Earth and Beyond Preview

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Sure, Electronic Arts has a handful of online games like Motor City Online and Majestic on the horizon, but when Origin recently announced the cancellation of the anticipated sequel to Ultima Online, Ultima World Online: Origin, EA was left without a massively multiplayer online role-playing game that's compelling enough to compete with the ever popular EverQuest. Enter Westwood. The renowned developer has been working on Earth and Beyond, a robust MMORPG with a unique sci-fi twist, for nearly four years now, and EA is banking on this game to be next year's EverQuest...well, EverQuest in space. During a recent visit to Westwood's Las Vegas offices, we had a chance to briefly sit down with producer Rade Stojsavljevic and get a hands-on demonstration of Earth and Beyond.

As has been previously revealed, Earth and Beyond takes place in the 23rd century, about 100 years after a deadly civil war devastated the planet Earth. Humanity has splintered into three distinct factions: the Progen, the Terran, and the Jenquai, all of whom have so far managed to coexist in an uneasy alliance that's reminiscent of the 1980s-era Cold War. These three races each specialize in a certain field of expertise. Specifically, the Progen are a warrior society, the Terran are capitalist traders, and the Jenquai are scientifically inclined explorers. When you create your character, you'll choose to play as one of these three races, and you'll inherit their respective skill sets. You will also be able to skew your character's level of expertise even further by choosing from one of these same three specialties. That is, you're free to create a Terran trader with a specialty in exploring, or you can go all out and create a Progen warrior with a specialty in fighting. In addition to the nine possible specialty combinations, your character can further be customized through Earth and Beyond's skill system. While you'll only start out the game with one or two skills per character, as you progress through quests and gain more experience, you'll be granted with more advanced passive and active skill sets. For example, as a Terran, one of the passive skills you might acquire is negotiation. With this, you'll automatically get lower prices for any item or weapon that you wish to buy, and conversely, you'll be able to ask for a higher price when you're looking to sell something. Some of the other skills include combat and diplomacy. In all, Earth and Beyond will have a total of 90 skills, 10 for each of the game's nine character combinations.

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Like traditional RPGs, experience in Earth and Beyond is gained as you complete quests. Unlike other role-playing games, however, Earth and Beyond has three different experience-point pools for your character to advance in. So you can be the best Terran trader this side of the galaxy but still be a measly level-2 explorer and level-4 fighter (the level cap in the game is 50). And while it's impossible to have a level 50x3 character, you'll still have to worry about making sure that your secondary and tertiary specialties are up to par with your primary one. Thankfully, the game's quest system is a robust one that dynamically generates adventures based on your race, specialty, level, and any skills that you might have, which means that no matter what kind of character you're playing, there will always be a quest specifically tailored just for you. There are three basic quest types: trade quests that involve shipping items from one region of space to another; exploration quests that involve discovering new galaxies, nebulae, and so forth; and combat quests that involve, well, combat. Earth and Beyond will also feature some "hand-built" quests that, upon successful completion, will reward you with rare, coveted relics called epic items within the game. Naturally, these quests will be much more involved and, oftentimes, much more difficult to complete than the basic tailored quests.