Ken's Corner

There's just something about free korean games. They use some similar, and some foreign ideas in their games (depending on the game). Either taking an idea from an RPG used long ago, and applying it to an FPS. Or vise versa. Or other little cooky combinations. But overall the problem I run into with playing free games made by these korean developers, I like the ideas that come out of them, but I don't feel like there's any content to back it up. No substance.

Like SilkRoad Online. That's the first free MMO I ever played, I believe. There weren't any classes, it was all skill point based which wasn't bad. You had your experience bar for your character level, and you had a skill experience bar, so you would get about 3 skill points per level to spend in a few different skill trees. The magics were Fire, Ice, Lightning, and Nature (healing/support stuff).

Then you had 3 more trees that were just weapon based. Swords, Bows, and Polearms. I mean for a free MMO I liked the way you built up your character. Practically all of the spells were supporting to your Sword, bow or polearm attacks. Like the first skill in Fire, Ice, and Lightning were the same. It powers up your weapon with that element for 3 seconds, adding more damage. If it wasn't a buff, it just felt like there was no offensive spells being cast, just something to help out the hack and slash tendencies of the MMO.

Not that I have a problem with your melee or ranged attacks being your main source of damage, but it didn't feel like there was a whole lot of variety. Sure Fire-based spells all gave a chance to give a small dot, Ice based spells slowed them, and Lightning...I don't remember. But it was cosmetically the same moves over and over. You could gain more physical abilities by going through your weapon skill trees, and if you wanted to dish out a lot of damage it was kind of neat when you activated your Lightning buff to your sword, seeing it burst into this yellow electricity, then using a powerful blow you learned through your weapon tree, making a very powerful attack.  It wasn't bad, I guess I just am a caster at heart.

There was also a berserk feature. After dealing and taking so much damage, and when your berserker gauge was full, you press TAB and your character will raise in all stats, and turn into an ancient chinese-looking demon. So basically, your skin glows red, and your head changes.  But as far as your character's strength is concerned, your damage is linked with Strength, and your character's movement speed is linked with Agility, and when these two stats (along with the others) go up, you take advantage of it by 2 shotting mobs, and then quickly running to the next, and the next, and the next, before your berserking is over. I found this extra little feature to be pretty fun, and really helped speed up the long grind of doing quests.

I mean seriously. The first quest wasn't so bad... "Hey go kill 10 of these things."

"Hey good job! Go kill 15 of these pesky rats!"

"Haha you're the best! Go pick up 25 symbols from these statue monsters!"

"Thanks! Bring me 200 tiger paws!"

I wish I was exaggerating, but it wasn't even a day or two after playing when it asked me to loot 200 tiger claws/paws/whatever. That alone I was like "what?! 200? You asians are crazy to ask this of a lazy american!"

And to top it off! They dropped like once every 3-5 tigers. And they weren't that easy to kill. I had to use a lot of mana compared to previous monsters... but that quest pretty much killed it for me. I mean I had spent like 2 hours on that 25 symbols off the statue monsters. The tiger thing was going to take me a week at my casual speed. Level 20 is the level where you choose which faction you'll go to... and being only level 11 at the time, I really didn't see 20 happening for me.

The factions aren't set in stone, however. Along with your PvP status, your faction is chosen depending on which color cape you wear. SilkRoad as a whole is portraying China's time of trading goods from city to city. The three factions are made up of Merchants, Hunters, and Thieves. Merchants go from city to city buying and selling trading goods. They either buy the special goods from a certain place in the city, or they get them from adventuring and finding them. In essence, everyone is a merchant, because you can open a stand in any city, basically making yourself similar to an NPC merchant. Players who choose the faction of merchants, however, have to buy pack camels to transport their goods to the next city. The only problem is this leaves them vunerable to Thieves.

Thieves' purpose is to kill merchants, steal their goods, and sell it for themselves for a good profit. While Hunters are the protectors of the Merchants, and are out to kill Thieves. They are the acting police of the world. A common assumption would be that Thieves would be more popular and almost no one would be Hunters, but there's actually quite a bit of each.

The only problem is when you hit level 20 and choose to be one of the three, there's not a level cap, so you're jumping into a game with levels that are more than twice of yours. Kind of frustrating, and it goes back to it being difficult to level because it's just an endless grind or collection quests that require you to get 300+ of something, or kills. And you have to factor in all the competition in those kills. Lots of kill stealing going on. AND the loot drops on the ground, and anyone can pick it up. So if you're collecting Tiger Paws, anyone can pick them up. The usual idea is to wait for someone to not be near when you give the killing blow.

So... just to sum up. I like the way classes and "your character" feels in some free games made in Korea. But the world (or content) is so boring.