Eukara Vox
Legendary AdventureGuide!
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AE Breakdown and WF's Place
by Personator
With the newest galactic expansion to the Artix Entertainment community, another game with impressive animation, a deep storyline, and unforgettable occasions, WarpForce indeed has a lot to live up to. However, as much as I could speculate on what kind of game WarpForce may be, I instead wish to focus on a different aspect - what do the AE games offer and how does WF compare to them?
AQ:
AQ is now the largest, oldest, and most evolved game in the entire community.
The artwork started by being "old school," which I still like seeing from time to time as a reminder of what AQ started as and what it has become in six and a half years. The artwork has progressed from being simple representations of ideas to painstakingly detailed renderings of characters, scenery, weapons, you name it. Both are very cool to see, and even in recent quests some of the older animation style has been used for a nostalgic trip into the past of AQ.
At one point or another, you must have chuckled or groaned because of the various puns found nearly everywhere - from monster descriptions to text bubbles! These puns give the game much of its character, and parodies of other games, movies, stories, music, and such also add to the game and make it an experience to play.
Perhaps the most intriguing part of the game is that many storylines can be found and interpreted on several levels. From simple progressive quests, to the very intricate Devourer Saga and currently progressing storylines, choices of what to do can sometimes be overwhelming and confusing. If you are interested in more than just doing the same thing over and over again for experience or gold, the storylines are most definitely something to consider.
As we all know, there are exclusive Guardian-only weapons and perks made for paying players. Guardianship in AQ is the most expensive if you wish to upgrade your entire account, as you are required to upgrade per character rather than the whole account for $10 more. However, Tokens and Guardianship are identical to all other games for single upgrades, and Tokens can even be found in battles! Items from each release may include Guardian-Only or Token-only items, but Adventurers can access high level and tiered equipment. If you still wish to experience AdventureQuest as a free player, it can work well on a large variety of levels.
DF:
DragonFable is the second large-scale game developed by the Artix Entertainment corporation. In stark contrast to AdventureQuest, DragonFable has walk-around interfaces, full quest loading instead of monster-per-monster, and random and sometimes rare drops from quests.
DragonFable never had the "old school" animation like AdventureQuest did. However, it did borrow weapon designs from AQ during the beta testing phase. DragonFable's animation niche is seen in cutscenes found throughout quests and events - the detail and depictions of the battlegrounds, enemies and their interaction with the plot, and many other scenes plentifully found in the game greatly enhance the experience.
If anything, DragonFable is comically off the charts. Not only does the game have plenty of wordplay (such as the knights in Oaklore), spoofs (Aria in Wonderland), and out-of-place moments (Cysero:"Roadtrip! I'll ride shotgun!"), but the humor and jokes can entertain and provide constant entertainment to anyone!
While DF does indeed follow a detailed storyline, it is nowhere near metaphorical or ambiguous as its predecessor. You can be certain that a joke will be cracked in a cutscene (I myself have yet to see one without a joke) to relieve stress or tension, and also understand what is happening as the plot progresses. The storyline can easily be followed by a new player or a veteran player; it does not always require in-depth knowledge of previous events.
DragonFable has one drawback that AdventureQuest does not - in order to obtain certain weapons or items, you must sometimes repeat quests multiple times in order to find what you want. While this gives you gold and experience to progress through the levels and use new equipment, shops rarely are methods of getting new weapons and grinding quests often can be boring. However, this allows you to obtain weapons fat no monetary cost - so the time questing for an item may justify the lack of an expensive price tag on many of the high level, high tier weapons.
As the name of the game suggests, the game revolves around dragons. Without a Dragon Amulet, you are hard-pressed to fight battles with a fully-grown dragon, and some of the storyline is lost as a result of this. Also, bonuses given to items requiring a Dragon Amulet far exceed that of normal weapons - which makes sense considering that the upgrade costs money - but also limits and toughens the experience for higher level free players.
MQ:
By the time MechQuest came out, the two existing games were already being updated consistently. MechQuest combined principles from both DragonFable and Adventure Quest and integrated some new ideas to become what the stand alone game it is now.
MQ, like DF, started out and remains a high-grade graphic game with a user interface that has been updated multiple times to make it easier to use and navigate. As well as having the walk-around function seen in DragonFable, MechQuest also has challenges that are related to the scenery and environment, such as timed fighting and walking to a set end point and treasure hunting.
MechQuest has its share of spoofs and jokes, however they seem more out of the way than in the prior games. While these tidbits can be found from mecha descriptions to cutscenes, they are not as prevalent as they are in DragonFable or AdventureQuest. The humor is found more often in the details than in your face.
The storyline is fairly straightforward, however, some events tend to have unique stories making them a make-or-miss experience. While some events are temporary, MechQuest has the most event rare items. Despite rarity, the ability to purchase items above your level allows you to hold on to high level equipment for use once you reach that level. The quests and events still in the game still house awesome items with great abilities, so newer players won't be missing powerful equipment either. Also, with frequent events containing items that might push new bonuses and abilities, there is no reason why any player should be remorseful too long from missing any certain rare.
The biggest concern through leveling in MQ is the gross need to repeat or grind quests to level up, as most enemies give similar proportions of credits and experience at a given level. Money is plentiful in MQ, more so perhaps than all the other AE games. With monsters giving up to around 2500 credits a fight, amassing money, especially when leveling, is something that will come in easily. Unless you buy everything, you generally will be at a spot that gives you a sufficient plethora of credits.
Mechquest happens amongst multiple planets - and what better way to travel than by starship? Unfortunately, starships are Star Captain only, however for a nominal fee, or free often when going to new events, any free player can travel amongst the game's worlds with relative ease. Unlike the other AE games, the majority of the content (plot, events) is all accessable to free players, and reward shops often cover all bases - Nova Gem items, SC items, and Free items - so all players can take something from an event.
AQW:
It was only a matter of time until AE game up with a Flash game to break the one-person environment - a MMORPG that allows live chat and interactions with other people simultaneously.
AQW combines many aspects that DragonFable contains - walk-around, plenty of towns and quest drops. AQW benefits from the multi-player environment - you can fight otherwise unbeatable monsters with friends and collect unique drops from monsters on top of getting quest items. You can farm with friends, or just sit, chat, and hang out. You can follow the storyline at your own rate as well - although many unique rare items can be found during limited time events.
The big downside is that membership is expensive, more so than in all of the other AE games, not to mention that it is temporary. Not being a member will prevent you from accessing many areas, items, and equipment found throughout the game, but the main aspects of the game - storyline, for example, are not hindered by being upgraded or not.
WF:
At the moment, WarpForce is an extension of AQ - the future of WF, if it expands like prior AE games have, will be very promising. At the moment, it seems rather limited in what you can do since it's just been released, but as with any new game, it won't explode and grow exponentially overnight.
Unlike the previous games, the beta testing done for WF was significantly smaller. During beta testing, WarpGuardian items and Token items were already in the shops, making it seem like WF is relying on upgrades to play the game more so than the other games, although I do not believe that was the intent. This probably is just using AQ as a base model, since AQ has Guardian-only and Token-only variants of items mixed in with releases. Currently, upgraded users can be up to level 20 whereas normal users can be only a maximum of level 10.
As WF is an extension to AQ, they have many similarities. From the login screen layout and character status bars to the shop layout and upgrade style, there is no doubt these two games are very similar. But how does it compare to other games?
DragonFable is not very similar to WF - the most direct similarity would be the Moglins - Dr. Mendas filling in for Twilly and Zorboz filling Zorbak's role. MechQuest has a few more similarities - mainly because WF and MQ are highly oriented in space travel and technology. Certain character similarities exist too, the Ebilcorp/Zorbak role, the Drakel even in Westion and the character class you can select in WF also share many similarities. WF, however, exists as a player-based fighting style, unlike MQ's focus on mecha engagements over pilot sword duels. AQW ultimately is the least similar to WF - aside from perhaps one event promoting it, virtually nothing is similar! The interface and game setup for AQW differs more than any other AE game, and WF does not have walk-around, chat, or item drops yet - the level cap of 20 is shared by both games, however this is probably coincidental.
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