All Posts by Nacireen

People playing for free will level 25% slower than OB according to the GMs, that however I could care less about, and I agree premium should have advantages such as the higher xp/drops and even the 3 day head start.  The problem I have is that the so called free players can't use region chat.  You dismiss this out of hand but it is a HUGE deal, especially since one of the quests you will hit before even getting your first job REQUIRES a group.  No region chat seriously hurts you in that respect.  In every mmorpg there is some form of chat for the current map/zone and none I've ever heard of restricted that to paying players, it's a basic game feature NOT a perk.  Now a true global chat that worked across maps would be a perfect idea for premium, limiting free players to local chat that doesn't even work as far as you can actually see, and which by default is even turned off in most chat modes is not just a bad idea it's a game breaker.

They announced the end of the open beta tonight and with it the retail release date and pricing/features of what they call a premium account.  It's more like the only playable version of the account while you get the most gimpified free version I ever heard of as an unlimited time trial account.  They still feel the need to call it free to play but they are going so far as to even limit the chat of free players.  Anyone not subscribing will only have access to chat with people within a few meters of you ingame, with a single person via pm's, with the party you are currently in, or with your guild.  There is no open chat at all open to free players to ask questions, look for groups, etc.  To make matters worse by default the "local" chat is turned off when you are listening to guild chat or even party chat so most of the time even if you are standing next to a paying player they won't hear you ask for a group.

This is not the worst of the news however, they have NO content past level 40 in the game at all, which can be reached by playing even moderate amounts in under a week, even faster since premium accounts get an xp boost.  Oh and while getting to 40 you will be plagued with broken quests, stats that don't work (very few of them do anything really), graphics that are very prone to glitches and even on the beefiest systems have unacceptable levels of lag, half translated quests for the ones that do work, overlapping descriptions on skills so you can't really read what they do at all, etc...  It's a staggering list of what's wrong with this game, but during the entire beta phase (I was in both closed and open betas) not ONE serious bug we reported has been fixed.  They did a few text edits on some quests once in closed beta, but the open beta release put them back to the messed up versions.  And now suddenly they are ready for release and premium users...

Haven't yet tried any of the 3 mentioned above I did however want to add another update for anyone like myself that is totally sick of games without central player markets.

If you are looking for something a bit different than the standard MMO fare try out Drift City. :)  Free to play racing sim, very "arcade" type gameplay with relatively low level of realism, but quite fun in it's own right.  It also has an auction house type player market for buying and selling from other players.  The graphics are purposefully cartoonish and done quite well for the style they are in, but at the same time they won't tax your system much at all.  My only real complaint is that this game REQUIRES you launch it from their web page, I haven't had any luck finding a way to launch it directly.  It does work fine with firefox so at least I'm not stuck using IE for their page.

Originally posted by ZsasZ

It's a good thing this game is F2P, otherwise I'd want my money back. Specifically:

1) It copies WoW. A lot. Not 'hey, this looks kinda like WoW', more like 'hey, I'm surprise the Blizz lawyers haven't come down on these guys yet'.

2) The dialogue is bad. I'm usually pretty lenient when it comes to translations, but this is like a frikkin kung fu movie dubbed by Borat. I'd give examples, but you wouldn't believe me.

3) Movement and camera are chock full o' fail, with extra suck added! To move, you click on the ground in front of you. And I do mean 'in front of you'; clicking anywhere beyond about a ten yard radius doesn't register. The camera itself goes from almost overhead to almost over the shoulder, stopping short of the view I actually want.

4) People have called the Talisman concept 'unique', which I guess is true. I prefer to use the term 'dumb'. Here's the gist of it; your Talisman (weapon) levels up with you. Hoo boy! To level it up, you stand perfectly still for about three minutes watching a bar fill up. Yay!

5) I could only stand it till about level 8 (I think the level cap is like 30), so this may change later on, but during that time I encountered zero 'hostiles'. Attack one guy in a 'mob', and the rest just stand there striking poses. I was never once actually attacked.

 

Bottom line; yeah, it's free. In this case, you get what you pay for.

2) Actually have to agree here, the translations are terrible, and even though this is supposed to be an english game I think the GM's only speak english as a second language, and not great at times either.

3) If you couldn't click beyond a ten yard radius you may have gotten a corrupt install or something.  I run it on 3 different computers here, 2 in XP and one in 64bit Vista and all 3 can click anywhere as far off as is drawing on the screen, and even with obstacles in the way you WILL get there.  I generally hate click to move, but at least they have good pathfinding here, you won't find your character getting stuck if you clicked somewhere beyond an obstacle.  And I can litterally click a distination so far off in the screen that you can't see the little "target" it paints on the ground until you've been running toward it for a minute.

4) At level 8 (which you stated was as far as you went) you have only been outside the tutorial for 2 levels at best, and you have yet to obtain even your third talisman, so you had an empty slot left and yes at that point it's pretty much a given that you will be able to level your talismans with you.  Once you obtain the fourth and actually can swap out talismans for different situations and need to decided WHICH to level because you won't have energy to keep them all maxed, then the game gets a lot better.

5) You can reach level 10 and get your 3rd talisman in under 20 minutes easily, though I will admit this is as an experienced player making an alt.  It's been so long now since I started that I don't remember.  I do know it was WELL under an hour before I had my three main ones the very first time I played.  So in your case I'd guess you spent no more than 30 minutes in the game, if it was longer than that a lot of it was afk time...  As for agro mobs you are eased into that, around level 20 you will start in areas that are agro, and from there on out all hunting areas are.  Oh and the level cap was 50 the last time I checked, haven't actually logged in for a few weeks as I have been trying other stuff.

Been a while since I made this post and thought I'd add an update for anyone else that may be interested in games with a decent player selling system. 

Archlord failed to grab my attention after actually trying it.  Also, while it did meet all the requirements I asked about for player selling (central and searchable market, with offline selling) it lacked one feature I forgot to mention.  It didn't have a USABLE market.  Their form of auction house interface requires you to know what item you are looking for exactly.  As a new player just wanting to find any gear that is an upgrade you have to wade through tons of crap you can't use and have no clue what it is.  The game itself was ok, but just barely so, they still need a LOT of work on usability.

Sword of the New World however was a VERY pleasant surprise.  The market interface there is nearly perfect and extremely easy to use.  The game itself is graphically amazing, and once you get used to the radically different gameplay and concept it is exceptionally fun as well.  Most every standard thing you are used to finding in MMORPG's and rpg games in general is just a little different here and that will take some getting used to especially if you've played a lot of other games before.  The time spent adapting to the game is well worth it though, at least in my opinion.  Especially if you are like me and constantly have RL stuff interupting your game time this game is absolutely PERFECT.  It's very forgiving of unexpected afk time, you will continue to fight (and even heal if you have a healer in the party you select) just you won't get any loot.  Way better than dying when the kids come crying to you at the wrong moment though.

I would still be interested in hearing about any other free games anyone knows about with any type of central market system as I always like to try new stuff. :)  I still refuse to play a game with stalls again though, that's one headache I won't deal with again.

This is EXACTLY what I was looking for. :)  Got the game downloading now and from what I've seen on the site I think I will like this game.  Thank you much for the information, not sure how I missed checking this one out.  I even remember wanting to give it a shot when I read that it went to being totally free, guess I got distracted and never did though. :)

Are there really NO free games other than Talisman that don't use individual player stalls for selling?  3 days and 40+ views later with no responses I guess there aren't. 

I just don't get why free games all have to use individual stores.  It's harder on the servers, their net connections, the players, etc...  There is really NO good part to having individual stores that I can see.  I guess for now I'll stick to Talisman and the occasional run at Dungeon Runners (which has no kind of market at all).

I pretty much only play f2p games now, and have recently been spending a lot of time in Talisman Online which sofar is the ONLY one I've found that didn't use the stupid individual player stalls as only way to sell items.  I am so sick of player stalls and having to browse each individual one that this one feature alone means I will NOT play a game anymore.  Talisman is getting a little boring at the moment though, they are still adding stuff and I'll keep coming back, but at least for now I really need something else to play.  Just wondered if anyone out there knew any other f2p games with a central and searchable player market, preferably that lets you continue selling while offline or out playing.  I prefer solo play mostly but I am willing to try a more grouping or pvp focused game as long as the system you use to sell to other players is NOT individual stalls.  If a game does that I won't play it even if they pay me to.

Originally posted by Thralia

well i played Talisman in CB and it was very boring. im not a graphics whore but this was to much..everywhere u look..fog! The interface is a copied  1:1 from WoW.

 

Quests are boring as hell..go there kill  10 of these etc. the gameplay is minimized to basic..nothing special.

its free yes..but its totaly crap!

 

this is one of thos egames that get boring after 30 mins..there is no use in playing it .

Sorry you had such a bad experience with it, and maybe it was a lot worse at the stage of closed beta you played.  I didn't join till after they had started open beta so maybe a lot of changes had went into the game by then.

How it stands now this is hands down, no contest, the BEST free mmorpg out.  The only real reason to play any other free mmo over this one is if you are looking for more pvp focus.  This game does have pvp, but it's minimal, and it SERIOUSLY punishes PK'rs.

Currently there are TONS of quests to do, and just like every mmo (or any other type of game with quests) most of them are just telling you what to go kill.  There are also delivery quests, but only where it makes sense to send your character into the next area it makes sense for them to level and find even more quests.  There are quests to kill xx amount of whatever mob, quests to collect xx random drops from a certain mob, quests to kill boss mobs, quests to deliver items to an npc who will then lead you to more quests, quests to escort npc's through a dangerous trip where you will have to kill mobs trying to kill the npc, even quests to gather items from harvestables with no fighting at all.  Overall this game has more variety than EVERY free mmo in the area of quests, and actually more than you will find in a lot of pay to play games as well.

In addition to that you will find this game has all those advanced features everyone has learned to associate with only pay to play games because the free ones NEVER have them.  Ingame mail with item/money attachments, central and searchable player market that doesn't require you to stay online to run your individual shop, good options for group looting so the healers and support classes aren't left out, etc...

The entire concept of "talismans" as your weapons and the way you get skills is at least in my experience totally unique, and it is quite fun bringing a different way of playing once you get used to the system.  Especially once you are higher level and can choose from 2 different types of weapons with entirely different skills/roles and gameplay, and 4 or more assist talismans with their own skills that you swap out as you decide to use different ones.  Since you can only wear two assist talismans, and don't have the skills from them when not wearing, it adds yet another element of strategy to the game.

The game is not yet finished and already has more to offer than any other three free games you want to combine, and it's only getting better.

There is pvp in the game, both duels and free pvp if you choose to do that.  However this is NOT some gank fest open pvp game where kiddies with no social life can ruin the game for everyone that's not exactly like them.  There are serious penalties for randomly PKing people.  Once you kill just a few people you become freely attackable by anyone, and there are no safe zones for you.  If you are a pk and are killed by someone then you do drop loot.  You can lose equipped items and/or things from your inventory.  There are guild wars being implemented now (they've already held one test of the system) and the pvp system will be expanded even further soon.  However if you are wanting to just up and kill anyone, anywhere, anytime with no penalty, find a different game.

I have never played WoW myself (I was an EQ fan before I switched to only free 2 play games), but I'm told the one I'm playing now is very similar in many aspects so it shouldn't be that difficult for you to get used to.  The game I'm talking about is Talisman Online, very small download, free to play and while the interface may seem very wow-like it has quite a few unique aspects I've not even heard of in other games.  Also unlike EVERY free mmo I've tried (and I've tried a LOT of them) it has most of the features that make pay 2 play games usually better.

In it's current state there is no raiding at all, which actually I kinda like as it's focused on small group and solo play which makes it much more casual player friendly.  There is pvp in the game but there are VERY stiff penalties for being a PK so you almost never see that. 

The main thing that made me fall in love with this one over all other free options is that it is the only free game I've found yet to have a central, and searchable player market rather than individual player "shops" you have to browse.  When you put an item up for sale it goes into the auction system and you can either let it run as an auction or just set a reasonable buy now price, either way you don't have to wait for it to sell, you don't even have to stay online.

Also unique (to my knowledge) to this game in the area of free 2 play offerings is the ingame email with ability to attach items and/or money.  You don't have a shared bank between characters but this makes that pointless anyway, and also helps when you want to share items with friends who may not be online or at least not in the same area as you.  Just mail it and they pick it up whenever convenient. :)

There are good loot options for groups so not just the damage dealers and melee types will be getting all the drops, it defaults to rolling for any decent items with free loot on general trash, and cash is autosplit to the entire group.

I can only come up with two things to complain about really, and these may not bother everyone out there.  First the game is currently overrun with non-english speaking people filling chat with stuff I can't understand.  When the GM's are around they do enforce an "english only in world chat" rule for the global channel, but they aren't always around.  Second, you can't pick the gender of your characters.  It kinda annoys me to play a female character, but since I wanted to play a healer I had to.  Just named her "NotaGirl" and most people get it. :)

Check it out, since it's free there's nothing to lose anyways. :)

http://www.talismanonline.com/