Steal catapults, learn from wolves

Fractured Online is not an eye-catcher. I want to be so honest at the beginning when I tell you about the MMORPG from Dynamight Studios. But that’s perfectly fine, too, as there are only a few hard-working minds working on the online role-playing game, which gamigo recently won over as publisher. But looks are not everything, as is well known, as demonstrated by a preview with Dynamight co-founder and CEO Jacopo Pietro Gallelli. I wasn’t allowed to play myself, but I was allowed to ask lots of questions, get answers and see how the game world works. It relies on three features that set Fractured Online apart from genre peers.

By the way, Fractured Online is now in closed beta: Find out what it offers and how you can participate

Character progression: Learn from wolves, kill them for it

While most role-playing games rely on either level or learning-by-doing (fighting with a sword, improving sword skill), Fractured wants to do it differently with the so-called knowledge system. In short, you gain knowledge about certain creatures such as black bears, wolves, wargs & Co., which even unlocks new skills. This is the only way to learn new skills that you use in battle! At the same time, you will also learn more about the values, resistances or accuracy of these opponents. Ultimately, of course, you can also learn something like this via a wiki, so the total of 400 unlockable spells and abilities are more of an incentive for this system. A similar system also exists for crafting, collecting and lore – of course without the “I beat something to learn from it” aspect.

Opponents in Fractured Online not only give you loot, they also give you knowledge. With this you unlock new skills.

Source: gamigo

Versatility is required in the fight itself: you cannot have dozens of spells in the skill bar, but need “memory points” depending on the strength of a skill. Once they’ve all been used, you can’t plug in any more spells – so the whole thing is somewhat reminiscent of deck builders or Guild Wars 1, which only allowed up to eight skills to be learned at the same time. Balance is important here – because if you only use fire spells, you have bad cards against flame monsters or opposing players who use a protective spell against fire. In addition to such active attacks, defensive spells and other abilities, your character also learns passive bonuses in a talent tree that allows specialization in spells, strength and dexterity.

In battles, you only have a limited number of skills that you can use at any one time. Because every skill occupies “memory points”. So you don’t have a skill bar filled with dozens of spells.

Source: gamigo

What’s interesting is that you don’t increase your attributes over time: you just choose them when you create your hero, and they’re fixed from there. You can redistribute them later, but it’s not something you should be able to do consistently.

Build and conquer cities – steal catapults if necessary

Another key feature of Fractured Online that I was shown was the in-game cities. Groups of players go out at the very beginning and seek out ruins. In these, the leader can then establish a new city, which is built by hand by adventurers. Almost everything seen in Fractured Online is the result of gathering, crafting and building. The ruling guilds of the cities collect taxes and take care of the maintenance and construction of new crafting stations (which is very reminiscent of New World). The online role-playing game Shadowbane serves as a template for the developers. Just like this one, Fractured Online revolves around the siege and conquest of cities.

Cities are initially ruins. Only together can players turn them into places that flourish and develop their own economy.

Source: gamigo

For this, players also use catapults, which – like everything in the game – first have to be laboriously crafted. When this is ready, it is packed and pushed onto a cart and then taken to the front. But be careful: this is a physical journey, and the valuable cargo must be protected. Otherwise the catapult will be destroyed or even stolen in the worst case! It goes without saying that the catapult also needs ammunition. Once the catapult has done its job, you storm the enemy city in groups of players and capture an important checkpoint there (which can take an hour). If the defenders fend you off, the whole thing was probably for nothing.

If you don’t like the warmongering that much, you can also hire yourself out as a farmer. Not as a loot farmer, but literally as a farmer: A wide variety of plants can be cultivated that can satisfy the hunger of a city. However, it is also important to keep an eye on soil saturation, otherwise the yield will get worse and worse because you always grow the same thing.

On the next page you will learn how important the choice of your people is – because it is anything but just visual. I also asked the CEO of Dynamight Studios how exactly the game is funded – how is Pay2Win going to be Fractured Online? You can read that on page 2!