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End of Nations Previews: Gamer's Day Preview
MMORPG.com's own Community Manager Mike Bitton recently had the opportunity to visit the Trion World headquarters in San Francisco. As part of the Gamer's Day visit, Mike got the chance for a hands on look at this groundbreaking MMORTS currently in development at Petroglyph Games.
By Michael Bitton on August 09, 2010
MMORTS games aren’t exactly a dime a dozen, and especially not by a AAA developer like the folks at Petroglyph, whose team members are some of the people who brought us RTS classics such as Dune II and the Command & Conquer series. With that said, we were excited to see what Petroglyph had in store for us in San Francisco, as Trion Worlds invited us out to check out their upcoming fantasy MMORPG Rift: Planes of Telara and their MMORTS End of Nations.
End of Nations is an MMORTS that puts players in the role of one of three commander classes, artillery (long range bombardment, great for groups), strike (hit and fade guerilla warfare), and tank, which is fairly self explanatory. From there, players develop their commander character as well as their own armies as they progress through the game world either cooperatively in PvE or against others in PvP. Base building isn’t done on the battlefield, instead, players have their own personal bases where they can create structures to churn out new units, advance their tech tree through research, and even customize their units with decals and colors.
Players enter battle by either selecting the Quick Match option from the War Room interface or by browsing around the game’s world map where they can choose certain scenarios to embark on. These scenarios often offer a variety of quests that are pushed to you frequently and can be completed cooperatively with many players.
Following a short introduction by Trion senior producer Gary Wagner, we jumped feet first into the game and created level 15 template characters to check out one of two PvE scenarios we were to be shown that day. The first scenario was set in Magadan, Russia and I opted for an artillery commander. I didn’t find that to be such a great choice as it seemed more geared towards group play than solo play and I basically roamed around the quite large map and did quests for the contacts there. Quests ran the gamut from placing a flare down to mark a location for helicopters to secure, to investigating the downed wreckage of a Chinook helicopter and dealing with the enemies that were inevitably waiting there.
Controls were fairly simple and familiar to anyone playing an RTS, but where things took a different turn is in how you actually play the game. RTS gameplay is generally categorized in either micromanagement or macromanagement style play but I didn’t really find it to be distinctly one or the other. You can only bring a certain number of units into a particular battle as each unit has a point value and so you can spend those points on numerous cheaper units or a small few very powerful units. You don’t really micromanage the units as they don’t have abilities of their own, however, your commander does, and he has a great deal of them. In fact, for our template I felt a bit overwhelmed by the many abilities I could use, though Gary assured us that new characters would be introduced to abilities and units at a slow enough place to get familiarized with them.
Combat basically plays out by commanding your units to attack a group of enemies and then making tactical use of whatever commander abilities you have at your disposal. These abilities can be anything from a heal, to a move speed buff, to superweapons such as bombing runs and nuclear bombs, or even consumable items such as repair drones, armor or special ammo types. These abilities often have lengthy cooldowns so knowing what to use and when is extremely key in a fight.
Once we were done putzing around in Magadan, the developers had us create new level 50 template characters to check out another scenario taking place in Oman. I went with artillery again because I’m a glutton for punishment and I got to check out a higher level scenario. Oman, naturally, was a desert scenario and I found myself working for some Middle Eastern characters, which was also the first time I noticed that the quest text was voiced, a pretty neat touch. The objectives here were a good deal more difficult, I wiped many times and even the random adds around the map took a big bite out of me as I moved around.
What was really interesting about the Oman map was the fact I got to make use of some neat superweapons such as the artillery bombardment ability that helped me get through some particularly nasty situations where I was greatly outnumbered, and of course, the Panzer Hulk, a giant boss enemy that looked like he was more at home in the old Metal Slug games than anywhere else. That’s a compliment by the way; the thing was massive and had many hardpoints to attack. Unfortunately, I was solo and I was only able to whittle down one of the hardpoints before being wasted, but I never got a chance to see him again. Perhaps next time I’ll bring friends.
Be sure to check back soon as we’ll be looking at PvP in End of Nations.
This looks searing, red hot and could make Starcraft look very small. I really like it.
Even though the game looks interesting am leary of playing a MMO type game that has pvp due to human nature of players who do not like to lose and will do anything to win including up to the use of using any type of cheating and exploitation of game mechanics.
Thumbs up for this one.
That isn't so much a problem with the PvP it's self, but rather with developers not taking the proper steps, and remain nimble enough to deal with these issues quickly and effectively.
To be honest, what good would a game like this be WITHOUT PvP? I don't think anyone I know would even both if it was not a PvP game. I am personally looking forward to it, a change of pace in MMO's is a good thing.
- Ice_Hole
Looks promising, I've always wanted to play a good MMORTS.
Yet another grand example of "MMO" being abused by RTS and FPS companies to make extra buck.
I'll say this louder so it makers a larger impact this time: THIS IS NOT AN MMO AND SHOULD NOT BE ON THIS SITE. WOULD YOU PLEASE DO YOUR FLIPPIN JOBS?!?!
Thank You /bow
i guess you could say its a combination of world in conflict and global agenda.
Even though i like both games and still play them occasionally i couldnt say they are really mmo`s.
Even though it has alot(all) multiplayer play, it stays limited.
Nevertheless sounds like a fun game, but if its a completly subscription based game i don`t think its gonna hold all that long.
(maybe go the global agenda way on that)
Wait a minute
You than choose Quick Match option ?!?!
So this is just another glorified battlenet game that calls its self MMO
LOL
Let me guess. They will start with subs, and than change it to sub free in 2 months :D
"can only bring a certain number of units" - does not sound very RTS to me... more like DoW2.
I've been waiting for good MMORTS games for a long time now. This might be it!
Yep, i won't be paying a monthly sub for a simple co-op RTS with a few persistent levels and skills on top...
And i'll bet that the old Shattered Galaxy (approaching 10 years now) with its 50 players skirmishes and conquerable territories will have far more MMO features than EoN...
What the fuck is a MMORTS?
Its an RTS and dosent belong to this site. I dont see any RTS department here, would be nice if you fixed one, but there isnt at the moment.
if its half of good as shattered galaxy was its time definitely going to try. God i miss shattered galaxy.
Yep, just another multiplayer game attempting to ride on the coat tails of the MMO genre. MMORPG might as well admit they are becoming a general gaming site, they seem to cover everything lately that has multiplayer anywhere in the description.
Where is the Diablo III discussion? It most certainly fits what they cover on this board better than this stuff?
Or, the term MMO (MMG really) is changing and has been changing for years. MMO does not imply seamless, never has.
End of Nations Trailer
The distinction is blured as to what a MMO is, you need a lot of players and persistance, but exactly how many and how much is open to debate. This game does seem to fall on the wrong side of the fence from what I can gather mind you.
Looks awesome, I loved World in Conflict and this seems to be the same kind of idea. Hopefully its executed properly.
As for the elitists complaining about the watering down of "their" genre, let me call you a waaambulance. This game has pesistance, character advancement, large amounts of players playing together (it might be a smaller number than RPG games, but still a large number for standard RTS ones), what about it isn't an MMO? The attitude from the purists on this site is disgusting, NOTHING is an MMO unless it involves Elves and Orcs autoattacking each other while mashing number keys apparently.
Doesnt starcraft 2 offer the same principles for no monthly fee?
No... not even close...
51 players per map is less tham you can get in a Battlefield scenario. But good to see all the stats etc are persistant. What about territorial gains are they persistant too?
You can stretch your definition any way you like, but the differences between this game and Starcraft are minimal. They are both multiplayer RTS games. And you can bet that this game won't be even close to as good as Starcraft or the Command and Conquer series. While these games always look good on paper, the actual implementation tends to bring us back to reality.
[quote]
Originally posted by Ozmodan
You should look up who is making this game. (Small hint, West + Wood + Joseph Bostic ) You should also read up on its features before commenting.
If its good or not, is something we will have to see about when its out, but the stuff you are saying and doing right now to discredit the title, is retarded.
This isn't a FPS, its an RTS and most of those only support 8 players.
End of Nations Developer Diary #1
"These scenarios often offer a variety of quests that are pushed to you frequently and can be completed cooperatively with many players."
The question is HOW MANY PLAYERS.
But I think an MMORTS is impossible to do anyway, let's wait and see how the PVP turns out.
Obviously it's not going to have more then 20 players on one realtime map because the frame rate would drop to zero with all those units, not to mention connection lag with all those units. Let's hope a server has one big world map on which you can conquer pieces alone or with a clan in realtime on pieces of that map. Like (singleplayer) Dune 2 had.
Its like you didn't watch any of the videos i linked.