MMO Monday: 9 Dragons
Acclaim are following the trend of other companies by releasing 9 Dragons as free to play for the most part, using a Mall to sell other items to players for real money from the real world. I guess the idea of a single shop is American enough for the developers of the game. The game was originally developed by Indy21, a Korean Game Company, and Acclaim have localized it for a western market.
Signup for the game is relatively easy to accomplish by filling in a couple of forms at the site. Once you’re registered, you can download and install the game. This requires that you download a 725Mb ZIP file, unzip it and then install the game program - this should be a straight EXE download because the extra step of uncompressing is something that isn’t user friendly. You still have to delete the original zip file after unzipping it. Installation runs smoothly with a little movie detailing a little of the game’s setting as it is installed.The biggest problem is that there are no details on what the actual requirements to run the game are, so you’re left with installing and hoping.
Once you do get the game installed, you’ll need to wait until the game is updated before being able to be played. This should be familiar to most MMO players. However, I’m not used to waiting for 45 mins on a broadband connection to download updates for a game. Once done, everything went pretty well.
This game distinguishes itself from other MMOs by being set during the time of the 9 Dragons, or the Ming Dynasty (approx. AD 1368-1644) instead of your normal every day fantasy fare setting. It’s also heavily focused on martial arts (Kung Fu) as well as in game Clans (the Dragons of the title). To begin with you’ll need to join one of the Clans, each of which fall into either the Black or White faction groups, and each has requirements for membership that must be met first; there’s one other advanced Neutral group, but it takes a while to get into that one. Oh, and members of the other factions are going to try and get all Wuxia on your donkey if they get the chance.
Another interesting aspect of the game is its leveling system, which is unique. For every 12 levels you attain, you have to complete a mini game before you can level and get to the next title. The titles are in many ways a source of pride in the game community. You also get added to a leaderboard showing how high a level you are. I’m not one for grinding, so this doesn’t appeal to me much, but there are some gamers who do like to see their name in lights as such. This leaderboard is displayed on the home page of the site. During weekends there are often special events that take place
If you’ve ever played an Asian MMO, then you’ll get into this game easily enough. Much of it will be familiar and the parts that aren’t are easy to pick up on. The problem for me is that when I look at the Asian setting, I can’t help but think about Guild Wars: Factions and how gorgeous the setting in that game is. This is Guild War’s Poor Cousin, Jebediah-Lao. Factions does everything in this game much better, but is obviously not historically accurate.
Another annoying thing I find about the game is that the online guide isn’t in a traditional book format, or even an online sectioned FAQ, but rather it’s embedded in the community forums. This makes it difficult to find specific information on the game with ease. Still, if you’re interested in picking up another free MMO, you can’t really go wrong with this game. It’s different enough to keep you interested, at least until you’re ready to go back to World of Warcraft.
Windows only. No requirements listed at the developer’s Website, but the Wikipedia entry details a PIII, 384 Mb RAM, a 32Mb video card and Direct X 9.
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