'Prime World' hopes to marry social and hardcore gaming
Russian developer Nival is hoping gaming's different communities might soon call "Prime World" home.
There are two faces to gaming, the hardcore crowd earning all the achievements in "Call of Duty" and clearing the latest boss in "World of Warcraft" for their tier 30 gear, and the casuals, trading cows in "Farmville" and defending their homes from the undead hordes in "Plants vs. Zombies."
While most gamers aren’t exclusive to either group, the disconnect between them is pretty strong. You won’t find many "Farmville" masters taking their resource management skills over to competitive "Starcraft 2" games and vice versa. So is there no hope to combine the two worlds? Nival thinks there is.
Nival has 15 PC games under its belt including "King's Bounty" and "Heroes of Might and Magic V." On the flip side, Nival is also responsible for the Russian gaming and social networking site ZZima.com. With experience in both areas, the developer thinks it has an idea that could unite social and hardcore gamers, a project known as "Prime World."
"Prime World" is a social strategy game in the spirit of "Defense of the Ancients" or "League of Legends." Player-versus-player matches have players take control of heroes, each with a unique set of skills, to siege and capture the opposing team’s castles. The game does not yet have a release date.
Hardcore gamers will find a place on the front lines of battle while casual gamers can take a more passive role.
By hanging back and completing puzzle mini-games, casual gamers can provide assistance and upgrades to their hardcore comrades in the form of protection scrolls.
"Prime World" doesn’t stop there, however. By merging with Facebook, "Prime World" allows players to make allies out of real-life friends, work together to build their castle, trade items and even go on quests.
The game even merges real-world relationships by providing powerful buffs to a Facebook couple playing together.
Whether Nival’s approach to social and hardcore gaming in "Prime World" will work is yet to be seen. It sounds as if there is potential here. It will be interesting to see how the game is received by both the social and hardcore communities, and if Nival’s innovations will work.
If they do, "Prime World" could change the way we look at social gaming.
