Ten Ton Hammers: Hero's Journey E3 Preview

Today Thurston “Ratboy” Hillman and I headed down to the Simutronics booth to check out their upcoming MMORPG Hero’s Journey. We had already heard many great things about it, especially about their character creation process. We arrived to find them waiting for us and offering much appreciated drinks and a seat on their super comfy recliners. At the end of a busy E3 there is no surer way to make us happy! Who says we can’t be bought!

With the two of us settled nicely in our reclining seats, the Simutronics team set an ambush for us and almost immediately we were attacked by Eric Latham Producer for Hero’s Journey and Neil Harris Executive Vice President of Simutronics. Both of them picked one of us and sat down on the floor beside us, whispering the gospel of their game into our ears as we sat on the big comfy couch. Hero's Journey Character Creation

Character Creation

As mentioned above, the thing that really brought our attention to Hero’s Journey was the buzz around the convention regarding their character creation process. Everywhere we turned we heard about this amazing, in depth character creation process that allowed what seemed like thousands of options. We had to check it out.

When we sat down and were walked through the system, we were both amazed. I had been to the Vanguard interview with Awen a day earlier and thought that that system was amazing, but this one was even better. From what I have seen, there is no game currently available that can compete with the level of customization allowed in Hero’s Journey.

There were literally hundreds of options. On the nose alone you could select angle, size, length, nostril size, straightness, width and more! This continues with almost every single feature of your character, with the exception of body type. For body type the whole body scales from thin to large, but no individual size adjustment is available for waist, hips, legs, etc. Apparently, allowing different waist and shoulder settings caused issues with wrapping textures around the models. To prevent this it is not customizable. Even without this, it is possible to create eerily realistic impressions of anyone you choose.

The character process also includes clothing in the process. This was done so that you can wear clothing that suits your taste rather than what is appropriate at your level. In this way every character can be unique, rather than the situation in most games where everyone class wears the exact same armor in the end game.

Since there is very little effect that equipment will have on a character, the people at Simutronics decided to give characters a wide variety of clothing options. Since clothing will be much more deceptive in Hero’s Journey due to the fact that someone in robes may be as effective as someone in full plate, it will be a tossup to see player reaction. Unlike most MMORPGs there is no way to tell what class someone is based off looking at them, so you will need to be wary before attacking the frail old man in the wimpy looking robes.

Wyr System

Not to be confused with the hotly discussed Nintendo “Wii”, the Wyr system of Hero’s Journey is one of the most promising systems to be seen in an online RPG to date. Based around a similar style of Diablo II’s socketing system, weapons, equipment, spells, and character attributes can have all have Wyrs added to them. The addition of Wyrs gives the player benefits based on that specific Wyr and where it is placed, and if there are other Wyrs already added.

The first example of Wyr use shown to us was when a fire based Wyr was added onto a sword. Immediately after being added to the sword, the weapon burst into flames and gained a new life as a fiery beatstick of death. As the fire Wyr added a fire damage bonus to the sword, it also had a drawback of lowering the character’s resistance to cold spells.

To followup the fire Wyr example, another Wyr was added onto the weapon, this time granting another bonus and stacking up to give the character a new ability. In the example, the two Wyr’s gave the character the ability to execute a “super jump” that would give the player bonuses in standard content, as well as allowing him the ability to reach new content by virtue of his powerful jump.

Since Wyr’s provide such a huge advantage to players, there are some drawbacks to the use of these items. Some Wyrs can only be socketed once, and then if they are removed they are instead destroyed. Some Wyrs will have a limited number of times they can be removed once socketed. Some Wyrs will only work depending on what skills you have, items you possess, racial lineage, and even the gender your character is! It’s an intense system to be sure, but simple enough that even Ratboy can understand how it works, and what to do with it.

For you WoW players I will dumb this down a little… Wyrs = enchantments on steroids.

Grouping

One feature that really lives up to the games slogan of “more fun, less tedium” is the grouping features in the game.

A very common issue with MMORPGs is that you start out your character with a group of friends and level and play the first few weeks together, however real life sets in at some point. When this happens one person may level up to 50 while another only to 20, or you have a friend buy the game several months later and is still only level 2 or 3. What do you do? In most games the answer is that you can not do anything about it, you either help them level by grinding quickly with them, meaning that you have to go and redo content you have already done, or don’t group with them until they get a chance to match your level.

The Hero’s Journey grouping plan gets around this by allowing anyone to group with anyone and adjusting their level accordingly. The example used was one of a new friend playing the game and only having reached level 2, while your character is level 50. In this case your level 2 friend would become level 50 for the time you are grouped! While in this situation the following items come into play for the lower level character:

We were both very impressed with this approach, as it allows everyone to participate in fun new content at any point in time. It also has two added bonuses. The first being that it should make finding groups incredibly easy (as everyone would be eligible to join). Secondly it allows low level players to see high level content and participate in it keeping their interest in the game. It will cause issues with hard core players of MMOs though that feel you need to earn your way to the top. That is not the market being targeted by Hero’s Journey though.

Sealing the Deal

Since Simutronics has created a Server System that allows for patches, updates, and the addition of new content to be added without downtime and seamlessly into the world, “Scheduled maintenance” will be a thing of the past. With the assistance of their GameMaster corps, all of which are developers in their own right, having the access to create new content at a whim, Hero’s Journey seems to almost run itself.

The class system of Hero’s Journey allows for 72 professions, yes that is right, 72 different class options. Ranging from the Artilerist all the way up to the more interesting profession of Mortician, Hero’s Journey is far from ‘dead’ when it comes to the class system.

Aiming for a Beta release late this year, Hero’s Journey seems to be making leaps and bounds in the field of MMORPGs. Currently it’s assured that all the TenTonHammer staff members will be getting into the Beta… *nudge nudge, wink wink*.

Neil Harris ended off the interview by saying that most of the bugs were out of the engine and that the developers could now spend their time making content for the players to enjoy. With such an ambitious project backed by such a powerful engine, Hero’s Journey will no doubt be a big player in the MMORPG industry for years to come.