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.


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style="font-style: italic;">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

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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. style="font-weight: bold;">



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




To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Magic World Online Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

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