Dragon Oath Review: The Game You Don’t Want to Miss This Fall

Our forum volunteer James Jackson brings us this first look at the upcoming martial arts Chinese fantasy F2P MMORPG Dragon Oath.

Dragon Oath was primarily released in Mainland China back in 2007 by ChangYou.com Ltd., China's leading online game developer and operator. It now boasts a massive 800,000 concurrent player base and nearly 75 Million subscribers. The company's U.S. subsidiary brought this game to the U.S. this year, and it is their first release in the North American market.

Dragon Oath is your Typical Fantasy Kung Fu MMORPG set in the Song dynasty of ancient China 920 AD and has nine exciting classes representing Buddhist cosmology.

General Impressions

Dragon Oath allows players to engage in ancient Chinese lore and take part in captivating quests that tell the tale of warriors and diplomats from this time period. Dragon Oath has a large emphasis on teamwork and community within its game play mechanics. Marriage, guilds, and blood relations play a huge role in the overall experience of the game. While still in open beta, Dragon Oath already feels like a complete game even with half the map still closed and a level cap. I can honestly say the current player base and Changyou staff are highly anticipating the full release of the game. Dragon Oath boasts great graphics and an easy to use leveling system, with five hours per week of Double EXP and even more when in a guild with a city. There is also a pet system in the game with a possible combination of over 400,000 pets to suit all levels and styles of game play, such as Donkeys, Gorillas, Dragons and Dinosaurs. Overall I would highly recommend Dragon Oath to anyone looking for a more exciting and content filled game. It's great fun with many exciting aspects to try out.

Character Creation

Character Creation is simple in Dragon Oath. While the options are limited, it's a speedy process with just enough options to make you look somewhat unique. You can choose your avatar, face, garments, hair and gender. While this is limited, there are more options to customize your character during the game for a small exchange of items and gold. I do however feel that the development team could greatly improve this aspect of the game. As far as class of players, this is done after entering the game.

Visual and interface

This is the area that's the most exciting.  For a game that uses so little computer power compared to some games currently on the market, the graphics completely amaze me. With hundreds of in game skills, each having their own unique graphics ranging from flashes of yellow blades to Green snake like dragons, its purely amazing eye candy to watch while playing the game.

Now onto the monsters. There are a large variety of monsters to kill in the wilderness, all with their own unique graphics and skills.

Dragon Oath offers a wide variety of scenery from sandy plains to lush forests and swamps and even the fiery pits of near hell. While it's not always realistic, it's nice to have a variety in scenes.