#aion free2play

[haneuls-naive-utopia]

Why I usually don't like Open Discord Servers

[multiplayingorg]

Shaiya: free to be you and me

| Repost: Originally posted by Winin on September 4, 2009

📷 It's not about oogling the bewbs...or is it?

If you’ve seen the ads, you probably think Shaiya is all about watching two hot chicks duke it out in a cat fight. At least that’s what their marketing told me. It turns out that it is a pretty solid, vanilla mmorpg. At my dad’s urging, I tried it out. The game is Free2Play (or Play4Free, whichever you prefer), and you can pay for boosts that help you level faster, avoid xp loss on death, long term buffs, etc. The bottom line is that the graphics are OK but not great, and the features are stripped down compared to, say, WAR or Aion. As mmo’s go, Shaiya has the feel of the original Everquest. But that’s not a bad thing. I don’t always want a long series of quests that run me all over the place (and back and forth and back and forth). Really what I want to do is kill things and chat with people while I do it. Shaiya delivers.

Shaiya has all the core features of a good mmo, and a few extra bits to boot. The key thing that sets it apart are the modes. There are 4 modes (look here for details:http://shaiya.aeriagames.com/guide/start) but the punchline is that in the easier modes, you level faster, but have fewer skills and skill points. In the harder modes, you level slower but are more powerful. In the ultimate mode, if you die and aren’t rezed soon, permadeath. When you die, you lose xp. When you die in pvp, you can lose items as well. Yay! Death is bad! Avoid dying! A novel concept in today’s mmo scene.

I play a fighter, a good choice for solo or group, and good for getting to know the game. Also, you need to hit 40 in normal mode before you can unlock the next tougher mode, and fighters are a good choice to get there fast. Not that I care about getting there fast. As a casual player, I may stick with normal mode, so I can level at a reasonable pace. Play style options. I like that. I’ve done some questing, but frankly, the main goal of that has been to find good spots to hunt. The monster variety is slim, but that’s fine. When you find a good spot, you can hang out and kill kill kill. And often you’ll see other people doing the same. Casual groups form, and soon you are all pulling monsters and aoe-ing them to death. Leveling is pretty fast (up to 15 in normal mode so far) but I expect it will slow down, especially in hard mode. These grind groups remind me of the good old days in EQ when you could go to a region and find a pick up group on any evening. Ahh, good old Oasis. And since people are hanging out fighting instead of running back and forth turning in quests as fast as they can, they actually form groups and ask for more people to join their groups. Again, a novel concept these days. Socializing in a mmo. Awesome.

I only ventured into the lowbie pvp area once, and promptly got killed. And lost the nice gauntlets I just got from a quest. Oh well. From what I can tell, pvp is like open pvp areas in DAoC, but segregated by level (1-15, etc.). Some classes (e.g. ranger and archer) seem better focused on pvp soloing. Maybe I’ll hit 40, then make a HM (hard mode) archer and solo the pvp areas.

One interesting thing to note, the general chat isn’t what I expected from a free game. I expected something worse than the general chat in WoW in terms of maturity, but the chat here is pretty civil. People are generally helpful, and on a plus note, there are lots of people chatting in foreign languages. I know they aren’t really elves and orcs, but I can pretend that Portugese = elvish and those random characters = orcish. It adds to the fantasy feeling.

The bottom line: if you like good, old school mmos, you might like Shaiya. I know it won’t hold any of my crew for long, what with Aion around the corner and SWTOR off in the distance, but don’t think of it as potential primary mmo. Think of it like Guild Wars. A game to have hanging around for when you want a change of pace, or when you are between games (or between jobs). It is free after all. And for a casual player, no subscription and faster leveling options are good things.

I, for one, will play Shaiya over Guild Wars. I’m Winin on the Gaia server.

📷Soon this field will be littered with the corpses of bears and wolves.

[haneuls-naive-utopia]

Celestial Guard & Awakened Celestial Guard