Dofus Levels

Back when Dofus was first in beta and for a while after its release, I played it quite a bit and found it to be an interesting experience. Heck, I even posted about it. But even though I liked some aspects of the game, I tired of it pretty quickly and haven't played it since.

I usually love games with strategic or tactical play and enjoy SRPG's. But in a cooperative multiplayer setting, it just didn't work for me. The game also felt unpolished and the english translations were ridiculously bad. The quests were the height of tedium and I never really felt connected to the game world or cared about the story. I also recall frequent load times.

But as I stated, this was quite some time ago, back in (wow!) 2005. It may very well have improved since then. I lost touch with Dofus, although I did stay on their email list because I enjoyed the wacky gems they would send my way. However, they piqued my interest with their latest email announcing Dofus 2.0.

You can see a video on the main site and read more about it here. The graphics did impress me, considering the game is in Flash and the system requirements are quite low. It sounds like there are plenty of behind-the-scenes changes to the code as well. I'm not familiar enough with the game anymore to really judge the whole 2.0 thing, but I am considering checking it out.

What really impressed me the most was this post by Tyn, the Client Developer Manager. When I used to play Dofus the english on the website was awful and it was very hard to glean any actual information. It is great to see that Ankama now communicates well with the english-speaking players.

What's more, I liked with the way he addressed many of the issues and questions people had on the forums about the new version. Rather then hide from criticism or avoid issues, it seems Tyn did a good job of taking it all head on and making sure the customers feel like their concerns have been heard.

It appears I missed out on a few other Dofus-related announcements in my long absence. They released a game called Dofus Arena which focuses on tactical PvP and sounds like it has potential. Another game called Wakfu is in beta-testing and takes place 1,000 years after the events of Dofus.