I took yesterday Dark Messiah of Might and Magic on Steam "Today's deal", gave it a go for nearly 2 hours and already have much more fun than with my World of Warcraft leveling/grinding past experience. Released in 2006, a year after WoW, the game is categorized as an Action/RPG and have a single and multiplayer feature (that i haven't tested yet).
Blasphemy! Why compare it with WoW then?
That said i'll eventually miss the connection feeling you can have in a true MMO. Fortunately it looks like good Action MMORPG may come quickly. I just hope that after all this WoW years enough gamers will have the envy to be challenged and to actualy *control* themselves their characters.
Like many I don't consider WoW as a "social" virtual world/MMO anymore. See for example Wolfhead Online post about it (even if his interpretation can be a little far fetch, he has strong points). Like Blizzard states, WoW is just a game and there's nothing really more to it. We should then feel welcome to compare it to any other game.
Dark Messiah belong like WoW to the fantasy RPG genre but not the WoW "Heroic" (cartoony shiny spectral poneys anyone?) but the Dark subset which looks more "mature" (few good looking women at last :D !).
What i really liked so far is the way my character progress and fight. He has abilities trees and gain new skills like in WoW but i now get the *Action* part of Action RPG :
- i am doing the parring/dodging myself not a stupid dice roll i have no control over like in WoW where you grind stats in a non challenging way to increase the probability of being successful lazy. I also can kick an enemy and take the opportunity to counter attack.
- i *aim* at the foes both with melee and range weapons; meaning some kind of skill is welcomed, not just repeating the same keystrokes cycle on a locked target
- i can use the world against the mobs (destroying structures above them for example, throwing objects...)
- my aggro range is not just a simple distance check but depends on my ability to be hidden in the environment; You have a stealth meter adding an infiltration dimension.
That said i'll eventually miss the connection feeling you can have in a true MMO. Fortunately it looks like good Action MMORPG may come quickly. I just hope that after all this WoW years enough gamers will have the envy to be challenged and to actualy *control* themselves their characters.
Dark Messiah has been developed by Arkane Studios in Lyon France and also based in Austin Texas now (he he /wave Alachia).
