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It’s no secret that there is a glut of MMO’s either released or releasing in the near future. For every blockbuster like WoW or LOTRO, there seem to be dozens of others all vying for a piece of the MMO market pie. Naturally, there are a number of MMO’s on the show floor, and when I had a chance to sit down with Adam Carpenter and get some time with Fury, the upcoming MMORPG from Auran Games, my initial thought was, “Oh no, not another MMO.”

Fury managed to pleasantly surprise me in a couple key ways.

As the MMO market becomes saturated, the need to truly innovate to succeed becomes greater and greater. Fury is an example of an MMO that has the potential to do something few MMO’s have ever done: appeal equally to casual and hardcore MMO gamers alike.

Fury is essentially all PvP, all the time. Gameplay consists of third person action in instanced arenas. There are various gametypes which include a CTF variant, FFA deathmatch, team deathmatch, and a control point gametype similar to the Battlefield system.

I had a chance to play a few rounds. It was kind of tough since I was playing with a character I hadn’t created, and might not necessarily fit my personal play style. Despite that, the gameplay concepts are pretty straightforward and the levels seemed to naturally create areas of intense combat consisting of melee attacks and magical fireballs going this way and that. Unlike MMO’s like WoW, 90% of the attacks in Fury are instant, meaning there’s generally no casting times.

There’s also no mana in this game. Adam explained that the problem with mana bars is that when it’s a progress bar for fun. When the mana runs out, you need to sit down and regen, taking you out of the gameplay.

Ultimately, the Fury is designed to be a pick-up-and-play kind of game. This kind of design should appeal to those who just want to load up the game and get into the action, which happens to be most of us, I think. When, I asked about “the grind” that many MMO gamers are intimately familiar with, Adam assured me that the focus of Fury is not advancement, and that Fury is designed to get you into the competitive “endgame” quickly. There is an advancement system, but it’s primarily designed to feed the player a steady stream of abilities, rather then giving them a four thousand point fire hose to build their character with.

And if your character isn’t very powerful, or you don’t play enough to compete against those that have no life, Fury promises to provide a robust matchmaking system. During the Beta, Auran is trying out a three different matchmaking algorithms, a Glicko-based system, a system similar in design to Microsoft’s TrueSkill ranking system, and an in-house designed algorithm. As the Beta progresses, they will see which system gives the best result and implement it in the final game’s ladders and leaderboards.

Another great thing about Fury, IMHO, is the business model. If you’re a casual player and don’t care about leaderboards or ladders, you can buy the box and play a few hours a week. Features like the leaderboards or selling on the auction house will not be available to you. For those features, you will need to pay the $9.95 subscription rate. Personally, this is a great idea. If you’re hardcore, then go ahead and subscribe, if not, then don’t. You can still advance as high as a subscriber, and still play all the gametypes.

Fury is scheduled to be released Oct. 9th and is currently beta testing as we speak.