End of Nations and Cooperative Multiplayer in an RTS

I'm loving the StarCraft 2 beta right now, but I do love the RTS genre as a whole, and there's a recently-announced game which has caught my attention and it's about time I talked about it.

That game is End of Nations. Players work together to stop the evil Order of Nations (although I assume that there will be multiple factions for players, to allow player-vs-player).



It's pitched as an 'MMORTS', and to my knowledge, it's not the first time that an RTS has been combined with a persistent world.

Nonetheless, this is an area of RTS games which I rarely delve into, and so I decided to look a little further into what End of Nations is all about.

I must admit, I'm also a little bit tickled by the fact that End of Nations shares a very similar game with a certain amazing RTS game. ;)

Although I'm sure that there will be Player vs Player in End of Nations, I'm intrigued by the fact that there'll be a strong element of Player-vs-Environment and cooperation with other human players. To me, it seems different from anything I've experienced recently:



Red Alert 3: This was the first RTS I played which I felt really 'got' co-op with two human players. The game was designed from the ground-up for this specific purpose. Of course, RA3 has many shortcomings, but the concept is there. The level design was much more than 'melee' with two human players - each player often had a specific role to play in the mission.

One of the more memorable missions involved one player controlling only a giant robot, while that player's ally controlled a more conventional base and army, trying to protect the robot from the units which it is vulnerable against. It was just good old-fashioned "TIMMY SMASH" fun. :]

Dawn of War 2: This game also had a co-op singleplayer, but it felt much more 'tacked on' compared to Red Alert 3. Essentially, it's the same experience as playing the campaign solo. The only difference is that an ally controls half of the squads, and you control the other half.

StarCraft 2: When I saw the 'Co-op vs the AI' as an option in Bnet 2.0, I was excited. Many casual gamers (myself included) love just getting some friends together and doing some good ol' comp-stomping. Unfortunately, comp-stomp games in StarCraft don't really offer any additional value beyond the standard melee experience. With StarCraft 2, I was under the impression that Blizzard was creating some unique Co-op vs the AI modes specifically to appeal to casual gamers.

Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the case. I'm not too bothered, though - there'll always be plenty of Use-Map-Settings games, and melee vs the AI will still be fun once the harder-difficulty AIs become available.


End of Nations interests me because of how it seems to really revel in the idea of players working together to overcome the AI. I really get the impression that most of the game is built around this premise.



'Boss battles' in an RTS game aren't anything new, but what IS new to me, is having this multiplayer situation whereby one player alone cannot take down this boss, no matter what their unit composition is - it takes teamwork and different players specialised in different areas to fell one of these gigantic 'crawler' bosses in End of Nations.

I may not have played a lot of World of WarCraft, but during my time with that MMORPG, I really appreciated how the different elements of a party come together to accomplish quests. If End of Nations can capture that spirit of teamwork and specialised roles in a 'party', then I think it could be a winner.

Even when you're not teaming up to take on crazy-big mobile fortresses, there's something appealing about the knowledge that even though you're just comp-stomping (taking out the Order of Nations' less-impressive minions), you're still making an impact on the world. You're still fighting the power, gaining experience, leveling up, and all that good stuff.

With End of Nations, I'm not after a finely-balanced multiplayer masterpiece like StarCraft 2. I'm excited for End of Nations for almost the opposite reason: the prospect of a persistent RTS world where me and my buddies can have a unique, casual co-op experience, having a rewarding time simply by blowing up AI opponents - I don't feel that there are many RTS games out there which can make that claim.

So far, the worst part about the game is the fact that it'll require a subscription cost. As much as I love the concept, I don't know if I love it enough to pay for it on a monthly basis. Hopefully, there'll be some kind of free-play option, or Trion Worlds and Petroglyph studios will change their mind about the game requiring subscription at all :].

Personally, I think that the developers are taking a bit of a risk making this a subscription-based game. An MMORTS is still a relatively unpopular MMO subgenre, and the fact that End of Nations' graphics aren't particularly snazzy may turn off some gamers who do not immediately see the potential for fun that the game has to offer.

I'm thrilled at the prospect of different players with specialised armies working together to take down the foe. It seems like more than just a 4v4 comp stomp in StarCraft, it feels closer to a proper battle, with various marshals controlling different elements of the same army. For daring to do something like this, I certainly hope that End of Nations is a success.

I'll be keeping my eye on this one.