Back in March of this year I took a look at Eldevin which at the time was an in development browser based MMORPG by Hunted Cow studios. On November 30th Eldevin officially launched and opened their doors to the masses.
Eldevin is a 3d browser based MMORPG that will feel very familiar to players of action RPG (ARPG). Hunted Cow bills Eldevin as a story driven RPG that takes place in a fantasy world on the brink of war. At the beginning of the game you find yourself lost in the void and trying to make your way back home. Your friend and short lived mentor make your way to a tear in the fabric of space and time and you find your way back to Eldevin in the opening tutorial. Right away you will be exposed to the underlying dark humor of Eldevin that weaves its way into the game.
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The early game is filled with humorous moments. I literally laughed out loud (which is something I rarely do) on an early quest. You will turn in a quest to a wandering merchant and he says I can’t help but think I still left something in there. He then provides you will a series of follow up quests, the second quest in the series has the merchant saying in mock surprise that, “I’ve remembered what I was missing. My wife is still in there!” Something tells me from his age and the amount of time he was probably married that he didn’t really, “forget.”
If you are new to MMOs the tooltips and tutorials in Eldevin do a good job of getting you used to the game and its movement. The click to move scheme is more familiar to the players of ARPGs then to players of western MMOs. However even if you have never played an ARPG and are only familiar with MMOs you’ll still be able to jump right in.
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Eldevin is filled with all the common MMO features. Gathering, crafting, questing, gear, monsters, loot, achievements, pvp, they are all in there. I still believe one of Eldevin’s strongest features is the character development system. Eldevin allows you to mix and match skills from melee, ranged, and spells. Every time your character levels up you will also be awarded 6 attribute points. You can spend these between vitality, energy, focus, melee, ranged, and sorcery. You can stack them all in vitality if you want a large health pool, place them in melee if you want to be a strong warrior, or mix and match them as you see fit.
With a microtransaction based model there is minimal risk to trying out Eldevin. I am glad to see that there are developers out there taking risk with quirky titles like this but I’m still left wondering what niche this game will fill in the MMORPG landscape. Unless you have a really low end computer or are trying to play a MMO at work without getting busted I do not see the draw. The game is fun but so are a lot of other MMOs. Eldevin feels to me that it would be right at home on a tablet and that would provide it with an advantage over other similar fantasy MMO games but if I’m sitting at my desktop there is nothing that really gives Eldevin an advantage over any other MMORPG out there. Hopefully we will see a port to iOS and Android for this game in the future.
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Robert Lashley / Robert Lashley is a Staff Writer and Online host for MMORPG.com. Rob's bald and when he isn't blinding people from the glare on his head talking in front of a camera you can find him spending his free time in Eorzea pretending he is a Paladin in the Leviathan realm or you can chase him down on twitter @Grakulen
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