I decided to give Level Infinite’s “please don’t call this a World of Warcraft clone” Tarisland a try. This is the second closed beta (I didn’t try the first one) which they plan to run for two weeks. Level Infinite (owned by Tencent Games) publishes a wide range of games including Tower of Fantasy. Tencent also acquired Tarisland’s developer Locojoy Games back in late 2021 (becoming the sole shareholder in 2022) and thus publishes the game alongside several other acquired properties under the Level Infinite banner.
I had almost zero expectations when signing up, and came away unimpressed after trying to give it a go for almost an hour. For one, the game play and combat were uninspiring. It’s the usual generic main story questing which at least at the low level tutorial, is all voiced (which is nice, but the story/dialogue doesn’t make you go “wow, this has meat to it”). The combat itself however, lacked visceral punch (I tried a mage) which IMHO, is key to providing that early hook that keeps me engaged. I presume it gets better later, but that again shouldn’t be an excuse for the early game feeling lackluster. It didn’t help that it uses tabbed targeting on PC (this does result in less frenetic/slower paced play). My preference has long been for faster paced action combat ala TERA. But it doesn’t mean I completely eschew games that utilizes that type of control (ArcheAge exemplifies this since so many other parts of the game makes up for that for me).
The art style (as a personal preference) isn’t something I like either (it’s like a higher graphic fidelity of World of Warcraft which style wise, was something I could never get into). However, if you are a fan of this art style, the graphics would look gorgeous compared next to WoW (and that was probably a key design aspect of this MMO). I didn’t encounter any serious performance issues (considering the number of players in the starting area), but I believe part of that is by design. Like if you are sprinting (shift-w), a lot of other character models just don’t spawn in and render until you stop (I had most of my graphics setting on nearly the highest settings). Having other characters, NPC’s and environmental assets pop in like this, gives the game this “cheap” underlying feeling though.
One of the main purpose of the low level “tutorial” (from my point of view) is to grab and hook folks like myself that come in with little expectation. I always recount my initial experience with Genshin Impact where I had low expectations given the mobile gacha business model and came away pleasantly surprised. I’ve been able to ignore the gacha aspects with character/weapon pulling as well as the formulative cadence of content that they’ve released over time. The key point is how the early exploration, story, music, and visceral combat were so fun (to me) that it hooked me in (and had an art style that worked for me). Tarisland didn’t check off anything for me though.
With the above said, I believe this MMO will have a pretty decent following since I realize it’s visuals and slower combat pacing will resonate with the WoW crowd. The comparisons will naturally cause a large majority of existing and former WoW players to at least check it out. And given how massive that player base is/was, just a small percentage will translate into a decent amount of engagement for Level Infinite. All I’m acknowledging is the game isn’t for me.
