Endless Online – a Cute Free 2D Style Anime MMORPG
We’ve jokingly been calling it, “Intermitent Online”, since for some reason it crashes often and takes the entire PC with it.
The artwork is adorable and likely to appeal to the younger set, but cute art aside the game play leaves a lot to be desired. The interface is not at all instinctual, and even after a few attempts at the game I found it difficult to do the simplest things, like walking and killing goats.
This was very unfortunate since newly created characters are stuck in a room where the only game play option seems to be killing goats with your bare hands. You have to kill 75 goats to advance to the next level and be allowed out of the room. Unable to do this my self, I talked my best friend friend and gaming buddy into doing it for me, while I watched.
Players more patient than I, will find an vast, amusing land to explore, with many different rooms and monsters to kill, and loot. Many of the veteran players are very helpful, however, others are not so kind. Player killing is only allowed in arenas on Endless Online and so there are players who take out their aggression in other ways.
The primary way seems to be “kill stealing”, in which the aggressive player will wait for a newbie or other player to begin to beat on a monster and then, usually from afar, kill it with a range spell and take the loot.
Verbal insults are also rampant, and this game marks the first time in my very long gaming life, that I have heard the word “noob” short for “newbie”, hurled about as an insult. Due to the verbal insults, while the cuteness factor may attract young children, I wouldn’t recommend letting them play on their own, if at all.
While there do appear to be many types of weapons and loot on the game, we never figured out how to tell exactly what that loot does. Why one type of sword is better than another, sadly remains a mystery to myself and the friend I have now addicted to the game.
Endless Online’s own webpage claims that it is a game where you can, “become rich and famous, fight evil monsters, become a hero, or live as a normal citizen.” Unfortunately so far, I’ve only seen the fight evil monsters part.
Endless online seems to have a single town called Aeven. Aeven has a bank, and many shops, including a town square and a church where you can get married.
Unlike most games, Endless Online is produced by a company, but by a group of people interested in making a free game. Serious development began in 2003 and the team deserves a lot of credit for the countless hours of hard work they put in. The game is constantly being updated and will always be in development, so I am hopeful that some time in the future Endless Online will work out it’s bugs and live up to it’s name
