Soul Master Closed Beta Test First Impression

Soul Master CBT Review By Daniel Owens To better my writing skills and establish a presence in the MMO gaming community are the passions that bring me here, I enjoy writing about new and upcoming MMO's. My goal is to bring to the reader as many promising MMO's as I can find. Offering insight and advice on what's worth playing.

There's a whole stewing pot of mediocre, generic, cookie-cutter MMO's out there in the online world these days, and after a while they seem to blend into one another. It is very rare that I get the chance to participate in a CBT for an MMO that shows some true promise and truly has me glued to the screen beyond the point of submitting my review. I am lucky enough to have come across Soul Master, a new take on the MMORTS genre developed by NPluto and published by Games Campus.

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Nobody knows for certain how it was first discovered, but its immense power and endless potential were enough to destroy the greatest empire of the Bunden continent: Elamond. The Magic was a gift and a curse for the Empire that first experienced its effects. With its populace split between fear of the unknown and a hunger for power, the Great War that soon followed was swift and terrible. The conservative citizens that distrusted the corrupting influence of Magic were forced from their homes in an exodus across the continent, and eventually found refuge to the north. The revolutionists that had embraced the darker nature of Magic and brutally toppled the Elamond government entered into an age of obsessive, uninterrupted mystic study.

Decades passed, and the exiled conservatives struggled to establish a culture with powerful technologies of their own. After uniting the various factions among themselves over the intervening years, a new nation was born out of the distrust of Magic that had been passed down over generations. The "Valiant" Empire that emerged was soon well known for their advanced steam punk technologies and mastery over machines. The revolutionaries of the former Elamond Empire had since created their own nation state, one self-indulgently known as the "Holy" Empire. By combining the primeval forces of light, darkness, ocean, and sky they had perfected the use of Magic to both an art form and a terrifying weapon. The Holy Empire soon became the most unstoppable force on the continent, with the Valiant Empire keeping an ever wary eye from the north.

A Day in the Life of a Soul Linker

The character creation system, as with any CBT, is very basic at this point in time. There are 3 factions to choose from, Valiant, Harmony and Holy. Each faction currently has one class to choose from. There is the ever present Fighter (Warrior), the fresh take on the rogue class known as Bearcat and another familiar face the Priest.

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Customization so far only consists of changing hair colour and choosing between 5 different tops and bottoms for your clothing. The character creation system at this point is probably the weakest point in the CBT, but nevertheless it's not truly an important factor here, we are interested in the gameplay.

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