Eternal-Lands
A Review By: Burnout
Eternal-Lands is a free massive multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) which can be downloaded at www.Eternal-lands.com. Supported by Window, Linux, and FreeBSD, Eternal-Lands allows for a large playing community. With a wide range of different maps, monsters, animals and items, Eternal-lands IS completely playable even though only in its Beta phase. And with updates almost bi-monthly Eternal-Lands is always getting better.
#1
Eternal-Lands starts on the continent of Seridia, where humans, dwarves, elves and other races all live together. But the land is also infested with skeletons, gargoyles, the feared fluffy rabbit as well as many other monsters. Starting on Isla Prima, where NPC’s like The Wraith and the Tutorial_NPC help by telling you what you need to do in order to survive and even start you on the first of many quests. You begin a journey that only gets more exciting the more you play. Traveling through the over 50 maps of towns, caves, dungeons, temples and schools spanning 2 continents. Irrilion, the second continent, is seemingly endless in its possibilities. Being that even not more than 3 months old there have already been updates to add maps, monsters and new items specifically geared for Irillion. Eternal-Lands gives you the freedom to make your character as you see fit. Become a fighter and stand on the front lines fighting creatures that threaten the lands, summon your own creatures to combat the forces of evil, or even stay where it is safe and make armor and weapons for those that fight. Or work hard to become a “Jack-of-all tradesâ€, with no limit to how much any character can learn you have the ability to be in the top 50 list of every skill in the game. With no true limit to how high a skill can go, you are always striving for that next step, to be stronger, or better than the rest. You can even join a guild of like minded individuals and work together by helping each other mine or harvest materials needed for making items. Or by fighting with each other and making yourselves stronger. And with so many secret areas that it is almost impossible to find them all…Eternal-Lands will have you hooked form the start.
#2
Eternal-Lands debuted in February of 2003. Since then Entropy and Roja (the owners), and a team of qualified volunteers, have worked very hard to make Eternal-Lands the best MMORPG on the web. Boasting thousands of members, multiple hundreds which are online and playing at any given time, I think they very well may be succeeding.
Now let’s take a look at some of the general specs for Eternal-Lands. I will be rating each category from 1-10. 1 meaning it needs a lot of improvement up to 10 meaning just about the best I have seen.
GRAPHICS: 8
With 3-D graphics and a 360 degree rotate able camera angle with tilt Eternal-Lands has what every good RPG of this day and age needs for graphics. With some absolutely breath-taking scenery (as seen in the links below) you will be constantly surprised at what you see. And with each map having it’s own feel you will never feel like you are going through the same place over and over as in some RPG’s. But there could be more adaptability as far as character creation, as some characters you see will look almost exactly the same as others, without armor on.
#3
SOUND: 7
Music has just recently been implemented into Eternal-Lands so it isn’t what I would consider great, but it isn’t too bad either. While being better than some RPG music I have heard, I still choose to go into the options menu and turn the music off and put a CD in the computer while I play. Though I am sure it will get better in later updates. The sound FX are pretty crisp though, some sounds I have never heard before used for things, plus you don’t have that delay between sound effect and visual effect that a lot of MMORPG’s have.
GAMEPLAY: 9
With all the different skill, abilities and options, it is fairly simple to get around and act quickly when needed. It is easily one of the better games in this category. The only small knock I can give it and the reason it isn’t a 10, is because it does take a little while for newer players to figure out all the controls. But a couple days playing, and a little help from the “newbie-helpers†that roam the game, and you can easily see why this rank is so high.
#4
MECHANICS: 9
The game mechanics for Eternal-Lands are very well done. For every item made or action taken in a certain skill, you get experience for that one skill level and your Overall level. While higher levels in each skill allows you to make better items or fight better, each level in Overall give you 1 Perk Point which can be used towards nexus or abilities (i.e. physique, coordination, vitality). Although for each level gained you still gain the same amount of experience for whatever action you take, the amount of experience needed for the next level goes up almost exponentially. Whereas this mechanic is great for most everything…There is the small issue of fighting skills, namely attack and defense. Where you get a certain amount of experience for each time you hit an opponent for attack and a certain amount of experience for each time you dodge an opponents attack for defense. Which means you get more experience for dragging out a fight, rather than getting a certain amount of experience for killing certain monsters?
COMMUNITY: 10
One thing I have found to be of utmost importance in online MMORPG’s is the community. In the case of Eternal-Lands not enough can be said about it. The development team is always working their hardest to get new updates out to the population expeditiously. The in-game moderators enforce the game rules in what is, in most cases, a very professional and quick manner. The “newbie-helpersâ€, that do everything in their power to help new player find their way and figure out the rules and controls of the game. Even the players themselves are for the most part the nicest, most helpful group of online gamers I have ever seen. I mean there are a few rotten apples in the bunch, but with the guild set-up it is easy enough to get with a group of good player and figure out who the bad ones are.
#5
OVERALL: 9
Overall who could ask for more out of a game still in its beta phase. By all means I have seen some better games released, and ALOT of worse games released. But for a game in its test period, I wouldn’t miss it. With things being added all the time and new ideas and volunteer development teams members coming in almost weekly. Who knows what could happen by the time it is finished. Do you want to miss out??
P.S. Why the heck do the URL's I post never work :/ *sigh* anyways.........
#1 = http://achaoticexistence.bravehost.com/duh/Races.jpg
#2 = http://achaoticexistence.bravehost.com/duh/summoning.jpg
#3 = http://achaoticexistence.bravehost.com/duh/troll.jpg
#4 = http://achaoticexistence.bravehost.com/duh/ok.jpg
#5 = http://achaoticexistence.bravehost.com/duh/yayhaed.jpg
ok quick edit: you have to copy and past the url's to see the picture...I always have trouble posting them in these forums for some reason...
and I kinda like the feared fluffy rabbit better Derin Raise your hand if you are a big Monty Python fan
