Since Terra Nova was considered to be in a “safe zone,” the military base has only a skeleton crew manning it and equipment that has not been upgraded in ages. When the base members see you they start call out to you, saying “Oh, thank God, an Academy member is here. We really need your expertise here.” Immediately they ask you to help them out. While you are getting your bearings you will hear combat and combat commands being given all around you. Ships are flying through the air attacking; flak guns are spraying the sky with little shards of metal, and the Mayan's are advancing on your position. Your help is essential to reestablishing control of Terra Nova for the Republic.
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Character Choices:
There are 4 base classes to choose from when you begin, the Trooper (melee), Gunner (ranged), Tech (support), and the "Quantum" (this class is the least complete as of the present, both the name and class functions are still tentative). It is from these base classes that your character's profession will be built. Each base class then has 3 different paths which may be chosen as you progress. There are also 4 player races to chose from, some of which will lend themselves better to certain professions over others:
- Humans – The middle of the road choice. Humans can succeed at any profession, and offer many choices of culture. Humans have no special strengths or weaknesses when it comes to their stats.
- Artificial Life - A purely technical race. They are an engineering feat of the Romans: a robotic person. Very similar to humans stat wise, they excel in the in the technology fields.
- Ingenii - A biologically created race, generally more intelligent than the average human. The Ingenii are tall, thin and beautiful. Romans created them to be the artisans of the Republic: they specialize in intelligence related professions.
- Tigris - The service race of the Republic. They are bred to be strong and hardy and are used for tasks that require strength. Great for the melee/damage profession.
Each race in Imperator has a detailed story, telling how they came to be and their place in the history of the Republic. For example, the Ingenii and Tigris were slaves, but at some point 500 years prior to the time of Imperator, both races went through their own “Spartacus” type uprising to win their freedom. They now are considered the equals of humans.
Character Development:
Players will spend their first 10 levels of the 100 level game on Terra Nova. There they will learn the story of the Republic/Mayan conflict, why their help is needed, how to interact with monsters and other players, and how to use the interface. The goal is for players to reach level 10 and leave Terra Nova in 6 hours play time.
Upon leaving Terra Nova and entering Roman society as a graduate of the Academy players will begin to be offered choices which can affect their character's development path. As Matt Firor sums it up “ The choices the player makes, not only how they spec out their character - like what weapons they choose, if they are an offensive or defensive character, and how they react to different life events - all these choices matter in the long run on how a character develops and how the world reacts to them ”
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One of the features that gives Imperator its “character centric” game play is something Mythic called “Life Events”. Life Events are personal quests for a player “ They'll make choices - by reacting to NPC's in a certain way, handling situations in another way. This defines their standing in Roman society. They can go towards more collecting money and not helping Rome . Or they could be more of the heroic figure and forsake money for fame and become very popular and so forth. Life Events are quests that are outside the standard content. You have to do things; go talk to people and the dialog they go through makes the world react to them. ” explains Matt Firor.
Matt goes on to say “ The story line develops along with the skills and abilities, so if you are a melee guy who happens to be strong in power shield use you may get a different life event train than the same character who developed another skill. This choice idea goes on through out the entire career.”