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Planned for a 2010 release, Dawn of Fantasy is an upcoming fantasy MMORTS (Massively Multiplayer Online Real Time Strategy) for Microsoft Windows and the Xbox 360 developed by Reverie World Studios.
Set in the persistent massively multiplayer online 3D world of Mythador, Dawn of Fantasy offers you the chance to write your own chapter in the bloody history of this land. Explore a richly-detailed, endless world, from the high mountain peaks of Southmount in the human realm of Teria to the swamps of Erthee l'Bala of the Wood Elves. Complete dozens of story-driven quests in services of kings, wizards, and fellow adventurers. Interact with thousands of other players through trading, forging alliances, and waging war in both Player versus Player and Player versus Environment battles. Build up your villages into towns and then mighty empires, cast mighty magic upon your enemies over two dozen unique spells, and lay siege to your enemies with great trebuchets, the brute strength of the walking woods, ogres, and dragon mercenaries to reign supreme. Play as three different races - elves, men, and orcs, each of which offers a radically different playstyle and has been given a deep, compelling mythology, a dramatic historical background, and a spectrum of complex political ambitions that drive the story and gameplay.[1]
Gameplay[ | ]
MMORTS/Online Kingdom Campaign[ | ]
Offering a persistent online experience, Dawn of Fantasy's MMORTS, or Online Kingdom, mode gameplay revolves around a player's Homeland territory, which can be built in one of nine regions across the game world of Mythador. Players will develop their homeland from a couple buildings, villagers, and a hero unit to a massive empire complete with layers of heavy walls and keeps, a complex economy, and a number of armies and trade caravans wandering the map. To develop this city, players can gather resources, construct various buildings, recruit new units, and research powerful upgrades and new abilities. Even when a player is offline, their homeland will still be in development with the worker units still gathering resources and finishing constructing any buildings tasked shortly before logging off. Although, the gathering, construction, and training rates are significantly slower than in the fast-paced Skirmish modes.
At your homeland, you will meet an Advisor unit, who will give you your first quests, which will ease the MMORTS learning curve in their introduction to many of the game's mechanics. These quests form the foundation of the MMORTS Campaign storyline and unlock various elements of the game, through which you will discover the large world of Dawn of Fantasy, with its myriad of characters, events, and subplots. While most of these quests engage the player in PvE gameplay throughout the twelve major NPC strongholds of Mythador, there are a couple PvP quests in which players must conquer similarly-matched players in a specified region. Completion of these quests typically results in additional resources or units.[2]
The 3D World Map for the MMORTS Campaign allows players to send armies to any of the enemy or NPC strongholds and quest locations across the game world of Mythador.
Players can interact with the greater game world using the game's dynamic World Map. This is your portal to interaction with other players and the many story-driven quests. By grouping units into armies, players can send troops to distant NPC strongholds, army camps, quest locations, and other players' homelands. Upon reaching one of these destinations, armies can set up camp and proceed to lay siege to an NPC or player stronghold in a scenario similar to the Lay Siege Skirmish mode, receive or complete various tasks from local NPCs, or trade with goods or mercenary merchants. Alternatively, players can use the Auto-Match feature to find a compatible PvP opponent within seconds.[3]
If at any point your own homeland is threatened, you will be able to opt out of the battle by paying a tribute to your attacker. If you decline this payment and ultimately lose the battle at hand, your loss will not be devastating. Your homeland will recover but suffer a small loss of some units, resources, and buildings while the victor will receive a considerable amount of resources.
Players can also temporarily align themselves with other players to take on the mightiest of Strongholds or advance in their questing. For a more permanent alliance, players can establish Guilds and engage in large-scale Guild vs. Guild battles.
In November 2009, the developer announced that the Single-Player Campaign had been cut in favor of the MMORTS campaign. The single-player campaign was planned as a prelude to the events in the MMORTS campaign, and is likely to be included in a future expansion or DLC pack.[4]
Kingdom Wars Campaign[ | ]
Kingdom Wars is an exclusively single-player Risk-style map with a mix of Skirmish and MMORTS gameplay elements to create a new, action-packed experience exclusively for single-player gamers. This game mode takes the epic siege warfare, continuous army progression, army construction, and World Map from the Online Kingdom mode and pairs it with an intelligent AI, while leaving out city construction, economic management, questing, and field combat to promote fast-paced action at every turn.
In Kingdom Wars, players will start off with the ability to choose their kingdom name as well as their homecity, which can be any of the 12 main NPC towns of the game world of Mythador. This town will automatically be under the player's control, making the quest for world domination one stronghold easier. Contrary to that of the other Dawn of Fantasy game modes, the default view in Kingdom Wars is the World Map. This map works similar to the MMORTS map and allows players to group their units into armies, merge or split armies to take on strongholds of any size, set up army camps adjacent to enemy strongholds, and lay siege to anything that stands in your way. One difference is that players will not be able to directly manage their land - meaning that one cannot switch to RTS view to micromanage one's economy, construct new buildings, or anything else that one can do in an MMORTS homecity.
However, the player's economy will be entirely automated and the constant trickle of resources you get from each of your strongholds can be used to train, heal, or upgrade units in a new, user-friendly menu within the actual World Map View. Players will also not be able to hire mercenaries or forge alliances - it's the player versus the world.
From the beginning, players are presented with three, epic quests: Conquer Teria, Nhob'ru, and Gokkholm - the lands of each of the three playable races. To do so, the player must conquer the four main strongholds of each race. While seemingly simple, many of these strongholds are massive and will put up quite a fight. In addition, the AI is working toward the same goal as the player and will simulate PvP combat by attempting to lay siege to the player's own towns.
Unlike in the MMORTS mode, players will gain control of any strongholds they conquer, as well as their automated economies. These towns will work just like your original homecity and players will be able to train units of that stronghold's race - meaning that they do not have any set race and can wreak havoc on Mythador with Elven, Orc, and Human armies. If the player completes these quests by conquering the twelve main towns, victory is theirs. If the AI takes all of your towns, the player will still be in the game for as long as they have an army. If this happens, it's suggested that they try to recover by sieging one of the smaller main towns or one of the miscellaneous homelands which dot the map.[5]
Skirmish Modes[ | ]
There are three main skirmish modes are available in Dawn of Fantasy online and single-player gameplay: Lay Siege, Stronghold Defense, and Build & Defend.[6] Each of these modes can be played as either single-player or multi-player team matches. These modes are cut down, fast-paced samples of MMORTS gameplay, meant to provide training ground for players to test out their MMORTS builds and strategies.
In the Lay Siege skirmish mode, players can lay siege to any of the twelve major MMORTS strongholds. No base building or economy to worry about - just one epic battle awaiting the player. To win, players must breach the enemy walls using an assortment of siege weapons and ultimately, kill the enemy king unit, hidden deep within the stronghold.[7]
In Stronghold Defense, prepare to defend one of the twelve NPC strongholds against combined enemy armies. Face up to two thousand advancing troops at once, attacking from multiple points along your outer walls. Make a stand, until the last men drop, to keep your king alive. Await arrival of mounted reinforcement for late-game aid and upgrade your walls with mounted defenses to drive the enemy forces out of your stronghold.[8]
In Build & Defend, build up a fully-developed town from the ground up. Once your town and army is fully upgrades, get ready to fend off assault after assault by enemy forces - ideal practice for defending your MMORTS homeland.
Multiplayer[ | ]
Dawn of Fantasy will use the "Reverie Online" multiplayer server, which includes an intelligent skill-matching system to pit players against opponents with similar skill levels based on previous matches. Players can play in three online modes: multiplayer skirmishes with up to eight players in a battle, the MMORTS in which players can work together to compete quests, battle the NPC strongholds, or engage in PvP warfare, and custom scenarios, in which players can run player-made scenarios created in Dawn of Fantasy's powerful Scenario Design Editor. To keep game requirements low, players can only directly interact with nearby players and individual homelands, quest locations, and NPC strongholds are all instanced.[9]
Economies & Resources[ | ]
Economies in Dawn of Fantasy revolve around four primary resources: food, wood, stone, and gold. Each race features a unique economy, each catering to a different playstyle. Food is typically used in training new soldiers, wood goes toward new buildings, stone goes toward walls, towers, and siege, and gold is used for toward select units and upgrades.
Civilizations[ | ]
Dawn of Fantasy lets players control one of three races: the industrious Men, the alchemist Elves, and the truculent Orcs. Each race offers a unique economic and militaristic playstyle, a richly-detailed lore and original language, and a vast range of political ambitions and original quests paving the MMORTS campaign.
Dragons and Dwarves were originally planned as playable races, but were cut due to a lack of resources.[10] However, they are still represented as players can travel to the dwarven mines Dunn Ergast and the Dragon Realm of Sssilistra in the MMORTS campaign, and select dwarven and dragon units can be purchased as mercenaries by any race. According to the developer, they are likely to be featured as playable races in a future expansion or sequel.
Men[ | ]
Descendants of the Old Dagbor Empire, the noble race of man crossed the sea in the Older Times, settling on the Western shores of Teria. With the best livestock, economy, and farming - as well as the finest strongholds - the race of men is equally suited for offensive and defensive tactics.
The race of men provides gamers with a tactically-balanced army. Men have no major strong or weak points on the battlefield, bringing a medieval style of combat and tactics to their warfare. A skilled player will be able to exploit his opponent's weakness by capitalizing on the versatility of men. Armies of men often require more micromanagement and mix-weapons strategy than the other races.
The men have a traditional RTS economy with the peasant as the standard villager unit. They gather food from farms or livestock, mine stone and gold, and chop down trees for wood. Peasants require drop-off points, such as horse carts, mills, or the townhall, for all resources. Unlike the elves or orcs, the humans can build farms on specified plots to provide a constant, but slow, source of food.
The men have a strong array of technological upgrades which can bridge any defensive or offensive shortcomings. These upgrades include strong counter-siege mechanisms, such as stationary catapults, stone tippers, and oil pots which can be built anywhere along their walls to stop an advancing army in their tracks.
Elves[ | ]
Centuries ago, the elves divided into two groups: the High Elves, who pursue alchemy and the arts of the intellect, and the Wood Elves, who are devoted to nature and lore. Both are a people of magic and harmony, and their numerous white citadels and tree architecture can be found high up in the mighty trees of the Nhob'ru forests.
Given enough distance and cover, their powerful ranged units make the elves a deadly force. With the game's best archers, elven armies can quickly take control of the battlefield as well as defend their forests. Elves have strong fortifications and economies that do not require territorial expansion as their resources are produced within their buildings and around their homecity. The elves' greatest weapon is their magic. They have, by far, the greatest knowledge of the magical elements, using them in battle and to produce resources.
The elven economy is largely automated, especially in late-game, and features the Warden as their standard economic unit. Wardens can be trained as either male or female. Both units are identical in abilities, except the females wield a bow and arrow while the males are melee units. The wardens can gather fruit and mine stone and gold. Being one with their majestic forests, the elves do not chop down trees for wood or hunt the forests’ animals, although they can breed deer to release into the forest in exchange for food. To supplement this, the elves construct their buildings on great trees which provide a constant trickle of wood. Each elven residencies also provide a trickle of a resource of the players’ choice, and, through the Alchemy Lab building, players can trickle some resources into another resource (i.e.: drain food, wood, and stone, to get a generous trickle of gold). And at the Symbiosis Shrine, players can summon forest spirits, to provide an increased trickle of wood, or spend resources to summon another resource – spend wood and food to summon an enchanted gold mine.
Elves have the strongest walls and archers in the game. This, combined with their contained economy, caters to Turtle gameplay. While elven players can still opt for a more aggressive play style, the elven units, while powerful, are the most expensive units of any race, so it is recommended that players build up some defenses while building up a strong economy and military force rather than rushing their opponents.
Orcs[ | ]
The orc tribes are renowned throughout the lands as brutal and war-seeking. With a weak economy, orcs have little opportunity for technological advancement. They make up for this with their brute strength as they overwhelm the enemy with their sheer ferocity. Orcs can also train Goblins, Wargs, and Ogres to join in their cause.
An army of Orcs in Dawn of Fantasy's "Lay Siege" skirmish mode.
The orc player will smash his enemies with sheer numbers. Possessing the game's strongest offensive units, orcs primarily use melee troops to rid their way through an opposing army. Though they have the weakest strongholds, they can construct additional palisade fortresses as they move across the land. Their economy is simple and primitive, focusing on hunting, livestock, and the spoils of war. Their tribal nature gives their Shamans access to magic that, while not on a par with the great elven magic, is still quite formidable.
The orcs have Labourers and Marauders as their villager units. These units serve as the foundation for not only the orc economy, but the military as well. You can task your huts to train either labourers or marauders, at which point battalions of these worker units will be in constant, automatic production at no cost to you. The marauders are fierce archer huntsmen capable of hunting wildlife; while the labourer units are capable of chopping wood, mining stone and gold and building buildings anywhere on the map in an open space – not restricted in building placement like the other two races.
Contrary to the Elves, the orcs are a primarily offensive race. Their worker units are automatically trained from their huts, at no charge to the player. These units can be tasked to select military buildings to be trained in the art of war as a higher-grade infantry or ranged unit, such as a Berserker, Impaler, or Slayer. As orc players can start up a strong offense with only a primitive economy, orc gameplay caters to early attackers, or Rushers, who can pillage an enemy camp before the enemy is able to build up a defending force. Later in game, the orc player's primitive economy will start to take its toll and the player will need to rely on attacking and looting nearby enemies or travel afar to seek out new resources.
Development[ | ]
Design[ | ]
Development of Dawn of Fantasy began in late 2003. As an independent studio for the vast majority of DoF's development, Reverie World Studios (originally, Reverie Entertainment) picked up progress and began to spark public interest following generous finances provided by the Canadian Government's Telefilm Grant. In its search for a publisher, Dawn of Fantasy was signed by Lighthouse Interactive,[11] which filed bankruptcy shortly after the deal was made. However, Reverie World Studios expects to be able to announce a new publisher shortly.
Audio[ | ]
Featuring an original score composed by Audio Director Joel Steudler, Dawn of Fantasy's soundtrack includes both peaceful and action ambient tracks distinct to each race. A number of samples from the soundtrack have been uploaded to Dawn of Fantasy's Facebook page.
Beta[ | ]
Dawn of Fantasy's Closed Beta has been divided into three stages. The first stage, the Initial CB, will be restricted to a small number of hand-selected experienced testers and the game's oldest and most contributive fans. Set to begin in late June, this stage will offer testers the Single-Player Skirmish modes, along with a custom updater tool. This stage will be mainly used to test the distribution and obvious bugs before it can be sent out to a larger population. Two to three weeks later, the Closed Beta will move into its Priority Stage. In this stage, more testers will be invited, and the Multiplayer Skirmish modes will be added, allowing the developers to fine-tune connectivity, chat, and PvP gameplay. The third and final stage, the General CB, will be sent out three weeks after Priority. Doubling the number of testers, this stage will disable both Single-Player and Multi-Player Skirmishes and introduce the MMORTS Campaign.
Following the Closed Beta, there will be Open Beta and Stress Test stages to allow a more general audience to demo the game before it goes gold.
Scenario Design Editor[ | ]
Some of the scenario design editor's tools.
The Dawn of Fantasy Scenario Design Editor is advertised as one of the most powerful and easiest-to-use RTS editors to date. With an array of original features, including Bridge Markers, Effect Editors, and an abundance of environment options to suit any scenario, Dawn of Fantasy's Editor allows designers to create a new map in minutes to play online or offline. Making use of the Lua script language, the possibilities of custom scenarios is limitless.[12]
In addition to the Editor, Dawn of Fantasy will ship with a number of other tools used by the game's developers. These include a Model Viewer, which allows players to effortlessly rescale models and alter walkmeshes, and the Techs Editor, allowing players to add custom techs with minimum scripting knowledge. Almost all of Dawn of Fantasy's gameplay files are written in Lua and not hardcoded, lending the game to an unprecedented level of moddability.[13]
References[ | ]
- ↑ GameFAQs.com. Dawn of Fantasy Overview.
- ↑ Alex Walz, Reverie World Studios. Developer Diary: An MMO What?.
- ↑ Reverie World Studios. Fantasy Friday XII: Unveiling the World Map 2.0.
- ↑ Konstantin Fomenko, Reverie World Studios. Is it true about the Single-Player Campaign?.
- ↑ Reverie World Studios. Fantasy Friday XXVII: Kingdom Wars Campaign.
- ↑ Reverie World Studios. DOF Official FAQ.
- ↑ Reverie World Studios. Fantasy Friday X: Lay Siege Skirmish.
- ↑ Reverie World Studios. Fantasy Friday XI: Stronghold Defense Skirmish.
- ↑ Massively.com. Dawn of Fantasy Interview.
- ↑ Dawn of Fantasy Heaven. Dawn of Fantasy's "Forgotten" Races.
- ↑ Gamers Hell. Lighthouse Interactive Signs Dawn of Fantasy.
- ↑ Reverie World Studios. Fantasy Friday XV: The Scenario Design Editor.
- ↑ Dawn of Fantasy Heaven. Scenario Design & Modding Interview.