At long last the Free Agent walks the Path of Exile

But it's not all rainbows and unicorns

Of course it wouldn't be a true ARPG if it wasn't set in a "dark and gritty fantasy world" right? It's true, that's a thing. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a few small items that got on my nerves the longer I played.

One of these was the general lack of tutorials or instructions of any kind. If you're going to break the mold with game design, which to my delight Path of Exile does, you should at least take the time to explain how it works. Some things I was able to figure out on my own, but only because I'd played several ARPGs before this. Had I been completely new to the genre, I would have been lost enough to just give up and try some other free-to-play game.

Another pet peeve of mine was the shop system. But to their credit, I did appreciate that Path of Exile got creative and once again deviated from traditional convention. Instead of the typical gold/silver/copper/tokens-representing-random-things/severedhead/beachball/coconut currency, the exile’s currency is various scraps of material that can be combined to do useful things such as identify magic items or upgrade weapons and armor.

Essentially the economy ends up being an elaborate bartering system, which fits the overall motif of a group of haggard exiles trying to scrape by in a strange and inhospitable new land. Pretty cool stuff really. But while the creative use of currency impressed me, the physical mechanic for buying and selling items was aggravating.

I know it doesn't seem like a big deal to drag and drop items from one slot or grid based back pack to another, but after doing it hundreds of times it gets really annoying. I mean would it kill you to just let me right click or something?

Another item, that admittedly is a personal preference more than anything, is the somewhat shallow feeling to the storyline. This is another typical quality of ARPGs though, they usually only feature just enough storyline to get you from point A to point B. And that storyline is more or less static regardless of how many times you play through the game.

It's usually enough to get a lore nut like me to play through the game start to finish at least once, but beyond, never having been a huge fan of loot grinding, I tire of ARPGs rather quickly. While I wasn't able to play Path of Exile right through to the end of ActIII in the time I had with it, I was left with the same old impression as any other ARPG I've played through.

But for those that view lore or storytelling as simply an unimportant backdrop upon which to hang a video game, there's not a whole lot to complain about. For your typical ARPG fan, I think Path of Exile has a lot of positive things to offer without any significant negatives. And I mean that in the "darkest and grittiest" of ways of course.

But wasn't there something about real money?

Oh that's right, I almost forgot. In fact, I did forget. I was two weeks into playing Path of Exile before I really even noticed that there was an in game shop brimming with things I could buy for real money. If that's not a good sign, then I don't know what is.

As the Free Agent I would be remiss if I didn't investigate Path of Exile's micro-transaction system in greater detail. What I discovered only further encouraged me. The vast majority of items for purchase with real money are purely cosmetic and confer absolutely no in game benefit to a player other than looking really cool.

Among the options to trick out your character are a variety of non-combat pets, character animations (aka/dance), item skin swapping, a whole bunch of fancy visual effects for weapons, helms and even the footprints you leave in the sand as you journey through the "dark and gritty fantasy world" of Wraeclast. Question. Is sarcasm lost in written form?

Just jokes of course. I'm not ragging on colorful or otherwise sparkly visual effects, I think they’re great. In fact, I even had a moment of jealously when I saw some of the alternate skill/spell effects that you can purchase with real money in Path of Exile.

Once again these are purely visual. Just because your summoned skeletons now look like magically animated statues, it doesn't change anything about the skill itself. Still, I'd have been much happier with summoning magic statues instead of the undead with my holy Templar so I can see the appeal. But hey, I'll survive.

Interestingly enough, there is no way to acquire any of the items or features I have just described via in game currency. Once again they are bucking the trend and shying away from the almost standardized micro transaction model that everyone else is using. Even League of Legends, arguably one of the most successful free-to-play models in existence, features the typical "buy it with real money or use accumulated in-game currency to buy it instead" approach.

I find it refreshing that while like everyone else they are claiming Path of Exile is not pay-to-win, they also aren't hiding subtle pay-to-win elements in things like XP, currency or magic-find boosts. As far as I can tell, there truly is no real advantage gained, either in game power or even out-of-game time savings, from purchasing anything in Path of Exiles.

The only non cosmetic purchases revolve around unlocking guild member slots, additional stash space (aka bank tabs) and character slots. I myself didn't run into any guild or stash space issues, and I certainly will never exceed the generous 24 character slot maximum for free-to-play users. So ultimately the only thing left is to spend $1000 to have my name immortalized in a Path of Exile unique item (I'm not sure if they are still offer this, but it was an option at one point). But who would do something like that...

So is it the Free-to-Play Holy Grail then?

That's a loaded question. One that leaves me feeling a little bit like Indiana Jones in the Last Crusade. For fear of an immortal Grail Knight telling me I "chose... poorly" I'll give an ambiguous answer and say, for many fans of ARPGs and certainly those disgruntled Diablo fans out there, this might be it. But I believe it's important to reference back to Episode Zero of the Free Agent where I defined what the free-to-play Holy Grail might looks like:

"A game which is endlessly entertaining and does not in any way make me feel as though I MUST spend real money to further enjoy, advance or otherwise excel in it."

For myself, I always find ARPGs, no matter how well crafted, grow tiresome. While obviously no game can provide truly 'endless' entertainment, the fact that at best I may yet play my way through to the end of Path of Exile, but can safely say there will be no re-plays for me, disqualifies Path of Exile from free-to-play Holy Grail status. But that's just me.

Perhaps at the end of the day you just need to play Path of Exile and decide for yourself. Sorry for the ambiguous answer, but this is just one title that is highly subjective to genre preferences. I'll say this much with confidence though, Path of Exile is one of the most well crafted and truly free games that we have yet covered on the Free Agent. ARPG fans owe it to themselves to check it out, as they will no doubt enjoy themselves immensely.

Our time is up however, so I'll leave you to contemplate the meaning of free until next time. Oh wait, that's my job. Hmmm.... all right then, how about, tune in next time for our high flying coverage of World of Warplanes.

See you next time on the Free Agent.

Robert "Caergan" Gray

               Follow me on Twitter @Caergan