Been playing this game for a bit (got my own CBT account yesterday instead of sharing) and absolutely love it. The gameplay is EXACTLY like Mir (without flinch and walk-before-run) with new graphics and systems. I don't know what these other couple posters are talking about saying the gameplay isn't smooth... Maybe your rig? This game runs Unreal Engine 3 which is a very widely used engine, although haven't seen an isometric game on it before, but it runs very smooth and plays superbly (well... just like Mir all faults and charms intact :P).
It seems that the fast and fixed mob respawn rate is only in early-game areas, probably to deal with player congestion early on. Don't let the "feel" of this turn you off as it nearly did me, it's not like this in the higher areas. Plus you can still lure even these mobs wherever you want, they don't reset, you know... Mir.
Some incredibly interesting sounding stuff in-game that I haven't quite figured out yet, such as guilds taking over caves, crazy **** you can do with items, all sorts of other new interesting stuff.
The game does however have a real money based economy, I'll try and explain how it works as this was my main concern at first:
- There's 2 currencies: CP and gold.
- Gold drops in-game as usual and is tradable, used for all NPC costs and stuff (and someone mentioned you can setup an afk stall and sell items for gold? Correct me if I'm wrong will test it soon)..
- CP you buy with cash (can buy 1k for 62p, 10k for £6.20, 100k £62 etc), is also tradable, and items listed on the trust merchant / auction house / marketplace are priced in CP. The only way "fresh" CP enters the game is from people paying. CP is also used for anything on the cash shop (which has nothing along the line of XP buffs). This means hardcores have full access to the cash shop for free.
The important items on the cash shop are:
- 250k gold for 1600CP
- Spirit Orb for 1200CP: When you equip this, your character receives 40% less XP. This XP gets absorbed by the Orb instead (a mob yielding 100XP: 60XP for char, 40XP stored in Orb). You can consume the Orb to drink all the XP inside. These Orbs are tradable. So yeah players are going to be selling/buying actual XP from eachother... I don't know how much XP each one can hold, and you can "use" (whether that means equip or consume, **** knows) them at lv.30. Will test soon.
- Charms for 100 CP each: Give a charm to the NPC to generate 4 maturity over 4 hours. Consume maturity to gain XP. Basically some passive XP gain. At lv.25 you need 500k XP to lvl. 24 maturity gave me 196k XP at 25. At lv.28 you need 1.4mill XP to lvl, 24 maturity gave me 223k XP so it scales a little bit. Basically 600CP daily / 18kCP monthly for some passive XP.
Also gold drops are quite trash yeah, although I did lvl to 21 "by hand" (didn't use any free CP you get given for CBT or the insta-lv.25) and was able to buy all shop kit and pot up, just about.
You have to hunt subs to "farm cash", early-game subs drop about 10-20k of NPC loot (chances of non-shop stuff too). The drop rate of rares (non-shop items) is pretty good actually, we've had lv.22 armours, accessories, skill books stuff like that, not gonna give away where everything drops for obvious reasons. There's a "treasure cave" event too which is awesome and involves PvP and lots of gold. Cba going into it as this has took me over 15m to write already, try the game and check it out.
TL;DR
Incredible game in my opinion, maybe it's just a honeymoon period for me and Mir again? We'll see as time goes on after release.
Is this game P2W? It's certainly an option, but you'll be funding another player (your competition) with currency by doing so.
Can a dedicated player compete for free? From what I can tell, absolutely yes definitely.
If this game get's a large playerbase and new players, going to be awesome.
Bag and body drops from PK enabled!
