Game:
Requiem: Bloodymare by Gravity Interactive.

Genre:
MMORPG

First Impressions:
Think WoW for the Vampire Hunter D crowd.

 

 

In the wake of my Hellgate:London post mortem (although I'm still hoping someone casts rez on that creature) I decided to give a go to the title that bills itself as "A Horror MMORPG for Mature Audiences." There's a lot to be leary of here: not only trying to claim itself as both "horror" and "mature", but how about the fact that it's free to play with both Item Mall AND Subscription options?

Knee jerk reaction: Oh my god, it's poison.

But that doesn't seem to be the case, at least with me. It appears I've already put in 30 hours on my Xfire; and to be honest my Xfire is never truly honest of how much time I really spend in games (LoTRO beat out Hellgate? Yeah, right...)

Anyways, without further ado, here's the scoop.

 

Not Really Horror...

....as much as I would prefer to call it "Splatterpunk". This isn't an online game of psychological horrors or creepy shit you find in Silent Hill. At least, well okay let me rephrase: Yes, all the monsters are grotesque and scary, even the ones that try to be cartoony have a little bit of the "Okay that thing is weirding me out" feel to them. It's just that instead of recoiling in fear, you're able to run up and right from the get-go start bashing/stabbing/kicking the shit out of these zombified mutations and splatter their parts across the landscape.

The novelty of Requiem:Bloodymare, as the name implies, is the sheer gore factor. It uses the Havok physics engine to let every hit splatter blood across the landscape, sever hunks of flesh from your foes, and even sever them in half and launch their torsos in several directions. Many people complain about it getting old fast, and almost being ridiculous. Personally, I love it. I especially love it that as characters get beaten closer to death, they start to get bashed up and bloodied themselves. You can actually look at a party member and go OH SHIT! HE NEEDS HEALS!

With all that said, this isn't typical fantasy land for MMOs. Yeah, it's sword and sorcery, but there's no cute elves or pompous heroic paladins here. Matter of fact, there's a weird mix of science fiction in the setting, as the players are supposedly genetically-altered cyborgs called Temperions that are trying to be the bastions of hope in a world after a major apocalypse. Apparently generations of wars involving DNA experiments, scientific monstrosities and the occasional black magic has left the world in a bleak state.

Old is new again....again.

Many review sites will bring up that you can't help but compare this game to World of Warcraft. That reason isn't just with the MMO market today; it really does take a lot of its concepts from WoW, to the point I'm convinced it's literally WoW with a bloodier, more sinister skin.

And for the most part, it works. There are some flaws, mind you:

The interface doesn't have the polish of AAA games like WoW or Guild Wars by any stretch; even some of the hotkeys and /commands seem foreign to standard conventions. On top of that, the quests are rather bland and generic. Go here and kill stuff for me, go here and collect 10 items, take these letters to someone in the next town, so on and so forth.

It's also not terribly newbie friendly. In a sense, I think the game was designed with the idea that most people who picked it up have played WoW or equivalent games before. And that's really where the curve comes in...getting used to what IS different. For example, you don't get to pick your class until you're 10 levels in. Before then you're just a generic Temperion classed character with a race. Races also determine classes here...this isn't a game about Greenskins versus Pretty People, this is about genetic cyborgs designed with a purpose.

And that's the kicker: Following quest lines doesn't always lead you where you should be going next. An example is that when the time came for me to pick my first profession, I didn't know that after trekking across the big zone of Crescent I was supposed to go ALL the way back to the beginning city, and talk not to the Temperion Trainer (who lets you decide your class on his menu...except he tells you to finish the quests first) -- you apparently have to talk to the DNA engineers for the quest line, just on a random hunch you feel compelled to see what their exclamation mark is all about.

 

So what exactly is fun about it?

Get past the obnoxious, annoying first 10 levels, and the game actually starts. I don't think the first 10 levels were really for tutorial purposes as much as they were put there to test the patience of the player to see if they're worth keeping around. People who are playing looking for something to hate and eager to tear this game a new asshole on gaming forums won't survive their first time through levels 1-10. I almost didn't. But I gave it another go, and to be honest once you know the routine, it can be easily completed in an hour or two.

Once you start down the path for your first job, you start picking up skill points per level to invest in. Here's where it starts to stand out: Skills are setup like WoW, to where over time and leveling you can earn new skills or level up ranks in old ones. The catch is you have a set number of these in the end, and not every skill is necessary needed or beneficial depending on the type of build you want to run. Also, you'll end up picking 2nd and 3rd careers down the line, so you'll need to actually research what skills will benefit you going into those next branches.

To add some more flare, there's a DNA system where you can buy additional add ons and enhancements to your skills. These get expensive real quick, but it adds some flavor as you tinker with stuff to max out your abilities further.

As for gameplay, the quests start getting harder, the zones start getting more intense, and soon you'll be needing to group up in bands of four or more to tackle instanced dungeons. While it has its standard share of caves and baddies, I was actually surprised by the quality of detail put into Chaste Sanctum. This dungeon took a group of four of us roughly 2 hours or so to complete; and it was packed with various nasty spawned monsters, crazy bosses, and even some platform-hopping challenges. One spot included hopping on stones and dodging the wall of fire that would spew in a timely matter, another area was a room filled with moving platforms and a bottomless pit of death. A few rooms involved hopping on small ledges or falling into a pit of monsters. A lot of the inter-connected rooms had these natural land bridges weaving in and over eachother, narrow as hell and easy to fall off if you're not paying attention.

These concepts are nothing new to gaming, I admit, but in an MMORPG -- especially a free to play one -- I was impressed. Hell, I was sold.

I'm just barely to the point I can leave the first "Newbie" zones of the game...approaching level 20. That said, across both starter zones (that you can hop easily between) I've seen so many different landscapes, a variety of monsters, have done oodles of quests and have ran some pretty intense groups with people. In some areas, like the Blackhand Camps and the Prison Mines in the desert, the respawn timing for some of the mobs was ridiculous for soloing. Literally by the time you got done killing a couple enemies, the first one you killed begins to respawn and attack. Suddenly concepts of team work, kiting, pulling and the like are really tested in order for anything to get done. AND IT'S STILL THE NEWBIE AREA! This isn't a complaint; I'm loving the challenge of this game.

My only complaint is that since it is setup almost exactly in WoW mechanics, often times you'll find yourself running and still getting hit by melee mobs although they appear 30-60 feet behind you. Also, with the ridiculous spawns you'll often find yourself training small armies for miles. There's plenty of ways to deal with it, mind you, but it is still slightly annoying at times.

PvP and Battlegrounds:
The game has only officially been out of beta for about a month, and still has room to grow for the community. In various towns and outposts, you can find NPC's that will let you get in Queue for their Battlegrounds PvP matches. When you're used to big titles like WoW or GW giving you instant-to usually in a minute or two waits for PvP, the hours you can spend in queue for Battlegrounds in Requiem seems disheartening. It seems hit or miss; some nights the servers are hopping and you can find a match in no time. Other times it's completely dead, and you'll find yourself even forgetting you're in line for a Battleground as you probably got bored and went out to start farming stuff.

When you do get in, it's easily on par with Alliance Battles or BG's.  I had the pleasure of 24 on 24 point captures, and though I got stomped a few times I had a blast. I'm hoping that since the game is still young, that maybe with time we'll see some more people participating in the PvP scene. Of course, if you're really jonsing for action, there is an entire free-for-all PK server available that as soon as you leave the noob islands, you're cannon fodder.

Day/Night Cycles that actually make a difference.

Due to the drab nature of the game, you'll actually be surprised to see how lit up the place is at Night time. Seriously, I think it looks more like Daytime or Sundown in the newbie zones. However, I am kind of impressed that Day/Night cycles make a difference here.

The time is sped up; an entire in-game day will happen over a couple hours. Certain quests for killing certain monsters revolve around the clock: A lot of monsters, like the Mutant Sea Lions, only come out during the day. At night, from 11:00PM-2:00AM is referred to as "Nightmare Time" as enhanced, dangerous mobs spawn in certain areas and wreak havok on players. You're not gonna piss yourself from fright when this happens (at least in the early stages)....but seeing a group of undead baby angels with barbed-wired halos run up and slice the shit out of you is kinda impressive to behold.

Also, merchants in outposts won't sell to you or buy stuff during night time, and you have to go back to the main cities for commerce. I thought that was kinda cool, although I was pissed that this dude was just standing there and letting me look at his inventory but wouldn't let buy stuff from him. Hopefully in a future update they'll just make the NPC's dissappear much like how Everquest used to work.

Beast Possesion System
I'll be honest at the time of this writing I have yet to get far enough to pick up my first Beast Posses form, but the concept sounds like fun. Essentially you collect relics of monsters which allow you to fill up a rage meter, and thus shapeshift yourself into one of these creatures equipped with its own skill bar to beat the snot out of your foes. The beasts level and gain new powers with you over time, so that's another aspect for you to develop with your character.

 

Brief Observation of the Premium/Item Shop:

Usually I feel Item Shops are an abomination. The concept is cool but often times I've seen games ruined as players bought their way to powerful twinked characters, and it's not longer a question of player skill but player wallet.

While many gripe on the game's forums, my personal opinion is that this game so far has been leveling about the same as WoW or other western MMO's for me. I haven't felt gimped in anyway, have not ran out of money and quite frankly have been pleased with the free to play aspect of the game.

Looking at their item shop, all you're paying for is accelerated XP gain, items to repair your armor and weapons, increased money drops, and a couple of mounts for speedier travel. No where do I see super potions, uber weapons or anything that will wreck competetive play (unless you're trying to level the fastest.)

They also offer two different "premium membership" options that give a flat XP and Gold bonus to your account for a month, one for 7 bucks the other for 15. Also, Regional chat is only available to these members. Let me just say AWESOME, because it's helped to keep the Spam bot population in check and has limited them to newbie hubs, and are easily ignorable.

So if anything, I dig the idea for the cost of paying to just PLAY a game like World of Warcraft, I could just increase the XP and money drops for my characters for a month. When that expires, I'm not obligated to renew, and I can still come back and play my toons.

Still needs some polish.

I'm not going to try to convince anyone this game is perfect by any stretch. Some quests still have textual errors from the localization. But to be fair, this game is far from plagued by "Engrish" like many, many other Asian MMORPG's. Gravity has done well with their other two hits, Ragnarok Online and ROSE, for bringing them to the Western Markets and has obviously learned how to blend concepts and elements of both to make an interesting game.

Right now the biggest complaint from the community is the overall limited content. It has quite a bit of everything, but still isn't a heavy hitter next to commercial games on the pay-to-play market. Many guilds at end game have already started consolidating as there hasn't been much of a reason to have many guilds yet.

But thankfully, some big new updates are on the horizon. New skills, balances, more content, both PvE and PvP, and recently confirmed: A fourth race with 2 more base classes.

 

Final Thoughts:
If you're wrapped up in a big game like Guild Wars or WoW, this game isn't going to steal you away. Compared to the rest of the market, it seems very generic in mechanics, quests and depth.

But, when it comes to games that are free to play, it stands out because of the fact it seems to be on par with gameplay from the big companies. Hell, there's many pay-to-play games I wouldn't even fucking touch and would rather waste another 30 hours in Requiem. And for someone like me who doesn't really want to shell out the subscription costs for games like WoW, but still wants a decent game that I can spend hours in exploring different things, this one has really come out on top.

I'm a horror freak,and while this isn't "Scary" it does have a lot of visceral carnage that makes me smile.  The combat and gameplay moves at a fairly fast pace; not as fast as Guild Wars but definitely a bit more sped up than WoW. To really appreciate this game, get in with a decent sized group or even join a large guild, and you'll see how much fun it has and how much you can have for yourself without costing you a dime.

 

Pros:
Good graphics, visceral carnage, decent character leveling and awesome dungeons.
Fast paced combat, fairly quick between-fight "downtime" for regens. Plenty of quests to do to help speed leveling up and keep it interesting. Familliar stuff you've come to depend on from other games are present, including a working Auction House. For the most part the community has been pretty cool, plenty to group with and help out.

Cons:
Aside from obviously copying content from WoW (right down to the Wingrider Flights that function and feel almost EXACTLY like Gryphon Flights) I'd say the biggest gripe is merely the lack of customization aesthetics. You have an OK amount of hair and face combinations, but get ready to see lots of peeps in the same armor and carrying the same swords, even if the stats are different. Avoid the forums unless you're looking for builds or advice; the majority of the community's ass-hats hang out there and doesn't fairly represent the ones you'll meet in-game.