We get our first look at Heroes of Telara. The jury is still out on this game but we definitely see it as an MMORPG with potential.

It's always interesting to see how a company chooses to start a gameplay demonstration; especially when they're showing the game for the first time. After the big announcement that Trion World Networks is developing Heroes of Telara, we had the chance to see it for ourselves. "Trion is doing server based, MMORPGs. What that means is that Trion is moving more of the systems off the client and onto the server. Things like AI, Physics and World Simulation." said Russ Brown, Trion's Senior Development Director before he went on to explain that this allows them to do exciting, spontaneous scripted events that can be executed at whatever time they want, from the server side.

While this direction isn't exactly exciting by itself, it does have potential to be. Actually, the word "potential" is the best word I can think of to describe Heroes of Telara. That's not to be taken negatively; I'll take a game with potential over a game that's obviously flawed any day of the week.

The first detail that's important to note about the game is that it has a unique class/subclass system. Players don't choose which class they'll be when they create their character. Moreover, players can freely switch between classes in certain areas. Think Final Fantasy XI, but with a twist. "One of the ways we drive the world, is when an NPC dies, you can pick up new sub-classes and new abilities. Additionally when you complete quests, you can gain new subclasses and new abilities." Russ explained. This plays a major role in how players will engage PvE content. Players will constantly be switching between classes & subclasses to best deal with an encounter. You could raise the concern that this feature effectively takes away the ability for your character to feel unique. But then I suppose that also raises the question of whether or not the negative in that outweighs the potential positive. It's easy to see the potential in this, but how will the metaphorical teeter-totter fall? Unfortunately in game design, unique ideas don't always come with a long lifespan. I digress…

One of the features that got my attention was the dynamic "Heroic Quests" that players will encounter as they explore the game.  For anyone who's tried Warhammer Online, these will be familiar as they are essentially an upgraded version of "Public Quests". Russ demonstrated several different Heroic Quests but the best example began with a massive explosion. The nearby town that we had recently visited was under attack by Imps, Demons and ... Bears (oh my). Players who choose to participate in Heroic Quests like this one will need to complete several steps in order to finish the Heroic Quest, and in this particular example, save the city from burning to the ground.

I mentioned some of the problems that Public Quests in Warhammer Online suffered and asked how they plan to do their Heroic Quests differently, to avoid the same problems. Russ explained their plans by saying, "We want to encourage low levels to do something. For instance, in that demon fight we might have them put out the fires or ask them to kill the imps." While this could potentially solve one of the major issues that disable this type of content in Warhammer Online, the team is still unsure if the difficulty will be scaled, based on the number of participants.

As far as how the world looks, rest assured, the first trailer is indicative of how beautiful this game really is. They chose a "stylistic" yet "realistically rendered" method and they definitely have something unique in that department. However, as we've learned in the past, amazing graphics can often alienate players due to high system requirements. In this economy, it's probably not smart to be developing a game that can't be enjoyed without the purchase of a new computer. This isn't to speculate that you'll need a new computer to run Heroes of Telara; however, when I asked about system requirements, they made it clear that the game had not been optimized yet so it was impossible to give us any system requirement estimates.

While we're talking about graphics, it's important to note that the game demonstrated some of the longest draw distances I've ever seen. You could see so much of the environment it was hard not to be awestruck. "We're going to have long draw distances, so you can see things like castles or geological formations that are really cool and drive you through the game." Russ mentioned.

In the end, Heroes of Telara is a beautiful game with some new ideas and improvements to ideas that have potential. That said, it's difficult to tell this early if the game will deliver on its promises and make the right decisions during their drive down the long road ahead.

Heroes of Telara is being developed in Trion's Redwood City, CA studio. They're hoping to launch the game sometime in 2010. Currently they're still exploring what kind of business model to use for the game, but it's certainly easy to assume that it will be subscription based, and competitively priced. Understandably, they had no comment as to what the required system specifications will be –- and currently they only have plans to release the game on the PC (sorry Apple users).

Andrew "Tamat" Beegle
Editor-in-Chief
ZAM.com