I played this for a short while more than a decade ago. The flying was pretty novel. The starting monsters also were painfully cute, not aggressive and had dialogue about begging for mercy or crying when you killed their children. Brutal.
Same. Back before Suba games took over from Aeria Games. At the time i was like level 46ish (i dont quite remember). A few years after they took over I tried going back but there was no way I was able to get back into the game due to the grind and the cash shop pets i lost. Some of them were gifts from in-game friends. It was good at the time for a free to play game but F doing all that again.
13:50 "Drugs, okay. WoW. Kids remember, if a random man on the street gives you drugs, say thank you, because drugs are expensive." I've even watched this video before and forgot about that reference and died laughing
As an old Domo veteran I can tell you that those stairs in front of the bank are the main social hub. Those people aren't just sitting they're usually chatting, trading, and trying to scam each other.
The red line is the red string of fate. It's a Chinese and Japanese thing where your destined partner (husband or wife) is connected to you by a red string of fate. It might be a part of other eastern mythologies as well, but I just know it's a thing in Japan and most likely China.
Just one thing to add: the game is not 7 years old. The game is actually 15 years old. The actual thing is... this is a re-launch of an old mmo, initially released on 2005 in taiwan and 2007 on NA. Thing is, back in 2005, for the time, it WAS a good mmo. But since it never evolved and the re-release by suba games didn't even touch on anything, the game aged badly and was not even compatible with newer OS (I was in the re-release beta, as the new of the re-release brought me to many memories and I got all excited... took them weeks to make the game fully work on windows 7 - 10 and be compatible with newer hardware). At the time, the games premise and lore (all based on the taiwanese game series Xuan-Yuan Sword, wich is based on chinese mithology) were kinda inovative (there were no mmorpg with flying at the time, not even wow had flying mounts). But for today standards, the game itself is pretty shit.
FLYFF would like a word! (regarding the flying mechanics - think they got there first, though could be wrong. Not checked this, just going by memory) As for DOMO - Game was first published in the West by Aeria Games I think, at least thats where I played it, the attempts to revive the game after Aeria killed it did not go very well :D
I remember my S6 lily that people literally followed me everywhere for lol. I kid you not, if you walked into a town with your S6 or any of the S-lily/love pets, you'd have an army of people following you, and trying to get you to trade it to them.
I dunno, it looks suspiciously like the critically-acclaimed final fantasy xiv, which has a free trial including a realm reborn and the award-winning expansion pack heavensward, allowing you to play up to level 60 for no cost
The delete password at the beginning is maybe for when you wanna delete your character and not to create it. So, you'd have to type 123456 to delete the character, if you typed that at character creation.
Yeah, that's what I thought, too. It allows you to set a second password to protect that character from being deleted in the case that someone gains access to your account. Which is pretty smart, and not a bad approach for a time when 2FA wasn't a thing yet.
@@SkyExplosion Never watched One Piece and I watched Pokemon so long ago that I can't even really remember it. Definitely a lot of filler in Naruto though, so that'd work.
How many Saiyans does it take to change a lightbulb? Just one, but it'll take him ten episodes.. But oh yeah, Naruto was pretty hardcore at times as well. Didn't the original series literally end with two or three entire filler seasons? :D
Ahhh, this takes me back. Anyone remember the Mayor of the town asking for D-cup ladies? How about when Merchant was released? I remember making and I think maxing out a Staff Monk. First rule of DOMO: Find a way to heal yourself. I also remember the pets. An update ruined the skin tone of my character, which matched with a Lily pet. Good times. I miss those days.
I remember the mayor now that you mention it. Aeria ran the game into the ground but I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss it. I met a lot of friends through the game.
Back in 2007~2009 this wasn't so much an MMORPG as it was a hangout with MMORPG elements. That being the case, there was an actual player population and almost the entire server would just hang out at Eversun. This caused the game to stutter really bad as it loaded each player in and made things quite laggy once they did. I played on the version hosted by Aeria Games so there was often lots of little events being hosted by the GMs at the center for some extra noise. These days, playing the hollowed out shell you can find on Steam in a mostly empty world as you only have memories of enjoyment is a very harrowing experience, not unlike your favorite mall in its final days before becoming abandoned. The interesting class system and gameplay alone definitely can't hold itself up. Suba didn't even have the character clothes permanent like Aeria did, so you don't feel like spending any money.
I remember that version too. I think I played almost everything on that game portal site. Shaiya, Last Chaos, DOMO, anything that caught my attention back at that time. I also remember the short lived Dynasty Warriors Online too, which I think also died very quickly, I think it stopped operation after the earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
Ahhhh you nailed it. I spent so much actually leveling and such, but talking shit in Eversun global chat, chatting in dungeons while everyone recovered, the small talk as you tried to find a group to even run a dungeon with before the team finder... That was the game as much as picking your classes. Hey do you remember the New Year monsters? Specifically that time a bunch were spawned right outside of Eversun? The guild I was in might have had something to do with that lol
I'm really glad Josh appreciated the zombie design. I didn't even notice but I'm glad somebody did. Think about all the hard work of the character designers, they deserve credit where it's due.
Well to be fair a Zombie with a Talisman on the head is called a Jiangshi which is basically the bog standard Chinese design for Zombies. If you played or seen Genshin impact there is a reason why one of the character called Qiqi has a talisman on her head because this is the standard design of Chinese Zombies.
@@Meowdyzone Is it though? Western zombie design stems from a completely difference source which is usually attributed to zombification via a viral agent. So it only makes sense that western zombies would look like people who died or are sick and emaciated.
@@GeorgeMonet Yes because "A man dies, and his restless spirit refuses to leave, causing him to rise from the dead" or the many variants of the Jiangshi myth are usually more interesting than "they died of a mysterious virus". One has the suspension of disbelief by default because it involves ancient magic, evil spirits, etc. whereas the other becomes instantly less interesting the moment you realize a Zombie-esque virus wouldn't really work no matter how hard you try because of the laws of nature.
Something to bear in mind is that this game was designed to work on dial-up, while a lot of the game's core engine has been adjusted to work on newer hardware very little has actually been upgraded... The game was always advertised as a "Social MMO" and was specifically highlighted by the devs as NOT being an "MMORPG", you can see this in features such as the destiny system, rival/friend/etc. and the focus on party-based grinding, with solo grinding only being viable if you exploit the game's systems. Edit: the latest game in the series just had its release date confirmed since I posted this message "xuan Yuan sword 7", release date 30/9, made by the same studio (within softstar) that made DoMO
As someone who played this game during their childhood, and recently started playing again, yeah this game is hot garbage. Yet somehow I'm hurt seeing someone else verbally destroy this game.
@@idminister when I played this game I thought it was better then WoW or FFXI because there was no sub... Yet I constantly bought Aeria Point cards with my allowance and probably spent more then I ever have on my FFXIV sub Granted now that I have the benefit of hindsight, I wouldn't have enjoyed FFXI and might not have enjoyed WoW since I was an impatient bastard back then
@@Zack_Wester yes actually. I have a few Lv99 jobs mastered and was working on a Mythic/Aeonic before getting burnt out sometime last year If you mean that old computer, probably not. PS2 was likely stronger then my PC was then. I was still using prebuilt Dell PCs
I pity the fool who played this hot garbage in childhood! Consider playing the absolutely free Daggerfall Unity (or even the original DOS-based Daggerfall if you're feeling _really_ adventurous) and experiencing a true 3D Medieval fantasy computer RPG!
By far my favorite childhood MMO. So many sweet memories! I spent countless hours on it and this is pretty much where I learned English. The community was lovely, welcoming and very friendly. Unfortunately it was never given a substantial update and it looks painfully outdated.
@@TheAyanamiRei true. I raised a bit of concern that despite how heavy grind this game is, there is lack of effort to lessened the grind for players aside from introducing paid focused instance. It's hard to solo grind actually and it gets boring watching your characters do the same action to trash mobs hoping to get one level. Not to mention, new classes that I actually like to try was locked behind mastering two classes first and with domo current rates. I doubt I could reach that in two months now that I have less time to play with games. It's a pity that this project was greenlighted by players if i recall correctly and suba gimmick was mostly to exploit player nostalgia and do bare minimum to quench the thirst. Even on domo closing days on Aria, i still could easily find cask party but now, almost every fave group spots remain empty.
Oh maaan this brings me back to elementary school. Couldn't get into world of warcraft cuz my parents weren't into the idea of subscription games. Tried out a few games and this one was the most approachable and I liked the cutesy art style. Loved it, made friends, grinded just for the hell of it. As much nostalgia I have for it, yeah its bad, especially considering how much the genre has evolved. But, it'll always have a special place in my heart.
@@somberflight I've played many subpar MMORPGs made fun by an awesome community, and have left many good MMORPGs because of subpar communities. My only experience with DoMo is relatively recent and it's definitely not a game whose universe & lore interests me (at least not in the first few hours). I'll give it a few more hours.
@@somberflight I've downloaded it again and tried but I lasted 10 minutes before I uninstalled it again. By todays standard it's plain aweful. No idea how Strife lasts that long. DoMo is plain, empty and does not hold your hand that's for sure. I somehow remember it differently. Back then it was fun and I have great memories of it playing it with a friend.
@@sahaara7946 Heh. I remember just grinding mobs all day, getting money and exp for the next set of weapons/armour as I kept doing it. Both me and my ex quit the game soon after we reached a certain level, we'd just sit in one of the buildings and chat all day without actually doing anything. Anyways, it was fun for a while, but it is really meh. I remember controls being quite clunky even *with* the nostalgia, however.
3:10 "Siren's don't ring, bells' ring!" Bells create a sound which is referred to in onomatopoeia as a 'ring'. However, all sounds can be said to 'ring out'. If I were to say "A gunshot rang out in the night" that would be fine, and perfectly normal prose. If I wrote instead "A gunshot banged out" that would seem strange and silly.
"So I had to swallow the red pill, and now my character won't stop ranting about Chads Staceys, and joining an online pickup artist community." Best line in the whole video.
In it's prime, DOMO was advertised as Social MMO. It was fun when servers were populated and you had lot of people to play with. Game mechanics were simple but group grind was actually quite relaxing since there was like no instanced dungeons etc. Nowadays, when servers are on the dead side, you would struggle to find redeeming qualities. Maybe other then the fact how they treated Alts and interactions with them. And red line to players was at least a conversation starter (Again, then game was populated by active players). I still have friends that i met in DOMO.
22:00 this looks like the good ol' 2D movement, where entities are actually glued to a 2D ground surface, wchich can be rendered in a 3D environment. It's much simpler to program and a lot lighter to run than actual 3D physics, so it's fairly common in old games.
Usually when an NPC tells you that the next step in the quest is to talk to them, it's usually because they're talking to you from far away and want you to go to where the NPC is. I imagine that in an earlier build of the game, that was probably the case with the Careers Advisor.
Way back when I played this for a while. I ended up befriending someone that was working on a cheat tool for the game. I can't remember what most of the options were on it but the most important one was being able to add unlimited stats upon level up. This was all well and good and made for powerful characters through cheating. At the time we thought that was it... but it turned out the game had an overflow issue. The doctor class (whatever it was called) could heal players not in combat or party. PVP damage couldn't be done to anyone unless they accepted a duel. Only... when the stat that effected healing was so high, it caused an an error that made any healing instantly one shot people with negative health. It caused a huge wave of people that would just obliterate towns worth of players as the passed through.
A couple of quick notes: First, I don't think the red lines are really indicating lust per se. In some Asian countries, they have this concept called the red string of fate, and I think that's what it was referencing. It's like the western idea of a soulmate, basically there's an invisible red string tied to your pinky finger and it's connected to the finger of the one you're destined to be with. Second, the zombie design is based on things from Chinese folklore called Jiang-Si. I've also seen them called "corpse puppets" or "hopping zombies". They are corpses under the control of a master who controls them with magic. That's the actual purpose of the talismans covering their faces, it's needed to gain control of them. It's similar to a necromancer in D&D. I'm not an expert, but I thought that might explain some of the details.
This was one of my first MMOs, and I spent years on this game. I revisit it often, just to hear the soundtrack and look around at the vendors. Love the honest review though, nostalgia aside I never even got past the first town, so seeing that it really was terrible is very validating!
I love how I'm more engaged by the 4:3 aspect ratio black bars jokes and changed than the game itself. Josh can make even seeing paint dry fun to watch!
FYI, the zombies in this game is called a "jiangshi" its commonly used by chinese to signify "zombie" theres surprisingly a wide variety of jiangshi. theres also "blood jiangshis" basically a stronger version of it that is kinda like a vampire
Dream of Mirror is simply VERY old (20 yo) and free. It has many nice ideas. The pet and mount system was brilliant (basically what Pokémon has been unable to do for years), the commerce was nice and the legendary weapons had some nice lateral thinking. For example the marauder could equip lance (2h) or axe + shield for less damage but more def. Lance skills however compensated for that and had more active tanking capabilities. The legendary for marauder was a 1h lance that allowed to equip shield. I remember that as mindblowing. The graphic for the time was also pretty decent (especially if you enable cel shading).
A note on the awful text: The original game from Aeria Games (before it was shut down... it came back under Suba from fan request) used a font that Windows 8 stopped using (Something Lao or something? It's been a while) so it defaults to the awful text you experienced. You can download and add the original font back to Windows to make it readable. Also, using the Steam version of the game is not recommended. And those aren't barriers, the game just has a stupidly low tolerance for terrain and angles. You can rebind the keys to wasd. You can also click and hold for auto run; it will follow the cursor and let you maneuver with the mouse. At level 15 you can kill a boss to learn how to fly (on your weapon) which helps travel some. Classes mix abilities, something I've only seen in FFXIV: A Realm Reborn (and should be in more games). There is quite a bit of crafting, but it is grindy. You get level up bonuses for playing in a party... which is necessary. The story is a bit humorous and had funny moments. Honestly, despite how grindy the game is, there are a few things to keep in mind: It's a free game from 2004. It was developed by a Chinese studio that hated licensing the game out, Aeria games had to shut it down because of that, and another publisher couldn't pick it up for another 4 years. And it was very loved, since the community originally stuck around for over two years without a single update before the shutdown. And, if I'm being honest, I love the game. There still isn't another free game like it in terms of sandbox systems (combination of crafting, questing, classes, story, etc.) unless you pay a subscription for FFXIV. You didn't get very far into the game, to be honest. And while the criticisms you make are often fair, I can't say I agree with how much salt you gave the game.
I feel like it's hard to agree with, frankly, most of his opinions on MMOs. The nature of MMORPGs means you're expected to put some time into it. He plays the games for part of 1 day and spits out a critique as if he knows anything but surface level garbage about it. And while many of these games are... fairly objectively not good games in comparison to what most people know about, it's usually ALSO pretty obvious that he's making it worse than it is by not knowing what he's doing at all. The amount of times I've seen him complain about combat being bad whilst he's totally ignoring abilities and just autoattacking is insane for how few videos I've seen.
@@Ventorath To start with, I think Josh utterly dropped the ball with DOMO. He didn't even give it the amount of time he gave other games. This 'worst MMO' review was the worst of all the ones I've seen (and I've seen them all at this point). I also think you make some interesting points, especially with Josh's approach to combat (which I agree with but for a reason I'll get into in a bit). Though I don't agree with the idea that most of his opinions are hard to agree with. As someone who has searched for and played nearly every free 3D MMORPG from about 2001 to 2010, and put in around 10-30 hours for the bad games, about 50-80 hours for the forgettable games, and hundreds to thousands of hours for the ones I enjoyed, I'd like to point out that one only needs about 4 hours (on average) to properly judge whether an MMORPG will be worth playing. I speak from personal experience, having never put less than 10 hours into a bad MMO, and usually more. There are tells, and Josh made a video about that, explaining many of them (but not all). It works that way with awards for writers and books, too. Judges, even for prestigious awards, in order to get thorough the tens of thousands of books that get published every year, will read about the first three paragraphs in the first chapter, and make their judgement based on that. And to be fair, it works if the judge is an experienced enough reader. There was a video on TH-cam here where someone who judged for awards for books on occasion admitted that was what happened, and then challenged himself to read the first paragraph of a few random stories given to him to demonstrate how it was viable. He accurately predicted slightly more than the general plot for 5 of the 5 books he read the first paragraph for. Maybe one can't predict the exact content later on, but it's easy to tell what kind of pitfalls an author/developer will likely fall into based on how their early content is treated and approached. Whether anyone likes it or not, that's how things usually are, and it's not so broken of a system to be unusable because people keep doing it and getting good enough results. With that said, I think you're onto something regarding how josh approaches combat, which is harmful to making a meaningful review: There are definitely times where he doesn't use abilities, and in certain games, I can tell that was unfair. But there is something to be said about bad basic attacks indicating bad combat... though Josh seems to be using the wrong ques for it to determine whether using abilities or not will make a meaningful improvement. What should be judged are animation timings, integration into the combat system, and animation effort. If the game fails on all three, I'd say it's fine to ignore abilities. However, if the game gets even one right, a reviewer should try and use the abilities since there may actually be meaning to them. DOMO got all three right, in this case, and Josh missed it. I still believe a lot of Josh's criticisms are correct, but, if he was going to be that scathing about the game, this is what should have happened: Josh should have given it the full 8 hours, he should have used the abilities, he should have levelled one class up to 15 and used another with the skill sharing system. He spent too much time on the frivolous, and never adjusted his play time to account for that. The game makes it obvious that there are a lot of different things to do, but even after becoming aware of all there was, he decided to stay distracted. He didn't get into the social nor the story aspects, and that frustrated me. Why? My best friend couldn't stand FFXIV because he got lost and didn't bother trying to learn how to use the maps effectively... and FFXIV is an objectively good game. But my friend is a truck driver, not a critic. Seeing someone who makes his image/job as a reviewer do basically the same thing was beyond unprofessional. Granted, I am biased, but as someone who started playing from beta to the day it shut down, and then returned after a few years of FFXIV, and then said, "It's about what I remember... rough around the edges and maybe a bit easier now, which is nice." I don't think I speak strictly (or even mostly) from nostalgia. I get that the graphics are dated, that collision is a nightmare, and that there's a lot of work to be done to bring it up to today's level of polish... work that will never be done. But DOMO is not an objectively bad game... it's just old. It was DOMO that spoiled classes for every other MMO I would try until FFXIV: ARR came along, which used nearly the same system (though cross-class abilities have been mostly removed from FFXIV now... you used to be able to tack on some Scholar and Warrior spells as a monk... it was awesome).
@@sleepyancient6655 with regards to the class/skill system: "runes of magic" has an absolutely identical system to DoMO, but RoM released around 5 years after... and they filed a patent for it claiming they were the first game ever to use that system... so yeah... unlikely you'll see any other games try to use that system now... FF14 2.0 at launch had a similar system but it was very role-based rather than being flexible...
This game has some awesome concepts around leveling load outs that other games have never been able to successfully recreate. The diablo style class tree but allowing abilities to be used across classes. It really made the ungodly grind that the game is rewarding. BUT ultimately the gameplay can never be satisfying because its just too clunky. Its really a lobby game for people who want to hang out in a chat room and also want to feel like they are gaming. I know MANY people who met in this game and got married in real life. Picked it back up after many years. Its about the same but nerfed because no modern gamer would stand for the awful grind the original was. At least not enough of them to support the game. The fix is that to level past 70 uou have to start classes over completely. Brutal.
Yeahh my TH-cam icon was the laugh.avi I made of my shura in a miko outfit laughing for the longest time. I also probably still have the creepy dancing mailbox clip too, and the cat that would randomly meow at you.
Interesting take, DOMO has been one of the best MMORPGs I have played tbh and still regard it as one. I'm not even talking from nostalgic point of view, as I replayed it last year to lv30 range with my gf in a 10h session. This is a 16 year old game. It originally came out a year after WoW. It has an amazing multiclass system that I haven't seen in any other game. There are raid bosses, marriage system, teacher-student system, PvP arena and back in the day a lot of community organised events. Welp, this games requires you to play with others. Preferably in duos or trios. Later on with full parties to level. The way the different classes synergise with each other is fantastic. Solo gameplay is also viable thanks to the thief class. It does require quite a bit of metaknowledge to be really enjoyable though. EDIT: Btw. It's taiwanese not chinese.
I remember playing the BETA of this like 10 years ago, when I was trying every MMORPG available. I liked the background musics and still remember some of them
Is it bad I'm getting more entertainment by watching the sidebars then I am watching the game? The love lines reminded me that I actually did play this game forever and a day ago.
Counting Horse Riding Tales, this game was the least enjoyable experience out of all of the games you've covered. Definitely not the worst game, but it's slow pace, uninteresting story, clunky controls, closed off world, and nothing really unique or so terrible to be unintentionally humorous made it a painful experience. Sphere 3, while generic, allowed for more exploration at least. League of Angels and Rebirth were at least unintentionally humorous. Even LuckCatchers was about 30 minutes of vaguely interesting sightseeing until realizing everywhere looks pretty much the same. I could be wrong, but it seems that specific horrible font was used in quite a few MMORPGs from back in that time period -- Tales of Pirates being one of them.
The game indeed has not aged well for the most part after 15 years, but it still does two things better than any MMOs I've ever seen: The social aspect as it highly encourages you to interact with other players and be part of a community, and the really flexible cross-class system that lets you mix the skills and passives of different classes letting you experiment with different viable builds.
I remember playing a lot of this one, about 12 years ago, it was more fun when there were more people in it, but right now, it does look like a 12 year old mmo stuck in its time. Capturing enemies in mirrors used to work, but was not so helpful. There were different sticks to get crystals much faster, but yes, Josh's impression is right.
@@imaran1303 no not at all, thats not how i took it either, I genuinely didnt know ff14 was popular 10 months ago, I'm only up on its recent success. Fantastic game
@@imaran1303 yea I saw some of that. One of the developers had cancer and hid it from his whole team? amazing, I happily pay my sub every month. cant wait for endwalker
At 17:10 now i have an idea for quest in my D&D game: Have the players find runes spelling out uh-eeh-uh-ah-aah-ting-tang-walla-walla-bing-bang. Or arrange them to open a door or something.
I recall being quite excited for this game for some reason. It reminded me of Ragnarok, which I liked a lot and such. And for a while I think it wasn't localised, so I was excited that it would get an English version. Then I played it for like 3 hours and was bored of it
This is one of those games, I feel I played in the past for a short while. However, when trying to remember it feels more like a fever dream than anything else :D
I loved this game back in the day before they closed it down. The classes were really unique and had cool skills, and all of the mob and gear design was cool. The world felt pretty huge and epic despite being technically small areas. This was my brain on teenager though.
oh man these bring back memories. Theres a pet system, a mount system and flight! flight makes a lot of those issued with terrain minimal, but I do remember how stupid it felt for that "no small ledges, flat surface only"
I am loving these videos. I know this is on a three year old one, but I have LOVED watching these videos of yours. I have played literally all of these games for at least a couple of hours. Years ago I went around the internet with a friend playtesting every MMO we could find to find a good free one. We never did! I mean we played Lord of the Rings Online for like a year, and others for amounts of time, but most of them, like this one in particular, we lasted maybe a day on. It's so funny to see some of these games still "alive", and like... they're just as bad as they were then. Or, maybe worse? because expectations /now/ are higher, so these games now stand out as egregiously bad.
No you don't understand. The careers advisor telling you to talk to the careers advisor is accurate as fuck. These devs know EXACTLY what college is like
I actually found this one fun, the job system was interesting since you could change jobs and some skills could be mixed with other jobs, the crafting was also fun, flying was cool. The grind sucked tho.
In most of the older rpg games positive and negative energy are the difference between life and undeath basically as long as you have positive energy you are alive and your fine. And if you have negative energy you are undead. If you were to be hit by a concentrated pulse of the opposite energy you will be hurt, killed, or possibly even swap sides. It would just need to be a powerful enough shot to do it. There are some rpg games where undead are not animated that way but the majority of them follow that pattern.
Honestly, you gotta get to a mid level(30-40) to really see the game’s class system open up. I played this as a kid then really got into it in high school. The game was so flexible if you knew what you were doing you could tank and heal at the same time. Or just go healer(you just had to watch your mp or have a Sara pet) This game has given me very high expectations for class and weapon mixing. And not to mention being able to put stats on costumes. That still blows my mind to this day, I had a witch outfit that was stacked with hp and mp boosts which really helped me level my lower classes. I had an outfit for defense boosts too. The pet I had(Ruby) was great for helping me clear a paths for dungeons or just moving around faster(and in style.) I am still sad I never got to a high enough level to take on any of the tower monsters before the huge dip in players and the server shutdown. Honestly, it’s really a pleasant game when you can have a full party to help you grind levels. Didn’t do much socializing except talking in the parties occasionally.
I think traditional medicine is just a art of every Chinese game tbh Most of em even require you to craft your own drugs with the cash shop having Better drugs in it
7:16 This kind of thing is why I'd be interested to see your Worst MMO series finally reach Final Fantasy 14. Because as good as it is, it does have a lot of the same weird flaws that frequently crop up in these lower-budget games. One of them is the keys A & D being turn, not strafe, I didn't figure out how to fix that one until I was Level 44 and it was very nearly the only part of the onboarding process that made me quit. But pertinent to this game, FFXIV has the same issue where its background music will stop, hang on silence, and then restart. It doesn't do it in towns or dungeons, only outdoor areas. And you wouldn't normally notice, if you're flying around with your mount music or getting into combat with the fight music. But when you're sat in one spot fishing for hours, then you notice. A lot of outdoor areas, such as Lower La Noscea, play roughly 20 seconds of music followed by 40 seconds of silence, on loop.
Shift makes you run faster in most games except MMOs. Usually that's an ability like "sprint" or something. I know this video is two years old but I just came across your channel recently so I'm going through all your videos. Absolutely love this series, especially since a lot of the games are ones I've seen but went, "But what if it's not good?" And now I know and knowledge is power!
lol I barely cared about the story; I just endlessly grinded levels of all the classes. First game our entire family played together and did for a couple years, pretty dedicated. Yes, objectively this game is terrible. But it fed that particular addictive element in each of us...
That moment when you listen to the description of the monsters and realize that it's a hot take from a certain "eastern country" about western countries. I could be reading too much into it, but at the same time Weibo is being advertised for the game's videos and not TH-cam.
"If a random man gives you drugs say thankyou beacuse drugs are expensive" This made me laugh so hard, wish i hadnt been taking a sip of my drink at the time
if i'm not mistaken, the loading screen artwork at 9:35 was made by Nakayama Toru, character artist for the Mega Man Zero series, such an unmistakable style
The game is not that bad. I'm a long time DOMO player and absolutly love the game! Just need some time to get use to it and get to know ppl. However it would be great to have more ppl to play!
Back in college I was taking German and not doing very well. My prof put a "If you need more help see me during my office hours" So I got up extra early (It was an hour and a half commute) went to his office hours and asked him for help. He looked me dead in the face while I was sitting there at his office hours asking for help and said "Well if you need help you can always come by durring my office hours." ?????
ok just in case josh or anyone else would find this interesting, around 25:08 he talks about the zombie design. its actually not a zombie, its a Jiangshi, a monster from Chinese folklore that is often depicted with a talisman over its face hanging from its hat. sometimes Jiangshi is translated as "jumping vampire", sometimes as "zombie" with the former being more accurate. the jumping part of jumping vampire is due to their bodies being incredibly stiff due to rigor mortis meaning their movements are jerky and well, stiff. this results in them kind of hopping around instead of walking, the amount of hop vs walk varies based on the depiction though
Bizarrelly, I think that's the closest alternative to Final Fantasy XIV. And yeah, the questing in the game isn't fun, and is extremelly grindy. First of all, why all quests begins asking you to kill 20 things, or collect 20 things? Anyways, questing only incentivates you to level up, since the grinding is what actually gives you exp.
I have to admit that I really enjoyed Domo long ago. Got some good memorys about it^^ The multiclassing was pretty neat. I remember tanking dungeons while leveling as a mageclass with warrior subclass as the tank at the time just messed up so hard x3 Good times.
The worst part about the heartbeat is that it sounds just like the heartbeats of bandits in _my_ MMO when they're about to ambush you. So he's walking around getting eyes, and I'm looking for Imps to smack with a Dream Catcher so I can transform into them.
9:32 Megaman Zero artstyle spotted I remember those games. I have the complete collection on the DS and I think I may still have my GBA copy of the 2nd one that I got used from EB Games (Remember that store?) somewhere. They are very hard games though.
This video made me laugh a lot, but this game is far better than being the 'worst' MMO ever. I've played since Aeria Games ran it, shortly after open beta. When AG closed, I tried other things but nothing is like the community here. When Suba took over, they've actually done a lot of good. There are advancements, patches, updates and (even though the stairs will be a never ending problem) a lot of interesting graphics and game play. Don't judge by playing so little, every game has a learning curve to it and this game has SO much to learn. It's worth it. I still play this game (in fact I can be seen in your video parked outside the bank when you mentioned the idlers at the bank around 12:05) :P It's a great game though and while I enjoyed your levity, I think people should play and see for themselves what it's like. Above all, ASK QUESTIONS! The community as a whole are pretty helpful, save for a few trolls out there. (Which are in any game.)
Oh, Aeria closed? While I can't say I'm at all surprised, it feels a little saddening with all of the great memories I have of playing several games published through them.
As Josh says in many of his videos, it doesn't really matter how good your game *gets*, it matters how good your game starts and remains. Especially now, with so many games available that are actually up to date and the genre has experienced many QOL changes, there's no reason for people to continue playing a game that's difficult or frustrating to start on the promise that it "eventually gets better." Why not just play a game that is better from the start? It's a recurring thing we see in this series, most of these games have a (generally small) devoted fanbase that loves the game, but it fails to attract many/any new players because problems in the beginning turn people off of the game. The first few hours are extremely important, that's the portion of the game that the most people are going to experience, so it needs to be good enough to hook them, to make them want to come back. You see in the video that the servers shut down, he realizes it's going to be a few hours before maintenance is completed and even after a few hours of playing, he has no interest in waiting even that long to return.
@@WoWhistorian DOMO's kind of a weird edge case for this I think. It's not so much that the game takes a while to get good - the tutorial Josh showed here was obviously pretty grating since you don't get a class and getting around without being able to fly is a pain, but it only takes a couple hours to push through. It's more that the game just doesn't tell you how it expects you to play? You can't play DOMO as a 'solo player' in the way Josh tries when he reviews these games, because the game was deliberately designed to stop you from doing so unless most of your attention is on watching TV or doing work on another screen. The game is standing around in Eversun looking for friends and then going 'AoE farming' with them - an act in which you form together a weird kinda XP farming ecosystem with your party, that requires everyone's cooperation and general focus, but only demands actual button inputs once or twice a minute, thus giving everyone plenty of times to chat and use the activity as an icebreaker for conversation. But the tutorial just like, doesn't tell you any of this because the devs assumed someone in the large playerbase would tell you. Except it's a 15 year old game and there is no large playerbase. It's an incredibly well designed game, just kinda broken right now due to the lack of readily available players looking to complete content at all levels - especially the earlier ones, where groups can level quite quickly despite the systems in place to encourage more experienced players to do so - i.e. resetting your level to 'prestige' a class and allowing you to mix and match abilities between your classes, meaning that going back to level a doctor from level 10 even after achieving level 70 as say a Wizard, never feels like a waste of time. But with a bit of luck in running into a group or guild willing to complete low level content and knowledge of how the game is intended to be played, you can find the 'fun' in just a couple hours. In saying that, new players don't normally know where to find friends or what they're supposed to be doing to progress - or might just get unlucky and not find a group for several days, and as a result have an objectively terrible onboarding experience - so it wouldn't be fair to say that the game is consistently fun from start to finish either? Plus, the endgame is a pay to win mess that abandons all of the amazing design elements I listed earlier in favour of duo groups killing mobs in timed instances or completing tense raids with subpar class mechanics, that don't leave room for chatting or approach the depth (or price point) of modern subscription MMOs like FF14 or WoW. But you can play the game for a long ass time before having to resort to endgame content like that.
@@Pixie1001. the early game experience isn't well designed. And you literally said nothing that makes this game an exception. JSH has reviewed many games that have good design, but ruin too much and end up being bad games. Warframe, it's a "worst mmo ever" but JSH plays it after reviewing it.
Thank you for reminding me of this game it might be bad, but it's super nostalgic for me. I remember absolutely loving the log in music (I couldn't recall anything else about this mmorpg except that) and have been searching for it for a while.
I played this for a short while more than a decade ago. The flying was pretty novel. The starting monsters also were painfully cute, not aggressive and had dialogue about begging for mercy or crying when you killed their children. Brutal.
Daaaaamn, lol!
same here! I think I played it like a week
We have a MMORPG
that can cause mental trauma unless you are a psychopath
Same. Back before Suba games took over from Aeria Games. At the time i was like level 46ish (i dont quite remember). A few years after they took over I tried going back but there was no way I was able to get back into the game due to the grind and the cash shop pets i lost. Some of them were gifts from in-game friends. It was good at the time for a free to play game but F doing all that again.
Nice to know that's what's cool with China when it comes to games
13:50 "Drugs, okay. WoW. Kids remember, if a random man on the street gives you drugs, say thank you, because drugs are expensive." I've even watched this video before and forgot about that reference and died laughing
As an old Domo veteran I can tell you that those stairs in front of the bank are the main social hub. Those people aren't just sitting they're usually chatting, trading, and trying to scam each other.
The talisman on the face is a standard chinese Jiangshi/"Hopping zombie/vampire"
The red line is the red string of fate. It's a Chinese and Japanese thing where your destined partner (husband or wife) is connected to you by a red string of fate. It might be a part of other eastern mythologies as well, but I just know it's a thing in Japan and most likely China.
Just one thing to add: the game is not 7 years old. The game is actually 15 years old. The actual thing is... this is a re-launch of an old mmo, initially released on 2005 in taiwan and 2007 on NA. Thing is, back in 2005, for the time, it WAS a good mmo. But since it never evolved and the re-release by suba games didn't even touch on anything, the game aged badly and was not even compatible with newer OS (I was in the re-release beta, as the new of the re-release brought me to many memories and I got all excited... took them weeks to make the game fully work on windows 7 - 10 and be compatible with newer hardware).
At the time, the games premise and lore (all based on the taiwanese game series Xuan-Yuan Sword, wich is based on chinese mithology) were kinda inovative (there were no mmorpg with flying at the time, not even wow had flying mounts). But for today standards, the game itself is pretty shit.
FLYFF would like a word! (regarding the flying mechanics - think they got there first, though could be wrong. Not checked this, just going by memory)
As for DOMO - Game was first published in the West by Aeria Games I think, at least thats where I played it, the attempts to revive the game after Aeria killed it did not go very well :D
I remember my S6 lily that people literally followed me everywhere for lol. I kid you not, if you walked into a town with your S6 or any of the S-lily/love pets, you'd have an army of people following you, and trying to get you to trade it to them.
I guess if you were playing in Taiwan - in 2007 when you said it released in NA, WoW did indeed have flying mounts, and had for roughly 1 year.
@@solaresonance She was. And was actually the most desired of them. I miss her so much.
How many times are you gonna say "thing is" to make yourself sound smart?
4:38 "...unknown anime game to fill the space." Bless you sir.
The game i have a chronic addiction to
I dunno, it looks suspiciously like the critically-acclaimed final fantasy xiv, which has a free trial including a realm reborn and the award-winning expansion pack heavensward, allowing you to play up to level 60 for no cost
what did he say .... was missing that the stupid npc wont give me my tripple triad card.
@@TheDarkruler575 did you know the critically acclaimed mmorpg
What is it?
The delete password at the beginning is maybe for when you wanna delete your character and not to create it.
So, you'd have to type 123456 to delete the character, if you typed that at character creation.
Yeah, that's what I thought, too. It allows you to set a second password to protect that character from being deleted in the case that someone gains access to your account. Which is pretty smart, and not a bad approach for a time when 2FA wasn't a thing yet.
@@rolfs2165 Vindictus has a two password system too
that's pretty neat !
I'm a former player of the game, that's exactly what it's used for.
20:24 "A LOT of FILLER. Which means time for a background change." *Changes background to Goku and Vegeta.*
Oof. The truth really does hurt. XD
Kai, Pokémon Naruto or one piece would work better
@@SkyExplosion Never watched One Piece and I watched Pokemon so long ago that I can't even really remember it. Definitely a lot of filler in Naruto though, so that'd work.
@@SkyExplosion the filler works in one piece though, they are pirates, its not gonna be all action
How many Saiyans does it take to change a lightbulb? Just one, but it'll take him ten episodes..
But oh yeah, Naruto was pretty hardcore at times as well. Didn't the original series literally end with two or three entire filler seasons? :D
Bleach was bad at that too, the original dragon ball had a lot of filler
oh man this was my childhood. Any old Creampuffs guild members who happen to see this , it's been a while. Forever Creampuffs
Ahhh, this takes me back. Anyone remember the Mayor of the town asking for D-cup ladies? How about when Merchant was released? I remember making and I think maxing out a Staff Monk. First rule of DOMO: Find a way to heal yourself. I also remember the pets. An update ruined the skin tone of my character, which matched with a Lily pet. Good times. I miss those days.
I remember the mayor now that you mention it. Aeria ran the game into the ground but I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss it. I met a lot of friends through the game.
Back in 2007~2009 this wasn't so much an MMORPG as it was a hangout with MMORPG elements. That being the case, there was an actual player population and almost the entire server would just hang out at Eversun. This caused the game to stutter really bad as it loaded each player in and made things quite laggy once they did. I played on the version hosted by Aeria Games so there was often lots of little events being hosted by the GMs at the center for some extra noise. These days, playing the hollowed out shell you can find on Steam in a mostly empty world as you only have memories of enjoyment is a very harrowing experience, not unlike your favorite mall in its final days before becoming abandoned. The interesting class system and gameplay alone definitely can't hold itself up. Suba didn't even have the character clothes permanent like Aeria did, so you don't feel like spending any money.
I remember that version too. I think I played almost everything on that game portal site. Shaiya, Last Chaos, DOMO, anything that caught my attention back at that time. I also remember the short lived Dynasty Warriors Online too, which I think also died very quickly, I think it stopped operation after the earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
Ahhhh you nailed it. I spent so much actually leveling and such, but talking shit in Eversun global chat, chatting in dungeons while everyone recovered, the small talk as you tried to find a group to even run a dungeon with before the team finder... That was the game as much as picking your classes. Hey do you remember the New Year monsters? Specifically that time a bunch were spawned right outside of Eversun? The guild I was in might have had something to do with that lol
@@PinkAgaricus honestly, same. I miss Shaiya sometimes. Full luck UM Hunter and my HM Pagan.
I'm really glad Josh appreciated the zombie design. I didn't even notice but I'm glad somebody did. Think about all the hard work of the character designers, they deserve credit where it's due.
Well to be fair a Zombie with a Talisman on the head is called a Jiangshi which is basically the bog standard Chinese design for Zombies.
If you played or seen Genshin impact there is a reason why one of the character called Qiqi has a talisman on her head because this is the standard design of Chinese Zombies.
@@waiyon1951 I'll admit at least it's a lot more interesting than the generic zombie design western pop culture has.
@@Meowdyzone Is it though? Western zombie design stems from a completely difference source which is usually attributed to zombification via a viral agent. So it only makes sense that western zombies would look like people who died or are sick and emaciated.
@@GeorgeMonet Yes because "A man dies, and his restless spirit refuses to leave, causing him to rise from the dead" or the many variants of the Jiangshi myth are usually more interesting than "they died of a mysterious virus".
One has the suspension of disbelief by default because it involves ancient magic, evil spirits, etc. whereas the other becomes instantly less interesting the moment you realize a Zombie-esque virus wouldn't really work no matter how hard you try because of the laws of nature.
Nooo... nooo... nooo.. that's OK
Something to bear in mind is that this game was designed to work on dial-up, while a lot of the game's core engine has been adjusted to work on newer hardware very little has actually been upgraded...
The game was always advertised as a "Social MMO" and was specifically highlighted by the devs as NOT being an "MMORPG", you can see this in features such as the destiny system, rival/friend/etc. and the focus on party-based grinding, with solo grinding only being viable if you exploit the game's systems.
Edit: the latest game in the series just had its release date confirmed since I posted this message "xuan Yuan sword 7", release date 30/9, made by the same studio (within softstar) that made DoMO
16yrs ago is still not dial up tech so I don't get it.
@@xenxander 16 years ago not everyone was on anything better than dial up.
@@xenxander im from the US and my region didnt escape dialup until 2014
@@xenxander Many of my friends had dial up back in 2008-09 still so it depends on the household ig.
As someone who played this game during their childhood, and recently started playing again, yeah this game is hot garbage.
Yet somehow I'm hurt seeing someone else verbally destroy this game.
I thought it was a fine free alternative to FFXI, back in those days.
@@idminister when I played this game I thought it was better then WoW or FFXI because there was no sub...
Yet I constantly bought Aeria Point cards with my allowance and probably spent more then I ever have on my FFXIV sub
Granted now that I have the benefit of hindsight, I wouldn't have enjoyed FFXI and might not have enjoyed WoW since I was an impatient bastard back then
@@Feast_ question could your computer run FFXI?
I recall DOMO running on toasters.
@@Zack_Wester yes actually. I have a few Lv99 jobs mastered and was working on a Mythic/Aeonic before getting burnt out sometime last year
If you mean that old computer, probably not. PS2 was likely stronger then my PC was then. I was still using prebuilt Dell PCs
I pity the fool who played this hot garbage in childhood! Consider playing the absolutely free Daggerfall Unity (or even the original DOS-based Daggerfall if you're feeling _really_ adventurous) and experiencing a true 3D Medieval fantasy computer RPG!
By far my favorite childhood MMO. So many sweet memories! I spent countless hours on it and this is pretty much where I learned English.
The community was lovely, welcoming and very friendly. Unfortunately it was never given a substantial update and it looks painfully outdated.
Same for me! I still remember falling asleep whilst lvl-ing and having school the next day. Good memories.
Loved it too. It had so many things to do for a MMO at those times. It was more like a social game. But yeah, under nowadays perspective it looks old.
I think it's cool that this game helped you learn English!
@@TheAyanamiRei true. I raised a bit of concern that despite how heavy grind this game is, there is lack of effort to lessened the grind for players aside from introducing paid focused instance.
It's hard to solo grind actually and it gets boring watching your characters do the same action to trash mobs hoping to get one level.
Not to mention, new classes that I actually like to try was locked behind mastering two classes first and with domo current rates. I doubt I could reach that in two months now that I have less time to play with games.
It's a pity that this project was greenlighted by players if i recall correctly and suba gimmick was mostly to exploit player nostalgia and do bare minimum to quench the thirst.
Even on domo closing days on Aria, i still could easily find cask party but now, almost every fave group spots remain empty.
25:10 it's actually a pretty generic design for Chinese undead. Jiangshi.
Oh maaan this brings me back to elementary school. Couldn't get into world of warcraft cuz my parents weren't into the idea of subscription games. Tried out a few games and this one was the most approachable and I liked the cutesy art style. Loved it, made friends, grinded just for the hell of it. As much nostalgia I have for it, yeah its bad, especially considering how much the genre has evolved. But, it'll always have a special place in my heart.
Elementary school in 2005? Fuck I'm old.
I'm looking forward to this video SO much! Back then I've played countless hours of this game! And yes, it's bad.
Yeah... It was fun though. Found my ex through this game.
@@somberflight I've played many subpar MMORPGs made fun by an awesome community, and have left many good MMORPGs because of subpar communities.
My only experience with DoMo is relatively recent and it's definitely not a game whose universe & lore interests me (at least not in the first few hours). I'll give it a few more hours.
@@somberflight I've downloaded it again and tried but I lasted 10 minutes before I uninstalled it again. By todays standard it's plain aweful. No idea how Strife lasts that long. DoMo is plain, empty and does not hold your hand that's for sure. I somehow remember it differently. Back then it was fun and I have great memories of it playing it with a friend.
@@sahaara7946 Heh. I remember just grinding mobs all day, getting money and exp for the next set of weapons/armour as I kept doing it. Both me and my ex quit the game soon after we reached a certain level, we'd just sit in one of the buildings and chat all day without actually doing anything. Anyways, it was fun for a while, but it is really meh. I remember controls being quite clunky even *with* the nostalgia, however.
i second this statement btw b>matz i'll be in eversun city at bank
3:10
"Siren's don't ring, bells' ring!"
Bells create a sound which is referred to in onomatopoeia as a 'ring'. However, all sounds can be said to 'ring out'. If I were to say "A gunshot rang out in the night" that would be fine, and perfectly normal prose. If I wrote instead "A gunshot banged out" that would seem strange and silly.
"So I had to swallow the red pill, and now my character won't stop ranting about Chads Staceys, and joining an online pickup artist community." Best line in the whole video.
Only a Supreme Gentleman could get 2 red romance lines on him at the same time
I raise you: "There's a witch doctor class. Ooo...eee...ooo ah ah. Ting tang...walla walla bing bang."
But that one's definitely a contender.
In it's prime, DOMO was advertised as Social MMO. It was fun when servers were populated and you had lot of people to play with. Game mechanics were simple but group grind was actually quite relaxing since there was like no instanced dungeons etc. Nowadays, when servers are on the dead side, you would struggle to find redeeming qualities. Maybe other then the fact how they treated Alts and interactions with them.
And red line to players was at least a conversation starter (Again, then game was populated by active players).
I still have friends that i met in DOMO.
Ah the class mixing skills are still pretty great, I've yet to find a game that did it better. What server were you? I was on Onyx, ah the nostalgia.
22:00 this looks like the good ol' 2D movement, where entities are actually glued to a 2D ground surface, wchich can be rendered in a 3D environment. It's much simpler to program and a lot lighter to run than actual 3D physics, so it's fairly common in old games.
"Breaking news! Giant cat man and tiny sprite girl get hitched!" LMAO if that happened I would have died laughing.
Usually when an NPC tells you that the next step in the quest is to talk to them, it's usually because they're talking to you from far away and want you to go to where the NPC is.
I imagine that in an earlier build of the game, that was probably the case with the Careers Advisor.
The screenshot part was actually kinda adorable, not gonna lie
This game was great when it first came out. The subclass system was innovative and party training and raids were enjoyable
"Dont worry, i made this choice before... Lok Tar Ogar!" Man i laugh so much in this minute 🤣🤣🤣
Its clearly the best choice.
Way back when I played this for a while. I ended up befriending someone that was working on a cheat tool for the game. I can't remember what most of the options were on it but the most important one was being able to add unlimited stats upon level up. This was all well and good and made for powerful characters through cheating. At the time we thought that was it... but it turned out the game had an overflow issue. The doctor class (whatever it was called) could heal players not in combat or party. PVP damage couldn't be done to anyone unless they accepted a duel. Only... when the stat that effected healing was so high, it caused an an error that made any healing instantly one shot people with negative health. It caused a huge wave of people that would just obliterate towns worth of players as the passed through.
"Who took this username?'
What if you did it and just forgot?
Well this game was probably 15 years old by now it was pretty popular where im from... played for more than 10 years... my first mmo probably
A couple of quick notes:
First, I don't think the red lines are really indicating lust per se. In some Asian countries, they have this concept called the red string of fate, and I think that's what it was referencing. It's like the western idea of a soulmate, basically there's an invisible red string tied to your pinky finger and it's connected to the finger of the one you're destined to be with.
Second, the zombie design is based on things from Chinese folklore called Jiang-Si. I've also seen them called "corpse puppets" or "hopping zombies". They are corpses under the control of a master who controls them with magic. That's the actual purpose of the talismans covering their faces, it's needed to gain control of them. It's similar to a necromancer in D&D.
I'm not an expert, but I thought that might explain some of the details.
That was really entertaining and funny! I liked the side borders and their change! That was a nice trip down memory lane.
Me: Plans to get some sleep
John: New Bad MMO Video!
Me: Sleep is for the Weak I guess *Grabs chocolate milk and gets ready*
The sugary kind of chocolate milk or the protein version?
The whole me: shit is getting old.
The background changes were just 👌
i laughed a bit too hard at the "too much plot" bit. good stuff lol
This was one of my first MMOs, and I spent years on this game. I revisit it often, just to hear the soundtrack and look around at the vendors. Love the honest review though, nostalgia aside I never even got past the first town, so seeing that it really was terrible is very validating!
I love how I'm more engaged by the 4:3 aspect ratio black bars jokes and changed than the game itself.
Josh can make even seeing paint dry fun to watch!
FYI, the zombies in this game is called a "jiangshi" its commonly used by chinese to signify "zombie"
theres surprisingly a wide variety of jiangshi. theres also "blood jiangshis" basically a stronger version of it that is kinda like a vampire
Oh, that's why they hop!
Dream of Mirror is simply VERY old (20 yo) and free. It has many nice ideas. The pet and mount system was brilliant (basically what Pokémon has been unable to do for years), the commerce was nice and the legendary weapons had some nice lateral thinking. For example the marauder could equip lance (2h) or axe + shield for less damage but more def. Lance skills however compensated for that and had more active tanking capabilities. The legendary for marauder was a 1h lance that allowed to equip shield. I remember that as mindblowing. The graphic for the time was also pretty decent (especially if you enable cel shading).
A note on the awful text: The original game from Aeria Games (before it was shut down... it came back under Suba from fan request) used a font that Windows 8 stopped using (Something Lao or something? It's been a while) so it defaults to the awful text you experienced. You can download and add the original font back to Windows to make it readable.
Also, using the Steam version of the game is not recommended.
And those aren't barriers, the game just has a stupidly low tolerance for terrain and angles.
You can rebind the keys to wasd. You can also click and hold for auto run; it will follow the cursor and let you maneuver with the mouse.
At level 15 you can kill a boss to learn how to fly (on your weapon) which helps travel some.
Classes mix abilities, something I've only seen in FFXIV: A Realm Reborn (and should be in more games).
There is quite a bit of crafting, but it is grindy.
You get level up bonuses for playing in a party... which is necessary.
The story is a bit humorous and had funny moments.
Honestly, despite how grindy the game is, there are a few things to keep in mind: It's a free game from 2004. It was developed by a Chinese studio that hated licensing the game out, Aeria games had to shut it down because of that, and another publisher couldn't pick it up for another 4 years. And it was very loved, since the community originally stuck around for over two years without a single update before the shutdown.
And, if I'm being honest, I love the game. There still isn't another free game like it in terms of sandbox systems (combination of crafting, questing, classes, story, etc.) unless you pay a subscription for FFXIV. You didn't get very far into the game, to be honest. And while the criticisms you make are often fair, I can't say I agree with how much salt you gave the game.
I feel like it's hard to agree with, frankly, most of his opinions on MMOs. The nature of MMORPGs means you're expected to put some time into it. He plays the games for part of 1 day and spits out a critique as if he knows anything but surface level garbage about it. And while many of these games are... fairly objectively not good games in comparison to what most people know about, it's usually ALSO pretty obvious that he's making it worse than it is by not knowing what he's doing at all. The amount of times I've seen him complain about combat being bad whilst he's totally ignoring abilities and just autoattacking is insane for how few videos I've seen.
@@Ventorath To start with, I think Josh utterly dropped the ball with DOMO. He didn't even give it the amount of time he gave other games. This 'worst MMO' review was the worst of all the ones I've seen (and I've seen them all at this point). I also think you make some interesting points, especially with Josh's approach to combat (which I agree with but for a reason I'll get into in a bit). Though I don't agree with the idea that most of his opinions are hard to agree with.
As someone who has searched for and played nearly every free 3D MMORPG from about 2001 to 2010, and put in around 10-30 hours for the bad games, about 50-80 hours for the forgettable games, and hundreds to thousands of hours for the ones I enjoyed, I'd like to point out that one only needs about 4 hours (on average) to properly judge whether an MMORPG will be worth playing. I speak from personal experience, having never put less than 10 hours into a bad MMO, and usually more.
There are tells, and Josh made a video about that, explaining many of them (but not all). It works that way with awards for writers and books, too. Judges, even for prestigious awards, in order to get thorough the tens of thousands of books that get published every year, will read about the first three paragraphs in the first chapter, and make their judgement based on that. And to be fair, it works if the judge is an experienced enough reader. There was a video on TH-cam here where someone who judged for awards for books on occasion admitted that was what happened, and then challenged himself to read the first paragraph of a few random stories given to him to demonstrate how it was viable. He accurately predicted slightly more than the general plot for 5 of the 5 books he read the first paragraph for.
Maybe one can't predict the exact content later on, but it's easy to tell what kind of pitfalls an author/developer will likely fall into based on how their early content is treated and approached. Whether anyone likes it or not, that's how things usually are, and it's not so broken of a system to be unusable because people keep doing it and getting good enough results.
With that said, I think you're onto something regarding how josh approaches combat, which is harmful to making a meaningful review: There are definitely times where he doesn't use abilities, and in certain games, I can tell that was unfair. But there is something to be said about bad basic attacks indicating bad combat... though Josh seems to be using the wrong ques for it to determine whether using abilities or not will make a meaningful improvement.
What should be judged are animation timings, integration into the combat system, and animation effort. If the game fails on all three, I'd say it's fine to ignore abilities. However, if the game gets even one right, a reviewer should try and use the abilities since there may actually be meaning to them. DOMO got all three right, in this case, and Josh missed it.
I still believe a lot of Josh's criticisms are correct, but, if he was going to be that scathing about the game, this is what should have happened:
Josh should have given it the full 8 hours, he should have used the abilities, he should have levelled one class up to 15 and used another with the skill sharing system. He spent too much time on the frivolous, and never adjusted his play time to account for that. The game makes it obvious that there are a lot of different things to do, but even after becoming aware of all there was, he decided to stay distracted. He didn't get into the social nor the story aspects, and that frustrated me. Why? My best friend couldn't stand FFXIV because he got lost and didn't bother trying to learn how to use the maps effectively... and FFXIV is an objectively good game. But my friend is a truck driver, not a critic. Seeing someone who makes his image/job as a reviewer do basically the same thing was beyond unprofessional.
Granted, I am biased, but as someone who started playing from beta to the day it shut down, and then returned after a few years of FFXIV, and then said, "It's about what I remember... rough around the edges and maybe a bit easier now, which is nice." I don't think I speak strictly (or even mostly) from nostalgia. I get that the graphics are dated, that collision is a nightmare, and that there's a lot of work to be done to bring it up to today's level of polish... work that will never be done. But DOMO is not an objectively bad game... it's just old. It was DOMO that spoiled classes for every other MMO I would try until FFXIV: ARR came along, which used nearly the same system (though cross-class abilities have been mostly removed from FFXIV now... you used to be able to tack on some Scholar and Warrior spells as a monk... it was awesome).
@@sleepyancient6655 with regards to the class/skill system: "runes of magic" has an absolutely identical system to DoMO, but RoM released around 5 years after... and they filed a patent for it claiming they were the first game ever to use that system... so yeah... unlikely you'll see any other games try to use that system now... FF14 2.0 at launch had a similar system but it was very role-based rather than being flexible...
@@sleepyancient6655 repost your comment or DM it to him. A revisit would be cool
@@sleepyancient6655 Honestly this game doesn't look even remotely interesting.
"An exact copy of the real world... But different."
This game has some awesome concepts around leveling load outs that other games have never been able to successfully recreate. The diablo style class tree but allowing abilities to be used across classes.
It really made the ungodly grind that the game is rewarding. BUT ultimately the gameplay can never be satisfying because its just too clunky. Its really a lobby game for people who want to hang out in a chat room and also want to feel like they are gaming. I know MANY people who met in this game and got married in real life.
Picked it back up after many years. Its about the same but nerfed because no modern gamer would stand for the awful grind the original was. At least not enough of them to support the game. The fix is that to level past 70 uou have to start classes over completely. Brutal.
Christ i played this wayyyy back on AG in 2008....this brings back memories.
Yeahh my TH-cam icon was the laugh.avi I made of my shura in a miko outfit laughing for the longest time. I also probably still have the creepy dancing mailbox clip too, and the cat that would randomly meow at you.
Interesting take, DOMO has been one of the best MMORPGs I have played tbh and still regard it as one. I'm not even talking from nostalgic point of view, as I replayed it last year to lv30 range with my gf in a 10h session. This is a 16 year old game. It originally came out a year after WoW. It has an amazing multiclass system that I haven't seen in any other game. There are raid bosses, marriage system, teacher-student system, PvP arena and back in the day a lot of community organised events. Welp, this games requires you to play with others. Preferably in duos or trios. Later on with full parties to level. The way the different classes synergise with each other is fantastic. Solo gameplay is also viable thanks to the thief class. It does require quite a bit of metaknowledge to be really enjoyable though.
EDIT: Btw. It's taiwanese not chinese.
I remember playing the BETA of this like 10 years ago, when I was trying every MMORPG available. I liked the background musics and still remember some of them
Would have been a lot longer than 10 years ago, the game officially launched in 2005.
Is it bad I'm getting more entertainment by watching the sidebars then I am watching the game?
The love lines reminded me that I actually did play this game forever and a day ago.
Counting Horse Riding Tales, this game was the least enjoyable experience out of all of the games you've covered. Definitely not the worst game, but it's slow pace, uninteresting story, clunky controls, closed off world, and nothing really unique or so terrible to be unintentionally humorous made it a painful experience. Sphere 3, while generic, allowed for more exploration at least. League of Angels and Rebirth were at least unintentionally humorous. Even LuckCatchers was about 30 minutes of vaguely interesting sightseeing until realizing everywhere looks pretty much the same.
I could be wrong, but it seems that specific horrible font was used in quite a few MMORPGs from back in that time period -- Tales of Pirates being one of them.
The game indeed has not aged well for the most part after 15 years, but it still does two things better than any MMOs I've ever seen:
The social aspect as it highly encourages you to interact with other players and be part of a community, and the really flexible cross-class system that lets you mix the skills and passives of different classes letting you experiment with different viable builds.
Of course they have to encourage interacting and making a community. That's why you would like to come back.
How does this game promote social interaction
What is it with low-player count MMOs having people standing around doing nothing? I've noticed this happening a lot in these videos lol.
I remember playing a lot of this one, about 12 years ago, it was more fun when there were more people in it, but right now, it does look like a 12 year old mmo stuck in its time. Capturing enemies in mirrors used to work, but was not so helpful. There were different sticks to get crystals much faster, but yes, Josh's impression is right.
That FF14 dig hurt... man. That hurt. Why you calling me out like this?
Hilarious joke 10 months ago... But it didn't age well lol thrilled for how successful FF14 is now
@@Spudawg I do believe he was joking and so was I. I did not actually think less of him when I assumed he did not like FF14.
@@imaran1303 no not at all, thats not how i took it either, I genuinely didnt know ff14 was popular 10 months ago, I'm only up on its recent success. Fantastic game
@@Spudawg It comes from the fact that the producers actually care about cranking out a good product.
@@imaran1303 yea I saw some of that. One of the developers had cancer and hid it from his whole team? amazing, I happily pay my sub every month. cant wait for endwalker
"Lok'tar ogar I chose the horde~I mean monsters" that one little line, is probably the highlight of this entire review
At 17:10 now i have an idea for quest in my D&D game:
Have the players find runes spelling out uh-eeh-uh-ah-aah-ting-tang-walla-walla-bing-bang.
Or arrange them to open a door or something.
I recall being quite excited for this game for some reason. It reminded me of Ragnarok, which I liked a lot and such. And for a while I think it wasn't localised, so I was excited that it would get an English version. Then I played it for like 3 hours and was bored of it
This is one of those games, I feel I played in the past for a short while. However, when trying to remember it feels more like a fever dream than anything else :D
I loved this game back in the day before they closed it down. The classes were really unique and had cool skills, and all of the mob and gear design was cool. The world felt pretty huge and epic despite being technically small areas. This was my brain on teenager though.
oh man these bring back memories. Theres a pet system, a mount system and flight! flight makes a lot of those issued with terrain minimal, but I do remember how stupid it felt for that "no small ledges, flat surface only"
I am loving these videos. I know this is on a three year old one, but I have LOVED watching these videos of yours. I have played literally all of these games for at least a couple of hours. Years ago I went around the internet with a friend playtesting every MMO we could find to find a good free one. We never did! I mean we played Lord of the Rings Online for like a year, and others for amounts of time, but most of them, like this one in particular, we lasted maybe a day on. It's so funny to see some of these games still "alive", and like... they're just as bad as they were then. Or, maybe worse? because expectations /now/ are higher, so these games now stand out as egregiously bad.
Love this series! I subbed after the first one!
No you don't understand. The careers advisor telling you to talk to the careers advisor is accurate as fuck. These devs know EXACTLY what college is like
that 10 second introduction is hilarious...
The background image of "another unknown anime mmo" made me crack up
I actually found this one fun, the job system was interesting since you could change jobs and some skills could be mixed with other jobs, the crafting was also fun, flying was cool. The grind sucked tho.
28:35 That was a GODLY joke
In most of the older rpg games positive and negative energy are the difference between life and undeath basically as long as you have positive energy you are alive and your fine. And if you have negative energy you are undead. If you were to be hit by a concentrated pulse of the opposite energy you will be hurt, killed, or possibly even swap sides. It would just need to be a powerful enough shot to do it. There are some rpg games where undead are not animated that way but the majority of them follow that pattern.
Honestly, you gotta get to a mid level(30-40) to really see the game’s class system open up. I played this as a kid then really got into it in high school. The game was so flexible if you knew what you were doing you could tank and heal at the same time. Or just go healer(you just had to watch your mp or have a Sara pet) This game has given me very high expectations for class and weapon mixing. And not to mention being able to put stats on costumes. That still blows my mind to this day, I had a witch outfit that was stacked with hp and mp boosts which really helped me level my lower classes. I had an outfit for defense boosts too. The pet I had(Ruby) was great for helping me clear a paths for dungeons or just moving around faster(and in style.) I am still sad I never got to a high enough level to take on any of the tower monsters before the huge dip in players and the server shutdown.
Honestly, it’s really a pleasant game when you can have a full party to help you grind levels.
Didn’t do much socializing except talking in the parties occasionally.
I think traditional medicine is just a art of every Chinese game tbh
Most of em even require you to craft your own drugs with the cash shop having Better drugs in it
4:29 Hmmm, I like the amount of Plot on that one actually
The background changes were hilarious. Thank you
"Wander around until you learn how to become a dragon again" sounds like the plot to a piece of Skyrim DLC
"Jumping is a sacred mechanic that should never be messed with!"
*Dark Souls 2 has entered the chat*
Hey Josh, love this series, seldom have I laughed as whole heartedly!
Glad you're enjoying it riff :)
7:16 This kind of thing is why I'd be interested to see your Worst MMO series finally reach Final Fantasy 14. Because as good as it is, it does have a lot of the same weird flaws that frequently crop up in these lower-budget games. One of them is the keys A & D being turn, not strafe, I didn't figure out how to fix that one until I was Level 44 and it was very nearly the only part of the onboarding process that made me quit. But pertinent to this game, FFXIV has the same issue where its background music will stop, hang on silence, and then restart.
It doesn't do it in towns or dungeons, only outdoor areas. And you wouldn't normally notice, if you're flying around with your mount music or getting into combat with the fight music. But when you're sat in one spot fishing for hours, then you notice. A lot of outdoor areas, such as Lower La Noscea, play roughly 20 seconds of music followed by 40 seconds of silence, on loop.
Shift makes you run faster in most games except MMOs. Usually that's an ability like "sprint" or something. I know this video is two years old but I just came across your channel recently so I'm going through all your videos. Absolutely love this series, especially since a lot of the games are ones I've seen but went, "But what if it's not good?" And now I know and knowledge is power!
lol I barely cared about the story; I just endlessly grinded levels of all the classes. First game our entire family played together and did for a couple years, pretty dedicated. Yes, objectively this game is terrible. But it fed that particular addictive element in each of us...
That moment when you listen to the description of the monsters and realize that it's a hot take from a certain "eastern country" about western countries. I could be reading too much into it, but at the same time Weibo is being advertised for the game's videos and not TH-cam.
28:37 I knew this joke was coming, and I still loved it, lol.
4:44 I love it. It truly is the perfect sidebar background.
That jab at the red pill had me laughing out loud. Good one.
"If a random man gives you drugs say thankyou beacuse drugs are expensive"
This made me laugh so hard, wish i hadnt been taking a sip of my drink at the time
if i'm not mistaken, the loading screen artwork at 9:35 was made by Nakayama Toru, character artist for the Mega Man Zero series, such an unmistakable style
oh so that is why i was getting those vibes of being like "wait they remind me of something" yeah they really do give a megaman zero vibe
Yeah, he was hired to make the artwork for many of DOMO's early days. One of its early splash art even has a Vent lookalike
Laughed out loud during the witch doctor reference :D
"I'm not mad, just disappointed", You're going to make a fine dad :)
The game is not that bad. I'm a long time DOMO player and absolutly love the game! Just need some time to get use to it and get to know ppl. However it would be great to have more ppl to play!
People are still playing DOMO? That's crazy to think about... I loved it back in my childhood, but I don't think I could get into it now.
@@LukesLog95 It's the same people from Aeria so everyone is 30+, first time being in my 20s made me young on a game. Lol nobody let go
The background changing constantly is pure gold. Laughed everytime
Back in college I was taking German and not doing very well. My prof put a "If you need more help see me during my office hours" So I got up extra early (It was an hour and a half commute) went to his office hours and asked him for help. He looked me dead in the face while I was sitting there at his office hours asking for help and said "Well if you need help you can always come by durring my office hours." ?????
ok just in case josh or anyone else would find this interesting, around 25:08 he talks about the zombie design. its actually not a zombie, its a Jiangshi, a monster from Chinese folklore that is often depicted with a talisman over its face hanging from its hat. sometimes Jiangshi is translated as "jumping vampire", sometimes as "zombie" with the former being more accurate. the jumping part of jumping vampire is due to their bodies being incredibly stiff due to rigor mortis meaning their movements are jerky and well, stiff. this results in them kind of hopping around instead of walking, the amount of hop vs walk varies based on the depiction though
This is like Bongun and Munak in Ragnarok Online.
Bizarrelly, I think that's the closest alternative to Final Fantasy XIV. And yeah, the questing in the game isn't fun, and is extremelly grindy. First of all, why all quests begins asking you to kill 20 things, or collect 20 things?
Anyways, questing only incentivates you to level up, since the grinding is what actually gives you exp.
I am so happy that you have to play these games and i just can watch :) Good job, love your videos!
I have to admit that I really enjoyed Domo long ago. Got some good memorys about it^^ The multiclassing was pretty neat.
I remember tanking dungeons while leveling as a mageclass with warrior subclass as the tank at the time just messed up so hard x3
Good times.
This review made me laugh so bloody hard. Definitely more entertaining than the game itself.
Holy shit, 18:34 had me laughing so hard!
The worst part about the heartbeat is that it sounds just like the heartbeats of bandits in _my_ MMO when they're about to ambush you. So he's walking around getting eyes, and I'm looking for Imps to smack with a Dream Catcher so I can transform into them.
9:32 Megaman Zero artstyle spotted
I remember those games. I have the complete collection on the DS and I think I may still have my GBA copy of the 2nd one that I got used from EB Games (Remember that store?) somewhere. They are very hard games though.
Yeah, the artist for Megaman Zero was actually hired during the early days of DOMO. I remember naming my character Vent too lol
This video made me laugh a lot, but this game is far better than being the 'worst' MMO ever. I've played since Aeria Games ran it, shortly after open beta. When AG closed, I tried other things but nothing is like the community here. When Suba took over, they've actually done a lot of good. There are advancements, patches, updates and (even though the stairs will be a never ending problem) a lot of interesting graphics and game play. Don't judge by playing so little, every game has a learning curve to it and this game has SO much to learn. It's worth it. I still play this game (in fact I can be seen in your video parked outside the bank when you mentioned the idlers at the bank around 12:05) :P It's a great game though and while I enjoyed your levity, I think people should play and see for themselves what it's like. Above all, ASK QUESTIONS! The community as a whole are pretty helpful, save for a few trolls out there. (Which are in any game.)
Oh, Aeria closed? While I can't say I'm at all surprised, it feels a little saddening with all of the great memories I have of playing several games published through them.
As Josh says in many of his videos, it doesn't really matter how good your game *gets*, it matters how good your game starts and remains. Especially now, with so many games available that are actually up to date and the genre has experienced many QOL changes, there's no reason for people to continue playing a game that's difficult or frustrating to start on the promise that it "eventually gets better." Why not just play a game that is better from the start?
It's a recurring thing we see in this series, most of these games have a (generally small) devoted fanbase that loves the game, but it fails to attract many/any new players because problems in the beginning turn people off of the game. The first few hours are extremely important, that's the portion of the game that the most people are going to experience, so it needs to be good enough to hook them, to make them want to come back. You see in the video that the servers shut down, he realizes it's going to be a few hours before maintenance is completed and even after a few hours of playing, he has no interest in waiting even that long to return.
@@WoWhistorian DOMO's kind of a weird edge case for this I think. It's not so much that the game takes a while to get good - the tutorial Josh showed here was obviously pretty grating since you don't get a class and getting around without being able to fly is a pain, but it only takes a couple hours to push through. It's more that the game just doesn't tell you how it expects you to play?
You can't play DOMO as a 'solo player' in the way Josh tries when he reviews these games, because the game was deliberately designed to stop you from doing so unless most of your attention is on watching TV or doing work on another screen. The game is standing around in Eversun looking for friends and then going 'AoE farming' with them - an act in which you form together a weird kinda XP farming ecosystem with your party, that requires everyone's cooperation and general focus, but only demands actual button inputs once or twice a minute, thus giving everyone plenty of times to chat and use the activity as an icebreaker for conversation.
But the tutorial just like, doesn't tell you any of this because the devs assumed someone in the large playerbase would tell you. Except it's a 15 year old game and there is no large playerbase.
It's an incredibly well designed game, just kinda broken right now due to the lack of readily available players looking to complete content at all levels - especially the earlier ones, where groups can level quite quickly despite the systems in place to encourage more experienced players to do so - i.e. resetting your level to 'prestige' a class and allowing you to mix and match abilities between your classes, meaning that going back to level a doctor from level 10 even after achieving level 70 as say a Wizard, never feels like a waste of time.
But with a bit of luck in running into a group or guild willing to complete low level content and knowledge of how the game is intended to be played, you can find the 'fun' in just a couple hours.
In saying that, new players don't normally know where to find friends or what they're supposed to be doing to progress - or might just get unlucky and not find a group for several days, and as a result have an objectively terrible onboarding experience - so it wouldn't be fair to say that the game is consistently fun from start to finish either?
Plus, the endgame is a pay to win mess that abandons all of the amazing design elements I listed earlier in favour of duo groups killing mobs in timed instances or completing tense raids with subpar class mechanics, that don't leave room for chatting or approach the depth (or price point) of modern subscription MMOs like FF14 or WoW. But you can play the game for a long ass time before having to resort to endgame content like that.
@@Pixie1001. the early game experience isn't well designed. And you literally said nothing that makes this game an exception. JSH has reviewed many games that have good design, but ruin too much and end up being bad games. Warframe, it's a "worst mmo ever" but JSH plays it after reviewing it.
Why did you have to do ffxiv like that but really your videos are amazing
Im glad someone noticed
17:10 I was already singing before I heard you do the thing hahah
Thank you for reminding me of this game it might be bad, but it's super nostalgic for me. I remember absolutely loving the log in music (I couldn't recall anything else about this mmorpg except that) and have been searching for it for a while.
12:00
100% accurate
Especially if you play something like GW2 :'D