Rhyming comes back in full swing as we celebrate the official launch of the quite fun action-RPG MMO, Dragon Nest. Time was strained during the last DN comic, so today's the time to chat about it!

I had my eye on DN long ago when Pie and I were but sickly RO refugees, aimlessly wandering for shelter that wouldn't systematically abuse its residents. You see, MMOs provide us great sustenance that other genres lack, allowing us to play cooperatively together as well as occasionally chat with other life forms - apparently from the same planet as us!! Our suburban cave just doesn't cut it if we want to talk to anything other than wall-shrooms.

I was hesitant to praise Dragon Nest, what with said prior abuses by greedy cash shops shenanigans. Thankfully, Nexon seems to have a pretty good handle on it, though certain items such as the skill reset scroll are rather pricey at $20 for a single use. A free scroll given on class change helps soften the blow to newcomers though it expires after one week, making changing builds a pain. Luckily, the biggest cash shop draw of upgrade protection jellies can actually be bypassed though in game methods, which I'm very happy about. They also have scales currency that I guess can be obtained in game that allows players to buy cash shop items, but this remains to be seen.

Being my first Nexon game, I must say I am quite surprised at the localization polish. They gave a lot of TLC in creating a great player experience, excellent dubbing and scripting that adds a lot of character to the game. It's funny because when I started playing, I skipped tons of dialogue thinking "Ehh...I don't care to read boring filler quests", only to find out later that they have a lot of personality and spice. The games decidedly lighthearted approach, while still having an underlying serious story, is refreshing following WoW's predominantly serious nature.

Pie touched on the combat already, so I won't go deep into that, but suffice it to say that it is fast and fun. One of the big surprises was actually jumping into PVP with her and having some invigorating crazy-fun matches. Overall, the battle system is finely tuned and interesting with a lot of different class build customization possibilities, making for a great way to spec your character for your preference and play style instead of an illusion of choice.

So yeah! Dragon Nest! Go check it out if you like PSO-style games - it's free and worth the download.

Today marks the first whole month Pie and I have completed our goal of two comics a week! Hurrah! Its funny getting firsthand experience in the lessons of relativity and seeing how time seems to slow for us as we increase our velocity (work load) - now if we can only manage to not gain weight haha. To say that 2011 has been a packed year so far for us is a huge understatement, and we still have a quarter to go!