Dragon Empires

Format PC

Developer Codemasters

Publisher Codemasters

Genre Role Playing

If you're a regular reader of Online Zone, you may have been following the progression of Dragon Empires, thanks to our recently concluded series of Developer Diaries. Of course, that wasn't going to stop us from paying the team a visit at this year's show to see how things are shaping up as they prepare for the first of three public beta tests ahead of the scheduled November release.

As the game's title suggests, the world is split into five empires, each ruled over by a distinctive type of dragon. As we're taken on a whistle-stop, god mode-assisted tour of the landscape, two things become apparent. One is how very different in nature, atmosphere and style the five empires are from each other. The second is how having a single, seamless world adds a sense of scale to these games. Zones may provide concentrated experiences for the designers, but from a player's perspective, nothing quite beats cresting a mountain ridge, gazing out over the rolling hills stretching for miles into the distance and knowing you can clamber all over them.

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All Back To Mine
The five dragon types infuse their personalities all over their domains. This means the insect dragon's cities are all dark, menacing and vaguely threatening, while the fish dragon presides over an aquatic Waterworld-type affair. The bird dragon, meanwhile, has its home among the treetops, Ewok-style, and the human-dragon hybrid sets her stall out atop giant towers, lording it over the slums below. Finally, the monkey dragon - ZONE's favourite - and his primitive world wouldn't look out of place in Planet Of The Apes, circa the Charlton Heston era.

To date, no fantasy MMOG has been able to escape from the click 'n' wait school of combat controls. Many try to sugar the pill by adding time-based abilities, stance options, or by placing strict limits on different class functions mid-fight. At first, it doesn't appear that Dragon Empires has solved the problem either, but then we're shown the hidden depths at work.

As you progress through levels, you get to choose the spells or combat abilities that your weapons become infused with, dependent on the particular magic or skills you opt to learn. Combined with the base attributes of each weapon, it means that you can carry a very personalised arsenal, switching between weapons as you need their particular benefits. No two swords will be the same, for example, as their abilities vary according to their particular owner.

Power Games
What justifies DE's presence in the MMOG genre perhaps more than any other aspect of the game is the amount of player control displayed within the gameworld. While most MMOGs give you a progression tree and a static environment to grow older in, DE at least gives you a sense of direction, a reason to keep coming back - namely in the shape of player-controlled cities.

Forming a clan is a crucial step towards making a long-term impact, as once you've proven your worth to the dragon rulers, you're allowed to challenge for control over every one of the game's cities and towns.

Controlling clans get to decide on a city's manufacturing direction, as well as being allowed to expand their holdings and earn tax revenue from traders and crafters who set up shop within their walls.

Capture The Frag
You might think this would leave the world in a chaotic state, but there's actually a real sense of structure to everything. To challenge for a city, your clan has to first prove its worth to an empire's inhabitants, earning a reputation through deeds and actions as well as through growth.

Once accepted, you can then issue a challenge to a city-based clan that's proven to be unstable or ineffective. Battles take place at set times (controlled by the dragon overlords) and are fought by a fixed number of players (you pick your best team as though you were a football manager with a large squad), attackers having to control each city's 'capture points' to win.

City combat isn't the only form of PvP available to you anti-social types. Blood Circuses provide the arenas for duelling between players - teams of up to six players can take on others in deathmatch-style combat, wagering forming the reward. Of more interest are the role-based encounters, where you can opt to become an outlaw, bounty hunter or trader, amassing a reputation whenever you cross your empire's border to cause trouble or look for profit.

Always On
Codemasters is backing Dragon Empires for the long run, knowing the lengthy financial commitments needed to produce a success in this genre. Regular quest and content updates will keep things fresh, while half-yearly (or thereabouts) expansions should keep the hardcore crowd coming back for more. We'll be taking a deeper look once the beta tests get going: until then, we're practising our monkey impressions.

PC Zone Staff