Lords of EverQuest Preview
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Like many successful TV shows, the most popular massively multiplayer online roleplaying game in North America is getting its own realtime strategy spin-off. Lords of EverQuest will undoubtedly invoke (and has already from pre-release hype) many comparisons to Blizzard's latest RTS success, Warcraft III. The comparison is justified.
Both of them are in highly colorful 3D, beautifully animated, and have several roleplaying elements thrown in--characters gain experience, levels and magic items. The comparison should end there, however, since both games borrow the rest from past RTS's (especially the ones made famous by Blizzard). What Lords of EQ can justly claim as its own is both in its highly developed world lore, taken from the MMORPG and served here in new RTS form, and the roleplaying element with more depth than any RTS currently out. These differences, I think--and the developers are counting on--will be enough to separate this game from the crowd.
Loaded on my computer is the most current build of the closed beta test--well over a gigabyte of downloads and updates over these last few days. So far, it's multiplayer only, so any glimpses into the single-player campaign will be left to other previews; and everything but will be looked at here.
To anyone who has played EverQuest, the creatures, buildings, Lord races and classes, monsters and locals will be instantly recognizable. Well, scratch that last part. Though the names of places will be very familiar--even comfortably familiar--you'd be unlikely to find any resemblance between the Desert of Ro in this RTS and the one presented in the online RPG other than general climate. I cannot say what's in store for the single-player campaign of course; perhaps they'll include a mission or two in Freeport and you'll be able to gallivant your army through familiar places. What they have included in the multiplayer beta is a very large selection of your favorite rural areas from EverQuest tailored to RTS specifications, and many of game's more infamous denizens to actually play with.
A one-time devotee to EverQuest myself, it was pleasantly shocking to make froglok (gaz) warriors for use in my own army, especially after having dealt with them frequently (often resulting in my death) in the dangerous dungeons of Guk. Fans of the MMORPG may find themselves with similar experiences using different creatures when they first pick the game up.
LoE's Roleplaying Depth
The most notable difference between other RTS's and LoE is that all creatures on the battlefield will gain experience and level up. The Lords in Lords of EverQuest are much like the heroes of Warcraft III--they'll gain new spells, upgrade their statistics and receive new abilities as they level. In LoE, every creature will be receiving these benefits as well, as they progress and stay alive. This new aspect of the RTS genre will guarantee many challenging decisions for the player throughout a scenario, creating an overall more complex experience, a definite plus. As reported on the official site, units will also be carried over to new missions in the single-player campaign, making their survival within each scenario more important.
Inevitably, the player will venture from the base to explore their surroundings. Along the way they'll encounter treasure chests, magic items and hostile NPC monster groups (similar to the "creeps" in Blizzard's game) hanging on their own turf. Defeating these monster groups is good way to gain experience for low level Lords and allies before the real battle ensues between player and player. Occasionally, a monster group's boss will drop a magic artifact. Every unit in the game has four slots with which to put magic items, and any unit--assuming it meets the requirements--can pick them up and use them.
To add yet more depth, all units (and there are lots) slowly regenerate health and mana, similar to how it works in the MMORPG. Many Lords and creatures can also cast spells, buildings radiate their auras, and upgrades purchased to increase this regeneration.
Finally, the there's the character progression--after all, roleplaying as we know it is never without character progression. In LoE, each Lord and creature has several statistics that will be boosted automatically during level-ups. Resistance to spells, poison and elemental attacks, attack potential, movement speed, and different types of damage resistance are all included for the player to take advantage of.
Multiplayer Impressions & Gameplay Conventions
Apart from the familiarity of the EverQuest world (to some), and several instances of added and welcome depth, general strategy will be much the same compared to other RTS offerings; build, expand and surprise. It's in this depth though, that I'm predicting you'll find the payoff in Lords of Everquest, and the reason for picking it up. Imagine having a battlefield full of units ranging from level 1 through level 7 or higher, all with different strengths and shortcomings and you'll begin to see the variance this game promises. Multiplayer games will be races, like always, to beef up units and surprise-attack opponents. After several won and lost battles on a large map, you'll be left with the units running the gamut of levels and abilities, and that's where it gets interesting.
Finding a multiplayer game is simple--login to Sony's beta server from the in-game menu, and you'll arrive in one of several chat rooms. From there, you can join or create a game within a few button clicks. The multiplayer options are several. Along with over 40 different maps ranging Nektulos and Bristlebane's Pass to the gigantic Desert of Ro, you'll be able to flag many different game-winning conditions; Last Man Standing forces the winning player to destroy all other units and buildings; Body Harvest gives the win to the player with the most kills within a given time limit set by you; Platinum Rush dictates that the player who earns the most platinum (the game's only currency) within the time limit wins. There are others, but let's not spoil everything.
After you flag the winning conditions, it's time to pick a faction and Lord. Lords of EverQuest contains three factions, each with a relatively huge selection of underlings to build, significantly more than each race had in War III (for a basis of comparison). The Lords are the leaders and most powerful members of your army. Each Lord comes with his/her/its own aura that radiates outward, positively affecting all friendly units within the radius and often negatively affecting enemies. Choosing a Lord will likely be the most influential decision in each game, as it partly dictates your style of play. Fortunately, each lord is different in both aura, abilities and statistics.
The Shadowrealm faction is this game's undead and darkest faction. Its chosen Lords include an Iksar Necromancer (who can summon a skeleton like in EQ), Ogre Warrior, Gnome Wizard, Troll Shadow Knight and Dark Elf Rogue.
The Elddar Alliance is made up of mostly elvish and other allied units. You'll find ranged, hit-'n-run, and cunning tactics as the prevailing method of victory using this faction. It's Lords include a Wood Elf Ranger, Froglok Cleric, Halfling Druid, Half Elf Bard and High Elf Enchanter.
The third faction is the Dawn Brotherhood, made up of humans, dwarves, erudites and barbarians. Lords include a Dwarf Paladin, Human Monk, Kerran Beast Lord, Erudite Magician (with elemental pet of course), and the ever popular Barbarian Shaman. It's likely that this faction will be the "balanced" faction in the game, showing both average weakness and average power.
One thing you'll find while playing is that, unlike in Warcraft III, each faction plays roughly similar, despite the nuanced power differences between them. Each will have it's share of spellcasters, melee and ranged, though some will feature more of one type than another. You'll also discover that there's only one way of gathering resources or building units in LoE. Perhaps that could be construed as a mark against it in the end, but play around with the added depth and differentiation of units and Lords, and you'll likely end up more than satisfied with the variance.
As far as resources go, LoE keeps it simple; platinum is the only resource in this game. In multiplayer, each faction begins with a Lord, a home base near a gold... er, platinum mine, and a platinum harvester of some sort ready for action. A welcome surprise came for me during the construction of buildings. As soon as you have enough plat and meet the prerequisite building requirements, you can build immediately--without a necessary worker; just press "B" to bring up the building list, select your building, plop it down until it's green on the map, and watch it rise.
All of the buildings animate with different styles, and as polygons, the units are exquisitely textured (something that EverQuest creatures were also noted for when it first came out). Zooming in close doesn't seem to detract from their beauty as in some overhead games. During battle, the deep powerful zing of units leveling up is a welcome auditory cue, and the floaty "Level 5" above each leveled-up unit is a pleasant graphical touch. You'll find that the unit animations and spell effects are also varied and well done.
In the beta, there were a few problems I had with control, but none too worrisome; there were also conventions that I thought novel. For one, the camera can be zoomed and rotated, but doesn't likewise rotate the mini-map. The problem occurs when first rotating the camera and then dragging around on the mini-map to change location. While dragging, the main screen camera will scroll by at odd and unintuitive angles, not in synch with the way you're dragging around the mini-map, making it very difficult to precisely move (until you've figured it out... which I haven't). This could be fixed if the mini-map also rotated with the camera... something I feel that would heighten gameplay but am not sure there is time for. We'll see.
Another slight problem I had was in selecting enemies to attack in a large group. Sometimes it was hard to see them, and other times I right-clicked on my own troops rather than the intended enemy. I suspect adjusting the camera angle though would probably help some with both of those issues. Fortunately, we're still in Beta and having not looked yet at the single-player campaign, the game in its multiplayer state is looking nearly polished enough for release.
For devotees of the mother game, EverQuest, if you've ever considered branching off to strategy, you'll be in for a welcome diversion when Lords of Everquest is released later this year. For fans of RTS in general, stay tuned to the reviews when it hits the shelves.
