Fury: Studio Tour, Hands-On

Furthermore, crystals that have been brought to a team’s base are still vulnerable to theft from the opposing team. Players have to subsequently arrange to be on the offensive while still protecting their newly acquired assets at their base.

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“Unlike World of Warcraft”, reaffirms Carpenter, “game times have a finite length. It’s the type of thing where you can get and play over lunch.”

To make sure that players can enjoy their Vortex experience, Fury matches players up on character level and player skill. That way there is sure to be a healthy degree of competition in every match. Player skill is determined by a character’s previous wins in Vortex play.

In addition to Vortex matches, the world of Fury also offers war zone areas where players can test their strength and abilities against each other. While unlike Vortex play there are no tangible gains to be had in a war zone, it provides players with a great opportunity to face off against an opponent.

Game Play in Fury

So aside from the face paced combat, some of you might be asking ‘what makes Fury different from other MMOs?”. Fury has adopted some new MMO features that the Auran Studios team feels will greatly add to a player’s experience.

To start with, you won’t find a mana bar anywhere on your game screen.

“Mana is the ‘fun-bar’ of an MMO”, said Carpenter, laying out his gaming philosophy. “Once you ran out of mana, you ran out of fun… We’re really trying to focus on fun in this game. So when we add a new feature, we have to ask ourselves – Does this make it more fun?”

Instead, Fury uses a charge system. Character abilities, which incidentally are based on the four elements (fire, water, air and nature), accumulate charges with every use. The more charges a character has accumulated in the combat, the more powerful their abilities will be. There are also more powerful abilities in a character’s arsenal that destroy charges instead of creating them. This adds another level of strategy to combat. Do you use your smaller abilities to accumulate charges, making them more powerful with every attack? Or do you build up enough charges to use the more commanding attacks then build up again? It’s this kind of strategy diversity that Carpenter and the Fury team have worked so hard to incorporate into the game.

Fury has also been designed to form an ‘Us vs. Them’ mentality. Unlike most MMOs, Fury promotes a great deal of competition not only between players and guilds on the same server, but also between different servers on a whole. Characters on a server that is competing well will be eligible for what Carpenter calls ‘server rewards’. These server rewards will allow the casual player to earn rewards as well as the seasoned MMO player. But don’t worry, there’s still plenty of room for individual recognition on each server.

One particular aspect of Fury that is sure to keep players entertained is death. When a character dies in Fury the character model kicks into ragdoll mode. This produces a unique death animation whenever a character is killed.

On the other side of the coin Fury employs some interesting ways to take a bloke out as well. Players are able to use a deathblow that is capable of taking out up to 30% of a health instantly. It’s a skilled shot that adds another level of strategy to combat. A player choosing to use a deathblow must evaluate the most strategic point to strike the blow.

The World of Fury

The world of Fury is a huge feature of the game. I sat down with Art Director Jason Robson to discuss the world and its design.

There are different themes in different areas of the world. These include life, death, growth, decay and urban. Each of these themes is designed to convey a feeling to the player of where they actually are in the game. Its not just about the art for Robson, its about the experience of being there.

“We wanted to create places you’d want visit”, said Robson enthusiastically while discussing his vision for the world of Fury.

In an attempt to immerse the players further in the atmosphere of the game, the Fury team employs an ever-changing environment. The game’s environment will depict events that have transpired at the location. Expect the world story to be portrayed not only in the storyline, but in the countryside as well.

Final Words

Overall, the team at Auran studios are developing a game that promises to appeal the both the casual gamer and us hopeless addicts. Fury’s fast paced combat system and ever-evolving world promises to deliver a new brand of MMO experience to players worldwide. Expect Fury on the shelves next year.

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