Preview

Knight Online is a new game that is trying to find its niche in the pantheon of MMORPGs. It is different from most online games because it is designed for team-based PvP on a server-wide scale. The two races of avatars available, the Orcs and Humans, are at war with one another. Players must choose the side they wish to fight for and then join the battle. The graphics and interface are very good, the game play is solid and fun, and the system allows for both solo fighting and fighting in groups.

The graphics are very good. They are a step above most MMORPGs I have seen. The colors are crisp and bright, and the avatars look very good. It has been a while since I felt the urge to run around a game’s starter town and look around just to see what else the developers had built because the graphics were just that cool. Knight Online had me poking into all the corners.

The graphic game interface has a fairly standard design. There are hotkeys available for skills and items, the mouse is used for camera motion and selecting objects, and the keyboard has a WASD set up for movement. The user interface also uses sound effectively to help a player keep track of what is going on. For example, after I picked up my second archery skill I kept hearing this “clang” sound effect. It took me a minute to figure out what the effect meant. The clang would sound when a skill’s reset timer was finished. After half an hour of playing that touch only added to the game environment. I was very happy to have that as a feature. It made it easier to keep track of skills without having to take my eyes off the action.

The game play itself is similar to a few older titles. As a character levels they get stat points to spend raising their basic statistics, like health, strength, or dexterity. Once a character reaches 10th level and can choose a profession they will also get skill points. The closest system to this I have seen is in Diablo II. Unlike in Diablo, where a player must invest skill credits into the same skill over and over, Knight Online allows you to buy up lines of skill instead. There are different lines of skills available for the players to raise. As an orc rogue, for example, there are skill trees for archery, exploration, and “assassin” skills involving daggers and close combat. As a player buys up their skill trees new skills will become available. Spending points in Archery will cause a new special attack appears: shooting flaming arrows at your opponents for extra damage.

Combat in the game places the advantage with diverse groups. A warrior and an archer, for example, could take down monsters far easier than either could individually. Soloing was made available through a few game features. First, when an avatar is sitting they can regain hp and mana very quickly so the downtime is a lot shorter than one would expect. Secondly there are health and mana potions available in town for the recharge when you need it.

With healing potions in the game I was concerned it would feel like another Diablo clone. For all its good points, at times when I played Diablo I felt like all I had to do was keep guzzling healing potions and I could win any fight. That is not true in Knight Online. Activating any skill or item has a timer associated with it. Before the effect starts the timer has to finish. That delay means that players cannot simply wade into combat with a stockpile of healing potions. Pounding on the hotkey for healing potions won’t guarantee your survival.

In my experience the game did not put any one class above another for combat. A warrior might not have the range of an archer, but archers could easily get munched on by an aggressive monster. I did not have a chance to engage in any PvP fighting, but I look forward to getting the chance in the future. There are so many options available to players that every avatar can have an entirely new bag of tricks. The only concern I have is that at this point the classes can be told apart at a glance. The Orc sub-race with the option to be warriors are head-and-shoulders taller than the other orcs, and their clerics are all female. I am very interested in seeing how that will effect the PvP scene. It could add a new layer of complexity to PvP, or it could lead to a rock-paper-scissors type of fighting.

Knight Online looks to be a very good game when it comes out. By not requiring grouping it leaves room for the casual gamer as well as the gaming elite. The graphics are a step ahead of most of the MMORPGs on the market now, and the interface is easy to use. Most importantly this game is fun. I never had the sense of being stuck on a treadmill or just bashing monsters so I could get to the next level. I can’t wait to see how the world develops as the game releases.