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Tuesday, 3:19 pm in Gaming

So the other day when I wasn’t reading SomethingAwful (see post below), I wasn’t reading about how the RingSurf ‘forums’ collect the pitscum of the internet, and didn’t see a screenshot of someone looking for Xiah Online hacks.

“Xiah Online,” I didn’t say to myself. “What’s all this then?”

It was just by magical chance that I went to the site and signed up, downloaded the client and started bashing away at Guide Dogs and Mad Dogs.

Xiah is another one of those free Korean-based MMORPGs. Korea seems to breed free MMORPGs like other countries breed rednecks, and though I’ve never found one I’d consider anything other than mildly mediocre (iRO and ROSE), they kill time, have novelty value for a little while and – importantly – allow me to be anonymous. Don’t get me wrong, I love Elavion, but the steady pull of GM responsibility can kind drag the gameplay down. Not to mention the fact that I’ve hit the level cap and don’t have very much else to do other than try and organise MC/Ony/ZG raids (read this as: hide in a corner and cry), all of which serves to make WoW feel more like a job than a game nowadays. Weekend raids are still fun, and I guess I could roll another character but I don’t really feel like doing so until the expansion. Besides, there’s only so many times you can do the Barrens before the thought of another bloody centaur makes you want to cry and the Alliance is, well, the Alliance. The kind of ironic thing about WoW, which is supposed to be acessable to the ‘casual’ gamer (and it is), is that it’s hard to pick up for just a few minutes. For me at least, WoW is an all-or-nothing game, which has a tendency to cycle.

So, Xiah.

I kind of like Xiah, mostly because it has simple, Diablo style gameplay, virtually no downtime (which I didn’t like in ROSE; kill one monster, sit for five minutes, kill one monters, sit for five minutes…), fast respawns for easy camping and that fact that I haven’t yet really hit one of those awful RO-style level curves. As a Mage, I was also amused to find I can make easy money by selling tamed pet monster Tigers to noobs. Though I have to admit I haven’t really worked out how opening a store works; I bought a Store Tag and ran my store, but at the end had no money, no items and no store. The Store Tag seems to expire after a certain period of time, and you have to remove the money/items out of it beforehand… or something. I just hope it’s not like the time I let my +1 Moon Fan run out of durability (and what’s up with quest reward items having like a tenth of the durability of normal items?) only to find apparently this destroys it totally. Oops.

Anyway, going on a game installation spree (yay for junking up my computer!), I’ve decided to try a fre more free Asian MMORPGs. There’s lots to chose from; Silkroad Online, Gate to Heavens, KalOnline, Flyff and Martial Heroes, to name just a few.

I just love downloading a 500 meg game client from a server that doesn’t support resuming…

• Mood » urgh, headache.
• Music » Siouxsie & the Banshees, "Hong Kong Garden"