It's over, ECTS that is, at least for me. The third day is usually a waste of time so I'm going to spend it recovering instead. Before though, here's a look at some more new games and hardware that I got to look at today, including Midgard, AquaNox, Call of Cthulu, Freedom Force and the Black & White add-on and sequel.
FunCom and Midgard
Although it's a long way off yet, FunCom couldn't resist showing off a bit of Midgard, their new Massively Multiplayer RPG. It's clear that this game is different enough from Anarchy Inline so that it's unlikely to cannibalise that game's user base. Midgard is being developed as a game based around Viking mythology with a firm focus on the community aspects. Of course, since the game has Vikings they're going to do a lot of sailing around in the hope of finding some undefended little island village to pillage. Since you could then spend a lot of time staring at water, FunCom have decided to at least make it look good, which it certainly does. The first demo showed a little boat, its sail flapping realistically in the wind and the foam flecked water rippling gently in real time, rocking the boat and forming a wake behind it as it moved. The fun part was when they transitioned to a violent storm. There was sleeting rain and the waves looked metres high. It's not just all for show though. In difficult seas, fighting sea monsters or even fishing becomes harder, and if you've got an incompetent navigator you can end up washed ashore on some uncharted island in the middle of nowhere. You can even swim underwater, so the developers showed a scene where refracted light rippled over the sea bed and an Orca Whale.
The game is due to have a strong focus on trade skills, cop-operation and politics - more so than many games before it. You don't just have to fight things to become successful. You can start out as a baker, make lots of money selling food and then, if you get tired of that, take up a sword and go out with a band of warriors to kill any innocent wild animals wandering the landscape.
At the start of the game there will just be a small village in the south of the land, which incidentally is going to be smaller than Anarchy Online but more densely packed with content. You can choose to stay in this southern village, but there are poor resources in the area to encourage players to strike out and seek lands richer in resources. There are a number of different groups you can form in the game. If you feel like a quick adventure you can band together with some friends to form a temporary party. If you decide to stick together for the near future though you can then band into what FunCom call fellowships - these are more permanent and give you various benefits, presumably improving skills and stats slightly. Beyond that clans are again more permanent with a command structure (leader etcetera) and finally you can form a tribe, a group separate from any village that can build its own village. For instance a tribe of Blacksmiths might want to set up near mountains, a tribe of fishermen near the coast and so on. They're really emphasising the formation of communities over the pure monster bashing typically found in most Massively Multiplayer RPGs today.
So what happens when you die? Like all Vikings you go to Valhalla of course! This actually sounds like a really neat idea as it's the only PVP (Player Versus Player) land in the game. You can decide to hang around here and drink, ogle the valkyries and fight since death is not permanent. Kinda figures since you're already dead. If you get tired of Valhalla you can plead with your god to return to the land of the living, and depending on how well you've so far performed in their eyes you can either pop straight back into your living body or you'll have to offer them an item or complete a quest for them first.
Eating actually forms an important part of the game too. You can't starve to death but if you don't eat you'll lose energy and be less effective in whatever you do. You can even get bad food if it hasn't been well prepared, and this will make you ill. Good food, and indeed any top quality item, will always come from a real human player rather than the NPC helpers called Thralls that you can leave to do menial tasks.
