EUO – No funny title for this MMORPG (Sans the Massively)

Okay… It’s been a long time coming, but there was one more “Banner Drawing” entrant called EUO and was created by a Mr. Max Breedon.  Basically it’s “a retro multiplayer online RPG inspired by the early Ultimas, Nethack, Diablo, gold-box AD&D, Magic Candle, etc.”  At least that’s what the website says.  Since I haven’t really played those games much I’ll just have to take it’s word for it.  For what knows better what a game is, than it’s website, unless maybe it’s creator.  Here’s a cool video someone made showing some of the game :

Game is fairly fun, if you like multi-player online rpgs.  You can see the old-school vibe coming from the video.  Best of all it’s free.  There are some things you can buy in the real world that give you some help in the game world.  Buying stuff in the real world for the game does not give you more of an advantage over free players, but it does help you out when you play.   You aren’t required to buy anything to play the game though, because it’s free.  It’s just good manners to help indies when you enjoy their game.  More after the break.

Okay so let’s start with the easy stuff, you can see from the screenshots (below) and the video (above) that the graphics are very old school.  Some of the graphics were created as replacement tile sets for Ultima 4, so it has a similar look.  Granted the graphics don’t look that great, but that’s mainly because they’re supposed to look like older graphics of games EUO is supposed to emulate.  The sound is sort of lacking, but really you’re not playing this for sound or graphics really, but to get a fun old-style experience.

EUO_SS01 Alright so before playing I would suggest you start with the manual.  The user interface is also fairly old school with many commands coming from the keyboard. (There are also some mouse stuff, but really the mouse is not that helpful, at least in my opinion.)  There are like a TON of commands.  That’s right, not a little, not a lot, but a TON!  Well a virtual ton at any rate.  In any case once you get the basic controls down, it’s not that hard to pull up the command screen or read the manual.  Trust me, you’re going to want to read the manual (or at least skim it) if you are going to have any fun in this game.

EUO_SS02 Before getting into how to play the game I want to mention the three servers with different types of games.  First is the regular game, this you fight monsters, level up, add your stats, etc.  Next is the “No Grind” server, this means you don’t level up and you can actually get your character stats up because the experience will be pretty high.  Finally there’s a “Permanent Death” server, which means your character dies permanently.  A note about the PD server.  Basically in the regular game you can resurrect yourself by going to a shrine to meditate, however, the PD one doesn’t let you do that.  (There are ways of resurrecting your character in PD I think, like some sort of magical items, but other than that, the character dies there, it dies forever.)

EUO_SS03 This is not a browser game, so you start by creating a free account on the website, and then downloading the game.  Then when you get in the game you create a new character.  You can create multiple characters, but you can only have one account per person.  I’ll try to give you a brief rundown about how the game works, but seriously you can write a book about it (in fact you can read a book about it, and that book is called the Manual).  Also in fact, you should just go read the Manual right now… do it… now… right now… I’ll wait, you can come back when you’re done.  Okay…

EUO_SS04 So basically you go on quests which you get from talking to various people.  Recover this, kill that, clean up some mess or some such.  Then you go and do the things.  You use your arrow keys to move.  Use the ctrl key to attack.  Alright that’s basically it.  There are a ton of things to do in it though.  You can pick up a trade (I don’t really know how to do that yet) so you can make your own weapons, clothes, or whatever.  You can go fishing if you have a raft and a fishing pole.  You talk to other people by either hitting enter, to talk to people in the immediate area, type /g and then your message to talk to everyone at once, or if you’re in a party, you can type /p.  There’s also a trade talk which goes out as green text.

EUO_SS05 Wow look at this I haven’t even gotten started on all this game has to offer and yet here I am on paragraph six.  I hope you don’t mind reading tons and tons of review.  I guess I should have made it more entertaining, but on with the show, as they say.  When you level up you must go to a shrine, there are different shrines and they give you different skill points, some will do strength and intelligence, or dexterity, or whatever.  This thing is so complete it has a day and night cycle, and you even get hungry.  In fact I hate getting hungry.  I don’t mean in real life, I mean in the game.  It’s annoying.  You can die of starvation.  So stock up on food.  When you go into dungeons or caves you will need some torches.  You have a variety of weapons to choose from, armor, etc.

EUO_SS06 Don’t be afraid to ask for help, just don’t be a jerk.  In most cases you can read it in the manual, but if you don’t want to jump out of the game just to look in the manual, ask nicely.  They don’t tend to jump on you if you don’t have a bad attitude.  Most of the people on the game are pretty nice.  There’s tons more I could put into this review, and I’ve really only touched on a small part of the game, but this should give you an idea.  It’s a fun game BUT you’ve got to be willing to put in some time to figure it all out.

EUO_SS07 Name: EUO

Developer: Max Breedon

Platform: Windows (AFAIK)

Price: The magicalness of the magical word of FREE!

Where you can play it:  Right here!

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