MMO Noobery: Trying Out Skyforge

I'm a noob. I won't deny it, and I'll try not to go too long on how embarrassing it can get. It's who I am, though. I haven't ever played <insert almost anything here>, and while I've had temptations to play WoW with my friends, the threat of it becoming a money-suck or even something I could feel intimidated with (once again, I'm the queen of noobs) has kept me from setting sail into the universe of MMOs, which has been a place I've wanted to explore for years. When Skyforge hit open beta, I decided to push myself to give it a try, to give something new in and of itself a try with my blank slate.

This is Cricket. 

She's about as average of a Cryomancer as it gets. Hits hard and tries not to aggro anything far from the Paladin. That said, I was thoroughly pleased with the character aesthetic options provided to me at the beginning. Given a character that is ambiguous on all fronts (covered in gear head to toe) for the playable backstory and introductory portions, it was nice to see that the options for what the person under everything looked like were varied.

However, as Faolan Hart points out in the first few seconds of his video, being an immortal powerhouse is a honor reserved only for supermodels, esp. when it comes to the womens' character models. The issue, especially when thought about on a grander scale of portrayal in video games, sets a sour taste in my mouth that I may put into paragraphs at a later time. GameSkinny put out a great article on that just recently. But in the meantime, Booty Cryo it is.

No, I'm not kidding. Booty Cryo. Seriously. She'll freeze your house down, gain the attention of the gods, and be the best freaking immortal out there...just in style. 

This is the most immature post I have ever written and I'm secretly proud of it

I found the fighting system in Skyforge to be easy to pick up and use, making jumping into combat simple once I figured out what I needed to watch. I haven't really gotten the calm mind to give tab targeting a try, since I'm normally the only one fighting area mobs and just go with my instincts when aggroing various things. I do want to give it a try, though, since it seems effective.

Something that I found kind of strange, however, even if simply on my romanticization of how MMOs should be, is that everyone is strangely all out for themselves. Except for once, where I had a short conversation about quinoa salad ingredients with someone in the regional chat, I haven't really interacted with many other players, especially when trying to formulate a plan or get coordinated in an instanced area. As it happens, a lot of the community on the NA servers, it seems, is international, so I don't understand most (if not any) of the non-English languages being spoken. I'm not too fed up with this, but I didn't really notice much English conversation going through it, either. Maybe over time this will change?

When it comes to the plot in early game, I have to say that I'm...well, not really impressed. Besides my backstory being pretty interesting, things start out pretty slow with me just being put into the workforce of the immortals and told to go do what I am told. I may be starting on a path more related to my backstory, but things didn't pick up very quickly and I've found myself kind of sluggish to meet my goals.

All in all, I feel that I've only gotten to really enjoy Skyforge for the aesthetic so far. With my fingers crossed, I'll keep playing and be able to talk a little more about the whole fight spectrum and my thoughts on how I'm enjoying it or otherwise, but at the time, I just don't really feel qualified to talk about it or even compare it to other games. I guess I'll figure that part out on my own. What I'm really hoping for is that the storyline will pick up a little more and that I'll find inter-player interaction a little bit more approachable, understandable, and...well, there.

TL;DR - Looks really pretty, booty could be reduced, still not sure on whether or not I'll stick

Do you play Skyforge? What do you think? Leave your thoughts or a link back to where they can be read in the comments below (because free promotion why not).