Echo of Soul

Hello!

I can't say I'm a huge fan of MMORPGS but I have played quite a few of them. My first experience of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (what a word monster!) was back in middle school when I stumbled upon the world of Maple Story. What most MMORPGS I've played hold in common is that they're either cute or visually beautiful. I think the next game falls under both categories.

 I only have a single screenshot of my own to show here. Mainly because I was stumbling with the keyboard and accidentally took one... 

Anyways Echo of Soul is a relatively new game published by Aeria Games. It was out in 2013 but on Steam it has only been up for about a year.

 I didn't know much about the play mechanics of EOS before I started playing. The main reason I picked this game was 1) It looked nice and 2) it was available on Steam. The reason why I prefer downloading online games through Steam is that I'm not required to create separate credentials for every single game that I play. There are of course exceptions, such as Dragon Nest.

EOS looks fantastic in my opinion. I had lots of fun creating my character - the character creation isn't as developed as in Skyforge for instance, but it was still so diverse that I had a hard time picking my char's hair, face and tattoos. If you're a fan of pixelated beauty like I am, you would soon notice having small crushes on your fellow players' characters. They are just that good looking.

 The game has six different classes to choose from. The class I picked, archer (like usual...) is quite balanced and easy to play with. That is, if you choose to become a huntress, instead of a bard. The bard gameplay is apparently much harder than playing a huntress. I chose huntress since I will probably be playing most of my playtime solo, while bards are ideal for party-playing. The other classes are warrior, rogue, guardian, sorceress and finally warlock, which is the most difficult class to play. My level 17 archer looks pretty bad ass I think, despite her mismatched armor. Speaking of which, that top does NOT look like it could provide +8 defense. The equivalent would be me, running in a forest with my bow only wearing undies. But yeah, that's how it works in a fantasy world.

 The distances to travel are quite long in EOS so I was extremely happy that you receive a free mount after finishing the first two main quests. In other words you receive an insanely adorable llama that grants you +33% movement. How awesome is that? I've seen pictures of other available mounts in the game that are quite incredible as well - giant dogs, dragons, tigers etc. What you also receive in the beginning of the game is a little companion to pick up your loot. Mine is a small anteater called 'Anto'. It's only valid for 7 days but I believe you'll get other pets further in the game.

What I hate about all MMORPG's is microtransactions. In other words you pay real money in exchange for ingame credits. I was happy to go back in to one of the first towns, once I hit level 10, to notice I had a new quest available - and my level reached the requirements, hooray! But, this 'Monica' bastard who gave me the quest wants me to get her a magic lamp repair kit that is only available in the credit store. What? How is that fair? You give me a free game and one of the quests tells me to use real money anyways. I admit having used $5 in an online game called 'Gems of War' recently, but I will not pay to get a freaking repair kit for some Monica. Go get it yourself or turn yourself into one!

 Once you level up enough your class can pick a further class to specialize in. On top of that there are professions and hobbies to choose from. You can specialize in jewelcrafting, alchemy and resource collecting. I picked the latter one but it bugs me that I keep getting resources, but have no means of using them. The resources are used by jewel crafters and alchemists, but us resource collectors have nothing else but to sell them? Kinda sad. There are also two hobbies - soul experting and cooking. A soul expert sounded somewhat lame so I decided to go for cooking. It's pretty fun actually! The only problem is that so far I haven't picked a single resource from an enemy that could be used in cooking. So to increase my cooking level, I have to buy the ingredients from a chef. There seems to be a bit of polishing around to do before the game is perfect, but I don't let the minor details bother me.

I play solo since none of my Steam friends are playing the game. I did ask for play buddies in the discussion section so let's see how that turns out... Anyways, what saddens me is that there are quite a few party-only quests, meaning that if it's a level 10 quest, I can probably do it solo when I'm level 20. And by that time the experience points and loot I get from that quest are close to nothing. So if you start playing EOS, consider having friends to play it with!

I don't know if it was the wisest thing to do but I quit the 'Newbie'-guild immediately when I started playing. Through the guild I may have found friends to play with but, oh well... The difference between EOS and other MMORPGs I've played is that you may enter a guild only through invitation, which sucks. I've seen some German shout outs about guilds but how the heck am I going to find the perfect guild unless they advertise themselves? For instance in Dragon Nest I found a guild for Finnish people just by looking it up, and I got right in. In EOS it's a bit more difficult than that.

Anyways, I have forgotten to eat since I've only been gaming. The plan for Friday night: Eat, and then play. Thanks for reading and I'll return to you with a new game soon in the future!