Time to be Defiant!

This past Tuesday Trion Worlds (The fine folks who brought us Rift), released a new, unique, possibly record setting MMO (any other MMOs launch at the same time, on PC, Xbox, and PS3?).  Defiance.

The game, as you probably know, is tied in to the soon to air (April 15th, I believe) TV show of the same name on SyFy.  One of the unique aspects of the game, is that what happens on the show, effects the game, and vice versa, which will be really exciting to see how that actually works (and, raises the question.. what’s the backup plan, should one of the two be cancelled?).  It’s got all the Sci-Fi staples:  Aliens, post-apocalyptic setting, mutants, big bugs, and guns… lots, and lots of guns.

Character generation is decent, not quite as customizable as I’d like to have seen, but better then World of Warcraft’s customization.  I’m assuming some of this, is to be able to use the same character generator on all 3 platforms, and keep performance at acceptable levels as well when lots of characters are in the same area…and there are LOTS of characters in the same area at times.

It’s important to note, that there are no classes in Defiance.  Trion has done a very good job eliminating the holy trinity from gameplay, and so far, it hasn’t felt lacking (though, I really could have used a pocket healer some times, or, at least a bandaid).  I’m no where near ‘end game’ yet, so I can’t personally vouch for the success of the classless system at that point, but based on the gameplay so far, I don’t think it will be an issue.

Once you create your character, you’re taken through a brief series of tutorial missions to familiarize yourself with the controls, as well as provide a little of the back story.  These tutorials also introduce you to your E.G.O, which is how you advance the game, you level up your E.G.O, and unlock various abilities (Thick skin, scavenge, etc..) to empower your character.  Weapons, and weapon customization, also play into your character advancement.

Defiance leverages Trion’s experience with area quests from Rift nicely.. as you’re questing, if someone else is on the same quest.. you both progress from objectives either one completes (while you’re in the appropriate area, of course). The best example, and use of the area quest system… is the Arkfall events.

The alien colony ships are called Arks..and, they tend to fall occasionally (gravity still works in the future, in case you were wondering), giving the folks on the ground some excitement.

Everyone in the area will see an indicator on their map when an Arkfall is occuring, leading to (so far) a huge wave of players coming to participate.  The above screenshot is from a ‘small’ Arkfall, and only a few Ark Hunters have shown up so far.  Each Arkfall ‘event’ will give you the objective in the middle of the screen (in this case, destroy the crystal).  Since it’s an ‘area’ objective.. all progress is shared, so make sure you help your fellow Ark Hunters out.

 

The second screenshot shows a much ‘busier’ Arkfall.. I’d say there were 50-60 players that participated in that Arkfall (and, some Arkfalls have ‘stages’, where you need to leave one site, to pick up the fight at the next one).  Arkfall rewards, and challenge, scale with the number of participating players.  The two Arkfalls I did tonight, for example, netted me some cash (scrip), and some nice green weapons (grenades).

Trion knows that MMO players hate walking anywhere, we’re all to impatient for that.. so, Trion has given us cars (rollers in the Defiance lingo), to cruise around in.. BUT! these cars aren’t just good for getting you from point a to point b quickly, and in style.. Vehicles in Defiance, are another handy way for dealing with the unfriendlies in an area.

I know there have been a few fights where ‘softening’ up the bad guys, by running them over, repeatedly, made it much easier. ;)  Someone should really take my driver’s license away, before I do even more damage.  Various cars have differing handling abilities, and there are even challenges in the game, to test your driving abilities (I didn’t do so good).

So far, I’ve been having a blast playing Defiance, and it’s a genre of game I don’t normally enjoy.  The live game is grabbing me in ways the Beta never did, and, the core gameplay is the same, so I couldn’t really tell you why.. it’s apparently the polish and ‘little things’.

Defiance’s launch has been fairly smooth, at least on the PC side.  There’s been none of the ‘normal’ MMO launch (or, single player game masquerading as MMO – yes, I’m looking at you SimCity) problems with servers being unreachable for hours, constant crashing, rollbacks, etc.. etc..  But, that’s not to say that’t Defiance hasn’t had some issues since launch.

Most of the ‘bigger’ issues (based on what I’ve seen so far online), have impacted folks trying to play on their Xbox.  There, they’ve had latency, disconnects, server errors, and other unpleasantness.  Across the board, there have been a few issues with pre-order items not getting delivered (claim them in the store, if you haven’t already), but those seem to be ‘mostly’ resolved now.

Trion has already taken the game down for quick maintenances (a little slower on the Xbox side, while they try to address those issues), a couple of times to hotfix/patch some things.  Trion is also doing a great job at communicating with the players, how things are going. Executive Producer Nathan Richardsson has posted 3 Developer Blogs/Status updates explaining the issues, and the steps Trion is taking to resolve them, along with their current ‘top priority’ issues.  You can read those over on the official site here.

Some last items:

If you haven’t already, head over to the ‘my ego‘ page, and enter your Ark Hunter codes, to unlock in game rewards (Extra inventory space, weapon skills, titles, etc.).  Right now, there is  maximum of 120 that you’ll get credit for, but I know there are more then 120 codes, so it’s possible we’ll get more chances to enter and unlock stuff in the future.

There is an ebook available that gives additional information about the game and the show.  You can get it from iTunes.

And, because everyone should watch it again… here’s the launch trailer for Defiance:

 

See you in game!

 

(apologies if this is extra rambly… it’s been a long day!)