Fantasy Friday VII - Beasts of Gokkholm

[Alex Walz]

FANTASY FRIDAY VII
Beasts of Gokkholm

Happy New Years from all of us at Reverie! This is the year it will all happen – no ifs, ands, or buts. Announcing our publisher, being able to release more in-game videos without worrying about the current clipping errors and other minor glitches, recognition and presence at premier industry events, launching the highly anticipated betas, sending out finished copies to distributors, and finally seeing Dawn of Fantasy on store shelves worldwide! We have a busy year ahead of us, so wish us luck!

Today we will be looking at another unit showcase as we look into the orc beasts, creatures that can’t practically be grouped into any other military category. From the mighty ogre to the creeping goblins to the wild wargs of Gokkholm, we’ll look into the attributes, abilities, and descriptions of each of these units.

As a recap from our last unit showcase, each of these units have special abilities that can be triggered at the cost of stamina points. In addition, Every unit in Dawn of Fantasy can also gain experience and level up through fighting. With each level increase, the unit's health increases, and the unit is rewarded with a skill point, which the player can use to increase either the unit's attack rating, defense rating, stamina, damage, or the rate at which he heals (all units self-heal over time). Please keep in mind that all stats and abilities are WIPs, and will undergo heavy balance testing before anything is finalized. But below is what we are looking at right now.

The Ogre

Description: Large beast unit. Very effective against heavily armored and cavalry units, but vulnerable to ranged attacks. Trained as single units, not batallions, for 210 food and 75 gold each from your Ogre Pits. From these pits, players can research a number of upgrades for their ogres including Bludgeon (increasing crush damage), Skullcap (increasing crush armor), and Targe (increasing Pierce Armor). These upgrades bring both statistical and aesthetic changes to your ogres.

Initial Statistics:

Health: 1900
Stamina: 200
Damage: 300
Accuracy: 40
Defense: 15
Armor: 20
View/LOS: 280
Speed: 58
Charge: 115

Unique Abilities:

Trample – Damages every adjacent unit.
Devour – Eats an allied unit, and absorbs its hitpoints.
Sacrifice – Self-destructs, allowing its corpse to be looted by allied units.

The Goblin Prowler

Description: Ranged unit best in large numbers. Good against infantry, poor against heavy armored and cavalry units. Prowlers are continuously spawned from your Tents. The more tents you have, the more goblins - and you can individually set each tent to spawn either prowlers or raiders.

Initial Statistics:

Health: 110
Stamina: 200
Damage: 50
Accuracy: 45
Defense: 20
Armor: -
View/LOS: 320
Range: 320
Speed: 38
Charge: 89

Unique Abilities:

Evasion – Makes the unit immune to projectile attacks while moving.

The Goblin Raider

Description: Melee unit best in large numbers. Good against ranged units, poor against armored units. Like prowlers, Raiders are continuously spawned from your Tents.

Initial Statistics:

Health: 120
Stamina: 150
Damage: 70
Accuracy: 24
Defense: 18
Armor: 20
View/LOS: 320
Speed: 36
Charge: 86

Unique Abilities:

Evasion – Makes the unit immune to projectile attacks while moving.

The Warg

Description: The orc mount and unit of livestock. Wargs can fight in packs with no riders or with mounted Impalers or Slayers, or can be raised as farm animals for Marauders to hunt. When first bred, these animals offer little resources or military strength. Overtime, they will grown until they are fully mature and as they grow, they will become plumper, stronger, and faster. At full growth, Wargs are fierce enemies wielding a lot of damage and speed and a large LOS, although they lack armor. Like goblins, warg battalions are continuously spawned from your Warg Pen buildings, however their spawn rate is significantly slower and their battalion size is smaller.

Initial (Level One) Statistics for full grown Wargs:

Health: 300
Resources: 300 Food
Stamina: 200
Damage: 70
Attack: 40
Defense: 30
Armor: -
View/LOS: 420
Speed: 60
Charge: 120

Unique Abilities:

Howl (when not mounted) – Intimidates nearby enemy units, decreasing their defense and attack ratings.
Charge (when mounted) – Charges toward the enemy with increased speed and damage.

And on popular request, below are some shots of these guys in action:

I began my journey within my homecity, training troops to scout out the region. Goblins quickly filled up the screen, pouring out of my tents.


Early into my journey, I ran into a small encampment of rebel orcs. No worries though, they quickly fell to the clubs of my fully-upgraded ogres.


Late into the night, I reached the Brakental desert. In the distance, I saw an elven army advancing for Pultak. I moved my troops into position to stop the advance.


The battle waged on until dawn. My wargs put an end to some archers a short distance away and charged in to help my ogres against the mounted Grand Masters. Meanwhile, a couple of Bladestorms left the battle to sneak up on my archers from behind. One of my ogres noticed the attackers, and charged onto the scene with surprising speed, and made easy work out of bashing one of their heads in with his great club. The other Bladestorms met their end with a volley of arrows once my prowlers noticed the attackers.


The battle came to an end, and the remaining elven rangers and treants fled into the horizon chased by a clan of wargs howling in the distance, as my goblins cheered. The resolution came at a large cost, but it was a victory nonetheless. Rest assured, there will be blood settings.


I continued on, crossing the desert, until I reached a narrow pass in the cliffs leading to a human settlement. The enemy archers had spotted my troops and ordered their units into position.


But, alas, I met my match in the shadow of a hundred fiery arrows...

[GPS51]

Very cool. Any idea on how long it takes a warg to fully fatten? Can't wait to use the Ogres

[Alex Walz]

No idea. I usually speed things up a bit using the dev cheats.

Maybe an hour an a half. I'm sure one of our scripters can look into the script and give you a more exact time. It takes a while but you're have several maturing battalions at once.

[GPS51]

An hour and a half?? Are you serious? That's an eternity in playing time! BTW I can't wait to see the fruition of all the effort that's gone into DOF. Congrats on the end in sight.

[Alex Walz]

I could be way off.

But it's not an hour and a half of playing time. Keep in mind that the MMORTS world is persistent and things happen slower. Breed some newborn wargs, sign off, sign in the next morning, and your wargs may be fully grown. You can also purchase wargs at the market and not have to wait for them to mature.

[GPS51]

Hmm an interesting concept. I've never played an rts MMORG...this could be savagely interesting. *Continues work on Heaven games trivia challenge for a beta key* Then I won't have to worry about such things.

[The Witch King of Angmar]

Looks great. One question though, when you say "spawn" from the buildings, do you have to click on the building to order them or do they automatically appear in the case of the goblins?

Thanks

[Alex Walz]

They automatically spawn. You can go in and set garrison points, and research upgrades for faster spawn rates, but you don't have to do anything to start the spawning. Although I believe you do have to manually set it to spawn one of the goblin types (prowlers, I believe), to switch it from the default raider spawn.

These units, along with your laborers and/or marauders, will be in constant production until you reach your population cap.

[Andy Joslin]

Also, you may manually toggle the spawn off if you wish. And production slows greatly as more goblins are in play. For example, the goblin tent would take 60 seconds to spawn a goblin prowler battalion when you have no goblin battalions in play, but much longer when you have 10 goblin battalions.

[Darathor]

The battles look dynamic and the MMORTS mode seems to be quite fleshed out. I like how the races really look unique, even in there livestock. (my food can beat up your food) I also like how you have to choose whether to and when to take your wargs from the battlefield, or from just wondering around your city, and into the slaughterhouse.

When you were fighting the elves, was the enemy controlled by AI or another dev?