| Bloodline Champions
|
|||
|---|---|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Stunlock Studios | ||
| Publisher(s) | Funcom | ||
| Version | 2.2 | ||
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows | ||
| Release date(s) | January 13, 2011 | ||
| Genre(s) | Action | ||
| Mode(s) | Multiplayer, Online, 1-10 players | ||
| Rating(s) |
|
||
| Media/distribution | download | ||
Bloodline Champions (BLC) is an arena-based free to play PvP game developed by the Swedish company Stunlock Studios and distributed by Funcom using Microsoft XNA. Bloodline Champions won both "Game of the Year" and "Winner XNA" in the Swedish Game Awards 2009.[1][2] The game officially launched in the United States on January 13, 2011.[3]
The players in this game are split up into two teams (Warm and Cold) with up to five players per team.[4] The objective is different depending on the game mode, ranging from team deathmatch and capture-the-flag to map point control.
Contents |
Main features:
There are four categories of bloodlines (character archetypes): melee attack, ranged attack, healer, and tank. There are currently 24 bloodlines, with six in each category. Stunlock Studios have announced that they are working on a new bloodline.[5] Each bloodline has seven abilities, two of which have an EX version, an enhanced version of the ability. Each has its own cooldown, as well as triggering short global cooldowns. The seventh ability is an "ultimate" ability that may only be used after gaining sufficient energy through executing other abilities successfully, such as healing allies, damaging enemies, and otherwise helping your team.
Bloodlines also have HP (Health Points) - when the champion runs out of HP, the champion dies, removing it from combat until the end of the round. Each champion also has two items that grant additional abilities. The Bloodline Medallion allows a champion to recover an increasing amount of HP over a period of time and Resurrect revives nearby fallen teammates. Both items require a significant amount of uninterrupted time to prepare, which makes them impractical in immediate combat. In Conquest and Capture The Artifact modes resurrection skill has been replaced with warp skill that allows you to warp a short distance every 20 seconds.
The controls in Bloodline Champions are similar to a first-person shooter, as the bloodline's movement is controlled using the W, A, S, and D keys. The primary two abilities are mapped to the left and right mouse buttons, and the rest of the abilities are used with the Q, E, R, F, and space keys. Almost all the abilities are aimed, where the direction of the ability is determined by the position of the cursor on the screen relative to the champion's position. There are two different camera modes; Free Look and Static. The static camera stays over the characters head at all times regardless of the location of the players cursor. The Free Look camera allows the player to control their camera with the cursor. A few defensive abilities are directed by hovering the cursor on the desired recipient, and some abilities target a specific location on the playing field.
Bloodline Champions also features fog of war which represents the areas of the map which cannot be seen due to visual obstruction or distance. There are obstacles on the map which create fog of war and inhibit movement. Champions have their own collision, which can be used to inhibit movement and protect allies (for example a tank bloodline will have a larger collision size, making it easier to defend teammates by blocking fire, but also being more susceptible to focus fire).[6]
Bloodline Champions has 24 bloodlines split into 4 archetypes: tank, ranged damage, melee damage, and healer.
Tanks are close-quarters fighters and specialize in defense and peeling—removing pressure from allies by putting equal pressure on enemies.
Gluttons focus on aggressively dismantling multiple enemies with powerful stuns and projectile slows.
Thorns use plant-based abilities to immobilize enemies and heal themselves.
Inhibitors disrupt the enemy through use of many interrupts and multiple debuffs. They use their manoeuvrability to avoid taking major damage.
Vanguards reflect enemy spells and have a variety of disabling abilities.
Guardians deal heavy damage with multiple area of effect abilities and high combo potential.
Metal Wardens contains enemies with unique control abilities and powerful combination knockback abilities.
Ranged damage have very low health and deal high damage from a safe distance. They generally have many ways to escape melee combat but are taken down quickly if out-maneuvered.
Igniters use fire magic and an aggressive play-style to deal sustained damage over time.
Engineers employ various technological devices to shrink, enlarge, slow, incinerate, and incapacitate.
Seekers are archers who infuse elemental attacks into their arrows and specialize in direct damage and have the unique ability to double cast.
Gunners are stealthy sharpshooters who can deal massive damage from afar with their arsenal of ammunition but are fragile when focused.
Nomads throw boomerangs that can pierce and stun enemies or totally remove them from battle.
Stormcallers control the natural elements to bring massive damage and are able to chain their powerful lightning attacks.
These bloodlines generally deal the most damage but must be in close range and have slightly higher health than ranged damage bloodlines. They tend to have very limited ways to control fights aside from their high damage output.
Ranid Assassins use stealth, blinds and poison attacks to quickly bring down lone enemies.
Harbingers employ dark magic to amplify their damage and leech health from their targets.
Raveners specialize in avoiding damage and punishing enemies who waste their escape opportunities.
Stalkers are highly-mobile and use several abilities that greatly amplify their damage against single targets.
Spear Masters specialize in dismantling ranged bloodlines with very high mobility and damage avoidance.
Reavers are the fearsome masters of melee combat, employing an oversized sword together with intoxicated martial arts that enables them to stay within melee range and control the fight in his favor.
Healers mix defensive control abilities with respectable damage, but have very limited mobility and low health.
Astronomers are powerful melee combatants able to manipulate space and sunlight to heal allies and weaken enemies.
Psychopomps are more offensive healers which utilize spiritual energy to disrupt and control the battlefield, removing allies from harm or increasing damage done to opponents.
Alchemists use their knowledge of alchemy to poison and deal significant damage over time, but many of their abilities prevent enemies from dealing damage.
Blood Priests lose health when they heal allies, but they can greatly disrupt the enemy team with fear, possession, and blinding insect swarms.
Heralds of Insight break the flow of time and space to both travel back and reverse the flow of time.
Grimrogs are melee/healer hybrids capable of protecting their allies with both blessings and healing wards while at the same time posing a huge threat to enemy champions with the use of crippling curses and frenzied melee attacks.
Bloodline Champions has several game modes that provide different types of gameplay. The central game mode is Arena, as it is the only one available through matchmaking.
The teams are placed on opposite sides of an arena, and the last team standing wins the round. Each player has only one life per round, but in case of death your team mates still have a chance to resurrect you. The first team to win a fixed number of rounds wins the match.
The objective is to capture both artifacts and bring them back to your own base. Each team begins with one artifact in their base, and the first team to hold both artifacts for a period of time wins the round. The artifacts can be carried and thrown, but lifting one from its starting position takes time and can be interrupted by attacks. The carrier may drop the artifact by using certain abilities as well as receiving attacks by specific enemy abilities. When dropped, the artifact can be instantly picked up after it has sat for a short delay.
In Conquest, the players have an infinite amount of respawns but the delay before respawning can increase with time. The teams battle for a number of capture points, and if one team holds all of them, the other team cannot respawn until they capture one of the capture points. To capture a point, the player must stay at that point for a period of time without taking damage or using abilities. The starting point provides a healing aura to the team that started there, and power rune pickups are distributed across the map, allowing champions to temporarily boost their capabilities. A team wins by either killing all the enemy champions while they cannot respawn, or holding the capture points for a set amount of time.
Bloodline Champions is Free-to-Play (F2P). A player can download the game and play for free. Bloodlines rotate every day, so there are always four available Bloodlines, one of each archetype. Players earn Blood Coins and spend them on additional Bloodlines, titles, avatars and other visual perks. None of the purchasable items give an edge in gameplay since there are no weapons with higher damage, for example, but they create more variety and choices in gameplay and appearance. Players can also choose to buy Funcom Points by using real money. Funcom Points serve the same purpose as Blood Coins, but they are bought using real currency instead of earned through in-game accomplishments. All marketplace items cost significantly less Funcom Points than Blood Coins.
There are also Champion and Titan editions which can be bought for 29.99 USD/Euro and 89.99 USD/Euro, respectively. Each purchasable edition of the game offer different perks: The Champion edition unlock 16 bloodlines. The Titan edition also offer additional perks, these are listed below[7]:
| Feature Comparison | Free | Champions Edition | Titan Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unlimited Playtime | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Eight Free Rotating Bloodlines | Yes | Yes | No (unlocked) |
| Access to Tournaments | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Access to Stats Tracking | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| In-Game VoIP | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Earn Bloodcoins | Yes (capped) | Yes | Yes |
| 16 Bloodlines | No | Yes | Yes |
| 4 Bloodlust Bloodlines[nb 1] | No | No | Yes |
| Ad Free VoIP | No | No | Yes |
| Extras | |||
| Access to Medium & Hard bots | No | Yes | Yes |
| 10% Discount in store (Funcom Points) | No | No | Yes |
| 10% Extra Bloodcoin Gain | No | No | Yes |
| Free Access to All Future Bloodlines | No | No | Yes |
| Special Chat Icon | No | Yes(Champion Icon) | Yes(Titan Icon) |
| Team Slots[nb 2] | 3 | 5 | 8 |
| Trait Specs | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Avatars | 1 | 4 | 4 |
| Titles | 1 | 4 | 5 |
The Titan Edition also includes 20 outfits (one for each Bloodline) and a 10% discount when using Funcom Points in the Store.
Strategy Informer gave BLC a score of 85% in their review, while PC Gamer gave 75%. Servers are located in Europe and USA; at this time there are no servers in Australia, South America, Africa, or Asia, but there is no area restriction whatsoever, so players in these regions are also able to play.
As of right now, Bloodline Champions has a small but steadily growing player base. As of April 23, 2011, the playerbase peaks at 3,000 simultaneous players online. Funcom has indicated plans for larger advertising campaigns to attract more players.
At release Bloodline Champions announced their participation in DreamHack Summer a LAN tournament with BLC having a $10,000 US prize pool. This helped contribute to the games initial success as a competitive arena game. Since release BLC has had multiple cash prize tournaments hosted by DreamHack and GLHF.gg for a total of $11,600 prize money as of July 11, 2011.[8]