The only thing good about the game is graphic's and even then aren't breath taking or any thing just good
The game is pure grind. Everygame need's grind. If you could reach max level in a day then what would you do? QUIT? Exactly The characters have no depth every player is just like the next. The classes are a joke they just give you like 1 starting skill and latter like 5 at most. 5 at most? Have you even played the game for more then 30 second's? I hate stupid people like you. You LEVEL UP to get more and better skills. And 5 skills at most? I think someone just made retard of the year. Play the freaking game before posting stuff like this The skills in the game are very lame and most are not worth having. Very "Lame"? How. I have a feeling you're just bullshitting us. The game plays the same from one class to the next and its pure grind. How are the classes the same? The quests a lame and poorly done and every few in number. It's obvious that you have not played recently. They got a lot more quest's now and how are they "lame". Please explain. We would like to know. Inflation is a problem already and the game has only been played for a short time. Inflation...what inflation The item system is poorly designed. you are this lvl this is the gear you have. Isn't it like that in every other game? You have a choice when you LEVEL up more Basically they would have to redo the entire game to fix the problems with it.
You make a point, the graphics aren't top notch.The game IS pure grind.The characters really DON'T have any depth.It takes awhile to learn skills.I can't really say if the skills are lame, I didn't play long enough to try them all.The gameplay might be a little different for each class, I only tried Warrior and Hunter.Quests are pretty lame.The item system is pretty poor, but at least they let you have attributes on it.This is still an ok game to play with your friends if you need something to do, but it's lame without friends.
i agree with Feldron this game is confusing, there no storyline, and no tutorial to help start you off. but once you get into hero online it wont matter what matters is how fun it is. Hero online is a great game it just needs some inprovements for new players
lvl 9x still playing ^^. people like games co'z of their personal preferences.
hero lacks a bit but good for a free mmo. lots of things happening too quite changing every month with new promises ahead hope it still goes a long way.
Majority of the community are friendly and nice. you can grind, go play some boardgame ingame, do some mining, sell stuff train your pets and the RL money can now be sold in personal stores so a none RL paying player can buy it.
i Think the classes are just that way for marketing purposes.. you can buy a RL item that will change you to other classes (other classes have their uses) pvp sux though mostly pot spams and charms. overall if you can 1hit KO your enemy w/o seeing is good the way to go overall good game to play for heavy grinders. Rare gears are hard to craft some are lucky some are not, +'ng them up is just plain luck also.. some players are spending 2k$ RL money just to get their rare weapon to +7 and got 0 ^^ well its a matter of choice . you wont feel the thrill in hero alone. once you hit lvl 80 thats the true Hero Online Begins. BTW big updates are coming out new maps new rare sets that so far cant be crafted. this game got lots of secret features you can dig into. The Gm's wont tell a thing how to obtain those status etc., etc., go play and find it out by yourself with your guild its fun ^^ although i agree with the character customization, but this game is not about character customization .
4 words, FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO PLAY! Obviously its not going to be as nice as a "premium mmo" is. Man, I hate when people expect things to be sooo perfect and FREE at the same time!! So why don't you give em a couple million dollars to fix these so called problems instead of complaining about them on the forums?
Obviously its not going to be as nice as a "premium mmo" is. Man, I hate when people expect things to be sooo perfect and FREE at the same time!!
So why don't you give em a couple million dollars to fix these so called problems instead of complaining about them on the forums?
Oh.... you don't have it?? <Mod edit>
Exactly thats one of the game biggest problems
Look at what goes on in the game. Bugs unfixed for months. Gold Farmers spamming chat. Botters every where. Rarely every GM's. You cant report them in game and have to go to forums so alot of stuff never gets reported. Scammer and cheaters can get away with any thing. Account Hijackings. Customer Service rarely every helps.
Well would you like to have a game where problems are easily reported and even fixed. A game where cheaters are punished and banned in just a few mins or at least in a day (weekends are busy). A game where improvements are made in 1-3 months reather then 6-18.
The problem is the player base views the game as free to play, the game devs play on this and both dont care and dont listen to their player base. They are making a game to make money and really dont care about you their customers.
You really should not think of the game as free to play. But rather that your are a customer of the gaming company and you should exspect them to fix the problem with their game.
You do want the game to be better and funner reather then just get worst right?
You have to identify exactly what is wrong and come up with ways to fix it and ask that it get fixed or nothing will even get fixed. If you dont try the game company will just keep ingoring these problems.
PS
Do you really want to play a game where a 8 year old you press 1 button turns on an auto pvp script that reacts faster then humanly possilbe and will auto win any pvp fight they are in?
(i think they have these already and is just another problem they are not fixing)
Originally posted by Feldron Well would you like to have a game where problems are easily reported and even fixed. A game where cheaters are punished and banned in just a few mins or at least in a day (weekends are busy). A game where improvements are made in 1-3 months reather then 6-18.
Ahem...is there such a game currently available? And better still: for free? I'd love to play it....right, didn't think so either. I too hate that "it's a free game" quote, but you have to face it: it's true. You won't get all the P2P features in a free MMO. It's still a bussiness and the company still has to make money from the game.
Now regarding the asian MMOs, the western companies pay the license, get the game, translate everything in English...and that's about it. They can't modify the game in any way, all they can do is implement all the things that were designed in the first place. That's why you won't see too many differences between the various versions of the same game. Ppl ask for new maps, weapons, armors, skills, etc, but that won't happen, they will not rewrite the entire game even just because that would mean pushing tha game back to CB/OB stage over and over again. And since most players like to play a game for a limited period of time, until the next big thing (MMO) is released, the company has to make money from an unstable player base. That doesn't give too many options either.
Well would you like to have a game where problems are easily reported and even fixed. A game where cheaters are punished and banned in just a few mins or at least in a day (weekends are busy). A game where improvements are made in 1-3 months reather then 6-18.
Ahem...is there such a game currently available? And better still: for free? I'd love to play it....right, didn't think so either. I too hate that "it's a free game" quote, but you have to face it: it's true. You won't get all the P2P features in a free MMO. It's still a bussiness and the company still has to make money from the game.
Now regarding the asian MMOs, the western companies pay the license, get the game, translate everything in English...and that's about it. They can't modify the game in any way, all they can do is implement all the things that were designed in the first place. That's why you won't see too many differences between the various versions of the same game. Ppl ask for new maps, weapons, armors, skills, etc, but that won't happen, they will not rewrite the entire game even just because that would mean pushing tha game back to CB/OB stage over and over again. And since most players like to play a game for a limited period of time, until the next big thing (MMO) is released, the company has to make money from an unstable player base. That doesn't give too many options either.
About the game making a profit, well if you look at other games out there that are pay even the small ones take in 1-3 million a month. And yet they still rarely expand at a reasonable rate (shareholders and management pockets it). Now its harder to say how much income the free games take in and alot somes down to how well they got the item shop set up. Its a good bet that the better the game play the more players the game has and therefore more players who would spend in the cash shop.
So really they could work on a free mmo in the same way a pay goes about it. The quests content and expansions. Only their is one problem they would need first a good fondation, good game play, and they would at first be spending more money then they take in. Basically they just right now spend the money as it comes in rather then before as far as expansion goes. This causes slow expansion and results in more loss of players and results in few cash shop transactions.
Right now the free mmo's live off the revolving door. They look for new players to replace old ones.
This does not end up being as successful.
Release a monthly updates list, add a new quests each month along with small updates this would cause less player loss when working on exspansions, or other content. (most quest are go kill x and get a reward so just like a extra person on the dev team could generate more profits.)
Hmmmzzzz...yes and no. I liked better 9Dragons' skill & clan systems, quests were better too, lightfoot was fun (although you get a similar skill in Hero too), but other than that, the two games are comparable: the boredom & grinding are still there (to me the grinding in 9Dragons felt even more difficult to bear than in Hero, because I had to attack one enemy at a time, as opposed to Hero's awesome AOEs - man I missed those).
I'd say if you're bored of Hero and you still want to play a similar game, 9Dragons is your best option.
Does 9Dragons have a hand to hand type player? or setting? I played a Monk in a ton of online games and was curious. Hero has nothing like this and I am currently playing this game. Thanks in advance for any info.
What do you mean by "hand to hand player" ? Like using your fists instead of weapons? If I remember correctly, you can play as a monk in 9Dragons (Shaolin), and I think they have a role for ppl who like to fight bare-handed (Diamond Monk...or something like that).
I began Hero Online during open beta and played to level 70, then I left and played many other mmorpgs for about 1 year and half . I recently came back to hero and found a lot of changes that for the most part are a breath of fresh air . They have added a ton of content and features and have also implemented a few new maps .
This game has always been one of the worst grinders in the history of mankind however , they have made some changes that make it easier to get exp and have doubled the spawn rate of the mobs also . There are faction wars several times a day that reward the winning faction with an increase in exp for about 3 and a half hours at a time which also helps . I found leveling much easier over all since I came back .
This is an interesting game in that it is extremely Asian in theme as well as game play , I am a fan of Chinese themes and Hero is by far the best that I have seen in this department , 9 Dragons is good but nothing compared to the authentic environment that Hero is based on . There are a lot of hidden elements and many intricacies to the game that become meaningful at high levels . They are planning for more content and maps etc that will primarily be geared toward players over level 100 which will be released in the near future .
When I left the first time , there were very few people that had Master skills ( lvl 60 ) and now there are many people with Divine skills (lvl 70 ) which have also been implemented in the game . These skill books are considered rare items with the sword skills being the most expensive based on supply and demand .
There are new items called Drakonian that are extremely rare and are limited to 200 per server channel . When someone gets a Drakonian item, Sword , Armor bow etc , from a monster drop , their name appears on all channels announcing their good fortune to the entire community .
They have also increased the amount of rare item drops in general and have allowed for cash items to be sold in game for gold . Unfortunately , there is now a large influx of noobs who are selling cash items and using billions in gold to purchase the high end gear , things that at one time were owned by a few hard working players are now everywhere including Black Dragon weapons and armor and divine skills which run about 70 million per book . The real humor in the situation is that even after spending that much money to be awesome , they dont know how to pvp worth a crap lol .
Hero for me has a lot of sentimental aspects to it since I was one of the original players from the days of open beta , there were a lot of wild and dramatic things going on back then and a lot of good times . The game has progressed quite a bit and is still putting new things on the plate for people . With the ability for anyone to buy anything including a leveled character though , I`m not sure that all of the changes are for the better , as always he who has the gold makes the rules .
I began Hero Online during open beta and played to level 70, then I left and played many other mmorpgs for about 1 year and half . I recently came back to hero and found a lot of changes that for the most part are a breath of fresh air . They have added a ton of content and features and have also implemented a few new maps . This game has always been one of the worst grinders in the history of mankind however , they have made some changes that make it easier to get exp and have doubled the spawn rate of the mobs also . There are faction wars several times a day that reward the winning faction with an increase in exp for about 3 and a half hours at a time which also helps . I found leveling much easier over all since I came back .
This is an interesting game in that it is extremely Asian in theme as well as game play , I am a fan of Chinese themes and Hero is by far the best that I have seen in this department , 9 Dragons is good but nothing compared to the authentic environment that Hero is based on . There are a lot of hidden elements and many intricacies to the game that become meaningful at high levels . They are planning for more content and maps etc that will primarily be geared toward players over level 100 which will be released in the near future . When I left the first time , there were very few people that had Master skills ( lvl 60 ) and now there are many people with Divine skills (lvl 70 ) which have also been implemented in the game . These skill books are considered rare items with the sword skills being the most expensive based on supply and demand .
There are new items called Drakonian that are extremely rare and are limited to 200 per server channel . When someone gets a Drakonian item, Sword , Armor bow etc , from a monster drop , their name appears on all channels announcing their good fortune to the entire community . They have also increased the amount of rare item drops in general and have allowed for cash items to be sold in game for gold . Unfortunately , there is now a large influx of noobs who are selling cash items and using billions in gold to purchase the high end gear , things that at one time were owned by a few hard working players are now everywhere including Black Dragon weapons and armor and divine skills which run about 70 million per book . The real humor in the situation is that even after spending that much money to be awesome , they dont know how to pvp worth a crap lol .
Hero for me has a lot of sentimental aspects to it since I was one of the original players from the days of open beta , there were a lot of wild and dramatic things going on back then and a lot of good times . The game has progressed quite a bit and is still putting new things on the plate for people . With the ability for anyone to buy anything including a leveled character though , I`m not sure that all of the changes are for the better , as always he who has the gold makes the rules .
I know u disagree with many change things in this game, but u know, this is a chinese game and as others it need money. Nothing is perfect and nothing is guilty, it still works with or w/o ur permission. If u played many games, u should be know its usual. GMs have to live so they need money, so dont suprise that "who has the gold makes the rules".
Anyways perhaps u ll find many worse games than this, good luck!!!
There are A LOT more worse games then this and about the grind all games have it play some other games and youll find crap that your making of this. this game was pretty good compared to the crap some games do . also GMs work hard
Hero has an unique atmosphere, unmatched by any other asian MMO (I know, I've played most of them). Grinding might seem excessive, but after playing a lot of other MMOs, I came (surprisingly) to the conclusion that Hero has actually a pretty fair xp curve and grinding really sets on only from 65 - 70 lvls up (starting either from Bamboo Mountain or Silent Valley - depending on your build...or should I say: on how gimped your build is). Hero used to have a very active and tight community and some of the best GMs I've ever encountered in a MMO - these things made Hero stand out, not the game's features themselves. A lot of that old "flavour" faded away maybe for veteran players like you an me, but for the new ones, Hero might offer a very enjoyable gaming experience.
I would have still played it if it wasn't for the lousy work PayByCash did for the item mall; to me it seemed illogical not being able to spend my real money due to their tedious and unsecure way of activating & verifying accounts. Just so we'd be clear: it's (almost) impossible to level up as a solo player pass lvl 80 without a full Black Dragon suit (+ weapon) and maybe a Divine Skill book and a good item shop costume. These cost a lot of in game money - so in order to make that ammount of money you are forced to start spending real cash on the game, because item shop items are maybe the only things besides Black Dragon gear and other ultra rare things (such as Draconian) that can get you a serious ammount of gold; the market is literally flooded with what used to be considered "rare stuff" (Sky Cleaver / 5 Dragon / Violet & Toxic weps / Master Skill Books / crafting materials, etc) and these things don't sell as good as they used to. So if you want to be able to train with little to no pain in places such as Cimson Sky and Crystal Summit you need very good gear (not to mention Desert Temple ans stuff). You could of course risk training in PvP maps (since you'd get increased xp), but you'd be a sitting target - you really can't PvP with crappy gear, and in Hero PvP all too often means getting killed in just 1 hit (or 2).
All in all, I have no problem in recommending the game to other potential players: if you're into asian MMOs, look no further Hero is a very good & enjoyable game - if you have some friends to play along with.
Comments
asfsdf
The game is pure grind.
The characters have no depth every player is just like the next.
The classes are a joke they just give you like 1 starting skill and latter like 5 at most.
The skills in the game are very lame and most are not worth having.
The game plays the same from one class to the next and its pure grind.
The quests a lame and poorly done and every few in number.
Inflation is a problem already and the game has only been played for a short time.
The item system is poorly designed. you are this lvl this is the gear you have.
Basically they would have to redo the entire game to fix the problems with it.
i belive u man yea hero online wrost game ever
It DOES kinda suck....
I've seen much better.
Not the worst, but not good at all.
AMONG the worst.
This fits among the "scary quotes" archives.
The Ultimate test of strength, agility and courage: World of Warcraft!
i can have more fun playing with my crap then this...seriously whoever plays this should honestly play a real game
You make a point, the graphics aren't top notch.The game IS pure grind.The characters really DON'T have any depth.It takes awhile to learn skills.I can't really say if the skills are lame, I didn't play long enough to try them all.The gameplay might be a little different for each class, I only tried Warrior and Hunter.Quests are pretty lame.The item system is pretty poor, but at least they let you have attributes on it.This is still an ok game to play with your friends if you need something to do, but it's lame without friends.
_________________________
http://s6.battleknight.co.uk/index.php?loc=hire&ref=MTM3NTI=
i agree with Feldron this game is confusing, there no storyline, and no tutorial to help start you off. but once you get into hero online it wont matter what matters is how fun it is. Hero online is a great game it just needs some inprovements for new players
The Hero 1000
lvl 9x still playing ^^. people like games co'z of their personal preferences.
hero lacks a bit but good for a free mmo. lots of things happening too quite changing every month with new promises ahead hope it still goes a long way.
Majority of the community are friendly and nice. you can grind, go play some boardgame ingame, do some mining, sell stuff train your pets and the RL money can now be sold in personal stores so a none RL paying player can buy it.
i Think the classes are just that way for marketing purposes.. you can buy a RL item that will change you to other classes (other classes have their uses) pvp sux though mostly pot spams and charms. overall if you can 1hit KO your enemy w/o seeing is good the way to go
overall good game to play for heavy grinders. Rare gears are hard to craft some are lucky some are not, +'ng them up is just plain luck also.. some players are spending 2k$ RL money just to get their rare weapon to +7 and got 0 ^^ well its a matter of choice 
. you wont feel the thrill in hero alone. once you hit lvl 80 thats the true Hero Online Begins. BTW big updates are coming out new maps new rare sets that so far cant be crafted. this game got lots of secret features you can dig into. The Gm's wont tell a thing how to obtain those status etc., etc., go play and find it out by yourself with your guild its fun ^^ although i agree with the character customization, but this game is not about character customization 
.
well thats it good day
4 words, FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO PLAY!
Obviously its not going to be as nice as a "premium mmo" is. Man, I hate when people expect things to be sooo perfect and FREE at the same time!!
So why don't you give em a couple million dollars to fix these so called problems instead of complaining about them on the forums?
Oh.... you don't have it??
<Mod edit>
Exactly thats one of the game biggest problems
Look at what goes on in the game. Bugs unfixed for months. Gold Farmers spamming chat. Botters every where. Rarely every GM's. You cant report them in game and have to go to forums so alot of stuff never gets reported. Scammer and cheaters can get away with any thing. Account Hijackings. Customer Service rarely every helps.
Well would you like to have a game where problems are easily reported and even fixed. A game where cheaters are punished and banned in just a few mins or at least in a day (weekends are busy). A game where improvements are made in 1-3 months reather then 6-18.
The problem is the player base views the game as free to play, the game devs play on this and both dont care and dont listen to their player base. They are making a game to make money and really dont care about you their customers.
You really should not think of the game as free to play. But rather that your are a customer of the gaming company and you should exspect them to fix the problem with their game.
You do want the game to be better and funner reather then just get worst right?
You have to identify exactly what is wrong and come up with ways to fix it and ask that it get fixed or nothing will even get fixed. If you dont try the game company will just keep ingoring these problems.
PS
Do you really want to play a game where a 8 year old you press 1 button turns on an auto pvp script that reacts faster then humanly possilbe and will auto win any pvp fight they are in?
(i think they have these already and is just another problem they are not fixing)
Ahem...is there such a game currently available? And better still: for free? I'd love to play it....right, didn't think so either. I too hate that "it's a free game" quote, but you have to face it: it's true. You won't get all the P2P features in a free MMO. It's still a bussiness and the company still has to make money from the game.
Now regarding the asian MMOs, the western companies pay the license, get the game, translate everything in English...and that's about it. They can't modify the game in any way, all they can do is implement all the things that were designed in the first place. That's why you won't see too many differences between the various versions of the same game. Ppl ask for new maps, weapons, armors, skills, etc, but that won't happen, they will not rewrite the entire game even just because that would mean pushing tha game back to CB/OB stage over and over again. And since most players like to play a game for a limited period of time, until the next big thing (MMO) is released, the company has to make money from an unstable player base. That doesn't give too many options either.
Ahem...is there such a game currently available? And better still: for free? I'd love to play it....right, didn't think so either. I too hate that "it's a free game" quote, but you have to face it: it's true. You won't get all the P2P features in a free MMO. It's still a bussiness and the company still has to make money from the game.
Now regarding the asian MMOs, the western companies pay the license, get the game, translate everything in English...and that's about it. They can't modify the game in any way, all they can do is implement all the things that were designed in the first place. That's why you won't see too many differences between the various versions of the same game. Ppl ask for new maps, weapons, armors, skills, etc, but that won't happen, they will not rewrite the entire game even just because that would mean pushing tha game back to CB/OB stage over and over again. And since most players like to play a game for a limited period of time, until the next big thing (MMO) is released, the company has to make money from an unstable player base. That doesn't give too many options either.
About the game making a profit, well if you look at other games out there that are pay even the small ones take in 1-3 million a month. And yet they still rarely expand at a reasonable rate (shareholders and management pockets it). Now its harder to say how much income the free games take in and alot somes down to how well they got the item shop set up. Its a good bet that the better the game play the more players the game has and therefore more players who would spend in the cash shop.
So really they could work on a free mmo in the same way a pay goes about it. The quests content and expansions. Only their is one problem they would need first a good fondation, good game play, and they would at first be spending more money then they take in. Basically they just right now spend the money as it comes in rather then before as far as expansion goes. This causes slow expansion and results in more loss of players and results in few cash shop transactions.
Right now the free mmo's live off the revolving door. They look for new players to replace old ones.
This does not end up being as successful.
Release a monthly updates list, add a new quests each month along with small updates this would cause less player loss when working on exspansions, or other content. (most quest are go kill x and get a reward so just like a extra person on the dev team could generate more profits.)
I do have interest in martial arts games. I heard 9 dragons is better than this. Is it true?
Hmmmzzzz...yes and no. I liked better 9Dragons' skill & clan systems, quests were better too, lightfoot was fun (although you get a similar skill in Hero too), but other than that, the two games are comparable: the boredom & grinding are still there (to me the grinding in 9Dragons felt even more difficult to bear than in Hero, because I had to attack one enemy at a time, as opposed to Hero's awesome AOEs - man I missed those).
I'd say if you're bored of Hero and you still want to play a similar game, 9Dragons is your best option.
Does 9Dragons have a hand to hand type player? or setting? I played a Monk in a ton of online games and was curious. Hero has nothing like this and I am currently playing this game. Thanks in advance for any info.
Have Fun or Don't Do It !
What do you mean by "hand to hand player" ? Like using your fists instead of weapons? If I remember correctly, you can play as a monk in 9Dragons (Shaolin), and I think they have a role for ppl who like to fight bare-handed (Diamond Monk...or something like that).
its an all right game buty all in all i wouldint reccomed it above many
I began Hero Online during open beta and played to level 70, then I left and played many other mmorpgs for about 1 year and half . I recently came back to hero and found a lot of changes that for the most part are a breath of fresh air . They have added a ton of content and features and have also implemented a few new maps .
This game has always been one of the worst grinders in the history of mankind however , they have made some changes that make it easier to get exp and have doubled the spawn rate of the mobs also . There are faction wars several times a day that reward the winning faction with an increase in exp for about 3 and a half hours at a time which also helps . I found leveling much easier over all since I came back .
This is an interesting game in that it is extremely Asian in theme as well as game play , I am a fan of Chinese themes and Hero is by far the best that I have seen in this department , 9 Dragons is good but nothing compared to the authentic environment that Hero is based on . There are a lot of hidden elements and many intricacies to the game that become meaningful at high levels . They are planning for more content and maps etc that will primarily be geared toward players over level 100 which will be released in the near future .
When I left the first time , there were very few people that had Master skills ( lvl 60 ) and now there are many people with Divine skills (lvl 70 ) which have also been implemented in the game . These skill books are considered rare items with the sword skills being the most expensive based on supply and demand .
There are new items called Drakonian that are extremely rare and are limited to 200 per server channel . When someone gets a Drakonian item, Sword , Armor bow etc , from a monster drop , their name appears on all channels announcing their good fortune to the entire community .
They have also increased the amount of rare item drops in general and have allowed for cash items to be sold in game for gold . Unfortunately , there is now a large influx of noobs who are selling cash items and using billions in gold to purchase the high end gear , things that at one time were owned by a few hard working players are now everywhere including Black Dragon weapons and armor and divine skills which run about 70 million per book . The real humor in the situation is that even after spending that much money to be awesome , they dont know how to pvp worth a crap lol .
Hero for me has a lot of sentimental aspects to it since I was one of the original players from the days of open beta , there were a lot of wild and dramatic things going on back then and a lot of good times . The game has progressed quite a bit and is still putting new things on the plate for people . With the ability for anyone to buy anything including a leveled character though , I`m not sure that all of the changes are for the better , as always he who has the gold makes the rules .
Anyways perhaps u ll find many worse games than this, good luck!!!
Lady_Killer
There are A LOT more worse games then this and about the grind all games have it play some other games and youll find crap that your making of this. this game was pretty good compared to the crap some games do . also GMs work hard
im a virus rawr im seriously not ok
Hero has an unique atmosphere, unmatched by any other asian MMO (I know, I've played most of them). Grinding might seem excessive, but after playing a lot of other MMOs, I came (surprisingly) to the conclusion that Hero has actually a pretty fair xp curve and grinding really sets on only from 65 - 70 lvls up (starting either from Bamboo Mountain or Silent Valley - depending on your build...or should I say: on how gimped your build is). Hero used to have a very active and tight community and some of the best GMs I've ever encountered in a MMO - these things made Hero stand out, not the game's features themselves. A lot of that old "flavour" faded away maybe for veteran players like you an me, but for the new ones, Hero might offer a very enjoyable gaming experience.
I would have still played it if it wasn't for the lousy work PayByCash did for the item mall; to me it seemed illogical not being able to spend my real money due to their tedious and unsecure way of activating & verifying accounts. Just so we'd be clear: it's (almost) impossible to level up as a solo player pass lvl 80 without a full Black Dragon suit (+ weapon) and maybe a Divine Skill book and a good item shop costume. These cost a lot of in game money - so in order to make that ammount of money you are forced to start spending real cash on the game, because item shop items are maybe the only things besides Black Dragon gear and other ultra rare things (such as Draconian) that can get you a serious ammount of gold; the market is literally flooded with what used to be considered "rare stuff" (Sky Cleaver / 5 Dragon / Violet & Toxic weps / Master Skill Books / crafting materials, etc) and these things don't sell as good as they used to. So if you want to be able to train with little to no pain in places such as Cimson Sky and Crystal Summit you need very good gear (not to mention Desert Temple ans stuff). You could of course risk training in PvP maps (since you'd get increased xp), but you'd be a sitting target - you really can't PvP with crappy gear, and in Hero PvP all too often means getting killed in just 1 hit (or 2).
All in all, I have no problem in recommending the game to other potential players: if you're into asian MMOs, look no further
Hero is a very good & enjoyable game - if you have some friends to play along with.