Warlords Awakening Game Review

Alternate Title: Inspirit Online, Elite Lord of Alliance
Developer: PLAYWITH Inc.
Punlisher: PLAYWITH Interactive Inc.
Type: MMORPG
Model: Free-to-play
Platform: PC
Engine: Unreal Engine 3
PvP: Arenas
PvE: Challenging Dungeons

To preface this entire article, I would like to point out that Warlords Awakening is not a new upcoming MMORPG.
What a lot of players don’t immediately realize is that in actuality, the game is a mere rebranding and remastering of Inspirit Online, AKA Elite Lord of Alliance.
Both previous iterations of Warlords. Both versions of the game being shut down equally as swiftly as they appeared.
Unlike Inspirit Online and Elite Lord of Alliance, however, Warlords Awakening is relaunching for a third time.. as a BUY TO PLAY MMORPG!
Buy. To. Play.
The base game is going on the market for $11.99, while the Early Access Package is going for $24.99.
The base package at $12 includes “early access”, whereas the Early Access Package is apparently for players that want an in-game pet, costume, title and a couple extra items.
Which is ridiculous. Both that they would charge $25 for that, and the fact that the game – which has launched twice in the West already, is relaunching a third time as a buy to play game.

Now don’t get me wrong; Warlords Awakening isn’t a bad game.

Sure, the graphics look like something out of 2013, the combat is slower than something like Path of Exile or MU Legends, and the voice acting.. please, please don’t tell me this is what passes as “quality English voice overs.”
The character creation isn’t too bad. You’re given 5 different classes to choose from: Blood Knight, Mage, Hunter, Psychic, and Assassin.
There are 4 different races, Kartu, Liru, Sapiens, and Naru. Each race has access to each class, with the exception of Naru and the Assassin class which are both exclusive to one another.
There are quite a few hairstyles to choose from, over 20 I believe, with your basic skin and hair colors to choose from and a fairly large selection of faces and eye-styles.
While you can definitely make a pretty cute looking character overall, the fact that the game is played from an Isometric point of view makes it almost pointless to bother.

The game gives each class 3 distinct weapons and weapon styles to choose between for their character.
My Assassin for example had the Assassination tree that utilized Daggers, the Chaos tree that utilized Claws, and finally the Execution tree that utilized a scythe.
Each weapon gave you access to a drastically different playstyle, and absolutely different skills. Which, admittedly, makes for a good amount of customization.
My problem overall was that your skills have such long cooldowns that for the first bajillion hours of playing, all I did was click “A, A, A” repetitiously while waiting for my skills to come out of cooldown.
Granted, that got a little better as I got higher but that’s not the kind of vibe you want to give off early-on. Especially when you level as slow as you do, with a 20% boost to XP.

The game is broken up into “zones”. Each zone occupies the next section of the story and you progress through each one.. essentially like you would in most MMOs.
However, there was so little to do in each zone that outside of running a little to the right or a little to the left, exploration was essentially kept to a minimum.
Outside of not needing to explore, outside of the boring questing system, and outside of the slow combat.. there was the occasional entertaining event.
As an example, my wife received Ephea’s Blessing that gave her an increase to her defense. She got greedy and wanted the XP boost like I had so she went and prayed a second time.
The Goddess proceeded to cast a debuff on her that ultimately killed her after 30 seconds..
While hilarious, it would’ve been great to know that could happen.

I wanted to attempt PvP but that is designated to players level 40 and above, and.. there’s no way I’m getting there in a “First Impressions” video.
So that being said.. I am a little disappointed with both the MMO community and MMO developers and publishers in this day and age.
When did it become acceptable to just.. shut down an MMO, then re-launch it as a buy to play game in a pathetic attempt to milk as much money out of our gullible community?
Better yet, when did we become so gullible that we actually buy into this shit?

ASTA tried it, Bless Online tried it, now Warlords Awakening is trying it.. just fuck off with your bullshit re-releases and give us something worth actually spending money on.
Is it really that difficult?
On that note, I would like to warn players NOT TO BUY Warlords Awakening. You’d get more satisfaction from buying a few homeless people sandwiches than you would out of Warlords Awakening.