The EQNext Landmark team discusses the development that’s only been made possible by the dedication of their playerbase.
Monthly Archives: May 2014
Sol Strike – An Early Look
By Jordan Hall (ApocaRUFF)
Solstrike is a turn-based strategy game brought to us by one of the creators of Runescape. Originally devised as a demo for the FenForge game engine, developed by Fen Research, it quickly became apparent that the game was much too fun to leave as just a demo. Because of this, Fen Research has decided to develop and release Solstrike as a full game. The game is played with up to 6 players and the gameplay has been jokingly referred to as “Space Checkers” by many gamers. Soltrike’s quick strategy gameplay is already a blast, and only going to get better once the Steam Greenlight campaign gets accepted and full development of the game can begin.
How It’s Played
As I said in the introduction, Solstrike is a turn-based strategy game. The game board is made up of hexagons, which can hold one unit each. In that way, I suppose it is sort of like “space checkers,” which is what people have taken to calling it (in a mostly mocking manner). However, in general, the gameplay is nothing like checkers. There are a bunch of different units, you can bring new units in on each turn, each unit has its own statistics which are used in combat, and overall there’s a lot more variation and strategy involved.
There are both alien and robotic/human unit types. Both types cover all areas – from flying, to projectile, to mountable, etc… Though both have their own specializations to make them unique. The robot/human units have more long-ranged-type projectile units, such as artillery and missiles. While the aliens have units that can poison, or increase the projectile damage of friendlies. They both are interesting and offer something unique to your strategy. Even more variety is brought into the game due to the delayed availability of units – as you summon units, newer and different units will become available.
The game is played in rounds, and each round has two phases. The first phase is action selection – where you can bring in new units or give upgrades to existing units. Each unit has a probability of success shown as a percentage that can be increased via various means. This means that bringing in a very powerful unit will come with a smaller chance of successfully spawning, while a weaker unit may have a better chance at success. So you’ll have to balance out the risk versus reward… you may find that having that one powerful unit will turn the tide of the battle drastically, but then again you might find the summoning has failed and you’ll be out of luck for that turn.
The second phase is the move/attack phase. In this phase, each unit can move using its speed/movement score. The higher the score, the further you can move in a single turn. Each unit also has a strength and defense rating used in combat. There’s also both melee and projective types of attacks. There’s also flying and ground-based units. On top of all that, almost every unit has something that makes it a bit special, such as the shield generator giving a bonus to defense to any friendly units within its range. Once you take a look at the game, you begin to realize that it is much deeper than what you would expect and that makes it a ton more fun.
The end goal is to defeat all enemy Commanders. This is similar to the “Hero” unit in other strategy games. The Commander usually has better stats, and it can be upgraded in various ways to give it an edge against the ever growing enemy forces in late game. You could give your commander a better gun, or perhaps you would prefer a chainsaw, or you could go with some extra armor for better defense. There are also special mountable units that can be used to grant movement bonuses or extra protection to the commander, such as the VTOL flying mount or the stationary fortress.
If you find that you’re playing against a small number of players and you’re having trouble cornering your enemy, there’s no reason to worry. Eventually, the game board will begin to get smaller in order to promote “diplomacy.” This shrinking can also have disasterous effects on anyone that isn’t fast enough to get their units away from the walls of the board. If they’re caught, they’ll instantly die. That means boxing in your enemies, even if it means sacrificing units, can be a valid strategy to win.
The Graphics
The graphics in Solstrike are 2D with an isometric perspective. Right now, the game isn’t much to look at. The artwork is of a cartoony-style, which is nice and fits with the not-so-serious theme of the game. The animations are alright, but nothing spectacular – they do give you a nice explosion when you kill something, though. All-in-all, the graphics are just alright, not too bad and not too great either.
Customization
Right now, Solstrike is in an early stage of development. It’s just a demo at this point. However, you can already get a small glimpse of what sort of customization will be available later on. Currently, you are able to customize the colors of your “Commander.” That’s honestly not much, but the variety of different parts of the body that you can change the color of bodes well for what looks like will be a very nice customization system in the future. It’s not on par with an MMORPG, but it’s definitely nice for a 2D strategy game.
So Is It Fun?
After having played several matches with friends, I would have to say it was a decent amount of fun. We had a bunch of laughs while playing, and the game kept us interested. I can’t say if our interest would have continued in the incomplete state of the game, but I’m sure we’ll be revisiting it later on if/when the development continues and more features are added. I would suggest you go ahead and give the game a try if you’re looking for a fun and easy to get into strategy game to pass some time with friends, as Solstrike is definitely worth a try. Also, don’t forget to check out the Steam Greenlight campaign if you see the potential in it that I do!
Strife Claudessa Dragonsbane of Gael Champion Reveal
Strife welcomes a new tank to the fold, Claudessa Dragonsbane.
SMITE Dev Update – Siege Mode
HiRez Studios discusses a new siege minion focused 2 lane mode coming to SMITE‘s public test server this weekend.
The Repopulation – April 2014 Report
The Repopulation Team has ended off the month of April with many new changes and updates to their upcoming Sandbox MMO, including the introduction of new trade skills, new mounts and the addition of Adversarial Camps.
—
“The main issues we’ve dealt with so far have been bug related, and were to be expected. We’ve seen quite a few new things that we never expected to happen bug wise, and as you can see from this month’s bug fix notes we’ve been rapidly plugging leaks. We expect next month’s bug fix list to be even larger as it’s our primary focus at the moment. We’ve also received a lot of great feedback and a number of user suggestions will be making their first appearance in-game in next week’s build.
Adversarial Camps received their first real test run in Alpha 3. These were one of our Kickstarter stretch goals, and were introduced in last month. Their numbers vary by player counts though, so the boost in the number of testers has given us our first real look on how they can grow. They wound up growing far more than we anticipated and completely overrunning some areas. We’ve made a number of adjustments to the system to bring it more in line with our vision for it.
We began introducing many new trade skill recipes and improvements in March and this continued through April, and it is clearly indicated in our massive list of Trade Skill changes in the build notes. The crafting system has been well received by testers, who’ve also had some great suggestions to streamline the process and making it easier for new players to grasp which will be making their way into the game soon. We’ve also spent a lot of time on resources, implementing a new system which allows us to tweak the tier and quality ranges when harvesting NPCs on a per NPC basis. This is helping us solve the problem of non-humanoid bosses not dropping worthwhile loot.
We also saw the introduction of the Calprates mount into the game, another of our Kickstarter stretch goals. They were just one of many changes for tamers and other pet users though. Pets now gain Momentum similar to players and NPCs, and some pet abilities can require it. We have capped the total number of pets that anyone can have at any given time at three pets. Each pet will cause a loss of concentration which will reduce your effectiveness at some other activities. This penalty will grow significantly for each additional pet.”
—
For a full list of changes, visit https://therepopulation.com/index.php/news/165-end-of-april-2014-report
DCUO’s Latest Feature is Weapon Mastery
Combat is heating up in DC Universe Online! SOE released the highly anticipated Weapon Mastery feature in DCUO as a free game update for all players. Making combat more fun, dynamic and challenging, Weapon Mastery gives…
- Heroes and Villains opportunity to play off of the type of character that uses varying weapons, such as Deathstroke or Arsenal.
- Players the ability to master multiple weapon types and seamlessly combine them during combat.
- Players more ways to reach maximum effectiveness with their power, as well as granting them greater flexibility and power during fights.
DCUO also released early access to the next DLC, Amazon Fury Part I, for Members. The latest content will officially be released on Tuesday, May 6.
Amazon Fury Part I introduces a band-new storyline featuring Wonder Woman, Circe, Hippolyta and the Amazons, as well as a new shared open area, Solo Iconic Visions, a 4-player Alert and two new duos.
More info on Amazon Fury Part I can be found here.
Omens
Omens is a browser-based MMORPG set in a mysterious Eastern fantasy world. Choose your own path in a beautiful, rich world.
Features:
Three Classes: Play as a mighty melee Warrior, an adept casting Healer, or a stealthy ranged Archer.
Collect Pets: Dozens of pets exist in game, from wolves and monkies to foxes and dragons. Pets may develop along multiple paths and offer in combat boosts.
Treasure Hunting: Search out and dig up ancient treasures with the help of your ancestors.
Ironclad Tactics
Ironclad Tactics is a fast-paced, card-based tactics game set in an alternate history Civil War – with steam-powered military robots!
Note: This is a buy-to-play retail title.
Features:
3-genres-in-one: Experience unique gameplay, blending the precision of tactics and card games with the spontaneity of a fast-paced strategy game.
Unique and entertaining story: Follow the campaign story through a fully-illustrated interactive graphic novel.
Tons of cards Collect cards as you play through the campaign and build your own decks to crush your foes.
Multiplayer options: Play with your friends in the co-op story campaign or against them in skirmish and nemesis modes, face off against online challengers in quick-skirmish mode and unlock special cards when you win.
Zachtronics
Zachtronics
Defiance Goes Free to Play in Early June
Trion Worlds has announced that Defiance will go free to play on June 4 (PC) and mid-July (console), just in time for the start of the SyFy series Season 2. All of the Bay Area storyline, original end-game content, and future missions will be playable for free.
All existing Defiance players will have the bonus of additional character slots, loadouts, ark keycode capacity, and inventory slots, plus a one-time grant of 1,000 Arkforge and 30 days of Paradise Patron status (which grants additional status buffs) for all who purchased the game.
Trion Worlds will host a livestream on Friday to field questions, and has also posted a detailed comparison of benefits and limitations when the new F2P model goes live.










