Xhilatren

Overview
Released by the fledgling Indepenn Dextera, Xhilatren is the first, and eponymous, game of the nine-game cycle released by the company.

The first game was little more than the proof-of-concept submitted by the company to the gaming community. The general attitude at first was, "hey, new VRMMO, let's see if it's any good". After playing for a few hours, players began to submit reviews in droves.


 * "EPIC GRAPHICS. NEED I SAY MORE." - five stars
 * "What kind of an MMO has only four classes???" - one star
 * "Where has this graphics generator been?" - five stars
 * "why can't this melee magic be in every game?" - four stars
 * "This game was saved by its ridiculously cutting-edge graphics generator." - three stars
 * "Gameplay extremely limited." = two stars
 * "Disappointing class options, but still fun." - three stars

For a proof-of-concept game, the company took this to mean that the gaming community wanted to see more from them. The next two games in the cycle, Silicon Karma Online and Skartran, were launched within two years of Xhilatren's release.

Gameplay
The overall gameplay is unstructured, and the game governed by a bast***ized form of the Cardinal system. The lack of class options is due to the fact that the game itself was only a proof-of-concept, but the graphics generator used in the game is used in all the other games in the cycle.

The skills available to a player is determined solely by that player's class and level. Once learned, a skill need not be leveled - it is mastered when learned.

Swordsman
The melee physical class, Swordsmen do exactly as their name suggests: wield swords. Dual-wielding, shield-bearing, spear-wielding, and other physical melee weapons also fall into this class.

Duelist
The melee magic class, Duelists use a variety of close-range magic skills to defeat their opponents. From ethereal swords to teleportation and back-stabbing, almost anything the player can think of that has to do with "melee magic" is possible.

Archer
The ranged physical class, Archers wield some form of projectile weapon. Typically snipers until they have enough health, this class is generally shunned by veteran players who didn't start using it, as getting to a high enough level to survive combat is painstakingly time-consuming.

Shaman
The ranged magic class, Shaman typically use beast-summoning to wear down an opponent before finishing them off with a direct spell. Spells with higher damage have inordinately long cooldown times, and this encourages players to learn as many spells as possible.

Trivia
The extremely limited gameplay caused many players to convert out the instant Silicon Karma Online was released, and then immediately regret doing so.