Sprite MMO's
The Indie-Game awards or somesuch
Recently, web-comic mainstay (and well-deserved highly popular) Penny Arcade linked to The Independent Games Festival. You know me and games, I don't play nearly as much as you would think
But, tempted by the promise of some cool indie-games, I checked some of them out. The stand out, right now, is this damned MMORPG Dofus, which has me hooked despite the large lack of quests in the beginner's stable.
The premise is pretty simple; you're a Final Fantasy Tactics style sprite-designed character running around in a Ragnarok Online-type world, fighting precious monsters to save the world.
A lot of what gets me with Dofus is the same stuff that initially attracted me to Ragnarok Online in that I loved the sprite-era, Final Fantasy on the SNES era RPG's and games. It's nice to see nostalgia-inspired games with current mechanics and concepts (Dofus features a diverse class cast, as well as a WoW-inspired profession system), that pretty much all computers will be able to handle (it's all flash based, actually).
The free trial of Dofus is actually a lot better than that of Ragnarok, too: instead of a time-limit, players have an allotted amount of territory they can cover—so many screens away from the central town, you hit a 'Trial-Players Cannot Pass' message and have to return from whence you came; considering the large amount of this area, and the time you'll be spending on the quests there, it's a worthy download and a good window into what paying for it would be like.
The downside is that for all the classes available, you still end up in the same quests during your first levels—fighting a lot of redundant monsters to pick up the things they drop (henceforth referred to, in proper gaming terminology, as 'drops'). After so many Arachnee's:
, for instance, I stop caring whether or not I'll get the leg drops I need for my quest. And if I have to kill any more damn 
Tofu's I'll scream.
I'll be re-trying Ragnarok if anyone's interested in hooking up with me in either, just email me.
If you're willing to sink some time and very little hard drive space on some 'fun', I'd recommend it; it's fast, easy, and free (until you're hooked on it like the crack-cocaine it is). Just be wary of the French-to-English typos and Engrish involved.
Recently, web-comic mainstay (and well-deserved highly popular) Penny Arcade linked to The Independent Games Festival. You know me and games, I don't play nearly as much as you would think
But, tempted by the promise of some cool indie-games, I checked some of them out. The stand out, right now, is this damned MMORPG Dofus, which has me hooked despite the large lack of quests in the beginner's stable.
The premise is pretty simple; you're a Final Fantasy Tactics style sprite-designed character running around in a Ragnarok Online-type world, fighting precious monsters to save the world.
A lot of what gets me with Dofus is the same stuff that initially attracted me to Ragnarok Online in that I loved the sprite-era, Final Fantasy on the SNES era RPG's and games. It's nice to see nostalgia-inspired games with current mechanics and concepts (Dofus features a diverse class cast, as well as a WoW-inspired profession system), that pretty much all computers will be able to handle (it's all flash based, actually).
The free trial of Dofus is actually a lot better than that of Ragnarok, too: instead of a time-limit, players have an allotted amount of territory they can cover—so many screens away from the central town, you hit a 'Trial-Players Cannot Pass' message and have to return from whence you came; considering the large amount of this area, and the time you'll be spending on the quests there, it's a worthy download and a good window into what paying for it would be like.
The downside is that for all the classes available, you still end up in the same quests during your first levels—fighting a lot of redundant monsters to pick up the things they drop (henceforth referred to, in proper gaming terminology, as 'drops'). After so many Arachnee's:
, for instance, I stop caring whether or not I'll get the leg drops I need for my quest. And if I have to kill any more damn Tofu's I'll scream.I'll be re-trying Ragnarok if anyone's interested in hooking up with me in either, just email me.
If you're willing to sink some time and very little hard drive space on some 'fun', I'd recommend it; it's fast, easy, and free (until you're hooked on it like the crack-cocaine it is). Just be wary of the French-to-English typos and Engrish involved.
posted by Colin Reed Moon at 12/18/2005
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