f13.net

I guess from the makers of Drakensang comes a browser-based MMOish F2P thingie that's in beta: Drakensang Online (http://www.drakensangonline.com/).

Supposed to be released in 6 days, I applied for the beta and was immediately let in. Only 2 classes, seems a bit Diablo-ish in play.

BiiF?

I've had like literally 5 minutes with it. It doesn't suck.

WOW... how is the rest of F13 not aware of this game. This is probably the best browser title I've seen. I've only got about 2hrs into it so I suppose it could fall off a cliff at some future point but so far I'm really impressed.

Details?

BIIF it dude! Let's hear some writeup.

You need a blue name to BIIF something, I think.

On a totally unrelated note: awesome avatar, CharlieMopps  :heart: :drill:

Lol.. it took a while to get it to work here. Stole it from wikipedia. It's a 4 dimensional object or something... I forget.

Anyways, the writeup:

Graphics are probably the highest quality I've seen in a browser game. Kind of like a cross between guildwars and WOW but higher detail.
Gameplay is basically Gauntlet with Quests. There are towns, large monster filled zones, then side zones that are basically dungeons filled with skeletons or whatever and a boss at the end.

There's money, then there's "glowing money" that drops rarely but is pretty much what you buy if you want to pay real $$. You can use this to buy the uber equipment. My limited experience so far is that it's like EQ2, where each range of levels (in EQ2 it was 1-10, then 11-20, etc...) there is 1 set of "uber equipment" With normal gameplay it seems that you could afford one piece of this armor while in range of it... where-as, if you buy the "glowing money" you could of course get it all.

The games not done. Theres only 2 classes, warrior and mage (they have different names but that's what they are)
The quests seem pretty rudimentary at the moment, kill 10 of this and bring me a shovel... whatever. There's a couple of more complicated quests that make me think they intend on more in the future when the games out of beta.

Best of all, it's in Java, there's no installer, it plays full screen... When you zone it sometimes take a few seconds for all the tiles to load but really, it loads pretty fast. I'm just amazed they could do something this sophisticated in a browser.

Really enjoying this title. It is amazingly fast to get up and running ( They start the java app when you visit the page ), a few bugs here and there so far ( Level 11 ). Game needs some portals ala Diablo. Quite the one path at this time, no idea if they will add other lines to progress on. The cash shop prices are not assrapey, though if you hate games that sell gear because of some preconceived competition, stay away. Otherwise, good fun. The spell and move FX are stunning, especially the use of dynamic light. They have a good grasp on "hacking through tons of mobs" feel from games of this type, bosses can be a challenge. UI is simple and effective, though some areas are still in German.

Very smart game, very smart indeed. Though, stacked up VS games of the type, its somewhat common. Still, you can't beat the price, and the challenge and pace feels good.

OSX 10.7 not supported.

Mac users should be used to games not working on their machines by now.

This game is amazing. It proves that Diablo2 or a game as least as complex as Diablo2 could work in a browser.

To be fair, the early game is good, but there seems to be some content holes later on, also the few bugged quests I encountered created some XP gaps for me. As far as presentation goes, there is a lot to be said for fixed angles and distances with cameras.  There is some very smart asset use here.

Linky. (http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/12/12/drakensang-announces-massive-content-updates/)

Bigpoint thinks their game is better than Diablo III and Torchlight II in chart comparison. (http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/04/24/drakensang-online-compares-itself-to-diablo-iii-and-torchlight-i/#comments)

 :why_so_serious:

They added a bow wielding buff/debuff class. The PvE game really slows down a little before level 20, and PvP stops being even remotely gear balanced at about that time. I do like that the PvP talents only affect your abilities vs. other players. That said: Still a lot of fun and worth looking at if you haven't.