Real-time strategy games today are known for their fast-paced action and harried base building. The gameplay is usually a rush to complete a building or a unit, and you have to watch the game constantly to assure victory. This has been part of the reason why massively multiplayer RTS games haven't exactly flooded the market yet. Of course you can play quick 30- or 60-minute games of Warcraft III or Age of Kings online, because the games have a limited scope and a limited number of players. But the prospect of simultaneously handling hundreds of players online at the pace of real-time strategy gameplay presents a number of problems that developers have yet to solve. However, Nicely Crafted Games may have found a way around those problems in its upcoming massively multiplayer RTS Time of Defiance.

In Time of Defiance, your world has been destroyed, and all that remains are thousands of islands floating in space.

The key issue that seems to cast the viability of massively multiplayer RTS games in doubt is maintaining the fast pace of the game for hundreds of players over the course of the typical weeks or months that persistent games can exist. Time of Defiance's way of handling this is to slow down the pace considerably and then build in lots of in-game and out-of-game notifications. Time of Defiance will have its moments of fast-paced battle, but from our experience with the game, playing it could be likened to programming your empire. You'll log on, issue various orders to explore areas, queue up unit and building production, and then log off to get on with your life. Then, you'll log on repeatedly after that at your own pace to check up on your empire and issue new orders and queues. Only when you've received e-mail notification that your enemies are at your doorstep will you be forced to play Time of Defiance at someone else's behest. Otherwise, the designers have built the game so you can play at your own pace.

In Time of Defiance, you are a leader who has set up shop on one of the thousands of islands floating in space that used to be a continent on the planet Nespanona. Some sort of calamity destroyed the planet, literally blowing it into pieces. Now, the survivors of Nespanona are desperately trying to rebuild their lives on these floating islands. Each island is incredibly small and yields such a small quantity of resources and real estate that you will be forced to strike out into the unknown void immediately and look for other islands to colonize and mine. The back story isn't exactly unique, but the implementation of this island-hopping gameplay is actually refreshing and intriguing. Rather than create a giant metropolis of buildings and units, you'll have to create an empire of scattered islands thinly connected by trade routes and patrolling scouts and warships. The execution really does convey the game's setting beautifully.

The empire view is where you see the entire reach of space where the destroyed planet used to be.

Time of Defiance has a core foundation that is reminiscent of other RTS games. You have six resources to harvest: wood, stone, coal, metal, water, and crystal moss. Wood, stone, and metal are used to build structures and ships, while coal is used as fuel for all your vessels. Water and crystal moss are two special resources linked together and used for trading with the mysterious entity known as the Eighth House, who are merchants who claim they own the fragmented continent you and hundreds of other explorers live on. They are battling another mysterious agency called the Shadoo Alliance. You can travel through quantum gates situated at every player's home base to the Eighth House trading post to trade water and crystal moss for special items and information. Presumably, the House wants these items and will pay handsomely for them because the Shadoo use them to power their ships and shields. You'll find that water and moss are special resources that can get you some very nice ships and items from both the Eighth House and the Shadoo Alliance.