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Jatar --- Throw us a bone.
Isane
Member UncommonPosts: 2,630
Jatar... Throw us a little bone , I know you guys will be busy but anything interesting that is happening that you could share would be nice.
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Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
Comments
There are lots of interesting things happening on CoS. Unfortunately most of that is all internal game mechanic progress, not the kind of thing we can show or talk too much about in a forum like this one. As mentioned before in our dev log, the game is in a development stage where there is lots of work progressing on many areas, but each of these areas takes a long time. Things like Quest writing, world building, etc.
CoS is a massive undertaking, and it all takes time. The best thing I can tell you is that progress is continuing and we get further along each day. There should be an official post in the developer log soon on general progress. In addition we will be releasing information on the Tyven race soon on the web site.
However, I would be glad to discuss any specific topic about the game. So what would you like to know more about?
I am happy that there is life. Sounds like things are ticking along. What you are trying to acheieve with COS sounds good to me in principle so I am happy to hear about progress.
As long as we have the storyline arc and the variation and choice within that then I am happy.
Scale and group size always interests me as I prefer the 2-8 player range.
People invited to your froup impacting you as per their actions permanently I hope is still in as this to me is one of the most fascinating parts in this game.
I am interested in the political side of the Citadel and the opportunities and ways in which players will be able to get involved if at all possible , but I a guessing this is tied into actions and story arc
Other than that just happy all is progressing....
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Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
Oh there is life! Progress has actaully picked up speed recently with some really interesting progress on the new terrain system. But I'll leave that for the dev log.
As to your areas of interest:
1) Our Quests... well, they are the heart of this game. Player choice is critical through each quest. But this is not just a simple branching choice system. Each Quest is an involved story where your decisions will color the future of the quest. These are not just simple choice branching elements. You invfluence and change events, and in the end the choices you made earlier will change the opportunities and likelyhoods of possibilities in the climax. I know this is general and somewhat cryptic sounding, but the fact is that the story becomes a personal part of your overall story, and not just the same thing some other player did in the same way. You'll need to play some of our quests before you will really start to appreciate the difference.
2) Scale and group size. Well, the group size for CoS is 2-8 people (yea for you). This is for Quests, Adventures, Crisis, Bounty Hunting, Artifact collecting and monster trapping. However, Campaigns will feature a much larger grouping as you will be taking part in part of the war effort against Morphael's forces at those times. The exact max number of players who can join up for a Campaign has not yet been determined (it will be as many as the game engine can handle and that works well with the scope of the challenge).
3) As to people impacting you... well, yes. Everything you do in CoS impacts your future, and therefore those who travel with you will as well. To what degree? That depends on what they do. There is never any going back in CoS, time is in motion and it is always moving forward. The actions that your companions may take will influence the progress of your story, and that will influence the eventual climax of your current Quest. That Quest is a thread in your overall story, and so that is also impacted. These are generalizations of our system, mainly because I can't really tell you the details of how we are doing all this (it's a secret, lol).
4) Politics. They sound kind of boring when you use that word, but in CoS they will be nothing of the sort. Your character will be living in the heart of a very nasty situation. This is a game where the epic storyline will progress for a very long time, and you will be right in the thick of what is happening. There is WAY too much to go into on this area in a forum post, but I'll give you a very small taste.
You are a Fallen Hero, you once worked for a very famous person now only known as the Enchantress. You have been brougth back to work for those who threw her down. They think you don't really know about your past allegeance since your memory was lost when you died several hundred years ago.
Now you work for a being called Faceless. He is the current commander of the Fallen Heroes (on Tier 1). He is one of several Lieutenants all working for the Sorcerer who governs this Tier of the Citadel. Each of these Lieutenats is very powerful, and each wants to see all the others fail miserably so that they can advance, and yet... they cannot overtly murder each other or they will be destroyed by the Sorcerer. Yet, they try to find ways to stab each other in the back whenever possible.
Technically, these other Lieutenants are higher up the chain of command than you are, and you must do their bidding at times. You'll have to work for Whisperer, or Collector, or one of the other strange Lieutenants. But your commander, Faceless, will often give you secret instructions on how he wants you to thwart the aims of the other Lieutenants. Not only that, but you can expect that their agents are also trying to foil your plans, or even get you killed to embarass Faceless.
And what happens when Whisperer and Foulbreath both demand you do something for them, and what they ask are opposite things? What do you do now? One of them is going to be pissed (maybe both).
So now, not only do you have to deal with soul eating demons and Morphael's armies of strange creatures... your own factions under various Lieutenants are out to make you fail.
And I'm only scratching the surface here... CoS is a full Epic fantasy story in which you will have amazing adventures. It unfolds over time as you play and uncover plots and revelations, as you would in any good fantasy story. The Lore on our web site only sets the statge for the stroy to continue. You won't read about a back story and then forget it... you'll live through the adventure as part of an ongoing fantasy epic.
There, I hope that qualifies as throwing you a 'bone'.
I would like to add one thing and many Jatar will read it i dont need a reply but i beg you and everyone working on the game to please please think of the long term of the game and not out to make a fast buck.PLEASE dont release it half assed I know I am as a player am getting sick of these half ass products being rushed out the door with all this hype. I know we all love to make money but please let the money making process begin when the game is good to be release not a half ass release
I play games just like you
Interesting.. sounds great, but what about the MMO side of politics such as, player vs player politics ?
Well, the first thing to note about Player vs. Player politics is that they will happen naturally through the course of player interaction through Guild organizations and guild competitions. Whenever you have a group of people with any rankings you have politics. But as a discussion, what are you expecting from an MMO to enhance PvP politics?
A game can be driven on great player vs player politics alone if done right. All you need is factionless mandatory open world PvP, a flagging system, a semi-harsh death penalty, and farming zones/ world bosses/ other territorial things to fight over such as citadels, keeps, castles, forts etc. What this does is create a revolving time sink for the players that is rewarding and enjoyable.
In order to keep people in the open world rather than in instances you need to have the best gear come from crafting and have the gear cost enormous amounts of farmed materials that can only be obtained from monsters out in the open world. Also having the world bosses drop key rare components for the recipe or the recipe itself is a good way.
Toss that kind of player politics in a game, and the rest of the game is only icing on the cake in my mind.
I guess the problem is that you haven't looked at what this game is about yet. I'll give you the short version: CoS is a new kind of Quest world, not a PVP mmo or typical cheesy PVE game. It contains no time sinks, no farming zones, no typical crafting. In fact, it has very little to do with any MMO game you or anyone else has played in the past. This is an entirely new system of game play, not another rehash of the same old system you are describing. You have pretty much listed many of the things that CoS strives NOT to be. Fortunately, you have plenty of other MMOs to choose from doing those same old things if that is your cup of tea.
Citadel of Sorcery is about quests, but not like what you may have seen in other PVE MMO games. The depth and quality of our Quests are what set this game apart from other MMORPGs. Each quest in CoS is the equivalent of a multi novel fantasy book series. It is about involved game play content with no time sinks, grinds, repetitive play or any of the other methods MMOs have traditionally used to keep from adding rich content.
If you play CoS some day, expect to throw out all the things you know about MMOs and play in a new kind of game.
Yeah, I know nothing of this game I just keep dreaming of a refurbished Lineage 2 type game that's polished and isn't run by ncsoft.
Sounds interesting though, I will keep keep an eye out for this game and perhaps check it out when it comes out. Something new would be refreshing to say the least.
Go read the background info on the COS site and you will see that , this game cannot be completed that easily. The game can be completed though as per the initial storyline that will be released , as stated by Jatar it will take a long time.
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Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
Jatar , thanks for the time and effort.
That was an excelent response and you know as well as I do you talked about a lot of element you have not before thanks....
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Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
Zere, If you have a look at some of the COS lore you will see that you adventure you do so in your own reflected world.
All your enemies live within this and can attack at any time. The citadel is where you form up and set of to adventure
Extract from COS Lore.......
The Creation of the Reflected Worlds:
In great grief for his slain family Peran did not care if he lived or died. He just wanted to destroy the demons forever, no matter what the cost. He prepared to end all things and destroy the world. Peran took his great hammer and smashed the Creation Crystal into thousands of shards. He thought he could destroy the crystal, and therefore the World, and with it all demons. But the demon realm was not part of the World, and when his hammer struck, it did not bring an end to the World. Instead, something very strange happened; the crystal shattered into thousands of equally shaped smaller, but geometrically exact, duplicates of the original great shape. And out in the empty places of darkness, new worlds appeared. In each facet of every crystal there was a reflection of the original World. And for each facet there was a complete mirrored version of the original World. We now call these the Reflected Worlds.
The Beginning of the Sorcerers:
When the crystal shattered some of the Radiant and Grim power that had been contained within the Crystal was released and entered Peran Tremora. All humans had a touch of Grim and Radiant energy which made up their soul, but Peran absorbed massive amounts. As the two powers entered his body in this great quantity, the first human sorcerer was born. As he looked into the geometric structure of the crystals his eyes saw duplicate reflections on the facets of each shape. In wonder he reached out and touched one facet, and was transported to that reflection of the World. He was the first human to enter the Darkhalls and escape… but not the last.
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Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
Hmmm, sounds like it is similar to Guild Wars in the sense that everyone meets in 1 place and goes off into their own instances, but with a focus on the story and no PvP. If so the game would have to have massive amounts of content and updates to keep people occupied.
I am going to have to read up more on this game later on.
You nailed it, we're all about content. I can't begin to tell you the amount of time and effort that has gone into the tools and programming necessary to allow our team to build content faster and in more depth. Not to mention the ongoing work of the writing staff who are working on the MANY novel quality situations you will experience.
We had to figure out whole new ways to build a game in order for us to bring this new kind of game to the playing community. Traditional techniques that I've used in other games would never have been able to make enough content. Players would have burned through the content in weeks, not years. The design team and programmers work constantly to bring these new innovations and techniques to the artists and level designers/builders.
We've had to address each of the bottlenecks of time and figure out ways to do more faster with fewer people because no matter how large the team becomes there is still more to do. Efficiency is everything.
We just got a new version of Enact (our World building tool) last night, which vastly improves the way Level Designers can build the world. It's a game within the game, so to speak. Everything you build is done right in the game, live, with the other designers right in there working. It's like an MMO for builders, an MMOB. You can walk a charcter right over to where somebody is constructing something, interact, and see what they are doing right in the game.
The new features in this build auto lock anything one person is doing so that no one else can mess with it until they are done, but it's all done live in the game. This allows us to cut the time between building and testing to zero. You can build and test right there in the real world and it's WYSIWYG all the time.
But this is just one example of many systems we are using to speed up creation of content so that normal players will never run out at any resonable pace of play.
As for being like Guild Wars, (which is a fine game), we're about like them the same way checkers is like chess. Not at ALL similar when it comes to game play.
Seems like a fun game to design. Your post piqued my interest a bit so I read the 2 part introductions on this site, and the game by what I read seems outstanding. The complexity of a living world like what was described is unbelievable and I really hope you guys pull it off. The genre desperately needs innovation like this. I am sure this will be successful as long as it's polished. I will be keeping an eye on this game for sure, glad I stumbled on this thread.
Edit: The part about a coliseum made me smile, some PvP is better than nothing!
Yeah, it is fun to work on. Wish I could share more, but that time will come.
Thanks for the updates Jatar (warmed my heart to see mention of groups up to 8, I miss my days in DAOC) and glad to hear things are progressing.
I am quite interested in this game and check on it several times a month looking for the latest updates.
The market needs something fresh and new (and I don't think SWTOR is going to be it, at least for me) so I'll be patiently waiting for the day when I can finally give COS a go.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Polish is the key, I agree, and that's one of the reasons I think the game is not only taking long, but will take even longer to complete. I for one would rather let the devs take their time than rush out the product. This is a big undertaking for an independant developer. I, for one, support and encourage them to stay the course and give us their vision when it is compete and not before.
Now, I'll admit, it's hard to wait... I HATE to wait, have I mentioned that? But I hate a bad game worse than waiting... so I am willing to be patient. It is nice to get the occasional tid bit from the devs though, just to let us know there is progress. I'm wondering about screenshots, they haven't released any new ones since they annouced the game several years ago. I did read in a post from Jatar that they were concentrating on technology and design and that updated graphics will follow more toward the end. I suppse that is the answer, MMORPG requires listed games to show screenshots, so the Devs had to give them those early prototype shots, but the Devs probably want to hold off on more until they get to the real graphics. Hope that is soon though (I really do hate to wait, I mentioned that, right?).
The other thing to bear in mind is that the world will be that vast that you can theoretically travel anywhere the problem is that it will take literally days. What is interesting though is the fact that you can discover thing literally in the nmiddle of nowhere.
Quests and the like from the citadel will portal you to something more inhabited.... As I under stand it but friom there you could just head outh for a better want of terms.
I expect large ammounts of the world just to be the equivalent of a desert. But seeing as they have locations that get randomly inhabited there is no reason why the desolate areas couldnt have the odd castle cave or dungeon or points of interest.
If they do this right people will get lost big time which is great an will give a real feel of a World.
Oh and if they pull the gameplay element off and the scale of the world I would not care about the graphics. As long as the Holiday Maze is still in the game at release.
You never seem to have Mazes in games anymore.... A good Maze with shifting walls.... Thats what we need more fun
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Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
I would love to go in a maze.
I'm not so sure I want to get lost
. But as to your mazes, well, that's different. Getting lost in a maze is sort of the point. But out in the world I want a good map to keep me on track to where I'm headed and I don't want to go miles without some fun! Here's to hoping that I get bushwaked or chased quite often (or do the bushwacking as the case may be).
I believe that when questing you get a portal to the vicinity of a quest, a sort of recall point from the Citadel to a location in your reflected world.
But if you are mad enough you can just head west and keep going
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Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel