Estiah
Creator: A pair of former WoW players whose usernames in Estiah are Lezard and Nipal.
Subscription Scheme: Free to play; player can pay for in-game upgrades that don't affect game balance.
Interaction Emphasis: None (equal parts Player vs Player and Player vs Environment)
Basis: Browser based
Today I'm going to be talking about Estiah. It has many unique qualities that set it apart from most other MMOs on the market. For one, it is completely free to play. You can donate to the game, which will give you Phoenix Feathers (at a rate of 1 USD for 1 Feather), but everything purchasable with Feathers has no real effect on the game balance, so people who donate 100 USD to the game have no concrete advantage over players who haven't paid anything. For another, stats have absolutely no bearing on your character's damage, hit points, or anything else for that matter. They are used to determine what type of charms you can use in battle. I will explain what charms are now.
Charms represent anything your character would use in a standard fantasy RPG (that is to say, weapons, armor, spells, potions, etc.). The game plays out more like a trading card game than anything else, with your Spirit stat being your maximum possible deck size. Your other stats are Hit Points (these drop to 0, you lose the battle), Constitution, Dexterity, Power, and Intellect. The four stats I mentioned last allow you to wield different types of charms. For example, concentrating on Constitution and Intellect allows you to use Maces and Holy Magic. On the other hand, concentrating on Power and Dexterity allows you to use Shadow Magic. Your character progression isn't determined by experience points, but rather by mastering skills and working jobs (both will increase your stats, and after a certain amount of stat points are gained, your level will go up by one.)
You start the game as a Level 1 Adventurer. Upon reaching Level 20, and depending on your stat allocation up to that point, you can travel to one of the cities in-
game to change your class. Class changing allows you to use unique charms available only to that class, as well as opening the door for another class change at Level 30. This repeats itself at Level 40. At the end, your character will have changed classes three times and be able to use the unique charms of each class he changed into before.
The PvE element of the game is all about completing Dungeons. Each Dungeon has a number of levels, with assorted bad guys in each one, and a big bad boss at the end. Winning in Dungeons tends to net special charms that only drop there and cannot be purchased in shops as well as items needed to craft other types of non-purchasable charms. You can also gather resources (running the risk of clashing with monsters or even other players trying to gather said resources at the same time), and raise a pet to fight and race in a special arena. A final nicety is the inclusion of an auction house, where the game places craft-only charms and other rare items for players to buy with their hard earned gold.
The PvP element of the game is divided into 1 vs 1 battles in PvP allowed towns and Coliseum matches (that can be 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, or even 4v4). In the 1v1 battles, you stand to gain special Soul Items that can be used to craft special charms (that, again, cannot be normally purchased).
What makes this game casual are Action Points (or AP for short). You get a set amount of them every two hours (20 if you're low on points and less if you have a few points in the pool already) and the cap is at 1200. You need AP to do just about anything in Estiah, so you have to plan ahead so as to use your AP effectively. It may sound like a negative, but I like the strategy involved with this feature. Most other features are also limited in terms of time:
Well, that's about it for now folks! Take care and have fun! Thanks for reading!
- Winterfate
July 9, 2009
Subscription Scheme: Free to play; player can pay for in-game upgrades that don't affect game balance.
Interaction Emphasis: None (equal parts Player vs Player and Player vs Environment)
Basis: Browser based
Today I'm going to be talking about Estiah. It has many unique qualities that set it apart from most other MMOs on the market. For one, it is completely free to play. You can donate to the game, which will give you Phoenix Feathers (at a rate of 1 USD for 1 Feather), but everything purchasable with Feathers has no real effect on the game balance, so people who donate 100 USD to the game have no concrete advantage over players who haven't paid anything. For another, stats have absolutely no bearing on your character's damage, hit points, or anything else for that matter. They are used to determine what type of charms you can use in battle. I will explain what charms are now.
Charms represent anything your character would use in a standard fantasy RPG (that is to say, weapons, armor, spells, potions, etc.). The game plays out more like a trading card game than anything else, with your Spirit stat being your maximum possible deck size. Your other stats are Hit Points (these drop to 0, you lose the battle), Constitution, Dexterity, Power, and Intellect. The four stats I mentioned last allow you to wield different types of charms. For example, concentrating on Constitution and Intellect allows you to use Maces and Holy Magic. On the other hand, concentrating on Power and Dexterity allows you to use Shadow Magic. Your character progression isn't determined by experience points, but rather by mastering skills and working jobs (both will increase your stats, and after a certain amount of stat points are gained, your level will go up by one.)
You start the game as a Level 1 Adventurer. Upon reaching Level 20, and depending on your stat allocation up to that point, you can travel to one of the cities in-
The PvE element of the game is all about completing Dungeons. Each Dungeon has a number of levels, with assorted bad guys in each one, and a big bad boss at the end. Winning in Dungeons tends to net special charms that only drop there and cannot be purchased in shops as well as items needed to craft other types of non-purchasable charms. You can also gather resources (running the risk of clashing with monsters or even other players trying to gather said resources at the same time), and raise a pet to fight and race in a special arena. A final nicety is the inclusion of an auction house, where the game places craft-only charms and other rare items for players to buy with their hard earned gold.
The PvP element of the game is divided into 1 vs 1 battles in PvP allowed towns and Coliseum matches (that can be 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, or even 4v4). In the 1v1 battles, you stand to gain special Soul Items that can be used to craft special charms (that, again, cannot be normally purchased).
What makes this game casual are Action Points (or AP for short). You get a set amount of them every two hours (20 if you're low on points and less if you have a few points in the pool already) and the cap is at 1200. You need AP to do just about anything in Estiah, so you have to plan ahead so as to use your AP effectively. It may sound like a negative, but I like the strategy involved with this feature. Most other features are also limited in terms of time:
- Dungeons reset every 12 hours
- You can only work a job once a day.
- Likewise, you can only travel to another town once a day.
Well, that's about it for now folks! Take care and have fun! Thanks for reading!
- Winterfate
July 9, 2009
Tags & Keywords : Estiah, MMO, RPG, charms, free to play
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