Terraworld Online

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Terraworld Online is a free MMORPG by TerraNovita Software BVBA. The client is based off of the First Star Online engine by Unfun Games. Although the look and feel of TerraWorld Online is still mostly the same as a standard FSO server the internal structure and logic is totally different. They replaced the shock wave (txt file based) server with a brand new homemade and very fast Java gameserver with a MySQL database back-end. TerraWorld also has a fairly strong encryption layer build in the server/client communication. That among other things makes TerraWorld much robuster and reliable than a standard first star online server.

The game centers around a real-time combat system similar to that of The Legend of Zelda. Although Terraworld is free, there is a donation system where players may donate real money to gain special items that may not be available to other players in the game.^[1] Terraworld is registered on several free MMORPG rankings system with high rankings, such as 3rd on MMORPG Topsite's ranking., 4th on Multiplayer Online Games List ranking., and 1st on MMORPG Top Game Listing MMORPGs ranking..

[edit] Gameplay

Gameplay of Terraworld involves the player taking control of an in-game avatar that moves in a tile based world. Combat involves attacking with a weapon by pressing the tab key, causing the equipped weapon to attack. This usually causes the weapon to hit whatever is in front of the player, but bows and crossbows instead fire an arrow if a quiver of arrows is equipped. The world is divided up into several "maps," which are a collection of 17x12 tiles. Players may move from one map to another by going to the edge of a map or walking on an unseen warp.

[edit] Story Line and Quests

Although there is no concrete story line in Terraworld Online, there are many quests with their own individual stories and plots. Nearly all cities require players to go through some sort of quest testing either knowledge of the game, cleverness, wealth, skill or, more commonly, a combination of the four, to achieve a password which is used to gain access to the new city. The use of special platforms are often used to prevent weaker players from gaining access to higher leveled cities without mastering a certain skill.

There also many "side quests" in which a player may embark on to get a possibly rare and valuable item either requiring one to buy the item off of an NPC or trade an item to an NPC to retrieve the said item. An example of one of these items is the Santa cap.

[edit] Skills

Two players mining in Terraworld Online

Skills in Terraworld are leveled up randomly. Skills influence various parts of the game, such as damage inflicted, the outcome of a task, or how fast a task is accomplished. Skills are "mastered" at level 90 or higher if mastering is available, which places a medal in the player's bio and some skills give stat bonus(es). Some skills are leveled up by killing monsters. Slash, for example, is leveled up by equipping a sword and killing monsters with it. Other skills, such as Fire and Magery, are leveled up by casting magic. There are also skills leveled up basically by equipping a tool, and attacking a certain tile, such as mining, where a player has to equip a Mining Hammer and attack a certain rock tile. Sometimes, skills affect the areas players can access. There are also skill platforms can only be crossed if a player is level 90 or higher in the matching skill.

Leveling skills also adds to a player's score, which is Maximum HP + Maximum MP + the sum of levels of most skills.

Skills available to advance in:

• Alchemy
• Archery*
• Axe Fighting
• Black Arts
• Blacksmithing
• Blessing*
• Block
• Carpentry
• Cooking
• Earth
• Farming
• Fencing
• Fire*
• Fishing
• Hammer Wielding
• Heavy Arms
• Illusion*
• Lumberjacking*
• Magery
• Martial Arts
• Mining
• Musicianship**
• Parry
• Punch*
• Shoveling**
• Slash
• Sorcery
• Staff Fighting
• Swordsmanship
• Thrust
• Unholy Combat
• Water**
• Wind*
• Wizardry

*Skills that do not increase score.

**Skills that currently cannot be learned.

[edit] PVP

Throughout Terraworld are various regions classified as PVP. Maps with this are marked with the word "PVP" above the map while map headings (if any) are written in red instead of the usual black. When players are in a PVP area, the players may hurt each other and cause death. A system known as "vileness" comes in here, where if a player kills a non-vile player, the killer will become a vile murderer if not already vile. However, if a non-vile player killes a vile player, the killer does not become a vile-murderer. Being a vile-murder will cause players to lose maximum hit points and mana points on death, with 1 being permanent if the player has over 80 max HP. As of 2005-07-03, players that lost permanent health points may recover this with a Gold Cup, which may be obtained in the game for 500,000 gold pieces, or for $27.95 (USD).

[edit] Capture the Flag

Two players of different teams with typical uniforms in a game of Capture the Flag on Terraworld Online.

Capture the flag is an event in Terraworld where players may pay an entry fee to go to a global arena and compete in a game of capture the flag. When a player joins, s/he will go to the team with least players to help distribute the players evenly. The object is to bring both flags to the same base. Doing so will earn the team 1 point. The winning team is the one to get to 3 points first, and the winners will each receive an equal distribution of all money spent to enter the match. After both flags are captured, they are returned to their respective bases.

During the match, players will try to kill members of the opposing team to stop them from gaining the flag and also to return the team's flag if it has been taken. Once a player picks up the opposing team's flag, wings of the opposing team's color will appear on the player to identify who has the flag. If the flag carrier dies, the flag is left at where the player died. If someone of the opposing team picks up the flag, it is returned to the base. Otherwise, the flag can be carried on towards the base again.

If a player kills a member of their own team, the player will receive a penalty of a loss of a kill point. If the offending player does this five times, they will be kicked out of the event, and will not be able to play again until the event ends.

There are two high score ladders related to Capture the Flag.

• Kill Ladder-

If a player kills an opponent, they gain one kill point. If they kill another of their own team, or die from either an opponent or their team member, they lose a kill point.

• Game Ladder-

If a player is in the game when their team wins a game, they recieve one point for this ladder.

[edit] World

Terraworld is comprised of a mainland with many surrounding islands, each having their own city and, in some cases, a theme. Players begin on an isle called the Tutorial Island. Right after Tutorial, the players are in a group of islands housing the cities of Karmiel, Edgewood and Eyre known collectively as "Noob Islands". Upon completing a quest to cure a mermaid's brother, players then move onto the mainland, the largest of all areas which houses the cities of Escher, Reet, Antwerp, Badona, and Secret City. This transition is permanent and players may not return to Noob Island after leaving. The surrounding islands house the cities of Midgard, Coldwood, Deveno, Larcenia, Murder Town, Kelton, Guild City, and the Class Island cities of Roeselare, Amorach and Karseth.

Many cities follow a certain theme. They are as follows:

• Secret City: A lost city of death and decay.
• Coldwood/Deveno: Two cities hidden away in the icy wilderness.
• Midgard: A dark city surrounded by fire and brimstone.
• Larcenia: A city growing among the dense treetops.
• Roeselare: The Mage city of Class Island.
• Karseth: The Warrior city of Class Island.
• Amorach: The Adventurer city of Class Island.

[edit] Criticism

Although free, Terraworld Online has many flaws. One of these is the leveling system, which involves leveling skills at a random chance. This is contrary to standard skill leveling systems where a player must perform an action a certain number of times such as in RuneScape. This can cause long periods of time before a skill levels up, mostly resulting in some people leveling much faster or slower than others and taking away a sense of accomplishment upon leveling a skill.

Another problem is the in-game economy, centered around purely slaying monsters. Although a variety of other "trade skills" are implemented in the game, they cannot match the amount of profit killing monsters can earn. For example, in the time it take for a player to slay 1-3 Dwarves and earn 50 gold to 120 gold, another person would have caught one or two squids, which he or she would then have to cook to even make a moderate profit of only 15g each. Monster profit is also centered mainly around dwarves, and for the much stronger players, ghouls. Although other monsters such as mutant worms and dragon hatchlings drop 1000 gold and 2500 gold respectively, it is much rarer compared to a dwarf's common 50 gold or 70 gold drops, which in the long run, yields more profit in a shorter amount of time.

Perhaps one of the more important issues is the fact that all skills are basically the same. All combat skills (Slash, Thrust, Axe Fighting, Staff Fighting, Hammer Wielding, Swordmanship, Fencing, Heavy Arms and Punch) revolve around equipping a particular weapon, and pressing tab in front of a monster until it is killed, then repeating the process until the said skill is leveled. Skills such as Cooking, Carpentry and Alchemy center around clicking an item to cook, build or mix the items for their respective skills, causing high amounts of repetitiveness. Skills such as Farming, Fishing, Lumberjacking, Mining, and possibly Archery follow the same trend as combat skills without the danger of monsters. All magic skills (Fire, Blessing, Magery, Black Arts, Sorcery, Wizardry, and Wrath) involve selecting the spell to cast and repeatedly clicking on the screen to cast the spell, eventually leveling the desired skill.

The game also tends to be fighter orientated, particulary with a sword. There are more swords than any other weapon, and other melee weapons do insufficient damage when compared to the swords. Fighting with a melee weapon is also much cheaper than fighting as a mage or archer. This is due to the fact that mages or archers require crystals to cast spells or shoot arrows, and mages are further hindered by the fact that they need mana, or MP, to cast spells which slowly regenerates over time, nearly not enough for drawn out battles against characters or monsters. Although the use of potions can result in instantanious regeration of mana, it is weakened in that they cannot heal health and mana once the player's hunger is restored.

Also in the game is a bug that causes some skills to not give score, due to a problem caused by the First Star Online engine. This bug has been found but yet to be resolved.

Another known glitch that exists in the game is what players in the game call "One-hitting". It involves weakening a monster so it can be killed in less hits necessary for the monster to be killed, then the player reenters the screen. Sometimes, the map is saved with the weakened monster in it, so the offending player can repeatedly kill the monster with less hits than normal. Players that abuse this glitch are typically locked (temporarily disabled from playing a particular character), and they lose gold, items, or max HP they could have gained while abusing the bug.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Terraworld Online - official website
• First Star Online at GameFAQs