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Citadel of Sorcery: An Introduction to CoS: Part One
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
The team at MMO Magic has provided us witha great Developer Journal that gives us all an idea of what their upcoming MMORPG, Citadel of Sorcery, is all about. Today, we provide you with Part One of this journal, the introduction that will whet your apetite for Part Two, where the devs go into more detail about their plans.
We’d like to welcome you to a new type of MMO experience, Citadel of Sorcery. We would like to ask you to suspend your preconceived ideas of what should or should not be in an MMO game and give this new concept a chance. We’re attempting to create a new experience, one that we hope you will enjoy. In fact, one of our biggest hurdles will be to get you to try the game without thinking about other games you have played, and just experience this new style of game play. Give it a chance and we believe most of you will enjoy your adventure.
So what is so different? Many of the current MMOs are like some kind of Ground Hog’s day, repeating the same day over and over in a static world setting. No matter what you do, the world is the same the next day as it was today. The opposite is true in Citadel of Sorcery; each day is new, as time flows on and change comes about the lands. The game world moves onwards with evolving history like a true living world.
Let us give you an example: if you are in a village when it is attacked by evil creations of Morphael, you may choose to help defend the town. If you and your companions are successful in the defense, the town may survive, if not, it may be burned to the ground. Whatever happens…happens. The following day the town will not pop back into existence. It may be slowly rebuilt, or left as a ruin. It may become the haunt of evil creatures, or grow into a booming new town.
;)
Read it all here.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
The concept sounds like the future of MMOs, where characters are not grinding the same quests for the same equipment. We all want to play the game to be special. We want to be the heroes or villains or some ambiguous in-between. I would love to play an MMO where the experience was my own and my actions had lasting consequences upon the world.
All that being said, I have serious doubts about COS. All those game mechanics sound awesome, but do you guys know how you're going to pull it off? Do you have this awesome quest generating engine developed or is this all a fantastic pipe dream on paper? Are you as far as alpha tests? Do you even have a program to test at this point?
Will the game world be large enough that all players, casual and hardcore gamers alike, will have access to unique events? What happens if the player base completes all the objectives and establish relationships with all the NPCs before your dev. team can develop new content?
Will there be "instanced" content? If not, how will you control multiple players attempting to accomplish the same goal? If two people arrive at a town in conflict, how do you decide which one is the "hero" of the day in the eyes of the townsfolk? If content is "instanced," how will you account for the myriad of different experiences players have at the same locations?
Unless you're in alpha testing and have actually created all the functionality you promised, I'd say you're blowing smoke and building hype for a game that will under deliver. I foresee a lot of things getting stripped from the game as you hit the hard realities and limitations of your technology and resources.
Please, please, please, please... prove me wrong.
The art is rather bland. As you said, it's early though, so you have time. There are no transitions, the models are incredibly... wrong. Nothing fits where it's put. The art is too all over the place. I hope you can fix that.
Other than that, the game sounds like a great idea. But we all have heard hundreds of games that sounded amazing, and never came to life. Never made it anywhere. Never delivered.
There are many promising games out there, promising much like yourselves, that have never made it to a formal test. Too much vision, and not enough implementation will kill you.
Good luck though, lets hope you don't fall into the void like 99% of companies who have 'great ideas'.
How exciting! GO FOR IT !
I hope for them they have enough cash and time to realise all those made promisses.
Many MMO dev's before you had lots of vision and idea's and never realised them.
4 examples:
Matrix Online
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
Auto Assault
Tabula Rasa
Just to name a few
They either ran out of money or just stripped their promisses into oblivion and delivered the same cookie cutter MMO as we have plenty of today already.
I get the feeling these folks played a lot of Second Life, that or they're big fans of the Myst series.
This sounds pretty cool. I'll be interested in seeing how the game develops.
With five years of development, maybe this is possible. Maybe. There are a lot of things that I kinda doubt you can do at this point in our technological history.
The thing that bothers me, though, is that this sounds a lot like a good single player experience. If this is an MMO, what's the point to having all this stuff if friends, parties, guilds and the such are not included? Yeah, that's great that you can take control of a town and command it's forces, but why you? Why couldn't someone else do the same thing? Would you still be able to take control? You shouldn't, but it takes away from the fun if you can't at the same time. That's a problem. If every event is instanced just for you, that takes away from the fun of the multiplayer experience.
I'm interested to see where this turns up, though. Even if it doesn't succeed (and you guys honestly mean it when you say your engine can do all this stuff) then at the very least other companies can use the engine and improve on what you guys have. That's if you don't succeed, though. I'm saying you won't.
I'm interested to see where this game is going.
i dont think things are going to be instanced. from the sounds of it every players decision could impact another player in someway or another which would make it a true mmo.
sounds awesome not geting my hopes up tho
I'm Here. I'm Awesome. Get Used To It.
Yeah, finally someone who dares to make a sandbox MMO with a dynamic world (again). Not a year to early.
They have a great semi-crafting system where you get your basic weapon and go around the world modifying it to your liking.
from their site:
"Basically, you start out with items that we call Mundane. These items have some kind of potential value, but are as yet not magical. You can then add things to these items to improve them the direction you want, you craft them to make them Magical. Often this is done through adventuring. You might want to dip the blade in Dragon's blood to add durability, or put it in the hands of a the snow fairy idol to add freeze damage.
Additionally, you can have the item worked on by a Blacksmith or other artisan. Here you would find a particular, Gem, Charm or Talisman that you wanted worked into the item. Take the item and additions to an Artisan and pick out what pattern and colors you want added to your item. There is a fee, of course, and you must present them with all the materials which you purchased or gained through adventuring."
Seems like it'll be fun.
"The liberties and resulting economic prosperity that YOU take for granted were granted by those "dead guys"
First of all, thanks for your comments, we appreciate everyone's opinion, positive or negative. I will address a few or your questions.
"Do you guys know how you're going to pull it off?"
Well, yes, we do. But I bet you want a better answer. Our staff is not new to making games. Our lead designer has designed multiple titles for major publishers, everyone of which has been released. He has over eighteen years experience in the industry. This is important because he knows what can be done, and does not design game play that is impossible to program. As for the engine that will run this game, we have spent a huge amount of time developing this technology. Our programmers are extremely experienced in game engine creation, having built several. We're far enough along with the game engine now that we decided to reveal Citadel of Sorcery to the game community. Why now? Because at this point we are still in the position of being able to listen to the players and could make changes. There comes a point in time when you must lock down major changes to any project, we decided to let players know a little about the game before we reached that point, even though we would take some 'heat' for areas that are still in earlier development (art).
"Do you have this awesome quest generating engine developed?"
The QG (as we call it) is currently in development and testing. Portions are complete, other areas still in progress. This is the current area that the programming staff is working on night and day. Do we have enough to know it will work, yes, but there is also still work to be done. Part of that ongoing work is the development of our game building tool. In order to get enough content for the QG to use we had to have a large design staff, and put the power of this engine into their hands (rather than a few programmers). This required an extensive game building tool, which we have been developing.
"Do you have a program to test at this point?"
Yes, the game test server (as mentioned) has been running online for two years now. Are we allowing players to test yet? No, and not for some time to come yet. We, as developers, don't mind running around in unfinshed art areas in order to test concepts, but we won't allow players into the world until we are further along in that area. Sorry. When the time is right we'll open up some player testing as well.
"Will the game world be large enough that all players... will have access to unique events?"
Our game world is.... huge. I know, everyone claims that in games. OK, I'll just tell you the exact size and you decide. It's 900 million square kilometers. (That's roughly the surface area of earth, oceans included).
"What happens if the player base completes all the objectives and establish relationships with all the NPCs before your dev. team can develop new content?"
A very good question. The answer is that our QG builds content on the fly. I'm really not going to go into how this works as that's technology we need to keep secret, but the game won't 'run out'. As for NPCs, the QG can create new NPCs as needed, though once created they are persistant (until killed of course).
"Will there be "instanced" content?"
We have big time instanced content. You (and your party) go into vast instanced adventure areas. There are also MMO areas as well, but we felt that in order to give you this kind of in depth quest system, we had to give you and your party your own world for a big involved quest. As we said earlier, we designed the game so that it was possible to create that design, not just talk about it. This means there are systems that must be used in order to offer this special kind of game play.
"Unless you're in alpha testing and have actually created all the functionality you promised, I'd say you're blowing smoke and building hype for a game that will under deliver. I foresee a lot of things getting stripped from the game as you hit the hard realities and limitations of your technology and resources."
We can't put an arbitrary label like 'Alpha' to tell you our current progress. This is due to the fact that we have built this game differently than any other game project I have been on in the past. We have spent inordinate amounts of time on game design and the creation of technology prior to building art and adding content (other than test content). This means that these portions are at Alpha, or beyond, while other areas are not. But you are asking about functionality in order to decide if we are 'blowing smoke', in that area, we are very far along, I do not anticipate anything being stripped out at this point due to technological limitations. If we play test and decide to change something to make the game more enjoyable, that is different. We refuse to hold to a concept that doesn't pan out into great game play, and some of that can only be tested over time with a great number of players pounding the system. That time is yet to come.
I hope this answers some of your questions. I don't expect players to believe everything we claim yet, after all, too many other games have cried wolf. You'll just have to wait and see, but we can assure you that we are doing our best to bring this game out as described.
Jatar
Dev Team Member: Citadel of Sorcery
Cool
Well I say kudos to you guys for bringing something refreshing to the stale MMO world! It's far, far overdue and I will definitely be keeping my eye on this title.
I have to say I am impressed by your willingness to address concerns so thoroughly in the post above.
I like the sound of this game. The part of the article that caught my eye was this line: "Some of these NPCs become your friends and enemies not everyones just yours."
The reason is that so many MMOs are group-requiring and therefore casual-unfriendly, in my opinion. Guild Wars really bucked this trend by allowing players a real choice between soloing the content (by using AI/NPC assistance) or forming full groups or combinations of AI and players in order to complete instanced content.
I enjoy group content and activity OCCASIONALLY, but any MMO that *requires* collective effort in order to move forward in the game (rather than having it be optional) gets an immediate thumbs-down from me.
I can't help wondering how this game stacks up on the "solo-versus-group content-o-meter".
Thank you MMO God--finally a development that is willing to take this huge step....
I always wonder why can't we play a living game.... NPCs do sleep, eat, fight and will interact with you!!!
I have my doubts about it but let's hope they will make it true
This game is on my radar.
Sometimes I read them and I feel like they went on a rant about something which never bother me, and put a lot of efforts in it (kinda like the seemless world folks who want no zoning whatsoever). See, kinda like a programmer-geek challenge, rather than actually thinking about making it FUN (no zoning is bad if you lag). Do I NEED to change the world around me? Well, if other players ruin my experience with that, no.
Sometimes I find them very intelligent and well spoken.
ATM, my worst concern about this game is, that I am still unable to say, if I will experience a gameplay, loves it, and then, be forced into something else I don't like (Raiding/PvP/RvR for example, but let's try not thinking about other games, it may be just as horrible as raiding and I just don't know it, never think of raiding evilness before I actually have to raid once), in which case it would be horrible just as most MMOs out there, kinda teasing you with grouping/solo content and then trying to make you do something unholy.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Very good news...the game has a huge chance of being a success, and I for one will be playing it.
I love the idea of affecting the world around you. Whatever you do has an action on the world, don't do that? Now that happens, and in the end, it effects more than just yourself. It is a huge risk what they are doing, but I think it will attract different players from all different games.
__________________________________________________
In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on Aug/13/08 - Rest In Peace; you will not be forgotten
Depends, if your actions are affecting me negatively, in the long run, they will lose a player.
I would take a hit for my sister, my mom, my dad. But for a stranger, he can sinks alone. For a friend? Maybe, maybe not.
Now, determining what I mean by "negatively" would take many pages. Having to walk 1 more street to find what I want isn't really affecting me negatively. Been unable to find a bathroom because some donkey blows them all, this is getting me camping the mayor office in RL, or for a game, to play another game. :P
Been out of monsters/hunting area because of your actions would indeed burn them. Been in a wasteland because of your actions with no commodities whatsoever would also burn them.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
This system seems to be VERY dependent on interactivity between players and the game world -- more than any MMO ever has.
My concern is about how you will deal with shifts in player population. Overcrowding and ghost-towns are some very important issues that could impact playability of this system in terrible ways.
If you are hoping to rely too heavily on instancing, I'm going to have to pass.
900 million km²?
How is it all going to be populated? I mean, sure npcs can be generated, but what about players? I fear it might end feeling like a giant ghost town. The explorer in me is very interested though.
How about all the possible negative actions for other players? If I command a raid to raze to the ground a village... wouldn't a player looking for that village be screwed? Then maybe he could try to hunt me down since I burned it... nevertheless, doesn't sound exactly friendly to casuals and whatnot.
How are the death penalties defined? With such a system I would be even glad to have some form of permadeath + full looting, seems rather fitting when everything is so... permanent. (Kinda like a pen'n'paper, allowing creation of new characters that are about the 'level' of the one who died, so he can keep doing adventures... alas, I ramble).
www.MONGBAT.com
Warhammer Guild
If this all works out, this may be the MMORPG of my dreams. I always thought MMORPGS felt undynamic, in the sense that your actions have little consequence to the game world. That is why I could never stay with an mmorpg for very long, since it feels as if my every action is insignificant.
That's why I love single player rpgs, like Oblivion.
If this game can do what it says it can, then I have high hopes for it.
With all due respect for CoS developer, this is the kind of project that should be developed by Bioware or Bethesda.
I really hope that one of the 2 mentioned can take inspiration by this game concept.
But kudos to CoS, I hope you do well
PS: The graphic is really bad, hope you can sort this out, i think that will be your biggest challenge.
I mean at this moment is really, really, really unattractive, and I am kinda tolerant with bad graphics usually.
Sounds really nice ..... if the game succeeds it has really good chances to become the best .....and the first of a totally new type of games .
But as BlindShooter asked previously what happens when u die (does ur character go to heaven or hell) I mean does it get deleted (because if so this will be a major disadvantage) .
And what is the estimated size of the game ..........for the world sizes and characteristics u promissed i doubt it'll be anywhere under 20 GB
Btw Won't all this mean that the min requirements for the game to run smoothly will be huge ...... but still it will still be at least 5 more years from now on until the game is finished so maby these requirements won't seem that big than.
Good luck in developing the game ... I'll be looking forward to it
This game has potential you've oppened my apetite.