EPTThe game is highly skill-based, with many different play-styles rolled into one. You can be the commander, who directs the battle by having an RTS-like viewpoint, building the base, and giving players directions ("move here", "attack here", etc) which they don't necessarily have to follow. The commander also gives buffs to friends and debuffs to foes (quick movement speed, extra armor, etc) and heals/ressurects players, and summons peons (up to 3, I think) to help repair damaged buildings and attack the enemies. The commander mode however may seem slow/boring to the bw player after a while, unless they change the system, because there isn't much to do so you'd be able to play at 100% effectiveness with only like 80 apm. However, I'd categorize the current commander role as a "strategic advisor" rather than an actual commander, so it may be a whole new experience which is much more about communicating with the players rather than spamming keys. (a truly genius strategy would not only require perfect thinking/execution on the commander's part, but also effective communication skills to get the players to cooperate and understand what is required of them.)
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![[image loading]](http://i17.tinypic.com/6oeaqg4.png)
The human commander looks upon the ruins of the battlefield, defeat is imminent. He notices various cool features on the bottom left for drawing on the minimap and pinging it and such, and the ability/building selection on the bottom right piques his interest for a small while. He notices that only one squad is present in the top left. Not a good sign. The beta-testers are at it again with their exploit-finding.
Excluding the two commanders on the Beast and Human sides of the battle and the observers, all players either see the game from a 3rd person behind-the-character viewpoint for melee attacks and first-person for ranged attacks (except for siege units, who have ranged attacks and always use 3rd person). There's no auto-aim, so the first-person ranged combat plays like an actual skill-based FPS, except for the fact that where you hit the target doesn't matter (headshots and legshots do the same amount of damage afaik). However, weapons have limited range at which they do damage, so the skill factor changes from where you hit the person to when and how you hit the person with the ranged attack. The ammo runs out pretty quickly on most weapons, but luckily the human worker has an "ammo depot" feature, which puts down a 30-second depot which players can use to restore their ammo. Workers are very versatile units who can build offensive/defensive structures on the battlefield and use melee/ranged attacks, and if there is no commander, they can build/repair the base themselves.
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![[image loading]](http://i2.tinypic.com/80wg01h.png)
A savage using first-person to witness the super-cool red blade swipe effect of a friendly savage, while a beast shapeshifter wails in horror over the predicament fate has placed him in.
The melee combat system is a bit of high-speed rock-paper-scissors, with an "attack" (left-click) "block" (middle-click) and "block breaker" (right click), which gets really exciting when the players are moving at high speeds around each other and are guessing which combo of attack-block-break the other players are going to use when fighting. A successful block to an enemy attack stuns the enemy for a few seconds, letting you get some free shots on them, and a successful attack to an enemy block breaker does the same, as does a successful block breaker to an enemy block. This gets vastly more complicated when you're fighting with friends versus multiple enemies, because they can all be using different melee
commands.
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![[image loading]](http://i17.tinypic.com/8f0lnpy.png)
A savage appreciating the defenses of his base while his teammates desperately scream for help.
![[image loading]](http://i17.tinypic.com/7xjutl0.png)
This same savage, now dying on the battlefield, witnesses a fast-paced melee skirmish between human healer and legionnaire and beast summoner and shapeshifter, whilst reflecting on his poor contribution to his team's success.
On top of all that, the game has a tightly integrated RPG aspect, because you get gold, experience, and a soul for every kill (and other things like damaging buildings and healing allies). The gold you can use to buy items in-game like healing/mana potions, armor, ammo containers, purchase a more advanced unit (such as a legionnaire, predator, or siege unit) or donate to the commander so that he can build buildings that allow you to buy better units/get new abilities for existing units. The experience levels up your character so that you can increase your damage, health, mana, or agility, to gain a slight edge above the enemy. Souls are used to summon uber units from a "sacrificial shrine", which is built on a "scar", usually late-game as a tie-breaker measure (these units cost 5 or 15 souls, which translate to 5 or 15 kills, so they can be expensive) There is also a stealth aspect to the game, where you can sneak around cloaked as a human scout and set up bombs to blow up enemy buildings. Gold, experience, and souls reset every match, so there is no repetitive "grinding" for items and experience like there is in MMORPGs.
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![[image loading]](http://i3.tinypic.com/6ozybdx.png)
KaChing! Now to blow all that hard-earned cash on useless trinkets and experience points instead of investing it for the future. Bah! better to live well now, than to possibly live a little bit better somehow somewhere in an unknown future.
The game is very team-based, and working alone will never get you anywhere (even if you have lots of skill and have tons of items/attribute points, it is very difficult to fight 2 experienced people by yourself) so the game automatically creates "squads" at the beginning of every match, and a squad is supposed to stick together, because the squad captain can make a "spawn portal" at any point in the game at his location (if he has enough mana) from which his squad-mates can spawn. Otherwise you can spawn from the main base, a "garrison". or a gold mine, which is used to increase team gold for buildings. The game also has a built in tie-breaker measure called "upkeep", which requires your team to lose a certain amount of gold every once in a while to upkeep your buildings, and if your team does not have enough gold, the buildings become much more vulnerable.
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![[image loading]](http://i5.tinypic.com/6jp4bk8.png)
So many spawn points, so little time. If I could have a dollar every time I saw this screen, I wouldn't have to go to work every day
As of this writing, the game has 3 "normal match" maps (and 1 "duel" map, sort of like a UMS, in which the players can set up their attributes beforehand and fight in FFA melee/ranged combat ad infinitum), which are extremely varied in
terms of terrain, so strategies change wildly on the maps, because players and commanders can take advantage of certain aspects of a particular map to increase their chances of winning. I am not sure whether this game will come with a map
editor, but I think that regardless every new map will add more replay value to this game, sort of like how new maps add new strategies to bw.
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![[image loading]](http://i15.tinypic.com/6xvl5rc.png)
Detailed stats for every match, and they promise that every single match's replay will be recorded and stored on their site for a really, really long time. I don't think they've thought of the consequences of that promise, as a 25 minute game (very short by normal game standards) already takes up 1 mb as a replay.
![[image loading]](http://i16.tinypic.com/6lwbhwl.png)
Detailed stats for every player. I R good! Well, sort of. I just wish I had a kill/death ratio or more than 1
The online stat tracking also includes "Karma", which you can give to gm or take away from bm players after each match in an effort to combat bad manners. Eventually some servers may require a "minimum karma value" to play, which will lead to good-mannered servers for everyone to enjoy. And so concludes my review of Savage 2, and even though I think I only covered about 70% of all the information you need to know about the game, I hope this has informed at least one person about the existence of this awesome game and/or helped them make a decision as to whether they will play it or not.
-zdd
