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E3 2003: Ballerium
Ballerium
Developer: Majorem Ltd.
Publisher: TBA
Release Date: Q4 2003
RTS Combat
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Ballerium - Div Devlin (05-19-03)
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| Tank Fighting! |
Massively Multiplayer meets real-time strategy. Have you always enjoyed games like Command and Conquer, WarCraft, StarCraft or any of the couple hundred clones that followed, but hated that once the mission was over you had to start over with building units and learning new maps? Well, Ballerium is changing that with their server clustering technology to give us the players our first persistent online game where we do not need to start over!
We got the fully skinny as we checked out the game for a few while getting a tour of the basic game mechanics and a quick battle. If you're a veteran from any of the other game's in the genre your going to fit right in and quickly get your units off to questing and combat with the unit control and commands. Unit management allows for control of multiple squads as well as just running with one of the members within a unit. Click and drag a box around your group, hot key them and they are good to go (like any RTS though always balance your unit out).
Your avatar as opposed to traditional MMO games is a hero in-charge of the units you command as a god leading your people out of the darkness encroaching upon the lands. Through progression of battles, exploration, trade and fulfilling quests your hero gains command points that allow him to attain more followers for his unit. The higher the level you hero and the more followers under your command, the more special abilities your hero and unit can fulfill. Heroes can be from one of seven races in the game worlds setting which follow a sphere of influence. You are a god after all leading followers.
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| Strange Land Types |
The game world is huge and scales to the number of players online giving the impression of an endless world that will have varied terrain features. During our demo we only saw snow covered rocky areas and green flat fields. Terrain features will also include forested areas, scorched deserts and more.
At current plans are in for the customization of races with ranges only up to the unit's weapon, skills, and abilities-related attribute (e.g. life, sunpower, trade-skill, and so on). You can also purchase weapon upgrades for the units to make them leaner and meaner as you progress through the game.
Gold sinks also will be a major part of the game as a full "self-balancing" economic system will be in place that will affect the market price for upgrades. Troops will cost money to support. Weapon Upgrades will cost money to support. If one town does not have the requested resources a player will travel to another town and be able to purchase at a lower price. On the same note, if you notice an influx in price and know to buy low and sell high, using “Trader Units” a player can make a nice profit. Gold can also be raised through questing, trade, and the traditional hacking and slashing of monsters.
When you have a Massively Multiplayer Persistent World, as well as a Real Time Strategy Game all taking place at the same time with possibly a thousand players simultaneously battling for supremacy, in what should be a fairly large game world, how would one get across the lands. Cities will have portals, or mystical gates that can be built (and destroyed) by players to march armies across the land. This will prove rather interesting as one of the traditional grief tactics come up from the days of Ultima Online and other MMO games with zone and gate jumpers.
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| Monster Fighting |
It would suck to walk through a gate and get jumped by 60 or so other players with their assorted armies.
The biggest question on our minds for an MMO game in which you command units is, "What happens to them when you log out?" The guys from Majorem had a ready answer too! When you log out, unlike traditional MMO games with a single player you do not stop interacting within the game world. A percentage of units can be garrisoned to protect a city you have bound to, or continue working on trades. Worried about a 3am zerg attack by other players then protect the town's assets.
Overall we like Ballerium and the way its heading, unlike some other games which have released everyone can become a general while leading troops to victory as opposed to just being a serf farming for loot. Casual gamers will find it refreshing as well since they can play as they like while power gamers can rise up to become warlords as long as they don't make enemies at every turn. We did end up with more questions than answer's the we hope to see addressed in the near future as the game prepares for larger scale beta's.
In Ballerium you are a god, but are you worthy of worship to save your people from the dark?
Final Thoughts:
If they can pull it off, its going to be a great play. Were looking forward to giving it a spin. We've enjoyed games of the genre and have always hated that when you log off, other then your standings, you have to start all over again with new maps, building up units and playing. This could be the refreshing change for MMO games yet to be delivered.
[Ballerium Gallery]
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Discuss: MMO RTS, Will you try it?
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