Dofus

Late in 2005, a French developer, Ankama Studio, released a tactical MMORPG bearing the tag line, “The World’s First Tactical MMORPG.” Well, I’m not so sure about that tag line, as Blitz1941 and Navyfield are both tactical and MMORPG. Perhaps Dofus can’t claim to be the world’s first tactical MMORPG, but what it can claim is to be the world’s first tactical MMORPG built entirely utilizing Macromedia’s Flash and Breeze platforms.

The game is about a 52mb download from the website and can run on Windows, Macs, Linux, and probably that cardboard box full of Commodore 64 parts you have in your garage. Since Dofus is a tactical MMORPG, the game is played turn by turn. Each player has a set amount of time to complete his moves before his turn ends.

This makes for a bit of interesting gameplay, once you throw in the fact that you have Movement Points and Attack Points. You can’t move more squares than you have MP’s, and you can’t use a spell that requires more AP’s than you have. That’s where the strategy comes into play. You have to plan your moves, as well as your attacks to coordinate with your teammates, as well as to counteract your enemies.

This all might seem a bit confusing at first, since most MMORPG’s these days are played out in real time. Once you join the game, you have the option to take the tutorial that a bird man, Ganymede offers you. I suggest taking it if you are a first timer. It is invaluable.

Of course you see the letters MMORPG and wonder what classes are contained within. There are currently 12. Surely you’ll find something that fits you, whether it be the shaman-like Sadida, the matyr Sacrier, or the fortune digging Enutrof. Each class has it’s own set unique abilities, usually complementing another class which makes them deadly if played together. (Complement a Sacrier with a Cra and you’ve got real trouble on your hands.)

What MMORPG is complete without a bit of humor. Blizzard has it’s clever movie references (my favorites being Clarice Foster and “It puts the tanin in the basket or else it gets the mallet again!”), but Ankama has hidden commercial product names within their class names. Sadida=Adidas, Xelor=Rolex, etc. Perhaps one of the best moments during my time in the game is when I took my Cra (Archer) to get her first bow. The Bow Carver asked me if I had come to visit her for a “bow job”. Best line ever.

Of course with the game being written entirely in Flash, you’d think the graphics would be pretty bad. Quite the contrary. Ankama has shown the true potential flash can unleash with this game. The graphics are absolutely stunning. Dofus also incorporates trade skills into the game, which is usually a large part of any MMORPG. Of course, the traditional blacksmith, alchemist, and tailor professions are in the game, but there are several others which you usually don’t see. Ashen Empires (formerly Dransik) is the only other MMORPG that I know of that incorporates farming and lumber jacking into the game.

Of course, it’s always practical to choose a profession that complements your class, such as a Sacrier becoming a baker (tank making his own food). In Dofus, you are allowed to choose up to 3 professions, which provide you with a great source of kamas (currency in Dofus).

As you can imagine, thousands of players creating items creates a bit of a dilemma. Where are all these players going to sell their creations? to NPCs? Force players to sit in one central area and spam the hell out of everyone until their goods are bought? While these two options are still viable, Ankama has taken care of players by creating sell rooms for players to sell goods. These work remarkably similar to World of Warcraft’s auction houses.

There is a different sell room for each kind of profession, then one for general resources. You can put up to 5 things for sale in each market at any given time. The only difference in the WoW auction house and Dofus’s is that in Dofus, you can only buy the cheapest commodity. If your friend has wool for sale for 100 kamas, but their is another guy selling for 80 kamas, you must buy from the other guy. I actually like this system better, as I know I am always getting the best price that the sell house has to offer.

Another great feature of Dofus is that you can set up a player shop when you plan to log offline. All you have to do is have your goods on you, click yourself, click Organize Shop, set up your prices and add the goods to your shop, switch to merchant mode then log off. There can only be 6 player merchants on any given screen at once, so competition for heavily trafficked screens is high.

Your character stays in shop mode as long as you aren’t playing it. When you log back in, you will be given a summary of the items you sold while you were offline. As you can imagine, most players have a character they’ve set up simply to be a shop.

If the above hasn’t convinced you to give Dofus a shot, you should consider it’s free to play forever. The only catch is that you can’t leave the “newbie” area, which is rather large. If you feel you want to see the rest of Dofus, you can pay for the rest of the game and explore until your heart is content. The prices are rather cheap, ranging from around 21.00 for three months, or 67.00 for a year. Much cheaper than your standard MMORPG.

Now, you have no reason not to try Dofus. It’s free, beautiful, can run on anything, and is a relatively small download. Get to
downloading!