shinigami’s blog

I’ve been away from t3h Internets for a long time, watching old(er) anime series. And then when I got back online the closed beta invitations started dropping in my inbox. Sweet, but very time consuming. So time consuming that right now I’m only watching anime series that I know to be good based on the manga… i.e. Bamboo Blade, Shion no Ou, and Blue Drop.

PART 1:
DOMO aka Dream of Mirror Online, a Chinese MMORPG with cell shaded graphics and the ambition to promote social interactions. These and the fact that you can practically start over if you are unhappy with your character (change class) without losing the progress you made (you can still use the skills) are some aspects that I think make DOMO appealing for an anime fan, even if s/he is not a MMORPG player.
DOMO has 2 English versions: GameTribe i.e. European version that doesn’t even have a proper site for DOMO yet (US IPs blocked), Closed Beta recently over, and Aeria, still in CB. GameTribe’s Open Beta will probably start earlier, but I’m not going to be on it. The rant about Aeria being preferable is at the end of the post.
UPDATE: Aeria was forced to block (some) Europeans ID.

DISCLAIMER:
I took these screenshots some time ago and I don’t remember the settings I was using then. The game might look better for you. Just as I started I took way too many screenshots (lol), so I’ll pick some of those, pretty randomly.
(If you are using Opera the uploaded images might look unclear and fuzzy. This is obvious in the chat window, where the text is blurry. If this happens some zooming out is needed for the image to look right.)

I must say this game looks really, really cute. It even has a chibi race, the Sprites. Sure, it also falls into the MMORPG sexual dimorphism pitfall (”In a beast race the males will be hulking brutes and possibly more animal than human, while the females will look 100% human except for the ears and possibly tail.”) but at least in DOMO the males do look human. Perfect World takes the cake here with the males being bipedal animals, but that’s for another post.

Back to the visuals.

The character customization is standard (hairstyle, hair color, face), plus an option for height (you get to pick the lenght of the body, arms, legs, not a bad idea) and chest size - this only has an effect on women, so it should say “cup size”; btw, it has no effect on the Sprite female, thankfully.

Speaking of chibi, DOMO manages to make the characters look cute but detailed and not overly SD, like say, Ragnarok Online (and it’s clones).

The emotes are all anime-style, there is lots of them, and many are over the top and hilarious.

There is a glow effect that pretty-fies everything, but I don’t like it because it’s very hard on the eyes, plus some details fade in the general “oh, so shiny!”

Screenshots: feast your eyes on the “glow enabled” visuals.

What makes DOMO interesting, visuals aside?

* There are cutscenes that give the feeling of actually being inside a story, even if the sidequests are the usual MMO fare.

* You don’t have to worry that you wasted days and days on a character only to realize the class is no fun, is gimped, or you messed up the stats. DOMO allows you to switch between classes at any time and use any class’s skills in your current one.

* There are lots of classes, with more to be released, eventually.

* Races are only a cosmetic choice, since all stat bonuses are dependant on class, and all classes are available to all races. So despite the race descriptions, yes, if they are the same build, a Human, a Feline, a Sylph and a Sprite will make equally strong melee attackers, or equally efficient healers/nukers, or equally agile thieves etc.
I list this as a good thing because it encourages choosing a race for other reasons than because it’s the answer to the perpetual “which is best in pvp?” question.

* There is lots of crafting and you don’t have to specialise in just one or two skills. Moreover, many materials can be harvested at any time as long as you are in the right area, so regardless of the number of people who also need that material, everyone can get it. You can also harvest while afk or while browsing the net, so all you need is time. More on this later though.

* You can click on the minimap to select a destination, no matter how far from your current one, and your character will run there. You can even alt-tab out of the game, a message will pop up in the taskbar when the destination is reached (assuming your character doesn’t get stuck somewhere).

This last 2 features allow you to do sth in DOMO without having to monitor the game. Pretty nifty.

* There are 3 types of relationships: lovers, friends, and teacher/student, each giving you certain bonuses. While in game you will be connected to certain people - this attraction is shown as a pink line stretching between you.
As soon as I logged in with my second character, a female human, I met not one, not two, but three males that were connected to me. All at the same time. I wonder if the game suggests that women are slutty, or that males are female-starved. :P

* Some details are fun, like the flying pigs mobs, or the message that you get when you select a mob that’s far bellow your level: “That’s just cruel”. The Sylph race is also pretty unique as it hovers instead of running/walking/sitting, it mentally guides the weapons, and its equipment usually has traditional long-sleeved clothes.
You can also fly on weapons, have pets… The whole works.

Screenshots:
First row: Character selection screen - Sylph and Sprite males. Royal Aide kawaii NPC. Even the zombies are kawaii in DOMO.
Second row: The Foursome. Sylph fighting. Herding (a form of harvesting).
Btw, the 123 in the text is not a bug, it’s Aeria’s incredibly dumb filter. Why incredibly dumb? Not only you can’t say “commoner’s coat” (actual equipment) and “welcome”, but neither can the NPCs. W00t! “Wel123 to our Inn, traveler”. I hope they fix this for OB.

What I didn’t like about DOMO.
(Keep in mind that I only played a little. And the game is still in Closed Beta, not the final version.)

In order of annoyance:

1. Harvesting stuff takes FOREVER. No, seriously. I wanted to time it, but I got bored. Just take my word for it. Harvesting is slow, and it doesn’t help that you need 20 harvested materials for one item you actually use in crafting.
It’s one thing for a game to allow you to be afk or doing sth else, that’s good. But in DOMO you are almost forced to do something else while you harvest, at least if you want to be a crafter. Leaving the PC on overnight seems almost a must if you want to harvest enough to level up your skills.
Oh, and crafting has a chance to fail, of course. Even if you craft items of a lower level than your crafting skill.

2. Despite being quest-based, the game feels grind-y. Not only that quest xp is not as spectacular as in Perfect World, but certain items you need for crafting and quests only drop from mobs at a pretty pathetic rate.

3. Mobs also don’t drop cash, they drop coupons that you can redeem for cash at an NPC. Unfortunately all sorts of mobs drop the cheapest coupons (wtf?) and even then the drop rate sucks. Enter crafting as a much needed money source.

Final note:
There are 2 versions for English DOMO: GameTribe and Aeria. I’ve played both and I rec Aeria. First of all Aeria already has classes that GameTribe will only release in Open Beta (therefore previously untested). Second, GameTribe blocks American IPs - playing on “free for all” servers means more chances I will party with someone and this someone can speak English.(*) Third, and more of a personal annoyance, GameTribe had an installer from Hell that required tweaking not just temp files settings, but also the freakin’ registry, and no tech support was available when I posted on the forums VS Aeria’s very active GMs (I saw GameTribe GMs in game though >.>). Forth, and related to the previous one, Aeria is more active, has events in all the games they released.

(*) Aeria had to block at least some European IDs. So far:
1: Italy
2: Germany
3: United Kingdom
4: France
5: Spain
6: Ireland
7: Belgium
8: Netherlands
9: Luxembourg
10: Norway
11: Sweden
12: Denmark
The topic is here!

Trackback This Post | Subscribe to the comments through RSS Feed