I am a fan of card games. I love the social aspect behind
them, even if it means exposing myself to a bunch of douchebags in the process
(and BOY does it seem like I find them). I think of them as the RPG minus the
tedium of the grind, though that is usually replaced with the money cards that
are worth over 9000 dollars that you absolutely need to win, or you might as
well not play. The online card game attracted me for a few reasons. One
(provided the community is active and there are at least 500 or more people on
at one time) you always got someone to play with around your level, two no
cards cluttering up your room like an atom bomb hit it, three, trading could be
done in a matter of seconds from anywhere in the world and finally, cards can
be buffed/nerffed remotely to address serious issues.
The first online card game I played was Alteil,
and those of you who read my blog frequently know how that game sat with me.
Will Ederon be different? You’ll find out right…about…now.
Gameplay: The
first thing to note this is a browser based game, so don’t worry about having
to load up your computer with more programs. All players start off with 20
Life. To win you either have to reduce the foes life to 0 or your opponent has
to draw a card, but can’t. The very first turn will be spent playing your class
card. There are 8 classes in total and you can only play cards that correspond to
the class (of course there are some cards that anyone can play). There are
several kinds of cards besides the Class one and this list is courtesy of the
main site (which will be linked to at the end of the review for those new here).
This game has no resource system. You just play all the
cards when it’s allowed. These cards, once played end the phase you’re on, but
some effects prevent the turn from ending then and there and those cards will
be critical to your success if you decide to get into higher tier play, or just
to avoid getting squashed like an ant (and squashed you shall be). The main
site also has a tutorial video, and since they went through the trouble making
it, I might as well show you it (also because I feel like they could explain it
better, and first hand examples might be easier to grasp).
Now that we got how to play out of the way, I’ll head to
another aspect, something that truly troubles me about the game.
Small Community:
when I log in, I’m lucky if I see at least 50 people on at one time. This reminds me of Alteil,
and that’s in a bad way (except at times they struggle breaking 30). Anyone who
really likes this game will probably go into two schools of thought. Either
they’ll spend, get new cards and try to keep up regardless of size, or they won’t
spend due to the game lacking in a fairly wide range of players. I would fit in
the second school of thinking. Spending money just to get spanked (Alteil
when I was stupid enough to back Refess) repeatedly because some people got
more money and or more experience than you is a rather demoralizing experience.
You can play for fun though to spare your RP, but you got to directly challenge
or be challenged. The way they have ratting matches to be sought out is a nice
one, either you can seek for someone around your level or far beyond it if you
feel lucky but it feels wasted with the size of the community as is. In fact
the message boards don’t seem to have a bunch of people on at once.
This problem can be fixed with time. They have a Facebook
page, so this should help with getting some hype started but as of now,
since it has 80 likes, its needs a real kickstart.
Features: The
game has achievements and titles from said achievements. They also give you Gold
for obtaining them. Of course some are worth more than others. It seems that
the only other way to gain Gold is to battle other players in Ranked matches
AND WIN when you have a Golden Feather which can be purchased with Gems, which
you can get from buying with Gold (as of this moment you cannot turn Gems into
Gold), and that only gives you 5 Gold a win. So it’s highly modest and grindy. If
you can win Gold by playing against others without the Feather the amount was
so small I hardly noticed it.
There is trading in the game. The Auction House is a
rather misleading name since you can only offer cards for cards in there and
the only singles you can buy from the game are the bids the staff sets up in
the Shopping tab. LAME! Speaking of trading, you need to buy a Trader’s
Contract in order to trade cards with other people. It’s about 300 Gold, so it’s
cheap to get, more than likely a way to prevent people from opening up multiple
accounts to trade off cards to their main. It costs about $5 to get a key,
which will allow you to sell (to the system) cards in your deck and to trade
them in the Auction House.
Speaking of decks, the system does allow you to restart
with another deck in because you hate the one you picked. Keep in mind you’ll
lose Gold, RP and cards by doing this. It’s awesome since you can play around
till you find something you can stomp with.
Golden Matches are a nice chance to get more stuff, but
if you’re like me and keep getting spanked its just a tease that makes you want
to not play if you lose them.
Judgment: I
like the game, yet I am wary of getting invested in it long term. If you’re looking for a good time sink why not
give this a shot? I might pop back in now and then, but I don’t see myself
staying committed until the population grows and assuming it grows before
something else steals away my interest. If the staff of the game is reading
this…start an ad campaign, and if you already have one make it more aggressive.
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