Ancient War vs Rend
Ancient War
Ancient War is a brand-new MMO RPG/strategy game that you can play for free directly on Facebook. In this game, you will need to choose one of 3 factions to join, namely Thebes, Athens or Sparta, before setting off to develop your city-state, recruit legendary heroes and their associated battalions, and take on your enemies.The gameplay here is pretty generic in many ways, but there are a couple features that stand out although they are not entirely unique. One such feature is the world map. Unlike many other games within the same genre, the world map feels a lot more real and alive as you can see the boundaries of each faction being drawn and re-drawn as players of the same faction work together to conquer other faction's city-states.
Another feature is the faction hierarchy. Each faction is governed by the players themselves and only the strongest players will be able to climb the ranks and assume one of the 4 important positions in the hierarchy. If you are the best of the lot, you can even be appointed King.
Ancient War isn't exactly a refreshingly unique browser MMO game, but it is not your run-of-the-mill game either. The gameplay is quite decent and the epic Greek-theme that it has may appeal to you as well.
Rend
Rend is an up-and-coming, Nordic-themed, team-based survival game that is set in a wild and ruthless, fantasy world filled with fantastic creatures, where only the strongest are able to ascend to the realms of the gods. In this game, players are separated into their respective factions at the beginning. They are then given the freedom to explore the many biomes and harvest resources from the environment whether solo or co-operatively. The resources obtained can then be used to craft better weapons and tools or can be reinvested into the faction stronghold to fortify it from potential attacks from players from a rival faction and to advance your base just so you can unlock new technologies. Players have their own skill systems and talent trees as well, and these are the main ways for a player to customize and tweak their characters to their liking.The ultimate goal of the game, however, is to reap as many warrior spirits as you can by battling and defeating rival players and deposit the souls at the Divinity Stone in the middle of your faction base, that is if you're not slain while carrying such precious loot. Somewhat similar to grand strategy games, Rend is more of a continual game. It has game cycles of 2 to 3 months, in which the winning faction of each cycle will get a nice pile of rewards at the end of a cycle.
Rend has a really unique take on the survival genre and this might just give the game the fuel it needs to rise to the top. The game is currently in Alpha and its release date is still TBD.