked through eyes that were elven but, somehow, other. And it smiled.

His curiosity was further piqued when the three men who were chasing her stopped at the entrance to the alley. They fanned out as they moved towards the crate, knives drawn.

“So this is what passes for honour in the civilised lands is it?” he thought to himself as he stood from the bench and sauntered over.

Yrrewulf loomed. He didn’t mean to; he didn’t consciously change his stance; it just happened naturally. He loomed whenever he stood still. The effect was not lost on the men surrounding the girl. She looked up at him and grinned.

“Ah! There you are. Sorry I’m late. I started playing a game with my friends here and we sort of got carried away, didn’t we boys?”

She tucked her wand into the frayed rope around her waist and came to stand behind him. Her little hand snaked around his knee as she looked out at the nervous ruffians.

Yrrewulf threw the half-eaten bread into the alley “That really is quite bad. Even with honey”

“That’s because you bought the expensive bread. The cheap stuff is much nicer. It’s got real bits in it and everything. Come on! I’ll show you”

Yrrewulf let her reach up and take his hand as she led him back to the tavern.

“OK. But who are you?”

“My name is Mearaid and I think we’re going to be friends”

Hyron decided not to mention that he'd never seen her cast a spell that strong before. "What colour is it usually then?"

"I don't know. I only learned how to do it yesterday but it's not behaving itself!"

Hyron reflected that the spell seemed to have settled on the ideal caster for their shared natures.

This was the problem with some sorcerors; their magic could be unpredictable. Last tenday something had backfired and Mearaid had been unable to talk for some hours. Every time she opened her mouth, a stream of pink bubbles emerged. The crew had been worried but not her; she was delighted. In the end they'd all turned into their bedrolls to avoid having bubbles blown in their faces.

"Sometimes it's fire and sometimes it's icky green. But it's never been blue lightning before" she continued.

"And 'ow did you learn to do it?"

She shrugged "I was practicing my fire bolts and I hiccuped. Not a normal one. A head one"

He fought his way through what she was trying to tell him "You 'iccuped? But in your 'ead?"

She nodded "And the spell came out stronger. But green"

"I see"

"I was so surprised I nearly sneezed!" Her eyes turned inward, thoughtful "I wonder what would happen if I did a head-hiccup and a head-sneeze at the same time?"

Hyron's face paled.

Callis’ quill skittered out a few more words and then paused.

“And the Mayor says he might join us in fancy dress. He’s thinking about a pink rhinoceros costume”

“Mmmm, good”

The quill scratched out the recently written words.

“Ow! What was that for?” Callis rubbed her head where Daifon had none too gently tapped on it.

“Think of it as a portal back from the Feywild where you were obviously failing to catch the fairies”

“You’re right” Callis set down her quill and parchment with a frustrated sigh “I’m sorry. What were you saying?”

“I said, we’re going to get some food. Might give the fairies a chance to regroup?”

“Yes, food would be good. Food is what I need right now. Food”

Daifon watched her as she hunted around for her boots “Is this one ready yet?”

“No” One boot had been found in her pack “It’s still growing”

“Growing?”

“Yes. It hasn’t fully formed. Still changing. Hasn’t found what it wants to be yet. Ha!” The other boot had been hiding under the bed the whole time.

“Mother hen! They’re going to have to fly the coop sooner or later you know?”

“Of course they will. But not this one. Not yet” Callis knew she wouldn’t have hung her cloak behind the door like a normal person. But she checked anyway.

“Is that really how you think of them? Your stories. As, I don’t know, children? That you need to feed and nurture until they’re ready to stand on their own?”

“Sort of” She took the cloak that Daifon had managed to locate from places unknown

“But as they grow up, I do too. They leave me with something. Isn’t that odd?”

Daifon shrugged as he followed Callis down the corridor. He supposed it might be; if you understood what was going on in Callis’ head even half the time.

In her semi-awake state, Mearaid couldn’t understand why the demon from her dream was now pushing at her breast. Sleepily, she tried to push it away.

Wait, that wasn’t right. Demons weren’t furry. As she tried to rouse herself and focus, a pair of slitted amber eyes looked into hers. Also, demons don’t purr.

“Morning Mearaid” said Coffee as the bundle of halfling energy clattered down the stairs “Happy Winter’s Crest”

“Coffee, look. Look! Hyron, look. Somebody brought me a present!”

Hyron dutifully looked up from his tea as Coffee stood and went over to the breakfast bar. The pink nose was cute. As were the white whiskers framing the amber eyes in the black face. The three white socks were extra cute. There was just too much cuteness for Hyron this morning.

“Isn’t he adorable, Hyron? Coffee, come look”

Coffee set a saucer of milk on the table and the kitten wriggled out of Mearaid’s grasp to land sure-footed and began to lap.

“I wonder how old he is?”

“He is just over 8 weeks”

Coffee was rubbing the cat’s ruff as it ate but looked up at Hyron’s narrowed gaze and enquiring eyebrow.

“You can... can... tell... if you know dese fings” and he returned his attention to the kitten.

“I shall call him Sooty! And I must show him to everybody. He is sooo cute”

As Mearaid bundled the kitten off to meet his new friends, Hyron took another sip of his tea.

“So, where were you last night? Had to see a man about a... kitten?”

“No! Course not.

“Coffee has no idea how dat kitten got itself all der way from de other side of town, into da tavern and up da stairs to Mearaid’s room. No idea at all”

“Hmmm. And just in time for Winter’s Crest morning too. Isn’t the world wonderful sometimes?”

“Sometimes” agreed Coffee “But sometimes da world needs a little bit of help too”

The creature fell to the ground howling and he looked around. Hyron was hard-pressed and cornered by the other ogre. Shifting his grip on the sword he moved to his friend’s aid.

Hyron feinted to his right but the creature ignored it. The sweeping blow from the heavy scimitar was inexorable as it caught the elf in the ribs; winding him and flinging him across the chamber. His body crunched against the wall and slid down to lie prone.

Sounding his battle cry, Daifon leapt and brought his sword down on the ogre’s nape. Holding on with his shield arm, he rode the now lifeless sack of meat and bones to the ground. Catching his breath, he looked toward Hyron; there was no movement.

Sprinting towards the sprawled body, Daifon dropped his shield and sword as he skidded to his knees. Laying his hands on Hyron’s shoulders he closed his eyes and willed life and health into the inert form.

Nothing. No warmth. No light. Nothing answered his prayers.

He had failed. Again.

He let his head fall and his shoulders followed until his forehead rested on his friend’s chest. He wept with rage, frustrated at his own incompetence.

“I’m sorry, Hyron. I’m so sorry. I should have known it was a trap. I should never have asked you to investigate

“I should have... done... something...”

Hyron coughed weakly.

“You should ‘ave killed that bloody ogre quicker. That’s fer sure”

“You um... you do flirt quite a lot”

No answer. Jasmine was carefully scanning the forest and waiting for the real question.

“But you don’t ever do anything about it. I mean, I’m not being nosy and your business is your business and... well... why?”

A bird lifted from a tree to their right and they stilled - waiting. When there were no actual alarms they relaxed a little; still unseen in their lookout in the bushes.

“Consider the chatelaine keeping hearth and home. She sees a marauding band. She hopes that they will pass by; but no, they stop and camp. What should she do?

“Should she invite them in? No, that would be foolish

“Should she barricade her walls? No, that would invite attention

“What should she do?”

Callis wondered whether a question with only one appropriate answer qualified as rhetorical “I don’t know, Jasmine. What should she do?”

“Welcome them to a feast; but at the same time pilfer their supplies. Trade with them; but at the same time kill a scout or two. Draw them in with one hand while pushing them away with the other. Confuse them.”

They watched the empty campsite in the clearing for a few more moments.

“And is that how you see people? As bands of marauders?”

“Save your pity Callis. Save it for the fools who need it”

Callis was about to deny the pity but the fury on Jasmine’s face stopped her.

“Besides, a mouse of a girl like you would not understand”

Her cheeks flaming in embarrassment, Callis watched Jasmine creep off to another bush to continue her surveillance.

“Hello, I’m Callis!” and the half-elf woman stood up to shake his hand.

“I’m ‘yron. Please to meetcha”

“Iron” she repeated with a nod.

“No, ‘yron”

“Eiran?”

“I’ll say it slow... ‘yron”

“Ay... Ur... ron?”

“It’s ‘yron, ‘yron. ‘yron wiv an aitch! Gor, give me strength”

“Oh, of course, Hyron. I’m so sorry” and she blushed.

He caught the eye of the halfling girl across the table who was giggling at this exchange and decided she’d earned a wink.

As they sat down at the table, he watched as Callis pulled a slip of paper from her pocket. Her brow creased as she started to read.

Hyron knew what she was reading; he’d written it.

“Don’t look up, but I’m watching you. Whatever you do, don’t look up”

As Callis looked up and around the bar-room, Hyron decided that he might fit with this crew very well indeed.

"Warm?"

"Yas. Cos Willard did bakings early in der morning so when Coffee waked up he was toasty. Dat was nice. Specially in da winter"

"He was a baker then? Willard?"

"Yas. He made da bread and Marie selled it and when da mornings bakings was done, Willard would come and talk to Coffee. Sometimes he brung some bread but not always. Willard didn't have many monies. He teached Coffee lots of fings"

"Things like?"

"Always be nice, even if peoples is not nice to you. Always say please and fank you. Only worry about what is important. Coffee is still bad at dat"

"So, Willard was like a father to you?"

Coffee shrugged "He was a friend to Coffee. A good friend"

“I’m glad” and Callis smiled. It was nice to know there were good people in the world. People who would befriend a street orphan for no other reason than ‘just because’.

A flock of swifts sped by, playing chase the leader in the bright sunshine.

"And he passed away I think you said?"

Coffee nodded.

"How did he die?"

He shrugged again "Don' really unnerstan' dese fings. Marie tried to tell Coffee but she was crying lots an’ anyway, it didn' matter. Coffee already knowed"

Callis' brow creased "You already knew? How?”

"When Coffee waked up dat morning, da wall was cold.

“Willard never made no more bread"

Coffee looked at her. He looked away, at the sky and then down at his hands. He seemed preoccupied with cleaning the dirt from under his fingernails.

Callis reached an arm around the big man's waist and he leaned into her.

“Callis? You ready?”

When her heartbeat returned to normal, Callis looked sadly at the pages that were now strewn across the floor - some of them just a little tea-stained.

“Hyron, do you always have to sneak up on people and scare them out of their skin?”

“Sorry, Callis. Force of ‘abit” The shrug and the sly grin told Callis that he wasn’t the least bit sorry.

She knelt to collect and re-order the pages; looking around the room to try and find the sheet that was now missing.

As Hyron reached under the chair to retrieve it, his efforts were hampered by the fact that his eyes were fixed on something on the other side of the room.

“I’m not lookin’ OK? Not lookin’“

Callis smiled as she took the page that he was holding out to her.

“Will we ever get to ‘ear it?”

“Maybe. When it’s finished”

He looked at her “Uhuh. When it’s finished.

“Come on, you. The others are waitin’”

As Callis stowed the song in her portfolio and followed him out, her hand lingered on it. Another memory captured and safely preserved. Another precious moment to be honed and curated and sometimes, rarely, brought into the light to be lived again.

Callis had said ‘I love you’ many times before. She was Coffee’s friend. But there was something...new? Coffee wandered over to the water trough and sat on the edge to think.

“Coffee?”

Callis had stopped too and was looking at him. She came over and sat on the trough.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nuffink. Coffee’s feets hurts. Dat’s all”

“Coffee?!”

Looking up, he could see that the rest of the crew had continued walking.

“When... when you said ‘I love you’ what dids you feel?”

Sneaking a glance, Coffee could see that he’d embarrassed her. His hand reached towards hers to apologise but he stopped; and it returned to grasp his other hand between his knees.

“What... what did you wants Coffee to feel?”

“Oh, Coffee” and she looked at her own knees.

“I don’t know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry”

“‘s all right.

“When you know...” and this time his hand did find hers.

“When you know”

She nodded.

“Coffee is hungry. Is Callis hungry?”

“Yes, Coffee. Callis is very hungry!”

And they grinned at each other and set off in search of doughnuts.

“Here you go, sir. Right as rain she is now. Fixed a new girth strap and mended a couple of the buckles”

Coffee turned the saddle easily in his large hands. The man had done good work.

“‘s good. Please and fank you. Here is da money dat Coffee owes you”

“Thank you. It’s always a pleasure doing business with polite customers”

“Yas. Coffee’s long-time friend says to him ‘Coffee, you is a big boy and some peoples will be scared of you. But if you is nice and always says please and fank you den peoples won’t be scared’“

“He sounds like a very wise man”

“Yas. He is dead now”

A pause.

“He was very old”

A somewhat longer pause as they looked at each other while, at the same time, trying to avoid each other’s gaze.

“Er, sir. Do you mind if I give you a bit of advice?

“With all respect to your dear departed friend, you don’t actually have to say please and thank you every time. You can just say one of them and you’ll still be...” the ostler tailed off as he felt Coffee’s attention on him fully.

Coffee considered. The ostler certainly appeared to be genuine. And he seemed to be trying to help. Coffee decided to try believing him. But he would check with Callis later to make sure.

“Well, sir. Your saddle is all fixed but don’t hesitate to come back if you need anything else. Enjoy the rest of your day”

“Please” said Coffee.

It didn’t feel right in his mouth. The ‘and fank you’ so desperately wanted to be said.

He settled for giving the ostler a meaty thumbs up as he turned and left the stable.

“Milord, if it please you, we are here to be of service. We realise we are guests and have no wish to intrude. But if we can help make the town more peaceful and prosperous then we hope that we could become welcome guests”

As she glanced up at him through her lashes, she saw that the implications for the taxation coffers was not lost on him.

“And what would be your reward for these deeds I wonder?”

Jasmine turned her attention to the real power in the room; the Mayor’s wife. The sharp mind behind the blue eyes and well-manicured presentation was clear. Jasmine could respect that. She could work with that.

“Madame” and she bobbed a curtsy “Clearly, we have material needs like all people. We have found that those needs are best served by being of use to those in the strongest position”

The two ladies shared a nod of acknowledgment. Hierarchy established.

“But Uncle, surely our militia can handle any local difficulty? I don’t see why we should need to pay for outside help”

The dainty way the niece laid her hand on his forearm told Jasmine all she needed to know about that ‘Uncle’ honorific. And the question in the wife’s eyes showed that, while she had no fear of the niece, she was interested in how Jasmine would handle her.

“Milord, as those of us with maturity and wisdom know, sending your men on dangerous missions is not good for morale or loyalty” and she graced the niece with her sweetest smile.

“Hmph! I will think on it and confer with my advisers. You may go for now”

“So, what do you think Jasmine?” asked Callis as they left the Mayor’s house.

“He is a buffoon, her I can work with, but the little strumpet? She is trouble. All she wants is to get into his knickers”

“Ah, let me help you with your language” Callis ever the helpful soul “Men don’t wear knickers”

“Really? In my experience they do.

“If you ask nicely enough”

And with a lift of her eyebrow, Jasmine strolled away from Callis’ shocked expression.

Leveling up

The first thing you need to know is that the leveling curve is very steep. Getting to level 40 took a looooonnggg time. It doesn't seem to matter how much time you spend logged in, or what you do while you are logged in; you only ever seem to ding about once a year.

Having said that, because you don't ding often it's a much bigger event when you do, and fellow players commonly buy you in-game gifts that are presented to you at in-game gatherings called "parties". As you'd expect, these gifts are worthless fluff for the main part so that they don't break the game balance. 

Making the levelling take so long, is an interesting design decision. In WoW equivalent terms, it would mean that the highest level character would be coming up on level 6 by now. I guess the publishers believe that this game will be around a lot longer than WoW - only time will tell I guess. However, when they claim to have over 6.5 billion players on a single-shard server you do tend to have a hard time believing the marketing hype!

Core game-play

The game play itself has three main elements to it:

Gold grinding;

Resource recovery; and

The actual game itself.

In order to play the actual part of the game you have to spend about a third of your play time grinding gold - this sucks, and is way too high a proportion of the game in my opinion. You can choose a profession and learn skills to make it more efficient, and this can lead to "promotion" which increases your rank and allows you to earn more gold per hour. However, the fact that there are so many gold sinks in the game (some of them are even compulsory and are called "taxes") means that you can never get enough gold from the grinding to really enjoy the game properly.

Three little snippets about the grinding/professions part of the game:

Some people, instead of using the higher gold per hour to reduce the amount of time they grind, just keep grinding to amass huge amounts of gold for no real purpose - go figure;

Apparently, the banker profession became so over-powered recently that it destabilised the entire in-game economy - incoming nerf-bats are widely expected;

There are some RL players who participate in LARP (basically, pretending to be people that you would find in WoW) - how weird is that? I mean, why would you login to the RL game and then spend your time doing everyday normal things that you would do in WoW anyway? *shrugs*

The second part of the game is a kind of reverse version of rested XP. The more you play the game the more sluggish and error-prone your character becomes. To reset your character you are forced to rest for around 6-8 hours of game time. Again, this sucks. The only saving grace is that the designers seem to have acknowledged this and have used cut scenes quite effectively so that it doesn't feel that long. However, the fact remains, having to spend about a third of your play time in a comatose state because of poor game design needs fixing - quickly please.

Once you get past the gold-grind and the resource recovery aspects and into the game itself, it's very different from the normal WoW world we're used to. It's very much a sand-box type of game: there are no quests; no NPCs that I could find (although some players seemed to act as stupidly as NPCs do); and progression is defined pretty much according to the goals you set for your avatar. Sims players would probably like this game. The one thing that I found really bizarre was that, some players, having spent all that time in the grind and recovery phases then log out of the game to spend more time in WoW!

User interface

The user interface has it's good points and it's bad points. It's greatest strength is the very impressive use of VR. You play the game in an all over VR body suit - in-game chat refers to this as a "monkey suit" for some strange reason. The simulation of sensory reception from this technology is quite frankly jaw-dropping. I spent a lot more game-time than I had intended just exploring this new interface: feeling the different textures of in-game objects. Actually having foods that taste different was a revelation. And, being able to smell the world around you really added to the feeling of immersion (although some of the smells were less than pleasant - game designer humour I suppose).

Another plus point of the game is that, despite the bandwidth that must be necessary for this type of experience, I've had no lag even running the game on the highest graphic settings. Graphics by the way are fantastic - you could almost believe some of the rendering to be real objects. I've had the occasional disconnect which has been hard to diagnose but it seems to be correlated with excessive alcohol consumption. Not such a big issue - although the time taken to re-connect with the world seems to be quite random.

The VR design approach does have it's drawbacks though, especially considering that the designers have also decided to include collision detection with just about everything in the game. In particular, this really impacts the combat element of the game; collision detection and an ultra-sensitive user interface means that injuries really hurt. On top of this, the designers have chosen to include perma-death. I mean seriously? You really think that a game that only allows you to roll a single character, where it takes you a year to ding every level and includes perma-death is going to sell?

Creating your first (and only) character

Which brings me onto character creation itself. Firstly, there is no character creation screen - zip, nada, niet. There are two sexes and multiple races but you get no choice about any of this and no chance to change any of your physical appearance attributes. You just login and "bam" you've got a totally randomised avatar. This seems to be a "brave” design decision since you only ever get one character and there are no cash shop options to expand your slots.

There is no HUD in the game (the default view is first person and you can't change it without the illegal use of chemical add-ons), no user manual and no tutorials means that the game can be very confusing initially. Fortunately, more experienced players can volunteer to mentor noobs (in fact you can't currently create a character without at least one mentor). They are referred to in-game as "pa-rents". There are stories about players becoming mentors accidentally, which must be a serious bummer given the impact it has on your play time.

In game support

On related note to in-game help it can be very difficult to get support with the game. Nobody seems to know who the game publisher is, although there are numerous in-game theories. The best approach appears to be crouching on the floor, closing your avatar's eyes and sub-vocalising the help request. In my experience, this has been less than satisfactory. However, since I never received a response from a GM, I can't say whether they received my request and have acted on it or simply ignored it. Some players claim to have encountered GMs (referred to variously as "angels" or "prophets") although there is wide-spread cynicism among the player population, given that these encounters seem to be so rare.

Factions

There are hundreds of factions in RL, nominally based around capital cities of geographic regions - pretty much like normal WoW. However, language generally tends to be faction-specific rather than race specific. You are automatically allocated to a faction based on the random geographical area in which your avatar was created. You can pay to change faction (but not race) although, unless you also train to learn the language related to your new faction, participating in the game will be much harder.

One interesting aspect of the game is that faction leaders are actually players themselves. Periodically, there will be an "election" where all the players belonging to a faction will be asked to choose who they want to be faction leader. Once all the player choices have been registered and counted, the candidate with the most gold becomes faction leader.

Resource management

There is no magic in the game, but there is something called "technology" which is pretty much the same thing and mana is replaced with "electricity". This mana is not an attribute of your character and is available at various nodes in the game world and can also be carried in portable containers. Mana doesn't regenerate when idle unfortunately, which means that when your portable mana supply is low you have to find a node to replenish it which can be a bit of a pain.

A quick aside. According to the game lore, this "electricity" is supposed to be a controlled form of a shaman's lightning bolt. Really? Since when has a shaman ever had "control" of their lightning bolt?  LB *crit* LB *crit* CL *crit* *crit* *crit* <shammy dies> <muffled voice from the floor> "Noob tank, can't you hold aggro?". But hey, this is a fantasy game so I'll roll with the lore on this one - not everything has to be believable, right?

Eating and drinking

On a related note, in the game you can eat and drink while standing up! Yay! Strangely, though, players still tend to follow the WoW custom and sit down to eat and drink - go figure.

Eating and drinking doesn't seem to regenerate resources as it does in normal WoW - although this is hard to tell without a HUD - but if you go without eating and drinking for too long your avatar starts to complain and becomes weaker. Conversely, a certain amount of time after eating or drinking, your avatar again complains about having to void the food and drink it consumed and you have to stop to allow this process to happen (the process by the way is quite gross and I won't discuss it here). This is really annoying, especially if you are in the middle of one of the games thousands of achievements.

The strange thing is consuming food and drink takes time, doesn't seem to affect your resource levels and then has to be voided again - what's the point of this game mechanic?

Character afflictions

Diseases and poisons are much longer lasting in RL than they are in WoW but fortunately there are players who have specialised in treating these ailments. The only problem is that there appears to be a game-wide, major, mortal-strike debuff, because recovering from them seems to take forever. In another "brave" game decision, the designers seem to have decided that diseases will affect male characters far more harshly than female characters - one particularly virulent disease is called “man-flu”. I can't believe that this blatant sexism can be tolerated in today's society.

Diseases also seem to affect higher-level characters more harshly, although I can't comment from personal experience. According to in-game chat, there is no end game as such and no level cap. Assuming you survive accidental perma-death to reach the higher levels, you will gradually become more and more susceptible to disease until you perma-death anyway!

If true, this just seems preposterous. It's not as if the game designers will allow you to roll another character after death so I don't understand the commercial reasoning of the publisher. Why would you want to make endgame characters progressively weaker until you force them to cancel their subscription?

Social

A final note about the social side of the game. Clans or guilds are supported albeit informally - for example there are no guild channels. In fact there doesn't appear to be an option to leave any public channels which means that you are constantly bombarded with spam and it can be difficult to make out the meaningful content in the channel. Private channels can be created using "technology" although this does require you to know a personal code for the avatars you want to invite into the channel. Frustratingly these are not assigned at avatar creation and can be changed at any time in-game - so it does rely on the player actively maintaining their social contacts network.

In summary

In summary, there are some good points to this game, and some genuinely ground-breaking and innovative design choices. In the main, though, these design choices have introduced negative game play aspects that really should have been uncovered in open beta. I can only assume that the publisher decided that they were too expensive to change and released the game anyway. It wasn't ready for release and shouldn't have been released and there is no sign of any major patches on the horizon. 3/10 save your money for now.