Dragon Claw Studio - Faith www.dragonclawstudio.com

The makers of Dragon Claw Studio (www.dragonclawstudio.com); FaitH, started out as a project with a lot of promise. In the early days when it was still in beta testing it enjoyed lots of popularity among the beta testers. The promise was soon discovered by more people who came to play after a good publicity push. As more detail and choice was added the stability slipped, due to bugs and the server being too small for the stress the playerbase caused.

The game stayed a promise and nothing more for 2 years till a new gametype was released, the Battle Server. Faster gameplay and a cleaner game finally gave the game some balance it had long been looking for.

Then the attention to FaitH started slipping as other projects became more important to the creator...and it slipped back into being a promise....

Overal it's a great game to play if you take a few weeks to figure what to do. There is enough spoiler info to "better" your game, as well as a great (but outdated) manual. The art looks nice if not a bit amateuristic, much like some coding but only people that know coding will notice. The chat and forum are great if not a bit boring due to rediculous rules that make China seem like a free country.

So if you have time and patience to learn, go ahead and play, cos it's fun fun fun!

Almost a year and a half after its official launch, FaitH from Dragon Claw Studio is now what I had always hoped it would be - the most interesting, sophisticated and enjoyable multi-player strategy game online, something I have always wished would be around.

It succeeds at developing a very strong team environment where, while individuals can excel, it is only through kingdom cooperation, planning, innovation and diversity that one can compete with the best in the game. An ingenious strategic twist makes the game about a lot more than just vanquishing an opponent, and the strategy on the kingdom (15 players) level can be very complicated and challenging.

Players choose from one of 7 churches in 3 different religions, and from one of 5 playing classes (Wizard, merchant, Warmaster, Rogue, Jack of all Trades). After 5 eras of tweaking the balance between these classes and churches appears to be quite good and any choice is now valid in a competitive sense. Each church has a different storyline and different units, enabling players to vary their playing experience era to era (an era runs for 3 months).

The technology, economy and city building aspects of the game are well thought out and require some difficult chocies for players to make, while the war engine is sophisticated and allows for a range of strategies.

The community is excellent - very newbie friendly, accepting and generally a whole lot of fun to be a part of. It is more mature than any online community I have played with before and instances of cheating are rare.

I have in the past had reservations of the game in that the adding of new content took precedence over ensuring all of the funadmental aspects of the game and war engine, leaving some serious bugs and imbalances in the game. However, it has reacehd the point where the fundamentals are sound, imbalances are minor and hard to detect and the playability of the game is very, very good. The addition of a real time server several weeks ago has improved the game tremendously and enables players to compete without an extremely high level of activity, in my opinion the biggest single improvement the game has seen

FaitH has reached the point where it has no major flaws and for anyone serious about joinig a strategy gaming community it is very easy to be accepted and successful, however if you only plan to dip in occasionally and aren't bothered to make a decent initial investment in time to learn it, don't bother.

Dragon Claw Studio's FaitH is the cr me de la cr me of browser based games. Its graphics, storylines and game play are in a league of its own.

In FaitH you are part of a 15 man (or woman) Kingdom. You each have your own province, which you have to build up over time. Being in an active Kingdom is pivotal in this game, but thanks to probably the best online gaming community you will ever find, that's never a problem.

In your Kingdom you are most likely to be at war with other Kingdoms a lot of the time, and so, the more you work together, the more chance you have of winning overall. At the end of the era, if you are part of the winning Kingdom, you all get a great prize each!

There are many different Religions to choose from, and each religion comes with its own selection of churches. Whichever church in whichever religion you choose, you're sure to be in for a superb ride. The graphics are amazing, the storylines are extremely entertaining, and all this for just over $10 USD for a whole era!