Gamerifts.com Does Mythica

[bMythica Preview at Gencon
by Zalaster of [a href="http://www.gamerifts.com" target="_blank"]Gamerifts.com</a][/b]

When I walked into the GenCon main exhibit hall on Thursday the first thing I saw was the Mythica stand with a huge banner with a 10-foot tall Norseman wielding a hammer and large plasma screens playing a slick looking game. Judging by the reactions from other sites, they were struck similarly.

As a character in Mythica, you are no ordinary adventurer-you are Immortal, a warrior spirit recruited by the Gods. Your travels will take you to the most exotic reaches of the afterlife in an advanced, persistent world of Norse mythology, built to suit seasoned gamers and novices alike. Wander the planes of existence at your peril, for the world of Mythica is torn by a cosmic battle between Order and Chaos-a battle for which the Gods are recruiting Immortals like you to fight. Danger abounds, but so do opportunities... Gain new powers, fame or infamy, and even your own potent worshippers as you tread the path to Godhood. Mythica features eight gods from Norse and related mythologies, each of whom maps to a skill focus-physical or magical-and also to a specific character class. Your Patron God determines your class, though you will have a great deal of freedom in how you want to develop the skills available to you.

This game has both public and private realms and will feature geographically controlled PvP. The private realms will contain either linear or playscape modules. Linear modules provide the players with a straightforward adventure with clear dangers and goals. Playscape modules are open-ended adventures. Players may have a variety of victory conditions to achieve. The module is dynamic in that the choices made along the way determine how the adventure proceeds. This is all pretty much straight from the Mythica site. Before I get too far along though I also want to tip my hat to Mi Tes for getting some great answers from the devs during GenCon. Instead of me recounting them in this article you can check those out on Mythica Realms and Mythica HQ.

Throughout the weekend I found myself migrating back to this booth quite a bit. (Corey joked that I could probably give the demo when we were talking to him on Sunday morning.)

Speaking of the demos, they were great. A Pyromancer and Huntress would enter a private realm. Together they rescue the humans there and gain followers. These NPCs would them fight along side the PCs. Gaining worship (think of it like faction) then is very important, but of course you would know this if you aspire to Godhood. The part of the demo that really caught my attention was when the Huntress would stealth in and 'paint' a target for the Pyromancer to cast on, in this case some inferno towers that were raining down fireballs on the poor humans. This tactic allowed the Pyromancer to be able to cast on these towers without even having to see the target.

Another thing I noticed was that group members could change their point of view between the characters. For example, the huntress could see as if she were the Pyromancer and vice versa. There was a StormWright scenario in which 'Stjormy' possessed an ogre and another creature. Once charmed you could switch to playing the creature and seeing the world as if you were the creature, controlling it just like you would your regular character.

On Sunday morning we got a chance to talk with Hal Milton (Senior Game Designer), Corey Dangle (Art Director) and Chris Lye (Marketing Product Manager for Microsoft Game Studios). We tried valiantly to pry the names of the undisclosed patrons from the guys, but they wouldn't budge. This did however lead to some interesting discussions on skills and energy pools. Each patron draws from two abstracts. For example, Loki draws from physical and chaos while Thor draws on physical and order. Thus Tricksters have bars representing energies for physical and chaos and Berserkers have bars representing energies for physical and order. A good way to think of this is like a compass. One axis has physical and magical at each end while the other axis has order and chaos.

This has further implications for grouping. As a Trickster, if I were grouped with a Demonologist and a Berserker I would be able to draw upon magical (from the Demonologist) and order (from the Berserker) energies. This will open up skills that I normally would not be able to access as a solo character. This is one of the ways that the Mythica team has devised to foster group play.

The final nugget we got from Hal was about being able to see your avatar change. "You can tell how powerful a Berserker is by his appearance. The further he is into his skill tree, the more runic tattoos he will have." This fits with their whole concept of a more organic styled character growth instead of leveling and is a nice touch.

There are no firm details on beta or release other than beta late this year for beta and release in 2004. I made sure to sign up at the booth for beta though. We will be watching this one closely.