By Darren Henderson (DizzyPW), General Manager

I was a bit giddy inside when approaching the section of the my.com booth dedicated to Skyforge. That’s something I don’t get to feel too often anymore, having done MMO convention coverage as long as I have. But after viewing the recent World Story trailer and seeing the general concept and graphical superiority present, I crossed my fingers that the gameplay would live up to the hype. Luckily I was fast to jump at the opportunity to go hands-on with the game for the demo and see just how everything plays out.

SkyForge bills itself as an action MMORPG throwing the player into the head of an Immortal. Now the billing “action MMO” gets thrown around quite a bit these days. Honestly it tends to be hard to define without comparing it to a previous title using the same motif. SkyForge’s take seems to be more of a point (without click) to target option that still requires skill and reaction to properly use, but blocks out the player from wasting their skills on a total missed shot by greying them out when it’s not a good time to use them. Meanwhile players have a three dash system akin to WildStar’s dashing for clearing distance, dodging attacks, or quickly catching up to a fleeing target. There is no run option outside of these dashes though, making them more valuable and strategic in their use. As one of the devs stated, “They’re always running!”

I was a bit intimidated when first taking the controls as one, the UI is just so different from most any MMO I’ve played prior, and two, almost every monster had the imposing appearance of a normal MMORPG’s boss monster. I suppose it’s a waste of time throwing trash mobs against an immortal so this does a great job of building that sense of power as you devastate massive horrific foes in rapid succession. The Mare Sacro temple in particular was a piece of artwork as waterfalls cascaded down the sides of corridors and battle animations reflected in the stream of water beneath our feet.

The actual boss fight held plenty of suspenseful moments (or would if my character wasn’t overly buffed to ensure unskilled members of the press didn’t fail too hard). Facing an Undine Goddess attempting to steal a holy water artifact from our planet, my ally and I were constantly on our toes to keep out of range of constant erupting spouts of water. The goddess shot plenty of spread shots of water magic at us as well, forcing us to keep our eyes both above and below us at all times to stay clear of danger. At last she formed an impenetrable water shield around herself, and boy was it ever gorgeous. The refractions of light shining through the shield and ever so slightly distorting her image left me dazed long enough for her two summoned mirage clones to get the drop on me from behind.

The class system and Ascension Atlus were also quite intriguing. SkyForge operates on a multi-class system, allowing you to choose from one of three classes at the start and eventually branch out into all 10 classes should you choose to spend the time necessary to master them all. Currently on display were the Berserker, Lightbinder, Cryomancer (ice mage), Paladin, and Gunner. Berserkers and Paladins offered interesting combo systems that forced players to quickly chain skills together on the fly in the proper order to keep damage maximized. The Cryomancer essentially painted a picture of destruction across the battlefield by placing markers before allowing waves of ice to entrap and impale enemies. Or throw a giant snowball that grows larger the further it travels. Whatever floats your boat. I spent a good deal of time on the Gunner, which will need further explanation to understand.

You see the skillbar system in SkyForge is as free flowing as the waters of Maro Sacro. Certain skills will buff your damage or defenses as expected while the left and right mouse click buttons make up the majority of your offensive assault. However many skills will actually change the mode of your weapon, completely rearranging your skill bar from how it stands. Rather than color coding, they choose to use an interesting circle size code to help differentiate the different types of skills on the bar, which leads to some truly unique looking skill bars that at times almost look like DNA strands winding across the bottom of your UI. The side weapon options on the gunner were limited by an ammo system as well, forcing me to balance both mana use as well as ammo. The ammo seemed to replenish overtime though, making it ideal to constantly dance between modes of my gun to keep maximize damage output going. This involved occasionally standing still balancing a heat seeking mortar launcher in the general direction of enemies. Other times it involved walking around with a Gatling Gun strapped to my arm mowing down foes like some sort of Rambo wet dream.

Though I never noticed if there was some sort of bonus for doing so (other than watching epic rag doll physics), each character has special finishing attacks available on the fly if you hit E while facing a low hp mob. It honestly seemed more trouble than it was worth but perhaps if my character was on the proper balanced strength level, it may have been a useful option to quickly finish low hp foes. Also ultimate skills are available occasionally to set off some truly epic AoE explosions, in the Gunner’s case launching a barrage of 15 or so heat seeking mortars. Sexy is about the only way I can describe the ensuing destruction.

Completing these dungeons quickly and stylishly awards you higher rankings and more of one of three crystals as well. These three crystals are used as currency within the newly revealed Ascension Atlus. Imagine some kind of hybrid between Skyrim’s leveling system and Path of Exile’s endless expanding circular system, and you have somewhat of an idea of what you’ll be looking at.

Each starting class has a large circular orb with various passives, skills, and other bonuses available to them. Different parts of these orbs require different colors of crystal and ever increasing quantity of crystal to advance through them. Some orbs also have the prerequisite of earlier orbs before they can be unlocked. As you travel from one side of the orb to the other, you’ll gain the opportunity to expand to branch orbs that sometimes connect to two different new sets of large orbs. These paths you take can differentiate your style of play within a class, or even lead to unlocking new classes entirely. And once unlocked, you can switch classes at any time within the dungeon. Convenient.

SkyForge’s science fantasy setting also leads to some interesting looking avatars. I saw everything from techy Saint Seya type Paladins to blue jeans wearing skater dudes. Apparently your gear is all about looks and allows you to customize your appearance despite which class you currently have equipped (which is only represented by graphically by your weapon and perhaps active auras). I’m sure gamers will have mixed feelings about this but with how awesomely crafted the visuals in SkyForge are, I have a feeling most players will be able to accept it.

If you’re curious what this means for power upgrades though, we didn’t get too straight of an answer. The terms ‘followers’ and ‘amps’ were mentioned as stat boosters. Apparently the more epic you become, the more people worship you, and the more power you’ll pack in each punch! As for amps, your guess is as good as mine but I’m just going to throw out the hunch that it’s some kind of rune system for powering up individual skills. Time will certainly tell.

One last piece of info that I’m sure could be a make or break feature for potential players is that there are open world regions to explore. While the vast majority of epic challenges will take place in instanced zones visited via the Justice League style “World Plea Hotline,” you can still find plenty of fights and regions to explore with other players in open zones. Better yet, SkyForge has plans for both 10+ man raid content and an end-game crafted around PvP, so get ready to button mash later this year in some of the most retina damaging arenas ever crafted for the free to play MMORPGs realm.

By Darren Henderson (DizzyPW), General Manager

The first day of open doors at the convention has come and gone and while MMOs and MMORPGs are a bit harder to find compared to recent years, I hit the jackpot with our first meeting of the day, My.com. As expected in my Most Anticipated article, their three titles did not disappoint.

Armored Warfare

While World of Tanks and War Thunder are battling it out for dominance of the past, Armored Warfare brings a more modern free tank experience to the table with all the glorious mind blazing graphics you’d expect from a game Obsidian Entertainment is supporting. But beyond the modern setting and unparalleled graphical output (the sudden implosion of a tank via a perfectly placed artillery round is glorious!), I found it to be the heavy emphasis on a co-op vs AI experience that is going to spell the most success for Armored Warfare.

See, unlike World of Tanks and War Thunder’s heavy emphasis on endless repetition of PvP grind and tank upgrades, Armored Warfare is coming at the genre from more of what you would expect of a console title. There’s going to be a backstory about modern struggles for limited resources and terrorism. And players will be able to queue up to take on this progressive storyline in 3+ tank missions complete with voice acted objectives and secondary objectives. Completion of these missions is just as valid of a progression method as PvP, and can net the player experience points for upgrading their crewmembers as well as unlocking or upgrading tanks in their garage. A nice little addition is the challenge missions that let you truly show your mastery of a PvE mission by letting you do something epic on the battlefield. Thankfully these challenges aren’t randomly assigned and actually based on the type of tank you’re driving, so you won’t have to worry about ramming through the enemy’s front barricade with artillery.

In terms of tank types, they offer a simplified but rather effective three category system. You’ll either be riding in a full-fledged tank, a supportive artillery, or a fast and stealthy recon. And with these battles taking place with the most advanced armored vehicular combat of our time, yes it’s possible to be stealthy. These three categories are only the tip of the iceberg though as there’s plenty of wiggle room from tank to tank to set yourself further apart on the battlefield. The tanks were currently rated on various mechanisms including movement speed, stealth rating, vision rating (a counter to stealth), turret movement speed, turret distance accuracy, reload time, power, and armor. And while the developers were extremely pensive about mentioning anything about the crews, the early stages of the UI made it clear that they will gain experience over time and that there likely will be four members of your crew.

Though the economy system was hardly in place, there was a clear distinction between gold, silver, and reputation on the rewards screen after matches. When asked, the representative shared that gold would be the cash shop currency, silver the in-game currency for purchasing tank upgrades, and reputation a currency for advancing one’s tech tree to acquire new and more powerful tiers of tanks. I have to applaud the stat keeping after the matches as well since you are clearly shown how much each member of your team contributed. Points are appropriated and bonus currency offered based on how active you were in taking objectives, how many kills you scored, as well as assists, damage dealt, number of tanks spotted, and points accrued from base captures.

Compared to other tank titles I’ve played, combat in Armored Warfare just felt fast. When tanks get rolling, they haul ass. Even the Challenger 2 I played as, one of the beefiest heavy armors in the world, still slammed into barricades like a locomotive. Emphasis on loco. Reload speeds also felt quite low, which changes tactics quite a bit as artillery still brings the pain if one manages to land a direct hit on your vehicle. Though the stealth mechanics and much taller structures present in Armored Warfare negates this faster reload time advantage a bit. Also artillery is incredibly slow moving and squishy, making their reliance on their team heavier than other titles utilizing the same mechanics. But it all pays off when you see a streak of fire decimate the entire region in front of you just before an enemy has that extra second to reload and finish you off.

Damage mechanics are also present though very much a work in progress. Treads can be damaged, turrets can be slowed, and reload times can be increased depending on where you’re hit. This can be negated a bit by stronger armor, as I found in one situation my shell was entirely deflected by the lead terrorist’s vehicle. Beyond just aiming at the appropriate place on enemy tanks to maximize damage, you also gain penetration bonuses from locking onto a target for a longer period of time. This features makes recon units all the more valuable as a sneaky tank that gets behind your front line bruiser might be able to wreck even your strongest tank if left undetected long enough to line up the perfect shot. Forcing a tank to remain moving also lowers their power rating and accuracy on shots, offering more reason to keep your foes on the run.

Overall I’m greatly anticipating this title. A more casual audience that’s not inclined to PvP should find a home here where the other titles on the market and their hardcore community might have scared them away. Those looking for a more fast paced head to head experience should also enjoy the more twitch reaction style of combat found here. With 15 versus 15 battles already being tested in the internal alpha, and tons of map variety already built, Armored Warfare is sure to be a new juggernaut in the free to play market when it hits closed beta later this year.