No dates, no “soon”. Work is ordered by what it depends on. One step of the order is decided: after the plots comes the world at full scale. Beyond that, the order is not set.
Built
Already standing IN GAME
- Accounts, character creation, movement and the map
- Round combat, spells, abilities, potions, fleeing
- Death, corpses, bank and vault
- Parties, protect chains, distribution modes
- Eight professions, guilds, quality, recipes
- Schools, traits, avatars
- Monster populations that wander and respawn
- A back office: world, formula and creation editors (content without code)
- The Clay Mound and the Oath: the story begins at character creation
- Mudbury, the first starting city, and the Burnt Coast north of it
- Equipment on a body in the bag window
- The Monsterpedia (your own book of the monsters you have met and the houses you have found) and inspecting monsters and NPCs
- An interface carried by pictures of dark iron and worn oak
- Mudbury’s people in the streets, guards on patrol and at the gates, and being Wanted
- The Clay Mound as holy ground, where no fight starts
- Quests from a quest board, guilds and townsfolk, a conversation with every NPC, and a logbook with your own quest statistics
- Companions: a mercenary to hire, or a townsperson won over with Charisma
- Player against player, dispositions, and crimes on one Wanted clock
- Rooms to rent or buy with a soulbound key, and a claim deep in the mine
The alpha line
Before testers arrive DECIDED
Alpha is when a small test group can create characters, walk a real first city and its surroundings, and try everything that is built, in the browser, phone included, with real accounts.
- Storage moved to a database
- Hosting, e-mail verification, password reset
- A small test group with real accounts
- Layout and palette work
- Player against player with dispositions, moved inside the line: its base is built, and which of the rest the line needs is not set
Testers will get more than the line asked for: the school network with Level Down, resting, tempo, block and parry, shop stock, avatars and inspection, the Monsterpedia, quests, companions and the first rooms of your own stood outside it, and are built. IN GAME
After the alpha
The larger game
- World building
After the plots, the world is extended to full scale, planned in detail before it is built: the Nordic continent north of the Burnt Coast, and more continents after it; what lies behind the blind roads; the older areas grown larger; the capital, Aurzem, not yet built or placed; more cities, bosses and metals. As a guide, an area is to carry about a third as many monsters as it has squares, a number easy to raise or lower with the number of players, and a city’s people are to drop low-value gear: at most one item each, and a little gold.
- Schools
Placing the 106 unplaced schools (the remaining base schools belong to other cities), writing their grey levels, the remaining abilities.
- Combat
Disarm, dual wielding, reactions, boss forms.
- Conflict
The base is built: dispositions, player against player and the Wanted clock. On it: disposition points from killing players of other dispositions and from quests, spent in a disposition tree of PvP skills and bonuses; each disposition’s own places, NPCs and schools; spells that work against players; bounties, renown, and items that help find Wanted players; clans and sieges.
- Plots and building
A plot is one or more squares with a holder: a player, or a clan once clans exist. The first plots are rooms and a mine claim. On top of them: houses or towers, at most one house per square; a lone player’s own small town, which might grow into the largest city in the game; forts, which clans build and are never simply given; letting a plot to another player. Fortifying, raiding and stealing wait on the heaviest open question: can a neutral player’s property be raided?
- Economy
NPC demand, dynamic prices, the trader profession, caravans.
- Travel
A scheduled ferry, teleports, continents. No water squares and no swimming.
- Record
The chronicle view, statistics, achievements, titles and a personal dashboard, and the Monsterpedia grown: a page of its own for each creature, with pictures, tabs per continent and a search.
- Interface
The bag window, the Monsterpedia and the Quests window in their own browser windows, as the map, log and hotbar already can be; shops, the bank and guilds with a look of their own.
- Fighters who are not players
Companions are built, and the rest builds on them: mercenaries hired from an NPC in a barracks, by the hour or for a set time, stronger in some cities than in others; tamed, raised and summoned creatures through their schools; companions you escort, who do not fight; more than one soldier once clans exist; city forces and NPC against NPC.
- Pets
A pet for nearly every kindred, a dog, a cat and so on, that carries loot and helps in fights. Pets are also to be bound to you, following you into death and reborn with you at the clay. How they will work is not fully thought out.
- Mudbury’s waiting houses
The rooms in the Lodging House, the quest board in the Market Hall and a hall in the Tavern are built. Still waiting: player shops in the Lodging House, the Harbour Office and the Archive, which stand empty, and perhaps the Town Hall for whoever holds the city.
- Quests and conversations
More kinds of goal, such as blocking a number of strikes or making an item; master quests, the tutorial party with NPCs, escort quests and pet chains. Conversations that tell of the lore and of areas you have not visited, add to your Monsterpedia or lift the fog of war, with your Charisma deciding how many choices you get and how the answers read.
- Chat and social lists
Private and global chat. Whether to add friends, enemy and ignore lists is open.
- Arena
Sanctioned PvP, lawful for everyone, neutral players included. Its rules are open.
- Companies and the farmer
NPC workers for passive income; a farm whose form is still open.
- Auction house
Waits for player shops, and perhaps clans. Categories and caps are open.
- Trait development
Traits earned by how you play, with race and background making some come easier.
- Music and sound
Music and sound are a goal for the game. What they will be like is not decided.
- More crafting
Melting metal gear back into ore at the smelter. Artifacts and unique crafted items are still ideas.
Engines first, then content: content is data, edited without code, so the world can grow fast. Every number is a placeholder until one balance pass sets them all. DECIDED
Dependencies
What waits for what
- Storage moved to a database → hosting → a test group can reach the game.
- Clans → plots and building → player shops, workshops, forts, clan territories → an auction house. The first rooms needed neither clans nor the raid question, since a room in a protected house cannot be raided; fortifying, raiding and stealing wait until that question is settled.
- Digging in the mine → a dug-out square can become a plot (both built) → houses, small towns and forts down there.
- Sieges and city control need three things at once: clans, plots and fighters who are not players. The first plots and companions are built; clans are not.
- City guards and the Wanted clock → player against player with dispositions (both built) → the disposition track and tree, bounties, the Arena, spells against players, items that help find Wanted players.
- NPC demand and moving prices → more cities → the trader profession → caravans, which also need fighters who are not players.
- Quests and the conversation window → a dialogue tree with Charisma choices → hiring, recruiting and taking a disposition as choices in it (all built) → conversations about the lore and unvisited areas, Monsterpedia knowledge, lifting the fog of war.
- Free-standing, waiting on nothing: private and global chat, social UI, the arena, companies and the farmer.
Arrows mean “unlocks”. Design can be settled at any point; only building has an order.
Never
Ruled out DECIDED
Not ruled out: instances and splitting the world, if ever needed. Still open: a policy on real-money trading, a paid character reset. IDEA