If you have not heard the name "Trion World Network" yet and you're an
MMO player, you should listen carefully. This company is currently
developing three MMO games that are expected to makes some strong
changes to the way we think of MMOs. The first is an MMORTS with
Petroglyph Studios in Las Vegas, the second is a game in conjunction
with the SciFi Channel that will have a show to go along with it, and
the third game, a fantasy MMO known as href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/2035"
target="_blank">Heroes
of Telara
,
was displayed at E3 2009. Below we’ll take a look at style="font-style: italic;">Heroes of Telara
and what players can expect from this fantasy title with some great
twists to player classes. Keep an eye on Trion World Network; there
will be a lot from them in the near future.


href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/68715" target="_blank"> style="width: 200px; float: right;" src="/image/view/68715">

Heroes of Telara
is a high fantasy world with all the trimmings. Players can start as a
human, elf, or dwarf character and choose one of the iconic fantasy
classes as a base: Rogue, Cleric, Warrior, and Caster. If it sounds
very cookie cutter, just wait, the player choices really come to life
in the sub classes of the game. There are a boatload of sub classes
players can choose from. If you are a Warrior main class and want to
spec in the Paladin sub class you’ll get righteous abilities
that will help you more in combat with a little bit of healing thrown
in. Players who start out as a Cleric main class and spec into the
Paladin will have a boost to healing as well as the combat. There are
plenty of options for players to choose from.



We got a look at the Warrior main class who then chose to run as a
Berserker sub class through a quest. The Berserker spec gives the
character a boost to melee and damage but offers little benefits in
terms of defense. As the Berserker got further on the quest, she ran
into a Lich with some nasty undead minions blocking the road. After a
tough fight the Lich went down and gave our Warrior some very unique
loot for an MMO…a new sub class! The Warrior could now spec
into a Necromancer-style sub class and summon undead to fight for her.
So if she came upon a fight where her Berserker skill may not work
best, she could switch to Necromancer and send in the undead to battle
her foes for her, eventually jumping in to finish them off with her
melee abilities. So as Heroes
of Telara
starts out with some basic main classes, there
are plenty of options for players to spec in lots of sub classes
depending on the situation.



Next we took the fighter into a Heroic Quest scenario. You have heard
of Warhammer’s Public Quest idea, right? Well this is the
same thing. Players enter a town that is burning to the ground with
fire imps and a giant demon running around. The Warrior used her new
sub class of Necromancy to summon some undead and hurled them at the
giant demon in the center of town. Once the demon was weakened, our
female was able to charge in and finish the job.  The questing
systems allow other lower level players who cannot fight the demon
directly to kill imps or fight other baddies in the town to help in the
quest. Overall the game play of the Heroic Quest scenario looked good
and seemed to work well, the game play definitely moved faster than
current MMOs, a trend we saw with all the games at E3.


href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/68730" target="_blank"> style="width: 200px; float: left;" src="/image/view/68730">

Another note about the character classes that was cleared up in the
Q&A session is that players will be able to spec all four main
class lines in one character. You will be able to level up each class
independently for the character so you do not have to create alts if
you don’t want too. While sub-classes can be switched during
game play, you will have to travel into town to respec as your new core
class.



During our conversation with the developers, Russ Brown from Trion
explained their game technology, saying that Trion’s MMOs
will carry the majority of their assets on the server side, which gives
them better access to make game updates and changes on the fly. It also
allows them to expand their in-game events and live events for players.
Taking a lot of the pressure off the client side, so players will be
more asset light on their home PCs. This gives the company the chance
to really drive the game and quickly deliver the changes they need for
players to enjoy.



Trion seems to be heading in the right direction. We were surprised at
how well Heroes of
Telara
looked and definitely wanted to see more. Since
Trion is hard at work on several MMOs, we are definitely looking
forward to see what the studio has in store. Their first showing of style="font-style: italic;">Heroes of Telara
was enough to raise everyone’s eyebrows in the room, and you
should take notice of some great new competition in the MMO
market. 


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Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

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