Earth Eternal

Hmmm good question! LOL

The characters are all animal, alien, yeti, reptilian, amphibian, avian or clockwork. In the lore humans died out in a catastrophe. Its an MMO with a ton of quests and "bounty boards" in each town that are like "slayer tasks" if you are familiar with Runescape member skills. The "mobs" that you kill will drop armor, weapons, jewelry that boost your stats or you might get a ton of junk that has no value at all except 1 coin when reselling to a vendor in the market area.

There were no skills like we know in Runescape, although you could get a "recipe" drop from a "mob" that you killed, which could be used to make a rare piece of armor or a weapon. The term used to make these items is "crafting" although you really don't use a skill, but you DO need several items in your inventory when paying a merchant to craft something for you. You would need the "recipe" (weapon or armor plan/scroll) and it would list the components needed, and the type of mold you would also need to purchase. The components were dropped by 'mobs" (pearls, silk, steel, iron, gems, ores, flowers, glowstones, etc) or could be bought from other players.

The basic storyline is from the history and lore of England. There is a quest-line from Robin Hood. Also from King Arthur and Camelot. In fact Merlin is in a few quests. There is a quest for higher combat levels involving Rapunzel. And a few other questlines that reminded me of European lore.

The beasts that roamed the world were basically those we would see today in real life: wild pigs, stags, wolves, eagles, bears, crabs, lizards, vultures, and yes even dinosaurs. There were some very fanciful beasts too such as giant wasps, meadow munchers, and bookwyrms.

The graphics were a bit cartoony but 3D. The main mode of transportation were stonehenges, although there were some magic spells as well, depending on your combat level and if you had enough ability points to purchase that spell. Every time you go up 1 combat level you get 2 ability points. Some spells required 8-10 points but most only require 2. Its up to the player to determine how to wisely spend their ability points. You could purchase more ability points with "credits" which were obtained with real money through the game website or by doing free surveys offered through the game website but done through another site not affilliated with the game company, Sparkplay Media.

Overall, it was easy to get addicted to. You can either bash everything in sight to get drops to sell for money so you can afford to get the good armor and weapons (depending on combat level) ...... or..............you can work your way through the quests and bounty boards to gain access to new areas and items. Since it was released in open beta sometime in Nov 2009, there were still some things the company was working on. Every week there was some kind of update or a new area opened. Graphics were always being improved and new armor and weapons were being added, the old ones were discontinued or changed appearance completely, which ***** a lot of people off after they worked hard to obtain a certain "look". There was a soft cap of combat level 55 and at least 2 huge areas were yet to be opened to the public, when they finally announced bankruptsy in August 2010.

Rumor has it Warner bought the company but nothing has been officially announced yet. The game was totally free. There was no member stuff at all, everything was obtainable by everyone, although not all countries allowed the free surveys to obtain free credits, so some players had to spend real money to get the credits to buy stuff from the credit shop (special armor sets, potions, holiday stuff, funky looking hats, etc). There are tons of images floating around on the web and I believe you can still find the original images used on the website's homepage, although you can't navigate the website anymore (at least until the buyer rereleases the site!).

Some players said its a lot like Runes of Magic but 1/10 the download. Some compare it with WoW but (I've never played it but know a bit from friends) there are no skills. And some say its totally unique. I guess it depends what you have experience with and what you prefer.