Dragon’s Prophet, ROM’s Paler Cousin

 

I’ve been playing a bit of Dragon’s Prophet (DP), the new title from RuneWalker, who also developed Runes of Magic (ROM). I was enticed by player housing, where the homes are visible in the landscape and the promise of creating my own furniture much like I did in EQ2. I bought into one of the founder programs to secure a free house and some starter furniture. Unfortunately, I didn’t learn until I started playing that unlike ROM, player housing is end-game material and not something immediately available. Unfortunate, but not a deal breaker for me. 

Consus Cave - First Instance in Puretia

Sitting at level 13, I’ve moved past the starter zone into more active combat quests and have completed the Consus Cave, the first instance in the Puretia area. Consus was a bit underwhelming to say the least. While I did enjoy the fact that I could enter solo and complete the trash mob quests alone, the encounters were pretty bland. None of the special mechanics or orchestrated combat I expect when you take the time to instance an encounter. It was more of the same hack-n-slash quest material.

 

  

Many people slammed ROM for its generic watered down World of Warcraft feel. I liked it well enough. I enjoyed the housing. The crafting was decent and I liked the meta game of upgrading your armor. The daily quests were helpful in gaining XP. What I disliked most however, was the lack of combat against humanoids. I really get bored fighting beasts out in the wild! It’s so uninspiring.

Paler Version of ROM

From what I’ve seen so far, DP is a paler version of ROM. Hard to imagine you could make a ROM-like experience more generic, but apparently, you can. I do like the class I’ve selected. Taming a stable of dragons is appealing. As is the meta game of acquiring ones with different skills for different situations. I like that I can place them in the lair and send them out on errands (processes – that so needs a better, more RP name guys) like harvesting raw materials, training up their skills, etc. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mitigate the banality of the leveling experience. *sigh*

If housing were available to me now I skip leveling altogether. I gave up on leveling in EQ2 whose quest content I found extremely tedious and too old school (go fight stuff out in the middle of nowhere) for my tastes. I spent my time advancing my crafting experience to near max level and running a time consuming but extremely lucrative furniture shop and interior design business. I had such fun but it eventually was TOO time consuming and became a second job.

Quality of Player Housing Determining Factor

I will continue in DP to the point at which I can access the player housing and see how that goes. If the housing and crafting are fun, I’ll stick around. I enjoy PVP. Housing in a PVP enabled area where players fight for control of the island sounds fun. Given the banality of the DP content thus far, I’m worried the housing won’t be as open as I was expecting. Crossing fingers and moving forward. Sarzan, seen in the video above as Lorali, is over DP already.  He's volunteered to stick it out long enough to help me get my first house then he's outta there! LOL

Tera Online Does it Better

If you’re looking for action based combat in a F2P title, I think Tera Online does it much better than DP. The classes are more diverse. The zones have character. There’s the threat of imminent death from roving bosses and the knowledge you will face a compelling battle a few times in each zone (BAMs). And don’t get me started on the instances. They can be very button-mashy but it will get your blood flowing for sure and you can’t face-roll your way through it.

GW2 Wins No Sub Action Combat

GW2 is still my favorite in the space of no subscription action combat but good lord I need an expansion! I have ZERO interest in much of the new “activities” being introduced. I play to see new zones and new encounters. I need DINGS to keep me going after a while. I hope an expansion comes out before I completely lose interest. I’m finding that once I bail on a game for an extended period of time, I don’t go back even if there’s an expansion. Rift is a prime example. I enjoyed the content. I had lots of fun. I did 3 runs to max level with very little content repetition which was very impressive. But the Isle of “whatever” came too late and no new levels or abilities. I’m not into fake dings. By the time an expansion came, I was over it and occupied elsewhere.

If you need something to do, an easy no stress game diversion, DP might hit the spot. I like my class and the leveling so far is easy. My 6 year old nephew, whose favorite movie is How to Train Your Pet Dragon, has ditched GW2 for DP. *Smile*

Comments

[Sarzan]

That's it! Ima going to follow you around on boss fights so I can look awesome too ;) Clearly not enough sparkles from Mah arrows of mediocrity!

Good lord, lets get you to 30 already! We have other things to play ;)

[Alysianah aka Saylah]

LMAO in RL. It didn't occur to me to start recording until we were at the boss since I'd been in there earlier that day. hehe I can't stop laughing. I can so hear you saying that in rl.