High level hunting in Istaria: Murial vs the Aegis

For this week's blog, I thought it'd be nice to look at a few in-game high level battle images. Over the next month or so I'l be mainly concentrating on taking a new character through its paces, but this gives you a pictorial idea of what things look like when you're nearer level 100 than level 1!

I'd like to thank my guild mate Murial for the screenshots. That's her, standing over the freshly killed body of a Blight Hound, one of Istaria's nastier inhabitants. Murial's got multiple level 100 skills, which is one of the great features of Istaria. Many games only let you level one class, or perhaps two plus a couple of crafting skills. In Istaria, you can pretty much be everything all in one character, although they do make it tough.

Firstly, you will only get all the strengths of the one adventuring class you have currently selected: skills from other classes will either work at half strength, or not at all. Secondly, you have an overall rating that goes alongside your current adventuring level. This rating affects how much experience points you need to go up a level, and is adversely affected by the total amount of adventuring levels you have. So, the more you multi-class, the longer it will take to level up.

Some of these shots were taken on a high level hunt with two other members of our guild, Universal Soldiers - Neuvitas Silver and Vici Legends - with 'art' along for the ride. It's a lot more fun to hunt in groups and you get experience bonuses for fighting multiple enemies, so it works out well that way too. Groups can be big as well, where they are often restricted in other MMORPGs.

The first thing you'll probably notice from these images is the foreboding atmosphere in the backgrounds and the stark, broken lands on which they're walking. In Istaria, all players are essentially on the same side (although some dragons may dispute that) - all races have joined together to fight the threat that faces them all: the 'withered aegis'.

Areas blighted by the aegis are left dead and lifeless and are the most dangerous in Istaria. Yup, you guessed it - that's where the hardest adventurers head and where the best rewards are to be had. While Istaria does use a lot of the clichéd fantasy races and trappings, such as elves, dwarves etc, many of the races and creatures you fight are unique to the game.

Here's a good example - a winged Kwellen Berserker in classic 'before' and 'after' poses! The red beam you can see on the creature is showing this is the chosen target - this can really help on a crowded battlefield, where a creature may be stunned and you don't want to hit it and break the effect.

Something else you may get from the pics is that the graphics are hardly up there with the latest games. This is simply a fact - Istaria wasn't released yesterday and will never look like it was. However, the sky effects are top notch, the music atmospheric and the spell sounds and effects really add to combat. It's also a challenge - something many games nowadays shy away from in their desperate attempts to reach out to the lowest common denominator.

What's more, it's a challenge all the way through the levels. Istaria can be pretty unforgiving right down at low level, although you can still use the cheaty methods of power levelling found in all games, if you want to. But if you're looking for a challenge, you'll often find that fighting a single creature of your level will be a tough fight, and a single mistake could see you taking a dirt nap.

Fights can be incredibly frenetic and exciting, especially when you're grouped. All the normal MMO group combat rolls are available, with tanks, ranged damage dealers and healers on show - plus everything in between and combinations of them all. Here Neuvitas goes hand to hand with another Kwellen Berserker, while Murial casts from range. As a druid, she can both heal deal out some hefty damage, but her armour isn't the best, so letting someone else stand toe-to-toe makes sense - although I'm not sure Neuv here would agree!

And as I say, however bad ass you may be, there's always something wandering around Istaria that will bring you crashing back down to earth. Complacency can get you too - I've often been fighting a series of golems, only to suddenly to attack a named boss that looks the same and been dad before I knew it. I'm not sure Murial knew what she was getting into when she picked on Dalknor here, but the outcome is plain to see...

That said, there isn't much of a death penalty in Istaria: you get some stat reductions that, when they stack, can slow you down pretty hard. However, you don't lose items, or have to return to your corpse - you just need to take a bit of downtime. However, in a game that's as good on crafting as it is in adventuring, there's always something else to work on.

If you're interested in looking into the game Istaria, visit the official website at www.istaria.com