MMORPG.com reviewer and columnist Jaime Skelton writes this look at ChangYou's F2P MMORPG, Dragon Oath.

The free-to-play market is saturated with martial-arts themed MMOs. Sometimes termed 'import' MMOs, these games often have a common theme of classes based on Eastern philosophies and known martial-arts schools (Taoist and Shaolin, for example). Often cited as examples of poor localization in both game content and business philosophy, it's hard for an MMO some of these games to have a positive impact with consumers. But is it possible for one to not only do so, but to stand out from the crowd? Dragon Oath may just be the one.

Of Wuxia and MMOs

Dragon Oath is a free-to-play MMORPG from ChangYou.com, deeply saturated in the aforementioned martial-arts theme known as “Wuxia.” A genre of Chinese fiction, Wuxia often encompasses the idea of the noble martial artist, who comes from low birth and does heroic deeds, becoming a legend. It's a perfect story style for an MMORPG, whose storylines typically take a new player from “zero to hero” throughout the course of their adventures. As can be expected, it also works very well in its native country; the game had nearly a million concurrent users before it even launched in the United States and currently has over 75 million registered players worldwide.

Read Reviewing Dragon Oath.

Good score. But a no go for me personally. I will never even try an asian (F2P) MMORPG anymore.

This is one of the better games that are out there..Not bad for a Asian Game...I like the quick style of fighting compare to other games where u have to wait a sec or two before they hit..There plenty to do...

true this game as gamer all day long long.witch remove lot of unpleasantness and bittereness.sure did for me!

Chang u is just everywhere nowadays... Dragon oath was quite fresh to me but now. no more no less.

Jeez just more reskinned Asian MMO F2P2Win crap... with 75 millionz billionz play0rz...

7.8?!?!?! 

I don't know whats becoming of this site but 4/8 of the front page articles are all F2P crap... Credibility goes way out the window when you see these patterns...

PWE, IGG, gPotato, Chang yoo: I'ma leave this big bag of money over here...

MMORPG.com: ( $ . $ ) yes we will give good rating, and pepper our site with all your crappy erhm.. I mean AWESOME games...

The petsystem sounds interesting and looks to have more depth then pet systems in western MMO's.

Im just not so interested in how martial arts is butchered in games like these. Shaolin and Taoism has nothing to do with how its represented in this game. Its just stereotypical asian fantasy that makes use of well known martial arts terms.

What the HELL does Voodoo have to do with the Orient???!!!!  I mean uhmmm... GAHH!!  Im confused.  Isnt Voodoo from the Caribbean???!!!     Holy heck thats as far from China as you can get?????

Originally posted by erickdefores

What the HELL does Voodoo have to do with the Orient???!!!!  I mean uhmmm... GAHH!!  Im confused.  Isnt Voodoo from the Caribbean???!!!     Holy heck thats as far from China as you can get?????

 

 i was wondering the same thing .... ( oh and Voodoo was brought to the Caribbean by African Slaves)  ... but still .... Voodoo?! ... ... how is that a types of martial arts? ...

Originally posted by Wighty

Jeez just more reskinned Asian MMO F2P2Win crap... with 75 millionz billionz play0rz...

 

7.8?!?!?! 

 

I don't know whats becoming of this site but 4/8 of the front page articles are all F2P crap... Credibility goes way out the window when you see these patterns...

 

PWE, IGG, gPotato, Chang yoo: I'ma leave this big bag of money over here...

MMORPG.com: ( $ . $ ) yes we will give good rating, and pepper our site with all your crappy erhm.. I mean AWESOME games...

 Right, because reporting on and advertising MMORPGs = lack of credibility for a site called MMORPG.com, that makes such sense. Theyre not stopping anything theyve done with P2P in the past, its simply that there is a lot more going on with F2P right now, way more games, and those games are slowly getting better, and in a lot of cases already are better than P2P. Rather than giving this site shit for being fair to all MMOs wether theyre F2P or P2P, perhaps you should go bother your beloved P2P game makers to actually come out with something of quality so w ehave something better to pay attention to. The site cant just create news and reviews out of thin air, when there are no new games to review, or any newsworthy things happening in the P2P area.

Just because its not YOUR personal choice of an MMO you want to play, does not mean they should report or advertise. If you want only the MMOs / genres of your choice, well then hell go make a site of your own, and you can go read your own reviews of your own games.

This game...

In general, not necessary a bad one, just that it was supposedly to be based on a Chinese novel of the same in (in Chinese that is... ), but it turns out it's so loosely based on it that I lost interest in it.

And about the Voodo thing:  I think it's because it sounds closely to the Chinese word (five poison, which was a clan/group from the novel).  The actual words would pronounce (using Romanization): Wu Du, which sounds close to Voodoo, hence the use of it.

Originally posted by kaiser3282

Originally posted by Wighty

Jeez just more reskinned Asian MMO F2P2Win crap... with 75 millionz billionz play0rz...

 

7.8?!?!?! 

 

I don't know whats becoming of this site but 4/8 of the front page articles are all F2P crap... Credibility goes way out the window when you see these patterns...

 

PWE, IGG, gPotato, Chang yoo: I'ma leave this big bag of money over here...

MMORPG.com: ( $ . $ ) yes we will give good rating, and pepper our site with all your crappy erhm.. I mean AWESOME games...

 Right, because reporting on and advertising MMORPGs = lack of credibility for a site called MMORPG.com, that makes such sense. Theyre not stopping anything theyve done with P2P in the past, its simply that there is a lot more going on with F2P right now, way more games, and those games are slowly getting better, and in a lot of cases already are better than P2P. Rather than giving this site shit for being fair to all MMOs wether theyre F2P or P2P, perhaps you should go bother your beloved P2P game makers to actually come out with something of quality so w ehave something better to pay attention to. The site cant just create news and reviews out of thin air, when there are no new games to review, or any newsworthy things happening in the P2P area.

Just because its not YOUR personal choice of an MMO you want to play, does not mean they should report or advertise. If you want only the MMOs / genres of your choice, well then hell go make a site of your own, and you can go read your own reviews of your own games.

 Typical f2p fanboy response... Hey skippy tell Aihoshi I said hi...

It's not that I don't like the f2p game model... it's these damn fresh of the conveyor belt reskinned "eastern" games that have the play value of a game of scrabble by yourself... they churn these games out basically diluting making all the f2p games seem like crap making it even harder to find the diamond in the rough amongst them... MMORPG seems very slanted toward these f2p games due to the revenue stream it generates which yes makes their credibility questionable when it comes to a game review...

European IP's banned? Way to rule out a huge chunk of market...

Another day, another F2P review…am I getting déjà vu?

Why does being F2P go in the ‘Pro’ column, most of us do not support F2P so why should we see this as a ‘Pro’? If you want to take account of the minority of us who do support F2P, it should not go in the Pro or Con box.

So when trying to uninstall, this game does not show up in the programs list through the control panel, nor is there an unistall option in the program file.  Pretty sleezy imo.  Can anyone give me instructions on how to thoroughly remove this invasive, parasitic mess from my system?  No help from their forums either btw, my request for help has gone completely ignored.

Red flags all over the place on this one.

Originally posted by phc_doc

So when trying to uninstall, this game does not show up in the programs list through the control panel, nor is there an unistall option in the program file.  Pretty sleezy imo.  Can anyone give me instructions on how to thoroughly remove this invasive, parasitic mess from my system?  No help from their forums either btw, my request for help has gone completely ignored.

Red flags all over the place on this one.

typically you have to just delete manually.  Is usually in c:/program files and r click on the folder to delete if you don't already know

To the guy asking about uninstalling it:

I had that problem too. Solution: use he windows explorer to get to the folder you installed Dragon Oath in, there is an "uninstall" file, double click and it does it's job.

About european IPs banned:

I was confused too. Went to the website, downloaded, registered, installed, patched, to then find out that I can't play it from Europe. But there is a european beta client. So I uninstalled the whole game, did the whole process a second time for the european version, and now it works.

Played the game now for an hour or something, and my feelings are mixed, or lets say, that so far I found more things I dislike than those I enjoy. Which are:

• graphics are outdated (very short viewing range, textures (especially ground ones) are of very low quality, many models and the area have a low polgyon count)
• I felt very confined. The game is heavily zoned, and within these zones are invisible borders restricting you even more, and to top it off: you can't enter certain zones unless you met certain conditions (like having a certain level)
• auto-walk. I dislike that function. Yes, I don't have to use it, but still if it's already there I will use it. The game tells me "go to NPC whatshisname" and I click on a button, alt-tab into another window, some minutes later I alt-tab back and I'm there. I could rant and rant about this function and why I despise it, but I'll leave it at the "it's in this game and I hate this function"
• few choices at the character creation
• the camera is weird, sometimes moving in a way that something is between you and your char. I can't go FPS either, and I can't even look at at the sky, because the camera is so restricted

The game was ok for about 2 weeks then I had to stop playing.  Items purchased from item mall had a timer before they poofed, WTF.  Worst part was there is so much going on you get confused as to what to do with limited documentation and quest information. The system seems to not be new user friendly, plus you have to modify your settings in cfg file to get better gameplay camera angles which should be in the game settings, you have to google it.

I won't even sign-up for this game.....why do they require to know whether you are a male or female?  Why does it even matter?  Stupid asian companies

Dragon Oath is not a bad game. So many contents and so many things to do to keep you busy. I think the reviewer gave the right score to this game.