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Eurogamer wrote:Players will begin in Stargate Command on Earth, the hub of the television series, before taking their first steps through the stargate itself into unknown lands. The stargates work exactly the same way as they do in the series: you dial up a seven-symbol address, walk through, and emerge in a different area. Low-level areas are predictably geared towards educating new players in combat, equipment and Stargate SG-1 back-story, but the system is open; gate addresses can be found and earned through missions, but there's nothing to stop you from dialling up an address you got from another player, or simply dialling at random and hoping to strike lucky - as long as you're prepared for the distinct possibility of getting slaughtered by whatever lurks on the other side.

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Combat-wise, being a Stargate game, SG Worlds is heavily focused on guns and other ranged weapons; but it's not a shooter. There'll be a right-click auto-attack and an infinite-ammo system to prevent hauling crates of ammo around on quests, and players will receive a buff from cover, as will enemies - as a consequence, the developer is going to have to pay close attention to the layout of the environments to keep combat interesting. A dynamic indicator will show the quality of cover at a glance - rather like Diablo's equipment colour-coding - and line-of-sight or tactical advantages like high ground will come into the equation as well.

Eurogamer wrote:Equipment will define skills and abilities both on a superficial level and more significantly; it's obvious, for example, that wearing anti-radiation armour on a planet with high radiation levels might prove a good idea, but the fact that armour has far more of an influence on hit points, damage resistance and other such character fundamentals means that much more time will be spent hunting new equipment than agonising over assigning your attribute points when you level up.

Crafting is going to be a big part of this, although it's not clear at this point how exactly it will work. Stargate Worlds' quests will often be a search for new technology, like the TV episodes so often are, and evidently it's possible to specialise in the technology of the different races - Goa'uld, Asgard or human - to either improve existing weapons and equipment or discover new types. More technical character classes will evidently be better at this, but every player will be capable of crafting their own superweapons, to a certain extent.

The character class system is the aspect of Stargate Worlds that both interests and concerns us the most at this point. Humans can choose between archaeologist, scientist, commando and soldier. Archaeologists specialise in languages and diplomacy; scientists in deploying things like turrets and shields; commandos in sniping and traps; and soldiers in human weaponry and party ability-boosting command skills.

The other three archetypes - Goa'uld, Asgard and Jaffa - are based on the other three primary races in the television series. Jaffa are essentially tanks with massive weaponry and healing capabilites, but the Goa'uld and Asgard are more technical classes. The Asgard, being little naked grey men, rely on technology in combat, and can bring drones, beaming technology and other technological advantages to the party. The Goa'uld are Stargate's big baddies from the first eight seasons of the series; they're creepy, parasitic worm things that move between and act through human hosts, and it will evidently be possible in the game to emulate this behaviour in the game, though not on other players' human characters. Their combat strength comes from technology and their ability to command Jaffa.

If you're a Stargate fanperson, this sounds, theoretically, amazing. But, without serious playtime, we can't be sure how the classes are going to fit together. As in the series, even archaeologists and scientists have to run around packing enough weaponry to blow up an alien mothership (just in case), so those two character types will evidently be differentiated from the others by their ability to solve puzzles using mini-games. For instance, like Daniel Jackson in the series, archaeologists will be able to infiltrate the enemy with their language skills; success will depend on walking up to enemies and playing a quick card-based mini-game. Scientists, meanwhile, will be fixing hyperdrives and trying to get through locked doors by rearranging crystals and suchlike.

It's hard to see how these mini-games are going to work in the context of missions or combat, and how levelling up is going to affect mini-game abilities. Apparently, higher-level characters in these classes will get time-boosting skills, making it easier to solve harder and harder puzzles, but we're not sure how many players are going to pick mini-game prowess over the potentially more interesting abilities of the other classes.

That said, you can imagine how it could work - every time that Sam Carter the scientist and Daniel Jackson the archaeologist are busy trying to figure out how to fix a command console or unlock a door in the series whilst Jack O'Neill the soldier and Teal'c the Jaffa are busy shooting down waves upon waves of incoming enemies in the series, Carter and Jackson are essentially playing a mini-game trying to rearrange crystals or cut wires or figure out ancient runes before everything explodes around them. It's lovely to imagine this translating well into in-game missions, but we're just not going to be sure if it will work until we get some time on the beta.