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Why CloudNine Sucks...
Here is a description as to why CloudNine sucks.
PVP
The "Battlefield/Arena" style PVP is poorly implemented. There are Party Matches which consist of players willing to join within a 5 level range (ex. 20-24, 55-59) which take place 3 times a day. There is also the Nation War which consist of every player willing to join in a large all out war between the Primus and Ganav nations. Of course there is also the normal zones that have PVP as well. This all sounds great, but the fact is it's seriously flawed. Party Matches can only have a maximum of 12 players per nation in a specfic level range. If 13 people want to join the level 35-39 party match on the Primus side then 1 person wont be able to play and that person is picked at random. Also rampant throughout the party match is a serious bug where the game freezes and can sometimes freeze for 5+ minutes which make it unplayable. The nation war is a bit of a different story as in there is no player limit. You can join the war at, if I remember correctly, level 30. However some of the other players in the war are level 60-70 and even a level 50 stands little chance of surviving. Also the freeze issue is experienced in greater frequency in the war.
PVE
As far as PVE is concerned it is very bland. As you progress through levels you see the same mobs, but with different colors and maybe a sparkle or something to set it apart from a previous one. The mobs never use any kind of skills they just beat on you. There are only a few mobs that cast spells at you, but they are from a very short distance and it still feels like they are just beating on you. Also in order to make the mobs difficult they either have sickening amounts of HP or come at you two at a time (cant just pull 1). What I mean by sickening amount of HP is a Lv60 tank character with very good gear has to beat on a mob 3 levels below them for at least 30+ seconds to kill it. It just takes way too long to kill inferior mobs. The game has a system they call Seven Signs. Basically all class skills are assigned a color and in order to do one 7 different colors need to be used on a mob with no repeating colors. The result is either a 5 min awesome buff or an attack that does insane amount of damage. The system is difficult to get the hang of at first, but after a while it is easy. Also using a 7 sign is almost mandatory when going up against a boss, because otherwise it takes insane amounts of time to kill them (ex. 7 signs system was bugged when a group and myself went to kill a Lv60 boss for a quest. Since we weren't able to use the signs it would just under 45 minutes to kill the boss.) There are no raids in this game even though they have a raid system available, but most dungeons dont allow you in if you are in a raid party.
Money & Trading
Money in this game is difficult to come by. This game uses a system simlar to Copper, Silver, Gold. Instead this game calls is S, R, M. From what I have been able to find 50s is the maximum for each mob regardless of level and 50s is nothing. In order to purchase high level items you literally need to spend days farming for money. The game has an auction house that is never used. The main way to sell items to players is a personal store or by shouting.
Tradeskills
The tradeskills in this game are useless. You can only have 1 tradeskill at a time and if you choose to change trades you lose all the skill you've gained in the previous one. The trades are jewelcrafting, metalworking and alchemy. All the trades cost alot of money to do with little use. Jewelcrafting and metalworking are good skills when you are a lower level, but when you get to higher levels you can loot jewels which add a specific attribute to an item by way of socketing. The skill however only lets you create a jewel with a random attribute (nothing worse than being a warrior and using a random jewel only to get intelligence. Metalworking is good at low levels because earrings and necklaces (the only items created with this trade) are not easy to come across, but at higher levels you get better stuff than you can make with the skill. Alchemy would be extremely useful in the higher levels if it wasnt for being ridiculously expensive. You buy potions from other players that they looted for way less than it would cost to make your own.
Classes & Skills
I can't really say much about the skills and classes other than some classes are better than others in certain situations. Rogues for example are not to be messed with in PVP whereas a Hunter can clear an area quickly in PVE. Clerics are squishy (meaning they die easily 
) and mages are pretty weak.
Looting & Gears
Good loot is extremely rare to come across. When the Archahel expansion was released maybe 6 months ago they included a rare loot that could be dropped by any mob in the new areas (so the GM's said). After people grinding and farming in that area for about 5 months finally someone was lucky enough to actual loot the ice wings. There are 5 types of gears available Normal (White), Uncommon (Blue), Glory (Gold), Bless (Gold), Divine Protection (Gold). No one wants anything to do with Normal gear and Very few want anything to do with Uncommon gear. The gold gear types are pretty much what everyone wants. Glory and Bless gear are essentially the same gear, but instead of say 100 Intelligence and 50 Mental on a Glory piece the Bless would have 100 Mental and 50 Intelligence. Divine Protection gear is pretty much non-existant. I've only see 4-5 pieces and they ironically were all gloves, but the full gear for every class is rumored to exist.
Cash Shop
Ugh... The cash shop sells Mounts, Costumes, Anywhere Stores & Banks, Experience Charms and the like but unfortunately this game is heavily reliant on 4 items in the cash shop. The first is the 30 day (15%) experience charm which not only grants you 15% extra experience, but also you do not get penalized when you die which would normally cost you money and 2% experience. The second item is the Perfect Protection Tag which can only be bought in the $23 box that contains the 30 day experience charm, a 30 day anywhere store and bank and a 30 day bank expansion. This item is used when trying to upgrade your gears. Because a failure means you lose the gear entirely and when you have a hard to get +6 gear you dont want it to break on you. The third item is the 2x luck tag which increases your chances of plussing up a gear by 2 which can be used in conjunction with a perfect protection tag. The 4th item is a Matrosica Box I which grants a few somewhat useful items or it could reveal a Matrosica Box II which has some even more useful items or a Matrosica Box III which has some very useful items like a Upgrade Scroll that you can use to +7 a gear, a Beast Wolf Mount, or even a 3x Luck Tag. This game is heavily reliant on plussing up your gear and its like a 40-50% chance to +4 something and that odds decrease significantly which each upgrade.
Players
There are not an extremely large number of players, but the amount has increased quite a bit since they merged with Expedicion Holic (Columbian version of the game). However with an increase in playerbase has included a HUGE language barrier. I cant speak for the new columbian players, but pretty much everyone is quite friendly. It has a good community, but that was probably because everyone knew everyone because before the columbians came the playerbase was small.
I played this game myself for about 6 months and have recently quit playing because I found myself spending $100+ per month in there cash shop. For a game that never sees bug fixes, in spite of desperately needing some, I couldnt justify spending that kind of money. The game does have good points but the main reason I played for so long was because my girlfriend enjoyed the game. Its cutesy :P. Good luck gamers and I hope you find my review useful.
Comments
Money & Trading
Money in this game is difficult to come by. This game uses a system simlar to Copper, Silver, Gold. Instead this game calls is S, R, M. From what I have been able to find 50s is the maximum for each mob regardless of level and 50s is nothing. In order to purchase high level items you literally need to spend days farming for money. The game has an auction house that is never used. The main way to sell items to players is a personal store or by shouting.
Money really is difficult to come by in this game. It also seems that M's (M, R, S~ M's being the highest amount out of the three currencies) is almost useless in the game as of now. People will rarely sell for M's now. All they want usually is NCash. Usually "Weekly Upgrade Packages" which come out every other week, and cost 16,000 Ncash, which is equivalent to $16.
Classes & Skills
I can't really say much about the skills and classes other than some classes are better than others in certain situations. Rogues for example are not to be messed with in PVP whereas a Hunter can clear an area quickly in PVE. Clerics are squishy (meaning they die easily
) and mages are pretty weak.
Also, once you choose your sub-class, you're stuck with it through out the whole game, unless you decide to spend 13 dollars (13,000 Ncash) on a "Reset Sub Class" cash shop item. Although Cloud Nine is Holic's sequel, you can't freely switch your classes around whenever you want like you could in Holic 1.
Cash Shop
Ugh... The cash shop sells Mounts, Costumes, Anywhere Stores & Banks, Experience Charms and the like but unfortunately this game is heavily reliant on 4 items in the cash shop. The first is the 30 day (15%) experience charm which not only grants you 15% extra experience, but also you do not get penalized when you die which would normally cost you money and 2% experience. The second item is the Perfect Protection Tag which can only be bought in the $23 box that contains the 30 day experience charm, a 30 day anywhere store and bank and a 30 day bank expansion. This item is used when trying to upgrade your gears. Because a failure means you lose the gear entirely and when you have a hard to get +6 gear you dont want it to break on you. The third item is the 2x luck tag which increases your chances of plussing up a gear by 2 which can be used in conjunction with a perfect protection tag. The 4th item is a Matrosica Box I which grants a few somewhat useful items or it could reveal a Matrosica Box II which has some even more useful items or a Matrosica Box III which has some very useful items like a Upgrade Scroll that you can use to +7 a gear, a Beast Wolf Mount, or even a 3x Luck Tag. This game is heavily reliant on plussing up your gear and its like a 40-50% chance to +4 something and that odds decrease significantly which each upgrade.
In Holic 1, you would not lose EXP if a cleric revived you. ALSO. We recently had the players of Expedicion Holic (Spanish version of Cloud Nine) migrate into our game. They also didn't lose any EXP when they were revived by a cleric. So the question is, was this really just a bug that they never decided to fix, since it made them more money by having people buy that 30 day (15%) experience charm that protects your EXP when you die, or was it meant to be that way..?
A Perfect Protection Tag not only comes from the Booster Package which costs $23 like stated above, but it also comes with a "Weekly Upgrade Package" which is sold every other week for $16. The only thing from this Weekly Upgrade Package is a Perfect Protection Tag, and a 2x Tag (Which is 6,500 Ncash in the cash shop alone). You can't get a Perfect Protection Tag alone in the cash shop, though. So in all honesty, you kind of would be forced to pay $23 or $16 just to get your hands on one Perfect Protection Tag.
Players
There are not an extremely large number of players, but the amount has increased quite a bit since they merged with Expedicion Holic (Columbian version of the game). However with an increase in playerbase has included a HUGE language barrier. I cant speak for the new columbian players, but pretty much everyone is quite friendly. It has a good community, but that was probably because everyone knew everyone because before the columbians came the playerbase was small.
I played this game myself for about 6 months and have recently quit playing because I found myself spending $100+ per month in there cash shop. For a game that never sees bug fixes, in spite of desperately needing some, I couldnt justify spending that kind of money. The game does have good points but the main reason I played for so long was because my girlfriend enjoyed the game. Its cutesy :P. Good luck gamers and I hope you find my review useful.
There really aren't that many people playing this game, yet they STILL decide to completely divide us by having the Primus and Ganav sides so .. Sheltered from each other (Poor choice of words). But the point is, we can't do anything with members of the opposite faction. I KNOW it's because of the whole game's plot and whatever, but we should at least be able to talk with each other ingame or some other form of communication besides the mail which takes 20 minutes of each hour to deliver. In Holic 1, you couldn't even tell whether someone was Primus or Ganav unless you clicked their character and saw either a red or green circle around their head. But Holic 1 also didn't have a PvP system AT ALL.. So, yeah.
Having the people of Expedicion Holic migrate here really did raise how many players are in this game now, but MANY of those Expedicion Holic players are also quitting, since Cloud Nine is almost a completely different game compared to what they're used to.
Despite the language barrier, having all these new players on our server really is a nice thing, but it also means MANY more freezes in the Nation War, and more chances to Error out (Some bug where if you get close to a certain player, your game errors and you have to log back in via site).
Personal Comments
I do enjoy playing Cloud Nine (most of the time). But in order to make it in this game, you really do have to spend a lot of real money just to buy things to + your armors and upgrade your costumes, and weapon avatars and what have you. Like the person above stated, this game really does spend a large amount of time to get bugs fixed, and it still has a TON more to fix. The game's "cutesy"ness really is probably what is keeping me in this game. Also the fact that my boyfriend himself enjoys playing. It's something we can do together.
Being an old Holic 1 player, I was a bit hesitant to joining Cloud Nine. It took me about 6 months since it came into open beta to actually start playing the game. The reason for this was because Holic 1 just suddenly shut down. All the money every player had spent on that game just literally went poof. Like it never even existed. We all knew that Holic 2 was going to come out, and we were all looking forward to it. But there were also rumors that Holic 2 was just going to be patched into Holic 1, which obviously didn't happen. Holic 2 (Cloud Nine) ended up being a whole different game, and all the players of Holic 1 had to start anew. With EVERYTHING they ever had, gone.
I have a bad feeling that Cloud Nine may just randomly shut down sometime soon, also. Because of our lack of players, and the lack of time being put into advertisement. This game relies TOO heavily upon the cash shop, and you really can't get anything done without spending your own money.
You really did a nice job adding to my post
I think between the two of us we covered this game quite well.
But with bad reviews like this, we won't really be getting more players joining .. Which is what -I- really want :C
The game is becoming deserted and I just want a truckload of new players to come out of nowhere :C .. I try to find newbies to play with, but all I see are oldbies on new characters ; _____; ..
*KABOOOOOM*
...Whoops, was that how I was supposed to do that?