Staff Writer Paul "LockeColeMA" Cleveland traveled over to San Francisco for some hands on time with Trion Worlds' End of Nations MMORTS.

As for the units themselves, my player seemed to specialize in light armor and fast strikes. Most of my units were infantry, light vehicles, or helicopters; I didn't have any heavy tanks, and they felt like a sorely missing section of my army (especially as my other units seemed to get ripped to shreds by my enemies). Then again, I was able to have about a dozen units out at a time and they were cheaper to replace. It likely comes down to play style choices and player coordination; unlike RTS games where players build up bases and harvest resources, EoN has resources accumulate automatically over time, modified by the number of cash resource points that are captured. And while players can create limited defense structures, like turrets, replacement units are airlifted to drop points instead of being built in factories. While the action can get hectic with several players fighting at the same time, I did find it a little disappointing to only command squads of around 10 units instead of the dozens or hundreds possible in other RTS games. 

The second match was played on a map called Resource Hog; the last "free" water and farming areas are being fought over by both factions. The objective in this match is to capture and hold the major resource objectives until 1600 total supplies are harvested. The match quickly became lopsided as the other faction overwhelmed my side; but the action never slacked off. Whenever a mass of enemy units headed toward our armies, I would use my units to sneak around and capture smaller resource nodes. I believe this was actually the true use of my units; however, it's not much fun to capture a node and then be unable to defend and keep it.

The final game was on a map called Operation Deephammer, and involved 24 players. While it was another PvP hotbed, it involved "base play," where each side has a main headquarters, protected by two shield generators. Various resource points in the map provide key advantages to the sides that can keep them; for example, a more central drop-point for replaced units would allow them to get back into the action quicker; victory points would drop the enemy HQ's shields for a short time; and other points will give additional strike powers such as nuclear missiles. A fun note about these kinds of power spots: when a side controls one, every player on that team can use it. This led to one hilarious encounter where about 6 of our teammates had all their units destroyed when three enemy players tossed nuclear missiles simultaneously at the same spot. This map was the most fun, and seemed to last the longest; however, it was also the one where I felt I had the least impact due to the large number of players. There was also a lot of confusion; many of the units' colors look similar, making it hard to pinpoint your specific units during an engagement. 

The comment about colors segues nicely into the graphics overall. The graphics are a pretty nice assortment. They streamline well; even in Alpha there was no lag and all the units moved smoothly. Additionally, the maps are all very detailed and set the theme of each area quite well; you'll find highly rendered burning buildings, desolate cityscapes, and even destroyed advertisements and billboards as a poignant reminder of what the world used to be like. We also discovered the feature allowing players to customize their unit colors (some of the tanks on the field ended up looking like clown cars), which alleviated some of the former criticism about all the units looking so similar. While I didn't find anything revolutionary, I did enjoy the sights; my only concern is how the game will hold up on older computers (though the team did try to allay my fears, saying it should run smoothly on any machine that can play Rift). 

The last interesting feature that we learned about is that EoN will be launched as free-to-play. Many players get leery about F2P games, unfairly (in my mind) associating them with poor quality and pay-to-win cash shops. While EoN will have a cash shop, the team was clear to point out that the items in it will never be something a player could not receive from their effort in game. Trion wants to offer a choice: if you have the time to put in, you can earn currency in-game and get the same items. But if you don't have the time that others do, you'll be at a severe disadvantage; so the cash shop exists to balance the playing field and allow those of us with full-time jobs to purchase a boost if needed. As for concerns about quality, I don't foresee an issue with the same company that created Rift!

Overall, the hour or so I spent with End of Nations left me wanting more. However, it served to show off much of what was currently in the game; as said, the campaign mode and tutorial are still missing, the tech trees are incomplete, and most of the game spots on the global map were unavailable beside the few that we tried. The game currently stands as a firm foundation and a lot of promise from the combined efforts of Trion Worlds and Petroglyph. Still, I'd say it's a safe bet that later in 2012 EoN will give all the current RTSs on the market a good run for their money!

Paul "LockeColeMA" Cleveland, Staff Writer