Nexus War Review

Once there was the Maker. The Maker is Eternal without Beginning or End, and the Maker is its own reason for being. Being Eternal, it sleeps in an unbroken harmony, assured of its own existence. The Maker creates and destroys universes as single breaths, both creator and destroyer, never aware, never caring. From the Maker's mighty lungs flow the wind of Creation and Chaos. But the Chaos quickly cools into existence, only to eventually burn itself out and return to the breath - to start anew. When the breath is expended, the next universe awaits.

The nine Elder powers - the Maker's schizophrenia, aspects of an eternal, self-aware dream - then force the Nexal conflict to determine who has the honor of (and power inherent in) guiding the next breath. They are named:

• Marquai the Constructor, Time's Keeper
• Alonai, She-Who-Walks-With-Grace, Love and Innocence made flesh
• Ahg-za-Haru the insane, Lord of Nightmares
• Namm the Vigilant, Guardian of the Weak, Lord of Law
• Tholaghru the Gnasher, Master of Chaos, Destruction and Disease
• Hashaa, Record Keeper, Death Incarnate
• Tlacolotl the Violent, Master of Hatred
• Goros the Gatekeeper, the Runner, he who creates and drives all things physical
• Baraas the Laughing, who creates societies

And that's where you (and thousands of others) come in. In a faraway plane, not quite our world, souls plucked from various places and times battle to determine which ethos will dominate the new creation.

As you grow in power and begin to lean to one side or another, you will be presented with a choice: those who with good in their souls may eventually ascend into angelhood, while those who are evil may descend, becoming a twisted member of the demonic horde. And yet, you can still choose the middle path, and hone your skills without devoting yourself entirely to good or evil, opting to study deeper, unaligned magics and ways of combat.

Nexus War is all about PvP!

Yes, you read right. A MMORPG without all the mass slaughtering of NPC's and whatnot - only the constant war between thousands of players, and their factions for control over territory and power.

It's definitely a lot of fun - and quite interesting, both the fighting, and the various demonic, angelic, modern, ancient and magic ways provided.

The scores of various demons truly are twisted, some, like the Infernal Behemoths, grow strong spiked tails, powerful claws to rend your enemies to pieces, going into a bloodlust frenzy, tearing everyone apart, and when exhausted, simply blow up, taking even more victims with them; others, like Wyrm Masters - gain acidic blood wich damages the foes that attack them, can summon scores of hellhounds and imps; Dark Oppressors love poisoning and cursing people, which follows the victims even after they die, the Void Walkers simply walk through walls, invisible, to silently choke everyone in the area with a deadly mist they can summon, to leave as silently as they came...

The angels are not without their weapons either, oh no: the Divine Champions are capable of transforming into a large variety of the most amazing forms, like massive pillars of flame, or a frozen, icy aspect - both with powerful innate abilities; or even a metallic form, which makes you very powerful and nearly invincible, able to throw cars, trucks, even hit people with trees and lamp posts, and charge your attacks with holy energy on top of that! the Lightspeakers can summon a small army of powerful, tireless creatures of the light, heal their allies by merely speaking the divine Word, and pray to the good deities to receive powerful blessings.

Alas, such demonic or angelic powers are not without a cost. If the demons have second thoughts about what they chose to become, or the angels start doing evil acts, they lose their powers, until they go back to the path they belong to... And that is precisely why I personally prefer unaligned classes, who believe in freedom of choice, and have gained their powers all by themselves, through hard work and study. And so, they can fight for whoever they want, changing their side if they wish to.

Some of their studies bring them close to death and beyond it, like Liches, who can control unlimited numbers of undead and possess death magics, or Revenants who are powerful vampiric warriors; Elementalists choose to study elemental forces and are able to fly at their whim or to walk through water without any kind of effort, controlling the elements and using them in combat, while Eternal Soldiers have honed their combat skills to the edge of impossibility, able to move at lightning speed and hitting with the strength of a bullet, with the Nexus Champions right next to them - supremely adaptable soldiers who are comfortable both with a sword and with a spell, and can summon a few very powerful pets aswell.

And, please note, I've only listed some of the classes, a mere fraction of the skills, and I'm not even beginning to talk about the tons of mundane, everyday weapons, like bows, swords, rifles, tomahawks and such...

In short, the things that make NW such a super game, are it's complexity and richness, which, unfortunately, also are the things that scare off most new players as well. (However, the ones that do stay are 99% intelligent and educated people - yay, no noobs!) You see, even though the choice is very wide, you will still have to plan ahead, for example, if you take the Melee combat tree, it's quite hard to fight as a close combat demon, as their attacks use the Hand to Hand tree (the claws, tails, etc.) and you wouldn't be able to utilize their useful powers; some skills, like swim or research are nearly completely worthless; while melee wizards are actually a viable option, you might want to make sure you wont be using ranged/AoE spells before you choose the Melee tree; in other words, think it through. It can become very confusing at times. Ask in the forums, read the wiki And don't worry if you mess up and have to delete your characters and start over - I did it myself. Twice.

Also, since it's a game about killing people, don't be surprised if you, well, you know. Get killed. A lot. Every day. Every hour. Every minute of the hour. Ok, im just messing with ya. It's not THAT much, also, unlike in most other games, you dont lose XP or anything like that here. Your items might break though, so still, watch out. Also, people might not be talkative much. Most of the talking goes on the nexus war irc channel, which not all of us use.

A Dozen Hints for Newbies, is a good thing to read before you start. The Interface can be confusing too, at first. (unlike it says in the wiki, the page is NOT (completely) out of date. The only thing that's old there is the target panel. It's quite easy to figure out, though, it's just that it looks quite different than anything else in those types of games).