Warheads

I received an email from Fileplanet the other day about a new game they are giving away for free (normally costs $20) called Saga. It's a card-based RTS in a persistent world. I tried it our yesterday, and it's not to shabby. I'm not normally the one for online RTS games, but this one seems unique enough to grasp my attention.

You build your own city/army, and you do single player or co-op quests to level up your units and earn some bonus resources for your city. You can purchase additional troop cards and spells in the market, or if you are they lazy/impatient type, you can buy "booster packs" ($2.95 for 10 cards - 1 guaranteed to be rare) from their online store or by individual cards from 3rd party online stores (usually like $.03-$3 each depending on rarity and type) and you can even get physical booster packs from hobby shops in which you have a chance to be a "specialty" pack which either specializes in a certain faction, unit type, spells, or are "double rare" meaning 2 cards are guaranteed to be rare instead of just one.

Buying boosters and cards with real money is completely optional though. I've talked to people in game who say they've made some of the best armies there are without spending a dime - it just takes more time to do it that way.

Once you feel that you are ready, you can expand your territory and start doing PvP battles. There are also guilds in this game so you can have some massive guild battles going on. I've made the Warheads guild in this game already, so download the client, get on vent and I'll show you the ropes.

How to get started
Step 1 - Download the client | Fileplanet mirror | More mirrors
While that's downloading, you can do steps 2-4
Step 2 - Create an account <-- use this link to create your account and I'll send you the free booster I get for referring you once you reach level 10 or you can donate it for use in guild contests (offer applies to guild members only).
Step 3 - Get your FREE CD KEY (fileplanet promotion) GET IT WHILE IT'S FREE!!! (BTW that armored behemoth pwns! )
Step 4 - Login to your account, click "Register", then "Enter Serial" and use the CD Key you got from Fileplanet.
Step 5 - Install the game and play!

My alliance is the brotherhood (dark elves of magic) because I think their buildings look the coolest , so be sure to choose a faction in the brotherhood alliance (dark elves of magic or orcs of war - there's another brotherhood faction coming soon - the undead) when you make your nation or you won't be able to join the guild.

One other good thing to note about this game is the fact that there are usually "guides" and/or developers online in addition to normal members of the community answering questions in the help channel, and helping people with bugs and whatnot so there is usually real-time help available which is really cool.

So get it and we can go on some epic adventures together in Saga!

ok. so i picked this game up and i did the 3 tutorial quests. seems ok i guess. i'm a war orc town called OCKHAM. there's nothing really going on yet.

graphics and sound are pretty average. controls seem very simple and easy to understand (a lot like commander mode in S2). but i don't think they showed me how to use my cards (spells/units/etc) and i haven't really seen any way to interact with ppl other than chat. i guess i'll figure it out eventually.

interacting with people outside of chat is mainly done through the war tab in your main city (i'm one of the saga players that does not play savage 2 btw)

to join a quest that someone else has set up, go to the war tab and wait for the quest to show up (works the same for joining an existing PvP battle).

to start a battle, go to the war tab, and look around within that area. it's pretty intuitive, so i'd say just play around

it is worth mentioning that you can only do co-op with people from your side of the alliance (in our case, war/orcs and magic/dark elves). you can of course have battles with other factions (light/giants, nature/elves, dwarves/machines) but those will be against each other, not helping each other out

as far as how to use your cards etc, i'd have to get a more clear explanation of what you mean by that specifically.

thanks for the advice.

as far as the cards go i had a behemoth and some spells i think. i guess they are units but i didn't see how to deploy/equip them. it showed me i could click on my stronghold to deploy troops initially (and i think there was a toggle on the menu to go active/inactive as well) but idk how to use the ones i had available to sell when i clicked on the market. furthermore, i think they said i could equip weapons and armor somewhere but i haven't figured that out yet either.

no big deal. i'll play around with it some more this week some time.

thanks again, tho.

the third button in the stronghold (the sword) brings up unit management. from there, you can create new units (like your behemoth). to equip armor and weapons, click on the unit that is going to use them, choose to modify, and it should bring up a more detailed unit information screen. click the 'change' link under either weapon or armor (depending on what you're trying to equip) and it will let you select from your available weapons.

the stuff you have in the market which you can't do anything with is probably from another faction. your best bet is to try to trade them for stuff that you can use, unless you had plans to start up another nation instead. anything you can use will show up in your stronghold when you go to the create unit menu.

If anyone needs help with this game, I am usually on vent playing it. I would be more than happy to help you with whatever I can and show you some of the mid-level quests that you have to look forward to.

The more I play this game, the more I like it because the quests keep getting better, and I am more able to play around with the market now that I am starting to earn some gold and resources. I hope that I can help all of you get to this level so you are able to get the satisfaction I am getting from this game.

I will now be giving everyone who signed up using my referral link the free booster I get for referring them when they reach level 10. You can optionally donate the booster to the guild for use in future contests. If you created your Saga account with the link in my original post to this thread, and you would like to claim your booster, send me a PM on these boards or an email in-game, and I will reply with instructions to retrieve your free booster.

This offer applies to guild members ONLY!

the fileplanet ofer is over i think

Well this WAS posted back in July

I'm hoping they will do another promotion (or just make the game F2P). I will update the link if they do. I would also start playing more if they did this.

When they did the last promotion, I enjoyed being able to farm for any card I wanted and continuously pvp without having to beg people for a match. The state of the game right now is limiting that enjoyment for me which is the prominent factor in why I decided to move on to other games.

There are a few other factors that led to this decision for me as well. The main ones would be the low variety of quests, unbalanced units, and generally poor design practices that are not up to par with today's competition.

I do still think the game has loads of potential. Most of the game's faults can be fixed and patched. However, due to the vast scale of these problems, and the company's limited revenue, it would probably take more programmers than they are willing to hire to get them fixed within a reasonable time frame.

Whether the game's potential is ever realized or not is up to the folks over at Silverlode Interactive.

Ok, did it look for either Echigo or Akumi in game names