Storyline:

You can read the storyline from other review but I will still tell you the story in my own way.  The story of Dream Of Mirror Online started with an artifact that believed to be the creator of world.  Basically, since it is a mirror, when it’s created the real world, it also creating another alternative world.  At first, this alternative world was function as a recorder for what has happened to the real world, so that people from the real world can learn what has happened before and get a better life.  To operate the recording, there are 12 Kunlun Mirror Kings in the Kunlun Mirror World, the name of the alternative world.  However, somehow, and we don’t know how, or the scriptwriter just don’t want us to know (LOL), the Kunlun Mirror World has lost many of it’s functions.  Many Kunlun Mirror Kings dissapeared.  What we know is that this is caused by unnecessary and unwanted imagination of human in the real world.  This was called a ‘delusion’, and when this ‘delusion’ has reflected by the Mirror, they turned into many unwanted life forms and interfere with the function of the Mirror.

To solve this matter, the existing Mirror Kings called and invite players to come to this world, so that they can start to investigate and return this Mirror World to balance.  But since the Kunlun Mirror World is not an actual real world, player’s won’t die in the real world even when they die when they fight the ‘delusion’ a.k.a monsters.

Games Features:

At the moment DOMO has been released in my country (mid of 2007), it has differentiate itself in many ways.  It has many exploration possibilities of online game ever made so far!  I will list it one by one. 

They have 4 different types of races with so far 10 jobs of choice.  Wait a minute… … … It’s not a choice!  You can choose even ALL the job that you want in one character.  So I have to say 10 jobs range of exploration!  For people like me, having several character for several favourite jobs is quite annoying.  Because I’ve already got a wife with one son, a job to keep, and … many games to play.  I prefer to have one character with many jobs like this game.  But if you don’t want to do that, you can still have different character for different job.  I know many gamers will be confused by the terms ‘having several jobs for one character’.  In this game, you can have ‘stocks’ of jobs that you want to have, but can only ‘carry’ 1 main job, with 1-3 sub job.  The main job means you will have all the characteristic of that job but can be supported by skill that you have for your sub job.  For example, my favourite ‘blend’ of jobs is to have thief as my main job, but has saberman, mercenaries, and common people sub job.  By this choice, I will have all the characteristic of a thief: armors and weapons that can only be worn by thief,  skills of thief, and quest that can only be taken when you are a thief.  BUT, as I have 3 more jobs as my sub job, I can have another set of skill from saberman, but can wore armors and shield that usually belong to a mercenary, and doing some common skill from my common people job.  But since the ‘stock’ slot of sub job is limited, not all of the skill from mercenary and saberman can be carried by me during that ‘configuration’.  Well, it’s quite hard to imagine, I know, unless you play the game.  Anway, that kind of job choice, really make the game quite an explorations.  While you can meet a fellow thief, but maybe both of you have a different set of skills and items to wear.  What really beautifull from an online world is diversity!  You can be someone different from the common folks, is beautiful.  And that what have been offered by DOMO in this kind of jobs choice.

About the quest, you will have a common quest which you can take from whatever job or race you choose, a job and race quest which you can only be taken by the job or race related to them, and a main story quest that divided into 2 kind of story.  Well, in the beginning of the game, you can choose a path for your ‘life’ from 2 available paths.  It’s kinda Star Wars ways of path.  Whether you want a be light Jedi or give yourself to be seduced by the dark side.  So once you set your path, you can take the main story quest that I’ve mentioned before and it’s different from the ‘other side’ path.  The rewards for the quest are vary.  It can be items, fame, gold, or … title.  Title?  What’s a title for? Well, so far, it has no function but… title can be shown to other people that you have completed certain quest.  And some quest, when you complete them, you might want to show other people and be proud of them.  It’s one of the reasons for you people to play online games rite?  To show something to other people?  Ring a bell?

As for the gameplay, what really make me enjoy the game is the variety of monster to choose to be slayed.  I’m really really sick for a game that doesn’t provide many range of monster to choose to be hunted.  Imagine when you are in certain level, you can ONLY hunt down certain kind of monster to be leveled up.  It will make you very-very bored.  But DOMO provide you with vivid range of monster to choose as your opponent.  And the monster even has job like you did.  Some monsters are saberman which very lack in defence and dexterity but when they hit you,… OUCH is just a common response for your character, not to mention when they gave a critical hit to your character.  Some monsters are mercenaries which result in high armor and make your usual killing punch felt by them as tickling.  But they lack of attack and magic defence.  So you can pick which monster that suit best for your current job.  Oh and remember that each job would apply each own stats.  And the way you allocate points for your stats is… up to you!  I don’t really like game feature with given stats for a job’s level up, because if I want to have a different characteristic for the  job, it would be impossible.  As I have mentioned before, diversity in online game is a beauty.  Maybe we have the same job, such as fighter type, but one can build a powerfull hitter, while other are speed killer, and the other else would be a tanker.  One job, various type, that’s much to explore.

Before we move to other section of review, maybe you are wondering why would I need common people job to be my sub job.  Well, it’s true that common people are the weakest among other job, and the armor type and weapon are much much more limited compare to other jobs.  But the main point of having the common people job is the skill.  Skill in many online games were focus mainly effecting your battle, so does DOMO… for many jobs but common people.  Now, DOMO has differentiate a little bit with common people job.  You will need to level up this job, because you will need some point to get certain resources.  Yes, you can buy it from other player, but at some point there are some cases where you wish you can mine all the resources by yourself.  However, there’s  still constraint to this wish.  The material produced by your life skill will differ for each level and the problem lies to that there are MANY resources!  So even if you have level up this job, you will still need to trade with other people for high level material.  Or, if you are so eager to gain all the resources by yourself, just make another character, level up the common job people, and each character will focus in each resources, which will make most of your time to be in front of the computer, playing games.  The other reason why I would need common job is because there are certain skill from common job that definitely a must have.  For example, flying skill.  You must have a common people as sub job to use this skill.  Yes you can fly for your fun, it’s not a monopoly for certain online game.  I don’t use fly for my fun, I’m using it because it saves time!

The other common people skill that really interesting is weapon upgrading.  Unlike other games that need you to come to NPC to upgrade your weapon, you can do it in DOMO by yourself.  And the interesting part of this skill is that the result of your upgrade will vary.  Have I mentioned that diversity in online game is a beauty?  However, there’s a condition to met up.  Your weapon must have sufficient experience.  Errr… experience?  Yeah, when you do some battle and you slay monsters, not only you can gain experience but so does your weapon.

The most interesting part of common people skill for me is crafting.  Why?  Because you can get some items that never been sold in NPC through crafting.  And to craft it, you will need resources that again would need common people skill to mined.  Also you would need receipt  to do the crafting.  So far, as I knew it, receipt can only be obtained by 2 ways.  Quest and steal it from monsters.  Yeah you have to had a thief job to do the stealing.

The skill for other jobs related mostly with battle moments.  However, there are some rumors about several skill that can be used in conjunction and result in additional effect.  I have not try it though.  Because combining the skill that you have choose was already make me busy to explore.  But if the rumors is true, then the game skills system is absolutely ever greater.

When you battle there is a combo system that will produce a much more powerfull hit (10 times your critical hit is powerfull rite?).  So far, there are several combo, but I haven’t research it yet about the elements but I am really sure that each combo has different effect.  Oh, I forgot to mention that yes there is elements effect but it’s not that different from any other online games, that’s why I’m ‘intentionally’ forgot to mention them ^^.  Well I think I must mentioned about the luck system that can effect your gaming experience.  There are 3 kind of luck, Battle Luck, Job Luck, and Love Luck.  When you hit superluck with your battle luck, critical hit rate will be increased, drop rate will be increased, and evasion rate will also increased while you are hunting.  Love luck will be reviewed later.  Job luck will determine the higher chance to hit a good crafting products like more plus to your weapon you’ve crafted.  The way of which luck will be your luck is determined by the game engine, but officially said that your luck will depend on your zodiac that you choose when you’re creating your character, pairing with the day you play the game.

Maybe having so many jobs will make us wonder whether we would need party or not.  Hell yeah!  Remember that you can only choose 1 main job and 3 sub job (2 sub job if we don’t count the must have common people job)?  So you will need a solid member in party like any other online games.  Like hitter, supporters, damage dealers, and so on.  DOMO has implemented a system where more experience will be generated when you slay a monster in a party, as long as the highest and the lowest level of your party members is not more than 9 levels.  Well it’s common for nowadays online games.  What differentiate DOMO from other games is the personal connection (relationship) system.  There are 3 kind of special connection between players.  True Love, Best Friend, and Mortal Enemy (Arch Enemy).  I still don’t know about the mortal enemy if you are in the same party, but when you have your best friend in your team, during some occasion, there will be a joint combo that even more powerfull compare to that usual combo.  For true love, you can have lover joint combo attack, and also when your love luck is high, the drop rate, the amount of damage, also the evasion rate of the two will be increased.

Yes, the two of you lovers will have so many advantage in one team.  Wait.  Three would be good too.  Threesome hunt party, anyone?  Wait wait wait.  True love should be for 2 people rite?  Now, here’s the humor of DOMO came up.  You can have more than 1 true love in this game.  You will even got a title for having a relationship of more than one character!  I was really laughing when they implement these titles to the games.  You will get recognized as a true DOMO Juan Cassanova (no, this is not the real title that you will get in the game, go play and find what the tile is, I am not a spoiler brat)!  ROTFLOL.  The way you found your lover is also interesting.  Chinese people believe that when you find your true love, it was destined by a red lining weave that created by the love god.  Well, you can truly see this red line in this game when you met your true love.  The sound effect also supporting the situation mood by giving a hearbeat soundlike, and the pace of the beat will be increased when you are closer to your love object.  It’s really humorous of this game to implement such system.  At the time when this articles was written, a marriage system has not been applied in my country.  But I have seen many pic of marriage system of DOMO.  So I will update later about this feature.

Now, that’s a kind of special connection you will get from this game.  While with others, you can chat like any other online games.  You can pick your conversation from aiming your chat to general, ally, guild, like many other games.  But one feature that quite amazed me is you can actually chat to GM (Golden Monkey,… of course it’s Game Master)!  Well there are several rules to abide for you to chat with GM, but as long as I have experience, they ALWAYS reply to my complaint or comment as long as I’m stick to the rule (two thumbs up for GM of this game in my country).  Many times in many online games, I got frustated because I can not contact GM for reporting something.  But this is the only games so far that reply to me when I complaint something buggy, rite away (I’m talking about they replied within minutes).  And I am sure that they received it well because it is directly pointed to GM.  Enough with the chat system with GM.  One feature that I like but it’s not that differ from other game is shortcut to aim your conversation.  Using a simple enter would be for general chat.  Using alt enter would be for party.  Using ctrl enter would be for guild.  And using shift enter would aimed your conversation to the whole area shout.  Now this is very handy if you really like to chat as much as you like to hunt.  Like me, I really enjoy the chat system of this game because of the shortcut.  And more over, you don’t have to enter each time you want to open the conversation box.  It is always there like the RO type of chatting.  You can also add your friend to your messaging list.  However, the messaging system hasn’t implemented perfectly yet, since you can’t leave a message for your offline buddy.  Later on, I have read it elsewhere, you can transfer files, share data, conduct voice conversation, and edit funny emoticons.  Although it hasn’t been implemented yet, but it still great to have a chat with several people in a separate chat box.  Also when you have a buddy list, you can add them to your party regardless of their position.

About the guild, it has the same features like many other online game guild.  Some of them haven’t been implemented in my country.  Here’s some feature that maybe differentiate a bit.  A bit because I knew this system was also impelemented on some other games.  Your guild can have a shared storebox to trade your gold and items with your guild allies.  Your guild will have fame that can be obtained by doing a specific quest, so that after your guild level has been up, you can take guild quest.  A guild vs guild system has not been implemented unless you do it by yourself.

Now since I have mentioned about guild vs guild, y’all might asking about PvP system.  Well basically you can challenge everyone in this game.  As long as he or she accepted your challenge you will enter the PvP situation right there at your spot!  Please note that the moment you accept or your challenge has been accepted, all of your party and all of your opponent party will automatically.  While in my country the PvP area has not been implemented, in other countries, there are maps that automatically in PvP situation when you enter it!

Now, while I have covered most of the battle system, last but not least is pet feature.  Well the pet in DOMO is actually can really help attacking the monster you are hunting.  The pet can evolved into next stage once their level is adequate.  Their appearance and skill are changed once they’re transformed.  Some pet is mountable at certain level.  And there are also a humorous side of this game when they’re giving the default name of the pet.  Well, you can’t mount this certain pet (you wish… LOL), because once it’s transformed into the highest transformation, this pet is appeared as a beautiful girl and they were by default being named as… Love Pet!  It really makes me laugh.  However, on certain event, the game master giving out limited pet with devil or holy version apart from the usual version.  You can have up to 5 pets and there are so far 6 kind of pets with several color version or event version.  Having a pet is a must but really really need time because by default, their loyalty will drop 1 point each day (24 hours human time, not the game time).  And you need to play with them and simply not doing anything else during that time.  Because if the loyalty was dropped, they might have a chance to leave you (I’m a pet bro, but I’m no slave).  But it’s still worth it.  They help you a lot.  Not to mention the fun of mounting them or … showing them to others?

Now about the graphics, you can judge them by yourselves by looking at their screenshot, rite?  But sometimes, a good graphic with a so so connection can be a problem rite?  Yes they are beautiful cell shading games, good character design, a weather and climate system, and it’s a really good reason to gain another minus for your eyes, but the laggy things could be a real problem.  However, there is one feature that really help ‘reducing’  the lag problem.  By pressing the ctrl p within the game, all of other player except your party will not be displayed!  That really helpful for players in a country with sucks internet colleciton like mine.

Overall, this game is worth to play especially if you like anime cell shading type graphics.  Well they do have some downside, but no products is ever perfect.  I’m just giving a review and I do felt that this game is fun to play.

Pros:

Different way of choosing jobs, good quest system, large variety of monsters with different characteristics, good crafting or upgrading system, flying system, point allocating system, combo system, relationship system, pet, messaging system

Cons:

Several bugs in flying (get stuck easily on the mountain type terrain) and quest, mini boss spawning period for quest was way too long (one hour of real world, OMG!) and imagine how the game goes when short supplies faced the high demand, high data transfer rate needed.