Back in June, our own Fight or Kite columnist Sam raved about a newish indie MMO he’d been playing: Leafling. The pitch was that it’s a 2-D action MMORPG trying to tap into old-school 16-bit nostalgia as well all the stuff modern gamers demand. Sam noted that the game did all that and offered PvP to boot, but the grinding eventually did him in. Still, it looked pretty fleshed-out for a game in this style.
Celtaria Productions has apparently continued the fleshing-out this summer. In early August, it rolled out a patch retooling the newbie experience. “We’ve reworked the entire early game experience to better explain systems to you and help better gear you towards max level, where you can begin looking into learning raids or competing in PvP,” the studio says. There are extensive class buffs, gear dropping from leveling mobs, a pass on XP from mobs and for groups, more diverse and better-animated harvesting… the notes just go on and on. Leveling’s gotten more interesting for the crafter set too.
“You can now level from 1-50 without performing ANY combat, there are now Provision missions for our purely trade-skill players, collect a randomized quest from a pool from the provisions officer and deliver the required materials to the provision officer for alma, mana tear, and experience rewards. When enough provision quests have been completed a global message will play alerting players that the city who’s provisions were finished has gained bountiful Status for a duration, increasing the drop rates of rare materials from harvesting nodes and mobs.”
Leafling is free-to-play in early access and expected to fully launch by the end of the year, so you haven’t got much to lose by checking it out if 2-D is your jam.
