Updated on April 17, 2008

Game Title: Magic World Online

Genre: MMORPG

Status: Closed Beta

Developer: Goldcool Games

Publisher: Ingle Games Ltd.

Official Website: http://mwo.enjoymmo.com/

Client size: 4GB

Client Download: http://mwo.enjoymmo.com/

System Requirements:

CPU：Pentium 3 1GMHz

RAM：256M

Hard Drive：> 5G

Video card：> 16M Video Ram

System：Windows98 and above, Vista Compatible

DirectX 8.0 and above

Network: 56K Modem

Comparison:

It looks similar to Eudemons, Conquer Online, Diablo 2, and Justice Xwar 2.

First impression:

When you login for the first time you don't get any kind of introduction to the game, I got directly from the login screen to character creation menu, there are four classes, two factions and you can choose a male or female character. I was hesitant to choose either of the factions, because I had no information to determine the difference between them. However, I chose Dynasty mostly because I liked the sound of it.

I started in the forest, the in-game tutorial is very clear ,it has pictures and the font is readable. Exploring is a bit tricky, because you can't see much ahead, the map is your best friend, and as for me the primary navigation mode.

Graphics [7/10]

3D characters over a 2D background (Isometric). The animations for the special skills don't last much, at first I even missed the animation because it was just a tiny flash. While moving around the maps I noticed that that there is a low refresh rate, I can see the screen flickering a little bit. Nevertheless, the textures are well done.

Additionally, the resolution was a problem for me, there is only 800x600 and 1024x768 in window/full screen available. Since I have a wide screen monitor I had to play on 800x600 and the screen gets really crammed.

Sound [4/10]

The sound quality is one of the weakest points in Magic World Online, the sound effects feel like you were playing it in a GameBoy. The background music is a short bit that plays about every 5 minutes. I like to think that it is due to the video chat feature, because it tries to give players background music in the game without interfering with their conversation. The game has no ambient sounds at all, so you rely primarily on the visual factor to realize you are entering a different zone or running into a crowd of monsters.

Gameplay [8/10]

The gameplay is very decent if you use the tools built into the game. The GPS navigation system was one of the features I enjoyed the most, just open the map, click a spot or a NPC and your character will automatically find its way there. It saves a lot of clicking and path finding.

The battle system is standard point and click, and hit the shorcut keys for skills.

While playing I thought there was no HP and MP regeneration, but later I realized it was too slow to be noticed. I dropped my HP to 6% and left my character still until the HP was full, it took 25 minutes for it to reach 100%. Yet, the HP potion drop rate and price make up for the slow regeneration time.

I leveled up pretty fast even though I skip many quests. And there is basically no grind, just setup the MWO bot and it will heal itself (must have potions on backpack), attack certain mobs, heal allies in battle, switch weapons when its durability ends, among other features.

It took me at most 4 seconds from clicking "Enter World" to being in the game, the loading time between cities is almost null. Yet, I'm concerned about what will happen when hundreds of players come in in Open Beta, because if we have 20 players in the same area all of them video chatting, I don't know how is it going to go.

Community [8/10]

Since the game is in Closed Beta testing, the player population is not very large, however, I did got to try the video chat system and the party system. The moderators are polite and responsive and developers continuously working on the bugs. With a lot of work this could hopefully carry on during open beta.

In the video chat mode I connected with a friend from the US, she didn't have a webcam, but I could hear through her microphone and she could see me and hear me. I got a lot of feedback, so I had to plug in headphones instead of the 5.1 surround. The feedback was eliminated completely and we could talk with a delay of approx 5 seconds. I would recommend a headset for best performance.

When I made my account which also works for the forums I got an additional personal space where I could post to a blog and display my recent forum posts and replies. From the forum you can also access the MWO Wiki.

There is a marriage system (you can divorce too), and also guild skills available in the guild map only.

Value [8/10]

The game's strong social features and built-in aides like the "MWO Robot" which is a programmable bot for your character really build up the value of Magic World Online. There are about 13 maps, all different, there are plenty of quests to go around. The weapon design is really good, you really notice when you upgrade weapons. There are 4 classes to choose, from those four you can choose 2 class paths for each of them. Also you can raise your own mount.

Unique features:

• Video/Audio Chat
• Custom Bot (MWO Robot)
• GPS System
• Growing weapons that will upgrade together with you
• Moving Castle

Personal rating: 7/10

Overall rating: 7

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