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

I joined the Ether Saga Online (ESO) closed beta in mid-February and was very impressed with my early experiences with Perfect World Entertainment’s newest MMOG. In fact, I told readers I thought ESO is “built with the same quality as Perfect World International.” Now that I have had some extended time with the title, I want to pass along my official ESO report.

The story behind ESO revolves around a party in Heaven that gets a little out of control (even without a key bowl or help from Ten Ton Hammer’s Coyote Sharptongue). The drunken Crimson General of the Heavenly Navy tries to force the meek Moon Goddess to dance with him, and the God of Decency steps in like a true paladin to defend the lady’s honor, banishing The Crimson General to the mortal realm. Nuwa, Queen of Heaven, wants to restore order to her party and calls for the Divine Peach-Wine Chalice to make a toast. Unfortunately, a clumsy servant drops it and the shattered bits of chalice drift down to the earth, too. To complicate matters, someone steals the Treasure of Heaven, a sacred ark, while everyone is distracted by the broken chalice. Just insert Tim Curry and the back story makes for one hell of a farcical comedy (see Clue).

Each player comes into the story with a specific chore based on the race chosen at character creation. To sort out their chaos, collective finger pointing, and the mystery of the stolen ark, the gods have decided to do what any pantheon of deities would do: they’ll make the inhabitants of the mortal realm clean up the mess. The humans, called Renzu in ESO, are charged with collecting the bits of the broken chalice. The Yaoh are a people of animal ancestry tasked with finding the missing ark. Finally, the demigod race called Shenzu is left to deal with The Crimson General, who has resurfaced as an evil pig through a freak mechanic of the reincarnation wheel. The result is a different path for your characters as you play each race with all story arcs converging on the same ending.

ESO features vibrant sprites in a fantastical world that oozes saccharine flavor from every corner. From the cartoony rainbow on the Shenzu character creation page to the ultra-sweet ivy that encircled my legs when I donned a pair of sandals my female character received as a quest reward, ESO conveys an effervescent world built for younger players.

Despite the all the color and flair in the world, the story and gameplay are pretty decent and seem entertaining enough for adults. Classes include the dragoon and rogue for short-range fighters, the conjurer and ranger for distance fighters, and the mystic and shaman for healer hybrids. The mystic is a caster-healer mix while the shaman is a tank-healer combo.

Systems of note for ESO are the way weapons gain levels separately from the player, the pet system, and the auto-move option. Weapons are upgraded with their own level up screen, but armor is found as loot in the game. Meanwhile, everyone gets a pet and can capture animals to get new pets. It is possible to have multiple pets and fuse them to become stronger, but only one can be summoned at a time for battle. On my way to level ten, my conjurer got the beginner pet and one other. It was easy to look up info on the different pets to determine how they would develop. Basic info pages in-game told me how much DPS a pet would gain and how its HP would grow each level on average. My starter pet was a better tank, but the second pet would end up the better damage dealer if I took time to level it up. Finally, ESO takes a page from Atlantica Online, allowing gamers to auto-move to NPCs and quest monsters. You can even mark a spot on the map and auto-move to it.

Prominent negatives for the game mostly involved combat. At level ten, my conjurer had only two spells. For the primary caster class, this disappointed me. Maybe the lack of attack choice is what made combat feel so repetitive, but I was bored with fighting early on in my testing. The last time I played, I took a side quest that literally asked me to kill 99 of the same enemy. Talk about killer quests!

Parting Thoughts

By the end of my “Kill 99 sphincter beetles” anti-quest, I had decided that ESO would not be able to crack my Top Ten despite an inventive story and a stable client that did not reveal any bugs to me in my test time. Ether Saga Online has some cool features (like the auto-move) that identify it as belonging to the next generation of MMOGs, but it has some inexplicably Draconian combat and quests to go with it. Two years ago, ESO might have revolutionized the industry. Now…well, I’m still going to look into that pet collection system.

Have you tried Ether Saga Online? Email your thoughts or post them in our forums!