This game is much better than it looks. First you need to check out the wiki of this game before you start playing it. http://nodiatis.wikia.com/wiki/Nodiatis_Wiki

The Good.
Fun game. Great story! Unique mechanics and fights. Semi-Enjoyable grind.

The Bad.
It is a grind game, and almost nothing else. The toxic community is forced upon you unless you find a very specific timeframe to play or get *real* lucky and find some decent people to play with. You can't play solo and you can't hide the chat. Ever. Everyone is all but forced to join a guild or befriend strangers or make multiple accounts that you play simultaneously, otherwise all progress in the game is halved or quartered and there's a good chance that you'll get PK'd regularly which places a hard reset on your character sometimes negating 12+ hours of non-stop grind, sometimes even by the creator of the game's own avatar if you get to a high enough level. The cheapest bundle to help in-game per my last check that does really anything is far too expensive ($99.99 USD) and not worth it.

The Ugly.
Regular monthly $50 USD subscriptions. In-game trade economy is inflated beyond redemption. Just getting 5,000 Gold for 1 low level piece of stock equipment mandatory to progress to the next section of the game takes at least 3 non-stop hours grinding until about lvl 40 where it goes down to 2 non-stop hours grinding. And that's on the cheap end for level 5 gear. The average mid-level equipment for level 40+ is in the hundreds of thousands of gold, which can take literal real-world days of grinding to gather. And that's nothing yet still for high-level gear which averages into the millions and even tens of millions of gold which can take weeks, sometimes even months of in-game grind to get if you don't know how to manipulate the trade economy which only gets worse the more people who manipulate it. (And all this is presuming you're in a guild that has gold bonus stones and you're grouped with someone else... Otherwise double, triple, or more that time.) Not to mention, if you get PK'd, they get to choose one piece of your equipment to steal from you, which more often than not, they take the most expensive item which took the most time and effort to grind to get. Meaning that one person can come along, mug you, and set you back literal months of progress. Most to all regular players are lvl 60+, have "rebirthed" multiple or even dozens of times, or have 6-10+ years logged, and I'm pretty sure all of them also happen to have multiple alt accounts so that even if one gets banned, they just move and trade everything from one account to the other. New players are heavily discouraged and insulted by the community, economy, grind, and more. And last I checked, there's only 1 server available that's been around for well over 10 years, and they tried making a second server once a few years back only to have the established player base ruin it because they connected the two servers and didn't keep them separate. So no fresh starts are possible for old players without creating another account, and no new servers for new players.
Also, fully expect a constant stream of verbal abuse and insults if you don't understand the game's unique language and shorthand that is seen nowhere else, and you make the mistake to ask the community. (It's legit another language based from English alphabet, and can take weeks to fully learn I found out.)

In summary.
If one could play solo and have a legitimate chance without having to Shell out nearly a thousand IRL dollars a year, the in-game economy wasn't so inflated or geared to long-term players and against new players, the grind was heavily reduced and wasn't so heavily geared towards guilds, the there were regular (every 4-12 months?) new servers to allow new and old players a level playing field, the community wasn't nearly so toxic or crude and forced upon you, the Player Killing System was abolished completely, and if the game didn't require you to learn an entire new language loosely based on English that the community developed, then I might recommend this game and personally give it another shot. Alas, this is still the case, and even though I check back every few years to see if anything has changed, it's still the same all these years later. They just added an arena system and that's about it.

It started out great, and if you're lucky, rich irl, can handle daily verbal abuse from strangers, don't mind joining a guild not for fun, but for survival and progression in-game and potential help learning their language, AND have no real job or life or health IRL so you can spend at least 6+ hours per day on this game (Same hours that one might spend at an actual job, mind, earning real world money), then I highly recommend it!

Otherwise, avoid like the plague.

I only recommend it if you can play it on the browser

because no matter how many tries i did through steam, IT WOULD NOT LET ME REGISTER!?!
'hurr durr third party verification via CAPATCHA' = apparently my eyeballs need new eyeballs.

so i registered on the normal browser site. FIRST TRY CAPATCHA SUCCESSFUL!

i must've tried +10 times on steam and could not register.


******************** new edit sept 30 2016***********************

dev was right! twas able to make a character after another steam restart try or so. Thanks a bunch on that glitchless!

will keep it on a thumbs down though as it is it's own individual server. again. just like when it was on newgrounds, and every other website it branched out toback in the day. i imagine it would be immensely better being able to play with the actual nodiatis website + steam + newgrounds + whatever other itteration this game has touched on all the websites (if that was possible) (looking at that beautiful rage quit game favorite StarBreak. Unless that too is its own seperate steam \ website servers)

don't take my steam time into account, i play this every other day nowadays on their nodiatis website instead of the abomination of 3rd party authenticators \ steam whatevers.

and thumbs down, since in the many years since i last saw this game. i've seen no User Interface changes, some of it is still clunky and funky. Especially when you have to manually individually pick up every single tiny item after a combat. Oh boy i got two rat tails! ... hafta click one at a time and drag it left side of screen (loot) to inventory right side. the game is super slow casual mouse moving relaxing.

auto combat is still the game's forte for a lack of distinction the game provides with the story, background backdrop and of course the one everyone knows. Still image monster battle fights. little to no animation. for all parts and purposes this is very much a super duper lazy clicker game of modern times.

If you are looking for a game to settle and invest a few hundred $ then this might be for you. You will have no trouble getting to level 10-15 but after this the time investment is real. Were talking a full time job and upgrades to see leveling progress. You are limited to Rested Time per day so you really only start out with 1 hour per day and gain with passive skills that gain xp over time (faster like everything else if you spend $50 for an upgrade...altogether around $250 with an ongoing $5 every 10 days for all upgrades).

There are favorites in this game and you are encouraged to share your characters (99% of the top toons in the game have 2 or 3 people playing them. Quite a few have an army playing day and night). If you don't do this but want to be competitive (PvP is entertaining however the small playerbase means long queue times) you are looking at $1,000+ to gear and stand tall but youll still be far off from an actual contender.

Don't expect the developer to be too responsive or hold everyone to the same ToU. Several of the top players should have been banned for selling characters, win trading arena, and exploiting people.

(With all of this being said. I have a few high level characters that I don't use anymore. Perhaps I could save someone who enjoys this game some time and investment. After all I had to of found some solace if I've spent more than 5 years and accomplished everything the game had to offer at the time...granted there isn't too much additional in the 3-4 years since i last played based on the 0.6 hours I spent checking out the new UI)

Ok. I really should have known better.

This game ... Have some issues, lets put it this way.

You start your magical journey, creating YOUR character (picking one random hideous face, out of 4 (from 300+), and one random hideous background (same way). You can change 4 of the images you choosing from (randomly), but "smart interface decisions" are just starting.

You also should pick one of like 20 classes (standard battle types, mages, etc., and even traders, vampires and angels).
I am jumping slightly ahead, but all it changes - one active/passive ability and like + or - 10-20 % to speed of learning particular skill groups (battle, defensive, magick or recovery).

Then you appear in world (like a square) and take small "tutorial", wich shows you main game loop.
It goes like this:
You go to some "region" (by clicking) once or several times. on "global map".
You fight some monster (stat check). (Click auto atack and wait). (If you will try to be "mage" - you just need more clicking)
You collect "loot" - some more clicks.
You manage inventory space and bring "loot" back to town.
You exchange loot from monsters to skill exp.
Rinse and repeat.

On town square (all game is bunch of global square grid) - you click several times to get "quest" - Kill 5 mobs of collect 5 "bear asses", or kill obligatory "boss" of region (meatsponge that hit hard).
You get more exp, when you done.

Of cause there are some equipment options, with depends on you skill levels and wealth.

And there are like 200+ skills...
Good right?

Actually not.
You see - all skills can be leveled in two ways. - Active and passive.
Active - you choose which particular skill to level (lets say parry), and all exp, you get in its dirrectory (defence) goes to this skill.
How do you get the exp?
By "burning" monster loot at "church".

There are monster loot for combat skills (mele / archery / defence / pets).
There are monster loot for magic (white+green / black / blue)

What about crafting skills? Well - you can craft. Theoretically.
Or you can just pick this skill to "passive" leveling.
What passive leveling? You might ask.
Oh, it is qute simple.

You pick one (of 100+) skills, and it just slowly grows each second. Even when you are offline.
How the hell they will ballance that? You may ask (case there are PvP in game).
Oh - very very simple.
Skills do like + 20% to this, or that. At level 100.
And +10% at level 0.

To give you most hilarious (for me) example - skill to "raise up" my "class proficiency".
My class was adventurer.
At level 0 of "class proficiency" I get swooping +3% to all exp I get.
If I will pick this skill to passive leveling, in mere year, or so, (standart geometric progression in exp, required to level up skill with each of it 100+ levels), I will get ... + 6% to all exp.
Neet, right?

Lets talk about biggest "bugbear" I found, and finish with this topic.
Remember how I did say, that there is "merchant" class?
Well - you simply can't sell anything on the auction, if you don't pay devs "monthly".
People said, that later in game I can buy this "pass" with ingame money.
I can. It costs millions (at auction at least).

Why this is a big deal?
Because of "Crafting" part of the game.

You essentially need to create "living production lines", from people, to craft even simplest of thing. And each step will take inventory space and particular skill proficiency.

Example:
You killed first boss and got fishing rod.
You fished some fish (each attempt, after random battle), and want to do something with it.
You can sell it to NPC shop, for like 4 gold.
You can buy a fish skinning dagger and get fish scales, getting + exp in fishing, and then sell them to NPC.
You can use fish to make oil (dont know how though).

You can't sell this to people, that are noobs, case they came to "play for free".
You can't sell this to "old guys", case they dont need stack of 5 fish scales, from starting location.
Your only option - is to sell it to NPC, or just destroy it (case it takes space)

Example №2
You want to craft anything "from other end".

You get any "recipie" - lets say lvl 0 harpoon, from buying it at town, and breaking it apart.
You cant even see materals, needed to produse it, case first you need to do - is to make "working copy" of this "master recipie", which requires you to get pen (NPC sells it), and also ink, and paper. Of course there are different professions, to produse bouth of this, and I dont even know in which city NPC sells "tools", to level them (not in first 2, I can tell you for a fact).

Did I mention, that all this information I got, pestering people is chat, and reading forums, case game does not explaing sh*t?

Only possitive thing I can say - "old" people in chat are super chill and nice, but it is, in no way, a game fault.

Try it "for free", tread with care, and watch for youself.

After spending time creating a character I was presented with a verification box which after more than 6 attempts not only would not let me on but actually booted me to the title screen. To which I responded by uninstalling the offending item.

Nodiatis is a fantastic game, with a great community! I love the challenge that it is to level up, and the way you can build your char any way you want to.
Wanna be a dual wielding crusher, who shoots fireballs from his crotch? You can do that! An archer who vamps his enemy's health using pets and whips? Boom! Do it!
Try this game out! Maybe get addicted!
I could not adore this game more!
Nodiatis-Crack!

New Player Guide: http://nodtools.net/guides/newplayers

This game is one of a kind, retro old school rpg with one of the best PvP 1vs1 and 3vs3 arena systems that you could find, at first it may look overwhelming but the community is just the best there is, just ask around and people will ALWAYS help you.

⠀

The steam version doesnt work anymore and it doesnt look like the devs are planning on fixing it.