The playthrough on this particular “mmo” will be sort of short since it isn’t exactly an “mmo”. It’s a Multiplayer game no doubt, but not a mmo.

First of all, I would like to compliment Danal Entertainment on the speed they tended to every single bug fix we reported. Things were submitted and dealt with during the duration of the closed beta instead of what the other companies do, which is leave it until the end of closed beta.

Secondly. I would also compliment Alaplayer. Although the gameplay offered was laggy, as Alaplaya is a European server opposing my American allocation, the server sustained the heavy load of CBTer’s around the world with playable standards (everyone wasn’t warping). Yes, this deals with the developer’s latency settings of a game (Danal), however; Alaplayer still needs to have a server to deal with their own latency. In this way, thanks to you both for offering such a wonderful experience…

So the game starts with two logos, Alaplaya and Danal, and off to the login screen. Inputting your username and password, it brings you to the lobby (or if its your first time to the hero creation). For now, the game offers 12 heroes each with their own unique set of abilities and equipment. The first thing I check in any game would of course be the options. Place them all in the highest setting, leave the music and sound to a listenable level, and check if you can remap keys. Fortuanally, you can.

So the game is what’s called an “instanced game” where you sit in a lobby and join games. In your lobby, you can goto the auction house and you can manage heroes, or even create a hero. It’s your homepage where you can talk to people when you don’t feel like playing a game or even spamming your trades.

As this game is advertised, it’s pretty much a play on DoTA. The twist is that it is a “TPS”(Third Person Shooter). With this in mind, it’s bound to be pretty different. Now that I’ve said DoTA, along with a store/auction house in the lobby, people might be wonder… wtf?

Well the game has a manage hero button which you get to equip your characters with items. Yeah yeah stay with me here. Each hero has their own equipment set at a certain level interval (1, 5, 9, 13, 17? I think that was it). Whenever your hero is that level in game, your set automatically switches off to the set you’ve made before the game started. This offers a nice twist, awarding people who have been playing for a while. Along with the shop for heroes, there is the traditional shop ingame which you can buy artifacts. One of each artifact can be held and only 8 items can be on you at any time. Choose wisely what you need to defeat the enemy.

At first, people wouldn’t find a difference in their weapons. However there is also an upgrading system and socketing system. Each upgrade gives a weapon/armor more attack/defense respectively and sockets apply special enchantments into the item (such as magical defense, physical defense, poison DOT and so forth). How do you get this? Wait for others to get it in the auction house or play massive amounts of games where the winner will be able to bid on an “epic” item shared between your teammates.

Anyhow, those can be looked into when you play. The chances are that if your reading a review, you’re looking for insight on the game itself and deciding whether or not you want to play it, not a guide on the game itself (which will be included in another post by the way)

There are currently 2 game modes and 3 maps, which I’m pretty sure 1 map is only for the other game mode. There is Battlefield and Annihilation.

Battlefield is your traditional DOTA game where one has to assault the opposing team’s base along with two obstacles that must be destroyed before one can get into their main base. Players can pay gold to globally upgrade the heroes through the training camp and produce giant weapons (after a 30 minute mark) to turn the tides of battle.

In Annihilation, the goal is to kill 30 players with your team of 1-5 players. That’s about it. You are given max level before the game starts and gold to buy your initial items.

The 3 maps offered are the Forest of Chaos, Crimson plains, and the Lair of the Great Dragon (pretty sure it isn’t great dragon. Ah well). Each offering its own field advantages and so forth. The game ends when you destroy the opposing team’s Headquarters and commander.

The Actual Review.

I put this game in high favor. And no, this isn’t any bias from me liking HoN or DoTa alike. They are great games, but you’re getting nowhere if you keep calling each game a x-clone. Hell, you can get away with saying WOW CLONE! Just because it uses WASD to move, and I think that’s just ridiculous.
+Support is pretty fast, responding in nearly a day or so. Maybe it was just because it was in CBT, but bugs were tended to with haste.

-One obnoxious “bug” that occurred is something called the “recall” bug, where if you use the recall (available every 4-5 minutes), you will become invulnerable and return to your homebase. This does not happen with any recall scrolls you buy. I suppose it becomes an element of the game.

+The game has a nice balance. People might say some heroes are OVERPOWERED, but I don’t believe that. There is a nice balance in which the players work around. And I hope Danal does not make the BIG mistake any other company would do, which is listen to players and “fix” heroes. (this will be gone over in the actual guide I will be writing)

-The tutorial scratched lightly on the extreme basics of the game … the rest is experience. Meaning newcomers will have an extremely hard time in the beginning.

+The game can be played by both casual players and “hardcore” players alike.

-Players often leave the game, leaving your team with 2v3… in plain words, Disconnections suck. And the penalty for it? The Dcer gets no reward that game and 1 mark on their name. There needs to be a bigger penalty since it pretty much gives the rest of your team a negative “LOSS” mark.

So what do I say in the end? I would recommend this game to anyone who like arena type games. There isn’t exactly any progression in any games though; so one might feel their efforts are wasted.

Playability 8/10

Why isn’t it 10/10 judging by my review? Just because the community is extremely lacking. The only thing available in chat is trade spams and other languages. There should be multiple channels at the very least (which I’m sure they will change in Open Beta since the only channel available is “ROOKIE”) along with how stupid some people can be ingame… Even if I instruct people I would be