Sword of the New World is a free to play fantasy MMORPG. It's a bit different from other MMORPGs in a few ways. Most notably the setting, which is somewhat similar to the 17th century colonization of North America, although a fantastical version with magic and monsters. But also how it plays. For starters, instead of controlling 1 character, you control 3. The fights are also on a more massive scale. Most MMORPGs have mobs of enemies, this has mobs of mobs. And they respawn quickly, often before you can finish them off.

Characters
Character classes are Fighter, Wizard, Elementalist, which are pretty standard fantasy classes. But also the Musketeer, who specializes in firearms, and the Scout, which is a healer and a jack-of-all trades class. But beyond the core classes are "UPC"s, which are "Unique Player Characters". These are actually playable versions of various NPCs in the world. You start out having 9 character slots, but you can expand this, up to something like 40 characters total. Characters don't appear to have any sort of level cap, at least not exactly. Levels stop at 100, but characters can still progress beyond that.

Besides a character's class, their "stance" helps define their abilities. Stances are basically how a character does something, or what they do. For instance, if you equip a Scout with a knife, they use the "Assassin" stance. But equip them with nothing, and they use the "Medic" stance, and focus on healing. Similarly, there are different stances for how the Fighter and Musketeer fight - be it a sword and shield, or with a rifle or with a pistol (or two pistols). Stances have "levels" as well, as a character fights in that stance, they gain experience and level up in them. Each stances has 4 or 5 "skills" that a character can use, though they start off with only 1 skill and learn more as they gain levels in that stance. These skills are generally special attacks (for combat stances) or spells (in the case of magic users).

Visually, there's not a lot of character customization, at least at the beginning. Pretty much every character of a given sex and class looks alike, other than their clothes. You can buy hats and later wigs which change their hair. Some of these (or the ingredients to make them) apparently require purchase though the real world money store. Right now, when you create a character, you pick a "costume" for them to wear, but apparently in the upcoming expansion, a character's look will depend on the armor they wear (unless you have an in game costume).

Equipment wise, it appears that you have to upgrade every 4 levels or so. Fighters can pick between a variety of melee weapons or even some firearms. Musketeers pretty much just use guns; though can use pistols or rifles. Elementalists can use items that let them cast fire, ice or lightning bolts. Scouts pretty much just fight with knives, either one or two.

There are a lot of equipment slots, but early on you won't have much except armor and a weapon.


Gameplay
Combat works like most of these games, simply click on a monster to attack. Then hit an icon on the character bar or a key to use a special attack or spell. A lot is actually automated, since you have 3 characters. It's apparently quite possibly to let your characters fight on their own while away from your keyboard. A fair amount of people do this to level their characters up.

Game progression seems to be from town to town. You do quests around the town, in the wilderness, and then eventually get sent to a dungeon. And then visit a new town, with a new nearby dungeon.

It's somewhat grind heavy. There are quests to be done in the game, but many of those quests involve simply killing a certain number of monsters. Usually at least 150 of them. If you don't like grinding, a lot of these can actually be done by simply leaving your computer unattended while your characters fight on their own. But a lot will also get done simply by going through a map (enemies are that numerous).

Occasionally there are missions, kind of like Guild Wars. These are pretty simple, though, usually defending an area or defeating a boss. Sometimes escorting a friendly boss.

I found the user interface to be quite well done. Some things are a bit sluggish, like equipping items while in battle, but for the most part it works well.

The translation starts off being pretty good, but after you reach level 20 or so, becomes increasingly incomprehensible.

It's a surprisingly quiet game, in terms of in game communication. You only hear what people near you are typing, not the whole zone or town, though there are special in game items will let you send a message to everyone in town or on the server. This is somewhat refreshing as you aren't immediately beset by playground insults or comments about various nationalities or political parties like in some games. But at the same time, it often doesn't feel like you are playing a MMORPG. It's also hard to get to know anyone.

Graphics/Sound
The graphics are quite good. Not cutting edge by any means, but about on par with 2005 or so commercial games, which makes it look about as good as Guild Wars. Better in some areas (the number of monsters on screen), worse in others (the textures aren't as good). The graphic design is stunning in some areas - I know I've taken a lot of screenshots at a cool looking place or another.

Higher resolutions are supported, as is widescreen. At least, my monitor is 1440x900 and there is a setting for that. And despite running the game at maxed out visual settings, I had no frame rate problems on my now rather dated computer (I have a nVidia 7600 GS video card), despite there literally being dozens of monsters on the screen, as well as spell effects.

The sound is pretty decent. Usual sound effects for attacks and the yikes. Characters will sometimes yell out the name of the spells they are using. There doesn't seem to be any speech for the cut-scenes (not that there are many).

Music is quite a mixed bag. You'd expect classical music or something based on the setting, but it's a mixture of genres, including a lot of electronic stuff like trance.


Just how "free" is it?
"Free" games generally make money off of either advertising or by selling in game items for cash. This game does the latter.

A lot of free games that use the cash shop approach apparently have catches, like progression being very slow without buying in game experience increasing items or regular equipment being weaker than bought items. This seems to take a different tack, though there is still something of a catch.

Characters stop gaining experience once they hit level 100, but then you can promote them to "Veterans" by using a card. This lets them continue to gain in power, if not levels exactly. And while apparently not implemented in the game yet, there are further titles beyond "Veteran" which will presumably also require buying scrolls for.

So how much do they cost? Scrolls to upgrade your character currently sell for 3 scrolls for 2500 gold or a single for 900. It costs either $10 to buy 1000 gold or $40 to buy 5000 (with increments in between). $40 to upgrade 6 characters doesn't sound too unreasonable, but it's not cheap, either. Granted, by the time you get to level 100, you clearly must really like the game, and have gotten quite a lot of playing time out of it, but if you have a lot of characters (you can have up to 48, I think, in the game), it could get very expensive.

The other big reason is to customize your character's appearance. There's not any visual difference to characters, but you can buy costumes, wigs and hats for them. Costumes are a bit pricey though, and there really isn't much of a choice in the shop. To get variety, you have to buy grab bags which will randomly contain a costume element. But the catch there is you can't just buy a grab bag, you have to buy them as part of a bundle with other stuff you probably don't want.

So all in all, probably cheaper than a $15 a month MMORPG, but at the same time, it's potentially quite expensive. It is possible to earn in game gold without shelling out real world money - you get a little for referring people and they gave away 500 gold for the 6th month anniversary.


Final Thoughts
Though far from perfect, Sword of the New World is a fun and fairly different MMORPG. It probably wouldn't be worth a monthly fee, if only because it's severe lack of polish and poor translation, but for the price (basically free until you hit level 100) it's a bargain.

At the very least, I think it's worth a look. I've found it to be a lot of fun, but then I'm still pretty low level. Since it's free, it's not like you have anything to lose, except the time to download the client (which is something like 3.7 gigs).

There is an upcoming "expansion", and the company behind this promises it will fix a lot of the nagging features people have complained about (translation, bots, lack of high level stuff), though whether or not it actually does will remain to be seen.

Game Score

C+

Reviewed By: Contributed