[End of Nations] F2P Massively Multiplayer Real-Time Strategy (Currently in beta)

The Ender

MMO RTS!? OH MY GOD WHY DID I USE UP ALL OF MY SICK DAYS THIS IS A DREAM COME TRUE--

Alright: before everyone runs off to grab their vintage WWII general uniforms & authentic strategic miniatures, this is not the pipe dream grand strategy MMO that we're all waiting for. This is, basically, World of Conflict with some persistent, Call of Duty style unlocks. And much less pretty looking.

I haven't played World in Conflict. What do you do in this game that is different from Pet RTS Title I Play?

This is a mico-exclusive RTS. You call-in units from a pre-built army list (you build this list yourself) directly to the battle. If a unit is destroyed, there's a short respawn delay, and then you can call it right back in. You also have access to turret call-ins, some AoE support abilities and hero units that have various cooldown-based activated powers & passive buffs.

There is no base building, no economy management and no way to be eliminated from a match. It's all about unit micro and either capturing victory points or destroying an enemy command center.

Okay, so what is the MMO component of this?

Aside from the persistent unlocks, there is an overall 'war score' that every instanced battle impacts. This war score has, at the moment, some very trivial impact (mostly cosmetic stuff), but the developers plan to use it to build a sort of meta story each season, with associated unit changes. Personally, I'm skeptical that this aspect is going to be implemented in the way the developers have planned / explained.

So, how is the beta looking right now?

It's very rough, unfortunately.

The game looks incredibly ugly, and would've looked ugly even 5 or so years ago. It's not well optimized either, so it chugs on moderate to low end systems. The weapons have zero sense of impact and the sound effects for them are boring.

The music soundtrack is the best thing going for it: it was composed by Frank Klepacki and is fantastic, in my opinion.

The worst part is the pathfinding. For a micro-exclusive RTS, pathfidning needs to be incredibly tight, and End of Nations has some of the worst pathfinding I've ever had to deal with. Units never go where you want them to go, and the larger tanks sometimes refuse to do anything other than drive in circles until you've issued orders to them more than a dozen times. This makes the Beta almost unplayable right now.

The game's campy Red Alert tone and the design of the various units are good enough to make the game a bit of fun despite the issues & ugliness, though.

Free to Play? So, what's the in game store look like?

The microtransactions look sort-of good right now. There's no pay to win or any such nonsense... but I'm a bit skeptical that the developers will be able to sell the crap that they currently think will allow the game to float (model re-colours and some convenience-oriented stuff like XP boosts). They really need to add new unit models (just cosmetic ones) and things like decals if they want the F2P store to work, in my opinion.

The developers also left themselves some clear holes where pay to win crap could be plugged-in, like unit upgrade slots (currently you use these to fit your units with some sidegrade tech, but the feature is just begging to be abused with Gold Ammo or whatever equivalent).

I play in the competitive RTS scene! Does this game have a ladder? Does this game look like it's heading to the eSport stage?

There is a ladder, but no, this does not currently look like it will be a competitive game. The action is too slow, and honestly, the strategy involved is too shallow. A lot of abilities have pretty clearly been designed just for the 'cool' factor and have dubious utility. Unit clipping & control are way, way too loose, even when/if the pathfinding gets sorted-out. Matches boil down to blobbing everyone's units together and shoving into the center of the map, then hoping that your aim with support artillery abilities are better than the enemy.

I want to know MORE!


TotalBiscuit did a relatively recent WTF Is...? episode on End of Nations, which you can view here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkKpcQlYHK4&feature=plcp


You can sign-up for the beta at the End of Nations website:

http://endofnations.com/en/

Badwrong

Anyone else in the beta this weekend?

The Ender

I actually wound-up uninstalling EoN, so nope. :P

The pathfidning is just so Godawful, it's not even funny. I have no idea who thought that a micro-only RTS game would be totally fine with unresponsive units, clipping issues, etc, but that person is an idiot.

Badwrong

Holy crap.... its fucking awful. There is so little going on in battle, no excuse for it to play so terribly.

The unit balance is just as horrible too. I gave it some hours and just can't go on, its so bad. The only MMO part is a persistent control map, which is pretty stupid... why bother trying to make an MMORTS if its just, ugh whatever the fuck this thing is.

The Ender

Beta is Beta and all that, but yeah, this thing should not have been a public release at this stage. It's too rough.

I wasn't expecting the pipe dream MMORTS game that everyone dreams about, where you work together to organize a staggering planet-wide military campaign, to be honest. I'm totally fine with just a bunch of instanced micro-battles I can dick around in for a couple of hours.

But holy fucking shit, if you're going to do a micro game, you've got to understand what makes micro so great, and these guys just don't.

Badwrong

Oh ya... if they do micro, do it right. There is no reason to even touch this game when other games are doing the same thing but way better. The world map just isn't enough to make it better.

I don't think an MMORTS with actual building and persistent maps is impossible, its just risky and harder to balance.

Varega

I would love it if they allowed me to play under 125% DPI, but nope!