SpellForce - The Order of Dawn Interview, Part 2

Widely considered the oldest and noblest race inhabiting the world of Eo, the Elves come from the verdant forests of southern Fiara. There, with the leafy canopy created by the stately trees of the Finon Mir offering protection against the powerful dragons, these tall, slim children of nature prosper and generally live in peace, more than compensating for their delicate nature and relative lack of physical strength through tremendous bravery and great wisdom. Also the possessors of sharp intellects are the Norcaine, more often called the Dark Elves, although they use their gift in pursuit of very different ends. Quick, cold and merciless as the icy night wind, clad in heavy armor and carrying razor-sharp moonblades, they show no weakness, despair or fatigue as they venture forth from their obsidian towers to seek battle against the races of the light.

In SpellForce - The Order of Dawn, these are two of six races - the others being Dwarves and Humans on the light side plus Orcs and Trolls on the dark - that the player can enlist in order to prevent the destruction of the world by an impending evil. A real-time strategy title enhanced with various RPG-style elements, it's the latest project of the highly accomplished Volker Wertich. Best known as the guiding force behind the successful Settlers series, he is now the Creative Director at German-based Phenomic Game Development. The game, which shipped in Europe last month, with the North American version slated for late February, first came to our attention quite some time ago, and of course, we've been tracking it with interest ever since. Recently, we were able to finish questioning the team's leader.

Volker Wertich: Combat of course is the main part of the game. On some maps, you can solve all quests and missions just with your avatar or your hero party. But on most maps, there are large enemy armies, so you first need to build up your own base and create an army, before you attack your opponent.

We have six different player races to build your armies with- human, elves, dwarves, dark elves, trolls and orcs. The humans are a good mixture of melee units, casters and units with range weapons. The elves, of course, have the best ranged weapon units and also good casters, but are not that strong in close battles, while dwarves are excellent fighters but do not use any magic at all. Trolls are slow and stupid, but make devastating use of their clubs. Orcs are a bit similar to the humans - better fighters, a bit weaker in magic. Last but not least, we have the dark elves with powerful black magic units.

We have upgrades for each race - those upgrades are initiated via certain buildings and cost resources. The elven windarcher, for example, has an upgrade that allows him to fire ice arrows. Those not only damage the opponent, but freeze him for a couple of seconds.

Apart from that, all races have certain advantages and disadvantages - the humans do not fight very well at night, the elves have a combat bonus when they're fighting in forests, dwarven units can become veterans when they kill an enemy with a deadly blow, etc.

Throughout the game, the player can find weapons, armour, rings, shields, etc. to equip, many of them magic. For some, the hero needs certain skills or stats, and of course, some are unique while others are more common.

Jonric: To expand on SpellForce' magic system, what different types are there? How are spells acquired, learned and cast? Will players need mana or components?

Volker Wertich: We have four different directions - black, white, elemental and mental magic. Each direction has three sub-directions like death, curse and necromancy for black magic.

New spells in the game are gained through getting new spell scrolls. These can be bought at merchants, or you can find them in treasure chests or by looting slain enemies. When you find a new spell scroll, you can put it into your spell book. But you won't be able to use it unless you have the necessary skills. For example, a Level 2 Iceburst Spell demands that your avatar already has the ability Elemental Magic - Ice - Level 2.

The use of melee abilities or spells costs mana, which regenerates automatically. The amount of your mana and the speed of regeneration depends on your intelligence and wisdom stats.

Jonric: What kinds of opponents do players face in SpellForce? How many different types are there, and are any particularly interesting or unusual?

Volker Wertich: We have more than 30 different races of monsters, each coming in many varieties and sometimes being unique, named creatures, reaching from traditional fantasy creeps like trolls, medusas, beastmen, minotaurs, dragons to more unusual ones like undead, zombies, succubus and a couple of pretty cool demons as well as a very unique and dangerous race called the Blades. These are very lethal, magical creatures - but I don't want to spoil too much... All in all, there are over 100 types total.