Pax Dei

They have brought me to a beautiful land and told me I may build whatever I wish. So I gather wood. Then stone. Then more wood. Then considerably more stone. Eventually, I have a house. It is a very nice house. I am beginning to wonder if I will ever leave it.

There is something genuinely special buried inside Pax Dei. Building alongside other players, finding a place for your settlement, learning a craft, gathering materials, and watching a collection of houses slowly become a village can be wonderfully satisfying. The game gives players room to make their own little corner of the world, and those moments feel much more personal than following another quest marker.

The problem is that Pax Dei asks for a great deal of patience. Crafting can become an exhausting climb, gathering consumes enormous amounts of time, and progression often feels like it is stretching the journey rather than enriching it. The combat is serviceable but lacks the depth I expect from a game asking me to spend so much time preparing for battle. The world is beautiful, but beauty alone cannot fill an empty road.

This is especially frustrating because I can see the game Pax Dei wants to become. The foundations for a wonderful player-driven MMO are here: settlements, crafting professions, trading, clans, exploration, and a world where other players actually matter. But too often I am spending my evening preparing to have fun rather than having it.

The Old Sensei has found the promise. He has also found the waiting.

There is a good game here.

I simply wish it would hurry up and arrive.