Sevencore – Thoughts and Opinions from the Closed Beta

Sevencore logo from the offical fansite kit.

I’m apparently a sucker for beta tests. This weekend I spent several days immersed in the world of Sevencore, a new free to play MMORPG coming soon from the good folks over at Noria and gPotato. For being a closed beta test, I’m impressed by how well put together the game is. Compared to some other F2P games that I’ve tried, Sevencore is definitely top tier.

If there’s one thing that I have learned while writing about games, it’s that any MMORPG is going to be immediately compared to World of Warcraft. So yes, Sevencore does incorporate many of the same game mechanics that you’ll find in WoW. As this is what has now become standard in the world of the MMORPG, Sevencore is navigated with the familiar WASD set up, a mouse, and a series of hotkeys to which the player binds abilities. There are also mounts, quests, potions, classes, and all of the other bells and whistles. Anyone that enjoys the genre will feel right at home.

Some Issues

During the closed beta test, I was only able to test one of the dungeons in the game (due entirely to my wanting to spend time trying each class for a while) and I have to say that I wasn’t impressed. The content was in no way dynamic and felt a lot like I was navigating an old FPS level from the days of Wolfenstein 3D. Then there was my personal issue with the way the test was conducted. Unless the idea was to evaluate the leveling system, it seems to me that making a contest to reward the top 5 power-levelers probably isn’t the most conducive way to run a beta test. There were other contests that went along with this 3 day CBT that seemed more about generating buzz about the game and less about actually testing a product.

Mounts

Revayne and her trusty Rhinox mount.

However, in many ways, Sevencore stands apart from the normal MMO herd. The most noticeable, and the one I would imagine most people will talk about, is the mount system. The unique mount system allows players to engage in mount based combat in the world at large. Unlike the WoW vehicle mechanic, a player in Sevencore can fight while mounted at any time. Not only that, but the mount system turns every class in the game into a pet class. Your mount fill fight by your side as a companion and can learn skills to aid in combat.

Classes

There are three classes in Sevencore: warrior, gunner, and magician. All three are offensive classes – there are no healers. Gunner and magician work primarily as ranged classes while the warrior is the classic melee class that you would expect. Each class has an option between two weapon types, each with their own set of abilities. Gunners, for example, choose between wielding a pair of pistols or a large artillery rifle. The pistols provide lots of quick firing options while the artillery allows for heavy single shot damage.

Healing

Healing is handled through the use of food and drink as has been done in many an MMORPG before. The difference is that in Sevencore, these items work automatically. Well, automatically within reason would be more accurate. There is a cooldown on the use of food and drink, which should be expected. What’s unique is that food and drink are automatically used when health or mana drop below a player set threshold. This threshold is set as a slider on the respective meters and can even be adjusted on the fly in combat. Setting the level to 80% of total health when going up against a particularly tough enemy might be a good idea to allow for a quick heal early on and allow for the health item cooldown to get more heals throughout the fight. Strategic planning like this doesn’t come into play in most games on the market and I found the resilience that it offered each class to be quite refreshing.

Recommendation

My overall opinion of Sevencore is that fans of MMORPGs should definitely give this a try even if free to play isn’t their normal thing. Sevencore is a refreshing breath of life in an otherwise stagnant genre. The game client is less than 3 GB, ran smoothly on my machine, and is aesthetically and mechanically sound. So I recommend signing up and giving it a try when the game goes into open beta or release in the near future.