Mythos is an MMORPG currently in development in order to stress test Flagship Studios up coming large scale MMO, Hellgate: London. It's being developed by a small team called Flagship Seattle, which is led by Travis Baldree, the guy behind the underground single player RPG, FATE. FATE was an independently made single player action game in the style of Diablo, but the lack of online play kept it mostly underground as those who frequented the FATE forums begged for online play.
Now, Flagship is using their online infrastructure to give Mythos 100% internet based action. The game offers the same light hearted play that it's competitor, Dungeon Runners offers.
In Mythos, you can play as one of three classes, all of which are damage dealing classes, albeit in different forums. Currently there are no real-healer type classes, that's what potions are for. For classes, you have the fire-ball slinging kleenex the Pyromancer, the musket and flint-lock toting Gadgeteer, and the melee-fighting Bloodletter.
In addition to three classes, you've also got three races to choose from, as well as two genders. There's the human, the satyr complete with horns, and a short little gremlin that resembles World of Warcraft's gnomes. None of the characters are super-detailed, with facial and hair options being about the only changes you can make to your character.
The game has adopted a cartoon style similar to that of World of Warcraft and FATE. While it is possible to meet up with people in towns and quest together, you may only meet people in towns. Once you leave a major hub and go alone into the wilderness, you're getting an instanced "copy of the area solely for you.
However, there is a global chat channel, which you can talk in at any time. The creators of Mythos seem to be mimicking the game play set up in Dungeon Runners, which has a similar cartoony style and an "only party while in town" feature.
Mythos has some original ideas up it's sleeve as well. The biggest of these is the map system, where you can buy a map that leads you to a new area of the world. In this way, you're using your money in game to pay your way into new adventures. You can even buy new copies of maps for areas you've already ben to in order to get a new randomly-generated level.
"Epic" maps may be bought as well, which give you and a few friends a play to fight in together which challenges everyone. The system is pretty interesting as it can lead to very unique locales that otherwise aren't as easily put together and accessible.
Of course, the many stepping stones of a good action/RPG title are here as well. There's a huge amount of loot with plenty of interesting properties to choose from, including dual-wield options as well as items which have gem sockets for further customization to the players tastes. Monsters are randomly placed throughout the levels and include mini-bosses and larger bosses.
The skill system is also pretty deep, almost a hybrid of the talent system you'd find in World of Warcraft, and the skill system found in Titan Quest. There are a bunch of upgradeable passive and active choices to increase your damage-dealing abilities. All three classes so far can summon up minions to help them in battle and power them up by spending skill points.
One of the unique things about Mythos is that the developers got the game going and stable long before they've finished adding enough content to fully release the game. While there are only three classes and three races as of right now, there are many more planned by the team, along with a larger number of environments to fight in. There are already a few towns going with a good selection of quests for the player to do, but the plan is to add much more. As it stands right now, similar to Dungeon Runners, the game is completely solvable save for the epic map places. Grouping is mostly dedicated to helping players earn better gear.
So far, Mythos has a lot going for it. While it's intended to be a free game for now, later on there might be some sort of option to pay real money for premium options in the game. The current beta is a little light on character classes and things to do, but as development continues new content will be added for the testers to try out. There are a few performances issues with the game, such as the incredible amount of loading the game has to do, considering that the graphics aren't really competitive with the latest and hottest RPGs out there. Hopefully, this will all be worked out by the time Flagship Studios releases the game.
For now, if you want to get a fix on RPG action with the possibility to play with others, check out Dungeon Runners, which is very similar.
