The free-to-play MMO Skyforge occupies our author Schuhmann. It has some of the most boring zones in an MMO ever.
I have played an astonishing amount of Skyforge over the last few months. Essentially, it’s a pure lobby MMO. From the world map, you start an instance and play there. Skyforge is not going to win any innovation awards, but it is a solid game where you can spend a lot of time. For me, it’s just right to turn off while watching TV or listening to a podcast.
Interesting: This is Skyforge – experience report from the CBT.
Low Points in Game Design
But with all the love: The game has two of the most terrible instances I have ever seen. One is called “Aristel’s Farm”; it is just a farm with rats attacking in waves. And the absurd thing is: That’s it. It’s about 15 minutes or so during which only the direction of the attacks changes.
Whether you’re quick or not doesn’t matter because the enemies come at the same intervals.
When I was in there for the first time in a trio group, the reactions were “Lol?”, 5 minutes later another “lol?”, and at the end, when the adventure instance ended ceremoniously without a boss fight, a “Lolololol?” from my teammates.
Now nothing against such “We do everything in one room” instances. It worked quite well with the Violet Hold in WoW back then, although you could also tell: “Well… time was probably tight,” but a little variety in the enemies should be possible, right?
The thing is really creepy! Sure, many instances in MMOs are boring upon closer inspection and you keep doing the same thing. But at least try to hide it a little! In its current form, Aristel’s Farm is proof of the futility of all action. If I want that, I’ll read one of those terrible French existentialists!
Open World without Content
The second low point was reached by Skyforge when a certain “Open Zone” opened up. You have to imagine it like this: at certain prestige values, a new quest zone begins, which you essentially run through to have a bit of variety from the instances. They are sort of “rewards” or little “dog treats” that Skyforge throws at you, something to look forward to. Variety!
Now, you can imagine my horror when this next section, the Sheets Grotto, had no quests at all, and thus no rewards, but was simply a stupid grind of mobs to reach some utopian value. Pure grinding, of which there is really enough in the game already.
The zone is probably unfinished at the moment but already in the game. Perhaps there are greater plans for it, but at the moment it is simply a nuisance. And when you google it later, you get nice posts like “Sheets Grotto – is this a joke?” or “OK! What is up with Sheets Grotto?” – That’s exactly my question too. Sheets Grotto, what’s your problem? What do the developers want to tell us with your existence?
So with all the craving for “More game content” and “More is always better” – without these two things, Skyforge would be a better game! Not much better, but at least a little bit better.
What are your favorites for the titles “Dumbest zones/dungeons in a game?”
By the way, I will soon report on my path to the goddess in Skyforge (in a game that has a breast slider, I will always play women!) and where the hammer-tits image-title image comes from. And yes, that’s a threat.
