Dragon Nest

Dragon Nest is a free-to-play fantasy MMORPG characteristic with fast-paced, non-targeting combat. Developed by Eyedentity Games, it is playable in many different languages. Initially launched in South Korea by Nexon, it was brought to North American players by the same publisher in September of 2011.

Dragon Nest is set in the fantastic land of Lagendia, in which players as heroes will embark on a journey of adventure, slaying evil dragons and other monsters in search of power stones and finding the magic grail of the Goddess Altea to save the world.

In it, character and class are of one, and the character chosen in the very beginning will decide the starter town, storyline and skills, etc.. Four classes are included, Warrior, Archer, Cleric and Sorceress, each able to advance into specific sub-classes at Lv. 15 and then at Lv. 45. And each character specializes in different attributes and wields with varied primary and secondary weapons. Supportive Cleric, for instance, which is armed with Mace, Flail Wand or Shield, is good at defense, and able to heal and buff teammates.

Combat is the bulk of gameplay, which is woven into both quests and dungeons. Main quests is allotted to players to enter backstory-related events so as to gain XP and other rewards helpful for leveling-up and the unlocking of dungeons; while Side quests are optional, less difficult and thusly less rewarding, despite the hefty XP and treasures gained through them. Dungeons are opened up by completion of main quests, and they are instanced. Dungeons are categorized into five difficulty levels, while each one is also divided into several stages that are connected by portals. Once players eliminate all the monsters of one stage, they can advance to the next until the final one with boss monsters. Fighting through is the primary goal of dungeon by killing all monsters there, yet subsidiary objectives related to specific quests are also included. Certainly, treasure will be rewarded at last based on how well the dungeon is cleared.

Dragon Nest features the common keyboard-mouse game control, but also supports gamepad. Be it movement or combat, it works well and smoothly. And the hotkeys that make the use of special skills handy all the more enhance non-targeting combat experience.