Myth of Empires preview friv game is a great start

From modern military strategy straight to feudal China: Friv2Online Games Studio (authors of Iron Conflict) released Myth of Empires, an MMO survival game, in early access, and we tested it a bit and are ready to start our story.

Myth of Empires is a survival game with oriental flavor, which affects the environment, music, the appearance of characters and buildings. But far from being as colorful as we are used to seeing in Asian online games - Angela Games start from realism, and in general they do it well.

The sandbox -hungry people on Steam are very supportive of the friv game, but I wasn't particularly optimistic when I read about the possibilities in Myth of Empires: the description came out as a cross between Mount & Blade, Conan Exiles and Kenshi - too good to be true. However, the authors exaggerated only a little - perhaps, there is still not enough experience to the level of the revolutionary MMO project friv2 Games, but the foundation of the game turned out to be much stronger than expected.

Here, everything even starts not quite the way we are used to. The character editor turned out to be very detailed, the ability to tattoo the hero deserved special honor, applying one layer of paint to another, moving the drawings all over the body - from top to toe. Then I had to choose a server inside the megaserver, and this is also non-standard.

A truly gigantic map divides the world into dozens of huge prefectures, within each of them there are up to ten PVE and PVP servers with different pings. From afar, the map looks like a drawing with rough sketches of mountainous areas, forests and rivers, but when approaching, the papyrus dissolves, revealing a bird's-eye view of the location.

Having found a suitable prefecture and a server on it, we define a newbie safe zone - a spacious area for the initial spawn, inside which, if we happen to die, we will respawn almost instantly and right next to the belongings that have fallen to the ground. Thus, Myth of Empires gives players time to get comfortable and dress up their "naked".

One prefecture can include up to several biomes - from the tropical with the atmosphere of Ark Survival Evolved (without dinosaurs, of course), to the cool northern. By and large, everything looks simple, but sometimes landscapes are taken for the soul, and New World and Kingdom Come: Deliverance would envy the opening spaces for players.

The avatars' first steps in the new lands will be exactly the same as in dozens of other survivors: plucking bushes, cutting down forests, crushing stone, hunting rabbits or larger game. Hunger systems, tool wear and other inherent joys of sandboxes have already been done “humanly”, but there will still be a lot of grind.

At this stage of development in Myth of Empires, there is no thirst as such, and vegetation and, in general, all spots with valuable resources respawn very quickly, which, in general, allows you to slowly find a cozy gentle bank or a clearing hidden in the shade of forests, where you will spend the next few dozen hours especially without needing anything.

Craft weapons and some armor, learn how to shoot a bow and hunt deer that drop hides in abundance. Build a hut, and build another next to it, because the detailed step-by-step (and switchable) tutorial will force you to craft a lot more walls and foundations than required for the first house.

Then you will need workbenches, which will also need to be placed somewhere. You will learn how to make fishing accessories and tools for cultivating the soil - so on your territory there will also be several spacious vegetable gardens, cooking appliances, smelters, a forge, a leather table.

Craft progression is tied to the level of the hero and it also grows "humanly" - not too slowly, but not too fast. In addition, the game gives out expert skill points, with which you can permanently increase the experience gained, no matter what you do.

At some stage of development in Myth of Empires there is a smooth change of genre, and from the most ordinary survivalist the game turns into an MMORPG with strategic elements. First you track down, catch and ride your first horse, then you get domestic animals, and then you stumble upon a vagrant camp and hire one to serve.

So your once “naked man” will become a master and master for someone, and the site will begin to look like a small settlement fenced with a fence with fertile fields, craft workshops, cattle pens, carts and spacious houses.

Your ward will follow orders, hunt, fight or protect the territory. He will develop with you, honing his skills in weapons, will feed on the provisions you have obtained and wear the armor you have created. He is not just an appendage - but your own vassal and squire.

And then, after some time, you will get another horse for the ward and go together to explore the roads of the prefecture, discovering hunting grounds rich in game, teeming with values ​​​​of cutthroat camps, belonging to the communities of land players and entire fortresses with guards on the walls, frozen in anticipation of the siege.

Players will be able to level up their leadership to expand the empire with more loyal citizens and eventually raise an entire army, as well as purchase levels of nobility with qian, gaining improved stats with each new stage.

By the end game, avatars will have learned dozens of special arts, thanks to which the hero will receive individual traits and skills – it’s definitely not a survivalist at all, but a role-playing multiplayer game with classes, specializations and global events, like large-scale guild wars for prefectures.

Even though the friv game is still in a rather poor technical state, everything seems to be shaping up encouragingly. It seems that the scale promised by the developers is destined to come true, and much more interesting than it was proposed in the same Life is Feudal, but they still have a lot to do.

The main crutches I see are an inconvenient combat system and localization: they have a fire - utensils, light a fire - a trigger, a spear - a wooden shield, satiety - fullness. Even the regulars of Aliexpress will be confused by the translation. Moreover, the English version of the game is not much better, and some text fields are generally full of hieroglyphs.

Another, in my opinion, a very significant drawback of Myth of Empires is overloaded, completely uninformative and unsightly interfaces, in which the yaoguai will break his leg. Here you need to change absolutely everything, starting from the design of the main menu. I understand that this is early access, but the bell is very unpleasant.

Otherwise, Myth of Empires shows good promise. It may turn out that by release we will get a worthy military MMO about ancient China with a huge number of working mechanics, live servers and a world in which it will even be pleasant to grind.