Recent reviews by Jhae

The players are feral. Yes you too. I'm feral. They're feral, everyone is feral. They will kill you.

The rules are don't sell stuff for real money. Don't sell or give away your account. Don't chit chat in the Help Channel (the only global channel, everything else is local or whispers) - it's for giving or receiving HELP ONLY.

Guards have no legal requirement to help you.

There's really only two ways to die - murder or fall damage (honestly it is BRUTAL). You will die a lot and someone will loot most of your stuff.

Mages are criminals. All of them. They will kill you.

Beautiful world to explore at the speed of horse because there's no fast travel. Unless you die and res at a priest somewhere else. Or Ether Portals, but that's almost the same thing - you can't bring stuff with you. The world truly is gorgeous though, just don't stop to take in the scenery because someone will kill you.

The skill system is pretty damn fun - although some skills are gatekept, literally. There's only one server instance so a guild can take control of a dungeon entrance and literally put a gate around it. Then they sell the loot that only drops at that dungeon at markups even Exxon-Mobil would envy. If you try to sneak in they will kill you.

You can tame almost everything in the game until someone kills it. or you.

Melee combat is fun, blocking the same direction your opponent is swinging and then countering after the parry.

Magic is my favorite part. Change the weather, cause an earthquake (small one), tornado, raise the dead, spirit walk and collect souls in a little box so if your friend dies you can find him and resurrect him.

Crafting is complex which I find very fun, people will kill you for your raw materials. Merchant brokers are localized to force you out into the unguarded murder lands if you want to sell in another town, except it doesn't matter because they can just kill you at the merchant broker and gravity lift your stuff out of town for a safe, clean robbery.

Player housing dots the entire landscape but it's pretty cookie cutter based on tier. I think one housing developer killed off the rest and now there's only cookie cutter suburban housing that you have to ride an hour back to town to go grocery shopping (unless you get killed on the way). It's okay though, the feral players (yes, you too) can lay siege to buildings in the largest scale armed robbery ever.

Mounts probably die the most. People sell mounts (horses, bears, wolves, elephants, etc) so it's just good business to randomly kill everyone's mounts so they have to buy more. That's capitalism, baby, I don't make the rules.

The criminal system is very lenient because the ferals want to kill you and they don't want there to be consequences for it. So they made a whole zone for the ferals to kill you with no consequences! Hurray! In the lawful areas of the game, there's murder reports, reputation loss, and a serial killer flag (5 or more), and I guess a Bounty Hunter system where you can pull one name out of a hat at a time from the hundreds of criminals out there ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

The tutorial area is limited in scope because if you want the full experience, someone should be able to kill you for it. Haven (so named because it's the only safe haven) prevents the feral players (including you) from killing the other feral players. Max level 8, only 2.1 schools of magic, no plate armor, no lances, one type of mineral, limited flora and fauna. You may only leave the tutorial island with your equipped items and 6 additional items with a total value no more than 10 gold. Can't have risk-free wealth contaminating the murder economy.

Got the game for $19.99 on sale. I'd probably suggest waiting to buy this death simulator until it's a little lower even. Free 30 day subscription to really immerse yourself in dying. $14.29 per month after or you can really commit to being murdered for 3 months ($39.99) or 6 months ($72.99).

Going to go get murdered some more for the next 27 days or so.

By far my favorite game to forget that it doesn't pause, so my character dies of thirst while I make a snack.

My all-time favorite turn-based space strategy is Masters of Orion 2. I have a copy that I dive into at least three times a year. So when I look at new space games, I always compare it to MoO2 and they don't always hold up. Endless Space is very much like my favorite parts of MoO2. The parts I have encountered are very well done. First of all, the user interface is VERY friendly and easy to master. Second, the tutorial is very thorough and explains the windows and the mechanics very well. Third, there are an amazing number of customizable options, including the ability to make new custom races and change the randomness of the galaxy you want to play in. Fourth, the research, hero, system- and planet-development, ship customization and diplomacy sections of the game all feel like they were given 110% focus. While each section has plenty of things to work on to further your empire, none of them are so complex that you have an aneurism trying to keep everything organized and in order. Combat was an interesting system, incorporating a card-like system to give general orders to your fleet as a whole much like an admiral would. Leveling heroes is alot like playing an RPG, with many options for improving them.

While I may wish for an espionage system like MoO2, and that I could have more control in combat like MoO2, I have enough fun with the shinier planet development and research tree. Overall, this is a very good game.