(I wouldn’t consider this a review, just my impressions of the game after some time playing it on and off.)
Alright, it’s been about a month since I first posted about Earth Eternal’s new public beta, and it seems most of the things I mentioned have indeed worked themselves out. Once you reach the mainland, the colors and terrains do indeed seem more colorful and pleasing to look at. The whimsical starting creatures eventually give way to more traditional MMORPG fare like vultures, giant volcano-walkers, and moogle trashcans.
Earth Eternal’s story actually feels very different from most other MMORPGs, whereas you’re not treated as a glorified exterminator. Instead, you’re given actual quests that seem to make a difference in the war you’re fighting. Unfortunately this joy is short lived when your target simply respawns 2 minutes later for the next player to kill, making your actions ultimately pointless, but if you can forgive this momentary break in immersion, there’s a lot of good questing to be found on EE.
Earth Eternal’s midgame lends itself tremendously to partying. Unlike other RPGs where stronger monsters give you more EXP, EE’s monsters will ALWAYS give you 100 EXP if you are the same level as them, and 20 less for every level higher. And when you need 30,000 EXP to reach your next level, the prospect of killing 300 of the same creature can get quite tedious. Quests do well to reward you with experience points to help you along, but you will be doing a fair bit of grinding just to keep up with the somewhat sharp experience curve of the game. Your best bet is to find a group of friends who are close to your level, and work together to take down monsters several levels higher than you that you could never kill on your own.
Earth Eternal is A) free and B) in beta. As much as you try to forget this as you play it, it does suffer from occasional crippling bugs. The most obvious of this is the obvious memory leak that will cripple your system if you leave the game running too long. This can be remedied by logging off and back on every few hours, but it is a hassle I hope will be fixed with later updates. Luckily the fact that it is free is quite downplayed. You are not constantly hounded with “If you were paying for the FULL game, you would be able to use THIS!” messages, and in fact it would be easy to forget that it is a free game were it not for the players reminding everyone of this whenever someone complains about the game.
In my experience, the EE community can be very schizophrenic. I’m sure it depends on the time of day you log on, the kind of impression you make, and the patience of yourself and others. Sometimes they are very welcoming, other times they are standoffish and elitist. If you have to use random players to flesh out your party, you should be able to find people, but I highly recommend you play this game with your friends and voice chat. It makes the game a LOT more fun.
Earth Eternal is a vast and massive world to explore, and dripping with furry influence. While it would be nice to see more TF content in the game, the furry compromise is more than welcome. And to get all this for free, is really something that is worth wasting your time.
As an aside, I will be forming an official Tanuke Clan once I raise the 10 gold I need to do so. If you’d like to join and play alongside other TF fans, leave a comment here, or on my DA journal page.
Earth Eternal
Tanuke Clan Page on Deviantart
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