Reviewed by: Pugilist
Game Name: Knight Online
Publisher: K2 Network
Game Type: MMO
Number of Players: Effectively Unlimited
Solo Play Ability: High
Playing Time: 5 minutes
Ages: 13
Game Cost: Free
Expansion Cost: Variable
Game Score: 85.7% / 100%
Background
We were contacted by the K2 Networks marketing folks, the Bohle Company, for a review of their Free MMO, Knight Online. There were a few uncertainties, our reviews of Auto Assault and Matrix Online, but we were able to convince them that we’d give their game a fair treatment. Fair treatment, to us, means looking at a game for itself and it’s genre, not doing a point by point comparison against whatever game we decide is our favorite at the time. Knight Online is an MMO, so we’d have to look at that aspect. It’s also free to play, a big thing for us. So, without further delay and rambling, let’s get on with this, shall we?
The Game Mechanics
Knight Online is a MMO, that’s a Massively MultiPlayer Online Role Playing Game for the uninitiated. The premise is simple. You create a character, you choose a class, you wander around the world, interacting with other players, defeating enemies, completing quests, collecting treasure, becoming a hero for all the ages. The concept is simple and dates back to Role Playing Games that use pen and paper. The whole on-line aspect allows people to play at any time and not have to get a group of friends together. Of course, there is nothing preventing these same friends from joining in a team and playing on-line together, thus marrying the standard RPG aspect of the game with the social interaction component.
As an MMO player, I prefer to go it alone to start. I don’t want to be told the best way to do things for maximum XP and treasure, I want to have fun. When I do reviews I am looking, primarily, at how fun it can be for a single player and once I make that determination, then I’ll join some teams.
Most MMOs have an upfront cost. This will run from $20 - $60 or so, depending on the game. Then there is, normally, a monthly cost from $5 - $30 with the standard being right at the $15 mark. Knight Online breaks this model. It’s free to play. That means it is free to start and free to continue for however long you want. Then how do they make money? After all, the servers and upgrades and new releases all take cold, hard, cash to fund. The whole “free” model hardly causes an avalanche of cash, after all.
They make money in two main ways:
- Premium access accounts
- Specialized equipment
The Folks at K2 Network reserve 20% of the slots on their servers for the premium customers. They also allow you to purchase in-game items at their store that can be more enjoyable for your game experience. And that’s it. Do you have to have a premium account to play? No. Do you have to buy in-game items to have fun? No.
You can go through the entire game quite nicely doing quests, collecting rewards, having fun and never pay a dime. Will there be times when the 80% cap of free players is met and you can’t get in? Yes. Is that a problem? Hell no! Within the Knight Online universe you start at the main town/castle. From there you can fight monsters, do quests, collect treasure, etc. If you want more advanced treasure, well, you’ll need to travel to other areas via the Warp Gates. These cost in-game money. See, now you have something to do with all that spare in-game cash. Does this slow down your game? No, it just makes certain you have to spend time getting to know one area before you can traipse off to another.
Enough about the environment. The basic fact is that the game is free to play, as advertised. You can pay extra for advantages, true, but you do not have to. Does that matter? Mostly, no. If you go to the arena, it can matter, but that’s by choice. You will not wander into a PvP zone accidentally.
The PvP area is broken out into Melee and Clan. This, oddly enough, allows either a free-for all or a planned encounter. Imagine that! There is also a safe zone where you can go to rest and buy potions and, when you get tired of getting you butt kicked, you go to the judge in the safe zone and ask to be transported back to the game.
OK, OK, so it’s free to play, you can do standard MMO stuff and PvP. But what about actually navigating in the game? What about moving, fighting, leveling, etc? My first thought was that it was a standard, and for me disappointing, Diablo like interface. I don’t care so much for click-to-move. Well, the K2 folks must have read my mind. F9 is your point of view key. You can go from click-to-move to WASD to first person and more. I was surprised to find the option, very pleasantly so.
So, movement is handled well, how about fighting? Melee fighting is pretty straightforward. You select an enemy, get close, and click to whack. You can also set the attack to continue so that, based on your attack speed, you will beat down your opponent or die trying. Different weapons have different attack speeds, damages, etc, just what you’d expect from a decent MMO.
What about your skills? You’ve spent time learning and training, when can you use them and how? I have to admit, using skills stumped me at first, mainly because I was not looking at the clearly visible User Interface. The user interface runs around the edges of the screen. Items pop out as you access them, inventory, character information, skill information, chat sessions, etc. One of the things I missed at first was the set of boxes labeled 1-8. That’s where you drag skills you want to use by pressing the numbers, wait for it, 1-8. Additionally, by pressing F1 – F8 you bring up a different set of boxes. I found this a great tool to use so I could separate combat and non-combat skills, play with different fighting configurations, etc. It’s not a ground breaking thing, but it was unexpected.
And that pretty much sets the tone for my experience with Knight Online. I was not sure what to expect, it being a completely free game. At every turn the reality of the game exceeded my expectations.
Level advancement and skill progression is handled in a very straightforward manner. When you leveled you’d open the character sheet, spend your level bonuses, and move on. The same holds true for the skill bonuses. You can advance in a skill for more powerful aspects, you can branch out or a wider range of knowledge; or you can forget about it and realize your error just as you get your butt kicked. No that that’s ever happened to me, of course; more than 50 or 60 times.
The Play Experience
So we’ve covered some basics, how is the game to play? Are you looking for quests? Knight Online has them. Are you looking for monster hunts? Knight Online has them. Are you looking for teamed and solo events? It’s in there! Are you looking for that special reward at the end of a series of quests? Yep, it’s there too.
With the different view points and movement interfaces, the pop-out character and skill and inventory screens, the easy leveling up procedure, and the wide range of interaction, the game is fun to play. Character creation is pretty standard with ample customization choices. For those of you who love crafting, not me, there is crafting, also following the standard MMO crafting model. A bit of a surprise to me, one of many, was the player based economy. Along with plenty of standard NPC merchants and suppliers, any character can set up shop anywhere and sell anything they have. The process is quite simple and, barring setting up shop in a battle zone, not hazardous. The combination of NPC and player economy is neat. The application of the player economy, basically you character sits and a table is auto-erected in front of them with the wares displayed visually so that any passerby can see what you are selling, is a great idea. Also, as you mouse over the items, you get information about them. This allows folks like me to look around without having to endure the BUY FROM ME! BUY FROM ME! SPAM.
Yes, I am afraid Knight Online suffers from sellers SPAM. Is that a fault of the game? No, it’s just part of on-line gaming.
For my game experience, I spent a lot of time running around, testing out skills and combat. Did I have the occasional lag issue? Of course. Was it worse than any paid MMO? Never. I also ran a few quests and found them easily understandable and accomplishable. I maxed out my inventory, sold a bunch of stuff, and was surprised again when I got prompted by the interface during some sales. If I was trying to sell a special item, I had to confirm the sale. For everyone who has accidentally sold that very special item, this was greatly appreciated.
When I wanted to move from one area to another, I used the Warp Gates. You have to pay, in-game currency, the same type you get from killing monsters and completing quests; and that cuts down the folks in different areas. When you have to kill 100 creatures to get the toll, zone spammers lose their ability to annoy you fast. That’s a good thing.
Conclusion
So the game has everything you’d expect from a paid service but it’s free. What’s the downside? Sometimes as a free player you will not be able to log in. Tough. I don’t want to hear any whining that the service is not free enough for you or that other people should fund even more of your life. Are the graphics up to the absolute latest state of the art MMO? No, and that’s OK. The graphics are good and solid. There are no obvious flaws in the graphics or sound. Player effects are interesting. When you cast a spell or shoot an arrow, you see it travel, you see it hit, you see the effect. When you use a skill or a potion, there’s a visual and aural cue that accompanies it. Most of all, the game is easy to play and to understand.
But there’s something else that impressed me and this had nothing at all to do with the game and everything to do with the company, K2 Networks. Baseline did an article about them, focusing on K2’s efforts to protect player data and the gaming space. With all the security breeches being reported, it’s nice to see a company taking preemptive action. Take a gander at the article here:
http://www.baselinemag.com/article2/0,1397,2098409,00.asp?kc=BARSS03129TX1K0000628
So How Can You Get Started with Knight Online?
Dude, go to the Knight Online website or visit the K2 Networks folks , http://www.k2network.net/, for a listing of all their games. Afterwards, drop me a line and give me a recap of what you thought.
Oh, and check out the developer interview from the Knight Online folks for even more information about the game, company philosophy, and why Spewgilist.com is so awesome. OK, OK, the last is implied. Absolutely true though, just ask me. Really, I mean that.