Path of Exile Previews

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Written by Brother None on September 2nd, 2010

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So, it's a pretty standard, dark, action RPG. What exactly sets Path of Exile apart from those that have come before it, and those that will come after? Well, two things. The first is the skill system which is frankly best described as a souped up version of Final Fantasy VII's materia system. The equipment that players acquire can have slots in them -- up to six slots in particularly good gear. The slots are color-coded, and the colors serve to limit which gems can be inserted into them. When linked with more passive gems, the active skill gems can be altered and improved.

The game is free to play, but it does have microtransactions. Grinding Gear's Chris Wilson [Editor's note: He's no relation to the author.] says the company has an "ethical philosophy" for what they plan on selling: The developers promise that they won't offer anything for sale that grants abilities or experience points -- it's important to them that people who pay for microtransactions don't have an advantage over the folks who aren't. One example of Path of Exile's microtransactions is adding snazzy effects to spells: You could augment a fireball to change its appearance in-game, with a dragon appearing and blasting your foes with fire. While it would look interesting, the dragon flame would do the same damage as a standard fireball.

The system grows deeper when linked sockets are considered. Many items have multiple sockets that are linked, allowing for skill gems to be combined to create new properties. For instance, a gem with the Cleave skill could be stuck into one socket, with a Multi-Hit gem in the next. This would give Cleave the ability to hit multiple targets with each swing. A three-socket item with the sockets linked could add two passive "augmentations" to a single active skill, perhaps adding fire damage and multiple hits to Cleave. The system goes really wild with better items. Chris Wilson described to us a six-socketed bow, into which a player could socket 3 skill gems and 3 support gems. Imagine that the 3 support gems were Multiple Projectiles, Increased Projectile Speed, and Piercing; all three of which would then add bonuses to the 3 direct attack skills enabled from the bow's other sockets.

The system is further modified by the three types of sockets; strength, dexterity, and intelligence, which correspond to the types of skill gems. Gems even gain experience while they are in equipment, enabling the gems to level up, thus improving the level and power of their skill. Gems can be instantly socketed and unsocketed from items, without any limitations. They can also be freely exchanged between characters on the same account, via PoE's shared stash. There's much more to say about them, as you'll see in the interview.

The trimmings we expect from an action-RPG will be present: Exile will have PvP, item trading, tiers of randomly-generated unique minibosses and randomly-generated indoor and outdoor terrain. Mainly I'm hoping that the game's next showing before it releases in early 2011 will reveal a more nuanced layer of (visceral combat,) as Grinding Gear likes to refer to it; one ever-fresh, ever-amusing aspect of Titan Quest was the way angry centaurs would ragdoll and crumble to the ground after you bashed them (or better yet, off a cliff) right now, Exile doesn't have that same feeling of pinballing enemies around the environment with your weapons.

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