Sword of the New World

In typically condescending games writer fashion, I will now pretend that I know what you're all thinking. "Aha," you're almost certainly not thinking, because you're not Alan Partridge, "that's all very well Rob, but it's still a Korean MMO, isn't it? Grindy grindy grind? Grind grind grind? Then grind some more?"

Well, yes, it's a Korean MMO - so the progression system definitely deserves some attention. The standard formula for Korean MMOs is one which many western players find it difficult to get absorbed in; as a rule, they have great Player vs Player systems, but the actual progression in terms of levelling up your character is utterly, utterly tedious. The kind of interesting quests and opportunities for solo play you get in the likes of World of Warcraft or Lord of the Rings Online are alien to most Korean games; instead, they are indeed all grindy grindy grind until such time as you're big and strong enough to start blatting the other players about, at which point they become interesting.

Thankfully, Sword of the New World looks like it will avoid the worst of this problem, thanks to a number of factors. For a start, the minute to minute play when you're roaming through a dungeon (many of which are solo play friendly, thanks to the whole three-character system) is extremely fast compared to most MMOGs; you'll routinely be fighting multiple monsters at the same time, and hacking through several foes in the space of a minute, which gives the game a certain flair compared to other, rather more ponderous MMOGs. Combined with the complexity introduced by controlling three character classes at once, it looks like this will take much of the sting out of the grind.

However, the other element of good news on this front is that Sword of the New World won't be quite the same game when it launches over here - with the developer (incidentally, it's the same chap who created the incredibly cute and surprisingly compelling Ragnarok Online) making a number of changes for the western release. Striking what's described as a delicate balance between cutting grind and not trivialising the time taken to progress through the game's 100 levels, they have added more quests and more story elements to the mix - making Sword of the New World into a game more in line with western expectations of what an MMOG should do, which sounds good to us.

Speaking of those 100 levels, the game also offers a fairly interesting take on character progression which should yield a vast variety of differently specced characters in the end-game (which is a massive PvP-fest, filled with interesting objectives and large-scale battles). Each character has dozens of "stances" to learn and level up, with each stance granting certain abilities - either in terms of actual spells and moves, or in terms of buffs or stat boosts. You customise your character by changing the set of stances they have loaded, and character progression past level 100 will be by means of levelling up new stances - and, of course, by means of finding shiny new armour items to wear.

Oh yes - armour. In an unusual move, Sword of the New World doesn't have visible armour on your characters; instead, you choose your character's clothing on the creation screen, and they continue looking broadly the same throughout the entire game. According to the developers, this is down to a desire to make sure that characters look fairly unique from one another. In the Korean version of the game, which had visible armour, every character at the same level tended to look the same; in the western version, ongoing customisation will be provided only by weapons (which do look mighty cool, in some cases), haircuts and hats. We have to confess to being not entirely sold on this aspect of the game - after all, finding new armour to make your character look cooler is a key motivation for playing an MMOG. Still, questing for hats isn't all bad.

The final interesting element of customisation is that Sword of the New World allows you to earn "unlockable characters" - effectively, unique character classes which can be added to your barracks and brought out in your parties. There are 32 of these unlockable characters, some of which combine various traits from the five base classes, while others are more exotic and have abilities not available elsewhere in the game. In a sense, it looks like having the high-end unlockable characters will be Sword of the New World's answer to shiny epic armour; you'll show off with cool characters, rather than glowing breastplates.

Brave New World

In other regards, too, Sword of the New World also represents a departure from the MMOG norm - much of it very welcome. The need to walk tediously from place to place is replaced with a comprehensive system of warp points, for example, and you can carry warp scrolls with you into dungeons which will bring you back to points you've already visited. Less time wandering around, more time playing the game; that sounds like a good deal to us.

PvP, you'll probably be pleased to hear, is opt-in - so you won't be constantly killed as you make your way through the game. The servers, by the way, hold around 6000 players each, so it's unlikely that the game world will get lonely - although it's worth noting that the environments in Sword of the New World are pretty damn huge, not to mention gorgeous looking. The graphical styles all revolve around a certain "Old Europe" aesthetic (apparently, the inspiration for much of the game comes from London architecture glimpsed during a press trip here for Ragnarok Online), and this common source leads to a certain character and environment style which echoes the likes of Final Fantasy XII. In a good way.

Finally, some really good news; Sword of the New World is free. Well, sort of. The game plans to use the Korean business model for MMOGs, rather than shoe-horning itself into a game box and onto shelves. It will be entirely free to download, and you can play it for free up to level 20 - with subscription fees only kicking in if you want to take your characters past that level. Like a good drug dealer, Sword of the New World is providing the first hit for free - so you can decide for yourself whether this is, at last, the Korean MMO that will entice you into the massively multiplayer world, when the game launches in June.