Earthrise Preview

[GameBanshee News]

WarCry joins the ranks of websites offering GDC previews of Masthead Studios' post-apocalyptic MMORPG, Earthrise.

They prefer the open skill system - where any one character can use any skill in the game rather than being limited by a class - because it allows players to experience the game and its story from different angles. For example, in WoW, a player really only has one incentive to do a quest: the reward. The experience itself is the same each time. In Earthrise, players could theoretically run through the story in different class roles, which increases replayability.

As fans of Ultima will remember though, an open skill system can create chaos where players are just too powerful. Theoretically, Earthrise allows a single player to master every single skill in the game simultaneously. They'll prevent "tank-mage" syndrome through equipment. The equipment players wear limits their ability to use other skills, this means that if a player is wearing heavy assault armor, they likely cannot also use the technological skills that stand in for magic in the game.

They also promise that those quests will have more to them than most games of this type. "Not the usual fantasy story," insisted Petrov. The game is set in a post-apocalyptic future where one corporation has risen to prominence as the last refuge of humanity after World War III. As civilization broke down, a cooperative developed the Continoma Project, which stores the genetic information of everything on Earth; a neat way to explain the lack of permanent death.