C9 is throwing down $10k in a PvP tournament... so how does the game play?

Clearing a stage gives a minigame for loot and a ranking based upon combat results

Upon completing a few of the first dungeons and quests, I found some new options opening up to me. First, completing an area awarded a bead. Similar to the chest-unlocking game, this bead would randomly choose one of five rewards; at low level, most seems to be a piddling amount of gold. However, higher difficulties also awarded map fragments and empty artisan crystals. Returning to the same map and the same difficulty later also seemed to give a boost to drops, noted by my “grade” for the zone (which would increase each time I completed it). It wasn’t a huge boost, but each grade I believe increased drops by 1%. Finally, the stamina usage of the dungeons increased with its difficulty. Stamina is C9’s way to regulate how much time a player can sink into the game in a week. In Beta, each player receives 250 stamina a day; while a normal dungeon may only take a couple stamina to complete, a master dungeon may take a couple dozen. This stamina cost can be lowered in several ways; first, a player can work with one or several other players in a Master dungeon, splitting the stamina cost among them (as well as lowering the experience and reducing their chance for loot). They can also choose to let other players opt-in; suddenly joining an instance in progress, but reducing the stamina count. In this way, a player can go into more instances every day. Just a note however; going from level 1 to 20, I only expended MAYBE 200 stamina total. As you have a 250 daily limit, I don’t see the stamina limit being an issue until higher levels, when players only want to run Master level instances for gear.

Outside the dungeons there were artisan occupations to worry about. C9 has five: metalworker, woodworker, alchemist, tailor, and chef. Wanting to pick the most unlikely occupation, I went chef… in hindsight, not a great idea. You can’t change your occupation once it is chosen, and chef specializes in temporary buffs in battle with food. The food I could make gave me a pitiful increase in HP, and a 3 second, 150hp recovery (with about a 15 minute cooldown). When you have 3000+ HP, it’s pretty lackluster… almost any occupation would have been better. Still, beggars can’t be choosers; I managed to raise my occupation to level 15, higher than the ingredients I could find in instances. And while I might receive 1-5 ingredients per instance for my craft, the big payoff came from artisan soul crystals. Using three of these (rewarded randomly from the beads at the end of dungeons), I could convert 10 ingredients from another craft into an artisan crystal that could be traded for 40-50 ingredients from my craft! Needless to say, it’s worth saving up those empty crystals and other reagents.

The story itself continued in a fairly predictable fashion through the zones; although the objectives in each zone differed slightly. While most zones were “Kill all enemies à Kill the boss,” a few broke the mold. The Ruined Seashore Village, for example, made the entire scenario about defending a beacon from the enemy attacks. I found this more frustrating than fun… while it was a nice change of pace, the enemy waves were from all sides, which meant I just ran in a circle around the beacon killing enemies and praying they didn’t start doing more damage before I killed them! Eventually I hit level 10, and received the quest for promotion: becoming an Elite Fighter. Every two levels after this point I received new class quests, and I’m not going to lie, these were the only quests that ever came close to being difficult. In particular, the “Agility” quest required me killing boss enemies with a time limit while lightning bolts targeted my location every five seconds that would send me flying. The promotion quest at level 10 gave more skill points; but it wasn’t until level 20 and the class changing quests that I really felt like my class took off.

There are always more skills than skill points, so choose wisely!

At level 20 a quest chain takes place that both advances the story and allows players to really decide what path they wanted to take with their characters. I don’t want to reveal spoilers, but a main character dies, a major villain is revealed, and somehow it makes you powerful. No, that’s not idle chatter; the quest-giver literally says “Oh, too bad So-and-So died, but you deserve this!” But the result is that I was able to choose between three new classes for Fighter: Blade Master, Guardian or Warrior. As Blade Master seemed to be the clear offensive spec, I went with this; this unlocked several new abilities and completely refunded skill points. Other classes have a similar choice ahead of them; and like Fighter, their choices are permanent right now, with no chance to reset, so choose wisely!

Finally, a few hints and tips from my time in C9:

• Quickly find the Warehouse and Wandering Merchant NPCs: The Warehouse is the C9 equivalent of a bank; storage for your unneeded items. Players start with only 24 slots in their inventory, and those fill up FAST. The Wander Merchant (right next to the Warehouse NPC in Beta) is selling 6 inventory slots for 12,000 gold… a fair price, if a bit steep at the beginning. According to other players, these slots will only be purchasable through the Cash Shop come release. I sincerely hope the developers change their minds, because 24 slots is torture.

• Don’t worry too much about skill point distribution prior to 20. When you pick your new class all of your points are refunded. This means that you really have 20 levels to mess around and do whatever you want. Just keep in mind what fighting style you want… and know that it will change at 20. When I went Blade Master, I suddenly found myself in a battle stance without a shield. Suddenly my points in Shield Bash were useless; know what you’re getting into!

• Avoid chef. Seriously, it seems like a lackluster occupation right now. The quests tend to push my fighter toward Metalwork, as I receive ore and molds from some quests. I’d take that, or alchemy, over being a chef. And you CANNOT change your occupations right now! Severe oversight.

• I didn’t even touch PvP in this review; but some of the quests are supposed to “prepare” you for some of the bouts. As the $10,000 depends on your PvP skills, I’d get involved with it ASAP. Watch your abilities; many act differently when PvP, either with advanced costs or reduced effectiveness.

With only 24 basic inventory slots, I foresee upgrades being a popular cash shop feature.

That’s pretty much it! My Blade Master is currently level 22, and I’m debating taking him further. One thing is for sure; C9 is great if you want to spend a few enjoyable hours slaughtering creatures. The combat is much more satisfying than most MMORPGs, even if the story and writing are lacking. The thought of the grand prize in the tournament doesn’t hurt any either! I don’t know how the game will change between now and launch, but my opinions haven’t changed since February; the game is definitely entertaining and worth taking a look at if you’re tired of the run-of-the-mill MMO experience!

Paul "LockeColeMA" Cleveland, Staff Writer