Review: "Elan Online"

If you think the concept of Guild Wars, Tabula Rasa and DDO can get worse, think again. Elan Online is making a soft hit here in Singapore. It looks great and interesting at first glance, but it is incredibly superficial.

What makes Elan Online unique is the combat system. It doesn't follow the traditional point-and-click system...instead it follows DDO's action-based mouse-click-spammage system. Hmm, I guess that doesn't make it unique after all =/.

Right now there are 4 classes, all incredibly traditional and simple. A fighter, a thief, a mage and a healer. All the classes only have 3 skills, and all of them as plain as you can get. For example, a healer get an AE heal, a status cure and some damage spell. For 16 levels ( I think), you survive on this until you get to upgrade your class, giving you another 3 more skills. You will probably have to grind your rest of your life with these.

Stats assignment is automatic. The world is completely instanced except the main areas. Probably the only other good thing is that it is cel-shaded...meaning it doesn't hurt my eyes.

It truly baffles the mind. This game is nothing...nothing. I guess I should've warned Dom before he bought the activation card (costing $5).

Pfft...another hopeless cause.

[Random] A random post

Great, YH just returned me my $200 from the freelance project. I will probably get a X360 once the month ends, then I can do all the catching up for games!

My setup is very sad. I highly doubt my desktop can play The Witcher, but I'm going to have to give it a go. YH says he can play it on mid-high settings on his 7950GT but I doubt it's true since Dom is facing a bit of lag on his 8600GTS. If my X1800 can run Witcher I'll be really happy since I haven't been playing any new mainstream games since forever. I'm only updated on free MMOs and PSP games.

Disgaea is beginning to lose its flavour (thankfully), although I occasionally still grind a few item world level now and then. I don't think Disgaea will ever leave my PSP because 1) there are still many many things to do and 2) the file size is small, so there's no harm leaving it there.

On to a bit on my attachment, everyone working there just told me that some damn good programmer have some 'immortal words' which goes like: "I feel guilty playing games." so apparently, in the company, it is believed that once you reached this level, you will become a god. Hmm. 3 years ago, I felt the same. I tanked for people, I worked my ass off, I code and code and code and rushed production like mad. Back then, I DO feel kinda guilty playing games. I'm not that stupid now though. There is always time to play games. I don't think I would want to overload myself ever again. For 3 years, I've done it and I am now tired of it. In fact, I felt it was a wasted effort.

Seriously though, 'I feel guilty playing games' applies only because you are having fun doing whatever work you are doing. Okay sometimes it's because of fun, but mostly it's satisfaction. You don't actually feel guilty playing games. You feel that games doesn't grant as much satisfaction as completing work, that's why you want to work more. That has been the case for me for all the projects I've done in NYP. You want to feel the satisfaction of achieving something irl. That's how it works. It's a fucking trap. I won't fall into it again. I hope.

Back to other stuff, they haven't informed me on when my jap test is starting. Maybe I'll call them on Sunday.