Requiem Bloodymare? Anyone?

[Superfly]

Anyone out there try this game yet? I created an account, I was thinking of downloading the client server and trying the game over the 3 day weekend. I figure it's free, it's supposed to have "mature themes", so why not? Besides, my current system will never handle AoC.

I'm curious to hear whether anyone else out there has tried the game.

[Intangir]

http://img398.imageshack.us/img398/8774/meetpunchgg1.jpg
Meet Punch Rockgroin (note the HP)

Though it pains me to admit it but, I am playing Requiem. It's a strange coincidence since the only other MMO I've really played (for more than a week) was Ragnarok Online which was also made by Gravity. I was always intrigued by RO's sprite-on-3D JRPG look (back before my JRPG itch became scabbed over), but I came into Requiem at the pleading of some friends who wanted to try something different after we had just plowed our way through Titan Quest.

Oh yeah, the game... Well, let's start out with what I like:

I like the business model insofar as it doesn't completely gimp you when you're playing for free (e.g. me). Subscribers gain a percentage bump in experience points and item drops, have lower death penalties, and can talk in region chat (which 90% of the time is headache inducing drivel anyway). Basically playing for free feels more like a "default" instead of a mamed version--whereas a game like Dungeon Runners you couldn't wear good armor or use a bank unless you subscribed--and playing with a basic or premium account is more akin to taking an escalator instead of the stairs. One of my friends had a premium account and I kept pace with him fairly well throughout our questing in the first area.

The combat seems pretty standard WoW fare, but it has an emphasis on blood and brutality so when you deliver some moves expect to see a lot of red. The best part is when you kill something though. You'll sometimes sever an arm or a leg or a head or cleave their entire torso in half, and their bloody corpse will get flung down into a twitching ragdoll heap of Havok physics. I still haven't grown tired of running downhill, pausing to kill something, and then resume running downhill only to see the creature's severed head roll and bounce along with my stride.

The bad? It's still early in the launch, but the game feels both unfinished and somewhat broken. Broken in the sense that it's crashed probably about a dozen times on me this week. I've gotten stuck inside invisible walls and have had to log out (usually kicking me out of an instance). On the opening days there was all sorts of graphical corruption that both me and my friends could see--involving tree tops scattered across the sky, and mysterious black bars that streak across the sky.

Performance for my machine (8800GTS, E6750) was pretty poor in the beginning area of Turba. Most of this I think was caused by all those graphical glitches--some of those black barred areas would bring me under 30FPS. I'm in the second area now and performance and lag has been much more consistant and I seldom have framerate drops like that anymore. It might just be that the server load has been diminished after most people tried the game, didn't like it, and went back to WoW or whatever. Still, I think this game is a little demanding on requirements for what you get out of it (higher requirements than WoW), but it still doesn't look half bad.

The unfinished bit was because you'll often come across missing or incomplete content. One example is an instance close to the starting location in Turba called the Chaste Sectum. There are no quests that lead you there, if you never looked at your map or went off exploring you'd never know it existed. If you go inside you'll find all manner of tough beasties with some goodies, and you'll work your way through its mob infested corridors and flame traps, and then come to a big room with gaps in the bridge that you can't cross. And that's it, once you get to the mysterious room with the out-of-order-bridge you'll have nothing else to do there. Similarly you'll come across various quest relics scattered across the realm that don't (yet) have quests attached to them. Skills that you've learned as a novice can be retained throughout your other jobs even though they aren't not supposed to (I'm not complaining too much--Intensification is an awesome skill). Also, should you make it to level 50 and get your coveted second job class change, you'll quickly find out you have very little to do (or so I'm told). High level content seems to be scarce.

The "mature themes" aren't really "mature" so much as sophomoric--you have the gratuitous violence (which, as I mentioned, is sometimes quite fun) and the rest is having a few monsters with eyeballs for breasts or spike or mouth-shaped prehensile penises. The setting is somewhat cool though, it's like a post-apocalyptic zombified Final Fantasy + WoW.

Anyway I think that's enough text about it. Here's a few pics:

http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/2774/apocpv2.th.jpg (http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/2774/apocpv2.jpg)
Exploring the zombie wasteland.

http://img53.imageshack.us/img53/3240/blackbarsofdeathqu1.th.jpg (http://img53.imageshack.us/img53/3240/blackbarsofdeathqu1.jpg)
Black Bars of Death.

http://img75.imageshack.us/img75/5314/discoveringzakatews1.th.jpg (http://img75.imageshack.us/img75/5314/discoveringzakatews1.jpg)
Discovering a new City.

http://img392.imageshack.us/img392/7940/takethatbf1.th.jpg (http://img236.imageshack.us/img236/8375/possessionbeastty4.jpg)
Giant axes are my preferred weapon against penis monsters.

<--5 image restriction, continued in next post-->

[Intangir]

http://img75.imageshack.us/img75/8863/sceneryur9.th.jpg (http://img75.imageshack.us/img75/8863/sceneryur9.jpg)
Enjoying the scenery or tired of running?

http://img354.imageshack.us/img354/7631/cycloneheightsjx3.th.jpg (http://img354.imageshack.us/img354/7631/cycloneheightsjx3.jpg)
Cyclone Heights. Bring a friend or three.

http://img236.imageshack.us/img236/8375/possessionbeastty4.th.jpg (http://img381.imageshack.us/img381/2362/takethatwz5.jpg)
Becoming a Possession Monster -- Interesting idea, but hardly anybody uses them.
Here I traveled way back to the very beginning area to chase/scare newbies with it.

http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/3210/urbagrindhk2.th.jpg (http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/3210/urbagrindhk2.jpg)
You, too, might grind on Urba some day.

http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/3452/meanddadhuntingjs6.th.jpg (http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/3452/meanddadhuntingjs6.jpg)
Me and a friend (whom I refer to in-game as my father) hunting in new areas.

.

And that's about it. All in all, if you're bored and need something to play give it a shot. It's free, after all. I don't know if I'll still be playing by this weekend since I don't like the the area where I'm currently at (Abandoned Temple) and it's basically THE area I'm supposed to be in for the next 10 levels or so. But if I am on, and you're on Valdes, whisper me and I'll mail you some stuff or something.

Note: When you start the game there are two (I think) areas to choose from for where you want to start playing at. I played on Turba which, apparently, is the "bad" one. Apparently Crescent is "better" although I can't really verify that claim.

Edit: Somehow managed to get the Giant Axe and the Possession Beast picture links reversed. Can't edit the original post so just mentally edit it yourself.

[Superfly]

I haven't seen a lot of coverage about this game - thanks for all the info. I like the screenshots - I'm into games with dark, creepy atmosphere. It's a nice change of pace from the candy colored look of that other MMOG we all know and love.

I'm ruing the day I got a "slimline" desktop - I'm stuck with a crappy half height graphics card. :mad2: (An ATI HD2400 or something like that.) I'll try downloading it and see if it runs decently.

Later......