Action MMORPG MU Legend (MUL), Webzen’s free to play comply with up to MU Online (released in 2003), launched into Open Beta on November 7. MU Online still features a robust following, and Webzen continues to be pushing out new content nearly a decade along with a half following its launch, with all the newest update released just days ahead of MU Legend’s personal launch. Will MUL catch on like its predecessor, or will it struggle with a great number of other folks? Just after spending a number of weeks inside the game, it’s time for our MU Legend assessment.
Tell me about the event you’ve heard this one particular:
You’re a powerful warrior, and you get started the game having a complete array of abilities and are hunting all badass in your Ultimate Armor of KKickassness. Right after a couple of tiny battles in the tutorial, you obtain out Mr. Evil is about to prevail. Inside a last-ditch work, that a single wizard (you realize, the one that each and every fantasy story has) transports you back in time to destroy Mr. Evil just before he ever grows in power. You arrive in the previous but have forgotten who you will be, and all your gear and powers are gone. What will you do?
Yeah, it’s a fairly old storyline for MMOs. I’d fill in a number of the facts because it pertains to MU Legend, but I honestly don’t know them. I usually take the time for you to read/listen towards the story my initial pass through a game, but not this time. The game’s writing is bland, and what small voice acting there is was very flat, so immediately after about an hour or so I began clicking via all the dialogue. I can’t say I was shocked to find out such little work put into the story, as this really is becoming the norm in cost-free to play games.
This can be a hack slash game, after all, so obtaining a story a little around the light side is forgivable provided that the combat is worth it. And it is actually. The pace is frantic, irrespective of whether on an open globe map or in an instanced dungeon, with wave right after wave of mobs in the prepared to be reduced down by your weapon of option. Your special abilities come to life with fluid animations. Effects on weapon capabilities and spells are vibrant and flashy, and battles have more explosions than a Fourth of July fireworks show. When solo, bodies will likely be flying all more than the place, and grouping only multiplies the chaos and excitement.
But MMOs will not be constructed on combat alone; players need to build a connection to their character if a developer expects them to stick about. Sadly, like a lot of ARPGs, your alternatives through character creation are limited. To begin, you will discover only four genders locked classes (with one particular much more in development) and four races (every class has human and one other race available) to select from. Every class/race alternative may have a handful of facial and hairstyle alternatives to pick from, supplemented using a slightly bigger choice of hair and skin color. You may also toss on a couple of tattoos, however, the anemic variety of alternatives suggests your character is going to appear quite comparable towards a large number of other avatars on the market.
MU Legend Evaluation ¨C Legendary or DOA?
MITCHELL GASSNER JANUARY 24, 2018 NO COMMENTS FEATURED, NEWS, Rapid HIT Testimonials
MU Legend Assessment
Action MMORPG MU Legend (MUL), Webzen’s absolutely free to play adhere to up to MU Online (released in 2003), launched into Open Beta on November 7. MU Online nevertheless has a powerful following, and Webzen is still pushing out new content practically a decade and a half just after it’s launch, with the latest update released just days just before MU Legend’s own launch. Will MUL catch on like its predecessor, or will it struggle with a lot of other individuals? Immediately after spending a number of weeks inside the game, it truly is time for our MU Legend overview.
Tell me should you’ve heard this one:
You’re a powerful warrior, and also you start off the game with a full array of skills and are looking all badass inside your Ultimate Armor of Kickass-ness. Following some modest battles inside the tutorial, you come across out Mr. Evil is about to prevail. In a last-ditch work, that one wizard (you realize, the one that just about every fantasy story has) transports you back in time for you to destroy Mr. Evil ahead of he ever grows in power. You arrive in the past but have forgotten who you’re, and all your gear and powers are gone. What will you do?
MU Legend Assessment
Yeah, it’s a fairly old storyline for MMOs. I would fill in a number of the specifics since it pertains to MU Legend, but I honestly don’t know them. I commonly take the time to read/listen to the story my first pass by way of a game, but not this time. The game’s writing is bland, and what tiny voice acting there is certainly was quite flat, so right after about an hour or so I started clicking through all the dialogue. I can’t say I was shocked to determine such little effort place into the story, as this can be becoming the norm in absolutely free to play games.
This is a hack ‘n slash game just after all, so having a story a little on the light side is forgivable as long as the combat is worth it. And it really is. The pace is frantic, regardless of whether on an open planet map or in an instanced dungeon, with wave immediately after wave of mobs at the ready to be reduced down by your weapon of option. Your specific skills come to life with fluid animations. Effects on weapon capabilities and spells are bright and flashy, and battles have far more explosions than a Fourth of July fireworks show. When solo, bodies are going to be flying all more than the place, and grouping only multiplies the chaos and entertaining.
But MMOs are certainly not built on combat alone; players need to create a connection to their character if a developer expects them to stick about. Unfortunately, like a lot of ARPGs, your selections during character creation are limited. To begin, you can find only 4 genders locked classes (with one particular far more in improvement) and four races (each and every class has human and one particular other race accessible) to select from. Every single class/race choice will have a handful of facial and hairstyle solutions to choose from, supplemented using a slightly larger decision of hair and skin color. You can also toss on a few tattoos, but the anemic selection of options indicates your character is going to appear quite related to a large number of other avatars available.
MU Legend Review
That doesn’t mean that every character will be the same. Although your look is going to be comparable to other folks of your exact same class, MUL gives plenty of alternatives to create a character to fit your unique playstyle. As you commence your time on the planet every class has two weapon designs to choose from, both with 3 weapon skills to unlock as you advance. Although leveling your character, you can also unlock fourteen class capabilities comprised of a range of attack, defense, buff, and crowd manage abilities. Continued use of each individual skill will bring about the unlocking of 3 crest slots, providing you the opportunity to further specialize every ability with minor buffs which include increased attack energy or cooldown reduction.
As you progress by way of the story you can also gain access to six expert skills, each a single sporting a passive capability paired having a strong action capacity. At max level, you’ll be able to pick out three of those experts, with their passive abilities ??usually on’ no matter whether you slot the action capability to your ability bar or not.
Speaking from the talent bar, you may have a total of seven skill slots (along with 5 consumable slots) at your disposal. One particular slot must be utilized for any weapon talent, but you will be totally free to fill the other six spots with any class or expert expertise you may have obtainable. With a total of 26 skills for each class, there is lots of flexibility in choosing the capabilities you need, providing you the power to sculpt your character even so you decide on.
Character development isn’t limited simply to capabilities. In addition to gaining practical experience points to increase your character level, MUL also has a separate leveling path referred to as the Soul Level. Even though character levels go hand in hand with talent progression, your soul level is tied to enhancing your character’s attributes. You accumulate soul XP inside the identical manner as you achieve character XP ¨C by means of killing mobs and completing quests, even though at a slightly lower price. As you gain a new Soul level, you are going to gain a point to add for your Soul Box.
The Soul Box is broken up into 4 categories ¨C Attack, Defense, Assistance, and Miscellaneous. Each category has numerous selections to spec into, with every point employed giving a minor buff to a particular stat. At essential points, you may also unlock other, far more substantial, buffs. Though somewhat simplistic, this method is more accessible to a casual player than extra complex systems found in other ARPGs (I’m looking at you Path of Exile), but nonetheless provides a wide variety of possibilities to tweak your character. Together with the Soul Level at the moment maxing out at 500, character progression will continue lengthy following you attain max character level. This can hold that carrot out in front on the hardcore players for very some time, whilst casual players will locate comfort in figuring out that pretty much all endgame content material is open for entry upon reaching max character level.
Beyond character progression, players also wish to grow their energy through gear. All through leveling, gear is quite significantly a non-concern as there might be lots of loot shooting out of dead mobs (not quite towards the intense you can discover in Diablo 3 or PoE). You also have the selection to craft your gear whilst leveling, nevertheless, it is greater to save the components for crafting to finish the game.
Like character look, there isn’t a ton of assortment in gear appearance at finish game, but don’t consider this suggests there isn’t a gear treadmill. Finishing a ?°perfect?± set of enchanted weapons, armor, and wings, then farming crests, gems, and imprints to upgrade them even additional will provide you with a multitude of selections for individualization. Past that, you might also create and after that level up artifacts providing you the capacity to squeeze out every single ounce of power.
When some will eagerly attack this challenge, not everybody revels inside the hours upon hours required to tweak their gear to such an extreme level. Like all progression in MUL, the casual player will need not fret, as they’re going to have the ability to regularly make compact improvements to their gear within the limited time they have to play. A functional set of gear is usually obtained with minimal work at level cap, or no extra effort at all in the event you saved adequate gold through leveling to purchase your initial set of gear off the auction house.
Numerous a debate has risen over the years in regards to the race to max level. Some choose to stop and smell the roses, taking in each ounce of your story offered, while other individuals believe leveling is just an inconvenience you will need to endure to get for the finish game content. Let me be clear about this ¨C Webzen has definitely decided the latter may be the path to take in MUL.
The planet maps are rather linear, however, they frequently feed you with quick and painless quests. The quest mobs are terribly weak, and complete locations may be gathered up and dispatched devoid of fear of death. Auto-movement is alive and properly, and also you get a mount very early in the game, producing traversing huge distances as quick as a single click of your mouse. You will find also teleporters scattered across the maps, so as soon as you locate them, travel is quite a great deal instantaneous. All of this implies levels will fly by at a speedy pace, and most players can count on to attain max character level and end game content in 10-15 hours.
When you want to slow things down just a little, you can find dungeons sprinkled across the maps. Dungeons might be completed solo or inside a group, with grouping rising difficulty and rewards. This could be a fantastic strategy to meet a lot of people if only there was anybody to group up with at lower levels. I began playing a few weeks just after launch and resulting from the brief time frame to level, I rarely saw any individual else on a map in the course of my adventures. The only time I did see any individual it was maxed level characters at dungeon entrances, making the trip to max level a solo knowledge.
Unlike the fast pace of leveling, there is a fair amount of content material to expertise at end game. There are lots of dungeons to run, every single focused on awarding anything from Zen or magic gems (currencies needed to fund just about almost everything at endgame), crafting mats, and gear from low tier legendary products each of the way as much as set items and artifacts. Devoted players will run all of these each day, whilst players with limited time might be capable to concentrate on dungeons that address their specific requires.
Whilst MU Legend is focused mainly on these PVE dungeons, there is a smidge of PVP in-game at the moment. Currently, your only solutions are 3v3 matches or the AI Arena. 3v3 is precisely what you would expect, with 2 sides squaring off in a gladiator-style fight, while the AI Arena is actually a 1v1 duel. Most players won’t look at the AI Arena an accurate PVP battle, as your opponent is controlled by the laptop, nevertheless it is usually a good way to see what ability combinations other players are working with.
I don’t partake in considerably PVP (I don’t like issues I’m not very good at), but I still find it strange Webzen artificially limits access to both forms of PVP. The 3v3 matches are only readily available for 60 minutes out of each two-hour cycle, and you are only permitted two trips into the AI Arena each day. Although the game at present features a minimalist method to PVP (3v3 wasn’t even added till a month immediately after Open Beta started), you’ll find plans to add far more options, with Webzen currently teasing added PVP in the form of Guild Wars.
When you see Free of charge to Play you must count on a money shop. Webzen happily gives you their take on this ¨C the Legend Shop. Products are usually purchased with Redzen (genuine revenue currency) or Bound Redzen (obtainable in-game), while only a few things can be purchased with Bound Redzen. The usual suspects are all here ¨C 30-day subs, consumables, mounts, and cosmetic products are all.
What about Pay to Win things, you ask? With each and every gamer getting their own amount of tolerance on what is and isn’t Pay to Win, this question isn’t normally effortless to answer. For MU Legend this really extra reduces and dry. Boosted items that can not frequently be found in-game, for example, cosmetic products with stat bonuses or pets with stat boosts you may gain elsewhere, are for sale. Even the Platinum level sub gives your character an attack bonus and more each day login products.
All of this adds as much as a massive NO for many players, but wait a moment before you pick up your pitchforks and torches. With all the game so heavily centered on PVE, is it truly P2W if somebody in your group has purchased stat things? What are they winning? You might be receiving the benefit of the things also, so what did you shed? As long as the power get isn’t also huge (and presently it’s relatively minimal) most PVE players will turn a blind eye knowing that a totally free to play the game has to create revenue somehow. As much more PVP choices are added, this balance may possibly deteriorate, but at present, you will discover bigger obstacles that could derail the long-term achievement of MU Legend.
What I see as a larger concern is how little there’s in the Legend Shop. Cosmetic things and mounts, the staple of games like Guild Wars two, are in limited supply. I would have anticipated seeing a much wider collection of cosmetics that had been in improvement for so long, but like all other aspects of character appearance, range just isn’t there. Cosmetic item sales could be an essential revenue stream to fund future development, and all of us know what happens once you don’t feed the player base’s hunger for new content material. Items can usually be added for the Legend Shop now that the game is in Open Beta, so possibly we ought to be pleased Webzen didn’t take the Star Citizen strategy to development and devote far more time on building money shop assets?
A different major problem facing the game has needed more immediate consideration ¨C at launch, the game was with rife with bots and gold sellers. It was so staggering towards the game’s economy that Webzen had to entirely close the auction house and disable player to player trading. Webzen has created attempts to address the situation, and claim there are actually now fewer bots in-game, and gold sellers are at the moment no additional annoying than in any other F2P game (excellent luck removing them entirely). The auction house has been re-opened for Zen auctions, but Redzen auctions and the layer player trades are still on lockdown.
Pay to Win and bots destroying the game economy might turn some players away from MUL, but the third problem at launch may well be the single that ends up causing a mass exodus ¨C server stability. Lots of people can happily exist in an MMO without ever taking notice of botting or P2W components, but absolutely everyone is negatively impacted by continual disconnects kicking them out from the game. Right from the get-go players complained about lag or disconnects destroying their gameplay.
Nothing is worse than becoming kicked out of a dungeon when fighting the final boss, in particular, if that dungeon is limited to just 1 or two entries every day. There have been multiple occasions where I quit in the aggravation of experiencing a number of disconnects inside 15 or 20 minutes of beginning a play session. I must say that I have noticed a marked improvement in stability during the last couple of weeks. It is actually doable Webzen has ironed out some of the kinks, slowing the bleeding ahead of as well a lot of harm is accomplished for the player base.
In spite of the glaring obstacles facing MU Legend, Webzen has developed a game that is certainly fun to play. It appears good and combat is fast-paced and incredibly hectic, with tiny story acquiring inside the way with the hack ‘n slash. Receiving to level cap is swift and painless, and after there you presently have enough content material to maintain you busy whilst a lot more content is developed. PVE is king, with PVP bolted on in an try to appease that crowd. I for a single am perfectly pleased with this recipe, and while it will not be the only MMO I play in 2018, I will be throwing it into the mix for the foreseeable future.
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