Through the Looking Glass: Getting Started in Dragon Nest

MMOsite: So begin the travails of Musashisakai, Archer in the “world’s fastest” action MMO. Such is the tagline for Nexon’s offering, released in 2011 in North America. I can see where the appeal lies. The game has shades of Final Fantasy VI, as well as Golden Axe, in an updated setting. It is a world of dodging, aiming, powerups, bosses, and 17 hit combos. Here, the word “world” applies less to a virtual plane and more to a virtual rabbit warren; in the same vein as Guild Wars, everything outside of the towns are instanced, only here the instances are known as “fields” that are further divided into “dungeons”. These instances are relatively linear and path-like. The effect is similar to how I would imagine hiking the Colorado trail to be, if the Colorado trail were littered with ferocious poochums.