While I was on twitter one afternoon, I happened to win a beta key to a new free-to-play MMO called Vindictus by Nexon and Devcat. It is a visually striking new MMO with some good and bad points I have found since playing.

The first fault I have found is the long download of the game. It took me about three hours and if I was to tried to access the internet for anything else, it would act like I had no connectivity at all. (i.e. no browsing while downloading.)

When I started the game, I began with the DPS type of the, currently, two character choices, a dual sword wielder named Lann. The other choice is a female tank type named Fiona. In the works are a female mage named Evie (magic ranged DPS), a male archer named Kai (physical ranged DPS) and a male giant named Karok (unknown DPS class but looks like someone who can use a lot of two handed weapons). From there you start in a prologue storyline where you learn your chosen class and how you decide to play the game, via keyboard, keyboard/mouse (my preferred method) or console controller. Yes, I said console controller. Currently it looks like the controller method is not implemented but they do show a picture for it. I recommend staying for the prologue because you get to practice and you get a bit more back story.

Once the game proper begins you get to name yourself and do a little customization to your character. More of the story follows and then onto your first quests.

One problem with many of the quests is that you have to go into instanced battles. Some of which are pretty easy but some are very difficult. One thing you have to take notice about the instances is that when you make a party for an instance, you are considered the host and your PC becomes the hosting PC. Meaning everyone has to be communicating with your PC for everything. So you need a good internet connection or you will lag horribly with the maximum number of party members. Regular party size is four people, raid sizes are not implemented yet.

Other then those inconviences, the game is very pretty. Here are some pictures that I took at lowest resolution showing different aspects of the game.

Here is a look at the Character Sheet for my character. As you can see, he is level 16; currently the beta is allowing up to level 26 before the game goes into open beta on October 13^th.

On the Character sheet, there is a button for titles. The more titles you have the better stats you can get. Each Title provides a boost for specific stats.

Above is a look at the bags and inventory system. Only items in your quick slots will be available for use in the instanced battles.

Here's the Skill Sheet. When you choose to work on a skill, you must master that skill before choosing to work on a new one.

This screen shows the progress in the different battles you have participated in.

The Story screen is your quest log. You can check to see what is needed for a specific quest to be completed, as seen below.

  

Once you get far enough in the game, you reach the second ship. On this ship you have to actually pay for the trip. It costs two silver coins to start, and the more you travel the more expensive it gets. You start with 50 coins, which according to rumor you will replenish twice a week. While in the closed beta, we are getting 50 coins a day. Now as a free-to-play game, this will be where paying for game cards will come in. There will be things as platinum coins that will be used to pay for more expensive trips or even pay for the entire party at one time. It does say that sometimes if you are lucky, you will have a party member pay for you to go on the boat.

  

The above scenes are from a boss fight. What is nice about Vindictus is that the environment is interactive. You can destroy platforms or pillars and use the stones from the broken pillars as weapons to stun the boss. Also depending on the weight of the item, the rate you lose stamina while holding and walking around with it changes. Some items will even stun a boss enough to allow you some quick jabs and interrupt his attack so you can kill them.

When you kill the boss, you do get screen shot opportunities of the killing blows and items fly around the room to pick up. In this picture you can see red items. Those are health bubbles to pick up. There will also be "evil cores" that you need to pick up which include quest and material items needed to craft items to better your armor.

  

As you can see in these pictures, most bosses have many health bars. If you are familiar with games like God of War, you should be used to this. And you will also experience multiple bosses with multiple health bars. So choose whom you are going to attack carefully because if you die you will need to be resurrected by a teammate quickly so you can be back in the hunt.

All in all, I do enjoy Vindictus and look forward to what happens once the game hits open beta on October 13^th. With the open beta will come a lot of new changes. What has been announced as in coming from the patch coming on October 13^th is that they will be opening up a new city for people to adventure in called Ainle. Ainle will be reached by taking the 3^rd boat, currently only the 1^st two boats are accessible.

There will also be new customizable features for character creation and in game. Shops such as dye shops and avatar shops, similar to the barber shops in World of Warcraft will allow for these new changes.

One addition I am looking forward to is fishing in game. Currently you can buy fishing permits, but they are useless right now. Fishing would allow you to do something other than being attacked by gnolls and kobalds all day. It would be a welcomed change.

More changes include the addition of Guilds in game. One problem I can see with Guilds is that they are limiting the number of people who can be in a Guild. You will start with a limited number of max members. This will then go up as the Guild gains levels. The only way to gain Guild experience is to only quest with Guild mates. You will still be able to group with others for party experience, but the Guild would get nothing from the experience. Also you will only be allowed to have 99 members in the Guild at max.

Another much needed addition will be the implementation of item enhancement. Currently, we are gathering crystals but they don't do anything from what I can find. I hope when it gets implemented they will be useful.

Finally they are also going to increase the level cap to 38. I know there are many more levels coming as there are skill books that call for level 50+, so I am sure once the game is finalized those levels will be implemented.

Those are the changes announced for the open beta release, but more are supposed to happen as well.