This was the first MMORPG I ever played. In short, at the time, I absolutely loved it ... then came the bots ... bots, bots, bots and ... more bots!!! So many now that it is impossible to actually login and play the game!!! Joymax, the game's creators, after many years now, still seem unwilling or unable to do anything about it. This game could rival WoW if administered properly, but after such a long time this now seems unlikely to ever happen ... truly a great shame as the graphics are awesome and there are many, many good gaming ideas within waiting to be developed fully. So for now I would say give this game a wide berth, unless you are fond of downloading 1.2Gb worth of unusable software ... At this point in time it seems the only way the game will ever achieve its full potential is if some set of circumstances take it out of Joymax's hands and administer it properly.

Thank you Joymax ... you have well and truly killed the fun!

Originally posted by jhuval

This was the first MMORPG I ever played. In short, at the time, I absolutely loved it ... then came the bots ... bots, bots, bots and ... more bots!!! So many now that it is impossible to actually login and play the game!!! Joymax, the game's creators, after many years now, still seem unwilling or unable to do anything about it. This game could rival WoW if administered properly, but after such a long time this now seems unlikely to ever happen ... truly a great shame as the graphics are awesome and there are many, many good gaming ideas within waiting to be developed fully. So for now I would say give this game a wide berth, unless you are fond of downloading 1.2Gb worth of unusable software ... At this point in time it seems the only way the game will ever achieve its full potential is if some set of circumstances take it out of Joymax's hands and administer it properly.

Thank you Joymax ... you have well and truly killed the fun!

 The game could rival WoW?  You gotta be kidding me...

Insofar as there really IS a great game lying buried under the miasma of mis-administration by JOXMAX, yes, I believe if developed properly this game could actually give mainstay games such as WoW a decent run for their money. That said though, it seems highly unlikely while this ghost ship is still driven by the clueless, or ignorant administration of JOYMAX.

Thank you JOXMAX ... no 'fun' for you!

No offense, but Silkroad is a very, very ugly game, technically speaking. The graphics are just plain crap and the gameplay isn't much better and it would never stand anywhere near any AAA MMO, much less WoW.

Originally posted by skeaser

No offense, but Silkroad is a very, very ugly game, technically speaking. The graphics are just plain crap and the gameplay isn't much better and it would never stand anywhere near any AAA MMO, much less WoW.

Each to their own, but I personally find the graphics in SRO more apealling than WoW for instance.

Regarding SRO's ability to compete with high profile MMOs, I stand by my original statement that this IS possible, but only if the game were to be administered by some entity other than JOYMAX ... they have had years to fix SRO's inherent problems, yet absolutely nothing has changed in this time ...

Thank you JOYMAX, 'fun' time has ended ...

I agree with previous posters, this game could NOT compete with any AAA mmo, the graphics horrible, and this game was released after all. You can tell it's FTP quality as soon as you log in. That's where it will stay. This game is one big snoozefest. The one good thing it had going for it (hunter/thief crap) could have been done way better in a real MMO and is not a reason to keep playing this game. I killed 40 black panthers, yay! I win SRo! Err, wait, I gotta kill 60 more! awwh:/

lol  obviously you havent played the game long enough, the pvp is really great is this game, and all the other things that are avaliable.

Originally posted by l3ossm4n

lol  obviously you havent played the game long enough, the pvp is really great is this game, and all the other things that are avaliable.

No, I indeed did play the game long enough. 35 levels of the same old crap, all the time, NOTHING INTERESTING (and NO, sparkly weapons with huge particle effects to distract the mind from the unimaginative suckage that is SRo, is not interesting), no immersion. With stupid little monkies running around grabbing up your loot cause they paid!! No sir, this game has nothing on any AAA game. Keep this crapfest for yourself but don't play it off for more then it is.../snore zzzzzz

Hehe... 'crapfest'... i love that word. Well thank you, everyone, for all this information. You have successfully prevented  me from filling up my valuable hard drive with a 'crapfest'. That kind of sucks though because the game was looking pretty interesting and i was getting ready to download it. Any other recommendation...?

Originally posted by rcarey

Hehe... 'crapfest'... i love that word. Well thank you, everyone, for all this information. You have successfully prevented  me from filling up my valuable hard drive with a 'crapfest'. That kind of sucks though because the game was looking pretty interesting and i was getting ready to download it. Any other recommendation...?

For free to play, I'd have to say RoM is my favorate (another wow clone) but it's rather decent if you're casual and don't feel like raiding and getting to end game (raiding will cost you indefinate moneys (to upgrade your gear))..If you do wish to be end game style, I don't know any FTP that would suit you except for maybe DDO (Dungeons and Dragon's online), it's FTP (contains lockouts to paying customers for the max lvl dungeons you can play in. I believe though if you have a friend and joined him on a mission that didn't have lockouts you can still go without paying. LoTRo is a really neat looking game, and in the fall will be going free if you didn't already know, if free is what you want then this game will most definately suit your needs I think.

If I were you though, i'd try an AAA mmo, you'll get more bang for your buck still out of a subscription based mmo, then any 'free' (itemshop=win) game like this. I play EVE (great game, very immersive, but not too friendly to the newcomers but once you get out of the 'noob' stage this game is FUN, yet can be pretty lonely. I also play EQ, and EQ2, both still great games, maybe a little dated but you won't find more content or raiding than in EQ. Again, these games take some work to get into, EQ2 not so much, it's more friendly to newcomers, but EQ, you have to work for. Research your quests on the web etc, once you get past that, and the graphics..I have great friendships from 10 years of fun gameplay, and I still love to raid, that is reason enough for me to keep my sub. These aren't the only games I've played, only the games I felt worth mentioning. I would mention WoW but, I don't think I'd need to, you've probably already had it, and that isn't my type of game either.

Good luck on the game hunt. Let me know if there is a better free game that you find, that is better then RoM and DDO, and soon to be LoTRo, I'm always on the hunt for good free entertainment.. Perfect World, as well as SRo, are not in the definition of a good MMO. Not in my eyes anyways..

although alot of you fail to see, this game has TONS of great features under the obvious problems. Ofcourse theres grinding, all games have that. Pvp, Job, and skill system are amazing, and this is a pretty good f2p though! joymax knows about their bot problem however, their gold time has a feature to kick off a bot to log you in if you pay for it. I will proudly say this was my favorite mmo back in the day. and i always think about going back to it. i LOVED the asian skill system, the elemental based martual art skills were amazing! the skills actually made all of the grinding well worth it. the job system was a complete blast, alot of you never got up to the higher end of the level scale to see how much fun it is. Regardless the bot problem needs to be fixed, and if this game ever gets cleaned up and properly restored, i will be back playing this game in a heartbeat.

Originally posted by MarginOfEror

although alot of you fail to see, this game has TONS of great features under the obvious problems. Ofcourse theres grinding, all games have that. Pvp, Job, and skill system are amazing, and this is a pretty good f2p though! joymax knows about their bot problem however, their gold time has a feature to kick off a bot to log you in if you pay for it. I will proudly say this was my favorite mmo back in the day. and i always think about going back to it. i LOVED the asian skill system, the elemental based martual art skills were amazing! the skills actually made all of the grinding well worth it. the job system was a complete blast, alot of you never got up to the higher end of the level scale to see how much fun it is. Regardless the bot problem needs to be fixed, and if this game ever gets cleaned up and properly restored, i will be back playing this game in a heartbeat.

Completely wrong, and no, the higher the level the more time you realized you just wasted playing this timesink. A game should be more fun then watching water boil, this ain't it..

Don't let this be the first MMO you try or you'll get hooked enough to think like this guys does, anything will be good, it's colorful and flashy!! Seriously you can get much, much better, also for free. Clearly I feel bad that this was your first, there are soooo much better out there.

The bot problem is the smallest problem this game has, the biggest being very dull and immersion-less.

Originally posted by skeaser

No offense, but Silkroad is a very, very ugly game, technically speaking. The graphics are just plain crap and the gameplay isn't much better and it would never stand anywhere near any AAA MMO, much less WoW.

 I personally think it is a beautiful game.  I miss my level 60 something Bichon guy

I played this game for a year or so back in 2006 before the bots raided the place... Back in the day the Cash shop was not necessary you could level up and compete in gear with anyone.

Grinding like in most F2P was aweful but from level 38 onwards (if I remember correctly). 

The graphics were not the best but the skills were quite ok, transportation was also fast since you could buy the horses scrolls which weren't that expensive, making money was also quite simple. I had the most fun with the commerce part where you could play Thief, Hunter or Merchant, getting with friends or with your guild to transport your good to sell them from one city to another was really good, you had thieves that would pop automatically or player thieves who would try to get your stuff and sell it in Thief town... that feature in the game was really good, you could make some money and have really a good time defending others, defending your goods or trying to steal someone.

I really don't know how good/bad the game is now, but when I quit playing it was because of the bots. I also don't know if the cash shop remains the same or if now you need to spend lots of money to get moving.