Dofus
From FAS Virtual Worlds Almanac
| Use and Demographics | |
|---|---|
| Primary use(s) | Gaming |
| Type | MMORPG |
| Target Audience(s) | Pre-teens, Teenagers, Students |
| Language(s) | English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish |
| Features | |
|---|---|
| User-generated content | Yes |
| Property/Object Ownership | Yes |
| Land Ownership | No |
| Intellectual Property rights for content | No |
| Real Money Trading | Yes |
| In-World Marketplace | Yes |
| Graphical and Content Features |
|---|
| Communication | |
|---|---|
| Text Chat | Yes |
| Private Messages | Yes |
| Can block users in text chat | Yes |
| Management and Privacy |
|---|
Dofus is a Adobe Flash-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed and published by Ankama Games[1], a French computer game manufacturer. It is primarily a Pay to Play game, though it still offers a limited amount of free content. Its success has led to the marketing of spin-off products, such as books, art and comics. It has also led to the development of two continuations: Dofus Arena, released at the beginning of 2006, which is an alternative "tournament" version of Dofus; and Wakfu which is currently in the process of beta testing.
The game has attracted over ten million players worldwide [2] and is especially well-known in France. [3]
Contents |
Gameplay
Dofus takes place in the 'The World of Twelve' (although many players just refer to it as the Dofus World), named after the 12 character classes which inhabit it. Players control a 2D Avatar avatar (with a slight anime/manga feel) belonging to one of the 12 character classes in a 3rd person view.
As with any other massively multiplayer online role-playing game, players gain levels by obtaining experience. As in most other MMORPGs, experience can be gained by defeating monsters and completing quests. With each level, players gain 5 characteristic points and 1 spell point: which can be used to improve the characteristics of a player and upgrade their spells. As a character's level advances, new spells and equipment becomes available. Players recive a special 'aura' when they reach level 100, and gain another at 200. The maximum level a player can be is 200. Players may also decide to take up professions and frequently band together to undertake dungeons. Many also become part of guilds, letting them interact with others more easily.
Although the majority of the game is PvE (Player Vs Environment), Dofus does provide some (Player Vs Player) opportunities – mainly in the form of alignments (which are more alike to factions rather than true alignment and ‘tax collectors’ placed by guilds (known as Perceptors).
Characters Classes
There are 12 character classes in Dofus. Each class has a unique set of spells that other classes can not obtain (although some spells are shared with creatures living in Dofus).
Combat
Whist the game takes place in real-time, combat in Dofus is conducted more like a turn based strategy game – where each player takes it in turns to make a series of moves and attacks within a time limit. As such, when a player attacks monsters – they are transported to a 'copy map' where the fighting takes place. Once a fight begins, no other players may join that fight.
Players use a series of spells (which are unique to that character class) to either: attack, heal, Buff (computer gaming)|bluff or drain one's Action Points (AP) or Movement Points (MP). All actions done in combat (by both players and monsters) consumes an amount of AP and all movement consumes MP.
Professions
Characters in Dofus can learn professions [4]. Each character can choose up to 3 normal professions and may choose to specialise in those 3 professions further. There are two categories of professions: collecting and crafting.
Collecting professions involve players going out into the wilderness and collecting natural resources, such as certain wood and flowers.
Crafting professions involve the player piecing collected resources together to make a vast array of different items.
Most often, a collecting profession will lead onto a crafting profession (with the exception of alchemy). Each profession range from level 1 to 100 (but F2P are restricted to a max level of 30). Experience is gained in each profession by gathering the resources of that profession and/or by crafting items. The higher a player’s profession level the more resources that can be obtained (in type, time and quantity), the higher the items that can be crafted and the more a player can carry in his or her rucksack.
Players are able to learn up to three professions, but a new profession cannot be learned until existing ones are level 30 or higher. Lastly, crafting professions gain access to a special "Magus" specialization at level 65. The Magus specialization allows a crafter to modify the characteristics of the objects using smithmagic, runes and certain potions.
Quests
Dofus does offer quests, which can help players gain experience and if often useful at lower levels. However quests easily become complicated and the rewards diminish therefore the bulk of the experience earned by a character comes from grinding and running though dungeons. There are however a handful of quests which completed, even at higher levels, offer great rewards. An example includes the 'Charactics Reset' quests which enables players to reset all their characteristic points and spell points which they have used on their character.
Alignments
The alignment system makes it possible to participate in the eternal war between the cities of Bonta (City of the Angels) and Brakmar (City of the Devils). It makes it possible for characters to benefit from advantages: such as the ability to wear a shield, access exclusive areas and the resources. Since an update at the end of 2007, a territorial conquest system was created, allowing most areas to be controlled by one alignment. Players from the current alignment of the area can benefit from increased drops and experience in that area. The bonuses are determined by which alignment has the most areas, the one with the most gaining less. Since update 1.26, bounties may be placed by NPC against a player of an opposing alignment. However, one problem with the alignment system is that there is often only a one-sided competition, with the one alignment completely dominating the other.
On a limited number of servers, a third alignment is present. The Mercenary alignment, which is an exclusively roleplaying alignment and has the ability to carry out contracts assigned by other players. This last alignment is governed by players and not by NPC characters.
Guilds
Players have the opportunity to form guilds. This makes it possible for the members to speak with each other, coordinate events, place Perceptors and own certain houses and 'farms'. A perceptor is a special NPC that is created by a member of a guild.
Each guild can place a limited number of perceptor. The perceptor acts as a tax collector and has the ability to collect items from fights that occur on the same map - therefore effectively claiming ownership for the guild. Another player may attack this perceptor - to either remove it so their guild can claim ownership or to steal the items collected by the perceptor.
The World of Twelve
The World of Twelve is a massively expansive land, filled with new and exciting cities that are waiting to be explored. Hundreds of different types of monsters are available to fight, offering experience and item drops for players to collect. Recently monsters are now able to "raid" cities, allowing many fun and new aspects to the game.
Dungeons
Dungeons in Dofus are areas of difficulty, sometimes featuring unique monsters to go alongside puzzles that require player ingenuity to solve. Dungeons feature bosses of great power and ability, that require unique abilities to defeat, and, above all, a good team. Dungeons tend to offer wide varieties of rewards, as well as special item drops.
Subscription
Since its release, Dofus has seen more than 4 million accounts created, including 90% of the subscribers from its release and distributed at least 34 servers (including 23 French-speaking , 3 international, 1 United Kingdom/Ireland, 3 Spanish, 1 German, 1 Italian, 1 Dutch and 1 Brazilian/Portuguese).
Accounts are separated into two categories, Free-to-Play and Pay-to-Play. The game includes a zone accessible to Free-to-Play accounts, added last quarter 2005. Free accounts have access to the new player zone of Incarnam and access to the city of Astrub and its outlying areas. This makes it possible for a new player to enjoy seemingly full game play, unbounded by time restrictions. Access to the entire persistent world of Dofus -- including access to other cities, participating in factional Player vs. Player battles and being able to raise profession levels above 30 -- requires a monthly fee, with discounts given for longer term subscriptions.
Methods to pay for an account include; Paypal, a credit card, Pay by Cash, Audiotel phone codes and gift codes. Subscriptions to Dofus are not able to be set up for recurring billing, so players must go through the payment process each time they wish to extend a Pay-to-Play account.
Critical Reception
Dofus has received international gaming awards including the Bytten Ernie Award for Best Graphics And Concept Art in 2007 [5] and the Audience Award at the Independent Game Festival in 2006[6].
- Prize of the best game and Prize of the Public at the Flash festival in France in May 2004.
- Game of the month by the Edge Magazine in July 2005.
- Prize of the best game and Price of the public in Flashforward Film Festival of Seattle in February 2006.
- Prize of the public at the Independent Ranges Festival of San Jose in March 2006.
Screenshots
References
External Links
- Dofus - Official Dofus website
- Dofus Wikia - A Wikia site devoted to Dofus
- Dofus Guildopedia - A Wikia site for guilds on Dofus
- Imp Village - A fansite with many forums for Dofus discussions
