Achaea – A Simpler Age of Online Gaming
By Remko Molenaar (Proxzor), OnRPG Journalist
Many years ago, the most popular role playing games were mostly the ones based solely in text, can you believe it? People played these games by only reading text; it’s like an open book, and you will have to visualize everything. Even though in this era it is considered old and boring, I went to relive the experience in the popular text based game Achaea. Usually these games have an amazing story tied to them if you have the patience to endure the slow start and lack of visual elements. I really do enjoy them and I hoped this tough to pronounce title would satisfy my nostalgia for old school online RPGs.
When I made my character I was faced with a difficult choice: which of the 12 races would I be? Although they say it isn’t permanent, it still is a difficult task as they all have different stats and race bonuses that could really help you out in some situations. When you have chosen the race that appeals to you the most, and found a proper untaken fantasy name, you are good to go in the world of your own imagination. As you learn the ropes of the game, you’ll soon find that controls are as simple as learning to interact and choose which direction to walk. Once this is down it’s all about paying attention to every conversation you have. Unfortunately this is where I faced my first real annoyance in the game. Achaea is either designed for speed readers or just wants you to not think through your decisions because the pace of the game is really fast, and if you don’t respond immediately, the game will literally spam you to give an answer.
Now that the basics were mastered, I was ready to head out on my adventure with more than 100 levels waiting for me. It didn’t take long to find my first victim who dared point his big sword at me. But rather than a fight to the death, it turned out this big fellow by the name of Gruul was a friendly person and actually wanted me to test out my abilities. I quickly discovered that my punches weren’t really that powerful but my kicks were capable of doing more than tickling the big oaf. After my new friend introduced me the marketplace and gave me some gold to buy a backpack and health potion I couldn’t be happier with the success I had booked.
My next task was to get a Dragon Orb from a fire guardian. This guardian was a tough battle but with my successful training I knew how to take him down effectively and gained the special orb. This well planned out tutorial mission was designed to get players excited about reaching the 99th level when they can obtain the power to transform into a greater dragon, followed by a Dragon Lord at level 100. Players capable of unleashing these powers tend to have recognition across the entire server but it’s no simple task to reach and will take quite a bit of dedication. For now I was stuck focusing on smaller tasks. After I returned the Orb to Pasiphae, the friendly person that taught me everything, I had another tough choice.
I was able to choose a class, and the choices were many. There were just as many classes as there were races and all of them sounded equally awesome. After long consideration I went for the Blademaster as having mastery of the legendary Two Arts really felt special to me. Picking this class class unlocked two skills to increase my power and prepare me for the dangers to come. But the key character decisions weren’t done yet as soon after I had to declare citizenship in one of the five main cities. Thankfully this wasn’t forced on me by text spam and I decided to wait until I knew more about the world before locking myself into an alliance. Besides this I was also able to join a house of like-minded adventurers which is strongly advised for new players to do so you have allies when first setting out into the world of Achaea. I appreciated the tips the more veteran players of the community freely gave out.
Conclusion
There are many text based games found on the net, but only a select few are actually newbie friendly. As I have played a few before I was experienced in most of the interactions already but the game automatically reminds you what to do in case you get lost or stuck. I found this the most important thing for a game like this, because unlike me there are undoubtedly a lot of younger players trying to learn the ropes of a game like Archaea that get frustrated and stuck with no instructions or even context clues of how to progress. If you are a big fan of good stories, role playing games and don’t mind that this is text based, then you should have no problem finding some enjoyment from the well-crafted world of Achaea. And since it’s only a text-based browser game so it takes no time to jump right into it and see if you like it!
