Game Info:

Category : Strategy
Publisher : N/A
Developer : Nicely Crafted
Release : August 19, 2002
MSRP (US): Free (Monthly subscription required, 8 day trial)
ESRB: NA

Minimum Requirements:

CPU: 500 Mhz or faster
Memory: 64MB - the more the better
Video: AGP 3D Graphics Card
DirectX 8.1
Internet connection

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Background/Summary:

Every other empire you encounter is another human and will remember the deals you didn't deliver on and the promises you broke. Treachery, propaganda and trade are just as important as your fighting strategy. Have you got what it takes to unite the Cog tribes under one ruler?

With the recent increase in massively multiplayer online games, a couple of new genres have found their way into the mix. First-person shooters have upped the ante to a global scale, but now they must learn to share the spotlight-real-time strategy has called the bet. Among the games leading the charge, Time of Defiance seems to have really hit it off with many users, touting the fact that the client program is in fact free of charge, and a new version is released monthly to ensure that any bugs are ironed out in a timely fashion. As time goes on, just like any MMO, new gameplay features are added as well to bring more variety to the game and maintain the players' sense of justification in paying the monthly subscription fee, a relatively modest ?7.50 GBP (~$11.98 USD).

Time of Defiance begins just like the Cog Dominion left off-at war. The Dominion, divided up into many houses, was once a flourishing empire on the Northern Continent of a planet called Nespanona, but like all good things, it just didn't last. A conflict erupted, and now hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of splinter factions are all that exist. You just happen to be one of them. Plunged into an eternal power struggle, hordes of players fight for conquest over the Northern Continent. The gloves are off, and the battlefield's ripe for the taking.

Gameplay:

Developed by Nicely Crafted Entertainment--"NiCE" for short--Time of Defiance pits players against each other for 21 (sometimes up to 28) days at a time. Throughout the duration, they create and build upon their empires by a number of means (discussed in detail further on), and by doing so, collect points. As one might assume, the player with the most points at the end of the game is the winner.

While it may sound like a day at the beach, it's easier said than done. With most real-time strategy games, the tried and true method for a majority of players was to continually bombard the opposing forces into submission. Being massively multiplayer, that approach is obsolete in ToD. Rather than worrying only of one opponent, participants are forced to keep a constant lookout for more than one hundred, all of which possessing the option to attack with not so much as a moment's notice. In other words, it takes a great deal of thought and prudence to play competitively.

Players begin the game as a miniscule rogue force on the Continent (a whopping 4,000 km x 4,000 km-nearly twice as large as the USA) equipped with all the necessary tools to build a sprawling network of islands. Most are self-explanatory--vehicle constructors, resource mines, defense turrets/artillery, and island headquarters, among others. In most cases, each begins with a "home" island, with all the abovementioned pre-deployed for convenience. Sometimes, though, when all the pre-determined starting points have been taken, players begin as "nomads." Long story short, nomads don't start with a home island, but instead with a colonizing expeditionary force loaded with the same goodies. Generally, the latter of the two starts is the most difficult, but some actually prefer it, as it gives them the freedom to customize their own home island the way they see fit.

Okay, so you've started the game, but the truly hard road lies ahead, and its name is expansion. Expansion and exploration are staples in the diet for any half-decent empire, and will take up most players' time in the game. To even have a chance on Nespanona, these two things are key. First of all, it allows other islands to be mined, and thus replenishes the empire with raw materials, of which there are four categories: wood, stone, metal, and coal. Each is required for some form of manufacturing, and without them, things get stagnant, production comes to a screeching halt, and no progress is made. As the old saying goes, time is money. Secondly, it increases the land ownership of your empire. In turn, this opens the doors for colonization, not to mention more tactical bases from which to launch attacks on unfriendly neighbors.

There are two other resources, though. On rare occasions, when self-sufficiency can't get the job done, most players turn to water and a special substance named "crystal moss." Those two (I like to call them "pseudo-resources") represent the currency of the Cog. While water is quite common and plentiful on most islands, crystal moss is rare and very valuable. Like most other money, it burns holes in the pockets of those who have it.

That's why there's the Eighth House. The Eighth House endured the war among the other seven Cog houses, and now, it is the most well-to-do populous in the Cog Dominion. Since it holds the monopoly on the goods that can't be manufactured by players, the EH makes oodles of money each year. To access and trade with the Eighth House, players are required to have at least one "Quantum Gate" and one "Quantum Trader." The gate is the passageway to the Eighth House, and the Quantum Trader is the vessel responsible for transferring the moo-lah. Every empire starts with one of each, but protect the gate, for they can't be re-built if stolen or destroyed. As for the Traders, they come and go with deposits and withdrawals from the Eighth House, so they can be replaced quite easily.

I found the overall interface easy to use and very helpful when it came to knowing what each thing meant. Everything was neatly laid out along the edges of the screen, so as not to interrupt the ToD experience, and information on nearly every clickable item was available in a flash by hovering the cursor over it and simply pressing the F1 key. Needless to say, it came in very handy, indeed.

Also worthy of honorable mention is the system of alliances set up in the game. By typing a special command into the chat console, located at the bottom of the screen, players can become allies in mere seconds. Not only this, but having friends out there on the battlefield is quite beneficial, as information can be shared regarding exploration, combat tactics, and agreements, in contrast to the normal (yawn) "Okay, you're my ally. Back to playing." Sure, to a limit, those three things can be accomplished in other RTS's, but when the map is as large as it is in this game, it means much more.

Alright. These games in Time of Defiance, they're 21-28 days long. How are we supposed to hold down the fort, 24/7, for the next month?! No, the answer isn't lots and lots of coffee. There's a neat little feature embedded in the game that, while you're away, allows messages to be sent by e-mail, cell phone, and/or pager when something goes wrong (i.e. an enemy invasion). This is a huge help in determining just what's going on when you're not there behind the keyboard. The alternative to the messages-while-you're-gone deal is to leave the program running in the background. A lot of you readers right now are probably gasping in terror right about now at the thought of leaving an active game in memory while you work, but do not fear! The courteous developers at Nicely Crafted made sure the game leaves a small memory footprint, so as not to interrupt other tasks.

But what about ping? This game is entirely online, correct? As most of us know, despite the popularity of broadband, the majority of Internet users remain on a dial-up connection, which can cause problems in games. Fortunately, that's not the case in ToD. Even on a standard 56K connection, there's next to no lag most of the time. Even at its worst, the annoyance factor isn't too severe. Long story short, this game is very connection-friendly.

Graphics/Sound:

While the gameplay in ToD is actually quite proficient (not to mention, entertaining), the audio and visual departments leave something to be desired. Even though it's fully three-dimensional (putting it on par with some recent A-titles), the modeling on a few units and structures are somewhat crude, lacking the intricacy and precision you'd see in some other strategy games. Then again, modeling isn't the most important aspect in mind when creating something of this magnitude, so it's really up to the preference of the player.

The sounds of ToD aren't really all that bad, but the weak point here is the fact that there isn't much sound at all. In fact, unless there's some sort of skirmish going on on-screen, rarely a peep comes out of the game, except for the droning of construction in the background. The option for a music track or two would definitely remedy the situation, though. Aside from these issues, there's not much more worth writing about.

Wrap-Up:

If you look at the big picture, Time of Defiance is a fairly decent game. It needs some work, but then again, what game doesn't? To say it short and sweet, it's one of those titles that are easy to learn, but extremely hard to master, and you can spend the entire day playing it without batting an eye.

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