Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

The Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) market has opened up over the past year, and games like League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth, and Realm of the Titans have rushed into the market established by a Warcraft III mod -  Defense of the Ancients (DotA) – which brought persistent champions into RTS games for the first time. All of these games have focused almost exclusively on competitive gameplay, following in DotA’s PvP-fixated footsteps.

That’s about to change. At GDC 2011, Petroglyph Lead Game Designer Amanda Flock introduced us to Rise of Immortals, arguably the first game that improves on the DotA concept in several revolutionary ways.

But let’s start with what’s roughly comparable. The bread and butter of the MOBA experience, Champions, fit one of three archetypes,. Amanda freely admits that these archetypes were derived from those in Heroes of Newerth, simply because they work so well. Archetypes summarize roles – agility (fast attacks), strength (defense / sustained attack), and intelligence (magic casting), but each Champion will have unique abilities based on skill tree decisions.

Kyrie

Kyrie being agile.

While only 3 champions have been revealed thus far, Amanda noted that RoI will launch this spring with a dozen Champions and many more planned.  Amanda used Lazarus, a demon killing, morbid looking, goth-type character with a humongous scythe, as her Champion example.

Each Champion and his or her weapons have a number of skins available for purchase in the item store, including a humorous outfit. Lazarus, for example, can don a complete KISS ensemble while his death magic-imbued scythe can get a fire or ice, Tatiana has a complete “I Dream of Jeannie” outfit, and these come complete with social animations. Non-win button items such as experience boosts will join cosmetics and consumables in the item store.

Instead of persistent equipment, Rise of Immortals has persistent itemization. These “artifacts” have over a dozen modification slots and are available as loot and rewards. Artifacts, as well as skill trees, are the fiddly knobs on your individual champions – you’ll want to tune them to fit your playstyle.

In addition to your Champion, a set of “creeps” will fight for and against you. These AI-controlled fighters are spawned by each base and these creep waves eventually collide. Petroglyph preferred the term “creeps” to “minions”, because – as Amanda explained – the word “minions” connotes control. Creeps can’t be controlled – they just “creep” – but a wise MOBA player uses their momentum effectively.

With each battle, you’ll gain experience and gold plus whatever loot you find along the way. To spend your take, you can teleport back to the hub – where other players congregate and storefronts offer goods customized to your champions as well as creep and turret upgrades. You can teleport out of a map at any time, but teleporting is a long cast best done far away from enemies. Also true to MOBA form, your kit (apart from artifacts) only lasts as long as the scenario. Instead of recipes and crafting, RoI has simplified the process to item upgrade paths. Upgrades are represented as simple pips on item icons.

Lazarus bolt

Vincent

Similar to other MOBA titles, Rise of Immortals will have a basic layer of social support at launch, including a groups and group chat, a friends list, and guild support. Petroglyph plans to ramp up social support post-launch depending on player feedback.

But Rise of Immortals doesn’t just take from its MOBA predecessors, it gives back to the genre by addressing some of its shortcomings. How so? First and foremost is the PvE side of the game.  Petroglyph hopes to make the genre accessible to players who don’t have the skill or desire to compete against hardcore MOBA gamers.  A separate co-op PvE experience has been designed to accommodate three players. Since PvE maps come complete with a base and lose conditions, co-op PvE players will have to both attack and defend, just like PvP players.

The second way Rise of Immortals improves on the MOBA theme has to do with persistence. Most MOBA games are persistent on the account level, not the character level. That means that when players acquire new champions and play them for the first time, there’s a painful “first time rise” period where a player’s perceived skill far exceeds his or her actual skill.

Rise of Immortals, however, is persistent on the champion level, meaning you’ll level up each champion individually, learning the ropes as you play. New skills can be selected via a skill tree as the champion levels, and slots for up to 5 “super abilities” can be unlocked at level 25.

Another new factor in Rise of Immortals gameplay is the concept of relics – structures that, once destroyed, release a “mega-creep” that in no way resembles the homeless guy that followed me for 2 blocks on my way to GDC this morning. Players will have to unleash this mega-creep at exactly the right time to get the maximum benefit, because once the relic is gone, it’s gone – no relic respawns.

Tatiana

Tatiana dishing it out.

Finally, Rise of Immortals has a loose but entirely unique story element. Built on Petroglyph’s original IP first established with its October 2010 release of Guardians of Graxia, Rise of Immortals occurs 300 years in the story’s future. The continents suspended by power crystals high above Graxia’s uninhabitable surface have begun to crash to the surface. Champions are competing for the honor of restoring these power crystals and gaining divine, immortal status in the process (hence the game’s name).  Amanda laughingly admitted that Petroglyph wasn’t out to write a story of epic, BioWare-ish proportions, nor will the game have withering cutscenes and NPC dialogs. Instead, Petroglyph will primarily tell the story by environments, bosses, and creep types for those interested.

As Rise of Immortals soon kicks off closed beta  and builds toward a Spring 2011 release, Amanda already has plans for post-launch.  Those plans include new Champions, skins, and maps – including a 10-man PvE “raid” map. Where RoI goes from there is up to the players, Amanda explained.  If 10v10 PvP is of interest, Petroglyph has some ideas. If players want something else, Petroglyph appears to be all ears.

Ten Ton Hammer would like to thank Amanda Flock and Petroglyph for allowing us to be among the first to see Rise of Immortals. We look forward to new Champion reveals, beta signups, and more information at http://www.riseofimmortals.com/ as Rise of Immortals heads toward a Spring 2011 release.