E3 2010: Hands-on with End of Nations

We at Massively have been loving all the hands-on time we've been getting with new games at E3 this year. End of Nations was no exception -- we played through this MMORTS back in April and were eager for a second look.

We revisited some features of End of Nations that caught our eye back then, such as the war room, home base, and the announcement feed, then moved on for some more gameplay! While crashing our tank through the local vegetation in an attempt to take down the Order of Nations, we also had the opportunity to ask questions of the Trion team.

Follow along after the jump to see what they had to say, and take a look at the gallery for some gameplay photos.

Our first battle was a small but intense encounter with the Order of Nations. The enemy is launching an offensive, erecting a huge wall, setting the forest -- where you happen to be located -- on fire, and sending in dropships with reinforcement vehicles. Enemy scouts are somewhere nearby, you're under artillery fire, and it's generally not the best situation.

A combination of all-out attacks and sneaky strategies make for an interesting battle. You can send tanks forward to attack enemy bases and launch super weapons such as napalm strikes, but you can also upload viruses to enemy weapons to make them work for you instead. As you attack and take out enemy defenses, the area becomes more accessible to allies, who can then run in and begin helping.

As we were working toward this goal, we encountered one of the primary missions of the game: a massive artillery cannon. It's a weapon with an incredible range, able to bombard different lands from its location, and our job was to learn enough about it to shut it down. There is a puzzle element to this sort of thing that really brings the RTS element to the fore.

We had quite a few things to ask of the End of Nations team as we progressed.

Massively: How persistent is this? Do you have to know someone to join them, or can anyone interact?

EoN team: We're spending a lot of time trying to get this game as persistent as possible. It's truly a progressive world that does change. You will start to find friends in the level, but we have a matchmaking system that keeps you in the same level as other players. One of the things that's happening at the global view is that there is a narrative, you go through the world in progressively harder stages. You also do what we call theaters of war; at a higher stage you'll be going back to previous maps to help out your friends. You're going back to do harder missions in those lands. Initially your entire job might be to get some intel, get some research, take some pictures, and then you have to get out of there before it gets too hairy. Then in the middle of the game, you'll be playing that map all the time. Then in the late game you'll be coming in for critical strikes.

As you progress, tank combat is the order of the day. You'll start to get into more tanks, and you'll encounter various vehicles that are the size of land battleships that have multiple cannons and artillery fire built into the tank itself, that you'll have to deconstruct -- it's a lot of fun.

Do the vehicles go beyond tanks?

Yes. One of the things that we're going to be coming out with are different types of units that will react to you differently. So there are scout vehicles that will harass you, and try to pull you into different situations. There are a lot of things going on with the AI that give a nice strategic sort of gameplay that blends the two genres together nicely.

We have different commander classes. The tank commander can absorb a ton of damage, assault commanders really can't take that damage, but can deal a lot of damage, and the artillery class that has range.

Graphically, we're trying to distinguish between the different classes. We embrace the tank look for the tanker class, we have different types of army loadouts for the assault groups and the artillery group.

How big can your army be?

Currently we're working with 10-20 different units, but it's all about your army loadout. So you can have a smaller army of more powerful units, or a bunch of smaller units as well. It all depends on what kind of gameplay you like to bring to battle.

Where this starts to get really epic is when you start grouping up with your friends and reinforcing one another. If you have someone who is a tank commander, and he's working with someone who is an artillery commander, then you start to see how these armies work together to take on a greater foe.

This is designed to reinforce the idea of strategic gameplay with others.

How destroyable is the terrain?

The terrain itself is going to be pretty static, but there will be structures that you can interact with and destroy, but they're primarily going to be mission objectives. It's a fine line because it's a progressive world, we want the player to feel like they're destroying parts of the world, but at the same time, if you were to revisit that land, those things would be back. We want to keep it objective-based.

How varied is the terrain?

We want to give the sense that you are the commander, you can go anywhere in the world. There will be a lot of different hotspots in the world that conflicts happen in. We want to go with the full range of biomes that are available, so we'll have things like snowy maps, temperate maps, deserts, different locations have different looks to them.

Can you command an infantry?

No, the infantry will be handled through some structures that you can build, but we really wanted to keep this war effort fast-moving. We wanted to embrace vehicular combat as much as possible. There are humans that are built into vehicles. Whenever we find an opportunity to place in humans, we absolutely do that. It's a way to say "you are on Earth, you are playing with human-based tanks and things." We are going to hold off on squads that you can control, because it would slow down that rush-forward style gameplay.

My tanks are still there after they're destroyed. Can I recover them?

Absolutely. That's another area for different commander abilities. You as a tank commander take a lot of damage, and some of your units die, but others can do field repairs or retrieve you and bring you back to a starting location. There are landing zones throughout this map that you capture, and if you were to retreat, you'd respawn back at those landing zones. So your objective is to go as far as you can, deep into enemy territory, and capture those zones so you can progressively move forward.

This seems like it's primarily an RTS, and the MMO elements enhance that, right?

Yes, we're trying to create a fast-paced RTS, but we want to give that longevity and collectability aspect that you'd get with MMO games. What we're finding is that it's nice to blend those to together, and they compliment each other very well.

Thanks for your time!

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