Dragon-Warrior.com - Fan-Made Games: Dragon Warrior Online

Fan-Made Games: Dragon Warrior Online

Dragon Warrior Online

This is a web-based multiplayer game played with the BYOND program found at BYOND.com by Silk Wizard.

Make sure to see the game guide to know all the details about how to play. Most notably you must right click characters to join or attack, and you have to click on items you want to use or equip.

Dragon Warrior Online is now in its beta stage, and has very few problems. Sometimes lag may be encountered, but that can usually be avoided if you logged onto the main server. Also, the only way to assure that you can play the same character again is to only play on the main server. The game can be pretty challenging, so make sure to join other heroes.

Dragon Warrior Online is usually in the Games Live section at byond.com and you will need to download the byond program to play.

One of the Funnest Dragon Warrior Clones (4/5)

Dragon Warrior Online has so many features it should only be compared to Dragon Warrior Legend. It has a party system, spells, turn-based battles, and generally has the look and feel of a Dragon Warrior game. Players that die even return to the throne room with half their gold. It does not have multiple enemies in combat, or Dragon Warrior windows.

Many elements of Dragon Warrior Online will be foreign to Dragon Warrior fans. You will need to click on items to use or equip them, click on enemies to find the battle command menu, and click on players to join.

Scale

Dragon Warrior Online is fully playable, but will still have many improvements. Probably its best feature is its party system that allows players to help each other out. It currently has parties that consist of 2 players, but it will expand to 4. Soon players will not only be able to fight together, but they will be able to heal and revive each other.

-James Gray, Dragon-Warrior.com, 9.22.2001

It's BYOND's Fault?

The game itself only has 2 things wrong with it, for one it's in 8 bit when it could be higher. The only other thing that is the maker's fault is the people are missing; there are MORE people in towns from the official series than in Dragon Warrior Online.

Scale

Now for the engine. There are so many things that could be improved, like movement (witch really sucks and once you start going in a direction it speeds up and is hard as hell to control) and the shop/inn/battle interface is horrific. As for the world, if your moving around in a town a lot of large black spots appear. Nothing happens until you walk over them then they just disappear. In battle sometimes 2 monsters appear. Luckily only one attacks. You can kill both, but if you kill the first you're taken out of battle... UNLESS you get a level up and can kill it fast enough (since while leveling up YOU can attack but the remaining monster can not). The engine itself just sucks, no way around it.

Back to the game, The game has a nice story line (well as far as what could go with the bad engine) but i didn't get a chance to test out player battles nor joining a party, because their was none on (no wonder with the system). I hope when the game is father along it's on a better system.

I would give this game a 3 for story and a for 1 engine making it an average of 2.

-Digiwarrior creator of Dragon Warrior: David & Lisha's Adventure, 9.23.2001

Imperfect but Fun

Let us start by saying that the graphics are the way they are because it's Dragon Warrior. The graphics in the Dragon Warrior / Dragon Quest series did not vastly improve until Dragon Quest 6 was released. I am glad that Silk Wizard (creator of DWO) used the graphics from the NES series, as it keeps the feel and appearance of the original Dragon Warrior series. Flashy graphics from RPG Maker 2000 in an online multi-player RPG do NOT necessarily make a game better.

Scale

Now for the engine. Some reviewers said that the game's fault was its engine. I don't see that as being entirely true. Silk Wizard wrote DWO using BYOND (the multi-player online RPG creation engine) because it was an easy quick target to experiment with. If there are any faults in the movement, speed, etc. it's the fault of BYOND and not Silk Wizard's coding (many other BYOND games have the exact same control problems.) The story right now is not developed very much. This can be expected as DWO is a pretty young project.

Challenge is a bit too great... right now the stats are severely unbalanced (Pilgrims becoming stronger than Heroes) and the exp. system needs a massive overhaul (going from about 6000 needed to reach level 9 to about 12000 for level 10.) The bosses and some regular enemies are WAY too powerful as well.

Now... to address these problems, Silk Wizard is vastly updating the game. Around October the 13th the following improvements should be made:

New exp. system to make leveling up faster and more balanced (more like the NES DW series.)
Classes will have much more balanced stats.
2 new classes will be included (I believe Merchant is one.)
Reported 15 new spells (including Vivify, Repel, and many that have not been revealed.)
Upon death, return to the last town visited (this is more of a convenience thing.)
Return spell will only work for towns you have visited.
A temporary story update.
Ownership of a boat (making the world have a lot more potential for expansion.)
New additions to early areas.
Character specific weapons (no Wizards using Flame Swords.)

This update information was taken from the web site, and Silk Wizard has never let us down in keeping true to his word. I'm really looking forward to seeing how this project develops, as it is already a lot of fun. As for its flaws... I'd like to see one fan game that has no flaws.

-Ranz, 10.8.2001