Page-3 | Exclusive Beyond Protocol Mid-Beta Review | Game Reviews

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What to discuss next? Ah yes! There is a very robust trade system in this game as well. In past MMORTS’s trade has either been a dangerous venture where you risk loosing everything to war mongers or else it’s completely non existent between players. In Beyond Protocol, your ground based trade posts are hidden from public view, making small ship and mineral trading easy and safe. With the right research that one trade post can trade to others on the planet, in the star system, and clear across the constellation. However, if you want to be a trade mogul and sell the enormously dangerous ship classes, you’ll need to create a space trade post. These ARE viewable by other players, so, as business increases so does the risk of being discovered. Should you be discovered and under attack, you can always call on one of your allies to assist you.

Unfortunately, at the moment the diplomatic features are somewhat limited. While still in Closed Beta, the original diplomatic system was found to have flaws, and was gutted. However, there are some very interesting ideas popping up, some of which have been scheduled for release soon. Currently on the table is an idea, tentatively called “Socketed Factions”, which promises to deal with the issue of newbie players and their, often harsh, starting conditions. The new feature allows any empire to take on new players as trainees in exchange for research, economic and other bonuses for all involved parties. However, at a certain point the smaller empires are considered trained and therefore cease to provide/gain benefits from this relationship. At that point, they are left with a few options. Attempt to forge a permanent alliance with their mentor, leave the system, or try and take it by force! The idea is that now this, once newbie, player has some solid understanding of the game mechanics and should stand some chance in any conflict. The community has also been promised that upon live release, the faction/guild/clan bonuses will be significant (Faction is by far the best choice of those words for a SciFi MMORTS!). Though, we have yet to hear many of those specifics finalized.

Somewhat related to the diplomatic system, is the agent system. Have you ever been thinking while playing an MMORTS, “Wow, I really want to hurt this guy, but I don’t want him to know that I did it…”? Well now you can. The agent system allows you to embed spies into your opponent’s, or even ally’s, empire. These agents can report military scores, trade incomes, and run a gambit of missions that could demoralize a population, clog up production, steal design plans, and even locate remote outposts. The missions introduced so far in Beta are nice, but few, while growing in number, many more are still scheduled for release before the game goes live. Individual agents can have any number of skills and talents that will aid you in your missions, or make them more likely to be caught by the counter agents of the empire they’ve infiltrated. Pick your team, set your objective, and just hope and pray no one blows their cover!