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What's ToA all about?
Tanamoril
Member Posts: 8
This forum needs more information about the game.
Trials of Ascension (made by Shadowpool Studios, a small indie developer in Bellingham, WA) is supposed to be a MMORPG with Permanent Death and full PVP.
Here's how they hope it'll work. It's entirely skill-based, and you won't gain ungodly amounts of hit points and stats as the game progresses. If an unskilled character somehow lands a few blows on a super warrior, he might actually take him out. Certainly, a master warrior against five newbies might want to be pretty careful. Combine this with not being able to automatically tell how powerful somebody is, and being able to fully loot someone's body after you kill them, and the consequences for dying are large enough that most people will hopefully stay away from random killing.
All these things make danger to your character more urgent and create real consequences for your actions. The one rule in ToA is, "You can do it, but it'll cost you." The more you want to achieve, the more you have to risk to get that far. That way, great achievements are actually meaningful, and you actually care about the people and organizations that you're involved with ingame. Upon permanent death, a character that has made a mark on the world will be able to work with the developers and create an artifact that will be placed into the gameworld. This is the only kind of magical item that will be in ToA - there are no +9 swords of gnome slaying.
In ToA pretty much nothing about the world will be static. Trees can be actually cut down and planted, towns can be destroyed or built, and political systems will all be run by PCs. The idea is to have an entirely player-based economy, so that pretty much everything in the game can be made by players. Also, characters have to eat and drink, and wood, cloth and metal are needed for crafting items. Since not every resource will be available in every area, settlements and nations will have to trade with each other to be able to thrive. Since there isn't a universal currency, there are no fixed prices and people will either have to barter or mint their own currency.
The world is supposed to be huge, too. It'll be almost impossible to teleport around the world, so if you want to go somewhere, you'll have to walk or get a horse, or take a boat or wagon. Settlements could be hours on foot away from eachother, and sea exploration will be truly taxing - there will be places that take RL days of sailing to get to. (This is doable because if you log off on a boat or wagon, you will be able to log back on still on that vehicle. So you can arrange to take the helm of the boat in shifts.) Communication will be doubly restricted: first, you can't talk to anybody outside of shouting range, and second, if you want to talk to a member of a different race, you had best learn their language. Hopefully these restrictions will bring people into localized communities in the gameworld: if you want to find a group, you head down to the local tavern, where there's food and drink and music. Also, it will make it hard (but not impossible!) to wage large-scale war against another country - the army will have to be supplied with food and water, and when a character dies they are sent without their loot all the way back to their home city.
Plus, it's a fantasy world. There are going to be twelve races, from elves and orcs to pixies (flying, 1 foot tall) and doppelgangers (who can change shape.) Dedicated players can play as a dragon, starting out as a weak hatchling hunted by all other players and braving all sorts of adversity to become a giant flying juggernaut with a powerful breath weapon. (And I mean "dedicated." The head developer said that the chance was less than 1% that any given dragon would be able to survive to adulthood before perma dying.) Players who choose to play as a gryphon will be immediately quite powerful, but will not be able to communicate with any other races. The races are all quite different, even the traditional fantasy ones, and are definitely not just different flavors of humanoid.
Despite the fantasy setting, however, magic in ToA's world is supposed to be pretty rare. This doesn't mean that there isn't any magic, it means that it is difficult to study (the formulae for spells are different for every PC) and dangerous to use (there is a chance that your spell could backfire, possibly killing you if you were attempting a really powerful spell.)
A more dependable system is that of priestly powers. The world of ToA has eleven gods, each with a different emphasis. If you join the shrine of a god, then you will contribute some spiritual power to that shrine if you are following the tenets of that god. Then, the priests elected by the shrine members can wield that power in the game. So the powers of a priest are more dependable, but limited in that a priest is only as powerful as her congregation. Each religion also has a hierophant, who is elected from the priests of that religion, gets unique powers and can define a direction for each faith.
The game is really ambitious and may take a while longer before it comes out. However, I do think that the developers can pull it off. They are very dedicated and don't seem to be too strapped for cash. The game is pretty much everything I want in an online game, and I'm sticking around until it's done.
Trials of Ascension (made by Shadowpool Studios, a small indie developer in Bellingham, WA) is supposed to be a MMORPG with Permanent Death and full PVP.
Here's how they hope it'll work. It's entirely skill-based, and you won't gain ungodly amounts of hit points and stats as the game progresses. If an unskilled character somehow lands a few blows on a super warrior, he might actually take him out. Certainly, a master warrior against five newbies might want to be pretty careful. Combine this with not being able to automatically tell how powerful somebody is, and being able to fully loot someone's body after you kill them, and the consequences for dying are large enough that most people will hopefully stay away from random killing.
All these things make danger to your character more urgent and create real consequences for your actions. The one rule in ToA is, "You can do it, but it'll cost you." The more you want to achieve, the more you have to risk to get that far. That way, great achievements are actually meaningful, and you actually care about the people and organizations that you're involved with ingame. Upon permanent death, a character that has made a mark on the world will be able to work with the developers and create an artifact that will be placed into the gameworld. This is the only kind of magical item that will be in ToA - there are no +9 swords of gnome slaying.
In ToA pretty much nothing about the world will be static. Trees can be actually cut down and planted, towns can be destroyed or built, and political systems will all be run by PCs. The idea is to have an entirely player-based economy, so that pretty much everything in the game can be made by players. Also, characters have to eat and drink, and wood, cloth and metal are needed for crafting items. Since not every resource will be available in every area, settlements and nations will have to trade with each other to be able to thrive. Since there isn't a universal currency, there are no fixed prices and people will either have to barter or mint their own currency.
The world is supposed to be huge, too. It'll be almost impossible to teleport around the world, so if you want to go somewhere, you'll have to walk or get a horse, or take a boat or wagon. Settlements could be hours on foot away from eachother, and sea exploration will be truly taxing - there will be places that take RL days of sailing to get to. (This is doable because if you log off on a boat or wagon, you will be able to log back on still on that vehicle. So you can arrange to take the helm of the boat in shifts.) Communication will be doubly restricted: first, you can't talk to anybody outside of shouting range, and second, if you want to talk to a member of a different race, you had best learn their language. Hopefully these restrictions will bring people into localized communities in the gameworld: if you want to find a group, you head down to the local tavern, where there's food and drink and music. Also, it will make it hard (but not impossible!) to wage large-scale war against another country - the army will have to be supplied with food and water, and when a character dies they are sent without their loot all the way back to their home city.
Plus, it's a fantasy world. There are going to be twelve races, from elves and orcs to pixies (flying, 1 foot tall) and doppelgangers (who can change shape.) Dedicated players can play as a dragon, starting out as a weak hatchling hunted by all other players and braving all sorts of adversity to become a giant flying juggernaut with a powerful breath weapon. (And I mean "dedicated." The head developer said that the chance was less than 1% that any given dragon would be able to survive to adulthood before perma dying.) Players who choose to play as a gryphon will be immediately quite powerful, but will not be able to communicate with any other races. The races are all quite different, even the traditional fantasy ones, and are definitely not just different flavors of humanoid.
Despite the fantasy setting, however, magic in ToA's world is supposed to be pretty rare. This doesn't mean that there isn't any magic, it means that it is difficult to study (the formulae for spells are different for every PC) and dangerous to use (there is a chance that your spell could backfire, possibly killing you if you were attempting a really powerful spell.)
A more dependable system is that of priestly powers. The world of ToA has eleven gods, each with a different emphasis. If you join the shrine of a god, then you will contribute some spiritual power to that shrine if you are following the tenets of that god. Then, the priests elected by the shrine members can wield that power in the game. So the powers of a priest are more dependable, but limited in that a priest is only as powerful as her congregation. Each religion also has a hierophant, who is elected from the priests of that religion, gets unique powers and can define a direction for each faith.
The game is really ambitious and may take a while longer before it comes out. However, I do think that the developers can pull it off. They are very dedicated and don't seem to be too strapped for cash. The game is pretty much everything I want in an online game, and I'm sticking around until it's done.
Comments
=====================
-Just My Thoughts-
Max
Currently playing: Nothing
This game sounds awesome, something new and refreshing and most importantly, CHALLENGING.
I am sure it will be a long time coming before release but as long as they don't take shortcuts or dummy down any of the original ideas, I am looking forward to it immensely.
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