Auto Assault
Encyclopedia
Auto Assault was a massively multiplayer online game
(or MMOG), developed by NetDevil
and published by NCsoft
. It combined vehicular combat
with role-playing
elements, allowing the player to explore a post-apocalyptic future in customizable cars
, motorcycles, semis
, and tank
s. It took inspiration, in part, from the Mad Max
series of films.
Players could choose to play as one of three fictional factions—Humans, Mutants, and Biomeks—as well as a class to determine the type of character they would play. The majority of the gameplay took place in a vehicle, but the player could leave the vehicle when entering towns in order to purchase items, talk to contacts, etc.
The game server
s were shut down on August 31, 2007, and players were no longer billed. NetDevil issued a statement shortly after the shutdown news, citing an agreement with NCsoft to buy out the IP rights was not reached.
between three faction
s -- Humans, mutants, and the human-created Biomeks—the issues between the groups are largely pacified on the worldwide scale, but conflict between the three remain with small scale battles involving armored cars, trucks, motorcycles, semis and tanks armed with advanced weaponry. This is the fictional, futuristic world the player starts and plays the game in.
The resulting mutants are considered a plague and are herded into internment camps, however some mutants escape and form plans for revenge, causing open war. To fight this, the world's governments unite to battle them. These governments create biomechanical soldiers—immune to mutation—known as Biomeks that get mental and physical enhancements.
Facing defeat, the humans nuke the world as part of a total purge program. Elite humans are saved, but the rest of humanity is apparently destroyed. Even the biomeks were left on the surface to be obliterated by the cleansing.
The humans live underground for a period of nearly eight hundred years, continuing to advance their harnessed alien technology, developing powerful energy shielding, among other advancements. All the while, they never know that the cleansing almost totally failed. On the surface, small numbers of mutants, biomeks, as well as groups of scavengers and gangs, and even mutated forms of plant
and animal life
; grew and thrived on the remains of the old world.
Because of this failure, the humans who assumed the world would be clean instead still found Biomeks and mutants on the surface. Open war occurs, but it is pacified over time.
Thus, conflict between the three groups is reduced to small scale battles involving armored cars, trucks, motorcycles, semis and even tanks, armed to the teeth with advanced weaponry. This is the world the player enters and how the game starts.
(or NPCs) and eventually reach Ground Zero
, or GZ. There, they can either fight against NPCs or Players in two different "layers" known as instances. One "layer" is the PvP layer, in which the player can go and fight against players of opposing races. The other "layer" is controlled by the faction you belong to. It is the non-PvP layer in which usually players complete their quests from GZ in. The PvP elements of the game are not available in this layer, since only other members of your faction are there. All NPC enemies are in both layers. The game centers on 3rd person
vehicular combat using state of the art
weapons to combat foes.
Auto Assault takes place in two settings; towns and the outside world. The town is experienced by moving the player's customized character around, interacting with NPCs, other players, and environmental objects. Upgrades and vehicles can be bought here. When the player chooses to exit the city he/she is in, they are taken to the outside world, where they traverse the terrain in heavily armed vehicles. Combat is reminiscent of a third person shooter game, with movement, aiming and firing being done in real time with the keyboard and mouse. There are also character skills, which activate special abilities.
Auto Assault differs from other MMORPGs as it doesn't have a Death Penalty and the player can die without consequence.
and subverted alien technology, they have staved off contamination while enhancing their strength, eyesight, agility, and mental powers. They view Mutants and Biomeks as vile perverts to the pure Human race
and seek to eliminate them.
, and revere the change with religious zeal. They consider Humans in utter contempt for their past oppression of the Mutants and hold Biomeks to be inherently evil.
and City of Heroes
..."
Massively multiplayer online game
A massively multiplayer online game is a multiplayer video game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet, and usually feature at least one persistent world. They are, however, not necessarily games played on...
(or MMOG), developed by NetDevil
NetDevil
NetDevil, owned by Gazillion Entertainment, was an American developer of massively multiplayer online role-playing games in Louisville, Colorado.- Beginnings :...
and published by NCsoft
NCsoft
NCsoft is a South Korea-based online video game company, which has published massively multiplayer online role-playing games including Lineage, City of Heroes, Wildstar, Exteel, Guild Wars and Aion.-History:...
. It combined vehicular combat
Vehicular combat game
Vehicular combat games are typically video or computer games where the primary focus of play concerns automobiles or other vehicles, normally armed with guns or other weaponry, attempting to destroy vehicles controlled by the CPU or by opposing players...
with role-playing
Role-playing video game
Role-playing video games are a video game genre with origins in pen-and-paper role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, using much of the same terminology, settings and game mechanics. The player in RPGs controls one character, or several adventuring party members, fulfilling one or many quests...
elements, allowing the player to explore a post-apocalyptic future in customizable cars
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
, motorcycles, semis
Semi-trailer
A semi-trailer is a trailer without a front axle. A large proportion of its weight is supported by a road tractor, a detachable front axle assembly known as a dolly, or the tail of another trailer...
, and tank
Tank
A tank is a tracked, armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat which combines operational mobility, tactical offensive, and defensive capabilities...
s. It took inspiration, in part, from the Mad Max
Mad Max
Mad Max is a 1979 Australian dystopian action film directed by George Miller and revised by Miller and Byron Kennedy over the original script by James McCausland. The film stars Mel Gibson, who was unknown at the time. Its narrative based around the traditional western genre, Mad Max tells a story...
series of films.
Players could choose to play as one of three fictional factions—Humans, Mutants, and Biomeks—as well as a class to determine the type of character they would play. The majority of the gameplay took place in a vehicle, but the player could leave the vehicle when entering towns in order to purchase items, talk to contacts, etc.
The game server
Game server
A game server is a remotely or locally run server used by game clients to play multiplayer video games. Most video games played over the Internet operate via a connection to a game server...
s were shut down on August 31, 2007, and players were no longer billed. NetDevil issued a statement shortly after the shutdown news, citing an agreement with NCsoft to buy out the IP rights was not reached.
Game story background
After years of widescale open warWar
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
between three faction
Political faction
A political faction is a grouping of individuals, such as a political party, a trade union, or other group with a political purpose. A faction or political party may include fragmented sub-factions, “parties within a party," which may be referred to as power blocs, or voting blocs. The individuals...
s -- Humans, mutants, and the human-created Biomeks—the issues between the groups are largely pacified on the worldwide scale, but conflict between the three remain with small scale battles involving armored cars, trucks, motorcycles, semis and tanks armed with advanced weaponry. This is the fictional, futuristic world the player starts and plays the game in.
In-universe background
In 2030, alien craft drop strange terraforming pods onto Earth's surface that release killer contaminations across the world. The contaminations, if not fatal, cause mutations in some humans on Earth.The resulting mutants are considered a plague and are herded into internment camps, however some mutants escape and form plans for revenge, causing open war. To fight this, the world's governments unite to battle them. These governments create biomechanical soldiers—immune to mutation—known as Biomeks that get mental and physical enhancements.
Facing defeat, the humans nuke the world as part of a total purge program. Elite humans are saved, but the rest of humanity is apparently destroyed. Even the biomeks were left on the surface to be obliterated by the cleansing.
The humans live underground for a period of nearly eight hundred years, continuing to advance their harnessed alien technology, developing powerful energy shielding, among other advancements. All the while, they never know that the cleansing almost totally failed. On the surface, small numbers of mutants, biomeks, as well as groups of scavengers and gangs, and even mutated forms of plant
Flora
Flora is the plant life occurring in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring or indigenous—native plant life. The corresponding term for animals is fauna.-Etymology:...
and animal life
Fauna
Fauna or faunæ is all of the animal life of any particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is flora.Zoologists and paleontologists use fauna to refer to a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g. the "Sonoran Desert fauna" or the "Burgess shale fauna"...
; grew and thrived on the remains of the old world.
Because of this failure, the humans who assumed the world would be clean instead still found Biomeks and mutants on the surface. Open war occurs, but it is pacified over time.
Thus, conflict between the three groups is reduced to small scale battles involving armored cars, trucks, motorcycles, semis and even tanks, armed to the teeth with advanced weaponry. This is the world the player enters and how the game starts.
Gameplay
The game takes place in the 23rd century, after the sterilization attempt that left the Earth in ruins. Players play as either one of a new generation of Mutants, a BioMek or one of the newly emerging Humans. Players fight in their race's area of control against Non-playable charactersPlayer character
A player character or playable character is a character in a video game or role playing game who is controlled or controllable by a player, and is typically a protagonist of the story told in the course of the game. A player character is a persona of the player who controls it. Player characters...
(or NPCs) and eventually reach Ground Zero
Ground zero
The term ground zero describes the point on the Earth's surface closest to a detonation...
, or GZ. There, they can either fight against NPCs or Players in two different "layers" known as instances. One "layer" is the PvP layer, in which the player can go and fight against players of opposing races. The other "layer" is controlled by the faction you belong to. It is the non-PvP layer in which usually players complete their quests from GZ in. The PvP elements of the game are not available in this layer, since only other members of your faction are there. All NPC enemies are in both layers. The game centers on 3rd person
Grammatical person
Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
vehicular combat using state of the art
State of the art
The state of the art is the highest level of development, as of a device, technique, or scientific field, achieved at a particular time. It also refers to the level of development reached at any particular time as a result of the latest methodologies employed.- Origin :The earliest use of the term...
weapons to combat foes.
Auto Assault takes place in two settings; towns and the outside world. The town is experienced by moving the player's customized character around, interacting with NPCs, other players, and environmental objects. Upgrades and vehicles can be bought here. When the player chooses to exit the city he/she is in, they are taken to the outside world, where they traverse the terrain in heavily armed vehicles. Combat is reminiscent of a third person shooter game, with movement, aiming and firing being done in real time with the keyboard and mouse. There are also character skills, which activate special abilities.
Auto Assault differs from other MMORPGs as it doesn't have a Death Penalty and the player can die without consequence.
Factions
The three playable factions each have distinct racial advantages and are separated into four classes unique to each faction.| Tank | Healer | Pet Master | Stealth | |
| Human | Commando | Engineer | Lieutenant | Bounty Hunter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mutant | Champion | Shaman | Archon | Avenger |
| Biomek | Terminator | Constructor | Master Mind | Agent |
Humans
Descendants of modern humans are meticulous in fending off mutation. Through the use of genetic engineeringGenetic engineering
Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification, is the direct human manipulation of an organism's genome using modern DNA technology. It involves the introduction of foreign DNA or synthetic genes into the organism of interest...
and subverted alien technology, they have staved off contamination while enhancing their strength, eyesight, agility, and mental powers. They view Mutants and Biomeks as vile perverts to the pure Human race
Human Race
Human Race refers to the Human species.Human race may also refer to:*The Human Race, 79th episode of YuYu Hakusho* Human Race Theatre Company of Dayton Ohio* Human Race Machine, a computer graphics device...
and seek to eliminate them.
Mutants
Mutants are those descended from the first people affected by the alien contamination. They see their mutation as divine interventionMiracle
A miracle often denotes an event attributed to divine intervention. Alternatively, it may be an event attributed to a miracle worker, saint, or religious leader. A miracle is sometimes thought of as a perceptible interruption of the laws of nature. Others suggest that a god may work with the laws...
, and revere the change with religious zeal. They consider Humans in utter contempt for their past oppression of the Mutants and hold Biomeks to be inherently evil.
Biomeks
Biomeks are biological beings who have used technology to enhance their abilities, including cybernetic, prosthetic body parts. They hate Humans for their betrayal during the apocalyptic strike and see Mutants as dangerous religious fanatics.Shutdown
Due to lack of subscribers, a decision was made to terminate support for the product. This was communicated by the company on the Public Forums one month prior to shutting down. On July 2, 2007, it was officially announced that Auto Assault's servers would be shut down August 31 and that the subscribers' accounts would be 'reconciled'. Offers to continue to run servers by various parties were denied, but additional “Parting Gifts” were sent via e-mail with, "...opportunities to take a part in some of our other products, including Richard Garriott’s Tabula RasaTabula Rasa (computer game)
Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa was an MMORPG developed by Destination Games and published by NCsoft, designed in part by some of the creators of Ultima Online including Richard Garriott. The game is an RPG that blends certain shooter aspects into the combat system...
and City of Heroes
City of Heroes
City of Heroes is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game based on the superhero comic book genre, developed by Cryptic Studios and published by NCsoft. The game was launched in North America on April 27, 2004 and in Europe on February 4, 2005 with English, German and French language...
..."