CityBattle: Virtual Earth is based on the neighborhood principle. The developers’ goal is to unite neighbors and let them fight for their own city competing with other territories. Competing for something real, shifting the accent from personal victories to collective gains. In CityBattle every citizen counts!
While the devs were choosing the mechanics for such competitions, pseudo realistic shooters, such as Battlefield, were at the peak of popularity. However, a decision was made against yet another clone of Battlefield, especially given that there is not that much left to invent there. Finally, it was Team Fortress 2, a 2007 game, that served as inspiration. Despite being fairly old, TF2 had a loyal and big community and no direct competitors.
In TF2 two teams of heroes from various classes, each with unique abilities, fought with each other. The central idea of classes with unique abilities served as the basis on which CityBattle developers created their own classes and game design, especially when it concerned interfaces and controls. This is how CityBattle was born.
It has to be mentioned that the empty niche in the shooter genre was noticed by more than one developer. In 2016 Battleborn, Overwatch and Paladins were released almost simultaneously, all of them representing the new genre of hero shooter.
What makes CityBattle different?
- All of the classes are levelled up simultaneously. To level up each class separately can be inconvenient and even frustrating for the players, but of course, it creates additional profit for the developers. In CityBattle developers respect their players’ time, so they decided to go a different way.
- Unusual mechanics of weapons and abilities. CityBattle devs don't shy away from self-guided bullets, guided missiles etc, infinite flight, teleportation thru the whole map and etc.
- Upgrades that change the mechanics. Some competitors allow for character improvement, but usually only in numbers. However, in CityBattle modifications (or “mods”) alter the way the weapons and abilities mechanics work. For instance, a teleport ability that brings the player back in time instead of forward in space as it used to. A personal shield that transforms into a wide but immobile dome and so on.
What makes CityBattle’s politics (metagame) different?
- The first thing any new player does is choosing a place to reside in. After that, all of his/her fights shall benefit virtual homeland. And it is not a tournament in the classical sense, when only the best 5-6 players fight for their land. Each and every player contributes to the prosperity of his/her virtual territory.
- o make the conditions as fair as possible and to prevent large cities from overwhelming everyone else. The world (Virtual Earth) is organized into Republics. A country, area, city or a part of a large city with population of around 5 million people is designated as a Republic. Virtual Republics selects their own player government, run their own economies and constantly
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