Dante Reviews Mabinogi! - DANTE20XX, Mabinogi, MMO, Nexon

UPDATE: Open to new areas

This is that new MMORPG from Nexon. It's 3-D as well.
Yes, I've been playing it lately when I haven't been on Maple......

Now, to start off, this might get a bit long...I think I'll try to break it up into sections rather than just try to compare it to maple or something

STORY:
Well, yes, there is kind of a story. I wouldn't say it's anything as epic as Warcraft's, but there is definitely a story here.
Though, to be honest, not much of one so far. Mostly because this is "G1" or "Generation 1". That is what they refer to as big patches. The next big one would be called "G2". So if there is a story, so far (since it's still in G1) there isn't much.

GRAPHICS:
It's in full 3D and you can move the camera around anytime you please, as well as zoom in/out. They look pretty cel shaded to me. I'm not 100% sure they were going for that, nor if that is really what that style is called. Either way, it looks pretty decent and is mostly pretty colorful.

CONTROLS:
Yes, you do use the mouse to click where you'd like to go and then your character walks to that specific spot, as well as clicking on a monster to attack it (more on this in the section below). I know this turns some people off, but I don't see why. It's not that big of deal...
Other than that, you use other items and skills through various "hotkeys" on the keyboard that you can assign for pretty much anything. Most of your attack skills though, go to the F1-F12 keys.

GAMEPLAY:
Hmm...where to begin. I think I might have to break this part down into sub-sections.
The basic gameplay revolves around doing quest for various people, going on dungeon runs, killing stuff, and leveling up. I guess you could say that is pretty similar to maple, but there's much more to it than that. One of the biggest differences is that grinding in one area constantly killing stuff is not the main way to gain levels. In fact, it's discouraged because you get a "camping penalty" depending on how long you've been in that area. Mainly, that lowers the exp you gain.

Non-combat:
The game runs on a clock. 1 hour in game-time = about 1 minute in real time. So 1 game day would be about 24 minutes. The sun is up at around 5 or 6 AM and then it's night again at about 7 or 8 PM. During specific times of day you can do specific things. So far, the only thing they've seen to use this for is "part-time jobs". Some NPCs that run shops may have small jobs for you to do. You complete it (most are pretty easy) and they pay you for it. Usually, they accept people early in the morning (some around 6 or 7, others around 12 - 3 in the afternoon). After you've completed a job, then you go and report back to them and they give you the reward. I was sorta hoping that other things would happen at night. For example, maybe monsters are more aggressive or maybe only certain kinds of monsters come out at night. Possibly in future patches that add new areas....
Everything is optional though. If you don't want to do any part-time stuff, you don't have to.
There is much more things you can do non-combat wise as well like MAKING stuff. You can make your own clothes, armor, weapons, etc. It's just that you can only make stuff relative to your skill "rank" in it. Plus, you'll need the materials.

Combat
It's more turn-based than anything really. Still pretty action orientated in that you can't just sit there and press attack whenever you please when your "turn" comes up though. Most monsters don't hurt you at all unless you attack them first. So unlike maple, touching a monster =/= damage.
You use a pretty large variety of skills in combat. First let me say there is no "classes" at all really. The skills that are available are magic (ice, lightning, fire, healing), swords (and various things involving that), and archer (yes, Ryk, there are crossbows too

)
Technically, you could have every skill, but it's YOUR choice in leveling them up. Most likely a "jack of all trades" kind of person would have every skill, but be crappy in all of them. It's best to focus on only a few. You could very well be an archer-mage or mage-warrior (possibly not have every magic) and still be decent as well as versatile. Every skill takes AP to level (like maple), but not only can you NOT just level them up when you have the AP (you must use it a good bit at that rank first), but every skill takes more and more AP to get from one rank (not level) to the next higher one. It starts off at 1 or 2 AP, but soon begins to get to 5 or 7 for the higher ranks. Unfortunately, you only get 1 AP upon level-up.....
This also applies to "life" skills as well (stuff not involving combat or magic). This is getting long, so I'll leave out the details.
When you do level, you gain 1 AP, and I think + 1 in every stat as well, no matter what skills you have. Though, certain skills (at slightly higher ranks) do not simply increase the skill's damage or something. They tend to also raise particular stats. Each type (sword, bow, magic) has what I think could be called a "main" skill. Sword one is called "combat mastery". Level ups of this raise your min and max damage (yes, you have a damage range), add some HP, and even some STR. You can guess what the others do I hope. Other skills do the same thing....

OTHER:
• It is pretty fun and so far, there is no KSers, annoying people, etc. There ARE, however, naruto12450 names already popping up

• Ah, there is also no such thing as looting somebody either. If you drop an item, NOBODY can pick it up, except you. At least not for a while. Even in a party, you can't pick up each others' stuff (depending on who killed it that is) until a bit of time passes. This works the same way for monster drops too.
• You can also scroll all of your equipment with various scrolls as much as you want. The only actual limit is that there can only be one "type" of each of the 2 kinds on one item. They come in "prefix" and "suffix". If you get a prefix scroll that adds HP or something, but it didn't come out as good as you hoped (it could add like 3-7 or something and it added 3), you could actually take the exact same type of scroll and try again. The new affect will over-lap the old one. Weapons and armor can also be upgrade through a blacksmith or clothing-type person. These add like extra critical %, defense or attack, or whatever. There's definitely something I'm leaving out, but I can't remember........

CONCLUSION
It's still in G1 (as mentioned earlier) so there isn't that many areas open yet, but the future looks bright. G2 opens up a bit of new areas, but G3 opens up a whole new continent and ELVES! Yes, elves! You can finally make a true Legolas character Joe!
I'm not sure what exactly comes out after that, but I do know another new class comes out in G5: Giants!
So far, it is also only open to NA, so anybody outside of there cannot play. I have no idea when they'll change that, but I hope it's soon, if only so that more people will play. Oh yeah, on their site they said it was something about licensing, so I don't think it's their fault. I hope at the least, they'll open it up to everybody before G2 is out...whenever that is.
Another thing to note is that although the graphics can't compare to Crysis, it still does take a decent (even if old) graphics card, so that may be another thing that holds you back.

I play on the Talrach server under the name "DANTEX". I chose that server because it sounded coolest, plus, it was the least full, so yeah...

FYI-I could not choose "DANTE20XX" for some unknown reason. At first I thought it was just too long, but I later found out that wasn't the case. Every time I put in "DANTE20" I could literally not type anything after that. Don't ask why. If you're reading this and planning to sign-up/create a character, try typing in DANTE20XX and see if it lets you..."Dante" was also taken, so hence the X. I thought it was better than DANTE20 -__-

Random Screenshots from the game.
1) 66.6% : ) (bottom right) Noob outfit FTL
2) I thought she looked pretty cool
3) How I currently look (basically). It's not much, but it's better than my old noob outfit. I dunno how I even took this pic. There is no background and I'm positive I didn't take it myself on purpose.
4) I lol'd
5) ZOMG! Future me!

Random videos to maybe get you interested:
link (hehe, dark knight)
link (this kinda me laugh a bit)

HOPE TO SEE YOU GUYS ON THE GAME! (you know who you are)