Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

In the first preview of Magic World Online (MWO), a free-to-play massively-multiplayer online game (MMOG) development by Goldcool Games in Closed Beta Phase II, readers got a cursory glance at everything from installation to the first few levels of play. This time, I'll examine some of the features of MWO with more depth and discuss whether the game has enough substance to keep players going.

Magic World Online features four classes that can take different specializations. Image from the official wiki.

More on Classes
The in-game screens are still somewhat spartan when it comes to character creation, so I visited the official wiki to see if I could unearth more information about how the classes develop. In my first preview, I noted that MWO has four classes: Archer, Warrior, Mage, and Summoner. These four classes just scratch the surface, though, as each class can specialize at key levels throughout the game. The result is a system that allows two friends to play the same class with very different styles.

Aprad, my Mage, started like any other Mage (right down the his appearance). Each Mage has access to the same three spells for the first 15 levels: Energy Bolt, Energy Explosion, and Energy Shield. Energy Bolt is the staple spell. It has a short cool down and can be spammed to kill enemies. I was able to level to 9 in roughly 90 minutes using only this spell. Energy Explosion is a high cost, high damage spell with a long recast. It is useful for elite mobs and killing quickly to save your life. Finally, Energy Shield is a buff that absorbs some damage at the cost of mana.

Level 15 is when things change for each class. At this level, players can train for a specialized path. The choice for Arpad was between fire and ice. I reviewed the wiki and learned that fire was a more

Each Mage may start the same, but different skill paths provide variety. Image from the official wiki.

direct damage line of training. Its four spells included a damage over time spell, two direct damage blasts, and a passive skill to boost fire damage. The ice line seemed to be more along the lines of crowd control and support. Those four spells included a low-damage snare, a resistance debuff, an elemental resistance buff, and an area of effect damage spell. It seemed clear that a Fire Mage might abandon the staple of Energy Bolt to begin using fire spells while an Ice Mage would slow hordes of enemies with his snare and pick them off with Energy Bolt.

At level 30, the different paths each get an upgrade and six new spells. Again the fire spells seem to be more about causing damage, though the list included a root and a dispel (to remove debuffs). The ice spells were once again directed toward hindering enemy movement and buffs.

At level 50, each specialization branches again, allowing further focus on a particular play style. The fire spells for each path included a summon and a damage spell with at least one utility spell. One branch of the ice tree included a charm-like spell to convert an enemy into an ice dragon fighting on the side of the caster. The other path included more damage spells and buffs.

Supposedly there is one more class promotion at level 65 to further enhance the last path chosen, but I was unable to confirm this. Keep in mind that all of the variety described above is just the Mage class. The other three classes have the specialization options as well. This means the class system in MWO is much deeper than it seems when you are creating your character. My only hope is that Goldcool Games will provide more detailed class descriptions in-game to help players understand their options as the game progresses through beta.

There's more to Magic World Online. Keep reading.