I’ve posted about it before… I’m going to again!

I was listening to the Developer Q&A “podcasts” (although, technically, they’re not podcasts, because I can’t actually stream them into iTunes with a subscription list) and I’ve got a better idea for the way the game is being designed… And, to be perfectly honest… I LOVE IT. If you don’t want to listen to the audio yourself, I shall give you a quick overview!

First off… Levels. I believe, if I recall correctly, that there are only 50 levels. People have been concerned that this might be a little quick and not provide enough time to experience content and playing habits. Luckily, levels are far different than what we have come to expect from levels in an MMO! Basically, they say, levels are more for giving a general idea on what kind of skills and technology that a player might have access to. It doesn’t at all affect how strong a player is… Like, say, with hit points and statistics like that. Strength will be determined solely by equipment! They gave this example: There’s a level 50 with some major strong armor and a tricked out Asgard weapon that can seriously hurt some Goa’uld ego. He’s chugging along and he meets this little level 10 with a P90 and a flak jacket. Who’s going to win? Obviously the level 50… But only because he has superior equipment. If the level 50 put on exactly what the level 10 was wearing? He would be perfectly on par with the strength of the level 10. This completely overthrows the idea of levels as presented by World of Warcraft! In WoW, if a naked (as in, no equipment… Don’t get gross, okay?) level 70 player stands in the middle of the street and lets a level 10 pound on him? The level 10 is going to miss well over 90% of the time just because of the level gap. Like the developer of SGW said, there’s like some sort of… Aura of fear that the level 70 must give off to make the little guys miss their strikes. But, no! Stargate Worlds isn’t going to have that. If a level 50 and a level 10 meet on a deserted planet, and each has naught but a P90 and a flak jacket? They will be perfectly equally matched and the level 10 will have every chance to kill the level 50. That… Is amazing.

Also, the Q&A session on the 28th, which I didn’t listen to until today, confirmed my hypothesis about the Goa’uld guarding a Stargate! Say you’re returning from a mission and there’s a group of three Jaffa walking down the path. They see you and the leader gives the order to fall back and take defensive positions. You then have to use strategies and skills to figure out how to get rid of them, by crawling around… Crouching… Using cover. You can actually reduce damage by taking cover behind, say… A rock. It won’t reduce all the damage, but it will reduce a lot. It would be, quite literally, suicide to charge up to a Jaffa in the middle of a road and try to gun him down. He, being much more strictly trained in warfare, will more than likely lay on you a smackdown of epic proportions and present your head to his Goa’uld leader. They even said that they want to design playing fields so that you will soon come to realize what areas would give the best cover, and you’ll go “okay, that looks like the best spot, so let’s head over there”. Anyway! That was a small distraction… You get rid of the Jaffa on the road and you go home. For some reason, say… The server crashed and you have to do the mission all over again and you have to meet the same three Jaffa again. What will happen? Well, in games such as WoW, the same thing will happen… Not the case in Stargate Worlds! What was first a fall back into defensive positions could just as easily be a flanking attack that pins you down and gets you captured. Same scenario… Different approach by the artificial intelligence. This, they say, is what will make SGW never get old and I am inclined to agree.

Maybe these ideas will get “some people” *coughahem* to play MMOs with me? Oh! Also? Plans right now include the fact that players from one country can easily play on a server with their friends in another country. I don’t think there’s a realm block like World of Warcraft or Lord of the Rings Online. Frankly? I think that’s absolutely amazing. With WoW and LotRO arguing the position of “protecting” their players, I say give them the choice to play on a realm that might lag a little more than others! I have friends in other countries that I can’t play with because of this very reason… I say give us the choice and let us deal with the consequences of latency. We don’t need a company putting software blocks for our “best interest”.