Ether Saga: First Impressions

[OzDragon]

First Impressions

Today Duggy and I signed up for the closed beta of the game Ether Saga. Well although we have not been playing this game more than 3 hours, my first impressions are still guarded. I’ll add more information here as I get closer to the mid levels in the hopes that there will be more to the storylines and more content. Not saying that the starting is lacking at all, there are many features of this game I like and will list them below in a moment. As a first impression, I find the game itself very colorful and not hard on the eyes. The contrast they have set up for the interface I find easy to navigate as they have a mouse-over effect. Which is a good thing because with the amount of buttons on the interface it could get the new MMO’ers lost and confused without it. It’s very easy to pick up on. The print on the screen is not overbearing or hard on the eyes. The chat interface has a nice feature that allows you to change color. This feature is a definite bonus in my books along with allowing the user to adjust the size of the font to their desired size.

Ether Saga has a good concept as well with allowing players to play for free but having an item mall. I do find the characters in this game very cartoony and that’s not something I like that much; but as for the environment graphics, they are stunning. I am very pleased with the shadow and water animation and water reflections. I am also pleased with the range of emotes the characters have and the development that was put into the facial expressions. I am particularly impressed with one added feature: the fact they took quest tracking one step further with a feature that allows you to click on the name of a monster or NPC in the quest log (as long as it’s green) and the game will auto track you there and take you to the location of this NPC hands-free. I love this feature because many a hours were spent and lost in MMO’s looking for NPC’s and getting lost in huge maps and wasting time looking for walkthroughs online. Not any more. Just click and watch your character go to the right spot. My hat is off to the developers of this feature.

That is my first impression of the game Ether Saga I will continue playing this game and add more to this as I get deeper in. So stay tuned or join up. But keep in mind, you better move fast as it’s in closed beta right now and there will be a wipe on the 17th of March.

http://eso.perfectworld.com/

Here are some screenshots for your enjoyment of Duggy and me.

For more screenshots I have started an album in my profile click here to view them.

You may also use this referral link to get started
CLICK HERE!

[Dani Oliver]

Good review Oz.

I have to admit, I was a little reluctant to try this game at first. While I like anime, I'm not the gung-ho fan(atic) that some of our members and fellow beta testers are here on DragonShadow. It also seemed to be aimed towards a younger audience... and me being all mature like... *cough* But several of us decided to give this one a try, so I put my reservations aside and went through the somewhat tenuous beta sign-up process. (Note: For any DragonShadow members wanting to give this beta a try, see my idiot-proof walkthrough instructions on how to sign up for this beta in the Private Members section. I may send a copy to the company itself as their own step-by-step instructions are awkward at best).

Right off the bat, I was mesmerized by the colour schemes used on the Ether Saga Online website and the game itself. I silently wondered if it was appealing to the woman or the inner child in me... but that curious thought was put to rest when Oz blurted out that he thought the colours were pretty cool too (I'm going with "inner child" ).

In the back of my mind, I was thinking that ESO was going to be like a mix of Mabinogi and Perfectworld, and thought "hey, that would work!". There are elements from both games that I was hoping to see incorporated here. I was disappointed to find, however, that the character customization didn't allow for nearly as much uniqueness as Perfectworld (which to date has gone unmatched imho), and not even as much as Mabinogi, while somewhat lame, at least afforded more choices. I hope they incorporate more individuality before going live.

Oz has basically touched on most of what we experienced in the 3 hours we played last night, so I don't have much to add at this point. I think the auto-tracking system deserves another nod, however, and I'd like to say IT RAWKS!! A tip: if you're partied with someone and you're both working on the same quest and you need to go AFK while working on a quest, use the auto-track feature rather than auto-follow -- the latter is more likely to get you stuck.

Overall, I was thoroughly impressed with this game from the graphics to the game content and I'm looking forward to dedicating some more time later on tonight to checking it out. If you're registered on the forums, check out the screenshots in Oz's album. And if you decide to join us in the beta, we're using our usual OzDragon and Dugchugger names. No surprise there, huh?

[Thor]

Wow, this looks promising I might have to give it a try..

[TheHammer]

I almost gave up trying to get the beta key.. its SO CONFUSING! Duggy I think you should post the signup steps you outlined in the private area, to the public area too. their instructions are impossible to follow. I'm going to go try it again using yoru steps.. thx!!

oh btw OZ! those screenies are amazing!!! the game looks really kewl.

[OzDragon]

After a few more hours in the game, more quests completed and followed the story line a little more I am becoming more and more impressed with this game. I found a quest guide built in the game that lists available quests and their starting location and NPC. Finding the Skill animation more and more impressive. While doing one quest something that also impressed me is the amount of transformations in the game.. well over 100 different things you can obtain through a mixture of quests and drops to allow you to transform.

I have posted a few more screenshots in my on my profile and 2 here.. have a look.

I will add more comments as I get more involved with Ether Saga.

[Dani Oliver]

Take heed of the titles above our heads "Pushover" and be wary of sword masters who claim they have pregnant wives that need feeding. We're apparently very gullible.

Oooh... and we completed a quest tonight that earned us clouds to fly around on! I was very happy to find that the auto-track feature that takes you to the next step on your quest, works "as the crow flies" when you're flying there on your cloud.

We also got a couple of new transformations tonight, one of which you can see in Ozzy's screenshots in the previous post.

[storm]

this game looks impressing/ i will definitly give this 1 a try

[Danishcookie]

I got to say I been playing in closed beta and so far I realy like this game its cool.

[DracoArgentum]

great review. I have to agree with you about graphics being easy on the eyes. From the first few screen shots you had posted, what really stuck me were the colors. I loved the color scheme, but agree that it's rather "cartoonish".

Would love to join you guys at some point.

[OzDragon]

The Wipe is tomorrow. Will we return? I think so .. this game has a lot of elements I enjoy. Only thing you have to get past is the immature people spamming globe chat but you will get that everywhere.

Ether Saga will go from open beta to live tomorrow. I hope to have more time to get to the higher levels of this game as the lower level are very well thought out and are good at hooking the player. My question would be: are the higher levels enough to keep them?