Silkroad Online: 6 Years Later
By Remko Molenaar (Proxzor), OnRPG Journalist
Silkroad Online is an MMORPG that puts the player deep into ancient Chinese, Islamic, and European civilizations. The Silk Road was a major cultural and economic trading artery between Europe and China that stretched through a dangerous path of northern Eurasia. This is a ripe setting for an MMO all about combat and adventure!
The game has been out for almost 6 years now and I decided to check out what has been added since the game has been released. Silkroad Online has been updated a lot since 2005 and even released 4 expansions in the meanwhile. Everyone knows Silkroad Online had great success when it started back in the day. The game received great scores from multiple big sites and the beta was a big success. The first day when the game got into beta, the servers were overcrowded and most of the people trying to connect had no luck with getting in. In the first few days Joymax had to open extra servers that got full the minute they went online. After this successful launch Silkroad Online had a little trouble maintaining the servers so everyone could connect and enjoy the game they wanted.
When trying to connect to a server you would always disconnect and your game client would automatically close. I still remember that horrible situation where it actually took an hour to log into the game. Well that problem is long gone and the servers still remain overpopulated. Joymax has added 45 servers since 2005 and all these servers are highly populated. While you are waiting to connect to the server via the automatic login system you can now safely minimize without worrying about client crashes. This I would say is by far the biggest advancement Joymax has made towards improving my enjoyment of the game.
The Game
Silkroad Online is a free-to-play MMORPG that is set in the 7th century, along the silk road between China and Europe. Back in 2005 you could only chose to play as a Chinese character, however with the Legend I update the European race and western world were added, making the world map twice as large!
The other Legend expansions brought the level cap much higher which is currently level 110 where it was only 80 back in the old day. Also new areas got added where the players could level up and quest. There has been several updates concerning the PvP part of the game as well; in the Legend II expansion Joymax added a huge battleground and in the Legend V update people can visit the Job temple where hunters, traders and thieves can fight with each other.
To understand this game you first need to understand the job system. In Silkroad Online it is possible to select a Job, though only one is available per account so choose. There are currently two Jobs to choose from which are the following:
Jobs
The Hunter dedicates himself to protect caravan NPCs from the thieves who seek to disrupt their trading activities. It is the Hunter’s job to protect the trader and bring down the Thieves smuggling operations.
The Thieves are marauders who prey upon the merchant caravans who travel on the Silk Road. They try to rob these Traders on their trip and are the enemies of the Hunters. The Thief strives to gain wealth and honor through smuggling.
Apart from what Job you choose to play exists the typical MMO class system. Each of the races has its own advantages, disadvantages, cities, weapons, armor and classes so choose carefully if you want to play a specific class. Classes each specialize in a different weapon that will dictate your fighting style.
Classes
The Europeans have six classes to choose from which are the Warrior, Wizard, Warlock, Rogue, Bard and Cleric. The Chinese are masters of the mysterious energy of the martial force and are skillful with five different weapons: the sword, blade, spear, glaive and bow. They also use 4 types of Forces: Ice, Snow, Fire and Water. They can also practice Windwalk which makes them able to move faster.
Silkroad Online also has a Crafting System. With the Crafting System you can directly create the items that you need. The crafting procedure is so easy; anyone can easily use the Crafting System. You can find recipes from monsters and some recipes are automatically obtained upon achieving the required level. Recipes can also be obtained from the General Store NPCs and the required items, according to the character’s level. Each recipe lists the material required for the crafting of the item. Once you have gathered all the necessary materials you can create the item through the ‘Craft Item’ menu. If you have enough materials you can craft multiple items at once to save time.
Graphics
To play this quality game you are required to have at least a processor with 800 MHz. Along with a 32 MB 3D graphics card and 512 MB Ram plugged into your motherboard. If you have no idea what kind of computer you are running but you have bought your computer around the year of 2005 I am sure you are able to run it just fine.
Conclusion
Joymax has to be proud of their game; Silkroad Online is a wonderful game that had great success at launch and continued to expand on that success to create a really well defined game in 2011. They are also actively cracking down on botters that caused the community much grief over the years. Silkroad Online used to have a bad image concerning these ‘botters’ but have greatly reduced their numbers since 2008. Silkroad Online is a free-to-play game with a lot of fun gameplay elements to keep the player addicted and busy for quite a while. The game offers a lot of content for both PvP and PvE enthusiasts. I had a lot of fun playing this game back in the day, and I really enjoyed the game while testing it again. If you like a game with a lot of features and great support with updates and expansions from time to time I strongly advise you to try out Silkroad Online.
