CRUNCHY: Silkroad Online Review

Genre: MMORPG based on the ancient Silk Route

Fee: Free to play/item mall

Graphics

When I tried this game for the first time, I'm quite surprised that a low end graphics card ( on a Nvidia FX 5200 card ) managed to run the game smoothly. Game graphics still look good even with low graphics setting. I would say that the graphics on Silkroad Online is good, taking into account that it caters for players with lower end graphics card. If you have a good graphics card, turn on all those eye candies!

Jobs : Trader, Hunter and Thief

On Silkroad Online, you can trade to make a profit, be a hunter to escort traders and hunt thieves, or become a thief to rob traders and kill hunters. Or do 'job wars' arranged by players themselves. Basically, 'job wars' is a fight between Traders/Hunters and Thieves. Most of the time it will turn out to be a free-for-all fight, as any passer-by can join in the fight. More details about Trader/Hunter/Thief jobs can be found here.

Leveling up on Silkroad Online

You level up by killing monsters, and every monster ( mob ) will give you a certain amount of experience points and skill points. Experience points increases your character level and skill points is used to level your skills.

Doing quests will help you to level too, but it's not much. Most quests requires you to kill a number of mobs and handing it in to a NPC.

Like most Korean MMO's, it is a long and tedious grind once you're higher level especially when your character is level 50 and higher. So if you don't intend to join the rat race to the top and be competitive, it's alright. You can still enjoy the game, by trading, do alchemy and stalling or just hanging around towns looking at the antics of players, or enjoy the scenes.

PVP ( Player vs Player ) gameplay

The PVP side of the game is through jobs , guild wars, fortress war or PK ( Player Kill ). I will add something about guild war and fortress war soon.

PK is when you engage a player without a job suit, or being in a guild war or fortress war and forcefully killing him/her. A PK on a player will give you a murderer status. When you're on murderer status, anyone can kill you and dieing will make you lose a good amount of experience. Or you can kill mobs to get rid of the status.

Alchemy

Elixirs and stones are used to improve and increase the stats on your weapons and armors. Better weapons and armors give you an advantage over mobs and players. I will write more about this soon.

Overall

In my opinion, if you're just a casual gamer and don't want to be competitive in the game, you can still enjoy the game. This game would have greater potential if not for the mass botting by players and gold selling profiteers.

Here are some Silkroad Online screenshots. All screenshots captured on a system with NVIDIA FX5200 card with the lowest graphics settings :-