Stromko
13 Feb 2008, 17:07
These are just my first impressions, so forgive me if I'm off-base, but it feels to me like the RPG aspects are way too abstract or simplistic to get excited about, while the RTS aspects are underdeveloped. The game is very polished graphically and so far has been pretty stable for me, it looks/feels like an AAA title but the design seems to leave a LOT to be desired.
1) Loot isn't exciting. "Oh joy, a 2% to whatever! But what the hell is this thing? Is it a sword, is it a new gun, maybe a spiffy/silly helmet? Nope! Boooring!" (edit: Actually some relics are named for boots or hats or whatever, but they're still completely interchangeable)
2) Combat seems to borrow more from old-school MMORPGs than it does RTS games. Trouble is, people only put up with MMORPG combat because they're extremely invested with their characters and combat is the ultimate test for said character. You don't even have to tap the autoattack button, the only thing it seems to borrow from RTSes is watching, not doing.
What makes it less RTS than MMORPG is the composition of your forces and the enemies. No bases, no capture points, no overall strategic situation to consider. What you basically get is a bunch of static spawns that are just milling around until you come up to bop them on the head. You have no reason to think of your forces as anything but a single entity, even if they're a huge pack you're going to just keep them all together as a big clump.
Once the battle is joined, you can trigger a few powers, but we're basically back to MMORPG, watching cooldowns and seeing green, blue, and red bars go up and down. Joy. This'd work if we cared deeply for the overall situation, but..
3) There is no feeling of investment in your character or your forces. Your lord-commander is just a carbon copy clone, no more unique or interesting than the rest of your forces. You can choose loot for a given side and therefore 'invest' in it, but, it still isn't yours, you have no reason to feel a kind of ownership over it. You don't even have a class, or gender, or hairstyle! It would appear a high-level character of a given faction will be identical to any other, same weapons, same feel, perhaps even same powers.
All your other units are even more disposable and lacking in identity. A tribe warrior is a tribe warrior, in form and function they are all identical no matter who leads them. Only a single upgrade slot isn't enough to imagine tweaking their role in the slightest. Tell me that at the highest level if I could somehow slip into someone else's shoes, I wouldn't use their units exactly like I'd use my units, that I would need to adjust my strategy at least a LITTLE to account for their differing abilities.
No? Then why should I bother?
------
So my point is, what we have here is a bunch of soulless percentage-boosts and disposable clone armies that we'd expect from an RTS, coupled with the mindless combat and silly, contrived situations of a last-gen MMORPG.
Shouldn't it be the best of both worlds, shouldn't we care for our characters and their henchmen, and feel unique and special for all the time invested, while being challenged tactically and putting into practice a grand strategy to win the day?
I think the most important thing is getting players hooked, and the way to do that is to make them excited about what they're fighting for. Interesting abilities, the ability to express themselves through the look/feel of their army and their hero, loot that /matters/, all that good stuff. Worry about PvP balance later if it's only a small part of the experience, instead make PvE /worth/ the grind and worry about making all these diverse sides, diverse loot, diverse abilities play together fairly later.
1) Loot isn't exciting. "Oh joy, a 2% to whatever! But what the hell is this thing? Is it a sword, is it a new gun, maybe a spiffy/silly helmet? Nope! Boooring!" (edit: Actually some relics are named for boots or hats or whatever, but they're still completely interchangeable)
2) Combat seems to borrow more from old-school MMORPGs than it does RTS games. Trouble is, people only put up with MMORPG combat because they're extremely invested with their characters and combat is the ultimate test for said character. You don't even have to tap the autoattack button, the only thing it seems to borrow from RTSes is watching, not doing.
What makes it less RTS than MMORPG is the composition of your forces and the enemies. No bases, no capture points, no overall strategic situation to consider. What you basically get is a bunch of static spawns that are just milling around until you come up to bop them on the head. You have no reason to think of your forces as anything but a single entity, even if they're a huge pack you're going to just keep them all together as a big clump.
Once the battle is joined, you can trigger a few powers, but we're basically back to MMORPG, watching cooldowns and seeing green, blue, and red bars go up and down. Joy. This'd work if we cared deeply for the overall situation, but..
3) There is no feeling of investment in your character or your forces. Your lord-commander is just a carbon copy clone, no more unique or interesting than the rest of your forces. You can choose loot for a given side and therefore 'invest' in it, but, it still isn't yours, you have no reason to feel a kind of ownership over it. You don't even have a class, or gender, or hairstyle! It would appear a high-level character of a given faction will be identical to any other, same weapons, same feel, perhaps even same powers.
All your other units are even more disposable and lacking in identity. A tribe warrior is a tribe warrior, in form and function they are all identical no matter who leads them. Only a single upgrade slot isn't enough to imagine tweaking their role in the slightest. Tell me that at the highest level if I could somehow slip into someone else's shoes, I wouldn't use their units exactly like I'd use my units, that I would need to adjust my strategy at least a LITTLE to account for their differing abilities.
No? Then why should I bother?
------
So my point is, what we have here is a bunch of soulless percentage-boosts and disposable clone armies that we'd expect from an RTS, coupled with the mindless combat and silly, contrived situations of a last-gen MMORPG.
Shouldn't it be the best of both worlds, shouldn't we care for our characters and their henchmen, and feel unique and special for all the time invested, while being challenged tactically and putting into practice a grand strategy to win the day?
I think the most important thing is getting players hooked, and the way to do that is to make them excited about what they're fighting for. Interesting abilities, the ability to express themselves through the look/feel of their army and their hero, loot that /matters/, all that good stuff. Worry about PvP balance later if it's only a small part of the experience, instead make PvE /worth/ the grind and worry about making all these diverse sides, diverse loot, diverse abilities play together fairly later.