Musings of a Virgin

Going into this weekend I had absolutely no plans. So it was with gleeful delight that I opened up an email from Dofus. It’s a new online game and man is it addictive. The best part is that it is in beta so its free to download and play right now. And that’s the 2nd best thing about the game, it’s the first online game that’s made on Shockwave. What does this mean? Its less than a 10 MB download!!! In this day and age of gigabyte this is actually huge news, at least for techno geeks like me 

So how did I like the game? How does it measure up to other online games on the market like World of Warcraft? Here’s my list of pros and cons:

Pros:

• Fast and easy download and installs
  
• Cute animation, very Japanese Anime like (Although its made a French developer)
  
• Combat is turn based, very much like the Japanese console games A very refreshing change
  
• Once you get the hang of it leveling is actually very fast
  
• The whole game is soloable you don’t need to group if you choose not to
  
• Good tutorial, give you the basics of the game and combat
  
• The whole world (that I know of) is safe. Mobs don’t attack you so you can explore the whole world without fear.
  update: I got confirmation that mobs L25 and above do aggro you, so beware. Thanks for the update eins.
  

Cons:

• It’s done by the French and it shows in the translations. It is actually worse than most Japanese game translations I’ve played
  
• Very very confusing for beginners. There are no instructions for anything and quests are very widespread and few.
  
• Boredom sets in fast because all you do is kill kill kill.
  
• Most Quests are the turn in 60 skins of this or that kind and trust me when I say getting 60 anything is not fast or easy.
  
• Resolution is fixed. Basically you see your character as a small icon and cannot zoom in.
  
• Because of the resolution, its very hard to differentiate people on screen
  
• Grouping functionality is almost non existent in the game
  

I do like the game. Its got a lot of potential and is easy to pick up, its not as heavy or daunting as World of Warcraft. For about $5 a month I could easily see myself playing this game on and off provided they keep the improvement coming 

Here are some tips that I have for the game:

• Map Coords (-8, -6) – Black Tofu (Just wait for it to appear)
  
• Map Coords (3, 1) – Temple of Xelor
  
• Map Coords (2,2) - Tailor
  
• Map Coords (3,0) - Baker
  
• Map Coords (2, -2) - Bank
  
• Don’t play the healer class unless you’re playing with friends. Trust me on this.
  
• DON”T accept any jobs until you’re 100% sure you want that job. Once you click yes that’s it.
  

Posted by emyln on Sunday, July 24, 2005 at 7:34 PM | Permalink