Well I've been around on the various servers that come up
and go down, and here's my personal experience with
the WINTER'S ROAR server.
The amount of custom content, the GM interaction, the care
and devotion that go into this, is just amazing.
Wether it was intentional or not, there's a weeding out
process called levels 1 to 3.. very tough starting levels but
if you make it past that.. the FUN really begins.
I've noticed that most if not all the players on Winter's Roar
are decent folk, willing to give a helping hand to get started.
I was handed a nice little dagger to start off with from a stranger
named SIN, nice gesture.. not overly powerful but better than
a cude dagger i had. Gave me a few buffs and ran off..
It was nice.
Players are usually grouping all the time, very few seem to solo,
and the GM staff is usually hanging out someplace hiding or even
playing toons themselves, doing things you'd wish eqlive's GM
would do, like moving players from under the world, replacing
lost or missing items, assigning your favorite surname.. ect...
I've seen pretty quick responces from the GM staff.. cudos
Monsters and NPCs general show a good deal of aggressive
AI and the faction system seems to work fairly well in some
places if not most. I sure felt scared while inviso in The Warrens,
since I knew if my inviso dropped, I was dead meat.. the faction
system working perfectly well there.
Monster and NPC placement was done excellently, most NPCS
and monsters right where I would expect them to be and some
roaming around looking for the unsuspecting player. I've gotten
jumped a few times.
Experience point values seem a little high in the beginning, but
sure makes up for the fact that monsters CAN and WILL critical
hit or critical blast you occassionally.. i feel the exp bit of exp
well worth my 'pain and suffering' we all feel. This is pretty much
only at the beginning levels, it definately slows down after about
15 or so.
Map Layout is totally custom, and zones aren't linked to where
you'd normally find them, and just accessing some zones,
can require strange items.. like a bandit leader's head can you
you into a really good zone. *that's a spoiler*
Most if not all the spells are in there and seem to be working
as intended.
Items are mostly custom made and are well done. It's suprising
when you see Woots! and Yah!'s sent in /ooc about a new item
or some GM event loot, since you definately work hard for your
gear. Placement is logical in that, caster mobs drop caster gear,
and melee mobs generally drop melee gear. ... generally ...
At least it makes it easier to decide what to go after depending
on what your hoping to get.
Quests - The quests are pretty good considering the amount of
time involved and complexity of them. All day, I saw all sorts of
classes hunting down there class related quest items, whether it
was Bear paws *from some really wicked bears*, to the
Essense of Air Elementals *which are pretty powerful themselves*.
It was very indepth and I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Events - I read and viewed images of a GM event where the GM
created an arena and invited players to come, and what happened
was a 'last man standing vs hordes of creatures' which became
increasingly tougher with each wave. Team work eventually broke
down to who could survive the longest.. sounded like a lot of fun.
With the break neck speed in which the ServerOP is releasing
patches, fixes and new features.. It's hard to imagine how they
get the time to put together such a rich and fun experience.
which brings me to the LORE which i'll go into later in PART 2.
Coming soon.. Part 2... Optical
Winter's Roar Server - Review by Optical
) and very easy to get lost in. Luckily I was playing as a Ranger so could find my way and locate monsters to hunt fairly easily (with the tracking skill) but a character without tracking would find it quite difficult.
Linear Mode
