Organization:Alexa Crawls

Genre: Strategy

Release Date: TBA (US)

Release Date: TBA (US)

Release Date: TBA (US)

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Genre: Strategy

Release Date: TBA (US)

Release Date: TBA (US)

Release Date: TBA (US)

Beyond Protocol

At first glance, it doesn't seem likeBeyond Protocol, the first game being developed by brothers James and Matthew Campbell'sDark Sky Entertainment, would have much to teach about democracy, capitalism or engineering. When we first caught sight of the game's spacecraft in orbit around a digitally generated world, we were intrigued only in that this was a good-looking RTS we hadn't heard much about. Then we started digging deeper, courtesy of a guided tour of the game arranged by the Campbell brothers themselves. What we found was an extremely ambitious massively multiplayer project that might be the first to crack the code of the "massively multiplayer real-time strategy game."

The basic premise is fairly run-of-the-mill for this sort of game. The time is the future and faster-than-light travel has kicked off a massive land grab throughout the universe. Human beings spread across the galaxy with almost blinding speed, snatching up first single worlds for their mineral wealth and then building spaceships to get the minerals they couldn't find on their own worlds. These spaceships then seem to magically grow weapons and battle against other spaceships as planets get filled up, single-world magistrates cobble together coalitions of worlds, and finally empires consisting of multiple star systems vie with their neighbors to ultimately rule the cosmos. The difference here is that these aren't AIs behind those well-organized fleets of spaceships. It's other players as smart, ambitious and devious as you.

The key toBeyond Protocol is to understand that almost every military variable in the game is under the player's control. Players begin as magistrate, the absolute ruler of a single world. As ruler, the player can harness the wealth and industrial might of that world to build both the ground and space forces that they'll take into RTS combat against other players in order to conquer other worlds. Everything about those military units from the size of the engines to the thickness of the armor to the types and placement of weapons on board is under the player's control. A powerful series of menu-driven "technology builders" can adjust everything from the recharge rate on shields to the maximum hit points on a superstructure piece.

The balancing factor in all of this military mayhem is the game's commodity market -- the mineral economy. Every mineral in the game is rated in 18 different attributes such as density, hardness, reflectiveness and malleability. The characteristics of a particular spaceship part will require building materials with specific ratings in specific attributes. Since each planet only has a finite quantity of a particular metal that means that the player has to either create ships within the tolerances of minerals they already have or they'll need to trade for it, pirate it by hitting other players' freight shipments, or go out and take it by directly taking over another player's planet. There's an elaborate auction house and commodity system that players can use to swap these raw materials

Anyone who's ever logged a couple of hours inEVE Online, supplied cannonballs to the British Navy inPirates of the Burning Sea, or even tried to corner the market in coarse stone inWorld of Warcraft can attest that gaming an economic system can be a full-time game in and of itself. For those who don't fancy themselves galactic Warren Buffetts, though, there's much more to the game than that. The inevitable in-game gamer politicking is channeled into the "Emperor's Chamber," a legislative house where players who own more than a single star system (13-19 planets) can actually propose game-changing laws (changing tax rates or outlawing certain types of weapons). These laws must then be ratified by the full Galactic Senate consisting of the entire player base, where one planet owned equals one vote. If passed, the developers will implement any such decree in the game's code.

James Campbell, who is demonstrating the game, is almost giddy with excitement, pushing more and more details about the things available for the player to do. There's new technology research, running secret agents (information about what kind of weapons or armor a rival is using is very valuable when one can create ships to take advantage of material weaknesses), developing tactics or leading armies. In fact, one of the Campbells' favorite stories concern the so-called "Four Horsemen," a group of players in the beta who combined their individual skills in combat tactics, economics, ship design and research into one of the most formidable empires in the game. The game is in beta testing now, but if Dark Sky Entertainment manages to pull off its ambitious goal, RTS fans may finally have their MMO.