There's a game out there made by EA that pretty much has zero buzz about a player base of about 1000 worldwide. Yeah it's a big winner.
It's called BattleForge. It's made by an Germany EA studio called Phenomic. It's mostly an RTS, but uses a very Magic: The Gathering inspired way of using cards to summon units and buildings. It's a game you pay $49.99 for and then, if you wish, buy additional booster packs of these cards with real money (basically $2.50 for a pack of 8 cards). At least the game gives you enough starting cash to buy 15 boosters, and there's an online auction/trade system to make most of your money back by selling rares you wouldn't personally use in your decks, but damn. Talk about a money grab.
Everything is online. You cannot play this CCG/RTS offline at all. The game even separates out PvP and PvE just like an MMO. There's 1 player, 2 player, and 4 player co-op missions which you play to progress then replay to get chances at 'upgrade' cards and even roll against each other, just like dropped loot in an MMO group instance. It gets better: at the end of these PvE trees, there are (supposedly, haven't gotten to them yet) 12 player PvE co-op missions which are basically like RTS raids. I actually am looking forward to trying these, but the player base is so minuscule that finding a group in the 2 player and 4 player missions is a challenge in and of itself.
I mentioned upgrade cards: Yes, the cards you uncover in your boosters and the ones you start out with are only a fraction of how strong they can become - you must play PvE missions again and again to get that chance to really maximize that ability of your cards, and hopefully win the roll against fellow players who want the same upgrades.
The story makes absolutely no sense either. There is about zero coherency, zero story cutscenes, but there is a big lore book at the top of the menu screen that fills as you progress through the story. It's laughably terrible actually. Fortunately I don't care about the story when it comes to anything that has to do with CCG elements - it's always just too silly to take seriously at all.
There's a bit more to the game, like Tome Decks which basically lets you buy Boosters in big packs to make a random deck out of - make things far for a certain flavor for PvP, but most play with their collection decks.
So what's the problem? The problem is that the game is fun and as addicting as hell. Phenomic might not know how to write a story, but they actually made an excellent CCG/RTS hybrid underneath the rest of the crap. It's very easy to become addicted to, even if you don't want to spend money on cards (the game gives you so much currency to start with it really is optional). If you're any kind of RTS fan with a knack for playing CCGs on the side, you owe it to try BattleForge just to experience a game with incredible potential but will probably get shut down by October.
http://battleforge.com/portal/site/BattleForge/landingpage
It's called BattleForge. It's made by an Germany EA studio called Phenomic. It's mostly an RTS, but uses a very Magic: The Gathering inspired way of using cards to summon units and buildings. It's a game you pay $49.99 for and then, if you wish, buy additional booster packs of these cards with real money (basically $2.50 for a pack of 8 cards). At least the game gives you enough starting cash to buy 15 boosters, and there's an online auction/trade system to make most of your money back by selling rares you wouldn't personally use in your decks, but damn. Talk about a money grab.
Everything is online. You cannot play this CCG/RTS offline at all. The game even separates out PvP and PvE just like an MMO. There's 1 player, 2 player, and 4 player co-op missions which you play to progress then replay to get chances at 'upgrade' cards and even roll against each other, just like dropped loot in an MMO group instance. It gets better: at the end of these PvE trees, there are (supposedly, haven't gotten to them yet) 12 player PvE co-op missions which are basically like RTS raids. I actually am looking forward to trying these, but the player base is so minuscule that finding a group in the 2 player and 4 player missions is a challenge in and of itself.
I mentioned upgrade cards: Yes, the cards you uncover in your boosters and the ones you start out with are only a fraction of how strong they can become - you must play PvE missions again and again to get that chance to really maximize that ability of your cards, and hopefully win the roll against fellow players who want the same upgrades.
The story makes absolutely no sense either. There is about zero coherency, zero story cutscenes, but there is a big lore book at the top of the menu screen that fills as you progress through the story. It's laughably terrible actually. Fortunately I don't care about the story when it comes to anything that has to do with CCG elements - it's always just too silly to take seriously at all.
There's a bit more to the game, like Tome Decks which basically lets you buy Boosters in big packs to make a random deck out of - make things far for a certain flavor for PvP, but most play with their collection decks.
So what's the problem? The problem is that the game is fun and as addicting as hell. Phenomic might not know how to write a story, but they actually made an excellent CCG/RTS hybrid underneath the rest of the crap. It's very easy to become addicted to, even if you don't want to spend money on cards (the game gives you so much currency to start with it really is optional). If you're any kind of RTS fan with a knack for playing CCGs on the side, you owe it to try BattleForge just to experience a game with incredible potential but will probably get shut down by October.
http://battleforge.com/portal/site/BattleForge/landingpage