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Zettai Hero
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: A figment of my own imagination
Posts: 6,103
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Pyros Plays:Legend of Martial Arts
For this month's Pyros plays (let's just pretend this is a monthly thing), I decided to try the thing that kept popping up before I can watch my CrunchyRoll's.
LOMA
This, being Legend of Martial Arts released by Perfect World. It's apparently based on a chinese pop show. Since I had heard good things about Perfect World itself, I figured this couldn't be bad: It's tagline reads "Deceptively Simple. Hellishly Hardcore."
That's my manner of being in a nutshell!
So, let's get to makin'.
I can either be an evil elf,
A boring chinese dude
Or Rinoa Heartilly.
Quaint.
So, after another new character is birthed, I'm dumped in the middle of nowhere...with nothing to do. Not even an intro. Or an opening quest to explain the game mechanics. A few pop ups like "click an npc to talk!" but other than that, nothing.
For some reason this man is Bruce Earl, but is that his name or is he the earl of Bruce? Is this where I am? In the quaint country province of Bruce?
Humor isn't the thing they think they have. And our first quest...go talk to the shopkeepers about stuff!
I will give them a good GUI points, this hula hoop about my waist is a directional compass that tells me where to go in 3D, and will point to whatever a quest is telling me to go. This game is mostly geared towards younger generations (I hope), so ease of getting around is important.
The thing that looks like imperial sign is pointing towards a quest, the pointy bit on the hula hoop points north.
The first stop is the Merchant you see behind me, but simple is the nature of the game: she only sells what I (and all other new players) am already equipped with. Must not have much of a thriving business, I imagine.
However, for talking to her, she gives me a special hat! That does nothing except magically changing my hairstyle and hair color. And in games where something like that does change have special attributes beside getting the npc's to laugh about my looks behind my back, I'd still prefer to go without.
Here I jump at an invisible wall! Coding swimming is a hard chore indeed. Or it's illegal in the province of Bruce or foundation or something.
The people in this quest are just giving me weaksauce stuff that's weaker than what I got on. Likely because they're attempting to start the player on a boosted state to get them into the game, because maybe after I level up I'll no longer be able to wear this stuff possibly, and I'll need something, I guess.
Of note, is that I also got low level guy armor too. Just handing out full sets of clothing just in case. Or for crossdressers. Or just in case of Crossdressers. Sold it back for money.
There are two separate equip slots for footwear
and shoes. Finally, they make concessions so that I can look awesome AND wear (mismatched) top level gear!
At first I thought this was Perfect world being racist about the appearance of Chinese children, but then I caught on that these were player vendors.
See the wasteland of all free MMORPG's, a town flooded with lifeless dolls selling overpriced crap to people who don't care and could get said crap by killing monstahs.
I am wearing the hair ribbon in these shots so I don't accidentally attract any stern, scar faced Squall CornHeart.
Now, to the meat of any MMORPG's defining first 30 minutes!
MURDERING HARMLESS WOODLAND CREATURES!
Taste death, BUNNY!
Shit, they're multiplying!
The weird part about the civet cats is that they look more like a kind of racoon dog, and only have a passing resemblance to Civets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civet
The weirder part is that as an apparent justification (or the reason why) for the 'cat' part of the name, they make a cat mew when you beat them to death with a blunt noob sword.
Normally, I would be appalled at murder of another cat, but since these cat-fox-raccoons look different, I feel that I can treat them as infeline!
The worst part about a lot of the free MMO's I play is that there's a lot of just fields of enemies. I know in the beginning of the game there are more players than enemies compared to the endgame of a lot of MMO's, and there needs to be plenty of fodder for all players to get a whack in, but it's still not visually distinct, interesting, or fun. It's just a bunch of murder fields that spread out as far as the eye can see, only ended by a hill,
that leads to another murder field full of jackrabbits just waiting to be decimated.
And a future Disney lawsuit, just walking around. Chipp (or Dale) the chinese chipmunk/gopher/squirrel gold farmer is just, y'know. Chillin around.
For that he must pay for his crimes.
HIS FRIENDS TOO.
Geeze, this game is easy! I've just murdered my way across the fields of furry creatures (and Disney copyright infringement) and already reached the next town, in about five minutes!
Aha! Look over there in the right! A real challenge!
Well met Careless thief who looks more Japanese than Chinese, and is possibly a veiled metaphor of contempt about the Sino-Japanese war, I challenge you to the death!
I suppose I was the one who was careless there.
Welp, death was a slap on the wrist, as can be expected. I've got a whole bunch of crap I don't know do with or care about, and....
PIGGY!
....Why are you complaining when you can talk back!? I'm not crazy! You're the crazy one pig, with your denial of your inporcine special ability! Why don't you go bunk with capitalistic swine from Vindictus and conmiserate about your strange ability to speak without human vocal chords!
Another neat feature. You can actually just hit track, or double click a place on the map, and your character will automatically create a routed path and walk there. Easy! Wish there was a tutorial at the beginning that told you all this!
Ah screw it! This is boring stuff, and I've got too little free time to waste it on Chip, Dale, and Jim, Chip's identical twin brother from "Private Pluto" who was replaced with his dissimilar retard cousin out of Walt Disney's phobia of twins.
Let's...let's just roll with something a little more nostalgic.
Drift City: Mittron Madness/Skid RushDrift City (now with the subtitle Mittron Madness) is a driving MMORPG in the vein of Crazy Taxi, Grand Theft Auto, and Midnight club. It has real cars modeled into the game, and has actually pretty decent driving controls, and is fundamentally a game that has the trappings of MMORPG but a reliance on skill. That nice sports car that can break 250MPH without a sweat won't mean a hill of beans if you can't drift properly.
Unlike LOMA, this starts with a much more lengthy opening cinematic:
Remember kids, in real life, people get pissed if you launch your Ford through a busy intersection while blasting BEP's "Pump it".
In a world that looks like a cheap model...
Gundanium was found nearby, on another more moody and interesting Island populated by young men with brown hair and a lot to prove as well as a bunch of blondies with a fetish for wearing masks.
It's a clean burning fuel, and economically viable, and doesn't seem to run on the pseudo-spiritual equivalent of people's souls!
You'd think they'd just y'know, build a mine on the island. I'm pretty sure a big city would make the act of getting Mittron out of the ground a little bit harder.
Called Oh my DemiGoddess by those punk kids with all their slang.
"We even have a soccer dome shaped like a soccer ball!" 
Damn foreign imports!
The acronym was particularly easy to come up with, OMD reports, because the letters HUV were clearly marked on said vehicles' hood, doors, roof, and license plate. (I wish I was kidding)
I bet he just thought he was clever for making words to fit HUV.
Because when I want to be the greatest car driver ever, I just have to ram my expensivec car with college driver's insurance into a robotic terrorist car.
Oh yeah, that's how you name and advertise paid-for cars. The spicy Fervor, and the musclebound Goat.
For the simples of character creation, I just make a license for myself.
So I can either be Diego Armando,
Envy,
or an uke. Huh. Better than LOMA's choices already!
This is the first of many, what I call "racewhores." They're meant to be like stunt racing babes, only they work 24/7 jobs as OMD officers, Gas/Mittron Station attendents and radio operators. Erina is your voice with an internet connection, and stays with you no matter what you do.
I guess there was a point to building the city: they're just mining underneath it, and all that empty space underneath is perfect for a unsupported dome to house the OMD!
We start out, just like High School, in the student driver car. It smells of nervousness and the urine of old people. Ah, memories. OH, and as you can see, it's christmas still in Drift City land. Lookit that tree.
A short tour: The clubhouse for 'clans' of typical MMORPG's.
The battlezone, for racing and multiplayer shenanigans.
The item shop.
Much more important, the Car dealership, where you can buy better cars. Can't go there yet, as I've got to get my license first.
But the best part of the dealership is that you don't neccesarily ever have to buy a car, even with game money. This is the coupon book, and it gives specific challenges. These are simple stuff: drift so many times, drive for x amount of time, drive on the wrong side of the road, stuff you'll do naturally during the course of the game. Usually, by the time you need a car upgrade, you're likely to get a coupon that lets you get the car attached to it for FREE.
The auction house for when I want to buy 1 out of a hundred bits of crap.
And here's the exit, but I can't leave yet, as it would be wrong of me to drive off in the student car and go freewheeling about the city.
Zoomed out view of the dome.
But for now, it's to the battle zone to get our license.
I mostly just feel uncomfortable because you heard good things about me, and they were probably lies.
I'm sure they'll know me pretty well after I wreck every streetlamp and fire hydrant while grinding the sidewalk.
I'm gonna have to try one of these mission battles, just for kicks.
Inspector Duffy is a hard ass instructor who is going to teach you how to drive like a bad ass mutha fukka robot car killer. He'so bad ass, he doesn't need to include the 't' at the end of his own pyros damn test!
Don't know why the text is too long for the screen, but I do know how to drift!
The starting animation for a race is pretty badass. Though apparently all OMD drivers are wearing Etnies.
Like any tutorial, this is done with quickly-
...unless I fail and have to do it again. All quests that teleport you somewhere tend to spit you out back where you started when you're done with them, and somehow I didn't drift just right. I think I had to drift for .5 seconds straight, so just a quick drift counted as a "failure."
But got it right, and the next test had me run the course once with knowledge of the boost skill:
Boost works by a little blue bar next to my MPH and under my fuel, with each little segment filling up little by little over time, or with each combo I accumulate. Going through gates or jumping a ramp will also refill my boost. Boost works like Nitro, and is essentially just a refillable nitro. Different cars have better or worse bost, and some later cars can do it twice, or have one big "super boost."
Now that I've passed my test, I can pick for myself a car. You can probably guess their manufacturer and model, as they are based on real cars!
The birdie, nice all rounder.
The V1 Metro, an economy car.
A slightly more sporty, but retroish, the Drifter car.
and a rich college student's car named Laputa, because just like a castle in the air, it's out of reach to a poor writing student.
This is mission girl Suyeon, yet another racewhore. She gives out a mission of the day, so every day you log in, you have all day to fulfill an easy mission. For each mission, you get a token, which can be traded for items usable in both races and in patrol.
Colored my car black, just for kicks. Also, soon as I got out of the hub dome, I got an event gift for X-mas. An X-Cat. Either formerly a cat after species assignment, or Iceman's pet feline Mr. Snuggles.
This girl pumps your gas, if you catch my drift. (Because it's not gas, it's Mittron!)
Fuel is actually a component of gameplay. For the most part, you don't need to worry about running out of juice, it's cheap an inexpensive to fill up and in the beginning cars just sip it at most. Later cars however, gulp it, chug it, and set fire to it. The most high performing cars transform fuel directly into MPH, and it shows. If you ever do run out of gas, your ass is automatically towed back to one of the stations, and you're likely to fail any missions you were in. Money is easy to come by though, and free fuel is a common item drop, so it's best not to sweat it.
The map in the lower right hand corner is remniscent of GTA and Midnight club, and the arrow up top is straight up Crazy Taxi. And the first city area is pretty big. You'll do missions and whatnot in specific subsections of each area, each with their own topography and landmarks, before moving to the next city area. Each has it's own feel, and trickier roads.
Since this is the first one, the roads are pretty Californian: wide multi-laned, with a few steep slopes and some riding along the coast. No real sharp turns or tricky terrain, for the most part either, and there's generally enough wiggle room for all to pass around the civillian cars also driving about.
The purple and Yellow cubes on the map are Stations. They are both mission (quest) giving spots, let us swap cars, make delivery jobs (time trials) and of course, refuel. Each one has some street racing looking punk or racewhore running them and giving us our missions.
The first missions are just 'tour's of basic mechanics, and of the city itself. This is a simple drive A to B mission, with no time limit.
Oh, and here's my finished license! Sorry Arhra, but I am a policeforce racecar driver on the street from the FUUUUUUUUUTUUUUUURE!
And I have a flying X-cat on top of my ride.
Now on the right, you see my combo. The game gives you boost for every time you do something cool, like drifting, riding in the wrong lane, getting close to other cars without crashing, that kind of stuff. This combo makes your boost go up faster, but also gives out extra rewards the higher it goes, with higher combos netting more stuff. So just keeping up regular combos gives out items that increase your attack temporarily, let you keep your boost when you crash, or like I said before, free gas! You can get free fuel just by driving around like a skilled maniac!
Now, not all missions are simple drive A to B. Some have hardcore time attacks like Crazy Taxi, one plays like the Ambulance missions of GTA and it's time trials, some are races throughout the city, and others throw in little quirks. This one has us on delivery...of a sweet car.
Oh yeah, Santa ArhraNine Envy is getting from A to B in style!
In deliveries and other special missions, you're penalized for any time you crash the car into anything, as expected. This can be some trouble if you're used to say...driving on the sidewalk for kicks, or in a habit of riding on the wrong side of the road to build up your combo quickly. It's also pretty hard on the more crowded roads of the game, and also when you're on a full server: there are other player drivers racing around on time trials and whatnot, and hitting them can be troublesome. I don't think they count towards your crash total, but they can cause you to crash into something that does.
More on that later.
Hey jackass! I'm driving on this road, and I have an OMD license that gives me the right to royally funk up any body who dares get up in my grille.
The nerve! Crashing into me while I'm swerving in between lanes at 120! Does he think he owns the road around here?
In the center of the town is OMD headquarters, the underdome's just for us drivers.
Here Suyeon gives out tokens for daily missions, and lets us cash them in.
Rush time is something new, but it's basically a collaborative Boss Fight. It's an hourly thing, and everyone who is in this circle before the timer ends is given a special mission to take down a huge monster robot car for big rewards.
This wasn't here before either, in my experience, but is some big party quest. This racewhore is noticeably drawn by a different artist.
In the middle of town, there's a giant X-mas tree, and driving into it gives you this nice aerial view.
Roads are just a suggestion! Like underwear!
Ambulance mission, like I said!
But dying people will have to wait, I forgot to equip gear!
Gear is just like any other game, boosts your car's stats. You can strip old gear to put into new cars, but higher leveled gear from a higher class of car can't be put into lower level cars. They improve the car's attack (how much damage HUV's take when I ram them), acceleration, top speed, and boost. Basically, Sword, Shield, Magic Helm, and Shoes. For cars.
The next quest made me have to apply for delivery missions. Delivery missions...wait, hold up, is that who I think it is?
Fuzzy Brows, what are you doing here?
Whatever Jan, but my brother says he'd hoped you'd have died in the last chapter you were in.
Anyway, Delivery Missions are repeatable time trials that have you racing through checkpoints in the city. You aren't given a route, and can go through any checkpoint in any order, but since there's an emphasis on speed and an award for having the fastest time on the server, you'll want to come up with one.
The best time for the one I'm on for instance, is one minute, five seconds, and 400 milliseconds, but in my slow ass car and rusty driving skills, I did it in about 2'30.9. Doing the job will get you payment irregardless of how well you do, but don't fret if you want to be the best: the top time is wiped from time to time, I think, so a new class can compete for top times.
Ah, this is special instant mission that is all Christmas themed. Erina's wearing a Santa cap and everything!
Instant missions are HUV chases, where a HUV is spotted by some incredibly perceptive fellow who notices the large white HUV letters on a weird looking car, and calls the proper authorities, and is hailed as a hero for having the power of superhuman perception.
They are usually parked somewhere, though will start moving if I come close or ram them, and the chase is over after I have arrested them by hitting them with my car until they explode. That's my kind of arrest, if you ask me. COPS: Vehicular combat edition.
Since this is Christmas, the special instant missions look either like Santa's sleigh or are a sports car with antlers and a glowy nose: I'm showing Rudolf the evil car what I thought about him running over Grandma last christmas eve.
When hit, they tend to gain a sudden and inexplicable boost of speed that puts a gap between me and them, just so I can't grind them to dust in a corner or something like you could in GTA's vehicular manslaughter missions. However, you can use an item or a team up to take them down in one shot for the early instant missions. Instant missions are always scaled to your level and area, after all.
You can say there's no such thing as Santa, but as for me and my car: we believe!
As for multiplayer, it works like this: Other cars can and will drive around the city performing their missions concurrently to you. They are in their own instances, but as you all share the same streets, a good part of the player's skill is also dodging the poor driving of other players. You can see the stickers and model of their cars, and even the NPC's that they are currently racing, tracking, or tailing, but you can't see their quest markers. Furthermore, you'll pass right through their HUVS if you try and ram them.
Partying is specifically for special events and also for instant missions. Sure, I destroyed Rudolf, Donner, Blitzen, and Santa car, but that was usually a one on one take down, with at most two or three cars I was pursuing, and they stuck together. Later, it can be as many as five, and they can and will split up-and you're on a time limit. Imagine struggling to destroy a few HUVs in time, only for the HUVS to be spread out as far as the opposite sides of the city! You'd never drive fast enough, even if your car broke the sound barrier. Party members can split up to take care of split up threats, and the like.
There's also the rush, which I took part in.
Today's boss is the Doom Dozer, which is a giant evil bulldozer with a scoop for some reason. It is also apparently a mother too, and is formerly a disgruntled construction worker angry that OMD didn't spread it's robot health care to her baby robot bulldozer cars.
So it's me, 11 other guys playing an old racing MMORPG at just past midnight, chasing down a giant robot car bulldozer.
Sadly, see that health bar? See how much has been taken off of it? We had 10 minutes, and that damage was after 2 minutes of chipping at it. It had a shockwave attack and could hit us with it's shovel, throwing us in the air back at our fellow pursuers, and could plow it's way through civilian cars like confetti, leaving a wreck to bar our path. Yeah, it ended up getting away.
In the meantime, faux product placement! Pizza Hat and Bingles, Yum! They even have psuedo stores, and local brands, a nice touch, as they give landmarks and some good detailed scenery.
The next thing I did, was after a few HUV arrests for plot, was get a free coupon for another feature of the game: car customization. You could pay money for things like the cat hovering over my car, and underlights, and also sticker glue, which let you deck out your car with decals and stickers.
In this case, a sporty red rear and the cover of Persona 3's OST on my hood. You can upload your own stickers into the game's server, and they can be pretty copyright infringing, if you ask me. As long as they aren't porn, GameCampus seems to be cool with it!
Within a two hours of gameplay, the next morning I discovered I'd done enough drifting to get a free car from the coupon book...and got this car.
Also, I discovered the fusion system where you combine car parts and items to get better car parts, this is also new but boring.
This is me decking my car out, and showing the world my true self via my car.
Bitches hate because I'm FLAMING.
And another quirky mission, it's a time trial in a civvy car, which is implied to run on good ol' gasoline. Apparently mittron is what makes cars look cool and based on real cars, and gas just makes everything look like it's from GTA3 and Megaman Legends.
The real joy is the fact that it sounds like a really, really crappy engine, and it's boost sounds like it's about to make the car explode.
In summary, Drift City is a fun driving diversion with the MMO frame. Everything you'd expect to do with cars is done, and while it's no Gran Tourismo or Burnout, it's free and it'll run on computers that have trouble running WoW. You are able to listen to your own MP3's ingame, like I mentioned before on another thread, and each city is a unique beast with it's own twists and turns. There is a plot, and but it's linear: OMD hired you, but they may be bad bad people, and there's a undercover team working against them that you become involved with. You do get to choose to rebel and work for another group called ROO, but that's pretty late in the game, around level 50, and even then it's the same: Go to a new station, do a few quests, and head to the next station, rinse and repeat until you head to the next city.
Flaws would be how much it shows it's age in the modern age, with graphics that are little better than a good Dreamcast game at some points, even on the highest settings. Furthermore, whenever there are too many people on the server, some of the quests can be quite infuriating, ala Midnight Club and GTA's worst offenders. The world itself is just racing, nothing more, and there's no crafting or something like that. There still seems to be content updates, as well as special stuff like Christmas, but the player base seems to have waned.
And this is impossible!
But all in all, it's still a blast to just race around town, ramming pedestrians off the road, hitting street lights and fire hydrants, and jump convenient ramp carrying trucks! I give it an 8 out of Nine, just because I can!
As for LOMA...eh, don't care.
Might do some more for this one, but hey...Champions Online just became free to play...
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02-06-2011, 09:09 PM
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