Why Play a Fool When you can Play a Dofus? by Game Tunnel

M.Indie by Joseph Lieberman

Why Play a Fool When you can Play a Dofus? (April 12, 2006)

It is important to note that Dofus, a java based indie MMO, is French. It probably didn�€™t seem like such a bad name in French. Of course, now it has to live with the ceaseless jokes about its name�€� but they were French, and that is more than the guys who made other poorly named games can claim.

I want to love Dofus though, I want to love the very idea of a 2D Isometric turn based strategic MMO- Like Final Fantasy Tactics gone MMO. I want to love it and I can�€™t! Dofus has a lot going for it. It has wonderfully cartoon graphics. It has a great turn based combat engine. It has a huge world that is ever expanding and throngs of people in it, it even has separate servers for French and English players. They claim it is for connection speed and language barriers, but we all know its because France doesn�€™t play well with other cultures (neither does the USA).

So seriously, what happened? Why can�€™t I love this game?! Well, it all boils down to my last post on what made Minions of Mirth good- Dofus has players but it doesn�€™t have a community: No community for NEW people to the game.

I spent 20 hours wandering around Dofus, most of it as a single character. I was invited into a group once without asking and found about 3 other groups that I invited myself into. No group lasted more than an hour before everyone left or my game crashed. The communication system is rough, and overall it seems nobody really likes to talk. They are there, wandering around in silence�€� and it drives me freaking mad! Almost as bad, the manual is horrible. It took me 30 minutes to figure out how I could leave a screen- which was me standing around asking people for 30 minutes how I go east�€� and that is how long it took for someone to answer.

A secondary gripe is that the quest system is pretty poor. There doesn�€™t seem to be any real plot to it. Go beat up creature X. Go collect me 10 animal droppings. Really, just not a compelling quest system.

That said, this game can be so much more than it is. There�€™s crafting and crafting professions. Player run shops AND NPC run shops where you can sell your items 24/7 on an innovative bid system. This basically works like this: You set your price and the lowest price is what appears for sale. So you can sell to the entire world in one easy to locate spot for common items. Brilliant idea! There�€™s also a ton of spells and stats and equipment to get, and because it is a tactical RPG I could see this being a great game to play with some friends.

In the end, I highly recommend Dofus to anyone who has a dedicated MMO group that would like to play a tactical MMORPG. Plus its way cheaper than most MMOs, coming in at only 6.99/month! My fear is that most of you who go out and give this game a try (and there IS a free trial that has a lot of content) you�€™ll simply never find anyone to share your joy with- and what you are left with is a single player tactical RPG with bad quests and tons of NPCs who wander around like mindless zombies (those would be other players, in theory).

But like I said, there�€™s a free trial so don�€™t take my word for it: Dofus is worth a download for sure. Discover the unfortunately named Dofus at www.dofus.com.

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By: Joseph Lieberman
Posted: Wednesday April 12, 2006