The Shattered Continent

Imagine a world that's been torn apart by a great earthquake, its land mass fractured, its advanced technology lost, and people reverting to machines and devices powered by steam. Throw in some magic and populate the planet with strange creatures in anime style and you have N.E.O gold, a free-to-play massively multi-player online role-playing game developed by Joy Impact, a Korean company. The game is published by Atlus in the US and Gamigo in Europe.

Of course, the game is much more complex than that. For starters, there are two warring factions trying to gain control of the precious Neo gold source, setting the stage for player-vs-player action. The game's PvP is quite robust. There are scheduled battleground events and castle sieges, as well as an entire PvP continent, Riall, with zones that allow you to level up all the way to 80. Because of this PvP focus, you are locked into the faction you choose when you create your first character. But then again, since it's free-to-play, there are less barriers to creating multiple accounts.

It's.... big.The Kingdom of Elerd is the realm of magic, and the Republic of Rogwel is the realm of science, but class and race choices are the same regardless of faction. For some reason, most of the races are gender-specific. For example, humans can only be male, elves can only be female, etc. Apparently, Neo gold either the races are heading towards extinction or only the cute little gremlin-like Poms multiply sexually.

Initially, you get to choose one out of four available classes: Warrior, Mystic, Machinist, and Scout. At level 10, class specialization kicks in, and  Neo gold at this point, the sub-classes vary according to faction although, in the interest of PvP balance, each sub-class more or less matches one in the opposing faction. Machinists are the crafters of gear and devices used in combat. Warriors are tanks and melee damage players. Mystics can either be primary healers or spell damage dealers with basic healing skills. Scouts provide support skills, specializing in ranged damage, using monsters as pets, stealth, and even resurrection.

Although most of the game mechanics are familiar to veteran MMO players, there are nuances to the systems that make them uniquely N.E.O gold. For example, each class gets default skills which you level up by assigning Skill Points and Training Points to them, which is pretty standard fare. But you can also obtain Core Skills by attaching steam-powered machines to sockets in your weapon or armor.