Fury Preview: Page Two of Two

Those were Jon Wood's impressions of the game. Now, Adele Cealia gives her impressions of the content-complete press preview where she had the opportunity to speak with some of the devs:

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Adele’s Report

Recently I had the opportunity to attend the press day for Fury, developed by Auran Games. The game will be available for retail purchase, but has no monthly cost. Fury is a pure PVP game that takes place in a universe that is slowly being swallowed by the fade from the use of too much magic. Pockets of sanctuaries remain and to keep these safe from fading as well, warriors must go into battlefields to collect the little remaining essence left over from the magic. It is on these battlefields that the PvP takes place.

New players start in the training grounds, an area designed to give them a low-threat contest against others who are new as well. It is a way of guiding those who may not be familiar with the game or fighting against others, into the world of PvP.

In my first fight I did pretty well, and I came out at rank three. I’m not entirely sure how this was possible, being that I was just randomly hitting buttons and trying to kill anything that moved. Personally, I had trouble telling if a spell or an ability had been cast, and it felt more like a “hit all your buttons and hope for the best” fight, more than one that actually required skill.

The next two battles were Vortex games, a capture-the-flag type contest, and I did have fun with those, although that could have been more due to the people that I was playing with, and not the actual game itself. The game play is fast-paced, giving me the feeling of being a chicken with its head cut off, and the feeling that this might be what it feels like for a Fury Noob.

The object of the Vortex game type is to collect crystals from around the map and return them to your base. Personally, I found this confusing. Fortunately, in the Vortex maps, once you pick up a crystal, a large arrow appears above you to point the way back to your destination. Running the crystal back to the base without getting killed was fun.

The game graphics, to me, look a bit outdated. I am running an AMD X2 4800+ CPU , 2GB DDR2 RAM, and a 7800GTX video card. At max settings, I still found that this game reminded me of the graphics in EverQuest only with an anime-ish look to them. For those who aren’t big into game eye candy this shouldn’t be too much of an issue, since the game seems to focus more on the game play than what the game actually looks like.

Being a game that’s all about competition, the website hosts leader boards that track your own personal stats, and will keep a history of all of your past win/losses for all game types. There will be 100+ ladders including personal stat drill downs, along with current ranking that everyone can see. In-game, players will have a title rank, which is their most up to date skill indicator. There are 10 ranks in the game starting at Reborn (newbie) and if a player is good enough they can reach Eternal.

Paul Whipp said, “The ladders give position on a particular game type or prowess. Rank is a general measure of how well you perform overall as a player. There won’t be many Eternals.”

“The Fury Challenge only had 7 ladders, while release will have ladders for each of the archetypes for each of the game types”, said Connie Hewitt, “that way, you can be the best Warden in Vortex games... you don't necessarily have to be able to beat all other archetypes to be rewarded. Especially nice for people who like support roles in group games!”

Fury already has plans for future expansions and will be adding a large-scale game type, called Fortress, as a free update, along with new maps for existing game types. Fortress will be 32v32, a map-control type game. Also expect to see 24/7 siege warfare in future updates.

“We're already working on the first content add-on so that players don't have to wait too long for it,” said Paul.

Connie added, “We've also proven that we listen to our already rabid fan base - we have and will change the game to meet players' expectations.”

While the game isn’t going to win awards for graphics or revolutionary game play, it will be enjoyable for true PVPers. Gamers who love fast paced game play, non-stop competitive fighting action, and the opportunity to rank and track their stats on leader boards will enjoy this game. Fury will be available to purchase in retail stores, but it will not have a monthly fee.

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