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Preview: Auto Assault Auto Assault is the upcoming post-apoc, vehicle versus vehicle MMO game in development from NetDevil, the makers of the first sci-fi space game, JumpGate and published by NCsoft, reknown for supporting great games. Mark "Torch" Maslow was able to survive the desert wastelands and provide us a glimpse inside the Earth of the future where Humans, Mutants and Bio-Meks vie for survival.
Compared with other, luckier, beta testers, I've only just recently began my adventures in the upcoming MMO game, from developer NetDevil, Auto Assault. Published by NCSoft, my local uberhouse of games, I had been racing down the Capital of Texas Highway late at night trying to subliminally influence the folks there to let me into this world and now that I'm in, I've been busy. Obligatory disclaimers: Keep in mind that Auto Assault is still in CLOSED BETA. These are my gameplay impressions and explanations of systems that may significantly change before the game is actually released. AutoAssault is a MMO. There are other people there taking your kills, chatting up in the General chat while they sip on their mimosas, etc. There are two aspects to the game. The killing part and the chatting part. Never has a game I've played had such a distinction between those two elements. When you're in your vehicle. You are out for killing. Whether PvP in arenas or PvE out in the world. There's supposed to be some open-terrain PvP too, but I haven't gotten high enough level to explore everything yet. When you are in your car, you are death rolling down the street. See a crowd of pedestrians? Run them over. Hear them scream. It's all so very good. This is not to say that you can't chat while in your vehicle, you can. However it is more likely that you'll be looking for things to kill and a little too busy to chat with text. There will be an integrated voice chat system with the game, or you can use your preferred voice chat system if you and your buddies are planning on playing this game. The integrated voice chat is enabled when you group up with other players in what is called a 'convoy' When you're not in your vehicle, you are in a town of some sort. You design your character's avatar once (as far as I can tell) at creation and that's it. Towns don't have any fighting (but they are the entrance into PvP Arenas). Towns have crafting trainers, weapon/vehicle/parts merchants, and quests. Lots and lots of quests. You don't have to find your class trainers. You level up and you apply points as you see fit. There's a pretty steep power curve with your skills. Your first level up you can choose from 4 skills. For the next 4 levels, you pretty much have to take a new skill each level because the next rank in a skill you already have might be 10 levels away. Skills are both passive and active and are unique to each race and class. Crafting is big, complex, and at this point somewhat frustrating. It's reminiscent of SW:G crafting, but it's still a bit raw. There's a general skill called 'Refining' which everyone can do and only requires cash, no skill. As you kill things (or blow up environment elements) you get loot. Refinable loots such as "Salvaged Rubber" stack and when you're in town you can take your stack of refinable loots and refine them into better versions of the same loot. 2 Salvaged Rubber refines into 1 Patched Rubber. 3 Patched Rubber refine into 1 Functional Rubber and that's where the fun begins. I believe the highest level of Rubber is called a Trojan Magnum, but don't quote me. Then there is the actual crafting which requires skill and money and items. The crafting tree also has a considerable level curve associated with it at this time. You get to choose any of 3 basic crafts and you don't get to move onto your first specialty (which is still low on the tree) until level 10. Not skill level 10, but player level 10 so crafters have to be able to kill stuff to make specialized gear. There's also experimentation, reverse engineering, tinkering and more to make unique items. As far as I can tell, all visual vehicle customizations (except for Weapons) come from loot only, i.e. either you can't craft them or you must be high level to do so. You get items which can be traded at the body shop for pieces of flare to add to your vehicle. There's about 5-6 different anchor positions on your vehicle and a few different variations of flare for each point. You get paint cans as loot to change your car's colors too. All of these customizations are 'free' dependent on you having the items to apply them. Hey Maslow, enough of that poop, what's the combat like bitch! OK.
You can not go fully into first person; it's always a 3/4 behind the vehicle view. You get a turret on your vehicle for firing at specific targets and can add front and rear mounted weapons. Each weapon has a unique ARC and range. Your enemies must be within your ARC and range or they won't get hit. You get a constant visual identifier of your weapons' ARC as your car and/or the turret moves (133ts can turn this off). Your turret can fire in any direction and a lot of times you'll be firing at enemies that you no longer see on your screen. The "twitch" skills needed for games like DOOM/Counterstrike aren't necessary, but if you have them you'll be on a shorter learning curve. The first vehicle kill you get will teach you the difference between this game and your 'traditional' MMO There are pedestrians, MECHA, flora/fauna, and vehicle Mobs (maybe more). Don't confuse pedestrians as being innocents; they have weapons that they will use to damage you. Anything that can move does, constantly. You can't just line up your shot, hit the brakes, and expect the enemy to run aimlessly directly toward your car while you mow them down. The AI is not particularly strong in combat strategy, but they have a very strong desire to be alive. Most will not let you just drive a straight line and kill them. They will strafe, they will stay outside your field of vision and your weapon's range/ARC. Vehicular opponents will pull U'ies as often as they'll play chicken with your vehicle. So is combat fun? I think so. The key is that combat takes some skill. At least when you're solo! There is a grouping mechanism (known as Convoys) in the game that I have only briefly felt the need to accomplish a quest, and even then I just leveled up one more time and could complete it solo. Anything your level or lower, is a very fast, low-risk kill. Even when they number in the dozens! Get a single mob that's more than 1 level higher than you and you have a long, damaging fight ahead of you. Vehicles are tougher than pedestrians. Convoys are the groups in Auto Assault. Each character in a convoy has their avatar image in your convoy list, showing their health, power, and which zone they are in. Convoy leaders have control over loot distribution and other normal grouping features. The guild system in Auto Assault is called "Clans". The system is functioning but a bit limited. You have the opportunity to customize your guild's rank titles (only 3 levels available) and you have a guild MOTD. I'd like to see more levels, maybe 5 or 7 total, and possibly some sort of guild bank for crafting items. There are also individual apartments (player housing) already built into the game. The apartments have a terminal for customizing your draperies and such, and I expect the level of customization will increase as time goes on. What about Arena PVP battles? Ah my friends, PVP Arena will be a lot of fun. I had the opportunity to check out the system as a 1v1 battle with this guy some of you call "Div". There are currently two maps, one for each of two styles of PvP. There is your standard Death Match. The map has gullies and hills, and destructible structures and such just like the normal PvP maps. It is a large map suitable for larger (8v8?) battles. When you have an opponent player targeted you have an indicator of your opponent's resistances (not values, just types).
For a game that is still in Closed Beta, this game has some significant content. There are hundreds of "missions" or quests for each of the three races. All of the starter content for each side is substantial. The music and sound effects are decent and improving with each new beta rev. There are non-instanced open areas, individual instanced zones (ala WoW), and multiple copy instances (ala City of Heroes). At high levels there are even some instances that give you the choice of being PvE rules or PvP rules. There are some beta testers over level 40 with no hard limit yet decided upon afaik. As NetDevil continues to implement new elements the game is becoming increasingly more fun and challenging. The game is somewhat repetitive, and honestly what MMO game out there isn't, but I think I can enjoy driving a car at full speed with guns blazing into an encampment of pedestrians, plowing through fences, buildings, and people, watching the destruction fly into the air in my wake, over and over again. Especially when you get experience and loot for it. The game is fun as it stands now and I expect the release (whenever that may come) to be tight and thoroughly enjoyable. Discuss: Custom Cars, Battles in the Ghetto, Running Ped's Over. What More Could You Want? 
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