Nodiatis Review

This hub is going to review Nodiatis, the second MMORPG developed by Glitchless LLC. Unlike Race War Kingdoms (Glitchless' first MMO), Nodiatis has a graphical interface. The graphics in Nodiatis aren't state of the art, but they're pretty good, at least in my opinion (of course, part or most of that may be the fact they remind me of games from the '90s).

So, scroll past the gameplay screenshot and start reading about Nodiatis now!

Like most other MMOs, Nodiatis has only the most superficial of plots. The kingdom of Draak was conquered by monsters in ages past and now you have to go liberate it. However, consider the fact that the wildnerness around Draak has monsters over Level 100 (and the fact you start nowhere near the ruined castle), and you'll quickly realize that the plot is secondary to the game itself.

Quests are just an excuse to go kill monsters, and don't add anything to the story either. However, Nodiatis' gameplay is what makes it a good game.

In this game, you don't choose a race, although you can select a picture that will represent your character (some are undead-looking, and the one I personally picked was a bird-face). As for classes, the game has plenty of those (over 20, if I recall correctly and didn't miscount). No matter what class you choose, the only differences will be your class bonus and your special class ability.

Each class gets a special bonus. For example, Archers do greater maximum damage with bows and Rangers do greater minimum damage with bows. Each class also gets a special class ability. Using the same classes as an example, the Archer special does improved damage and stun to a single foe while the Ranger special does damage to all foes at the same time (since you only encounter one enemy at a time, this is only useful in PvP).

The gameplay is pretty simple. As glossed upon in the story section, you move from town to town doing quests given to you by the town seers. These quests give a gold reward and also give you a general idea on where you should be at your level (assuming you're not overachieving and doing quests that are over your level). One gripe I have is that quests don't give experience, and you will be needing lots and lots of experience in this game. The level cap is currently set at 85, and you will start to have difficulties leveling up at around 15-20 or so.

An interesting concept that Nodiatis has is Rested Time. Similar to how action points work in other MMOs, you have a certain amount of rested time per day. Unlike how action points work, you can play even when you're out of time. However, if you do so, your experience and gold gains drop to 1/6 of normal (some say 1/8). In other words, it's intended to be a deterrent to playing 12 hours a day. However, a patch that allows people to spend money to gain 6 more hours of rested time somewhat threw that intention out of the window.

This leads me to the topic of purchasable upgrades. Most MMOs have them, and so does Nodiatis. You can pay real cash to upgrade your character (free accounts can't trade items or use the auction house) or buy time cards. Time cards can be used to purchase paid account time or to gain 6 more hours of rested time (as mentioned above). As time cards are tradeable, it has created an interesting gold/USD exchange rate. As of the time of this writing, a Time Card ($5 cost) will run you 250,000 gold in the Auction House. You can also buy upgrades that allow you to equip Epic Items (the best items in the game) and other upgrades that deplete your Resting Time faster but double/triple your experience and gold gains or reduce the penalty for playing without Rested Time down to 1/2.

Combat in Nodiatis is as easy as just pressing the autoattack button (or autoshoot if you're a range class). However, you have access to a variety of gems that allow you to cast spells to deal damage and heal yourself. There are gems that also act as passive auras, improving your defense or attack stats. You draw gems randomly from your pouch, much like as if they were cards in a deck. This concept, borrowed from trading card games, makes spell-based combat more interesting, as it prevents spellcasters from using their strongest spells repeatedly without risk.

In summary, Nodiatis is a game that is somewhat hard to get into as a casual player, but much more forgiving than Race War Kingdoms. On the whole, it's much more accessible as well. I enjoyed it greatly during the time I played it, and I'm sure you will too.

Until the next time, take care and have fun! ;)

-Winterfate

P.S: My referral link to this game is:

http://www.nodiatis.com/?aCQkguuKY