A Rapid Descent

Ten Ton Hammer Reviews
Rappelz

By Cody
“Micajah” Bye


July 9, 2007
- When you were growing up, did you ever fall in love with the vision
of a person? If you were like many of us, you were swept off your feet
by this person’s beautiful body and dashing good looks. Yet
when you had the opportunity to really get to know them, you discovered
that they were a bitter pill to swallow; someone who really
doesn’t care about anyone outside of their own personal
bubble of influence. They stepped on your heart, crushing it from the
outside in.

This sort of callous activity was what occurred when I began
my play experience in gpotato.com’s MMOG, style="font-style: italic;">Rappelz. Originally
attracted by its strange name – cliff descending anyone?
– I soon fell in love with the world I saw in the screenshots
provided on the website. Here was a style of art that was appealing, a
combination of anime-cartoonishness and realistic human figures. Mounts
and pets were an added bonus, so the game was quickly installed on my
computer and I fired it up to see what the gpotato’s world
consisted of.

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cellspacing="2">
cellspacing="2">
class="textBodyLargeDark" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">Publisher: href="http://www.gpotato.com/">gpotato.com class="textBodyLargeDark" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">Developer: href="http://www.gpotato.com/">gpotato.com class="textBodyLargeDark" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">Genre: class="textBodyMediumDark">Fantasy class="textBodyLargeDark" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">Homepage: href="http://rappelz.gpotato.com/">Official Site class="textBodyLargeDark" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">ESRB
Rating
:
N/A
class="textBodyLargeDark" style="color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">Release
Date
:
class="textBodyMediumDark">November 3rd, 2006

A Lack of Focus

Even from the outset of Rappelz,
players will begin running
into trouble. While the installation and patching went rather smoothly
(albeit slowly), and I eventually began the character creation process
on the single PvP server gpotato.com boasts for Rappelz. Entering the
character creation screen, I began my process by selecting from three
races in Rappels, the Deva, the Asura, and the Gaia. However, while
each of these races were displayed, there was not information anywhere
concerning whether these races began with a selection of classes,
whether they were forced into a class, or if the class could be
selected later.

In reality, I was forced to do a general information search on
the Internet to determine which race began in what class. It turns out
that essentially each race begins in a particular class: The Gaia start
as Rogues (more fighter than thief), the Asura as Steppers (agile
swashbucklers), and the Deva as Guides (Paladin type). At level 10,
players are allowed to specialize into a more exact profession, and
each race gets three options to choose from typically between a
warrior, mage, or pet summoner. I eventually wanted to become a Fighter
(and I needed that all important red hair), so I put my selection on
the Gaia race of people.

After my race had been documented and recorded in the server,
I scrolled through the selection of customization options that were
available to me. Like most of the Asian free-to-play games, the
character customization portion of the game was rather lackluster with
only six facial and hair options, and two choices of clothing styles.
Truthfully, there were only three available hair styles, with each
style coming in two colors. To any Western MMO gamer, that would be a
very poor selection to choose from.

Slowly Moving Down

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In Rappelz, you have no idea what your race can or will
become, at least at the character creation screen.

Even though the character creation had a few hiccups in it, I
was more than content with my selection of character and reasonably
happy with my overall look. As I entered the world, my naked character
stared back at me, totally devoid of his clothes that I had just
selected for him! If any females had been running around, they
certainly would have enjoyed the view of my rippling abs…. I
quickly popped open my inventory and found my starting sword and set of
clothes inside, and I donned them both in a hurry.

Finding my first starter quest was fairly simple, as he was
right in front of me and had a huge yellow lightning bolt over his
head. Rappelz
uses
gold-silver-gold quest signifier system somewhat similar to World of
Warcraft
before it, . If an NPC has a quest you can
pursue, they have a glowing yellow marker above their head. Once you
receive your quest, it turns silver, and when it is finished it returns
to a gold color.


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

Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

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