Imperator First Look

[Alkiera]

The most interesting aspect of their system is how they weave a skill and class system together. Essentially, you need to reach a level to "unlock" a skill. Once unlocked, it is usage-based advancement. This combines the guided and balanced game play of a class system with the logical evolution of a skill system. The entire concept sounds very nice.

That's really innovative...  as of 1998.  EQ1 did that, too.  You'd have a warrior, say, and at level 5 you'd get the skill 'kick', with an appropriate button to mash to kick things.  It starts at a very low skill level(iirc, = to your current level, in this example, 5), but the cap on the skill was typically level x 5, to you were 20 points behind the cap.  You had to use the skill, by kicking things, to get better at it.  Every skill in EQ1 worked this way.  In fact, most skills in EQ2 work this way too.

If Imperator does away with the level cap, I suppose that could be somewhat new... by it's not something the article actually says.

Some of the info linked did interest me... the lack of auto-attack is a big one, the only MMO I can still stand to play is CoH. 

The sequence of states mentioned in the 'state-based combat' section was a little odd, made it sound like you had to do things in a certain sequence(like DAoC's style chains) to get the result of him falling down, and that having the thing fall down was advantagous enough to go thru the trouble of doing it.  The capability to have mob states and have them affect combat equations is nice... but I want more 'why' than the 'how'.  How is pointless if I don't know why we're waiting on this gun guy to shoot several times before we all join in.

This statement..

based heavily on research into quantum physics and be more akin to a "magic" class. Although, it should be noted, there is no "magic" in Imperator Online.

is laughable.  Surely Mr. Jacobs has heard that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic?  What if there was magic in Imperator, and it was all about learning to manipulate quantum energies, just learned from dusty tomes written by people ages ago, rather than experimented with by physicists in the modern day?  And if it was... how would it be different from this quantum physics researcher class?

The branching level system is a turn-off.  I didn't care for it in DAoC, and especially not in EQ2.  Heck, I'd rather start as a Z, even if my first few abilities are more or less identical to classes X and Y for the few levels, than start as a W, level a few times, then pick X, Y, or Z.  It's a nice idea, but just isn't a good one.

* Ingenii: No concept art is yet available for these, but they are a highly beautiful, intelligent race. They are an ideal.
* Artificial: Yes, you can play a robot. This race is made in their own image, but clearly not human. They are mechanical.

Do the Ingenii have pointy ears?  If so, they WILL be called elves by your playerbase.  No reason to not just call them that officially.

Is being a robot significantly different from being a human or Ingenii?  Can medics still heal you when you're damaged, or do you need a mechanic?  The one-liner implies that they are humanoid(i.e. bipedal, walks upright).  Are they just re-textured versions of the human model, or are they really different?

Inquiring minds want to know...

Alkiera

[schild]

* Ingenii: No concept art is yet available for these, but they are a highly beautiful, intelligent race. They are an ideal.

Shit, even if they don't have pointy ears, they'll still be called elves. Why? The name will never be pronounced correctly. Elves is easier.

[Xilren's Twin]

Mythic aims to redefine the way you look at combat
...
Imperator is set in a sci-fi alternate earth reality where Rome never fell and the republic is locked in an inter-stellar war with the Mayans – who left Terra (Earth) years before, leaving a plague in their wake. This setting immediately differentiates the game from most others. It is not fantasy in any way. The characters look realistic; there are no wizards or magicians – only people. Although some games obviously leap into a similar setting – namely Star Wars Galaxies – this change alone provides them with comparatively uncharted waters to explore and create something new in.

Not to be painfully blunt about it, but while you would think the setting would give them uncharted waters to explore, nothing i've read in this thread today actually sounds new to the genre.  Not the combat, the races and classes, the levels and skilsl hybrid.  None of that is new.

A state is short for the state-of-being that a character or monster is in. For example, a monster can be stunned, knocked down, hamstrung, etc. In Imperator, you cannot simply jump to the end – a knock down – but rather must push the creature along the scale through teamwork. A good group in Imperator will utilize the strengths of each member to drive an enemy further along a scale of states, and then capitalize on their outcome. In a theoretical example, a trooper could knock the enemy into a stunned state where they keep fighting, but are a bit off-kilter. This provides the gunner with the chance to blind him, at which point he stops fighting entirely. Perhaps then, the trooper can drive him to fear, where he runs around willy-nilly, before the gunner again hits him and knocks him off his feat. At this point, the entire group is able to jump in, kick and stomp to inflict a lot of damage on the prone enemy.

This is the thing about any future sci fi game that drives me nuts.  Any game that is set in the furture had better have some damn compelling reason why ANYONE would ever choose to engae in melee or hand held weapons combat.  It be like designing a modem day combat game where you have to thow 5 grenades at someone to have any chance to kill them or empty a whole clip from a machine gun into a person to stop them.  It just throws the best part about the whole setting straight the window when the space travelling folk of the future can't seem to advance beyond "beat monster to death with blunt object" as a good combat choice.  Technological advances in weaponry got stuck in 1200 AD did they?  That sort of description above just leads my thoughts straight to the same gut reaction AO got...EQ in SPACE! Which is exactly where the whole "Romans, in Space!" stems from; we've seen this road before. (and if Im not mistaken, didn't Lum himself help spear that particular knock on AO?  Somewhat ironic he's complaning about Imperator getting the same sort of casual dismissal now ain't it?  Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong).  Renaming a bow to a laser and a sword to a vibroblade doesn't make it a futuristic sci fi game.  It's a wasted opportunity to do something actually different with combat.  The skill chains/state based stuff isnt actually different, neither are the class roles, to wit...

... While these basic concepts remain in Imperator, the necessity of different play styles for different classes augments them. The heavy tank will remain the damage sponge, as he endeavors to keep the attention of the monster squarely on him. Yet, the light tank type class has feats that make them move around. For example, they might begin with an in close blast, followed by a semi-far away shotgun shot, etc. This creates a sort of pinball class that plays and feels a lot different from their heavier brothers. For once, the choice of class has a direct impact on the style of play. This promises to enhance reliability, as it turns each class into their own unique play experience. It also means that while the game is still an RPG, there are definitely elements of player skill to consider.

Will this by chance, be another sci-fi space age game where everything still takes place on the ground? 

Yes, it's still early, yes, everything is still subject to change, but in the limited info presented thus far, what's to make people NOT casually dismiss this title?  What are the top 5 bullet points that make this game more appealing/interesting/different than say Tabula Rosa (which is now taking a futuristic FPS+RPG gun combat approach), Auto Assault (futuristic car combat with destructible environments) or the next random fantasy mmorpg?

Xilren

 

[gimpyone]

I think that Mythic has one thing going for them at this point.  They can and have had great launches.  It's just down the line that they screw up and usually in vey bad ways.  I wish the team the best of luck although I wish they had put their talents towards something different.

[sinij]

 I'm making groud breaking Blandquest PvE mmorpg where you can play new and improved healer, fighter, mage or rogue classes fighting evil forces of Foozle1, Foozle2 and Foozle3. Year after it ships I will release expansion pack Blandquest:Simpletons where I reskin Foozle3 and introduce mounts.

[Daydreamer]

I think that Mythic has one thing going for them at this point.  They can and have had great launches.  It's just down the line that they screw up and usually in vey bad ways.  I wish the team the best of luck although I wish they had put their talents towards something different.

Seconded.  I'm undecided until I see more of the skill/class system and the world size, but odds are it will be a second round of DAoC/EQish for me at least.  Buy at launch, catass 80% of the game and leave, return and max out at XP1, leave at the insane reqs for XP2.  WoW is on track to join the list, or at least would be if they would get to work on adding Northrend already O_o.

[Strazos]

I don't care, I'm still buying Imperator.

For the record, I'll also end up buying TA and AA.

[Daydreamer]

TA? What game is that?

[Trippy]

TA? What game is that?

Tabula Rasa is what I think he meant.

[Murgos]

Next think you know, Mel Gibson will buy a controlling interest in an MMO, and we'll be treated to "evil redcoats in space" (notice all of his villains are British, or speak with a Brit accent), featuring quests where our women are raped and killed by Lord Fondleroy, forcing us to seek revenge.

Does anyone else find this statement startlingly incongruent?

Trying to figure out what the hell it is doing in this thread is going to make my brain hurt until I head to the bar tonight.

[Signe]

I think by "Brit" he means English and "Fondleroy" might be a polite way of saying "Fondle boy"... it must be about English politicians and their penchant for rent boys.  I don't know what it's doing in the middle of a thread about Shadowbane, either. 

I hope this hasn't been hurting your head since October.

[AlteredOne]

I think by "Brit" he means English and "Fondleroy" might be a polite way of saying "Fondle boy"... it must be about English politicians and their penchant for rent boys.  I don't know what it's doing in the middle of a thread about Shadowbane, either. 

LOL umm, where to start. 
A)  This thread is about Imperator, not about Shadowbane
B)  I thought I did a decent job of pointing out the absurdity of projecting historical cultures into futuristic MMO games, along with all the associated political baggage

I guess with all the new pirate-themed MMO games on the horizon, we'll have another good example, although I guess none of them involve pirates in a post-apocalyptic/futuristic world.

[shiznitz]

Fondleroy is a pedophilic play on "Little Lord Fauntleroy" by Frances Hodgson Burnett. 5 stars for incredibly obscure referenece. My Dad read the book to me 25+ years ago.

[Signe]

Damn.  I thought I was on to something.

[AlteredOne]

Fondleroy is a pedophilic play on "Little Lord Fauntleroy" by Frances Hodgson Burnett. 5 stars for incredibly obscure referenece. My Dad read the book to me 25+ years ago.

Haha thanks, indeed you identified my reference correctly, forgot to explain that  :mrgreen:

[sidereal]

The specifics will sound familiar to you. There will be a fighter type, which will encompass various roles: melee attacker, tank, and ranged damage-dealer; also, a scout type, who specializes in stealth technology, and various forms of infiltration; a healer, of course, who keeps the other characters buffed, and in fighting condition; and finally, a "weird" type, who's privy to the myriad (meta)physical forces that compose the universe.

Zzzzzzz.. phsssheewww..  zzzzz *snort* . . oh, excuse me.  Must have nodded off there.  What year is it again?

The MMOG industry is a parody of itself.

[shiznitz]

A futuristic game should seriously avoid the tank-healer-nuker situation, as has been said. Planetside actually turned that on its head. The physically weakest setup was the type that engaged in melee - stealthed melee. The next weakest was the pilot/driver. The "tank" (MAX suit) needed lots of support to survive for long because he became an instant bullseye for the enemy while in fantasy PvP everyone goes for the healer/mezzer first.

The core dynamic that keeps pulling devs into the DikuMUD model is the theory of increasing HPs. Give every character the same HPs forever and combat can be balanced much more easily since the damage tables don't have to spiral out of control.

[Shockeye]

The core dynamic that keeps pulling devs into the DikuMUD model is the theory of increasing HPs. Give every character the same HPs forever and combat can be balanced much more easily since the damage tables don't have to spiral out of control.

Doesn't Guild Wars have fairly equal hit points across all builds?

[Krakrok]

Doesn't Guild Wars have fairly equal hit points across all builds?

I noticed last night that Guild Wars HPs seemed to be capped at 480. Or at least it is for my PvP Monk/El. A +45 HP item I have on the character won't take it past 480.

[Xilren's Twin]

Doesn't Guild Wars have fairly equal hit points across all builds?

I noticed last night that Guild Wars HPs seemed to be capped at 480. Or at least it is for my PvP Monk/El. A +45 HP item I have on the character won't take it past 480.

It's close; i think my W/Mo is at 510 but have a plus health item I believe.  Other nice thing about the GW take on hit points is the rune trade offs; increase you skill at a cost of lowering your HP.  That and the many skills which can have additional effets based on if you or your target are above/below 50% health, or the warrior skill that does extra damage if your just have more HP than your target....

Nuff said; Imp doesn't seem to have broken the mold yet.

Xilren

[Strazos]

Doesn't Guild Wars have fairly equal hit points across all builds?

I noticed last night that Guild Wars HPs seemed to be capped at 480. Or at least it is for my PvP Monk/El. A +45 HP item I have on the character won't take it past 480.

It's not capped; Everyone is on the same base HP table, which is directly linked to level, and modified by buffs/equipment runes. My PvP warrior has nearly 600hp unbuffed.

[ajax34i]

I have a few problems with the lore, and, unfortunately for me, the details haven't all been released so I don't know if I'm right or wrong.  But...

1.  Part of what invites people to poke fun is the claim that there will actually be Romans and Mayans in the game.  Both words definitely have distinct historic timeline connotations associated with them, specifically there haven't been any Romans or Mayans in existence for a while.  I would have accepted more easily a lore that did what EVE did:  You have the Gallente, the descendants of the old French, the word "Gallente" is one step removed from reality already...  Gallenteans in space I can accept.  France in space makes me immediately visualize the French now, and thus the current space technology now, because the words "France" and "French" have a timeline associated with them.

2.  What religion are these Romans?  Are we going to see giant statues of Apollo, Minerva, etc. everywhere?  Did they progress technologically (sciences, medicine, quantum physics) but keep a religion that requires sacrifice to please whimsical gods?

3.  Slavery, the Romans had no qualms with it.  The US never happened, so abolitionism didn't either.

4.  Races...  Considering the area the Roman Empire covered, they had a mixture of races in the Empire at its height.  Not sure that they were all considered equal...  Roman procedure was to conquer and impose their civilization, not absorb and incorporate others.  But anyway, the game separates Mayans on their continent, Asians in their own nation there, etc., so I guess we have a bunch of Arian nations at war, one race per each of these empires, going at it.

5.  Science.  Let's see, I suppose we could add CXVII and DIX easily enough, but logarithms, sinusoidals, and the higher math functions?   A successful culture will impose its number system on the nations it absorbs (we still haven't switched to metric fully yet), and the Roman one was just cumbersome.

6.  How did the Mayans get into space?  If they're the bad guys, on that continent, and the Romans are the good guys, on this other continent, wouldn't they cross the Atlantic before they EACH start going to Mars?  And since Mayans are bad and Romans are good, or whatever, wouldn't the war be to extinction?  Imagine a scenario with the US and the USSR, because it's the closest thing I can bring up...  the point was to keep up with the other guy and NEVER let him disappear off to Mars so he can develop technology better than yours without you knowing about it.

[Samwise]

Ajax, I haven't read the lore at all, but it sounds to me like you're making the slightly bizarre assumption that the Romans and Mayans have developed space technology but not changed in any other significant ways.  For example, the United States initially had legal slavery, but that changed after less than 100 years.  Doesn't it make sense that the Romans might undergo a similar change at some point, either due to revolts by slaves or increased industrialization?

The only way that I can really see "Romans/Mayans in space" working out would be positing an alternate timeline in which the ancient empires never fell and continued far beyond the present day.  They'd probably undergo a lot of changes during all that time.

[ajax34i]

Ajax, ... it sounds to me like you're making the slightly bizarre assumption that the Romans and Mayans have ... not changed in any other significant ways. 

That's correct, because when you say "Romans" I imagine the Romans as they were, and the Mayans as they were, pyramids and all.  Any detail not specifically described, I fill in with how they were at the time.  The information they released about the game describes that they advanced technologically, so I changed that detail and filled in everything else with how they were in the RL at the time when they still existed.

Downside of using the word "Romans" and the word "Mayans."

[Samwise]

Ajax, ... it sounds to me like you're making the slightly bizarre assumption that the Romans and Mayans have ... not changed in any other significant ways. 

That's correct, because when you say "Romans" I imagine the Romans as they were, and the Mayans as they were, pyramids and all.  Any detail not specifically described, I fill in with how they were at the time.  The information they released about the game describes that they advanced technologically, so I changed that detail and filled in everything else with how they were in the RL at the time when they still existed.

So if I told you I was making a game about "space pirates" would you imagine a Spanish galleon with rockets on the back?

[AlteredOne]

I have a few problems with the lore, and, unfortunately for me, the details haven't all been released so I don't know if I'm right or wrong.  But...

1.  Part of what invites people to poke fun is the claim that there will actually be Romans and Mayans in the game.  Both words definitely have distinct historic timeline connotations associated with them, specifically there haven't been any Romans or Mayans in existence for a while

Very thought-provoking.  There are some strong historical arguments that Roman civilization was antithetical to scientific and technological advancement, largely because of the heavy reliance on slave labor.  Why design efficient labor-saving machines, when cheap slave labor is abundant?  Just look at the American South vs. the North in the Civil War, for a more recent example.  Rome was great at organizing large numbers of humans toward a common goal, whether in military or construction efforts.   But Romans lagged in developing new technologies, even digressing as they lost or forgot many Greek inventions.

Few people realize that the "Dark Ages" following the fall of Rome saw a technological Renaissance in much of Northern Europe, once many ex-Romans were left to their own devices.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_technology for a nice list of medieval post-Roman technologies, including ploughs, harnesses, stirrups, soap, and horseshoes.  All of the horse-related technology makes it pretty obvious that Europeans placed a much greater reliance on animal instead of slave labor, likewise they developed tools such as stirrups allowing the use of heavily armored troops with lances, otherwise known as knights.  Once again, armor was effectively a military labor-saving device, allowing a few heavily equipped men to dominate badly equipped opponents.

Since the Romans never even properly mastered the use of horses, it seems a wee bit of a stretch to picture them in space.  Hell, they couldn't even wash themselves with soap.

[Samwise]

The thing I'm curious about is where the lore of the game world diverges from real history.  If slavery was the thing holding the Roman Empire back, maybe that's where it diverges - the Spartacan revolts, for example, might have been more successful, forcing the Romans to lessen and eventually eliminate their dependence on slaves.  That might have led to rapider technological development, which would in turn have strengthened the empire and perhaps been enough to hold the barbarian hordes at bay.

[Lum]

<delurk>

At the risk of people assuming I can comment more than I can (among other reasons, I'm not on the Imperator dev team);

The thing I'm curious about is where the lore of the game world diverges from real history.

http://www.imperatoronline.com/devdiary/cruxpointsandyou.php

The timeline diverges before the Empire is established in our world, so the Rome of Imperator is, after a brief detour, (still) a Republic. Since in this timeline there wasn't a 1000 year technological time-out (the Dark Ages) in the west, the level of tech in the game is certainly feasible. There's been quite a lot of development given to the game's alternate history; while I'm sure some will find issue with it, most of the issues raised here have been at least touched on.

Interestingly, there's plenty of places in history where a different decision would have extended the Roman or Byzantine Empires much longer than historically, all the way to Manzikert in 1071. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Manzikert  The Battle of Adrianople, in particular, if won, would most probably have prevented the fall of the West, and the Justininan conquest 2 centuries later would have certainly re-established the Empire of Hadrian (its original intent) instead of burning out on absorbing Italy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Adrianople

Religion isn't touched on in Imperator, because it's the third rail of angering people in RL. Same reason Albion has no holy symbols beyond a grail in DAOC.

</delurk>

[WayAbvPar]

<delurk>

OMG teh R0masn have cloaking devices!!! STOOOPID.

I kid.  :-D :-D

Although I understand ajax's point, I am still chuckling at the idea of a space traveling civ that hadn't progressed past Roman numerals.

[Samwise]

Thanks, Lum!  Cool to see that so much thought has been put into the backstory, though the Latin geek in me is mildly bummed that the years are being measured AE rather than AUC (that's ab urbe condita or "since the city was founded" for you barbarians who didn't take Latin).   

I am still chuckling at the idea of a space traveling civ that hadn't progressed past Roman numerals.

Perhaps at some point the Romans started using the decimal (maybe even octal or hexadecimal) for tricky calculations but continued using old-style numerals for day-to-day stuff, a bit like Americans use the English measurement system in daily life but generally use metric for scientific calculations.

Once you've got machines that do math for you, it ceases to matter anyway, so by the "present day" the decimal/whatever system might have vanished again, made obsolete by computers.

Mmm... alternate reality...

[Trippy]

Religion isn't touched on in Imperator, because it's the third rail of angering people in RL. Same reason Albion has no holy symbols beyond a grail in DAOC.

It might be kind of fun to make Latin an integral part of the game, though. You could turn Latin into the "l33t" speak of the 21st Century! :-D

[ajax34i]

So if I told you I was making a game about "space pirates" would you imagine a Spanish galleon with rockets on the back?

No, but if you said "Conquistadores in space", I would.

In any case, I guess the "alternate reality" genre is subject to people picking apart the lore looking for faults in the logic.  It's like a pastime, at least for me.

I don't like the crux point theory.  Because there's not just one crux point, there are many of them, and once you stop having reality (history) there to back your arguments up, I may agree with the new version of the missed crux point, but I may not agree with the other crux points that are added after it to complete the history. 

Let me see if I can guess some of this stuff, Roman civilization survives, and there are no dark ages either because they're a big stabilizing force in the area.  Kudos to Mythic for making a "What if there was no Dark Ages period" game, and for coming up with a reason why the Dark Ages didn't happen. 

Anyway, feudalism (the agrarian society) moves ahead by about 1000 years, progress is made faster, Romans cross the Atlantic in 500 AD (uh, are we using the Roman calendar or are we still going with Ano Domini?), find the Mayans there, fight them like the Conquistadores did, but (crux point 2) the Mayans repel them.   Inter-Atlantic wars keep happening with neither side winning, finally they switch from actual wars to a Cold War / Arms Race which doesn't end in 1990 - 1000 = 990 and evolves into a Space Race for military purposes.  1200 AD, military bases on other planets, 1500 AD, terraforming, and then, 1700 AD, the last big war happens on Earth and the Romans drive the Mayans off the North American AND South American continents, and the Mayans are OK with that because they can live in space or on Mars.  Or a few survive the genocide and repopulate themselves or something.

Nothing's heard from them for a while, the Romans don't follow them wherever they went, don't keep tabs on their technology, and more importantly neither side decides to launch nukes (the threat of winds blowing the radioactive fallout back to your own continent isn't a deterrent anymore, but hey, nevermind) at the other planet, but then suddenly, present day, 2005 AD, the Mayans return in force and want Earth back, and that's where the game starts.

But in this scenario, why do the Mayans win during the initial contact when the Romans sail over the Atlantic?  I don't agree with crux point 2, the Mayans wouldn't be a match for the Romans' technology, which was like that of the conquistadores, only 1000 years earlier.  Unless the argument is that the Mayans had mellowed out by the time the Conquistadores came, but had they come 1000 years earlier (in the form of Romans), the Mayans would have been at the height of their bloodlust and savagery, before they actually mutilated and cannibalized each other out, and thus would have had greater numbers to repel the Romans with.

[chinslim]

The timeline diverges before the Empire is established in our world, so the Rome of Imperator is, after a brief detour, (still) a Republic. Since in this timeline there wasn't a 1000 year technological time-out (the Dark Ages) in the west, the level of tech in the game is certainly feasible. There's been quite a lot of development given to the game's alternate history; while I'm sure some will find issue with it, most of the issues raised here have been at least touched on.

I find Roman history very interesting, and the idea of alternate timelines intrigueing...but to push it out that far in the future?  The game's already been tagged derisively with "Romans in Space" and that kind of buzz has already made the whole project a flop from conception. 

Why not stop in the 1400's or 1600's, so you can still have an alternate history with a rich backstory and alot more plausibility?  Then you wouldn't have to deal with the silliness of laser weapons and spaceships vs monster AI that always rushes up and tries to smack you.  You can have expansion packs in the New World!  Would you have dared develop an alternate timeline in Asia of continued Mongol rule and then pit the Romans vs the Golden Horde, instead of Mayan robots?   Of course, you wouldn't have let politically-correct pretensions stop you from developing a possibly better storyline.

[Samwise]

Religion isn't touched on in Imperator, because it's the third rail of angering people in RL. Same reason Albion has no holy symbols beyond a grail in DAOC.

It might be kind of fun to make Latin an integral part of the game, though. You could turn Latin into the "l33t" speak of the 21st Century! :-D

God, would that be awesome.  Don't toy with my emotions like that.

[Der Helm]

Religion isn't touched on in Imperator, because it's the third rail of angering people in RL. Same reason Albion has no holy symbols beyond a grail in DAOC.

It might be kind of fun to make Latin an integral part of the game, though. You could turn Latin into the "l33t" speak of the 21st Century! :-D

God, would that be awesome.  Don't toy with my emotions like that.

quidquid latine dictum sit, audit viditur ...