The Pitchblack Games guys, Warren Weems and John Kennison,  held their second stream offering another infodump and Q&A for Prime Battle For Dominus.  I’ll include a link to the 30 minutes video in the read more section if you’re interested in watching the whole thing as I have done, but for those simply interested in the juicy details you can read my notes below.

[0:00-8:30] Quick looks at scenery.

The game appears to be quite open and pretty with varying scifi settings from jungle to crystalline.  11 different planets.   No mobs were in the game at all so it was extremely empty and even bland, but the idea is there.  Terms like “world boss”, “6-man instance” and “raid” were thrown around.  I’m interested in how open-world PvP is incorporates into these planets.  I assume at least 1 planet is reserved for each of the three factions as a starting area, but are the rest purely up for grabs?

[10:00] Alliances ~ Macro Guilds.

This caters perfectly to me. I have a group of friends that I enjoy playing games with and have for nearly five years. Unfortunately, we’re a smaller group. Alliances acting as macro guilds would allow for us to have the resources of a larger guild while maintaining our autonomy.  There will be visible rosters for the whole alliance and ways for you to branch out and incorporate members of other guilds within the alliance into your own circle of friends.  In other words, if you’re like us and can only get 5-6 people on but need 10 people to do something you’ll be able to grab a few more from the alliance.

[12:30] Guild Leader Channel

This feature creates a channel only available to leaders of guilds (5 members+) to coordinate. I’ve participated in custom channels like this where prominent alliance leaders and guild members communicate. It really does improve the community when your guild leaders can get your guild into the action with other guilds not necessarily in your alliance.

[22:48] Bounties on players

I thought that this was a nice touch.  Not much was said other than it was only on players and not entire guilds.  If anyone wants to share additional details with me I would welcome the info.

[23:00] Vehicles “not ready to talk about”

[24:25] Endgame objective: Stop enemy factions from getting the prime element.  Further your faction.  Get together as a community and beat the other guys.

Compare this with the endgame in so many other games being “get better loot” or “beat the dungeon” and it’s a breath of fresh air.  This ‘feel’ is hard to accomplish since many claim this to be their goal yet develop their game in clear contrast.

[25:00] No DAOC relics, but you’ll know who controls bases.

[25:30] Hold bases to facilitate faster mining.

In the first video something that actually made me really interested in Prime was the harvesting.  I think it’s important for people to have a tangible method of obtaining materials with a sense of “place” in the world attached to them.  Having cities on these bases/platforms that harvest give you a reason to want them.

[26:15] Multiple types of bases with various benefits that serve different purposes relegated to areas of the world they can be set up on.

[27:50] *NEED CLARIFICATION* “snipe kill” vs. “Planned siege” I think the dev misunderstood the question or didn’t explain it well enough.  Can bases be attacked -any- time or must a physical vulnerability window be respected?  From what I have gathered it’s a very open and free system, but it won’t be easy enough for like one guy to run in and take it.

That’s the gist of the video.  I’m really hoping to get more PvP details from their next stream and I hope that they’ll give us some more combat and crafting info.  One of my main concerns is how combat will work.  They have jet packs and a lot of freedom to move but it looks like a tab targeting system.  In the first video I saw melee weapons and my mind jumps to SWG’s use of melee weapons vs. ranged weapons and how both had clear advantages and buffs for your character.

Honestly, I still can’t quite figure out how the whole game will work out.  I have this awesome image in my mind of jet packing over walls and a full on blood path of lasers and mayhem everywhere while one faction defends their base harvesting elements they want to maintain control of while the other two factions duke it out to not only kill each other but seize control of the minerals.  Seeing ‘arenas’ in the PvP section of the official website unnerves me since instanced pvp like battlegrounds nullifies open-world pvp.  Enough rambling, though.  Prime is on my radar until Pitchblack gives me a reason to look away.

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