f13.net

So, this is a Free to Play MMO, and if thats all you need to hear to not care, feel free to stop reading now.


Ok, with that out of the way, I had this mentioned to me a few months back and signed up for a beta invite, and well, I got one and closed beta started today.  The game is pretty darn fun actually.

1) No healers, only 3 classes so far.  Brawler (fighter?), Slasher, and Mage.  Basically what they sound like.

2) HERES THE IMPORTANT ONE:  You know how every MMO claims to be an action oriented game.  Well, this one actually is.  There is no tab targeting, you hit what you swing at (everything in your weapon's arc), and abilities are accomplished through button combos.  The game is playable with a controller, though apparently they JUST added controller support, so its a little finicky, and you still have to use the keyboard for some things (like talking to NPCs and looting).  If you are excited/looking forward to TERA, this is probably worth checking out.

3) Its mostly instanced except for the hubs.  You can group up up pretty easily, and you can select the difficulty you want to do the instance at, though i haven't experimented with this yet (the CB has literally only been live for a couple hours).  The game is very arcadey, including being able to select the area you are going to along with a full on "STAGE COMPLETE" message when you clear the area.

4) On the down side, there isn't much character customization, each class has a gender associated with it and a paltry amount of options like which face and hair color you'll want.  Given that everyone is basically in the same gear right now, this is kind of lame, don't know how it'll pan out.  Looks like you can buy new skills and enchant your current skills to add a bit of customization to how your character plays though.  I found a book that says its for mages and allows them to enchant a skill (I am playing slasher.)

5) The game has voiced quest dialog for some quests and the voice acting is TERRIBLE, but totally skippable.

I have no idea if this game is going to be good as a whole, but the combat is certainly very good right off the bat.

Also, I have 10 beta keys to give away, so ask if you want one.

EDIT: PM me with your e-mail if you want a key, I then do it through my account page on their website. (awaiting confirmation from AutomaticZen that the this beta invite things works right)


Apparently the beta invites thing isn't working properly, or I'm not understanding how to do it properly given their instructions.  Sorry for getting people's hopes up.  I'll try to keep an eye out for batches of keys and link in the thread if I see any.

Trailier: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PL09pTDslY

Note to moderators: There is no NDA that I can find on their forums, and I didn't have to "sign" anything at any point, so I'm assuming its fair game.

Yeah.  Shoot me a key.  It looks like a pretty time-waster at least.  Like Ninety Nine Nights or Dynasty Warriors online.

I tossed you a PM.

I'm hoping that more companies jump on the actiony combat bandwagon. That doesn't look immediately awful.

I got an e-mail saying they are accepting applications for the beta now, so you shouldn't actually need a key anymore.  Odd I guess, but if you sign up on divinesouls.outspark.com you can download the client and get to playing.

I'm on the West server and my slashers name is Malasher if you want to friends me, I'll probably make the other two classes today to try them out.   I played for a few hours yesterday and while it definitely has an early beta feel (features missing or not working yet, incomplete stuff and so forth) the gameplay feels smooth already.

Huh. This isn't immediately bad. The combat is pretty fun. I made a fighter on West, name Nonentity. I punch stuff and it's pretty fun to punch stuff.

The voice acting is HILARIOUS.

"I just arrived. I'm reporting my arrival."

Yeah, now you see why I made a specific point of saying so in my original post.   Thats basically my opinion too after playing to level 8 (not exactly max level, but whatever, its longer than I stick around most free to play games), "not immediately bad"  Its fairly fun to play, and it seems like lots of features still aren't working, so hopefully it can only get better.   My only worry is that one of the features not yet patched in is "soul crushing grind"

Don't jinx it. If it stays as is, it might not be bad.

For a second I thought the voice overs were just some text to speech program, but computers aren't yet capable of such bad acting. I wonder if there's some story reason my mage is so flat and unemotional. They also need to tone down the foot step sounds, especially on metal. Otherwise it was pretty fun.

This game is annoying.  It seems like it could be fun but it looks like each character can point in only 8 different directions.  The animations are extremely stiff.  When you jump you just stop.  Attack animations start, you can't move to adjust.  No thanks.

I haven't bad at all, but I am using a controller.  It feels pretty responsive, though it isn't perfect by any means.  I do wish that pressing block would cancel whatever you were doing and block immediately though, though I do like if you attack at the same time as an enemy (only seen this on bosses) you will take damage but instead of getting knocked back your character will sort of use the momentum from being hit to blackflip through the air and last on your feet. Sort of parry-ish, might reduce damage who knows.  At least thats how the slasher works.

Also, i fucking LOVE the combo where the sword turns into a chain and you just whip them around and slam them on the ground.

Lots of unknowns here still, but the game does at least have my attention for now.

Tried playing the mage, but it was just miserable.  Slasher was significantly easier.  Got tired of running the same area after hitting level 5, and logged out.

You can only point on 8 different directions when running using the keyboard alone - you can adjust and get finer angles using the mouse. The not being able to cancel out of animations doesn't annoy me, games like Monster Hunter and Demon's Souls all don't have forms of animation cancels, so I guess i'm used to it.

Webpage doesn't work for me. Guess I'll try again tomorrow.

The closest analog I can think for this game is that it is Dungeon Fighter Online, but in 3D and not at 800 by 600.

I played for a few minutes and really enjoyed it.  I'll probably play a little more on those days when there are no clannies on APB and I'm getting my ass handed to me due to general suckage or my PC being a pain in the ass.

My laptop runs this smooth as butter.  APB though can have its "burps".

Massively beta key giveaway

http://www.massively.com/2010/07/19/get-a-beta-key-be-divine-we-have-divine-souls-keys-for-you/

Edit: now, as Ghambit says, moot. Just go to their website and download this game if you want to try it.

Website says no key necessary.

This game looks alright. It's pretty gaudy, though. Vindictus is more my kind of thing.

http://www.youtube.com/v/tM2yfu_IqV4&hl=en_US&fs=1

I'd embed the video, but I don't know how :(

I'm level 12 now and its pretty fun, but I've gotten to the first dungeon that requires a group to kill the last boss.  I haven't tried to find a group for it yet, but it'll be interesting to see how the group play goes.  Seems like a lot of people are playing though, so that shouldn't be too big a problem.

If the cash shop doesn't make this game such, I might actually keep it installed when it goes live

I still can't get this page to work in Firefox. Works in IE. How odd!

Edit: Or I just can't connect to any of their sub sites. Whee...