The Kingdom of Kaliron: The Eastern Region by Crimson Creations is an ORPG (online role playing game). It was released to B.net in 12/13/10, and the version I am playing is 3.0.4. You may find its community here, and you can download it here. The author suggests players of 3 to 7 for each game. Map features include: load/save capabilities, custom hero stats, 12 playable heroes, enhanced “threat system,” “equipment system,” talent tree system, enhanced mob ability system, and scripted boss battles.
I begin my journey with an introduction to the world. The first thing my camera sees once the game completely loads is a very elegant map, displaying all the regions and their names. Vormur, the land furthest northwest is surrounded by blue water and is a green, forested region with a visible city to the northwestern side of the woods. Beside it is Tol’ Calm, a small region that is connected to Vormur by a bridge. Tol’ Calm is particularly greener with bushy vegetation (not so much visible trees). South of Tol’ Calm is Grom Desert, which is just as described. There are cliffs and hills, but most of it seems rather barren grass lands. To the west of Grom Desert is Grom ‘Gol, which seems to be inhabited desert. South of that is Ancient Ruins. If you go east from there, you will find what seems to be an oasis, and south of that seems to be a brownish structure. From my first impression, it’s a pass into the land of Lugard. But it also seems like you could enter this region through Tol’ Calm. Lugard is farmland with a rustic town near the river splitting the west half of “the eastern region” from the east half. Lugard is a peninsula. Southeast of Lugard is Nebu Harbor, a harbor nonetheless. Then directly north of that is the island of Neburean Mountains, which looks like swamp lands.
I am given the option to choose my mode: normal, legendary, and heartcore. Each level is progressing in difficulty, but with each level of difficulty, more exp, gold, and rare items will be rewarded. For my initiation, I’ll play on normal.
Once choosing my difficulty, I may choose one hero from the eleven. Here is how they appear: Hydromancer, Phantom Stalker, Chaotic Knight, Shadowblade, Ranger, Barbarian, Paladin, Druid, Arcanist, Warrior, Cleric, and Pyromancer. But before I go into detail about these heroes, I’ll have to describe the unique stat system, which will be at the end of the review.
The Kingdom of Kaliron functions like a number game, mostly. The plot is lineal, and each character can be totally unique from the others in stats and equipment. If you find yourself going deep into game theory for Dungeon and Dragons or dwelling on Kurt Godel‘s proof, you can find yourself enjoying this online role playing game because the real joy is in the numbers, which I actually enjoyed writing about. But for those who do not, fear not! There is still a lot to take in.
I begin my journey with Lorn the Phantom Stalker. She studied the art in cunning, which is actually a big turn off to me. Though I suppose there’s technically an art to being cunning, but how does one study it? I thought there could be a little more back-story to that. And this is where we see signs of a lineal, generic story line, which is the weakest point in this game. But to forget the simplicity of the plot, we just need to listen to the swamp sounds of the ambiance, hear the nostalgic Warcraft III theme play, and experience a game that keeps true to the aesthetics of the Warcraft series with the ethos of Dungeon and Dragons.
By clicking an actions tab, located where my hero’s spell box should be, I can select a spell in my inventory to talk to NPCs. This is the primary function to interact with NPCs, and it’ll be used often. There’s even a “Game Masta” in the beginning that will give you a list of options. Beyond him, I walk past a garrison and into a town (later to revealed to me as Tol’Calm) where a footman with an exclamation point on his head is. Using my “Talk” spell, I begin the dialogue.
The story begins with Lorn, my hero, being inducted into the “people’s militia.” Obviously, I will have to protect the town of Tol’Calm and go on some missions for the good of the people who live there. Once I’ve read the dialogue, I can select two options in my inventory: either I inquire about the orders or cancel. I inquire, and the footman then sends me to my first errand. I need to talk to the Elder. Once traveling to him, which isn’t a long walk, I earn experience points, and I’m already half way to level two!
The Elder is retiring from his adventures. He needs someone to help fight against the Gnolls. Your first mission is to go to a Portal Master in Tol’Calm (the town I’m in) to talk about how to link the portal in Tol’Calm to the Vormur temple. This quest must be completed before going to any other regions of the world, which restricts you to only that region until you progress in the main quest line.
However, after collecting all the quests and talking to countless villagers about the dangers of the forest in Tol’Calm, I headed into the Vormur Forest to progress in the game and see rest of the map. The screen’s saturation damped as I entered the woods, and a purple mist appeared. My character stood at the end of the bridge peering into the wildness alone. A party of gnolls marched by. Here, I battled, returned back to Tol’Calm to heal, went back outside, and repeat.
For those who wish to play this game, note that this game is meant for a party of at least three people. The game play otherwise is slow. Mobs travel in a party of three, and defeating three of them takes 2/3 of your hit points. Grinding is slow and daunting, and the spells are not rewarding unless you’re with a group of people.
Into the wildness I went, and it was as lineal as I would’ve expected. The path allowed very little room to stray; however, the forest was expansive enough to feel like one. The dangers of being surrounded by gnolls were real. Several times I’ve died while grinding, and as frustrating as it was, I thought it was a nice touch and made the game more exciting. After what seemed like endless grinding and getting lost, I found the gate to Vormur Temple, I opened it and the lightening changed: I was in a bright room with scattered vegetation and dramatic Ironforge music playing, nice effect.
While exploring, I decided to talk to the guards to find a particular guard for a sub-quest I received in town. The dialogue from the villagers of Tol’Calm weren’t as morose as the Temple guards. This a more dramatic region of the map, a nice refresh from the Tol’Calm guards melodramatic babble about how the gnolls were just outside the walls, about to kill everyone inside the Tol’Calm when it was obvious that there was no immediate danger. I guess the long and frustrating combat in the woods changed my attitude about gnolls.
As I reached the Tol’Calm caves, I realized something. This is the same concept as before: the monster spawn in random places and fight me. The difference this time was that every mob shot out poison, and I died ten times faster. What’s worse is that the Broodmother died, and the quest didn’t complete. Whatever the reason, I think my version has a few glitches, and after checking the very active community, I found out that glitches in the map aren’t rare.
There are many benefits here. This game is an excellent game to play with friends as a lineal online role playing game. It can be beaten in just a few sittings without any endgame gimmicks. It has an advanced armor inventory that you can go into as a separate menu, making armor easy to equip and remove.
The “hero stats,” which in actually are the affecting stats, are the stats located near the portrait of your avatar (or playable character). You have the basics: Health, Mana, Damage, Armor, “Power” (or Strength), Agility, and “Energy” (or Intellect). These last three (Power, Agility, and Energy) influence Damage, Armor, Health, and Mana. But when a hero levels up, he/she is given “sub-stat” increases. These stats are Strength, Constitution (or Will), Endurance, Dexterity, Reflexes, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Spirit. These eight unique stats increases your “hero stats,” which then affect your Damage, Armor, Health, and Mana. So as you level up, your “sub-stats” are directly increased by a certain amount, and as a result, your “hero stats” increase as well (note: your hero stats also increase little by little, doing some long statistical work, you can figure it all out yourself). Along with the default increase, you are given “sub-stat points,” which you may use to increase certain “sub-stats.” But what affects how your “hero stats” affect your Damage, Armor, Health, and Mana is your Dependence. Dependence has three variables: Power, Agility, or Energy. For example, a hero with an Energy Dependence will be granted three additional Health Points for every Power Point they have. Therefore if a hero with an Energy Dependence increases their Constitution by 7, they will receive an additional 24 Health Points since Constitution raises Health Points by 3 for each and raises Power by 0.15 causing an one point increase in Power and a 24 increase in Health. Below is a chart of the “sub-stats.”
- Increases Power by 0.15
- Increases Attack Power by 0.775 (0.5)
Constitution:
- Increases Power by 0.15
- Increases Health by 3
Endurance:
- Increases Power by 0.15
- Increases Armor by 0.35
- Increases Block Chance by 0.08
Dexterity:
- Increases Agility by 0.15
- Increases Attack Power by 0.75 (0.5)
Reflexes:
- Increases Agility by 0.33
- Increases Attack Critical Power by 0.2
- Increases Dodge Chance by 0.1
Intelligence:
- Increases Energy by 0.05
- Increases Attack Critical Chance by 0.09
- Increases Spell Critical Chance by 0.09
- Increases Attack Critical Power by 0.33
- Increases Spell Critical Power by 0.33
- Increases Energy by 0.15
- Increases Spell Power by 0.75
- Increases Power by 0.2, Agility by 0.2, and Energy by 0.2
- Increases Hit Point Regeneration Rate by 0.015
- Increases Mana per Second by 0.005
- Increases Mana by 1
- Each point increases Health by 3
- Each point increases Health Regeneration by 0.02
- Each point increases Attack Power by 0.8 (0.4)
- Each point increases block by 0.02
- Increases armor by 0.22
- Each point increases Attack Power by 0.6 (0.35)
- Increases Attack Critical Chance by 0.022
- Increases Dodge Chance by 0.015
- Each point increases attack speed by 1%
- Each point increases Mana by 1
- Each point increases Spell Power by 0.4
- Increases Spell Critical Chance by 0.045
- Each point increases damage by 1
- Each point increases Health by 3
- Each point increases Health Regeneration by 0.02
- Each point increases Attack Power by 0.8 (0.4)
- Each point increases block by 0.02
- Each point increases damage by 1
- Increases armor by 0.22
- Each point increases Attack Power by 0.6 (0.35)
- Increases Attack Critical Chance by 0.022
- Increases Dodge Chance by 0.015
- Each point increases attack speed by 1%
- Each Point increases damage by 1
- Each point increases Mana by 1
- Each point increases Spell Power by 0.4
- Increases Spell Critical Chance by 0.045
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