Friday, July 10, 2015

On Becoming Immortal

Storyline

The premise of the game is that the god Aeli has gone missing and no longer protects the world of Aelion. Gods from other planets are attacking Aelion, while the Immortals and the gods of Aelion fight to protect the planet. You learn about The Reapers now have a leader, making them a threat. It's not clear who the Reapers are, except that they have powers and are tougher than normal people. It is unclear if they can return to life after being killed.

Your backstory is that you were a Templar, basically a soldier, sent out on a mission to rescue civilians being attacked. In the ensuing battle you die, but are restored to life with new powers. You are now an Immortal, though it is unclear how this happens. Even the gods don't know how one becomres an Immortal.

The above is revealed during a short mission which also covers basic movement, combat, and environment interaction.

A Couple of Important Gods

Herida
The goddess Herida will be your main quest giver and the main story driver, at least for now. She resides in the Divine Observatory.
Flavius

Herida introduces you to the god Flavius and sends you to the Research Center to learn more about your powers. The Research Center also contains the Training Hall where you can try out other classes.

Unfortunately the next tutorial mission happens before you can try out the various classes, meaning you are stuck with the class you chose when talking to Flavius. I didn't try to change classes after talking with him. At any rate, this means you need to know which class to take. It's not that big of a deal, but you do end up spending some currency on upgrading your abilities when running this tutorial mission.

Once completed with that mission, definitely go back to the Training Hall in the Research Center and try out the three initial classes and a few of the other classes to see which you would be interested in.

If you complete the training for a class, then you'll get some credits and the outfit for that class.

Character Basics

Quinta, The Stylist
Creation and Customization

Character creation does have a lot of choices, but they aren't extensive. You can customize head, hair, body type, skin tone, and tattoos. If you don't like the way your character turned out, or you want to change your look, you can visit Quinta, the Stylist, who is located in the Research Center off to the right before you reach Flavius. Note that your first make over is free. After that it costs money, though I'm not sure how much.

 Quinta is not a god because she lacks the hoop thing orbiting her head. It's not clear if she is an Immortal or just a regular citizen.

Movement
Movement is WASD. You can dash by double-clicking the WASD key you choose and you zip in that direction. You can only dash so much, and then you need to wait for it to recharge. The dash will work even if you are in the middle of an attack animation - very handy to get out of a jam or an area marked for damage.

Environmental Interaction
Environmental interaction keys:
  • spacebar - pick up loot, talk to NPCs, use computers/consoles, etc.
  • F - to collect reward from completing quests and missions.
Combat Basics
Combat skills are used via the left and right mouse buttons, keys: 1-4, and keys: Z, C, V. I'm not sure how good key rebinding is and I've read some people have had issues when rebinding the movement keys.

Melee characters tend to have combos, so you use different combinations of  left and right mouse clicks in order to complete various attacks. Definitely train with your class first.

As you whittle down your opponents health, golden health globes pop off and land around the area. You just need to touch them to get healed. 

The globes generally fall off after you take on level of health from a creature. This level is indicated by the yellow-gold bar beneath the medium orange health bar located above the creature. The number to the right of the health bar is the levels of health a creature has. Note that a red health bar hovers over the mob you are fighting, but is often hard to see because of the bigger orange and yellow-gold bars which mark the current health level of the creature you are fighting.

If you get close to killing an enemy, you can perform a kill action (finishing) by pressing E when the UI indicates. Each class has its own finishing move. The knight's finishing move is, by far, the lamest  - a roundhouse punch.

Definitely practice with your character in the Training Hall to be sure you know how their attacks work.

Here's a video of my character, a Paladin, doing the first part of a mission and the combat that ensues. You can see at some points where my character gets stuck in an attack animation, and the occasional appearance of the E prompt for a finishing move when I've not attacked anything. So definite signs the game is still in beta, or signs that I don't know what I'm doing. :)

The video does show me interacting with the environment and using the Paladin's finisher move on some robots. Some very bad robots!


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