Hands on with 8Realms, the new MMORTS from Jagex

Mick Fraser spends some time with browser-based MMORTS 8Realms, and comes away suitably charmed
 

8Realms is a browser-based civilisation sim developed by Jagex, a Cambridge-based company best known for RuneScape, the world’s biggest free-to-play MMORPG. As with Civilization or Age of Empires before it, 8Realms sees you don the mantle of an almost God-like overseer and take control of a humble settlement, with the ultimate aim being to expand your Empire and guide your people through the ages of man, from Ancient to Futuristic.

Vini Vidi Vici
After naming your country and selecting your Empire Flag (I chose the uniquely fashionable “The Games Tribe” flag, natch), you’re straight into the game with no unnecessary backstory or introduction. When you begin you’re met by Gary, your mildly snarky personal advisor, who guides you through the first few tasks – namely rebuilding your burning village after some pesky barbarians got a bit carried away with a box of matches. Right away, 8Realms is inviting – the graphics are bright, cartoonish and colourful, the interface uncluttered and intuitive, and the objectives well-presented and easy to understand. There’s no sound, however, which threw us a little at first – but you soon realise it’s not really necessary to understanding and enjoying the game – and as a browser-based title - the lack of sound frees up resources to use elsewhere.

The Ancient Age is a pretty basic stone-age era, and acts as a tutorial stage.

Objectives are delivered via a task-list – a little clipboard icon that flashes green when you’ve got work to do. They’re the usual mix of RTS-standard targets, such as building farms, logging mills and digging quarries to harvest resources (in this instance wood, stone, food and the always-important gold). Progression is achieved through a mix of resource-gathering and task-completion, each ticked target box opening the way for the next set of instructions. A library allows you to research better buildings or more effective gathering techniques, while a barracks allows you to employ an army to defend your Empire.

Similar to Age of Mythology, you’re aim in each Age is to build a Wonder – achievable once you’re culture is at 100% (which means completing all the research and construction tasks). Once this happens, your Empire will advance from Ancient to Classical, then up to Feudal and so on. Along the way you’ll have to keep an eye on your resources, how happy your people are and how much gold is coming in in the form of taxes.

Man the walls!
Erecting lookout posts will allow you to defend your Empire against Barbarian marauders who show up from time to time. The actual battles happen without player input, and are simply decided by numbers and unit strength – all you have to do is read the report once it’s over and swear or cheer accordingly. Expansion means research and construction, enabling your fledgling Empire to spread beyond the initial village.

This is Gary. He might be a snarky, cowardly little oik, but his advice is indespensible.

Although 8Realms is undoubtedly fun, it has more in common with a Facebook browser game than a full-on RTS – and the lack of constant interaction with other players until the “endgame” (when you’ll go to war with anyone else at the same stage as you for ultimate dominance) means it’s much more of a single player experience than an MMO. You can certainly branch out and attack other players once you reach the second Age (Classical) if you choose, but you’ll  be busy enough raising the troops to defend against random barbarian attackers. Or maybe we’re just a bit rubbish at going forth and conquering.

When you get down to brass tacks, there’s not really enough to do to keep you playing for a solid period of time unless you’re willing to spend a bit of money. Most tasks will take anything from two minutes to several hours, and buying extra slots to build or research more than one or two things at a time costs blue gems (as does speeding up the completion of tasks). Anyone who’s played their fair share of browser games will be instantly familiar with the concept: 8Realms has a “storefront” where you can purchase blue gems in exchange for real-world dough, with prices ranging from 170 gems for £1.99 to 1700 gems for a staggering £99.99. As the average cost to complete a task or buy a research slot costs anything from 7 to 70 gems, it’s probably best played at a casual level, checking back every few hours or so to monitor your progress and select the next set of tasks. As such, 8Realms feels less like an MMORTS and more like the casual browser game it really is.

Death and taxes
Given that we played the “casual” way, we've only gotten to the second age so far – but already we’ve seen off a Barbarian attack and seen our Empire grow, and thankfully there is a sense of achievement when you advance in anyway. The biggest problem is that playing it this way takes an awfully long time, unlike similar titles like Civilisation V or Age of Empires where you’re constantly busy managing your people and resources. Once you branch out across the world map, opening up trade routes with other players and building more cities to increase your Empire it becomes a leisurely juggling act as you flit between the towns under your protection. For the most part, 8Realms seems a little over-simplistic and, dare we say, a bit on the easy side – though we fully expect later Ages will become more complex when you’ve got several cities to manage and maintain.

The unique "The Games Tribe" Empire Flag. It just looks sexy, doesn't it?

On the whole, 8Realms is enjoyable if a little uncomplicated. We’ve played deeper and more intricate civilisation-sims in the past, but given that Jagex’s title is free to play (after a fashion) and takes place entirely in your browser, it’s not a bad little game at all. There’s a great sense of humour at work, and the charming, understated art-style makes you feel at ease from the get-go – it’s just a shame Jagex went down the route of charging you to progress at anything approaching a decent speed. Had 8Realms been completely free to play, we would have been more immediately engaged, but as it stands we found ourselves going away and coming back several times a day, removing any sense of immersion and at times making it feel like a bit of a mini-grind.

Overall, there’s a lot to like in 8Realms, but unless you’re willing to spend real money to progress, it’s a game best played casually and leisurely.

Words by Mick Fraser (Twitter: @Jedi_Beats_Tank)

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