Wish Preview
Previews

The past couple of days IÆve been one busy dwarf. As a former hero reborn in a mysterious world IÆve chopped lumber, mined an inconceivable amount of ore, chased what seems to be chickens made of titanium, tamed goats, and valiantly fought monsters that ended up having me for dinner. IÆve been playing Wish, a new MMORPG in development by Mutable Realms.

Just like in every other MMORPG you start off by customizing your character. There are five races to choose from, the humans, dwarves, gnomes, elves, and cyclopses. Each of these has good and bad sides, and professions they excel in. You can choose your avatarÆs face, height, hair, beard, and gender. The female cyclopses arenÆt very pretty, but you can make one really big one if thatÆs your Wish.

After thatÆs done you begin in a lava-realm where you converse with some mysterious figures that guide you on your path. YouÆre asked a series of questions regarding how youÆd prefer to handle for instance combat, and the answers you choose dictate the attributes you start with.

In the beta all players begin in the same city. Not all the professions are implemented yet, so the majority follows either the path of warrior, mage, or cleric. How you want to play the game is largely up to you, but it can be smart to somehow make money without too much of a risk. A popular way is to buy a pickaxe and start hacking off ore from rocks. Mining ore not only gets you money, but also builds up your strength and constitution. You see, getting certain kinds of experience points requires you to do the action associated with it û like how killing chickens will further your combat skill with a certain weapon, and your strength. However, you can only gain so much experience from killing a certain monster, so after a while itÆd be natural to progress to maybe sheep, then goats, and so on. Maybe I forgot to tell you û as a hero reborn you donÆt start with a whole lot of power.

Fortunately you wonÆt really have to solo all that much. Animals of various kinds can be tamed, and you alone can bring with you three pets that can aid in combat. As your taming skill improves you can tame larger and more useful creatures, but donÆt expect the same size as those in Star Wars Galaxies. There are also some well-made grouping and guild mechanics in, so if youÆre looking for a break from berry foraging you can join up with some people to hunt for dragons, goblins, skeletons, or whatever else comes in your way.

ItÆs said that the game will be able to handle 10000 concurrent players, which is impressive in itself, but itÆs not very realistic considering how thatÆs about three times Everquest with all its expansions. To facilitate this movement is point-and-click based, instead of WASD. This has upset a lot of testers, but itÆs not a big deal if you liked how Dungeon Siege, Neverwinter Nights, or Diablo 2 did it. Luckily the game uses an excellent pathfinding engine, which makes sure that movement is a little less frustrating than otherwise. Wish does need to resolve a fair amount of movement and camera related things, but considering how itÆs just beta 1 itÆs doing alright. Unfortunately compared to some of the high-profile MMORPGs it looks a bit below par right now. The beta gameworld is quite big, and fairly diverse, but itÆll need some more rendering related features if itÆs going to impress those looking for eye-candy.

Sound-wise the game is also shaping up well. Even this early there are plenty of sound effects and a good selection of dynamic background tunes.

ItÆs hard to say exactly what separates Wish from the rest of the crowd. It could be that thereÆll be only one huge gameworld, so the actions that take place really do matter, like if a city is invaded by monsters. Another rather big difference is that you wonÆt get numeric values for things like hitpoints, weapon damage, armor points, or anything like that. You will get numeric values for your skill progression, but I for one really dislike how you canÆt really tell what weapon is best besides looking at its price. Additionally, some kinds of armor can be purchased by anyone, but wonÆt be all that effective until you reach a certain level in armor use (if only you could read requirements before you purchased it). The big idea is that having less numbers to relate to furthers the immersion. I disagree to this, but my opinion doesnÆt dictate all that much.

Additionally, when you die you can either be resurrected by someone with the appropriate spell, or type /release. Doing so will teleport you to the nearest binding location. The problem is that youÆll spawn with only your starter gear, and have to fight your way back to loot your own corpse. Fortunately if you exit the game before youÆve looted yourself the corpse will respawn when you log back on. It is said that this is to further the risk and so on, but in my opinion it just makes it frustrating to be a solo explorer.

Even though Wish is strange in some ways a lot of the beta testers are having fun, especially those who group with other players, and those in guilds.

Wish should appeal especially to Ultima Online players, but probably some players coming from other MMORPGs. The game takes a slightly old-school approach to role-playing, so if that appeals to you then either apply for this or the future betas, or look for it when it ships in Q4 2004.

- Andreas Misund Berntsen, MMO Gamers Hell Contributing Editor.