Ravendawn has now been out for over a month. We’ve been grinding out this brand new MMORPG since release, levelled up, built a guild and become a top quality chef, while also doing daily farming and exploring the world.

Now the initial excitement is over and we’ve had chance to settle into the game, its time we take a look at our thoughts and feeling with an honest review of the game.

If you’ve not seen or heard of Ravendawn yet – this is a free to play, retro looking MMORPG, with modern style gameplay features that have been inspired by a mix of game such as Tibia, World of Warcraft, Archage, Final Fantasy XIV and Black Desert Online. Ravendawn has been hugely popular with hundreds of thousands of players joining in to try it out.

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Initially I was very hyped and excited to play Ravendawn. This is largely because my first ever MMORPG was Tibia and Ravendawn resembles it a lot in appearance, so that nostalgic pull had me from the start. The similarities between the two games pretty much ends there, with Ravendawn having a much more “modern” MMO feel to it in many ways and it’s like a vastly updated and enjoyable alternative to Tibia.

I’ve easily played well over 100 hours at this point, experiencing a vast amount of the game and reaching legacy level 50, not even close to keeping pace with those at the top but still pushing on.

I am still very much enjoying Ravendawn, it gives me a certain feeling and I want to login and play every day which is always a good sign. While there are many things I like, the game isn’t perfect but the Developers have shown that they are listening and putting in the effort to update the game often, fix problems and add content all while delivering a game that has virtually no pay to win.

The main thing that stands out is the grind, for a 2024 MMORPG it’s not a normal thing to see. Most MMORPG games in the past few years might release with a bit of a grind but nothing really comes close to matching the grind you’ll experience in Ravendawn. A lot of other game eventually stripped back the grind to make the game more enjoyable and accessible for new players later on with features to speed up the process. We might see something similar happen in the future with Ravendawn because everything in the game is a huge grind, and it will become off putting for new players in the future, especially if it gives them the feeling of not having any chance to match the higher level players.

I personally quite like a bit of a grind to a certain degree, it gives a sense of achievement and purpose but that’s probably just down to my age and back to those nostalgic feelings from staying up all night grinding out those classic MMOs. Ravendawn HAS kept me up all night, seeking out a higher level and trying to utilise times where good hunting spots aren’t being used.

The large downside to a grind is that it really just doesn’t fit into the lifestyle of many people now. When I used to stay up all night as a kid grinding out those games, I had pretty much no responsibilities other than keeping my bedroom tidy. Nowadays I have kids to look after and a whole lot more that I need to do. Having a “retro” MMORPG that requires this kind of grind is unlikely to appeal to modern kids (actually it doesn’t I asked my kids!), and the truth is that many of the people Ravendawn does appeal to are MMO veterans like me who are now much older with a lot less free time. The last thing you really want to do after 8 hours at work, an hour in the gym, and hour cooking and eating with the family is then spend 8 hours grinding for 1 or 2 level in a game and 1 hours a night would never be enough to get anywhere.

The grind isn’t just with levelling, its also with professions, crafting and gathering, fishing, upgrading your house and gear, gathering silver, doing your Rangers Company missions, getting Ravencards, and looting certain items, there is absolutely no end to the grind.

I’ve already seen a fair few people who are burnt out after just 3 weeks, many people in my guild are super active then stop playing. This is possibly because they have played too much but it’s also because there is a certain feeling you have to play a lot to keep up some of the pace or you are going to be left behind and that makes things a lot more difficult.

MMORPGs for me personally are all about the community, other players, grouping up and hashing out content together. Give me all of that with good guild dynamics and you’ve got me locked in for a long time.

Unfortunately in Ravendawn there isn’t exactly a whole lot of point in grouping up for a number of reasons. When you group with someone you share the experience from killing enemies which does make sense since you’re only doing half the work but grouping up doesn’t really allow you to fight enemies much higher levelled for bigger experience gains to make it worthwhile. So while you should be able to blast through enemies faster, you’ll gain much less experience so it’s more or less balances out as the same as just hunting enemies solo.

Another dynamic that makes grouping problematic is Aggro, or more the lack of it. Someone might be sprinting past you on their mount while you’re fighting a stack of enemies and they will just run off and be aggroed to that person for absolutely no reason. You might be hunting enemies 10 levels higher than you, and one of you decides to be the “Tank” which isn’t particularly useful even if you utilise both of the Taunt options available. This is because the Taunts don’t appear to work properly and enemies will turn away before the full taunt duration expires but also there’s no way to guarantee a 100% taunt uptime. I touched on this a bit with Ravendawns Creative Director in my Ravendawn Developers Q&A this was the response I was given:

Knighter: We currently have a more unique aggro system than most games. There is no aggro meter like most MMORPGs, that leads to pausing damage or healing throughput. Instead Creatures have a varying chance to aggro off to a different target based on the combat situation.

Ravendawn isn’t completely without any group content. There are some hard boss fights where you’ll need a group to kill them as part of essential quests and initially some of these bosses are hard until you massively out-level them. I am excited to hear that there will be both Dungeons and a new Taunt/Aggro system added to the game soon which will add a whole new dynamic.

A few of the other things that have caused some particular pain points for me include the RNG Loot, Out-levelling Areas, NPCs Buying Essential Items, Open World Housing and Quests.

MMORPGs always have these RNG Loot formats where you might get stuff really quickly and more often, other times you won’t get any. The big problem with this in Ravendawn is that a lot of the loot you’ll struggle to get is essential for completing your journal and progressing your artifacts. This becomes a particular problem when you start to out-level the area and no longer gain experience or loot and even sometimes you might accidentally sell these essential items to the NPC who buys your trash since they also buy some of these items which just causes next level frustration especially when there’s no buy-back option.

I’ve killed a ridiculous amount of Pirates trying to loot a Corsair’s Ambrosia which I need for my Harbor Island artifact. I’m at a point where I’ve levelled all of my archetypes to 35+ on Pirates now trying to get it and I’m almost at the point where I’ll soon no longer get experience or loot from Pirates meaning I’ll be forced to spend 200k Silver buying it instead if I want to complete the artifact. Not only is this a problem for this particular artifact but it’s also now causing me a problem with other artifacts as I need items to complete artifacts in Hadarak Desert and Zephyr Vale and I’ll soon out level both of those areas too.

The fact you also need to check every “trash” item you loot to see if its useful later is also a bit silly. Sometimes these items can be worth 100k+ and you could easily just sell it to the NPC who buys all of your junk creature products.

Open World housing is something that I think is a pretty cool idea or feature. With the developers not expecting the game to be as popular as it is, they didn’t create enough houses and under 1% of the player base owns an open world house. Now this is just my preference but I don’t really like the housing in Ravendawn as it just feels like more of an eyesore and a hinderance than anything. The decorating of houses is limited, but they do improve in appearance as you level your house up, this is a huge grind to do however! When you’re trying to travel around the map you’ll often run through housing areas and can even get stuck in a homeowners crop patch. I’m just not a huge fan of the whole thing, it might improve over time as people upgrade houses and maybe the decoration options improve but I am more than happy to just stick with my community land and house.

Finally Quests are sometimes quite fun and interesting but a lot of the time they can feel very similar to the last, just with different fluff attached. You’ll have a lot of quests to do and many with send you backwards and forwards multiple times then send you to fight a boss you’ll need a group to fight. It can become quite boring and sometimes even frustrating especially if you don’t have people to help you kill a boss. There are some quests that are quite good and the detailed lore is interesting, but a lot more could be done to improve the engagement of questing overall.

Professions in Ravendawn are a particular strong point of the game. I’m a big fan of being self sufficient and being able to make all my own things to improve my character but Ravendawn take this to a whole new level. When levelling up your professions this also provides you with experience for both your legacy level and your archetype levels. The reason why this is so important is because if you level up your crafts and unlock mass crafting, you can actually end up gaining more experience in 5 minutes of crafting compared to 3 hours of endlessly killing enemies.

Some days I just don’t have a lot of time to play so on those days I grow crops on my farm which also gives me experience, and I grow the crops I can use to craft the highest level food I can mass craft, so then I do that and can usually gain 30-50% of a legacy level just from farming and crafting food.

Aside from the experience gain, the professions are pretty good in my opinion. Crafting has a certain level of skill involved to make better items, it’s an interested and engaging system that feels valuable. It’s good to focus on the correct combination of professions is important such as doing Woodcutting so that you can improve Carpentry, and the system has a real value.

Gear cannot be obtained anywhere other than by being crafted or bought from other players. All crafted items and materials in Ravendawn are some of the most valuable items in the game. Even the low level gear has value because it can be traded with an NPC for Dawn Essence which are needed to obtain Ravencards. You craft gear and then wear it on your own character, it doesn’t become bound so you can then go and trade it with someone which is great. Crafting and Gathering is just super valuable and you are hugely rewarded for your time and expertise which makes it well worth the investment.

I personally love the farming in Ravendawn. Being able to utilise your offline time to gain benefit in the game is something that I wish more MMOs would do. When I’m sleeping I plant longer duration items, in the daytime when I can login every hour for 2 mins I grow potatoes, if I want to level up my Woodcutting I plant some trees, if I need hides and other weaving materials I place animals. Making use of your offline time and having passive ways to gain materials is a brilliant addition to the game. I love it so much I have multiple alt characters that I use just to grow things like potatoes and carrots which I just sell because pretty much all farming materials have a good value and are great for making a passive silver income.

One element that has been lost over the past 10+ years is the real exploration and mystery involved in MMORPGs. A lot of this is due to the way the internet has developed and making videos that thousands of people can easily access has created a loss of this aspect to a lot of games. It’s understandable because if you discover something no one else has figured out its bound to get views and for a content creator that means financial benefits which outweigh the need to keep something secret inside of a game.

Ravendawn in the early stages has once again captured that nostalgia for me of discovery and mystery. Each area and cave has a hidden treasure, whether that’s a corpse, a chest or something else its worth delving deep into every cave and area you visit to find the hidden treasure. Within this treasure you’ll find Raven Crests which are interestingly needed for upgrading your house and having housing upgrades is very important. You’ll also get other stuff such as silver and other items which can be really useful or valuable.

Not only do you have that but there’s also a lot of secret quests and tasks built into the game. You’ll find hidden treasure when you press this note on a palm tree in the desert, this comes with a note that unlocks a secret quest. This doesn’t go onto your quest log so you have to figure it out for yourself. There are a lot of other things like this that are just a lot of fun to try and figure out such as various events like the Tower of the Everliving where you have puzzles to figure out and then a hard boss to try and kill. If you actually spend the time you’ll find a lot of other content like this which just creates a very engaging and exciting dynamic to the game.

An important thing to look at with all MMORPGs is the Developers and their monetisation model.

In my 20 years playing MMORPG’s I don’t think I have ever really experienced developers that provide such open and clear communication with the community. In the first 5-6 weeks the game has been out they have been very honest about problems and fixed them. They have been open and communicated on a lot of different topics with the Creative Director going head on into the firing line to live stream and answer questions for hours while the game is down for updates. They seem passionate about the game and making it the best it can be an not just chasing a bit payday.

This is a strong part towards why I like Ravendawn, I’m truly onboard with the team in control of the game, they have my trust that problems will be fixed, issues will be dealt with, updates and improvements will happen and they are accessible to talk to if you message them on Discord. We’ve seen people botting, real money trading, bug abuse and more but it’s all been dealt with fast and effectively which is great to see.

In the first few weeks we saw a lot of downtime as they fixed issues and stabilised the servers and performance. In the weeks following we’ve seen regular big updates weekly which was unexpected that we’d see so many updates so soon after launch, but they are absolutely capitalising on the games popularity with new content, balancing and improving quality of life while the game is still hot.

All of this is combined with a very tame amount of real money purchases. You have to expect monetisation in a completely free MMORPG otherwise how do they pay employees and keep the game going? Ravendawn has an optional subscription which you could quite honestly play without after a few weeks of playing. You can also use coins to buy cosmetic items for your mount, ship and wagon but not your character, all character cosmetics are completely earnable in game. Other things include fully upgrading you bank and inventory cost a few coins eventually and you need to pay coins to reset your crafting passives and reputation although this can be done for free the first time. There’s also the merchant, banker and rangers company NPCs that you can spawn at your location which offer a very minimal advantage of time/convenience more so than any real “Pay To Win” benefit. A common misunderstanding are Ravencards which ARE in the store but CANNOT be bought for real money, instead you buy them with Dawn Essence which can only be earned in game.

Ravendawn has a lot of positives such as the freedom and uniqueness of classes, the combat and gameplay, community housing, the player driven market, and just a lot of stuff to do in the game.

There’s so much freedom to customise your build in Ravendawn by combining any weapon along with any of the archetypes you like. Even with the Archery archetype you could use a Sword and Shield if you wanted to and it would still work. There are a base of 6 archetype to play as but you’re able to combine these to create your perfect playstyle, and depending on the options you select you’ll become one of 56 available classes. With these classes you can choose your preferred stats, weapon and gear weight, but you also choose your skills and passives and the RavenCards to attach to those skills. So even two players playing the same class could be playing completely different builds which is just a really fun and exciting part of the game as you never know what awesome build you might stumble across next.

The combat and gameplay is a real plus from my perspective. On the surface there is a simplistic approach to combat with the point and click tab-targeting but the details really come down to your skills and passives and the way you manage cooldowns and resources. Melee is typically a little bit weaker than ranged from my experience, but there’s a nice variety to skills, animations and effects. Combat can be quite challenging at time, but if you focus on levelling up your other archetypes you gain more skill points and attributes which then increase the power of your main build as you attach all those extra points to obtain more skills, passives and stats.

While I like the idea of open world housing but not a big fan of it currently, I do love the community housing. Being able to build a house, upgrade it for extra bonuses alongside having a free teleport to Ravencrest and the main hub of everything is great. With the upcoming addition of Medium and Large community housing and bigger farmland alongside that is exciting and I can’t wait to get started with my next house!

The player driven market we already spoke about – there is real power in the market in Ravendawn. It reminds me a lot of Albion Online, you can sell almost everything in the game and there’s always ways to be making silver on the market.

Finally there’s so much to do in Ravendawn. You can play this game in an AFK method with farming, you can enjoy the game on the side while watching a movie and chopping trees or fishing, you can create fun builds and kill enemies, team up with your guild for a PvP war, craft food and gear, gather items to gain new outfits, make a profit on the market or help NPCs all over the land to complete quests. There’s always something different you can do.

The reality is that Ravendawn is not going to appeal to a lot of people purely because of the graphics and the angle of the camera locked onto the player character. However when you look past that you find a game that has a lot of fun, enjoyment and potential which is backed by developers who are trying to create the best possible MMORPG they can while feeding us that nostalgic feeling combined with the systems and inspirations of popular modern MMOs.

The grind is a big one and one of the hardest parts of this game to overcome, especially if you want to progress to the “endgame” and it’s easy to get burnt out. If you vary up the things you do in the game, have fun, find a nice chatty guild, simply enjoy the game but add in some crafting and farming, just doing that you can gain a level every 2 days at level 50+. Something will need to change eventually in the future because new players will be easily intimidated by the game when they see high level players then start to realise how long its going to take them to compete with those players but at this early stage a grind is expected.

If nothing else, this game is worth a try for a few days – it’s completely free to play and the sub benefits are not even that drastic and essential so you can have a real good look to see if the game is for you with no cost. There’s no microtransactions or pay to win and regular updates every Friday, and many new things to look forward to with the roadmap already published showing lots more guild and war features, new professions, leaderboards, arenas and a fix to Taunts alongside a PvE Dungeon system.

While a good chunk of the quests can be tiresome, the reward at the end is usually worth it and there’s plenty to explore and discover in the world of Ravendawn.