Comic Con: Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising Impression

Cathy had the opportunity to take a good look at Perpetual Entertainment and SOE’s upcoming MMORPG, Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising at this years Comic Con. Read her first hand impression of the game after the jump.

Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising is set in 300 BC mythological Rome. You enter as the offspring of one of the Gods and you must now make your way in the world. You start off not knowing of your divine origins, but the people you encounter soon change that. As you discover more about who you are, you learn to make a few friends along the way.

Let us start at the beginning – Character Creation. Here is where you select your deity and all the benefits that come along with your choice, including your Myth minions. There are 12 total and the one you get is based on which God you choose. These are separate from the minions you will acquire during your journeys. When you select your God, it shows you what powers will appear in what is called your God power tree. This tree used when you need to call upon your God for help. These powers do not use points, but instead are attained as you gain favor with your God. Parents are never happy, are they?

Yep, in order for Mom or Dad to lend a hand, you need to be in their good graces and no I do not mean you have to clean your room or get a haircut. You need to do what all good Roman citizens do to appease their God. You must prove your worth by fulfilling quests, pay tithes at the temple, and make sacrifices in the name of your parental unit. As you gain favor, your God Power tree will unlock more and more powers, but be warned. Once you call upon one of these powers, you need to gain favor back and the folks are not too keen with helping out a lot, so use these wisely as there is a 2-3 hour cool down.

Now, what to be when you grow up… There are currently 4 classes to choose from:

• Gladiator – DPS/Nuker
• Priest – Healer
• Soldier – Tank
• Nomad – Hybrid class – Ranged, Melee, and Healer.

Now that you have decided who you are and what you’re going to be, it is time to head out! You will no longer be starting out in a prison trying to figure out why you are there. You will now begin in a newbie area where you can run the tutorial or go straight into the fray. The game will launch with 2000 quests for you to pick and choose from so there should not be a shortage of things to do. The quests in the beginning help you find out about who you are and how you came to be the child of a God.

After you have been out adventuring for a bit, you will reach level 3 and a definite milestone, your first minion. Minions are characters you have the ability to control and assist you in battle. There are 130 different minions in the game, so picking which one you want might be a bit daunting. Each minion is unique and has their own set of abilities, be it extra buffs, debuffs, healing powers, etc. You will want to pick minions that complement your character. If you are a Soldier, it might be wise to select a healer minion. Choosing minions that accentuate your class will certainly benefit you in the long run.

How do minions level you ask? Well, practice makes perfect. Your minions will only gain experience if they are active in the game. Stored minions will not level, so it is good to rotate them through as the minions you collect will certainly be used later on in the game, say at Level 10 when you earn the ability to have two minions out.

Do not think that just because you are limited to the number of minions you can control at one time means you are limited in any other way. You can collect them all through the game and with 130 to choose from, your choices are vast. At level 30, you can control 4 minions. Now you are really a force to be reckoned with as you are, literally, a one man group. If you hook up with 4 other Level 30 players, you are a full raid group.

You can control all 5 players. You can either group control or control them individually through the two bars on the right side of your screen. There is a Squad bar and an Individual bar. Here is where you can either let them be themselves and do what they do best, or really dictate what they can and cannot do in battle.

Horizontal bar – squad commands. When you give a command from one of the buttons on the horizontal bar, it will command all active minions. If you tell them to engage, each minion will perform his or her specific engage action.

Vertical bar – Individual minion control. Click on a minion to see all their abilities. You can specify what you want each minion to do. This is beneficial when you need to limit or refine what abilities are used.

For example, if you need more power, you can tell your healer to perform their melee attack until someone hits their threshold. When that happens, the healer will stop attacking; heal the player who has it the threshold, then go re-engage in the battle. You can specify what the threshold is for the healers.

Minions are excellent for soloers as they do not have to waste time looking for a group. They just go out with their posse and battle on their own. This is truly grouping for the solo player.

Gods and Heroes is currently in the Core Testing phase. Things like the feat tree are being retooled and streamlined to remove a lot of the passive skills so you do not have to spend skill points on them. Passive powers will be inherent instead of earned. There does appear to be a skill point cap so you will need to be selective on what skills you choose. The game is content complete and the team is fine tuning the game based on the feedback they are receiving from closed beta.

Another random fact is that all of the creatures have special moves. When you engage in battle with a Centaur, he may grab you, throw you 15 feet in the air, take a javelin, throw it and spears you in mid air, which will throw you back about 10 yards. Then, as if that was not bad enough, he’ll run over, stomps on you, pulls the javelin out, then run back to where he started from.

While the game is based on Roman mythology, there are some liberties taken with what was included in the game. For instance, you will see the Roman Coliseum in the game. This was not in existence in 300 BC, but who’s counting?

So if you are looking for an MMO that isn’t based in either the post apocalyptic future or in a land of total fantasy, Gods and Heroes just might be the game for you. Look for Gods and Heroes to launch early fall 2007.