TomeNet (http://www.tomenet.eu/) — online roguelike. You could call it MMORPG-rogulike game.
TomeNet combines the complexity and unpredictability of roguelike genre and all the possibilities of modern MMORPGs. In addition to the traditional offline roguelikes features, in TomeNet you could interact with another players – kill monsters together, trade, PvP (dueling and even PK!), chat & etc. TomeNet has great economy system and a lot of players stores! Yes! You could even become the owner of your OWN home!As any singleplayer roguelike game, TomeNet has:
– Random levels generation
– Permadeath (but also you could also play “everlasting” character if you wish, but you wouldn’t appear in scoreboard)
– Huge amount of game actions (kick, throw, search, dig & etc)
– Freedom. Not linear walkthrough of the game. There is even no walkthrough! Gameplay is endless as it online game
– Hack’n’Slash, great amour of items, monsters.. and other roguelike features. HUGE amounts of situations. For example, at my first day in-game I weared cursed ring of teleportation and several players gathered to help me to remove it. It was awesome adventure I even got video at my youtube channel, but its in Russian ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc0PUsyu0-Y ).
Also TomeNet is the very advanced roguelike game in terms of technology! Day/night changing, seasons, weather, sound effects and music. Its cross-platform: Microsoft Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.
Features from MMORPG genre:
– real-time. It makes game more diffucult, true. You cant drink tea and think about next turn 15 minutes or write “Elbereth” non-stop (no offence, I big NetHack fun!).
– PvE in group. Game has great features for teamplay – difficulty of the game is dinamic. More people in party – more fun!
– PvP. You could duel with other characters, participate in PvP events for great prizes OR create special PvP character, who could be attacked everywhere, except towns. Its different experience of gameplay.
– Economy. Trade, barter, create your own shop or even shop empire! Healthy economy because a lot of items and gold got wasted when people die (quite often thing in TomeNet hehe)
– Communication. For a lot of players it very essential thing. Find your friends in-game.. Or even enemies, who knows! First you play for your pleasure, then – for a revenge (c) But conflicts is very rate thing in TomeNet, community is very kind there! Imagine: you could live in your own house and communicate with your neighbors
– …and much more. This game has great amount of content. For example, you could be a thief and steal from another players. Or interesting feature about an artifacts – its real artifacts. There couldn’t be TWO Orcrist. After you found an artifact, you could posess it for a limited time. When time is ended – somebody else could find it.
This game is very complex as all roguelikes. I died more then 20 times and ALWAYS because of my mistakes, not because of internet issues as in another MMORPGs with permadeath (for example, in Diablo 2 in 95% cases I died because of disconnects).
This game is ultrahardcore (but if you play “everlasting” mode, quite casual style, but even EL character could be rarely destroyed). It doesn’t often giving you second chance. You have to have steel nerves and to play slowly or you would die fast. Playing with another players in party great thing, but sometimes you could die because of your friend (carelessly opened door and thats it), so as a new player in most cases I play alone.
But for roguelike players TomeNet wouldn’t be too difficult. Learning curve quite balanced and you wouldn’t get more pain there then in NetHack
The only problem right now – TomeNet have not much players. This project is very underground even among roguelike games; nobody adverts it, because its no profit totally free project and developers is very modest (in good way) guys. So PLEASE tell about this game to your friends! Try TomeNet, its definetely cost of your time, guys!
Gameplay facts:
TomeNet is _real-time_ rogue-like gameplay but time passes slower on deeper levels keeping the real-time experience at an optimum.
In TomeNet you could create classical ( permadeath) character (as I do), but also there is a lot of different options, for example “everlasting” character which chould be ressurected at the city. Permadeath and everlasting characters can’t trade between each other and be in one party. Also you could create PvP character and fight VS another players. The most experienced players could try their skill at Hellish or even Ironman mode.
17 distinct races and 13 classes to choose from. A variety of shape-shifting classes and features. Huge amount of skills which allow you make really unusual specializations and create hybrid classes.
Advanced combat system with stance dancing, dual-wielding of 1-handed weapons, parrying and blocking, special moves and techniques. Class and race specific special abilities, for example, “cloaking mode” for rogues or “firestones” for draconians. A lot of magic schools and spells.
Over 250 static artifacts, infinite random artifacts, over 200 special item powers, over 1000 items, over 1100 monsters and many ‘ego monster’ types ie variations of base monsters
Several kinds of automatically scheduled game events for group play where you could win great items.
Advanced monster AI and behaviour.
Crafting. You could create artifacts and even… golems!
Lore facts:
TomeNet based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, and its abbreviation means: “the Tales of Middle Earth”
The final goal is to destroy the fallen god Melkor who is known by the name of Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. Not much people did this great achievement, especially alone and in permadeath mode… Are you ready for real challange?
When you kill Morgoth game doesn’t ends! As an online game it has endless gameplay. Would you like to try to find the last remaining path to Valinor, to possibly retire on its shores?
World facts:
A lot of beautiful towns (Bree, Gondolin, Lothlorien and others) and HUGE hand drawed world map with lots of points of interest and dungeons spread out over it!
Many special places in towns (Casino for gambling; possibility to play a game of Go).
Over 200 types of floor features/terrain. Visit your favorite locations with your friends – The Old Forest, Barrow-Downs, Mirkwood, Moria and much, much more great Tolkien’s related locations.
Technical facts:
Its totally free game with open-souce for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. Very low system req. – I play TomeNet via VirtualBox with minimum resources.
Game has day/night changes, four seasons, weather.
Sound effects and dynamic background music.
Powerful macro system, featuring a wizard that makes macro creation easily done in three steps even by beginners.
Project history:
TomeNet derived from MAngband (Multiplayer-Angband). Sometimes TomeNET is confused with ToME. ToME is a singleplayer game. Its totally different projects, although TomeNet were both originally created by DarkGod, who created ToME. TomeNet is independent project with their own developers since 2003.
This review is based at my review of TomeNet in Russian:
http://tangar.info/obzor/tomenet-samaya … ya-mmorpg/
Also I making live stream videos of my adventures @ TomeNet almost every day.
And as a final word – I’ve made my video compilation of my deaths @ TomeNet Enjoy!