Dragonica Review

Dragonica Review

This free to play 3D side-scrolling MMORPG from THQ ICE had its grand opening on October 15^th. Dragonica Online also its players to choose one of four character job classes: Warrior, Magician, Archer, or Thief. Each gender has 10 different hairstyles, 21 different hair colors, and 10 different face and eye styles. As the game progresses, characters gain levels and learn new attacks. Each job class has two different paths to choose for advancing combat styles, giving the freedom to create a character that is all your own. Each class has its own armor and weapons. Changing armor shows and is customizable to give the characters their own style. Up to four different characters can be made per account, allowing for even more fun and continued game play.

Because it’s Halloween, the four main towns of Odellia, are decorated for the occasion. There are even cardboard cut-outs where the characters can stand behind and put their faces in the holes. There are jack-o-lanterns everywhere you look and there are even players who have costumes running around in the game.

There are 10 active channels allowing for less crowding per server, and each server tells how crowded it is. This helps prevent the slowing down and lagged effects that are common occurrences for online gaming.

The game controls are mostly set up for QWERTY keyboard use,trying to keep mouse use at a minimum. There are times though when the key that is supposed to be pushed doesn’t work and it gets frustrating when trying to do something quickly. Another problem with the keyboard default settings is that it is too easy to get stuck in the text box. It is really hard to get out of the text box sometimes too. The latest update fixed that, so now it is as easy as hitting Enter on the keyboard.

There is a strange little blue dragon-like thing that follows your character around and helps you learn how to play the game. The problem with it is that by the time it tells you how to do most of the things that are important to playing through the game, you have already figured it out through exploration of your own. It gets really annoying also, when NPC characters you have already talked to and gotten the information about certain features of the game from repeat themselves. There is one NPC, Alvin the Hermit, in particular that tries to explain Friend Points every time you go to exchange your Friend Points for experience. Obviously you know what they are if you are exchanging them already.

Setting up a party for you and your friends is easy in this game. Party members share experience, monster kills, and earn Friend Points, which can be exchanged for experience intown. This comes in handy when the party is on the same quest; say to kill 10 Angry Sheep. This makes completely quests easier, so playing Dragonica online with friends is better when it comes to completing quests and missions. Dragonica is very open. There is a story, but it allows for individuals and friends to create their own adventure and work at their own pace.

Combat is a bit on the difficult side. There is not as much maneuverability on the Mission Maps, as there is in the towns. On the Mission Maps, characters can only more diagonally, left, right, up and down, but can only face left or right. This makes it difficult to fight monsters, which can move diagonally, left, right, up, and down as well. In towns, characters can more this freely, but when it really matters, when monsters are coming at you from north or south, you have to move past them or step backwards, in order to get on the same plan as the monsters and be able toattack them. It is really difficult to fight a monster that is north or south of your character since you can’t face your character in that direction.

The monsters re-spawn very, very quickly, so if there aren’t many people around at the same hunting ground it can become slightly overwhelming, but if there are a bunch of people, it makes it nice that there isn’t a lot of waiting around for more monsters to appear.

Another perk to Dragonica, is that while completing missions that require a dungeon and have a boss battle, only you and other people in your party can enter. So there isn’t any way that other online players can come in and steal your kills and dungeon boss experience. That seems to be a problem with other MMOs. There are countless problems with online players coming in at the end of a quest and taking the kill and loot for themselves, while you and your party did all the work.

Overall, Dragonica is a pretty fun game. It has a large online community and has a forum. The customer support is easy to access and there are always special events going on in the game. There is still some work to be done with the game, but THQ ICE seems to be working fast to get all the kinks and bugs out of the game.

I recommend that if you are looking for a fun game that you can put hours into and can pick up at any time, that you should give this game a shot.

Should we be worrying about sex and violence in video games?

So, reading these articles made me think of something I read written by Stephen King, "Why We Crave Horror Movies" (you can read it here http://iws.ccccd.edu/jdoleh/English%201301/Why%20We%20Crave%20Horror%20Movies.pdf is you want to know what he has to say). Video games and horror movies have a lot in common, but video games take Stephen King's argument a bit further, video games allow the player to be in control of the violence for the most part. Violent games don't have to be played, but the are still played, just like horror movies don't have to be watched, but many people go and watch them. There isn't anything wrong with or innate need for to feed the beast. As Stephen King puts it "The mythic horror movie, like the sick joke, has a dirty job to do. It deliberately appeals to all that is worst in us. It is morbidity unchained, our most base instincts let free, our nastiest fantasies realized . . . and it all happens, fittingly enough, in the dark. For those reasons, good liberals often shy away from horror films. For myself, I like to see the most aggressive of them – Dawn of the Dead, for instance – as lifting a trap door in the civilized forebrain and throwing a basket of raw meat to the hungry alligators swimming around in that subterranean river beneath." We have to keep those urges locked up inside of us to live in society, so we let all of our angers and fears and frustrations out some by getting the living daylights scared out of them, but others through video games and taking the actions into their own hands.

New Games Journalism

After having defeated Jack Moschet and his wife Maggie, we collected our second drop of myrrh from the myrrh tree and continued our journey. Griggory, Ruby, and I decided to head back to Marr’s Pass. Along the way, we ran into the Leuda couple, Dah Yis and Hana Kohl. They were dancing and having a great time and invited us to dance along with them. Griggory and Ruby were too embarrassed to join in on their festivities, but being a Selkie like them, I decided to join in on the fun. I danced, did flips, and had myself a merry time. The two of them looked like they were enjoying themselves too, even if they weren’t dancing on the tree stump with us. I know that they are a little different than the Leuda couple and I, being that Ruby is a Clavat and Griggory is a Lilty, we all have our own ways and traditions.

In order to get back to Marr’s Pass and the Ironmine Downs, we had to make another long journey through the miasma stream. The swords embedded like obelisks marked the entrance and we wondered whether they were placed their as a reminder of those that had fallen on their journey to collect the myrrh that keeps the crystals shining brightly in the cities or if they were just there as markers for our journey. Carrying the crystal chalice, Ruby and I continued forward through the miasma stream. Half way through, Griggory starts yelling, “Hey you guys! You left me behind! I can’t believe you didn’t even notice. I… I think I am dying…” By the time we made it back to him, it was too late. There was no way we could continue the journey with a fallen companion, so we had to turn back to the nearest city, Alifteria.

The biggest city on the continent was again in front of us. Alifteria has a large castle and its princess is a little less than willing to take on so much responsibility at her. But, we all have our own responsibilities and ours right now was to revive Griggory. We decided it was best to stick closer together this time. After passing through the miasma stream, we finally made it to Marr’s pass. We all crafted some new equipment and continued to journey overseas. This time, we were headed to Leuda and the Lynari Desert.

When we got to Leuda, Ruby and Griggory received some disgusted looks from the Selkie natives. Griggory went to greet the elderly lady by the docks and instead of a friendly greeting, he got robbed! I was welcomed without any complaints or weird looks, and they never took anything from me. In fact, the children asked me to play with them on their make shift trampoline. It’s so much fun! Jumping around, doing flips combo-ing multiple flips and moves, its fun to show off my skills sometimes. It was nice seeing a place where Selkies are looking out for each other, on the main continent, no one really likes Selkies. But it was time to get back to business. The Antlion was going to take care of itself; we had to press on to the Lynari Desert and collect more materials to craft ourselves some better weapons and armor.

Lynari Desert was hot, sweltering hot. There were lamias and griffins lurking around every turn, and scorpions too. My favorite monster that we ran into though was the Cactuar. They were so cute! They look like running cactus men. After completing the puzzles of the elements, we made it to the Antlion’s lair. Man was that things huge! We could barely see each other as we were running around its giant body trying to find a weak spot. Ruby got caught in its long hairy legs and didn’t see the Sand Sahagin come up from behind and she was petrified, literally, she was turned to stone. Griggory ran to her rescue and cast clear on her, but for Griggory, it was too late. He had brought Ruby back, but he was struck hard and his body fell limp to the ground. His spirit lingered to urge us on. When we caught a break from the onslaught, we cast Holy upon him, which brought him back to life. Fully revived, Griggory swung his lamppost for the final blow. The Antlion was slain and Ruby sheathed her sword and I placed my racket on my back. I picked up the crystal chalice and walked to the desert’s myrrh tree to collect our third drop of myrrh. The crystal chalice was full. It was time for the end of another year.

We made our way home and we were greeted by our families with a celebration. The music played and the children danced. It was nice to see everyone so happy and know that without us, without our journey and hardships, this could never be possible. My little sister wouldn’t write me letters anymore, my mother wouldn’t milk the cow and send me milk, and my father wouldn’t worry about me not having enough money to make it on my journey. Without me and my friends, there wouldn’t be any of this and the people who love us and whom we love would be consumed by the miasma. Without the myrrh, Alteria’s crystal won’t shine and without the crystal shining brightly, the miasma would seep into our homes. Our families would pass away and Alteria would be nothing more than a ghost town.

The year was finally over, after five long years, we had collected fifteen drops of myrrh, but it wasn’t enough, it would never be enough. The never ending cycle of collecting myrrh and keeping our village safe must continue, unless we can find what is causing the world to be covered with the miasma…

Game Genre

I really don't have much to say this week.

So, I think that video games today are redefining how we define video games and their genres. Video games are crossing into new boundaries and creating new genres. I think it is too hard to simply say these are the genres of video games and these are the games that should be placed in this category. We should keep it simple and not have 42 genres, that's way too many.

New Games Journalism

I don't think that New Games Journalism is such a bad idea, what I think, is that journalists are afraid to the new and innovative ways people are looking at and thinking about video games. They are afraid that if NGJ grows, that they will be left behind, but there are different types of readers for all the mediums that are written about.

Video game journalism, for the most part, has been written in the strict format that all other forms of journalism are written in. Journalism is about separating oneself from their writings, but NGJ is about personal experience on some level, which throws the rules of journalism, and most form of professional writing, out the window. It is hard to write about a video game that is exclusively multi-player, like World of Warcraft and games that focus on the multi-player functions that add to the story, without writing about one's personal experiences, whether they are being played with friends or with someone a hundred or more miles away.

I am not saying that everyone out there writing about their experiences or in the NGJ format is going to be worth reading, but obviously there are some people out there that will be able to take full advantage of NGJ. Personally, some games don't get enough hype from the media and there is a need for some one's personal experience of the game to get it selling. I don't know how many games I have bought just because my friends had great experiences with them, so why not write about it and put the game out there for further review?

Words and Actions Can Hurt?

There are just some people out there that don't have any etiquette. I hate watching Halo on-line and listening to the damn people talking crap and making fun of gamertags or whatever they are insulting. There are people who don't care what they say or who they hurt, because they think that just because there is no face behind the insults, they can't be held responsible for their actions. I have heard some really horrible things said and I just ask for it to be muted, but that doesn't help the problem. Some people just get so into the game, that they fuse with the image they are trying to create. It's one thing to choose to be good or evil and to do good or evil things, but its another to take those actions into words and insult or even verbally abuse someone. I used to play the MMO Asheron's Call and I can remember being new to the game and going through the beginning leveling process and learning about the world and what not and people would just walk up to you and kill you, call you a newb or n00b and steal your stuff. It's just plain rude. I didn't like the game at first, but as I played I met nice people and just plain jerks. I think that people don't care who they insult or abuse, as long they are able to get out their aggressions.