March 19, 2007 - It's not that I'm against the idea of massively multiplayer games. It's just that most of them follow the same basic RPG mechanics. I know a lot of that has to do with technical considerations keeping twitch games from being too prevalent, but I need some more skill-based action in my persistent worlds. There have been a couple before, most notable probably being PlanetSide and Neocron, but none have really managed to capture the same kind of thrill that most single-player action games provide. Webzen is hoping to change this (something we're more than happy to encourage) when they release
Huxley to the world later this year on the PC and Xbox 360. There's no cross-platform play, but both systems should get the same game when all is said and done.
Huxley sits somewhere in-between Unreal Tournament and Counter-Strike, though it'll definitely slide farther to UT when all is said and done. Perhaps this isn't totally surprising considering the game uses Unreal tech and even seems to include art fairly similar to many of Epic's own games. Players will have to choose a character within one of the two human factions: the Sapiens and Alternative. Each of these races have two sub-races as well for further character differentiation. The factions are all about fighting each other while simultaneously combating the third race known as the Hybrids.
Character customization is going to be on par with most modern MMOs with plenty of options for the body tyle, hair, face, and so on. Along with that, players can customize their own colors to help differentiate their armor as the color will transfer between armor sets. Clans will end up with more color choices to help make them a bit more unique along with the eventual ability to create their own logos. Those without the creativity or want will have plenty of options to choose from such as the appropriate default "Monkey King" emblem which Sapiens begin with.
As with most MMOs now, there'll be plenty of armor types to purchase, which will help fill out a characters look. Most of the armor and weapon looks are pretty comparable to the oversized Gears of War style of art (though there's an unmistakable Korean stylization of character bodies and faces) making each of the soldiers look heavy and ready to rumble. Each of the Battle Styles will be able to use different ranges of armor as well so it shouldn't be difficult to distinguish between types of players simply by looking at them.
With nine categories of weapons with hundreds of variations total, chances are there'll be plenty of brutal looking warriors wandering the environment. Of course, the weapons aren't just for looking cool, their for destroying enemy hopes and dreams. Players can expect machineguns, grenade launchers, shotguns, sniper rifles, optical light rifles, rocket launchers and more. All of the various categories have several types of weapons that will act a little differently and have various levels of damage. For example, the Inquisitor is a type of rocket launcher that's a guided missile. Up to four different weapons can be carried at one time so players will have to choose which guns they bring with them.
Players will also be able to choose between the various Battle Styles (classes). The styles are being designed to work in concert with each other. Enforcers (heavy), Avengers (medium), and Phantoms (light) will all have specialties that make them useful in many situations. As you can imagine, Enforcers will be the heavy weapons, heavy armor thugs while Phantoms will act more as a sniper or scout.
Character building continues through the game by earning new types of skills and armor. For instance, sprint, double-jumping, infrared vision, cloaking, and headshot prevention will only become unlocked as players make their way up the solider ranks. Many of the skills will be available as armor implants. On top of that, each faction also has specific skills to unlock.
For the most part, players will probably find Huxley to be closer to a normal online multiplayer game than something like WoW. The game is heavily instanced for both story-based single-player/co-op missions and competitive matches. Perhaps this is what ultimately allows them to run a persistent world since it acts more like Guild Wars than EverQuest. That's not to say the player counts Webzen claims aren't impressive. There are very few games that can boast 100 vs. 100 player maps. The kind of chaos those kinds of games cause is special. If they can make those types of numbers stand up to technology requirements and keep the gameplay more fun than the typical "wake up and die" massacre so many players in one match can cause… well, let's just file that in our hope chest.
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