GameZig

One game I’ve been watching lately has been Stargate Worlds, an MMO based on the popular television series, Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis.  I’ll admit, I’m not to up-to-date on the story line in Atlantis, I’ve maybe seen 2 episodes but SG-1 was a real favorite of mine.  At least it was until Richard Dean Anderson who played Colonel Jack O’Neill left the show, it was his subtle whit and humor that made the show fun to watch.

Enough about that, let’s talk about the game itself.  The game is going to be based around squad size combat groups and is rumored to be not really twitch and not really turn based combat.  I would imagine it will be something along the thought process of what Age of Conan is, more of a real-time based combat MMO system.  You decide what to do and when to do it but it doesn’t come with the problems twitch based combat would bring to such a large environment.

One of the features of SGW I find most appealing is that it’s not all about combat.  I live for combat don’t get me wrong, but I like the social aspects of games too.  There will be classes in SGW that don’t need to engage in combat at all to increase levels, such as archeologists and scientists.  SGW will also have a healthy and presumably very entertaining crafting and construction system.  Hopefully further down the road players will be able to build and own player houses.  This was one of my favorite features of Star Wars Galaxies and really brings another game within a game in the social aspects of an MMO.  Players play MMO’s so long primarily because they get so attached to their characters.  Acheivments, levels and property all build equity in a character and people love to show that off.  I think player owned housing would be a big hit in many already existing MMO’s.

Trying to build on the popularity of WAR in the Oceanic community, EA announced recently that they’ll be hosting a dedicated Ocean server on mainland Australia.  The server will be available for play to anyone in the world is primarily designed to offer gamers in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and other Southeast Asian territories.  This will give players in that part of the world the same advantages players in the US and Europe will enjoy with reduced lag and packet loss to enhance their ability to participate in Realm vs. Realm combat.

The launch of the Australian based server will coincide with the North American and European launches to give everyone an equal oppurtunity to advance.  Players anywhere can choose a server in any region to play, but choosing a server in your own region will result in better population levels at the peak time in your region, allowing for better coordinated efforts in realm vs. realm combat!

Some cool new features coming along with the next expansion to World of Warcraft “Wrath of the Lich King”, no doubt aimed at fending off serious competition from Age of Conan.  For example, some of the new quest mechanices they are implementing in the new expansion offer mount based combat.  If you remember in the Outlands of the Burning Crusade expansion, there is a quest where you ride a flying mount over a town and drop bombs.  The quests in the new expansion will be similar to that, which falls a bit short of the mounted combat in AoC.  In WoW, you ride along a pre-determined path and drop the bombs, likewise in the new expansion you will ride on a horse or other mount with an NPC at the reigns while you chuck bombs off that back of the mount.

They have offered up quests where NPC’s ride on the back and you take control of the mount, but that’s not exactly mounted combat either.  I’ll withhold judgment until the expansion comes out but it looks like they will fall short of actual mounted combat where you control the action, all of it.  They do mention however that their is a new aerial combat system in the works but the fail to go into great detail, so let’s see what the future holds from Blizzard.

Now of course one feature most people are looking forward to is the addition of the Death Knight hero class.  The only requirement to creating your very own Death Knight is having at least one character at level 55 on the realm you create the Death Knight.  If you meet that criteria, you can create the Death Knight for any race that is in your faction for that realm. 

Death Knights will be primarily a Tank/DPS class character with three paths to build on, Blood (DPS), Frost (Tank) and Unholy (PVP).  The Unholy tree has some pretty interesting new game mechanics built into it.  For one, the Death Knight will gain the ability to raise a ghoul pet from the corpse of nearby mobs or players.  Here’s the twist, if the corpse of a friendly player is used, that player has the option to actually play as the ghoul, controlling it’s actions.  Also, the Death Knight will have the ability to summon a small army of undead to fight his enemies temporarily and like the Warlock and Paladin will have the ability to summon a mount, eventually able to quest for an epic summoned mount at higher levels.