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In Elven Blood, a World of Blood Series Facebook application/game developed by Royal East India Trading Company, you play through an epic storyline from your Elf’s point-of-view. With somewhat episodic quests, you play through a linear storyline. Elven Blood is predominately a single player MUD augmented with PVP dueling and some graphics for inventory and actions. The game requires you to have a certain number of friends in your Party before being able to progress to the next sequence of quests.

We’ll take a look at the Game Flavor, the Game Mechanics, the Good, the Bad, the Ugly, and the Final Review. So, the question: is this a game for casual gamers, hardcore gamers, or no gamers? Read on!

Game Flavor

Who doesn’t like a high-fantasy game? While a roleplaying game, you are challenged to successfully navigate through a series of linear quests. You character goes through the highs and lows of the Elven history, and the story is interwoven with the sister World of Blood game Blood Lust (in which you can play the vampire’s perspective). In the process of playing the game, you build a Party of other real-world players who provide additional power when you Dual other Elves.

Game flavor is complimented by great art work, well written flavor-text, and a very varied assortment of weapons, armor, accessories, mounts, and miscellaneous items. Elven Blood sort of reminds me of a high-fantasy novel coupled with a drama featuring elements of isolation, personal questing, and a struggle to come to terms with past actions and future consequences (from your Elf’s perspective, of course).

Game Mechanics

Elven Blood depends heavily on Life and Stamina, which regenerates slowly over real-world time. You can purchase items that are equipped automatically and also sell inventory. You select from a series of quests, which typically are either the equivalent of “move” or “attack.” Your core attributes are Life, Stamina, Strength, and Agility. Strength and Agility are factored into combat. Life is how much damage you can take. Stamina is how much your character can do before having to take a break from the game while you regenerate Stamina. In addition, you can donate to the World of Blood Series for Blessings, which can be redeemed at the Elder Tree for various gifts.

The Good

Elven blood is fairly well written, and is very engaging. Although not a rapid play game, Life and Stamina recover quickly enough where you can check back every ten (10) minutes and do more stuff. Weapons are pretty cool, and you even have the ability to use Blessings later in the game to unlock special abilities (e.g., manually equip items, or dual wield weapons). I found myself devoting numerous hours to Elven Blood, and the game progresses quickly enough that you are able to achieve a lot of plot and catch up to other players playing the game.

In addition, Elven Blood has some good flavor-text and very good artwork, both based on location, quest, abilities, weapons, etc. The game also has a decently long life-span, as the plot progresses through numerous sub-plots, some of which is intertwined with the World of Blood Series: Blood Lust game. Overall, the game’s flavor is spot on for a fantasy RPG.

The Bad

Unfortunately, the Dueling and the required Party building is the only thing that makes this a Multi-User Dungeon, although the game claims to be an MMORPG. Without party building and dueling, this game would simply be a Dungeon, and the only thing that it has in common with a MMORPG is there are quite a few players that happen to be online at the same time, and the game falls loosely in the category of a roleplaying game (by video game standards). Both MUDs and MMORPGs require much greater and consistent interaction with other players, and Elven Blood falls greatly short of this standard. In fact, you would have more success in claiming your D&D Twitter Campaign was a MUD, let alone an MMORPG.

Furthermore, the game requires you to build a Party. Theoretically, you and all your best friends would band together and play the game, which on its own is not a bad idea by any means. However, unless you surround yourself with hardcore gamers, and Facebook friends who say, “yes” to every application request they receive, you are going to find yourself shy of friends, and not progress far in the game. In reality, the best options are either buy a lot of Blessings to exchange for Fairies (count towards party size) or you are going to Facebook-friend a lot of strangers.

Also, Elven Blood only gives you a few choices to make that can affect the plot, or actions you can take. For the most part, you work your way through a linear plot line and every character ends up having done the same things in pretty much the same order. In other words, most RPGs allow a person to at least wonder about the campaign setting and achieve different goals. Elven Blood is much more strict in plot progression than one might find enjoyable.

The Ugly

The game feels like it was designed to make money first and be fun second. Through advertising on BloodNet, through purchasing Blessings, or participating in optional sponsorships in exchange for Blessings you can’t escape the ever present request for revenue. Furthermore, the only free means to earn blessings – sponsorships – was dodgy at times and ultimately a waste of time; plus, you only end up putting your contact details into unknown hands for later spamming.

I understand the need to build revenue, especially for games that are offered for free online, but there are more tactful ways to do this, and when you have such a prominently featured game mechanic that can really only be gained through some version of a monetary exchange, it tends to cheapen the game.

Final Review

Elven Blood is a decent application. I donated $5 to the developers because when I calculated how much time I was spending on the game I felt it was worth about that much. Or, at least my time I spent on it was worth that much. The game does have some very nice flavor-text, good artwork, and a fun system to play.

However, because the game is so linear, because you are strong-armed into increasing the size of your Party to even play the game, and because of the ever prevalent monetary minutiae, I give this otherwise solid “B” game a “C.”

Elven Blood – good enough for a casual gamer to try, takes at least a moderate gamer to endure through to the end, and not engaging enough for a hardcore gamer – “C”