We got some new skills along the way, plus some slightly less tattered armour, but once resting between Priston tale gold fights was added to the repetitive battles and monotonous slogs back to town, we began to lose hope. And all of this at just level 9 - one more level and we could have picked a profession, maybe a craft, and perhaps used one of those unexplained NPCs to make something. But we simply couldn't face it. And why should we? Let alone settle for 60 levels of it.

We understand MMOs lead you into the meat of the game slowly in order for abilities and features to be grasped, but this was quite clearly design cast from the mould of old. It was oblivious to recent advancements in the genre, introduced to ease - rather than rely on - the grind to flesh out content.

Much of the high-level content demonstrated in Barcelona offered little more; the zones were barren and vast, with a mish-mash of uninspired monster types ambling aimlessly around as if waiting for someone to pick a fight with them. It could have been the starting area all over again, just with bigger statistics involved. If grouping was the star feature on show, we saw none of the teamwork expected of instances in World of Warcraft, and the player-versus-player combat petered out after the combatants proved too equally matched to make a dent on each other and decided to call it quits. Of all the features displayed, only the spunky combo system provided any real glimpse of differentiation.

But then, comparisons to World of Warcraft and Warhammer Online are perhaps unfair. Priston tale gold 2, lest we forget, is free. And, much to its credit, such parallels are only drawn in the first place because the game is technically very accomplished. The world is solid, the combat fluid and lively, the graphics crisp and clear, and the music dramatic and atmospheric. The overall presentation is uncluttered and coherent, and it happened to run very nicely on a mid-range PC (although the total population of four at the time probably played its part there).

Pristontale 2 is only in closed beta, but already the production values of a game with an experienced MMO developer behind it are plain to see. Those prepared to pour the hours in will have plenty to discover. The world lacks the instant personality and depth seen elsewhere in the genre, but Priston tale gold 2 is certainly a technical stride forward for the free-to-play crowd, and a game only the harshest of criticisms would warrant the curious not trying.