Dragon Empires E3 2004 Impressions

Dragon Empires, Codemasters’ upcoming massively multiplayer online role-playing game, has been in development for a couple of years, but it appears that the game is finally nearing completion.

The game takes its name from the fact that the vast world--more than 580 square miles in size--is divided up into a number of empires, each ruled by a different dragon. These dragons serve as mentors and protectors to their people, and they vary in size and shape, from birdlike to fishlike. You’ll be able to play three different races in the game: human, dragonblood, and shadow. Humans tend to be the best spellcasters, dragonblood the best fighters, and the shadow the scouts. Each race has five unique classes, so there are 15 total classes in the game.

Codemasters touts that Dragon Empires will grant you a great deal of control over your own destiny, and there’s an intriguing mix of social, political, and economic forces in the game. There are more than 50 unique cities in the land, and each of them can be captured by a player clan. Once in control, that clan can tax all commerce in the city and will have to deal with local politics.

The game will have a centralized economic system that offers lots of possibilities and an easy way to sell your wares. As an example, if you have a wolf hide, you can tan it and turn it into leather; you can then turn the leather into a shirt, armor, or other piece of clothing and then sell it on a central market. All goods for sale by all players in that empire are listed there, so you can quickly and easily find the best prices.

Dragon Empires will feature player-versus-player gameplay in a rather innovative form. You’ll belong to a certain empire and start as a civilian. If you enter another empire’s boundaries and hunt there (perhaps for valuable animals), you’ll be branded an outlaw by that empire. What’s interesting is that while you’re in another empire’s territory, you’ll gain what are called pending experience points in addition to regular experience points. The more successful you are, the more pending experience points you’ll earn, but they won’t be converted into actual experience points until you return to your territory. And if you’re slain by a bounty hunter, the bounty hunter will cash in on your pending experience points.

There will also be a blood circus arena to support player-versus-player matches. These can range from just two players to six teams in size, and you’ll fight for a limited time. Matches can be settled by objective or by score, and there can be betting involved.

If you’re the type of online role-player who can only invest a limited amount of time each day into a game, there will be plenty for you to do, from hunting animals to going on quests. Codemasters estimates that it will have more than 500 quests at launch.

The game features a very flexible skill and magic system that should allow even two players of the same race and class lots of leeway to tailor their characters differently. The graphics engine is a proprietary one by Codemasters that looks beautiful, and it includes a day-and-night cycle with nice lighting effects. We were shown a few different cities, including a huge pillar mounted on a mountain, a tranquil lakeside city, and a treetop city, so there’s a wide range of architecture and style in the game.

Dragon Empires will soon go into closed beta, but an open beta is expected afterward. The game should launch this November, and we’ll have more details as we get them.