With Tarisland comes a new MMORPG (PC, Mobile) from the gaming giant Tencent. It visually resembles WoW and its classes strongly, but focuses on fewer abilities and is Free2Play. It is set to release not only in China but also in the West. The developers have now commented on the topic of Genderlock.
What does Tarisland offer? Basically, it offers everything a typical theme park fan desires:
- It features a Western fantasy setting with colorful graphics that resemble the style of WoW somewhat.
- There is a choice of classes including Warrior, Paladin, Mage, Hunter, Priest, Bard, and a type of Demon Hunter with two glaives.
- The combat system utilizes tab-targeting, but you only have 8 abilities that can be modified. Each class gets trees with 40 to 81 talents.
- In PvE, you follow a story told through quests. In the mid- and endgame, there are dungeons and raids for 10 players.
- The PvP is said to take place in arenas and battlegrounds and be “balanced”. PvE fans should not be affected by PvP, according to the FAQ.
- This is all financed through a shop, which is supposed to be completely free of Pay2Win elements.
- Although it is being released for mobile, there will be no autoplay and no automatic moving to quests.
However, the MMORPG received somewhat negative attention for its Genderlock. Priests can only be played by female characters, while Warriors can only be played by male characters. However, the developers seem to be reconsidering this.
Here you can watch the trailer for the Closed Beta:
Developers are looking at Genderlock, do not want to be a WoW clone
What do the developers say? In response to the inquiry about whether the Genderlock could be lifted, the developers replied on Discord:
Even though our original intention was to offer a larger selection of classes with limited development resources, we did not fully consider all needs. Due to the high development effort, the team will carefully review this demand and decide based on current progress and workload how player needs can be met.
This sounds like they are at least seriously considering the topic. However, it was not promised that the restriction would be completely lifted.
However, the developers also commented on further requests. Players wish for an optical adjustment of their character with the change of equipment. This will not be able to be “quickly adjusted”, but they want to bring more visual variety to the game.
Is the game worth it? Tarisland has left a positive impression with its tutorial. There, you are directly thrown into a raid group with NPCs and a ready check. Also, the later dungeons looked very good.
The combat system feels dynamic, as you can move freely while using abilities, even though it is tab-targeting. I myself was able to play for about 5 hours in the beta and was pleasantly surprised, especially for a mobile MMORPG: Tarisland looks so good that it can also convince us.
By the way, the developers themselves do not appreciate the direct comparisons with WoW. They say,the announcement coincidentally came at the same time as the departure of World of Warcraft from China. Tarisland is a new IP with a new story, its own gameplay, and a different commercial design.
A release in the West is definitely planned, but the MMORPG is still in an early stage of development, and adjustments will still be made until release.
What do you think of Tarisland? Does the game appeal to you? Or are you waiting for a completely different title – and if so, which one?
