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New MMO you might be interested in.
Valharan
Member Posts: 190
Greetings and salutations:
I just ran across an old friend from LA and he told me about a new MMO thats currently in production that I figured some of you might be interested in. Honestly I wanted to see what the MMO community would have to say about it myself so I'll outline a few details of the concept for you to see what you think. The games working title at the moment is "Affinity", now that we have that out of the way lets move on to the basics.
Setting -
The setting will be a Fantasy world complete with Dragons and all the other goodies weve come to know and love. I wont get into to much detail here because I really didn't hammer him for info past hearing the words "Fantasy setting"
Class/skill systems -
This won't be revolutionary by any means there will be no former classes as it were but advancement will take place through a skill system that is divided into tree's. These will later branch into other tree's that require skills from up to 2 or possibly even 3 skill tree's to unlock. To unlock any skill will require a trainer to teach you the initial skill and 1 skill point, for some of the more advanced skills quests to either locate the trainer or to acquire the skill itself might be required. Skill points will be awarded upon attaining a new level. Once you have acquired a new skill advancement of that skill will require simple use. Some will be passive meaning they will be advanced without having to actively use them while others will require you to repeat the skill a number of times before a new rank is achieved.
Advancement from level 1-10 will involve 1 of 4 basic skill tree's which are Martial, Artisan, Arcane, Curative. You will be able to chose skills and spells from any and all tree's but you will have a limited number of skill points with which to learn new skills. Fear not if you find yourself with a skill you no longer enjoy or require, you will be given several chances over the life of a character to remove points and relocate them to new skills. So even if you feel you made a mistake it will not be permenent. Levels 1-10 is considered the character creation process and will be fairly smooth and easy for everyone and will shape the path that character is to take. at level 10 more advanced tree's will become aparent.
Crafting -
This is one area that got me excited and I'll tell you why. Are you sick of looking like everyone else in a game? Yeah so am I, the crafting system that is planned is very in depth and sounds like a blast. From the news I got crafting would be a full time job hehe but not one without benefits. As an artisan characters will be able to create basic Items with more advanced items comming as the character advances in skill. For example to create a long sword first the artisan would access his forge menu and choose an item he knows the recipie for, then once he does that and he has the required materials in his possession or in his bank he can commence crafting. If successful a new menu will appear asking him to pick the look of the item crafted he must choose a blade and a grip from the designs he knows with admitedly better looking designs being unlocked when advanced skills are acquired. This enables people to craft items with identical statistics but with widly differing looks.
Another aspect of the crafting system will be Imbuing. An artisan with sufficent skill in the arcane arts will be able to imbue the items he creates with magical properties of his choosing giving even further customization to items. Imbuing will be quite powerful making an artisan a sought after commodity.
There is more to the crafting system but I don't want to get bogged down here but a couple more features that I thought were interesting were - Immaculate creations, there are items that were created flawlessly and as such are of better quality lowering the statistical requirement to use as well as improving the properties of the item. Additionally there will be recipies added to the game periodicly that only 1 person will know and must be discovered by sheer chance while in the process of crafting. Once discovered that item will be craftable by only one person, consider it a trade secret that said crafter is unwilling to share. Since this will be a boon to craftsmen and serve to distinguish them in thier trade and not to keep those who don't discover a unique recipie feeling left out more will be added on a regular basis, also if a crafters account ever goes inactive he will lose rights to said unique recipie so that the ability for others to attain said item is not lost forever.
Affinity System -
This is another aspect of the game I found fascinating besides the skill system and race there is your characters affinity. What that means is that you will find scattered throughout the world creatures and people of great power with whom you will be able to gain an affinity. To do this you must seek out this creature or person and through quests gain thier favor and earn the right to gain thier affinity. During the course of your characters life time you will be able to earn affinity with as many creatures or people as you wish but you may only maintain one at a time. Some will of course be more powerful than others and while some may grant strength of arm in combat others might improve your chances of an Immaculate forging so experimentation will be fun.
Player built housing -
Players will have the opportunity to build housing and own land. Any player may place a house on an open plot of land but to turn that house into a settlement will require a guild house to be built. Once a guild house is established and sufficent houses have been built in the area features will be added through patches and updates turning that temporary settlement into a permenant one. Such additions will include a garrison of defending troops, basic merchants, crafting areas, taverns, mail boxes, courriers and defensive walls to name a few things. The more people that settle in an area the more improvements will be added by the developers.
Land ownership will be a tricky buissness as towns and settlements are open to attack from opposing guilds and nations. Individual housing built on neutral land will be restricted and not open for hostile actions preventing its destruction. But while housing built on neutral land is off limits towns, settlements and keeps are open for hostile action. To keep the playing field balanced and to prevent griefing a siege of a guild owned city will need to be initiated, once initiated there will be a limit placed on the number of participants depending upon the number and level of defending players. This does not mean that people arriving late to the siege wont get a chance to join in but will have to wait for a group spot on either the attackers or defenders seige team to open before they can initiate an assault.
Quests -
Quests will be handled in two different ways with quest givers dispatching players to locations randomly generated throughout the world or dispatching them to instanced zones. The quests that require a player to go to a common area of the world accessable by all players will have the quest mob or npc generated by proximity so that a player will not have to camp a spawn for endless hours because someone got there first. The instanced zones will be reserved for the highest level and hardest quests as these will more than likely require a large number of people to complete and are an event unto themselfs.
Advancement -
Characters will find that they can advance in level one of two ways either through combat or by crafting. Regardless of what path you take in your characters life he will gain experience by doing it. No longer will you have to kill endless monsters just to get a level and now the life of an artisan need not include killing a single monster although I'm sure many will want to.
Content -
While player driven content keeps any game fresh and exciting static content will be added to the game and both will be available at launch. Static spawns and quests will abound to complement the player driven content.
Monsters and loot -
While the crafting system looks to be exceptional and will drive a nice economy there will be static times boss mobs as well as boss mobs that randomly appear in a given spawn area for a type of mob. Additionally there will be triggered boss calibur monsters that will spawn when specific conditions are met. Any of these monsters have a chance to carry items of power that players may want to acquire to supplement the player made items. There will be a nice balance between the quality of player made items and loot items acquired off of monsters. The monster loot items will never render player made items useless and while a few monster items may be of superior quality to player made items most will not. Fear not that maximum level artisan will never be obsolete.
Additionals -
Courrier service that will transport goods for you or purchase basic items from vendors in the same city as you for a cost.
Mail function to send items, coin and notes to others throughout the world.
Broker for commisioning of player made items so you no longer have to wait for a specific crafter to come online. Now you can commission an item or multiple items to be made and the price your willing to pay for said items and have a crafter come online, accept the commission, complete the items and deliver them to your mailbox for the commission price.
Well that's all the info I got from him at the moment but there will be more to come, if your interested in the game and would like to know more feel free to email me at valharan01@hotmail.com and I will answer any questions I can or pump him for more info heh. Take care and hopefully this game turns out to be what he said it would. The poll is based on the concept and assuming for arguments sake that the dev's can deliver on 80% or more of the features they promise at the time of launch.
Comments
Hmmm, how come I know this crafting and Skill system?
Sounds almost too good to be true. Let´s see.
MaDSaM
Do you dare to adapt?
Yay, another fantasy game!
bumpzorz
My initial reaction, TBH, is: I'll believe it when I see it.
My 2nd reaction: We need more fantasy titles like we need extra holes in our heads.
My 3rd reaction: Call me when it's in beta, otherwise don't even talk about it please. It's just Vaporware till it's playable.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
Except for the minor features of imbuing and affinities, and the yawn-inducing decision to make yet another fantasy-genre game, this sounds remarkably like pre-NGE SWG. Which is a Good Thing.
So when you say, "an old friend from LA," is that Los Angeles... or LucasArts?
--Flatfingers