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Quests in Magic World Online are well-written and deep.

Combat and Questing: Read, Kill, Read, Kill, Read, Read...Read
After running a few "meet the NPCs" quests, I was finally charged with going outside to kill some wasps. I found that I could simply target a monster with a single left-click. I could attack it with a right-click. Since my puny Mage could not kill things very quickly with melee attacks, I soon learned to single-click to target the monster and spam the F1 (tied to my entry-level spell) to blast it from maximum distance until it died. Again, the graphics and effects were not stellar. I would say you could mistake MWO for a game made in the mid-1990s.

I gained levels at a swift paste, and reaching a new level refilled my health and magic thankfully. In this manner, I could kill until I was just about out of magic points, and then I'd hit a new level and have full power once again. At level up, I did not notice a way to place points into attributes, and I needed scrolls to drop from an enemy or to purchase them from my class trainer to learn new spells. By level 9, I had three spells. It seemed odd for a Mage, but I later learned from the official wiki that my class would become much more complex at level 15, when I would choose a specialization.

What I found that was very please and done very well was the quest dialog. It seems Goldcool Games wants to provide players with a deep story that rivals those of the old Gold Box role-playing games. In a way I have not experienced since the days of Diablo, I found myself really getting to know the NPCs in Magic World Online--even the ones with generic names like Armor Merchant. Players in MWO will learn about the motivations of their characters, the history of the townsfolk, and the lore of the surrounding land. Players looking for a great story and willing to overlook some graphical deficits to get it will be very pleased with MWO.

Kills come easily and quickly in the early going in Magic World Online.

Other Gaming Features: Bells & Whistles
Magic World Online has some features I have not been able to fully explore yet. I found an online mall but wasn't sure what it was for really. The items had in-game currency prices, so it did not seem to be about microtransactions. Further, I found I could setup my own cart in town to sell drops I no longer wanted so long as I stood right beside it.

I also found a field full of items to gather and harvest. When I clicked on a plant, a system message advised me that I needed to learn the Gather 1 skill. This looks like the precursor to harvesting and crafting, but I'll want to explore more.

The last extra feature of note is the MWO Robot. The Robot is a full-functioning automated system for advancing your character while you are away from the keyboard (AFK). Players have been using their own robots (or bots, as they often are called) to level up while AFK for almost as long as we have been playing games. Goldcool games seeks to make this an integrated feature that any player can access instead of a third-party tool used only by cheaters.

I have mixed feelings about the Robot, which lets players program in movement patterns, skill usage, potion consumption, and more. I appreciate the notion of helping the non-cheater on a level playing field. I'm not convinced that institutionalizing cheating is the answer, though. Additionally, I am concerned that widespread use of the Robot would lead to a situation where a good portion of the player base isn't really playing. And that somewhat defeats the point of playing a MMOG in the first place.

Parting Thoughts
I dedicated roughly five hours to MWO on my first night of play: half to download and half to play. While I was underwhelmed by the graphics, I was dazzled by the effort put into story line. I need a little more time to assess the depth of MWO. I still need to look into the harvesting and the mall. And I would like to see what happens as I get away from my starter town. Already, I can sense that Magic World Online attempts to give gamers something that is often overlooked in the arms race to push computers to their limits and have the flashiest product: a solid story.

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