Gods & Heroes: E3 Update
MMORPG.com Writer Carolyn Koh attended this year's, modified, E3. In today's report, she takes a look at the upcoming MMORPG from Perpetual Entertainment, Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising.
"Show me something new," I demanded of Chris McKibbin - President of Perpetual Entertainment and Community Manager Binky Launius. With SoE's Gamers Day only two months past, Hero Camp not two weeks past and launch in a matter of months, what had fans and readers not seen or heard?
;)
They pondered. "We're at the 'polishing, polishing, polishing' stage," mused Chris, leaving his minions idle while he thought. "We're a hundred percent content complete and adding aggressively to closed beta." His minions dispatched a bandit that had wandered too close and aggroed on the group. "Have you seen the new sky box?" He asked, "We've got new sky and clouds. They are dynamically lit." He tilted the camera up to the sky, showing me the clouds. "Have you seen anything like it?" He demanded. I admired it politely. It was indeed pretty.
We walked around cold, icy Gaul, attacking and being attacked by random creatures while Chris showed off the tight UI. Character bars on the left of the screen with game options in a vertical bar and bags on the horizontal. Squad bar on the right with minion bar in the vertical and squad commands on the horizontal. Four hotbars are also available, and anything with an icon can be hotkeyed. Squad formations, skills, spells, etc.
"Rome is much grander than the first time we showed it," said Chris as we walked into the capital city. "All cities are organized by class. But Rome has bigger and better everything: the Pantheon where all the Gods and Goddesses are worshipped, Bath houses and playable sub-areas." Better quests and vendors, I am told, also where you ;)
form your guild for 2gp and 5 members. We visited several structures and I duly admired the architecture and graphics. We then Picked up a few quests, asked a guard for directions and navigated through the city via the overhead map. "Most of the starting quests will run you around the city to familiarize you with it. The usual sort of thing, then as you progress, you can pick up other more interesting quests, some of a political nature.
We visited the Bath House. There were quest NPCs and bathers aplenty, but none of them were lounging around by the side of the bathing pool. The men wore short togas as did the women. Some were in two piece outfits. Nothing skimpy. No bath house boys holding towels or masseuse girls. Binky cast a baleful eye on me. "We're not that game. We don't even have blood and gore." With Chris was playing a Nomad - a dagger fighter with "stupid fast" attack and showed me the areas accessible only by the class, much like the sneaky rogue class in other games, it has its own "underground."
We also talked about squads and minions (of course), the amount of control a player had over them. Players have macro controls - squad formations and the general aggressive, defensive & no-action stances as well as micro-controls - where each minion may be controlled separately. This includes: feats they could use, the point when the healer should cast heal spells and directing them individually during battle to fight, assist or run away. Minions have to be rezzed when they die, and do not die when you do. Instead, they will continue fighting, either until they die or you recall them at your respawn point. "How do you stop your minion from rezzing you in battle?" I asked.
"Your minions can rezz you??" I chuckled at Binky. "Yes, they can." We immediately explored his Vulta's feat panel. There were Restoration and Rapid Restoration feats. "There you go!" exclaimed Binky. "Remove the quick rezz feat."
;)
We walked into an unfriendly camp because Chris was too busy talking to me. Right into the center of camp, aggroing multiples. "Ut-oh... this isn't good. I thought this was a friendly camp! I didn't mouse over them to see the red outlines (signifying aggressive mobs)." He first tried to fight his way out, and then tried to run. We found out that, yeah... if you remove the rezz feats, your minion won't rezz you. We found shrines - some with two statues - one, a Squad Manager, another, a Death Restorer where you could pay a tithe to retrieve your corpse, some even had a third statue - a Camp Master so you could set your camp and bind point.
"Have you seen the player camp? It's changed," Binky told me. By all means, show me. We entered camp. Camp? It was a fort! A walled enclosure made of sharpened logs, with watch towers in the corners, a walkway around - unfortunately inaccessible although ladders led up to it - "It's for atmosphere," said Binky. I expected to see armed guards on the walls! It came complete with: a Quartermaster (banker), General Provisions & Repairs vendor, Squad Master, Camp Master (which sets the color customization and bind spot of your camp), Minion Smith (from whom you buy sets of armor for your minions), the Janitor who watches your gate, an NPC "trainer" who would give you quests and information... and a dog. Simply named, "Dog." Aww, can I rename him Brutus?
Binky ran me around, showing me the various tents and a small training arena. "What's that for?" I asked, puzzled. "Oh, your minions will occasionally fight in there," was the casual reply. There are 130 minions available at launch and 12 are Myth Minions - one for each God(dess). If not assigned to your squad, they will hang out in your camp. "Players can quest only for minions that support they way they play or for all of them as they wish," said Chris. I wondered if they would pet the dog. "Your minions have unique history and personality," Binky told me. "You can talk to them and discover their backgrounds. If you interface with them often and treat them well, they will even give you quests."
;)
My reaction to that was one word, "Dude!" Treat them well? Like... not getting them killed all the time? Upgrade their armor when you can? Take them out in your squad often? Personality? Minions can be surly? Minions have morale? But that was all Binky would say. "What's the fun in telling you everything? You'll have to play the game and find out for yourself."
*Groan* what a hook. What a devilish hook to leave one who has a fondness for pet classes. Will "Care and feeding of your minions for success in God and Heroes." Be the guide to follow? Only time will tell.
no blood or gore huh?
hmmm
As much as I support innovation and would love to see them succeed I don't really think there are many people who give a damn about this game... Of course I can be wrong.
i wasn't that big into the game. but reading this update, seeing the animations in a few of the websites...i am starting to drool! :)
Let's see:
Excited because they have new clouds.
Apparently, everything has a macro.
130 minions at launch, of which there are minions that can rezz you and, I'm assuming, also heal you. No need to party here. Oh, and remember when you lag out on your higher end comp due to hundreds of imps all over the place, it's working as intended. Also, from the description of "taking care of your minions", those of you who raise Pokemon and Neopets will have a distinct advantage.
"We're not that game." He's right, they're nowhere near AoC. I see nothing innovative other than the ability to have a bunch of Chiapets follow you around and act like the group you won't need.
I hate when I have to actually say this about a game, but say hello to WoW with Zeus.
I think they pretty much summed up what you're getting from this game, and it's already available in most of the games before it.
Was a good interview, takes my hype up another few clicks. As for the rezzing go to the community forums and you will find out that was a typo, or for some of you younger MMO player a "mt". So no worry's there will be tons of grouping...did you hear they have to many quests at the moment, so there will be lots of grouping, don't worry about that at all. Also as for the comments made about minions, I know many people are thinking "Guild Wars" at the thought of minions. But if there was ever an interview to prove that wrong it is this one. Come on who wouldn't want to treat at least one of their minions really badly just to see how PO'ed he would get, and see what he would do...would kinda be cool to see him go into a mad rage and start ripping your camp to bits :)
Quite plainly this game is looking amazing. I know some people think that it is not doing all that well with a player base. Well look at it this way, there are 400 beta testers right now, and 400 beta keys being given to them to give to some one else. Also the next phase of beta is supposed to be in the 1k range. The community is well over 3k strong. It is 7.0 on MMORPG.com, and has been for the past 6-7 months, with out falling. Also BioWare is looking at PE's technologies. And we all love BioWare, and also all know how big/popular it is.
My point is that the player base is huge for this game. All you have to do is go to the community web-site to see that for yourself. I'm looking forward to playing it, and can't wait to get into beta soon...
Oh! And I almost forgot to add this. To those that think this is another fantasy, hack and slash game, think again. I don't know how to say it, but some one try and name me another good MMORPG that has tons real history in it...any one? This is not your elf meets dwarf kills orc, kind of game. This your Hero kills Gaul’s, saves cities, makes friends, runs around Rome, kind of game. Yes there are myths to it, and odd creatures running around, and you are a child of a god. But come on has any other game even had a little bit of actual history in it? (And for any one that might want to know, there is talk about meeting up with famous people from that time in Roman history!)
-Phorsoth-
If you are doing content that you can solo you will never need to group that goes for every single game out there not only this.
If you are doing content that you can't solo you would need to goup that does also go for ever single game out there.
I'm not shure here but I would bet that they have some mobs that outlevels and that they have content that would need grouping in that level area they are intended. I'm quite shure as they are developing their own game, duh, that they have matched the content to their minion system. Just as it is obvious that another game matched the content to their characters strengths.
You wont be having a random conversation with your minions.
I haven't seen a statement saying the minion system will lag the computer, have you?
U r right for the last 6 month it did not fall, the reason for that - its on the bottom of the list in anticipation, the only way to fall is disappear completely lol
Cheers
Yeah, the devs would tell you that in their marketing spin, wouldn't they? "Minions will make you lag. Sorry."
How about common sense? Are you telling me that the graphics of the game, plus a mass of players in one spot, and however many minions PER PLAYER in that same spot as well, is not going to produce lag? But you wait for that statement from someone later on.
As for the game, Carolyn's interview pretty much condemned the game, even if that wasn't her or the devs intention. When the best things noticed in the interview are "Look! We got a new skybox! We have clouds!!" and "You have to take care of your minions.", the game has nothing to offer that hasn't been done in games before. PE came in as a nobody, and now they're here as one more run-of-the-mill company.
If you're going to try to defend the game, at least try harder.
Roma Victor. We all see how successful THAT game is.
With the literally shitload amounts of players and foremost mobs in SotNW that didn't produce lag why should Gods and heros do it?
So what was it with common sense?
What was in my 'defence of the game' you cut it of, by mimstake I can guess but I go again.
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If you are doing content that you can solo you will never need to group that goes for every single game out there not only this.
If you are doing content that you can't solo you would need to goup that does also go for ever single game out there.
I'm not shure here but I would bet that they have some mobs that outlevels and that they have content that would need grouping in that level area they are intended. I'm quite shure as they are developing their own game, duh, that they have matched the content to their minion system. Just as it is obvious that another game matched the content to their characters strengths.
You wont be having a random conversation with your minions.
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BAHAHA Roma Victor! You have got to be kidding me dude. Come take note that I said "Good MMORPG." And I am sure we all canagree Roma Victor was as far away from being "good" as it gets. In my statement "good MMORPG" I mean games that have good graphics, nice game play, not FTP, lots of content, a good MMORPG...come on we all know what makes good games here, at least I hope we do.
Ok I'm going to be just plain honest with you all. If you don't like the game that is fine, so be it....it's nothing off me. Shit I really don't like the way AoC is looking, or Warhammer, and both of those games seem to be higher up on the pop scale than this one. Really it all come's down to whether or not you like the style of the game. Many players like the watered down MMO (like WoW, DAoC, D&D, LOTRO, GW,) these are easy, fun, they can be hard core, their almost all the same in the fast way to get XP, all the lore is the same (lots of boring nothing imo), and the scale of the game is about the same. GnH is not even close to this type of game, and that just scares people...and I can't really blame them for that, but I'm giving them a chance to blow my mind...and if they do, then BAM! I'm in on the best MMO of the year!
Imo GnH is your more, RTS, interesting story(s), lots of history based lore, makes you think, you can grind or quest for XP, and has any one looked at the size of Rome? Just take a look at it, can you say "The largest city ever to be put into a MMO?"
So yeah, if you don't like the game then your never going to. Just like I will never like AoC or Warhammer. The only thing I could tell you to do is give each game that is coming out this year a chance. Their all doing something a little bit different, some more than others, at least lets give them all a chance at being worth it.
And here are 3 things we know for a fact:
1. GnH is going to have a big fellowing, that is already proven. (also my point made about it not coming off the pop list on MMORPG.com. That was my point, it has not come off it...unlike Spellborn, PW, Fury, Huxly, and many other that have fallen out of view of the polls)
2. GnH is doing something new, and it seems to be working. Come on, do you think they would be able to keep 400+ beta testers in the game if it wasn't any fun? And have 4k more beta invites begging to be sent out? What ever it is their doing, it seems to be working.
3. GnH is not your typical FF game. No elves, no orcs, no half anything people. Just really mad guys wanting to take over Rome, and some cool looking beats that want to kill you...oh a god that happens to be your daddy or momma
.
So either like it or not, this game is going to make a wave...and so far it's shaping up to be a big one whether you like it or not
.
-Phorsoth-
Yes we will and do us both a favour run the game with apropiate hardware for it. Once Granada Esplada was a new game at that times current hardware.
While Granada has a multiude of mobs, Gods and Heroes as far as I have seen has less mobs but stronger ones. How come you don't think that they actually have worked with the game with the intention of it to be playable. Oh spare us the blatant Soe drivel.
I must say I am very much looking forward to this game, and I am surprised it is not hyped more. The Lore seems like something that I could get really interested in, and has everyone forgotten about the real time combat? That is one of the top things in the game that I am excited for, and I think that will add a very nice visually experience to the game.
To call this game a WOW clone is just outlandish (pun intended). It may have a similar quest style and structure but other than that game play differs a whole lot from WOW. The quest style that GnH and WOW are based on is what defines most MMO's out there.
SOE won't be responsible for this game being lackluster, anymore than they were for Sigil screwing up Vanguard. If anything, SOE will be for this game the same as it is for VG: a safety net to keep it around as a bargain alternative to the others. Stow the SOE crap, as I am not a SOE hater.
Did you read the opening paragraph?
They were showing something new based on what was new in the last 2 months/weeks. If they were adding something drastic so close to launch, than I would be worried. If their only making things prettier than that means their pretty much done and working on:
Ive never seen someone stretching so hard to bash a game. Not all games are made for all people. If this game isnt for you, why even hang out in their threads?
The point, or question, being that PE are working with the game towards to get a playable that is one thing one must assume. And there is nor reason to believe that they let a key function to the games uniqueness be the gamebreaker. The point was not if you disliked soe or not.
Hmmm some people just like to complain before they have played this game.People mention AOC but to this date No One has Seen any of the Great PVP system they have.I am a avid follower of WAR but until then THIS is the game i will be playing.I think people want this to fail but i can see the same people coming back here saying " oh G&H is actually a very good game and compared to the crap that was Vanguard SOE have got a winner".
Lets talk about PVP-RVR that G&H can offer.Nation against Nation and a FFA server at launch is very appealing.For me there are 4 game that will do well ...1=WAR 2=AOC 3=TR 4=G&H i left out TCOS because i am in that beta and have no comment.
I don't know about you guys but this game looks good to me. They are still working on certain aspects of the game such as PVP but I think once they work that out it will be one hell of a game. Oh and grouping is necessary because you and your four minions is no match for a mob of 15+ monsters.
Community Manager Binky Launius.
"Binky"?
What kind of Ancient Roman name is "Binky"?!
All Hail Binky - God(dess) of Post It Notes and In-Game Weddings!
Binky is his nick-name in real life, goober. and thats his real last name btw.
lol
Some ppls have to realize this game is build around minions, minions wont replace real players. They are an enhancement, not more.
You will have to group like in any other MMO.
Its not like, ah I take my minions and can solo now a dungeon or an "Elite" quest, that wont happen. You will have to group with other ppls who have minions as well (bigger battles).
IMO this will be the next best MMO to come out.