A few weeks ago, the 30 days of game time included with my retail purchase of Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising ran out. Since then, Heatwave Interactive added a fifth class to the game: the scout. Around the same time, the company made a three-day free trial available. I decided to take advantage of this convenient marriage of events and see if the addition of the new class warranted renewing my subscription vows.

Something old,

The scout was originally conceived many years ago by Perpetual Entertainment during the game's initial development. It's an implementation of the archetypical archer class, with a few twists appropriate to the game's setting. Heatwave chose not to include the scout class (along with the hybrid nomad class) at all during beta testing or at launch due to a perceived imbalance in those classes' combat abilities.

The scout animations appeared dated, even in comparison to the other classes in the game. After killing a creature, my character would still stand there swinging its sling around until I moved. Using melee skills locked my character in place, and projectiles seemed to be wildly out-of-sync with my ranged weapon animations. I never had an opportunity to meet my chosen deity, as I had in dramatic fashion with the other classes.

Something new,

The scout has undergone a few changes since its days at Perpetual. It used to have a dizzying array of skills, which have been reduced to a more manageable number. It feels slightly less invincible at range, and slightly more durable in melee combat. While it can still use bows and slings, the throwing javelin weapon is gone.

The scout is the first class in the game to use the leather (medium) armor type and ranged weapons. No longer are 33% of the item drops in the game absolutely useless! While the game still lacks any real economic activity, at least these items aren't automatically vendor trash now.

Something borrowed,

The pacing and strategy of scout combat felt nearly identical to the game's two other ranged damage dealers: the priest and mystic. Although my scout had a number of melee skills, I rarely used them. Creatures were usually dead before they even got close to me, thanks to my trusty defender minion.

Even when doing group content, I found myself pushing the same two or three buttons over and over again. I can appreciate the consistent experience among all ranged damage dealers. However, aside from the bow in my hand, I might as well have been playing my mystic all over again.

Something blue.

Blue is how I felt after my three days with the scout. I really liked the authentic setting of Gods & Heroes. I was hoping that the addition of my favorite kind of class would make it worth coming back. Playing the scout just didn't feel very scout-y. It was a major disappointment.

The game crashed just as much for me as it did at release, and had the same bizarre visual glitches and unresponsive combat. There were no new activities to partake in along the way, and there was still nothing interesting to do at end-game.

The types of patches that have been released include fixes one might expect during beta testing. Since the scout class itself was never tested by players during its time at Heatwave, it feels very much like just another beta feature in a beta game.