GDC09: Titan Online preview

At GDC, we had a chance to take a first look at EYA Interactive's upcoming free to play MMO Titan Online. Already available for play in Asia (as Mo Siang Online), a limited public beta has begun in North America and EYA anticipates a spring 2009 release. There's not a whole lot of information about Titan available, so we'll just explain it in EYA's words:

An epic title based on traditional Asian culture, Titan Online is a fusion MMORPG that boasts a unique combination of martial arts and robots that takes place in a spectacular fantasy world. Titan Online is based upon the Korean best-selling novel, "Mo Siang." Set in ancient China, players will experience historic Chinese locales, meet influential figures from various dynasties, experience mysterious aspects of various ancient Asian cultures, all while trying to save the martial arts world by engaging in intense real-time battles. Developed in-house by EYA Interactive, Titan Online offers a very real picture of ancient China with 75 maps of historical sites, including Dun Hwang, Chang An, Kai Feng, Beijing, Shu Zhou, Shao Lin Temple, Chin Shi Huang mausoleum, Hang Zhou, Tai Shan, The Great Wall, and Hwang Her. In order to create the most true-to-life experience, the EYA development team spent time in China researching the ancient and historical cities so they could accurately reproduce them in the game.

A historical martial arts game with robots? Our interest is piqued.

%Gallery-48434%

Though we didn't have a chance to get hands-on time with Titan, we did get a tour around the world and game systems. The game begins with character creation. Here you can cycle through choices for hair (5 options), face (5 options), clothing (2 options), and shoes (2 options), as well as use sliders to tweak the character's height and size. Titan Online does not have any classes to choose from -- instead, at character creation you select your weapon of choice (6 options), which determines your fighting style. (Don't worry, you can change later if you'd like!)

Gameplay wise, there's everything you'd expect from an MMO here. There are 99 levels currently available, though apparently it's a time-consuming task to get there -- the higher you go, the more difficult further advancement becomes. Up to level 30 or so is easy, perhaps doable in a couple of weeks, but from there the game becomes progressively more difficult. As you complete quests and gain levels, you gain training points you can use to improve your skills and stats.

Combat is fast paced martial arts and, when in a party, you can execute powerful combos that require multiple players to position themselves in a particular formation. You and your party can participate in both PvP and PvE content, with PvPers having access to one-on-one duals, party battles, guild battles, and eventually siege battles. For PvE players, there are quests and dungeons. Dungeons, of course, have more difficult creatures to fight with as well as a boss at the end -- for which you can expect better loot. Dungeons also have objectives -- similar to quests, but they will automatically show up for you when you enter the dungeon.

You can also acquire in-game pets, which both serve a cosmetic purpose and help you in combat. We were shown a cute panda hanging from a balloon, suspended just above the ground. Your pets can evolve to become more powerful, but they require a lot of your attention to keep them happy and healthy! Many different varieties of pet exist within the game. Other cosmetic items include clothing, which, can either improve your game or be just for looks. (Beyond what felt like standard fantasy garb, we also saw a beach outfit and a giant cat costume -- very anime-ish!) With the game's free to play, microtransaction-supported model, you'll find cosmetic items (like the costumes we were shown) in their item mall.

And, of course, what you've all been waiting for... the giant robot fighting! The goal in the game is to become a Titan, robot whose character model is about twice the size of a standard player character. Becoming a Titan isn't a simple proccess -- you'll need to run dungeons to collect parts for your Titan armor, register your parts, and then craft them. Once you've collected all of your items, you can become a Titan for two minutes at a time, on a long cooldown. During this time you have access to all of your regular abilities, but their powers are increased.

Though the concept sounds interesting (giant robot fighting is always a bonus in our opinion), without getting our hands dirty and spending some serious playtime with it, it's tough to say how it will play and how fun it will be. We're also a bit concerned that Titan Online is trying to do too much -- it wants to be a PvP game, a PvE game, a martial arts game, a pet game, a robot game, a historical fantasy... doing a great job at all of those things is a tall order and we've yet to see if Titan Online pulls it off successfully for the North American audience.