Guys that created this masterpiece probably were too busy with many different things. So busy in fact, that they forgot to work on graphics. But again maybe nobody cares about graphics. It’s 2010 after all. Who need visual pleasure.

So here is what it looks like.

I would say not bad. On par with World of Warcraft and Age of Conan. What do you think? Of course not so good as Warhammer Online. But again there is no elves in this game. As we can see on the above image. The problem that lead to this sort of landscape was engineering. While some of the buildings on the picture looks shiny and brand new. Others are nearly demolished from the world’s face. Maybe that’s planned feature? Let’s move on and see.

Let’s cite Bill Murphy here: The characters and enemies look like action figures being manipulated by some unseen child on a playground. Oh, I so agree. But maybe that’s exactly that something, that took all developers time? Maybe that’s the secret weapon to capture our minds?

Now one of the most important things. Characters. What would you think a dead poisonous world character would like? Should be something scary, right? Tons of armor and breath accessories, filters and what not. Sure. Here it is:

What the HELL????!!!!1 Seriously. What is this? Mutated rat gay? Oh, there’s a name on top of his head. Let’s read it quick, maybe it’s a gay disco boss or something.

Blade Dance Rapier. Does he look like a post apocalyptic blade dancer to any of you guys? Should have been denim streaper or something. He probably is tough as hell if he managed to get brand new jeans from some bunker. Not a scratch on his clothes. Now that’s a style.

So what is good about this game? Some people say it’s crafting system. But again, who would want to craft something. When blade dancer can jump right from behind any minute now.

On this note I will have to stop writing this and put this a game a well deserved 47.3 points. It also gets hidden gay achievement.

So the big barbarian with tons of muscles is not working. Big boring lands not working as well. We need a brand new idea. Let’s take a look at what’s popular now. Just go and see what are those successful games that are actually selling. What? Zombies!!! I like it.

Now the script. Once upon a time everything was as it was supposed to be. Happy children, coca-cola. Right. It was so good that something bad was literally going to happen. And it happened. One morning, fog came, took everyone. Nobody knew until it happened. Until they came back. The dead people.(Why no just call them zombies? If you kill them and they rise?) Welcome to hell.

I am 99.9% sure that everyone is amazed now. If you are not, then you probably played at least one zombie game in the last 20 years.

Why secret world? Simple. Because nobody knows where the missing people go, that step into the fog. Now that’s an interesting twist, isn’t it? Should I guess that it will take 6 months of grinding fest to get skilled enough to take a look what’s inside the fog? And then? You got it right. LOL.

Here’s what developer reveals to us: I think the video–or “found footage”–speaks for itself, but Kingsmouth is a sleepy small town in Maine, on the Atlantic coast of the United States. It’s the kind of place where the population doubles during the summer, and off-season it’s very quiet and slow.

Wait, what? Sleepy small town becomes a secret world portal? Now that’s a great idea for the new game. I can see Funcom is improving. Go guys!

So what do you think guys that created Age of Conan offered to us years later? Amazing addition to the game, that will bring fans back to the game. Here it is:

“Some of the thinking behind this new system is that players will create a connection with their new mount,” says Joel Bylos, Lead Designer on the Rise of the Godslayer expansion. “Raising the mount from a cub and teaching it how to hunt, track and fight is a long process, and by the time players have proven themselves worthy of riding it a bond has been created. When you see players riding a tiger or a wolf you’ll know that it is not just a right to do so, it’s an earned privilege.”

Right, Joel. Absolutely. But wait, we already had tamagochi in 90’s. And now this?

Now we can sit on our new friend and ride around the boring lands in anticipation for the boring loot. You got one more subscriber!

What went wrong? Well this is the usual situation with mmorpg’s. Players just don’t feel it’s a game for us. I would say that most of the high rating user ratings comes from Star Trek saga fan boys. And even considering myself interested in the series, this game is not attractive at all.

As the numerous comments from open beta testers state that the game will have difficulty sustaining a long-term population and does not really have much to offer, except for one free month of subscription – they are probably right. The question will be if authors can prevent the instant FAIL?

They have a lot planned for after launch of the game. Things that they initially wanted to get in at launch but had to make hard decisions about moving it back. Right, why not postpone the launch? Or was it investors they did not want to invest more funds into the FAIL project?  Seems like they do have things planned to launch after the game start. However will there be anyone to actually see those changes, or will it finish just like that, before starting?

Many complains went for the “missions being too repetitive”. That’s the core of all mmorpg’s. You know, world of warcraft did not invent repetitive questing.

But let’s be positive and wish them luck. They will most likely need a lot of it to succeed.