Launching open beta today is Neo Steam. It’s a steampunk fantasy MMO that’s F2P. This is just a brief overview of a few basic things in the game.
Character Creation
One thing you’ll probably notice throughout this overview — nothing too original here, it’s a F2P MMORPG, from Asia, the difference is the steampunkish flavor. At least this is how the game feels starting out, perhaps it changes during the later levels? I don’t really know as there’s some 100ish levels in the game.
Anywho, the screenshot above features the character creation — there’s two factions to choose from and 4 classes. (Warrior, Scout, Mystic, Machinist) For a steampunk themed world there’s a surprising emphasis on magic on melee. Even the machinist starts out using swords and heavy armor. Of note, the machinist is also the crafting class — so if you want to make stuff choose it. There’s numerous races to choose from, though I don’t think they differ in any way save appearance.
Once chosen you’ll be dropped in the newbie area which is a somewhat large island. Here you get quests to kill stuff and you do them, level up, etc.
Newbie Pet
One interesting feature is the pet that you start with. While on the newbie island he won’t be of much help — save hints and tutorial type messages. Once you move off the island and get to a pet trainer though…
Gear Pet
There’s three types to choose from — at least at the initial pet trainer — that evolve your newbie pet into something useful. The one pictured is a gear pet that provides a heal. (as you can see) The other two did things like steal an item off enemies and I think some damaging ability.
Machine Core
Crafting comes in a few forms. There’s item enhancement, which is like most Asian MMO’s — ya know with the +#’s added to the equipment to show they’re getting buffed. Then there’s the regular item crafting that Machinists get to do, and lastly there’s machine cores. Machine cores are kind of like gems that fit in to socketed pieces of equipment. The big difference comes in what these cores do — they add abilities to your equipment. Take the one in the screenshot above for instance, it adds a special damaging ability that I can use. It’s triggered and uses the Neo Steam — bottom bar on the player profile, currently empty in that picture — to function. Neo Steam is essentially another type of mana, however you are limited to how much you can have at a time — through items and actual in-game limitations. Neo steam is essentially crude oil and what the two factions fight over; you get a ration every hour of it to use — it’s a good amount, no need to really worry about running out at the lower levels, unless you want to craft a lot. Which reminds me, crafting uses neo steam, so try to get as big a steam tank as possible.
Embedded Ability
Here’s a screenshot of what I left my newbie weapon at; enhanced and machine cored:
Enhanced Weapon
It looked fancy enough for me.
Combat
Combat is pretty standard; right click to begin auto-attacking, use hotkeyed skills. Of note: skills do have levels, to level them up you need SP and TP — SP is gained through leveling, TP is gained through using skills.
So, I guess I was wrong on nothing original, there is a bit of originality mixed in with many familiar features. Neo Steam is a pretty decent MMO, considering it’s F2P, and — should they support it well — could go on to do quite well. Already I suspect myself of getting a few vanity items in the item mall… like the seraphim wings or gas mask. (both?) I do wish the graphics were a bit more updated, they just don’t look good — my biggest complaint.
I could have more on this in the future, so… we’ll see.
