I still have mixed feelings about this title. When I heard about it I thought the game sounded really promising; a throwback to the oldschool era of MMOs and things like the classless system, ability to mount virtually anything, all sounded good. I got into the closed beta and had quite a few issues with performance, bugs, and crashing. I couldn't get 30 minutes into the game so I decided I'd give it another go later on into the beta. Did it, same results as before, so I marked the title off. I have no idea how the game fleshes out, it could be exactly what I wanted, but I never got the chance to find out.

I don't know how a split with a completely P2P server and a F2P server will do, tho. I guess it will be interesting to watch it play out. Probably going to try checking it out one more time.

Very interesting title XD

can US players play this game?

Originally posted by MasterChaosX

can US players play this game?

Yes, you just have to play on the EU servers, I believe.

Surprised the game is still going with the low population and incompetent development team.

OMG this game still hasn't closed down? I played the beta 2 times. Graphics all random generated, trees growing horizontally and terrible graph quality...worse than games like Everquest or DaoC. Besides that..nothing special, nothing innovative.

Originally posted by pupurun

OMG this game still hasn't closed down? I played the beta 2 times. Graphics all random generated, trees growing horizontally and terrible graph quality...worse than games like Everquest or DaoC. Besides that..nothing special, nothing innovative.

i actually bought the game, if it wasn't for low pop. i would play it.

the graphics actually look mediocre-good if you turn everything on high (in beta it was fugly, yes)  and if you say there is

nothing innovative, then you haven't looked at its skill system...

pretty ambitious MMO, but the execution was done horably :(

I have downloaded and played the game for about 4 hours today.

So far, as first impressions goes - I am pleasantly surprised. Yes, there are minor glitches and such but it will hardly bother you or prevent from playing, it is just a polish stuff.

No crashes, no issues with the game apart from fact that I had to activate the account for the game manually, dunno if it is a standard procedure or I slipped somewhere in the process.

I can only evaluate the game as a F2P title since I joined F2P server only and there the game got my thumbs up.

It sort of reminds me the game play of UO.

I'm actually excited to get more into this title. I read a lot of posts and thought I would dig in a bit more for myself to see if the game really did lack an "explanation". The website for the game explains the entire premise to the Nth degree. If you're looking for lore, go to the website and read up. Everything from the gods to the last skill ability kept me pretty intrigued. When I logged into the game I knew what light or dark meant and why the world around me might seem open and why you are set free in the world as opposed to being set down on strict storyline rails. There are 25 maps and each map has 2 - 3 decent-sized dungeons, so there ARE things to do . . . they're just up to you!
 
Personally, I like the implied freedom, but that's not to say there isn't a downside. The graphics I found very good, especially for free-to-play. The textures or graphic overlays of the faces of your character and the NPCs isn't the best (like that of a LOTRO NPC), but it does suffice. I didn't get to play for long but I found that navigating the quest dialog, combat, keyboard mappings and other standard configurations were easy to pick up and didn't vary from the general norm of any common MMORPG. I did like that when you attempted to drag and drop an item from you bag to your character the slot it should fill is automatically highlighted so you don't have to hunt for it. Sometimes it's the little things that make all the difference.

The animations were good, though a little blocky and robotic at times, nothing that truly removed me from the essence of the moment. I did have an initial glitch where I was unable to see parts  of the humans on the light side during character creation, though I'm not sure why at this time; not a deal killer since I could have likely just restarted the game or rebooted my computer. Some of the translations could have been better-done, but there are no funny, odd, quirky or difficult to understand moments, translations aren't always going to come across perfect in every case.The game world itself took me by surprise a bit, I didn't expect things to look so authentic and "real". Even if some things here and there didn't completely match their surroundings whether by color or placement (again, no deal-killer moments, just minor observances) I was thoroughly impressed.
 
All-in-all I'm going to continue on the free server and see where it takes me. I like open worlds where there are no rails; merely combat, exploration and an open ability system. One of the neatest things I've discovered is that tools, weather, phases of the moon and location all have a possible (whether by 100% success or a chance of a lucky bonus) to increase the quality of any crafted good. Also coming are ways in which a particular class can influence the weather of a particular zone/map to increase bonuses to their skills. Nice right?
 
Anyways, if you are into perfect graphics, matching suits of armor from the start, over-the-top ability affects during combat and rails to set you out on  your journey towards the end . . . RUN! If you want a more realistic set of combat animations and graphics, enjoy open worlds with no predestined or forced circumstances and don't mind looking past a few unpolished pieces here and there to experience an open world of possibilities then this very well could be the game for you (and it's free!). The game presents quite a few things to me that I've been looking for in a game since my early days with Asheron's Call; so if you're a fan of AC, do yourself a favor and check CoG out for yourself. If you're a fan of lore, read their website; I couldn't seem to get enough of it myself. Slavic Mythology . . . who knew?