Moar Mabinogi Trailer

http://mabifiles.nexon.net/movies/openbeta/embed_movie/embed_video_4.swf

Mabinogi trailers

http://mabifiles.nexon.net/movies/openbeta/embed_movie/embed_video_3.swf

A note to those wondering where their floating workshop commentwent

Don’t worry, I have them all. I just checked everyone. The comments got spread out through 2 posts so yeah…

Mabinogi: Fantasy Life

Opening of game.

GRAPHICS

The beautiful grass lushly extends before your eyes as you take your first step into the wonderful world of Erinn, the name of the world the whole game takes place in, taking note of the pristine water as you observe your own reflection. You marvel at how huge this world in which you are now considered a resident of. It took four years, but the Nexon team has graced us with the gift of a polished jewel, localized straight from Korea.

Mabinogi begins with an incarnation of your character, completely customized by you. Although there are limitations of the way you can customize yourself at first, as you get more involved with the events and activities in Erinn, you are on your way to becoming an individual that stands out from most crowds. With the vast selections of clothing, the colors they come in, and accessories, you can feel assured that no two individuals look alike.

For those who love to watch anime, they are in for a treat; most of the graphics, disregarding the beautiful landscape, the wondrous effects of mystical magic spells, and the wondrous realistic weather, are anime-based. Non-player characters (NPC for short) come to life with detailed portraits, as if you were actually face to face with them.

GAMEPLAY

Mabinogi fulfills what it promises in the title: a Fantasy Life. It skillfully avoids the trap of being repetitive, one of the biggest flaws plaguing most Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG for short) today.

For those familiar with Korean-made MMORPGs, at first glance, they may feel as if Mabinogi is “just another clone” of all the current games that are out, such as Flyff, Ragnarok Online, and an honorable mention, despite it not being of Korean origin, the browser-based game, Runescape.

These aforementioned games fell into the trap Mabinogi avoided. Instead of providing the player with a weapon and telling them: “Ok, you’re on your own. Kill stuff, get stronger, and get rich,” Mabinogi does something different. The problem/trap here is most free-to-play online games have a little thing called repetition.

The majority of most games involves combat in order to get stronger and develop your character properly. The experience received from combat is commonly referred to as experience points. And getting enough experience points will allow your character to grow stronger. This is usually measured by “level”.

An easy way to view this is to imagine a cup. Now imagine that water is being poured into the cup. The water is the experience points flowing into the cup. You are not allowed to drink the cup until it is full. When the cup is filled up, you empty the cup in whatever way you wish, preferably via drinking. Congratulations, you have simulated gaining a level in a role-playing game. Now you must use a slightly bigger cup and repeat the process. This cycle will continue on for a long while.

So basically, the stronger you are, the more experience points you need to gain a level.

While this system of getting stronger in a game is commonly used in MMORPGs, the true problem lies in the battle system of these MMORPGs. Most of these MMORPGs have a tendency to use the same exact battle system with a few minor adjustments to make it seem “unique”.

The battle system in most games usually relies on the player clicking on an appropriate target, and the character does most of the fighting for the player. The only interaction required in this system is pushing certain keys on the keyboard (we’ll refer to them as shortcuts) to speed up the process. The player may need to adjust their shortcuts for different targets, but they are basically still doing the same thing.

To simulate such a process, imagine that you are working in a restaurant. Your job is to wash the dishes left by the customers. You wash a dish with barely any leftovers, as the restaurant you are working for is reputed for its great food. Because of how great the food is, you keep washing the same types of dishes over and over. However, of the dishes may have a lot of leftovers. You would have to empty out the leftovers into the trash before you wash the dish, but you still repeat the process as soon as you empty the leftovers as if the plate came to you clean.

You have just simulated how repetitive the battle system can get in most MMORPGs; although there may be times where the battle system goes into an interesting twist, ultimately you are doing the same thing over and over.

Mabinogi brings us a battle system that rewards careful planning and strategy. Every one of your attacks and stances that you use while fighting matter a lot. Rushing into a battle expecting to win will only get you defeated due to your lack of experience, as indicated by the level 40 player near my character dying to a level 1 monster.

The strategy required in this system resembles a rock-paper-scissors game, only with many more things than just rocks, papers, and scissors. Study your opponent’s moves and act accordingly into their blind spots and triumph over them, or they will triumph over you first.

Needless to say, this battle system may overwhelm newcomers at first, and may get frustrating. They have no idea what they should be doing, and will be dying a lot. That is normal.

As they always say, practice makes perfect.

It took me about 4 weeks to get used to the battle system, and now I’m playing like one of the pros. There’s no pressure involved when you learn.

A common problem with online games is latency.

You’re playing an online shooter game like Counter-Strike and all of a sudden, your screen freezes while you are fighting someone. One second later you are suddenly dead because the other person wasn’t lagging like you are and had an advantage over you.

Similar things happen in Mabinogi. Your character is standing there for one moment and you think nothing bad is going to happen, but your game really just froze for a few seconds. And all of a sudden your character is dead because of the three second advantage your opponent had over you.

Regardless, lag will always happen in games.

For the ones that just can’t let go of the way they play in aforementioned MMORPGs, or are just new to these games in general, Mabinogi offers the option to simulate the dish-washing repetition offered in these MMORPGs with its automated combat system.

A short video of how the battle system works.

Another common trap MMORPGs fall into is the lack of things to do, to get anywhere. In most MMORPGs, the only way to progress in these games is to kill anything that moves. Because of how repetitive dish washing can get, only the truly diligent players can achieve greatness in these games.

Mabinogi avoids this trap as well. Rather than giving the player only one thing to do, it lets the player decide on what they should do. They can do simple part-jobs for money and experience points rather than just kill stuff. They may then use the money to invest in many things. They may become a farmer and supply others to make even more money; tailor clothes and become a salesman; create weapons and sell to adventurers, and so on.

With so many things to do, the gaming experience easily stays fresh. If you’re bored with doing one thing, try something else!

The one that stands out is playing music; players can use an outside program to produce songs in MML (Music Markup Language), the basis of how midi files work. This game is the perfect chance for those prospering musicians; they may create their own original song and have it evaluated by other players; their audience.

Mabinogi draws in many players with this premise of gameplay; even casual players. This game is easy to pick up, and easy to put down. There are many activities in Erinn do not require an extensive time investment; you could just log on, do one or two part-time jobs, and stop playing right there to go on to do other things. Congratulations! You’re accomplished something in a small time-frame!

Music system in action.

SOUND

The game seeks to immerse its player even further into its world with simple, yet satisfying to listen to sounds. When you receive your first reward from a part-time job or a quest, you feel as though you have accomplished something. When you hear the sound of a critical hit with your weapon landing on an opponent, you can feel the power at your hands. When you have successfully defended against an attack, the convincing sound of your shield taking the blow for you makes you feel as if you were in battle as well.

The soundtrack is very well-crafted. As you step into the town of Tir Chonaill (it is your character’s town of birth), the music welcomes you to its humble hospitality like a caring mother. As you transverse the deep reaches of a dungeon listening to the dark tempo accompanying it, you feel as though you are really in the dungeon.

With such variety in music, you can be assured that you won’t be sick of the music as you near your first ten-hour mark in playing this game, despite the few hit-and-miss tracks that can drive people crazy.

Every NPC has their own theme too, distinguishing them from the rest. From the upbeat tempo of the Bookstore lady’s song to the humble tone of the Blacksmith, you can really feel like you can know each NPC better.

STORY

Unlike most MMORPGs where every house, object, living being is simply there to help the player progress and get stronger, Mabinogi carefully fleshes out a back-story for just everything in the world of Erinn.

Yes, that Giant Spider that tries to eat you as you attempt to explore dungeons has a story behind it too.

For those seeking to learn more about the history of Erinn, a challenging but rewarding mainstream quest (basically, a set of missions to explore the story and learn more about the game’s setting) is out there for people to tackle. The deep story encourages players to overcome these challenges to sell if they can be called a true citizen of Erinn.

Despite the steep learning curve of the battle system, lackluster customer service, and somewhat rude community, this game is a jewel that deserves to be looked at.

I am currently approaching the two-hundred hour mark, and I haven’t even scratched the surface of what this game has to offer.

Did I mention that this game is completely free?

Go download it right now and try it for yourself.

This game takes a little while to get used to, but you will soon be able to call yourself a resident of Erinn, just like I am.

mabinogi.nexon.net <<< Go here to download it. Be warned, this version of the game is for North America only.