- Joined
- Nov 10, 2004
- Location
- Detroit
I'm not affiliated with K2 or Knight Online in any way, and no this is not another thread about Anarchy Online or Guildwars.
Ok, with that out of the way I'd like to inform those who may be interested that there is a completely free MMORPG called Knight Online. I stumbled across it a few weeks ago, figured I'd give it a shot, and I got hooked.
What is Knight Online (KO): KO is a pretty standard MMORPG. Anyone who has played a MMORPG such as WoW, EQ, Lineage, UO, etc. will have an easy time picking up KO. The pace is pretty fast and the early levels go by quickly. There are clans you can join and the end-game offers both raiding and PvP - something for everyone.
Where do I get KO: K2 is the company that runs the U.S. version, and their website is Knight Online World . You register and create an account on that website and download the client directly or from their mirror, all at no cost. The download is about 280MB. If you are interested in trying out the game, this is the place to go.
As a note, there is also a Malaysian company running their own version of KO which is in English - but that one is pay to play (p2p) and is referred to as MY-KO. And finally there is at least one Asian host running a non-English version, which is where the game originated (it was ported to English and licensed by K2 and the Malaysian company). The free to play (f2p) version is the K2-KO.
How can K2 offer the game free?: K2 makes money in one of 2 ways. First, you can upgrade your account to Ultra Premium which has a monthly charge of $20. The main benefit is faster support should you need a GM, but there are some other benefits too. The other way K2 makes money is by selling what is called Knight Cash. The Knight Cash program basically allows people to spend real money to buy in-game items. Both of these are completely optional so you can truly play for free.
I'll wrap up with a quick informational review.
Similar to WoW, KO is divided into two nations - El Morad (humans) and Karus (orcs) in the case of KO. When you create your first character on a server you have to pick which nation you will play on that server. Obviously the two nations are at war. There are safe areas so you never have to expose yourself to PKing if that's not your cup of tea. On the other hand, if you like PKing then there's plenty of it. There is a National Point system that tracks how well or poorly you & your clan do in PvP. I haven't gotten high enough level yet to really get into the PvP, but there are monthly Lunar Wars and other events that the GMs stage where the two nations are pitted against each other.
Leveling starts off very quickly as I stated earlier. Even a slow player can get to level 10 or 15 in just a few hours. After that it gradually slows down. However, the pace of the game is fairly quick. My background is EQ which I played for many years and KO has a much faster pace. Part of this is the high mob density and respawn rate.
Character development is pretty well done in my opinion. There are only 4 base classes, but where you spend your sill points after level 10 (when you can start specializing) defines what class you really are. For example, I started as a rogue. Once I reached level 10 and accumulated some skill points I had to choose to spend them on either the Archery skills (ranger) or Assassin skills (more like classic rogue skills). What's really great is if you find out later that you made a mistake, you can re-stat your character (it costs game coins to do it). So you never have to live with your early mistakes if you don't want to.
The economies on the servers are in flux right now. There was a duping exploit (it happens to MMORGPs) that has had an impact. The bug was fixed and all the duped items have been deleted, and offenders have been banned. In time things will get sorted out. However, I noticed that money is super easy to come by so item prices are pretty high (in the millions). No worries though - by level 21 I already had over 2M gold saved up.
Finally, the graphics are pretty decent. I'd say they are on-par with Everquest (the first, not EQ2) which is much better than I expected from a free game. The environment is 3d with hills and such. It's not the greatest, but I think the graphics are good enough to not bother gameplay at all. Here is a screenshot.
Ok, with that out of the way I'd like to inform those who may be interested that there is a completely free MMORPG called Knight Online. I stumbled across it a few weeks ago, figured I'd give it a shot, and I got hooked.
What is Knight Online (KO): KO is a pretty standard MMORPG. Anyone who has played a MMORPG such as WoW, EQ, Lineage, UO, etc. will have an easy time picking up KO. The pace is pretty fast and the early levels go by quickly. There are clans you can join and the end-game offers both raiding and PvP - something for everyone.
Where do I get KO: K2 is the company that runs the U.S. version, and their website is Knight Online World . You register and create an account on that website and download the client directly or from their mirror, all at no cost. The download is about 280MB. If you are interested in trying out the game, this is the place to go.
As a note, there is also a Malaysian company running their own version of KO which is in English - but that one is pay to play (p2p) and is referred to as MY-KO. And finally there is at least one Asian host running a non-English version, which is where the game originated (it was ported to English and licensed by K2 and the Malaysian company). The free to play (f2p) version is the K2-KO.
How can K2 offer the game free?: K2 makes money in one of 2 ways. First, you can upgrade your account to Ultra Premium which has a monthly charge of $20. The main benefit is faster support should you need a GM, but there are some other benefits too. The other way K2 makes money is by selling what is called Knight Cash. The Knight Cash program basically allows people to spend real money to buy in-game items. Both of these are completely optional so you can truly play for free.
I'll wrap up with a quick informational review.
Similar to WoW, KO is divided into two nations - El Morad (humans) and Karus (orcs) in the case of KO. When you create your first character on a server you have to pick which nation you will play on that server. Obviously the two nations are at war. There are safe areas so you never have to expose yourself to PKing if that's not your cup of tea. On the other hand, if you like PKing then there's plenty of it. There is a National Point system that tracks how well or poorly you & your clan do in PvP. I haven't gotten high enough level yet to really get into the PvP, but there are monthly Lunar Wars and other events that the GMs stage where the two nations are pitted against each other.
Leveling starts off very quickly as I stated earlier. Even a slow player can get to level 10 or 15 in just a few hours. After that it gradually slows down. However, the pace of the game is fairly quick. My background is EQ which I played for many years and KO has a much faster pace. Part of this is the high mob density and respawn rate.
Character development is pretty well done in my opinion. There are only 4 base classes, but where you spend your sill points after level 10 (when you can start specializing) defines what class you really are. For example, I started as a rogue. Once I reached level 10 and accumulated some skill points I had to choose to spend them on either the Archery skills (ranger) or Assassin skills (more like classic rogue skills). What's really great is if you find out later that you made a mistake, you can re-stat your character (it costs game coins to do it). So you never have to live with your early mistakes if you don't want to.
The economies on the servers are in flux right now. There was a duping exploit (it happens to MMORGPs) that has had an impact. The bug was fixed and all the duped items have been deleted, and offenders have been banned. In time things will get sorted out. However, I noticed that money is super easy to come by so item prices are pretty high (in the millions). No worries though - by level 21 I already had over 2M gold saved up.
Finally, the graphics are pretty decent. I'd say they are on-par with Everquest (the first, not EQ2) which is much better than I expected from a free game. The environment is 3d with hills and such. It's not the greatest, but I think the graphics are good enough to not bother gameplay at all. Here is a screenshot.
