Shaiya

Shaiya is the first MMORPG i played and doing this review brings me back so nice memories.It was released in 2006 and was published by aeriagames on 2007.I played this game for 5 years because it was a really big deal back then and i stopped because some changes were made to the game that i didn't like and it became one of the most pay2win games i have ever seen.It's been 9years it came out and still many people play it, still changes are made and let's start talking about it's gameplay.

Races:
    As you see from the picture above there's an evil goddess and a good one.So at first the player have to choose the good or the bad side.After that you can create your first character which can be:

• Warrior for bad side and fighter for good side.

                They are a  fierce melee combatants and focuses on physical attack power.They can also use a wide range of weapons and gain +1str automatically each level.

• Guardian for bad side and defender for good side.

                      They are hard-as-nails tank.They have high stamina and high hit points, enabling them to take a beating while dishing one out. Unlike Fighters, they can take on multiple foes at the same time with little worry. Also they have the ability to provoke enemies into attacking them, a useful skill when adventuring in groups.They use shields, one handed swords and blunt weapons and automatically gain Reaction Defense boost and HP (+1 to REC) each level.

• Hunter for bad side and archer for good side.

              They use ranged attacks to wound and slow the enemy, as well as lower its attack power, or stop it dead in its tracks. They keep their distance in battle and should stay away from the front lines. Their special skills allow them to literally rain death down upon their targets. They also have high luck, enabling them to make critical hits more often than other races.They have high accuracy, they use axes, javelins, bows and automatically gain fortune (+1 LUC) per level.

• Assassin for bad side and ranger for good side.

            Stealth and deception are the trademarks of a good Assassin/ranger, while ambush and evasion are their staples in combat. They also can frighten beasts or disguise themselves as harmless creatures, further enabling their stealth.They have high evasion ability, they use short blades, claw weapons and automatically gain +1 DEX per level.

• Pagan for bad side and mage for good side.

             Channeling spiritual forces allows them to unleash powerful magic attacks. Attacking up close or far away, targeting one foe or many, the Pagan/Mage uses spiritual magic to destroy their enemies. Their ability to harness the natural elements of fire, water, earth, and wind makes them a force to be reckoned with.They use staffs and automatically gain +1 INT per level.

• Oracle for bad side and priest for good side.

            They relie on the spiritual nature to heal allies. They can resurrect the dead and also have a high resistance to magical attacks, making them a threat to Pagans/Mages.They have the ability to transform allies into powerful monster and enemies into harmless animals.They use staffs and automatically gain +1 WIS per level.

→The races are not gender locked which means you can choose if your character will be a man or a woman.I always played as a warrior because i liked physical combat and it was really fun because they have some really good skills that make tones of damage.

Difficulty mode:
             Before you complete the creation of your character you must choose a difficulty mode.There's the basic mode and the ultimate mode.What is the difference between them?
             For the basic mode you are able to use all items except the ultimate mode items which are stronger, you can't use all of your character skills but you gain level faster and each level you gain 7 stat points and 4 skill points whereas on ultimate mode it's harder to gain level but you are a lot stronger because now you can use ultimate items, you gain 9 stat points and 5 skill points per level but if you die you only have 3 minutes to be resurrected by an oracle/priest or your character is deleted.So it is very important to carry a resurrection stone which prevents your character from being deleted.That stone you can purchase it only with money by buying some aeria points which you can use on the item mall.

→I think now you are starting to understand why this game is so pay2win and believe me you haven't seen anything yet! If you don't have a resurrection stone you can't play ultimate mode at least i never risk it and it's a very bad feature in my opinion.I was playing the ultimate mode but i was never paying money to buy aeria points.I was collecting in-game money and i was buying the resurrection stones from other players that they bought them with aeria points and they were selling them for in-game money.

Stat points and skill points:
             You read above something about some stat and skill points so let me explain what these are.What i really like about this game is that you can customize your character by these stat points and skill points.You can use the stat points to increase some abilities such as:

• STR:The more you increase it the more physical damage you deal (recommended for all except pagans/oracles)
• INT:The more you increase it the more magical damage you deal (recommended for pagans/oracles)
• REC:The more you increase it the less physical damage you receive (recommended for guardians/oracles)
• WIS:The more you increase it the less magical damage you receive (recommended only for oracles)
• DEX:The more you increase it the more chances you have to evade attacks (recommended for assassins)
• LUC:The more you increase it the more critical damage you deal (recommended for hunters).

Now the skill points you can use them to learn skills.Each race has a lot skills and you can't learn them all because you won't have enough points so choose carefully.If you do a mistake don't worry because there's a skill reset item which resets all your points and skills but you can purchase it only with aeriapoints of course....

Here is a video where you can see all the above we said and a first look into the game:

PVE:
    First i want to say that you can't move and attack at the same time which actually that's what i like. PVE in this game is really poor and boring because there's no challenge and what i mean is that if you team up with an oracle all your problems are solved.But even without an oracle and only with healing items you will be fine.There are dungeons where the monsters are a little stronger than the normal ones and each dungeon have some bosses which drop sometimes good and sometimes bad items so it's not a big deal.
   There are also raids but as i said there isn't a strategy you have to figure out to kill the bosses, you just get some oracles to heal some good dpsers and that's it.
   →After that being said i am not a pve fan in this game although i spent really really a lot days killing monsters to level.

Leveling system:
    OK that's what i really hate about this game.The leveling system is so boring and especially if you play the ultimate mode.You will be stack each level in a specific area with the same monsters and you have to kill them like 1000 times to level.Of course you can team-up with other players and go to the dungeons where the monsters give better exp but still on the high levels it's extremely boring and hard to level.It's not a quest leveling system like other games where you do only quests to level, face different monsters and see many areas.The quests in this game give very low experience.

Blessing of the goddess:
   The Goddess Blessing is one of the most unique characteristics of Shaiya. Each side of the war seeks the Blessing of their Goddess. Points for the Goddess Blessing are awarded when you slay a member of the opposing faction or when you destroy an enemy relic. The Goddess Blessing is bestowed not only upon you, but the entire realm. The blessing has a multitude of positive effects on you and your faction which are:

1. Increased success rate for upgrading weapons.
2. Increase in attack power.
3. Increase of maximum HP, MP, SP.
4. Increase of HP, MP, SP restoration during rest.
5. Increase of MP, SP power restoration during the major battle.
6. Increase of Magic Attacking Power.
7. Increase of Defending Power (physical, shooting, magic).
8. Reduced experience value loss during resurrection.
9. Reduced repair costs of damaged equipment.
10. Reduce cool-down time when consuming items.

Now this can be good if you have it but if you don't makes the game hard and still i don't know if i like it or not.

PVP:

    PVP is the thing i liked the most about this game.There are certain maps with specific level that you must have to enter and fight the different side.The first map allows only players who are between 1-15 level to enter, the second one 15-30 and the third one 60-80.

   I don't want to talk a lot about pvp, i will just show you a video that shows pvp on the 60-80 level area to see yourself why i like it.

→To sum up, i will always like and love this game because it was the first MMORPG  i played and it was one of the best games back then but now it's no worth to play it.There are a lot other games with really higher graphics better combat and leveling system and other good features.At the beginning i said that it became one of the most pay2win games i have ever seen, i didn't talked a lot why you need to pay money in this game except for the resurrection stones but if you decide to give it a try you will understand why.There is no way to get strong and have a chance in pvp without paying money!

Here is the official site of the game where you can download it:
http://shaiya.aeriagames.com/

Echo Of Souls

   
Echo of Souls is one of my favourite games that i'm currently playing.It is a Korean based MMORPG that was redesigned and recently launched for NA and EU players and was published by Aeria Games in May of 2015.
     At the moment, there are 6 classes that you can create and each class have 2 skill paths you can choose from.

• Warrior which have the berserker(dps) and protector(tank) path.
• Rogue   which have the duelist(dps) and assassin(DOT dps) path.
• Guardian which have the stormguard(dps) and earthguard(tank) path.
• Sorceress which have the firemage(dps) and icemage(dps) path.
• Archer which have the huntress(dps) and bard(support) path.
• Warlock which have the tormentor(dps) and reaper(dps) path.

The classes are gender locked which i really hate and as you can see there's no healer class in this game, and in my opinion there's no need for one.

We have information that in 1year from now a new class(Paladin) will be released and i'm so excited.Here are some links to take a quick sneak peak from this class:
Paladin creation:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLRQcb-pZ6g
Paladin gameplay:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoYmw6av-e8

Gameplay have both PVE and PVP options.Let's talk about the PVE first.
         One of the things i like a lot about this game is the fact that there's a quest leveling system and 80+ areas exist with over 2000+ quests.That means you will always see different areas and face many kind of monsters while you leveling your character so you don't get bored.
        When you reach level 10 you can choose the skill path you want to play.Also there are many solo dungeons and each one have a final boss which drops good items for your class.
        When you reach level 70 you can join the party dungeons where you can team up with 4 other players.Each party dungeon have 3 bosses and each one drop powerful gear but you must cooperate with your team and play your class good if you want to beat the bosses.
        An other thing PVE have is raids where you team up with 10 or 20 players because the bosses are very hard but if you want the best gear that's the place you are looking for!
       The last thing i'd like to point is that there's a dps meter where you can see the damage you deal in each fight which is pretty cool in my opinion.

→So Echo of Soul for me have one of the best pve because killing bosses is not easy and you must find a strategy to kill them and it gives you a big challenge.There's only one bad thing which is the matchmaking system and only with that you can enter dungeons/raids .Sometimes you can wait 10 or more minutes to get matched with players to enter so something like that can make you close the game and never play it again.

PVP:

     There's 1vs1 arena.It is a match between 2 players and the winner is the last man standing.
     There's 3vs3 arena.It is a deathmatch and victory is achieved by killing all the enemy team players.
     For intense and strategic PvP action, take a group or queue up solo for a 15 vs. 15 battlefield with randomly matched opponents and allies.
     Battlefiend have 2 maps:
          1)Mettle's Theater where the first team to score 10,000 points win.To get points you must
spread around the battlefield to capture the five towers which steadily earn points for your team.
          2)Tribulation's Vale:Travel down the five lanes connecting each team's base and struggle with
the enemy over the resource nodes spawning at the halfway points. Collect the most resources to win!

Claim victory to earn experience, gold, and points to trade for awesome items and PvP gear!

→I really like pvp in this game because even if you are not strong and play smart you can win very easily and that's really unique but there's something really unfair which can happen on the battlefield and you will get angry for sure.As you understand 30 players apply to enter the battlefield and the teams are randomly made.But some smart and strong players make premade teams and that means that many really strong players team-up before applying to enter and if you apply with a party, then all the party members will be on the same team.So the other team have to face many strong players together and has no chance to win! Of course as i said if you play smart you can win but sometimes! When the opposite team is extremely stronger then you just can't!

There's also a map called Valhalla which is only for Guild pvp.It's a very big map that opens
certain times of the day and only the players who have joined a guild can enter.In the
middle of the map there's a boss and each guild tries to kill it first because it drops a big amount of gold.

→The game gives the option guilds to make friendship and team up with other guilds, so if you are on a small guild with no allies don't even bother going to valhalla.This option shouldn't exist in my opinion and every guild should be alone so everyone can have the same chance to kill the boss.

Soul system:

This game is unique because it have a soul system.Every time you kill a monster you get it's soul.When you have many souls you can purify them to earn soul skills that are 4 kind of buffs:

• Attack
• Critical
• Defense
• Heal buff.

The more you use the soul skills the more stronger they get.The max level of the soul skills is 6.An other thing that makes this game unique it's the mounts you can ride(Probably because i like riding mounts).There are so many and all of them are very good designed and cool.

The only bad things i have to say about this game is:
    1)If you are looking for a game with very good graphics this is not the game for you.
    2)You can't move and attack at the same time.
    3)Many times you have to wait a lot to enter a dungeon or raid
    4)They should really do something about the premade teams on the battlefield.

Last but not least this game is not that much pay2win and i'm saying that with personal experience.In pvp it's all about knowing your class, the rotation of the skills and play smart.If you do that you can very easily kill a stronger player.

After all the above being said, let's take a look in the EOS world:

Here is the official site of the game where you can download it:
http://echoofsoul.aeriagames.com/

kk