Silkroad Online Review

Silkroad Online Review

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Silkroad Online is a fantasy Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) based around the ancient Asia and Europe trading routes.

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Game: Silkroad Online
Genre: Fantasy MMORPG
Developer: Joymax Entertainment

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Silkroad Online is Exclusive to PC

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Silkroad Online is based around the Silk trading routes of the 7th century and is designed to allow players to re-enact the stories and historic cultures of the Silk Road.

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The in game graphics are amazing when in full quality the story however is completely different for people running the game on the low graphics settings. Silkroad is very realistic in the way the characters move and are animated, and this is a very strong point for the game.

The characters are quick and smooth to react and do it with amazing realism.
Many people consider the graphics in the game its best feature, and only a fool would disagree. And as a 4 year old game, it has exceptional Graphics.


Highest Quality ------------------ Lowest Quality

(Character Pictured is a level 81 Euro Wizard in 9th Degree Robes)

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When i first started playing Silkroad Online, i was amazed at how everything sounded. The background music fitted in well with the surroundings, and the atmostpheric sounds were even more stunning. When you ride a horse, you hear its footsteps, when you walk on snow you hear it crunching under your feet.

It does however become very repetitive, and by my second week playing the game, i had the sound disabled intirely. It isn't that the audio is bad, but after playing 5 hours a day for 2 weeks, it becomes boring and actually rather annoying. Furthermore, the skill and spell sounds are often unrealistic and sound like somebody throwing a microphone at a wall.

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At the start of the game, players get the option of creating a Chinese or Euro race of character. Both races have unique skills and spells and each have their strenghts and weaknesses.

Chinese characters have the option of Strenght and Magical attacks, whereas Euro characters have the option of only one. Many people believe that Euro characters are far stronger than Chinese characters and in many ways have created an unbalanced and generally bad gaming enviroment. This is because Euro's were added 2 years after Chinese characters, at which time everybody was used to playing their Chinese race toons.

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Euro Wizard Character Fighting

As a player, you will find this game has few unique choices, and many people get bored fast. Jobs for example are a real low point for the game. In Silkroad Online, you have 3 choices. You can be either a Thief, a Hunter or a Trader. You may only pick one and if you decide to change, you must wait a week to be able to do so. Furthermore, Jobbing doesnt give any additional skills or talents, and has no real aims or goals. Basically, the Thieves try to rob the Traders who are being protected by the Hunters.

Silkroad doesn't have much in the way of Boss fights, but does have Unique Monsters that spawn every 4-5 hours. There are 7 currently from level 20 to 90, and are like the Bosses found in many games. At random intervals they will spawn adds in the form of Elite monsters. These are the same as normal monster, but with much higher HP and hit significatly harder. Unique Monsters are free-for-all. Whoever finds them can kill them.


Chinese Race Player fighting Lord Yarken - Level 80 Unique.

Botting is also a huge problem in Silkroad Online, with several hundred gold bots, Spam bots and Player bots hogging up space in the servers. This creates a massive problem for legitimate players because they cannot log into the server, and unlike other MMORPG's, there is no que system im place to shorten the wait, so it is a hit or miss affair, and not a fun one at that. Joymax noticed this, and instead of doing regular bot bans and increasing GM activity they decided to cash in on and in early 2007 introduced Premium Tickets to their Item Mall, allowing players with these tickets to log in without having to wait hours for a free server slot. This is not cheap however. The cheapest available is $15 a month, rising to as much as $29 a month. You do however get enchanced stats on your character and special Premium quests which will grant you more Skill Points.

Skill points are used in Silkroad Online to level your characters skills. For example, at the maximum level it takes around 5000 Skill points to increase your Weapon Mastery by 1 level. This is an issue for many players, as killing a single monster of your level grants only 1/4 of a Skill Point.


European Warrior fighting

In many ways Silkroad Online is a pure Grind Fest and requires hundreds of hours up into the game to advance your character, along with hundreds of dollars just to be able to log in. To tell how much of a grind fest this game is, at level 90, which is the current level cap, you require around 281 Million Exp. Take into account that you gain around 10,000 per kill, and you will have to kill 28,100 monsters to advance to the next level.

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[Only registered and activated users can see links. ] [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]
[Only registered and activated users can see links. ] [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]
[Only registered and activated users can see links. ] [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

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Silkroad Online is a great game in general, but its Developer lets it down. The Botting issue is the main downfall of this game. However the players also let the game down by taking advantage of an iggnorant Developer and exploiting Bugs, Using Bots and generally making the games community a bad place.

If a highly regarded and successful company took over the game, such as Blizzard or Activision, it would have so much more potential than it currently does, and would be the great game it was destined to be. Currently though, i wouldnt recommend it to anybody, unless they wanted to play and were going to use Bots, as i feel that is the only way to progress in the game, even if it adds to the trouble.

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Silkroad Online is a Grind Fest, Bot Infested Game with an ignorant Developer who has their minds on the money rather than the community. In other hands this game could achieve greatness and be among the best MMO's such as World of Warcraft.

However in its current state, it isnt worth the time of day. If you are considering trying this game just to see if this review is accurate, please do, because then you will see what a great game it is, but its let down by one thing : It's Creator.