Hey community!

I regret to inform certain forumites that the delay this week was indeed all my fault, and as such it isn't a video. (That said, would anyone mind QOTW on Tuesdays?) Anyway...

This week we present the beauty of speed - running that is.

Q: Will Earthrise feature run speed differentials in and out of combat? Will this equate in some way to being able to "Run Down" or your opponents even if they are running directly away from you (On foot, or on vehicle?) Will those same elements allow you to run away?
 
A: Yes!  When we designed both Exploration and Battle Mode for Earthrise, we made sure that movement speed was one of the defining factors that differentiate players who wield weapon and who don't. Players in Exploration Mode will have faster movement speed than in combat. This allows players who are unable to fight back to run away from their opponents, and in order to catch on those who run away players will have to trade firepower for mobility. Players may also use the full potential of enhanced speed by switching to Exploration Mode in combat in order to turn on Shield regeneration and avoid their opponent's attacks with skilled movement, but a direct hit would do more damage to them due to the lowered resistance of the protective field in that mode. In both modes there will be Abilities that allow for temporary boost of movement speed so the difference between modes can be compensated to a degree by specializing in battlefield movement.

Until next week, this is your fearless, yet slightly sniffling cold-medicine friendly Community Manager reminding you all to bundle up and stay well in this crazy winter chill. In fact, you should probably stay inside and post your thoughts on QOTW.

~ m.

Note the word "toggleable". I haven't met a game yet wherein sprintings was implemented as an "ability" which was nothing more a fixed speed modifier for a fixed time with a fixed cooldown. TR, WAR, AION, STO, etc.

What I want is the toggleable style which you find in most FPSs and AoC (as well as Fallen Earth and SWG?) where you toggle on sprint mode and while its toggled it burns through some pool, usually stamina. As long as you have stamina you can sprint and as soon as you detoggle the sprint, you stop sprinting. Being on and off on-demand is so much more convinient and allows much better control of the toon in combat.

when I read:


I interprete it to mean the former system, like where we saw the "sprint" ability in the MMORPG.com vids. Hell, that one even had a cast time wherein the character was still to cast it. Thats not my preference at all.

Hopefully with all this talk about the game being more dynamic, that mechanic is gone.

Yes it really does suck to be forced to sprint for longer than you want. The fixed cooldown also sucks. It would be like if in EVE your MWD only pulsed on for 15 seconds and took a whole minute to cooldown before you could pulse it again for a fixed 15 seconds. Its not the time constraints that get to me, but the overall lack of control. All decisions basically devolve into "do I trigger it now?".


Ya, I guess one could interpret it as such but its still not the toggleable version I want. Instead of unlimited sprinting with additional damage, I want sprinting limited by consumption of some stat pool. Such an ability brings up a whole bunch of tactical decisions: when to trigger it, how long to trigger it for, how long to trigger it off (to let the pool recharge), etc. In many ways its comparible to having ammunition clips and allowing the player to decide when to reload.

It also opens up a bunch of character development options and loadout options. Taking abilities or equipment that boost the size of your pool versus your regeneration rate. Taking tactics that let you burn so much energy in lieu of stamina to sprint. Or modying other abilities to burn energy instead of stamina so that you can save your stamina for sprinting.

It really does open up a lot of possibilities.

The definitely said that they'd be a delay between when you switched to exploration mode and when you're regenerations would boost themselves. Putting further delay between when you switched and when your speed was boosted or even between triggering the switch and when the switch takes place just doesn't make sense to me.

Another tenously connection is the old MMORPG.com videos showed switching to battle stance being neigh instantaneous.

None of this means that there won't be a delay, it just means that I'd be pretty suprised if there was a delay.

Good catch Harabeck. Makes me wonder how it would be implemented and how quick is quick.

Ya, but who's going to mend Felix's broken heart?

He's so traumatized that he hasn't even posted in here yet.

Akward...