Sins Of A Dark Age: The World's First F2PMOBARTS
I just Googled 'F2PMOBARTS' and received nothing. Well done, Ironclad Games! Sins Of A Dark Age, has broken the all-seeing eye of the world's best search engine, and brought out its passive-aggressive side: "Did you mean: 'F2P MOBARTS'". No, Google. I did not. F2PMOBARTS, you are officially a new genre. Now to explain what all those words mean.
It''s a free-to-play multiplayer strategic game set in a fantasy world, with players buying new Heroes, Commanders and skins - there will be no purchasing of specific powers. Ironclad's last game, Sins of a Solar Empire combined 4X and RTS to rather wonderful effect, and SoaDA (I see what you did, there) does the same with the burgeoning MOBA genre and RTS. That is you'll have two roles to take up: the typical Hero will be the battle leader on the ground level, part of a small team of four powerful (human controlled) warriors leading AI troops into the fight. The Heroes are driven by the Commander, who'll be conducting the fight, building bases, training and sending in support, and building up 'Realm Powers', which are both game-turning magix AND my new porn name.
Like everyone looking to build a MOBA, Ironclad are pondering how to make the community a bit less, hmm, I'll diplomatically use the term 'spiky'. SoaDA's take on making their game a more welcoming community to new new players by matchmaking new players together, and providing people bonuses for joining in-progress battles, taking the place of quitters.
Here's Ironclad's Blair Fraser ruining my awesome acronym by calling it an "action RTS". F2PARTS? It'll never catch on.
You can stake your place for the summer beta right now.