There are two English language versions of Maestia. We have been putting the US version to the test to see how it stacks up against other MMOs. See how Maestia fared in our latest review!

Character creation options in Maestia are somewhat lacking and all we get are a limited selection of faces and hairstyles. There are also no facial attributes to adjust and no character voices to choose from. The choices here are definitely a lot skimpier than what you get in the big name MMORPGs like Rift or Tera. However, as if to make up for these shortcomings, the game lets you pick any colour you want for your character's skin and hair. And when I say any colour, it really is ANY colour. Feel like rolling a blue-skinned Pandoran who looks like he/she just escaped from Avatar? Go right ahead.

Read more of Adrian Liew's Maestia: Are Beautiful Graphics Enough?

nope. Graphics alone are not enough.

Tera is a prime example. Tera is a fantasticly looking game, but sadly the extreme Asian quirckiness, the art style, and the very shallow endgame content just keeps it in obscurity.

AoC was also incredibly beautiful and yet the combat mechanics, very heavy instancing, and very high computer requirements, not to mention the shaky launch, really limited it's popularity.

i still believe that WoW's succes was due mainly because of how inredibly responsive and easy to control your character is ( have yet to find that kind of responsivness in any mmo) and just how well the game runs on just about any machine. Graphics had nothing to do with it.

Oddly, I liked Maestia and plan to dabble in it from time to time. Nevertheless, your observations were spot-on (I didn't try out PvP yet though). 

I think I've just played a lot worse...

Originally posted by Asamof
lmao, this game looks like a clone of that taiwanese wow clone runes of magic. this is a clone of a clone

 Not even close, Runes of Magic is a decent game and has far more depth than many Sub games...I guess thats how the game managed to make so much money it funded two other games including Tera and the upcoming RaiderZ even though its F2P.

This game does look reasonable, but standard cloned systems inlcuding questing. (for all you developers out there its time to ditch QUEST HUBS its 2012 folks srsly now)

No innovation and no creativity so this game will likely be recevied poorly like most other asian Free2pays.(Btw Auto Potion is the norm in these kind of games and is not innovative)

There will be another one of these games in about 10 minutes *looks at watch*

Originally posted by rdrakken

Originally posted by Asamof
lmao, this game looks like a clone of that taiwanese wow clone runes of magic. this is a clone of a clone

 Not even close, Runes of Magic is a decent game and has far more depth than many Sub games...I guess thats how the game managed to make so much money it funded two other games including Tera and the upcoming RaiderZ even though its F2P.

It definately did not fund either of those games. Maybe helped them get publishing rights to them in the specific region?

Don’t waste your time . It’s mostly garbage and its already low population was dying a mere two weeks after OB. While it’s not very hard to reach cap at all, there’s nothing to do when you get there. The final dungeon is almost entirely pointless, as the world bosses in the endgame PvP zone (Dark Lipido) are what drop the best gear. And those bosses can be solo’d. Theoretically, the PvP situation would provide the challenge to farming them, except there’s nobody IN Dark Lipido (unless it’s 5 or 6 of the opposing faction…when you’re by yourself).

Thus far, that zone started out being completely dominated by a handful of quick level cappers on one side. Then they got bored and quit. Then it became owned by a handful of level cappers on the other side.

We’re literally talking about a total endgame population of like 20 people within the first month, most of whom have already quit.

And the skill trees seem nice at first, but each skill tier has so many prerequisite ranks in earlier skills that you wind up blowing most of your points in crap that you don’t want.

On Class Balance: Mage has an instant cast 25 second sleep, an instant cast 10 second silence and an instant cast 3 second stun. Nuff said? 

This review is pretty much spot on. And yeah, the RvR arena is downright silly.

Originally posted by XPraetorianX

It looks exactly like Aion even the UI box.

 

That's what I thought. Even the skill pictures... It's AIon with a green-skinned character :O

Graphics .... the least important thing in an mmo.

Look at how Tera failed hard

Originally posted by Panther2103

Originally posted by rdrakken

 Not even close, Runes of Magic is a decent game and has far more depth than many Sub games...I guess thats how the game managed to make so much money it funded two other games including Tera and the upcoming RaiderZ even though its F2P.

It definately did not fund either of those games. Maybe helped them get publishing rights to them in the specific region?

 It definately did. I suggest you go look at the companies reports, Runes of Magic made up over 60% of their profits for 3 straight years.

Originally posted by otacu

Graphics .... the least important thing in an mmo.

Look at how Tera failed hard

 

Maybe to you. For marketing purposes, I imagine it could be one of the most important. Making money often means new content. Gamers win out if we encourage the styles we like and discourage the ones we don't. In the same way that we are discouraging this games cut and paste mechanics. It is good to let them know what worked and what didn't.

Boy I must see games through a different set of eyes then most, how does anything think this game and games like this have good graphics?  The game is overly bright, washed out and the characters look like two dimensional paper cut outs.  There is no decent lighting or shadows to speak of, textures are flat and lifeless, there is no bump mapping or spectral lighting. All these over seas F2P games look like they use the same terrible game engine with bloom turn up to hide the lack of effort and we keep telling them they are making games with good graphics.

Games with bright colors does not equal good graphics.