courtesy of ign
It's not that I'm against the idea of massively multiplayer games. It's just that most of them follow the same basic RPG mechanics. I know a lot of that has to do with technical considerations keeping twitch games from being too prevalent, but I need some more skill-based action in my persistent worlds. There have been a couple before, most notable probably being PlanetSide and Neocron, but none have really managed to capture the same kind of thrill that most single-player action games provide. Webzen is hoping to change this (something we're more than happy to encourage) when they release Huxley to the world later this year on the PC and Xbox 360. There's no cross-platform play, but both systems should get the same game when all is said and done.
Huxley sits somewhere in-between Unreal Tournament and Counter-Strike, though it'll definitely slide farther to UT when all is said and done. Perhaps this isn't totally surprising considering the game uses Unreal tech and even seems to include art fairly similar to many of Epic's own games. Players will have to choose a character within one of the two human factions: the Sapiens and Alternative. Each of these races have two sub-races as well for further character differentiation. The factions are all about fighting each other while simultaneously combating the third race known as the Hybrids.
Players will also be able to choose between the various Battle Styles (classes). The styles are being designed to work in concert with each other. Enforcers (heavy), Avengers (medium), and Phantoms (light) will all have specialties that make them useful in many situations. As you can imagine, Enforcers will be the heavy weapons, heavy armor thugs while Phantoms will act more as a sniper or scout.
Character building continues through the game by earning new types of skills and armor. For instance, sprint, double-jumping, infrared vision, cloaking, and headshot prevention will only become unlocked as players make their way up the solider ranks. Many of the skills will be available as armor implants. On top of that, each faction also has specific skills to unlock.
For the most part, players will probably find Huxley to be closer to a normal online multiplayer game than something like WoW. The game is heavily instanced for both story-based single-player/co-op missions and competitive matches. Perhaps this is what ultimately allows them to run a persistent world since it acts more like Guild Wars than EverQuest. That's not to say the player counts Webzen claims aren't impressive. There are very few games that can boast 100 vs. 100 player maps. The kind of chaos those kinds of games cause is special. If they can make those types of numbers stand up to technology requirements and keep the gameplay more fun than the typical "wake up and die" massacre so many players in one match can cause… well, let's just file that in our hope chest.
If so many players sounds like too much for you, don't worry, there'll be plenty of fun for those interested in more intimate settings. Competitive games can go as low as 1v1 deathmatches and story-based missions can be completed in single-player, though many of them will basically require groups as well, though mainly because of their difficulty level. We'll probably have to wait and try the missions for ourselves to really get a feeling for how they work in co-op. From the little we saw of the local server and videos there'll be plenty of enemies to blast and players will absolutely have to cover each others backs. These instanced story zones allows for a bit more scripting and interesting level design, but it's hard to tell how having multiplayers has inspired creative gameplay design in these areas. It is encouraging that Webzen believes they'll have enough control over lag issues that co-op missions are doable considering most FPSs can't seem to figure it out (we're looking at you Halo 2) without being a massively multiplayer game to boot.
Those who are more interested in showing their skills against other human opponents will be able to step into one of the many deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag, radio domination, or parts pick-up games. The first three modes are pretty self-explanatory, the other two aren't. Radio domination serves as Huxley's version of conquest-style Battlefield games where points are captured and held around the map. In this case, instead of a flag, players will turn a radio to point in a different direction. Because the towers are so tall, they'll be easily seen from around the map so anyone capturing a tower can expect enemy assaults pretty quickly. Parts pick-up is more of a scavenger hunt. Satellites will fall from the sky scattering parts around the map. Each team will have to try and capture the parts to complete a special device first. Once parts have been delivered, repair vehicles will work on the device to get it up and running.
No matter the classification of character, all players will be able to jump in and control the various vehicles found across the competitive multiplayer environments. Unlike the civilian vehicles purchased in the cities, these vehicles simply spawn in the environment. While any character type can technically drive any vehicle, players will still need to acquire a license to make any use of them.
Whether in co-op or competitive, squad play will be encouraged via the four man squad system. Buffs and skills will remain active for those players close enough to their squad mates, and both squad commands and objectives can be accessed to keep large games a little more organized. This social aspect is obviously very important in an MMO and Huxley is planning on supporting plenty of community interaction.
The massively-multiplayer portion of this social activity in Huxley will take part in the cities. These places of gathering will be where anyone can drop in and make groups, find new friends, pick up missions, and buy new equipment, upgrade existing equipment. Players will also be able to buy cars to travel around the city areas. While not a necessity, it will help get around the large cities quicker and stay away from the crazy homeless people on the bus.
Like all else, the cities are planted full of detail. Considering the amount of detail in the characters and world in general, we're very interested in seeing how the game progresses and how well it runs on a variety of systems. We're going to go ahead and guess that you'll need a high-end machine to really take advantage of the visuals. Fairly obvious considering the game uses Unreal tech.
The build shown was definitely a ways away from completion, but the ideas therein are certainly intriguing and give me hope for the future of action MMOs. What was shown was on a local server so multiplayer wasn't up and running. We'll keep you all up to date on any new information and impressions. Right now Huxley isn't slated for release until later in 2007, though they are hoping for a simultaneous launch in Korea and North America.
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