[TL;DR warning]
So all this lore is nice and pretty, but I bet all you potential souls of apostles out there, or “players” as you like to call yourselves, are wondering what all this means in terms of, “game play”.
While, yes, we are rebuilding from scratch, we aren’t simply trying to recreate what was lost. What we desire is a game that more closely aims towards the goals of cycles of unity through division, by its very nature, rather than the game of pure dominance we once had.
Exactly what this will entail will be largely a matter of “community input”, assuming we receive any on the subject as we put forth proposals.
The broadest and most sweeping change is that the power range of players will be much narrowed. In statistical terms, a late game adventurer may be no more than, were I put a number to it, 200-300% more powerful than a new one, in terms of health, damage absorption, and damage output. A late game adventurer, however, will have a great many more options and tools, in terms of “area of effect” and “crowd control” and the like, while a fresh adventurer may have nothing at hand but his rusty sword. They’ll be able to work together in a high level area, and while the fresh adventurer may need some coddling, even the additional raw damage they can provide should be respectable.
A new human player will have 100hp and 100 mana. Dwarves and elves will have variants and be have various other advantages and disadvantages.
This of course means the enemies will be similarly narrower in range, though the toughest of them may require a more experienced eye and tools to have much hope of overcoming.
All items and enemies will have very specific values and a very specific set of powers available to them, to determine their respective threat values.
We will also be using the dreaded concept of “diminishing returns”, meaning once you pass the half-way point in, say for instance, maximum damage resistance, subsequent stacks of resistance will become increasingly less effective as you near the limit.
The magic system will similarly being reworked from scratch. Any character will be able to cast any spell, and such spells will be formulated into rods in staffs with a series of crystals the player must swap in and out to craft their desired spell. More powerful staffs and rods will hold more crystals, making for more powerful spells, but require higher spell mana pools to activate. Each crystal type will be affiliated with a specific dragon, and various factions and races will adjust their effectiveness. For example, there are beam crystals, fire crystals, and sustain crystals, and combining the three gives you a fire beam with an extended DoT duration.
All loot, including gold drops, will be client side. Gold will play a much more important role in the game, for improving weapons and acquiring new ones, however, the most powerful weapons and tools will only be available through the faction quest system, which will make it very difficult to acquire them all, as while the three major factions and the four minor ones, will be traversable in every direction, the more you dip into one, the harder you have to work for the others to regain their respect. Faction specific Titles will be a thing, and you may need to retain a faction standing to retain the Title’s abilities, some of which will be accessed by what was previously the spell menu.
Depending on how well the map transition system behaves, we may or may not have to discover ways to minimize the trips back to Deralia (or other town), to acquire new quests. It may simply end up being a magic item you can use to communicate with your character’s patron. For simplicity’s sake, quests will likely not be sharable, save by player to player negotiation, but maybe in the future we can work out group quests.
Further there will be many in-field opportunities to invest in markers and systems that assist other players when you are offline. For instance, you maybe able to invest in a portal that bypasses a trap or section of the map or provides a power boost, and players that use it will be able tip you for the assist. Unfortunately, these systems will have to be server-specific as the FN read/write system is not up to the task. ...and yes, we’ll have to be careful that they are not too obnoxious or exploitable. They will be at fixed points, rather than dynamically placeable, and decay over time if not maintained. We also hope to have a guild hall system running in Deralia and other towns, that sadly, will also have to be server specific (though you will be able to setup multiple guild halls on multiple servers).
...AND A IMMENSE AMOUNT OF LORE!
Before you ever get out of Deralia... Including a nightly debate between the three priests in the town at the inn, which is already scripted up.
Beyond this, and having both playable dwarves and elves in the first release, we’re looking into “community polls” for exactly how all this will work.
For our first, we’re looking at removing the miss chance for weapons.
Said poll can be viewed here.
For our second, we will be looking at stripping meaningless stats, favoring a more transparent and simplified stat system.
...And so on and so forth, as development allows.
Oh yes, we also need a poll to name this thing. Given how Thothie’s first and last developer blog was going, we figure we’d hold off on that until you all knew just how bad things can get. Maybe we’ll let it sink in some more. Until that christening poll is set up, the forums will be a bit oddly “categorized”. ...And we’re still working on that “MS:Classic” release.
If the audience has questions or suggestions regarding plans or this process, not specific to an active poll, you may set them here, though the golden rule, as always, is in full effect. Rudeness, of any sort, will not be tolerated in development threads.
So all this lore is nice and pretty, but I bet all you potential souls of apostles out there, or “players” as you like to call yourselves, are wondering what all this means in terms of, “game play”.
While, yes, we are rebuilding from scratch, we aren’t simply trying to recreate what was lost. What we desire is a game that more closely aims towards the goals of cycles of unity through division, by its very nature, rather than the game of pure dominance we once had.
Exactly what this will entail will be largely a matter of “community input”, assuming we receive any on the subject as we put forth proposals.
The broadest and most sweeping change is that the power range of players will be much narrowed. In statistical terms, a late game adventurer may be no more than, were I put a number to it, 200-300% more powerful than a new one, in terms of health, damage absorption, and damage output. A late game adventurer, however, will have a great many more options and tools, in terms of “area of effect” and “crowd control” and the like, while a fresh adventurer may have nothing at hand but his rusty sword. They’ll be able to work together in a high level area, and while the fresh adventurer may need some coddling, even the additional raw damage they can provide should be respectable.
A new human player will have 100hp and 100 mana. Dwarves and elves will have variants and be have various other advantages and disadvantages.
This of course means the enemies will be similarly narrower in range, though the toughest of them may require a more experienced eye and tools to have much hope of overcoming.
All items and enemies will have very specific values and a very specific set of powers available to them, to determine their respective threat values.
We will also be using the dreaded concept of “diminishing returns”, meaning once you pass the half-way point in, say for instance, maximum damage resistance, subsequent stacks of resistance will become increasingly less effective as you near the limit.
The magic system will similarly being reworked from scratch. Any character will be able to cast any spell, and such spells will be formulated into rods in staffs with a series of crystals the player must swap in and out to craft their desired spell. More powerful staffs and rods will hold more crystals, making for more powerful spells, but require higher spell mana pools to activate. Each crystal type will be affiliated with a specific dragon, and various factions and races will adjust their effectiveness. For example, there are beam crystals, fire crystals, and sustain crystals, and combining the three gives you a fire beam with an extended DoT duration.
All loot, including gold drops, will be client side. Gold will play a much more important role in the game, for improving weapons and acquiring new ones, however, the most powerful weapons and tools will only be available through the faction quest system, which will make it very difficult to acquire them all, as while the three major factions and the four minor ones, will be traversable in every direction, the more you dip into one, the harder you have to work for the others to regain their respect. Faction specific Titles will be a thing, and you may need to retain a faction standing to retain the Title’s abilities, some of which will be accessed by what was previously the spell menu.
Depending on how well the map transition system behaves, we may or may not have to discover ways to minimize the trips back to Deralia (or other town), to acquire new quests. It may simply end up being a magic item you can use to communicate with your character’s patron. For simplicity’s sake, quests will likely not be sharable, save by player to player negotiation, but maybe in the future we can work out group quests.
Further there will be many in-field opportunities to invest in markers and systems that assist other players when you are offline. For instance, you maybe able to invest in a portal that bypasses a trap or section of the map or provides a power boost, and players that use it will be able tip you for the assist. Unfortunately, these systems will have to be server-specific as the FN read/write system is not up to the task. ...and yes, we’ll have to be careful that they are not too obnoxious or exploitable. They will be at fixed points, rather than dynamically placeable, and decay over time if not maintained. We also hope to have a guild hall system running in Deralia and other towns, that sadly, will also have to be server specific (though you will be able to setup multiple guild halls on multiple servers).
...AND A IMMENSE AMOUNT OF LORE!
Before you ever get out of Deralia... Including a nightly debate between the three priests in the town at the inn, which is already scripted up.
Beyond this, and having both playable dwarves and elves in the first release, we’re looking into “community polls” for exactly how all this will work.
For our first, we’re looking at removing the miss chance for weapons.
Said poll can be viewed here.
For our second, we will be looking at stripping meaningless stats, favoring a more transparent and simplified stat system.
...And so on and so forth, as development allows.
Oh yes, we also need a poll to name this thing. Given how Thothie’s first and last developer blog was going, we figure we’d hold off on that until you all knew just how bad things can get. Maybe we’ll let it sink in some more. Until that christening poll is set up, the forums will be a bit oddly “categorized”. ...And we’re still working on that “MS:Classic” release.
If the audience has questions or suggestions regarding plans or this process, not specific to an active poll, you may set them here, though the golden rule, as always, is in full effect. Rudeness, of any sort, will not be tolerated in development threads.
