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Organizations One aspect of that game that really piqued my interest was the idea of organizations players can join that not only provide you with a concrete link to the game world, but also dramatically change who your character will be. Mark Jacobs, the creative force behind the game, outlined a few names, without any explanation, for players to join. One was The Legions.The idea is that players can build faction with these various organizations by completing quests for them. Over time, you can come to be a member, which means you are instantly recognizable by others as a member. Finally, as you advance, you will gain skills and abilities unique to that organization. This means that if two melee-types join different organizations midway through their careers, by the end they will be quite different. The organization system appears to be on of the main things that will allow for multiple paths through the game and variance among the player base.
Combat ;)
Mythic has worked hard to solve the problem of boring game combat. None of this is really in evidence in the demo we played, but they promise "state-based combat" where what you do is dictated by what you see. For example, if you have a feat that keys off hamstringing your opponent, you do not get a text spew saying that the previous feat worked and you can now do the next. Instead, your enemy begins to limp and you must then decide how to proceed. This makes combat visually stimulating and requires players to think and pay close attention.Designers Mike Lescault and Steve Marvin also talked about how they want combat to be positional and tactical. They do not want you to fall into roles where you simply carry out the same action every single time you enter combat. Instead, they want it to be action packed and force you to think, react and move around the battlefield to be effective. As such, while the game still works off your character, it can be reasonably assumed that there will be a level of "player skill" involved in combat.
Economy & Crafting The game promises a player-based economy, and a world where money exists, but they do not emphasize it. This seems a touch paradoxical. Players are expected to get that next big item, not by mindless bashing of mobs for money, but through the completion of Life Events and other quests. This then raises the question of where, or even if, crafting fits into Imperator Online. It does. Anyone can be a crafter if that is his or her choice. Raw materials are gathered through combat – there shall be no mining or lumberjacking – and used in a system where not much has been revealed.
Technology
In talking to Matt Shaw, their Director of Technology, he was quite excited about two major changes. The first is EmotionFX, an animation system used in Imperator Online. During the section on combat, I pointed out that a player would limp if his leg were hurt. EmotionFX allows that. It takes as many as fifteen animations (a cap, but not a real limit that will ever be used) and blends them into one. What does this mean? A limping run, your head turning as a player walks by, etc. All of this makes the game look and feel more varied and alive. The second is that Imperator also features extremely realistic lighting. The entire system has been overhauled to provide Imperator with realistic and attractive lighting. A new material system has ensured that each object in the world takes light correctly. Shaders will decorate everything in Imperator, as opposed to only basic things like water in DAoC. There is also far more use of specular and normal maps. What will all this mean to your video card? They have developed Imperator for a realistic machine. A rule of thumb in Fairfax is that you need only spend about $130 dollars today for a new video card that would run their game. Game preferences will be jammed full of controls to ensure that each person can customize it for maximum performance. To ensure all this happens, they have developed large parts of the game on realistic machines and test on machines of all types.
The End-Games Mythic aims to create multiple end game choices for players. They will not reveal all the details, but did state their desire for several dramatically different forms of high-end content. A political career was the one concrete example provided. They would not discuss how this works, but did explain that they are aware of potential abuses and problems inherent in any political system.
The multi-pronged approach to end-games follows Mythic's general philosophy with Imperator to provide a very focused, but option-filled game experience. As mentioned, Imperator Online is not an open-ended sandbox game. It is very content driven, and to an extent, Mythic will define the play experience. The trick for them will be to ensure there are enough options to entertain the masses. With what they have discussed, it seems like there will be.
Conclusion Announced in June of 2002, Imperator seems like it has been around for a while. In reality, they have just in the last year brought up staffing levels and gotten running at full tilt. The game is slated to enter commercial beta testing early in 2006, with a launch planned that summer. This preview contained a lot of information, and one worry is that while Imperator has many bells and whistles, there is no single feature that "defines it". I posed this question to Executive Producer Matt Firor, and it is his belief that now a days it is nearly impossible to find one thing that sets you apart from the pack. Instead, he points to the theme, elimination of boring parts of MMOs, and the character-drive approach as the legs Imperator Online will stand on. From what I saw, the game has enormous potential, but a lot of work left to be done. With nearly one-hundred developers at a company with the reputation of Mythic, this is definitely a challenge they can handle.Would you like to comment on this article? Click here! |
Imperator Early Preview
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