After decking himself out with a handful of tanks, Jeff jumped into one of the game’s larger maps and we were off on our mechanical adventure. This particular map is one of the game’s many public instances or “hubs” meaning that it’s large, dozens of players can share it at one time, and there are standard MMO facets like safe towns and mission-givers and vendors for different usable items. Think of it like a traditional zone in an MMORPG and you won’t be too far off. Todd told us that if need be, though they haven’t had to test this yet, the technology will allow them to create several instances of each zone should the player load get too great. What that limit is they haven’t decided yet, but that’s what the eventual beta testing will be for.
As we drove about the landscape picking off smaller bands of the Order army, avoiding randomly spawning tank barriers (little bunches of concrete designed to deter tanks from moving past a specific point), and in general creating havoc and destruction for the fascist regime, I noticed that the game does employ a sort of “Fog of War” that has become so iconic in the RTS genre. Jeff told me that it’s more like an area of awareness, and that systematically the game renders units and action that’s going on near you and your party, only revealing what’s happening elsewhere as you get closer to that area.
This particular zone we were in was all about capturing research from the Order of Nations in order to use it for yourself and the resistance. As Jeff joined the battle against a large Panzer Hulk that was still on the assembly line at the Order’s factory, I noticed that the game’s UI will be instantly familiar to any MMO veteran. His hotbars were full of different skills and item icons which he had picked up through leveling his commander and gaining new skills. It’s very clear that Petroglyph is trying very hard to successfully blend the trappings of an MMORPG with an RTS, and it certainly seems to be working quite well.
Now the Panzer Hulk is the massive tool of death you can see in the game’s premier trailer. It’s unlike any mechanized war machine you’ve ever seen, and it’s not something a solo player will be able to take out. The one we faced in the demo was just a baby. It wasn’t even mobile yet; sort of an early introduction to the enemy in this lower level zone, and it still required a large team of player armies to bring down successfully. After the big metal beast was exploded in glorious fashion by the collection of demo players, I watched as Jeff picked up a host of loot. Things like consumables, and parts for the building of new units drop throughout the world and when you pick them up they go into your HQ storage. You can purchase and find blueprints to make new units or even get lucky and have a new unit drop in battle.
With that our brief tour of End of Nations had come to a close with the promise of much more to see at a later date. Guild Headquarters couldn’t be shown or talked about outside of brief mentions, and neither could the game’s more “Dungeon-like” smaller instances, but both lads assured us that there was plenty more to see of the game. All in all, End of Nations began as the game I was least interested in when I was assigned to this event. I’m just not a big fan of the RTS. And when I left the event that evening, all I wanted to do was go back and break into the venue to get my hands on the controls. While there is certainly still a lot of game left to be made, I can’t help but feel like the guys at Petroglyph are actually on the verge of creating something truly special with End of Nations. This is definitely one to watch.
