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Previews: Imperator
Mythic Entertainment invited select journalists to their offices on Thursday March 30th and Friday April 1st to witness the current state of their upcoming futuristic MMORPG release IMPERATOR and to see what is new in the realms of Albion, Midgard and Hibernia from their blockbuster MMORPG Dark Ages of Camelot.
At this point, many of the details of what was experienced remain under NDA until we get closer to E3. In this installment, I will talk only about Imperator. Expect the report on the state of DAoC to follow shortly.
Preview: Imperator - Mark "Torch" Maslow (04-06-05)
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| The Roman Capitol!
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Imperator, announced in 2003 is scheduled for release in Summer 2006. Mythic has embraced the belief that it will be part of the Next Generation MMO games. For those keeping score, MMOs generation timeline starts in text-based MUDs, takes a detour through AohelL with Neverwinter Nights, strives forward with the UO-era, then the EQ/DAoC era, we are now in the WoW/EQ2 era, with games like Imperator, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, and D&D Online slated to be the next generation.
Imperator is set in a alternative future. The split between our real life history and the history of Imperator occurs at a moment during the Roman Republic. This period has often been mixed up with the Roman Empire, but the two are not the same. The Roman Republic was a system of government from which sprung many of the ideas of a democracy. The Empire began with Augustus around 44 BC. The Republic originated around 510BC and ended with the formation of the Empire. An excellent resource site for more information can be found on the Roman Republic - Wikipedia.
In the Imperator world, Rome never fell. The Romans and the Mayan empire in the Americas became the dominant civilizations on Earth. Wars occurred between the two peoples for many years until finally the Mayan people chose to abandon Earth to settle on another planet in a nearby star system. 100 years before the setting of Imperator, the Mayans launched a full-scale assault to retake earth from the Romans. That war is still on going.
Welcome to Imperator.
Imperator is playable at Mythic and a newer build will most definitely be available at E3. We were all given the chance to play Imperator on Mythic's "live" internal server. Two base class types were available at the time, with a projected 4 base classes to be available at launch. Imperator will be a hybridization of the pure class based games (WoW, EQ, DAoC) and the pure skill based games (SWG). While players will have classes (both Base and Advanced), the characters will have skills and skill experience to determine their array of abilities.
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| Mayon Ship Concept Art!
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Imperator is a PvE design with all players on the same Roman faction. Mayans are the enemy. Don't expect the middle Americas to embrace this with enthusiasm. There will be four playable races at launch: Humans, Artificial Life (think AI + robot, i.e Al Gore), Tigris (genetically
engineered cat people), and Ingenii (genetically engineered race of Supermodels crossed with the minds of Mozart/da Vinci/Shakespeare/etc). At this time we were only able to play as humans.
Mythic did not expect a powergamer to be amongst the journalists covering Imperator. Cheat-sheets to help us understand the abilities we had and how they worked were placed by the playtest computers. The sheet had the base abilities and the first 'level' of new abilities documented, but cheat-sheet sounds too much like "manual" so I ignored anything analog and jumped right into the game. I chose the "gunner" class type and during my play I gained more "XP" than they had expected and succeeded in not only unlocking abilities that were not included on the cheat-sheet, but using them successfully in the game.
Taking a cue from FFXI and WoW, players in Imperator will build "energy" and by using it can perform complex combos with teammates. One player might have a special move that could put the mob into the state of "confusion." Another player might have a special move that only affects confused targets, which knocks them down. Another player might have a special move that affects knocked down targets. These players, upon successfully performing the requisite move on the mob would gain this "energy" which is required by other more deadly abilities. Of course, any one player could have all of these abilities and more.
As a gamer following the game since it's announcment, it was a suprise to learn the following.
To help keep combat from being a repetitive, macroable event, these moves have multiple random effects. In the above example, the first move that placed the mob into a confused state, could have randomly put the mob into "confused," "dazed," "blinded" or another state. Players will need to be aware of the visual effects to know which state the mob is in to determine the proper follow-up move. Names used here in "quotations" are just examples and are not necessarily being used in Imperator, this example is just explaining the system.
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| Hades Prime
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In my opinion, the only thing Imperator is missing is upgraded graphics. New game generations are not formed by only having new game mechanics and stories. The artists working on Imperator have created some incredible concept art, but translated into the currently used graphics engine, they feel last year now. I understand that MMOs are not FPS in terms of graphic engines, but compared to the current generation MMO, Imperator is lacking in this area, but it's still very early and things may change.
At this stage, the game is understandably limited. With as much as a year before beta, many things will be added/changed. The game will span across multiple planets and areas within planets. Travel time should be minimal, along with other features to help casual gamers jump on and get to actually playing quickly. Planets will have playable areas, meaning that sadomasochists who enjoy running for 30 minutes in a barren wasteland devoid of game-life, instead of taking a shuttle/teleport/etc will be out of luck. Quantity vs. Quality of Sq. Miles (km) is the idea here. Some talk about the end game, frankly premature, mentioned a gladiatorial PvP ladder system with completely separate skill trees and a politician end game where players could be elected into office and have influence on some in-game policies. With so much still to be coded, it's hard to say what will make it into the game.
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| Roman Soldier!
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I am very excited about the potential for Imperator. Mythic's track record is unapproachable in the genre of MMOs. With DAoC the most well known, Mythic has released over 12 MMO games since 1995. The next generation of MMOs will be rife with licensed properties like Lord of the Rings, Dungeons and Dragons, APB (from the makers of Grand Theft Auto) so how will players respond to the new world that Imperator offers? In the past, licensed properties and pre-established franchises did not do well in the MMO market, has the market changed? Time will tell. Mythic's Imperator will be ready to strike a blow to the world of MMOs, look for more information at E3 and expect the game Summer 2006!
Discuss: Ask questions of the event, which Maslow can try to answer (Barring NDA Issues).
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