Welcome back to Wakfu

I just received an email from Wakfu (that FF Tactics-like mmo by Square Enix) inviting me to come back and offering 4 days of premium access. It made me scoff right away and deleted it, but then it got me thinking: it must be really great to have such a short premium access, that it'll get me addicted right away. 

While I initially remembered how monotonous the PURE grind (killing the same creatures over and over for easily 10-15 levels) was, I also remembered what made it great: a constantly changing world. A world where if you slaughtered and harvested non-stop and didn't spend the time to repopulate the world, it would just become barren and empty. Any time you came into the world, it will look different. I really enjoyed that aspect of the game; making a real difference.

Wakfu: The Love-but-mostly-hate Relationship

Biggest issues with Wakfu at the moment:


Lack of inventory space
- there are once again NO npc vendors you can sell your trash to, so you have to do absolutely no crafting, or find a way to get more BIG bags


Crafting is unfeasible
- trying to get a screenshot, but it takes an insane amount of materials to craft anything

Items are not bind on equip
- in a way, that is a great thing, but at the same time its horrible for the economy; when you're done with the gear, you just sell it, and there are 500 other people in line selling the exact same thing


Selling is very cumbersome
- you have a bag which you can enter and acts like in-game housing and a portable shop for other players. Problem is, you have to be logged out for it to exist, and only one character (out of your 5) can have it on the ground. So you can't even have alts selling while your main does all the gathering/acquisition.

Wakfu Rewards

I don't recall a game that really rewarded it's player base for participating in betas.

Wakfu had a few interesting incentives for extra-curricular participation in the beta including:
- gear and titles for reporting bugs via a 10 point system
- a Wakfu haiku contest

As a freemium mmo, it also rewarded the people who bought subscriptions (very reasonable!) with more in-game gear, titles and perks.

Besides having the ability to reserve one name for the launch (the most important thing to me, imho), SquareEnix also gave this reward for participating in the beta:

Head over to the site for more information; basically if you loved Final Fantasy Tactics, you'll probably like Wakfu as well!

Wakfu: Beta Impressions

Lets first talk about the Things I like about Wakfu, b/c it is easy to complain but harder to praise.


Rich lore detail in some areas
- whenever you want to learn a new profession (gathering/crafting), you are given a book that teaches you about how the skill works. To be able to use that skill though, you must first be tested on it via multiple choice. Getting even one wrong will result in failure and requires you to redo the test. 
- when you do pass and get the skill, you can access that book again (incase you just did trial and error) through the skill screen


Combat Strategy 
- no longer a spam-fest, its important to take note of monster's weaknesses and eliminate monsters as fast as possible, especially if they're buffed

Changing environment
- (nearly) all resources can be grown, harvested, replanted or eliminated. I can't remember the last mmo that looked different the next time you logged in. Per prior screenshots, if you cut down a tree for lumber, if no one else plants a new one, it stays gone forever. 


Anime Theme
- some will hate it, especially the cutesy stuff, but if you like animes, the graphics and characters are really funny. Like even right at the beginning, there is a fat cat that guards a trapdoor from heaven to the earth. If you stay around and pay attention, he meows and periodically passes gas and you see he is very embarrassed by it.


Things that require improvement...


No Vendors

- at all. So.. no more selling trash items. It feels very weird to not have money in the early parts of the game. The entire economy is a player economy, one that I haven't witnessed and truly hope it will be effective.


Cursor Tooltip needs improvement
- it needs to pull up the information a bit faster, for cases when you target an enemy mob, it takes a while for the tooltip to come up and see how many is in the group. Sometimes by time it pulls up, they've moved and you cannot attack them yet
- same thing with combat; the tooltip info comes up far too slowly (if at all), and when you target a creature in the initiative bar, it doesn't show you which one you targeted on the battlefield (makes it confusing when you're fighting similar-looking mobs)

Limited information in some areas
- I attribute this b/c this is a sandbox game, but I really miss the WoW guards. I don't know where any crafting stations are and as a result spend alot of frustrating minutes running around. Worst thing is, I sometimes still can't find the crafting station.


Perpetual Darkness
- there is a day and night cycle in the game, and I think it follows actual day and night in real life. Unfortunately, whenever I log in, its at night, meaning i'm playing during the night in the game. I've yet to seen what it looks like during the daytime. This would be a bigger disadvantage if certain events/mob spawns during the time of day that i'm not on.

Wakfu: Crafting Analysis

I imagine when Wakfu officially releases at the end of the month that we'll find out how viable crafting will be. I've found that the beginner areas to be sparsely populated and the resources in the area to be plentiful. One thing that i've had to figure out on my own, thanks to Wiki's (and no thanks to the weak official site), is what gathering skills are 'mostly' required for the crafting skills. Below is my initial analysis with the caveat that this is only beta and there MUST be many more hidden and unreleased recipes for it looks like there are less than 20 craftable items per skill.


Handyman - furnishing, furniture and workshops
Primary Gathering skills: Lumberjacking, Mining, Farming
Secondary: Herbalism, Trapper


Long Distance Weaponry - bows and wands
Primary Gathering Skills: Lumberjacking, Trapper, Mining
Secondary: Farming


Close Combat Weaponry - swords and daggers
Primary Gathering Skills: Mining and Lumberjacking
Secondary: Trapper, drops (from monsters)


AOE Weaponry - Axes, Staves
Primary Gathering Skills: Mining, Lumberjacking
Secondary: Trapper


Leatherworking - Boots, belts and bags
Primary Gathering Skills: Trapper, Herbalism
Secondary: Lumberjacking, Mining, Farming


Tailor - hats, cloaks
Primary Gathering Skills: Trapper, Herbalism
Secondary: Farming

Now you see them (trees, creatures)

Chef - create foods that give passive buffs
Primary: Farming, Trapper, Fishing


Baker - create foods that heal quickly out of combat
Primary: Farming, Trapper


Jeweler - Rings and amulets
Primary: mining
Secondary: Trapper, Lumberjacking, Herbalism

Now you don't!

Armorer - chest, shoulders, shields
Primary: Mining, Farming, Herbalism
Secondary: Lumberjacking


So a quick look at this, the top gathering skills (in no particular order)are:
Lumberjacking
Mining
Trapper


And the least used gathering skill is:
Fishing

Wakfu? Wakfu you!

Big thanks to Chris at Levelcapped who had this great video of a new TURN-BASED STRATEGY mmo, Wakfu.



Made by Square Enix, the same makers of Final Fantasy Tactics.. its pretty sweet. The open beta is now.. so go give it a try!

In-gaming PORTABLE housing!