Citadel of Sorcery

Design
 
  • That's a difficult question to answer in anything less than many pages. Still, I'll try to give you a quick list of short points:

    * The world is alive, not static. Time moves forward, each day the game is different.

    * Your character has their own unique story

    * The world has a progressing Epic story.

    * Monsters have varying intelligence so that you cannot use the same tactics in every battle.

    * There are no character classes, instead Players have an almost unlimited number of configurations for progression.

    * Players get to select from ALL abilities in the game, rather than be stuck with what is given.

    * Quests are wonderful adventures in which you are the key character.

    There is so much more, but you can read other more specific questions and answers to get more details if you like.

  • Heck no! Let's look at it this way, in my opinion, a good book is not hard to read, in fact, it's harder to read a bad book. The quality of the story, the delivery and pacing, the realism of the characters, these all make reading a good book easy.

    The same holds true for a game with the depths of story and plot that Citadel of Sorcery will deliver.

    We will not throw a new player into the deep end and say, "OK, swim." Instead, we've concentrated the design of our game to have two philosophies. The first is variable pacing.

    This means that we will introduce new things in a measured and meaningful manner, and the pacing of that training and introduction is completely up to the player.

    This means if you need us to hold your hand and teach you step by step, the game will do so. On the other hand, if you are an old hand at MMORPGs, and want to get right onto killing things, etc., feel free. The Training system can be skipped, accelerated and best yet, you can put it off and come back to do it later if you choose.

    But there is more to this issue than training and tutorials, so the second philosophy, varying types of game play choices for the player.

    Citadel of Sorcery offers a plethora of game play opportunities. Sometimes you might feel like an in depth story driven adventure, by yourself, and another time with friends. The game spends equal effort on single player and group adventures. We don't force you to group up... ever. We offer it to you if you want it.

    But what if you don't want an in depth story driven adventure? What if you just want to wander around the world? Well, wander. In Citadel of Sorcery, the world is an ongoing changing place. If you wander around you will run into new situations. Look, Bob's farm is under attack by a killing party out of No-Man's-Land... do you want to help Bob? Do you want to let him handle it on his own? Episodes like this are happening in real time all over the place, it is up to you if you want to get involved or not.

    Still not convinced? What if you want to just mindlessly kill things (like all other MMORPGs), well, feel free. You can always enter a place like the Dark Forest, or Dead Man's swamp. Once inside, you are bound to be attacked. Or, if you head into the war zone, No-Man's-Land, you WILL become part of the ongoing battles.

    Don't want to fight mindlessly? Don't want a story driven plot adventure? Don't want to get involved in the local problems? Fine, get a writ from the Menagerie and go monster trapping. Or, bounty hunting for that escaped criminal.

    Not feeling like any kind of conflict? All right, there is exploring to do in one of the largest worlds ever created. Not only large, but with a deep history that is relevant today. You could go hunting ancient artifacts for the Museum, or seek some powerful weapon or armor from the bygone days of the Human/Demon wars.

    Still too much for you tonight? Want some simpler entertainment? OK, then how about hanging out in the Citadel and catching a theater performance put on by other players? Or, go gambling at the casinos. Don't want to lose your hard earned gold pieces? Play some non-gambling card games. Or, get up on a soap box and talk to the crowd. Or, hang out at the bath house in your toga, or get your character's real future fortune told.

    Need some more things to do? Enjoy some music and dancing, or visit the University to plan out the progress of your character, there are always some councilors to help you.

    Want more to do? How about a real time auction where you can inspect the objects then bid in person in real time against other player's present?

    Want to prove your character is better than your buddies? Take him on in the Coliseum, or watch other PVP bouts there and bet on them.

    What? Still need more choices? How about solving a mystery? Spying on the enemy? Hang out at your Guild house.

    You get the idea now? Citadel of Sorcery offers many ways to enjoy yourself in the world, you choose what kind of game play you want to experience tonight, and we will deliver.
  • That's an interesting question, and one that we have spent a lot of time thinking about. To answer it let's first look at what types of MMORPGs are currently out there. I see these types:

    1) Sand Box: This is a static world with set things to play with that always return back to the same condition. Example: Monsters typically stay in their 'grid' and once you kill them they pop back there a few minutes later. There is little to do with any kind of story, plot or continuity. Kill, kill, kill, and it all resets back as if you did nothing; only your character changes. This is the typical grind type game play. Why a Sand Box? Well, since there is no linear or other structured adventure, players are given a world in which they just go in and 'play' with what is there. Some players define this as a make your own adventures kind of game, but still it is a world that has features for use, but not stories you follow.

    2) Linear Plot: This is a preset story that you follow through. Think of it as a Halloween Haunted house. You follow the single path through, and see the same things in the same order as everyone else that went through.

    3) PVP (Player vs. Player): A world where you can attack and fight other players. Typically these are popular because the game play in other typical MMOs is boring, so you want the danger of being hunted by a live player.

    4) Player Built: A game where players spend most of their time building the world, own structures and businesses. They work in shops, tend bars, etc.

    5) Economic: A game where you buy and sell to get ahead. Like playing a trader going from port to port. Buy low, go where your stock is scarce, and sell high. This also includes crafting your own items and selling them. Many Space MMOs make their fun this way.

    At the core of their game all the current big MMOs fit into one of these categories, though they may certainly have overlap and some elements of the others.

    The core game play of Citadel of Sorcery does not fit into any of these five categories. Our game is really a Living ongoing story world, where you are the main character in your own story, traveling through the big unfolding events of the world. It is closer to a Sand Box, but not really that because there is structure to the Epic Story, yet the player forges their own destiny, not following each and every other player like a Linear plot game.

    In essence, you are living through your own epic fantasy novel, creating the flow of the story through your choices and actions. Yet you live in a world that has an ongoing Epic Story.

    Like other MMOs, we do overlap a little into some of these other categories, but the core of our game is a living changing story, unique to each player's personal story. It is not linear because you could not post your story on the net and clue some other player as to what to do, that is quite impossible. Their story will be completely different than yours.

    So our core game play is very different, but we do overlap a little into each of the standard five, let's look at how:

    1) Sand Box: Though our world is not static, like a sand box, when you want to go out and just kill things, there are areas where you can go. When you want to get back to your story, it's your choice, that story continues whenever you want. You cannot run out and it is not the same linear path of another player.

    2) Linear: Though your personal story is unique to your character, there are some BIG events in the world that will be true for everyone. Think of it this way, events like whole armies attacking regions of the land are the same for everyone, what your character does is completely up to you, and different than what any other player may do at that time.

    3) PVP: Though you will not be fighting other players during quests, we do offer a cool way to test yourself against another live player (or players). You can challenge anyone to a bout in the Coliseum, or your Guild can challenge another Guild. Other players can watch these bouts and even wager on the outcome. Even the contestants can wager on their bout.

    4) Player Built: Players don't own structures and businesses in Citadel of Sorcery, but they can own a physical location... their Guild Hall or their own house. They can modify these locations to make them personal.

    5) Economic: Though we certainly aren't an economics based game, there are always economics in any kind of organized world. Therefore, you can buy and sell, as well as create, improve and gamble for riches. There is plenty of opportunity for our kind of crafting and commerce.

    So in conclusion, Citadel of Sorcery is offering a very unique kind of game play, true RPG gaming in an MMO world that is not static, but moves on through time, every single minute.

    You'll never know what is about to happen, unless you are there to take part. It's always your choice whether you take part in a changing living world.
  • Citadel of Sorcery is a game where time moves along. Every day, every hour even every minute, time is moving on and the game world is changing. Anytime you go to a place you have been to before, it will likely be different, and sometimes extremely different. Every NPC in the world lives a life. None of them stand in the same place saying the same thing day and night, like most other MMORPG games.

    A 'Static' world means that no matter what day it is, and no matter what you as a player do, nothing will ever change. The exact opposite is true in CoS. Every day is different, what you do matters now, and to your future as a player.

    If you take on a quest from an NPC it was offered just to you, though they can join you on the quest. The NPC that gave it to you won't offer that same quest to other players.
  • CoS is a fantasy world. This means magic, sorcerers, spells, warriors, dragons, and all such things. However, CoS is NOT a Tolkien world. No Elves, Dwarves, Goblins, etc. This is a new fantasy world with its own history, races, monsters, etc. And unlike other Fantasy motif games, the Epic story of CoS unfolds as you play, rather than something you read about and then ignore.
  • The answers to this is that we are building what we believe is the largest Fantasy gaming MMO world in existence. 900,000,000 square kilometers, to be precise. This world will contain MANY types of terrain, with villages, caves, castles, towns, cities, outposts, dungeons etc.

    If you started your character walking across this world, and did not use any magical means of transportation, you would likely still not have seen the same area twice.

    Will all this land be developed and available at release? Heck no. It will exist, and you could walk it, but many portions of this world will be pure wilderness at release. The adventure areas will be in territories, and we will continue to develop and open up these new territories as time goes on... but the world terrain, the whole thing, will exist on release.

    This is only possible because of the technology behind the creation of our world. We are using what we fondly nicknamed, the 'Genesis Tool' to create this amazingly detailed and beautiful terrain. This is one of the last pieces of technology that we are still currently developing. But testing and construction has begun... the Genesis Tool is coming! For now we use a more standard terrain as 'placeholder' for when the new system comes in to replace it all.
  • There will be lots of NPC organizations. Many of these will become part of a particular player's interaction in the world. These exist on many levels.

    A simple example is rapport with shop owners. If a player sells good items to that shop, the owner will 'get to know' the player and start offering them special deals on items not normally displayed.

    A different example is a cult. A player may run a foul of some cult and do something to piss them off. Therefore, this cult will start actively working against the player. Quests that the player goes on will tend to feature this cult as part of the story. Other players may not have involvement with this cult at all, but instead have interaction with other cults.

    Another example: when players help villages, they will remember them and give the player benefits, if the player ran out on the village when it was in need, they may be hostile to this player.

    There is more to this, but you should get the idea from this example.
  • There is an element of classic styles in our system. There are five leagues: Magic, Spirit, Heroes, Marksman and Shadow.

    Each of these offers some specific types of abilities. Example: The Shadow League offers: stealth, tracking, information gathering, traps. But they are not thieves or rogues. In fact, the Shadow League are those that still follow the prior ruler of the Citadel... the Enchantress, who was thrown down long ago, and all memory of her name removed. Under the city, her followers hide in the Shadows and seek to bring the Citadel back from the dark rule of the evil sorcery.

    Each League has their Ability sets, and a character can join any League at any time, even more then one at a time if they wish. There are costs involved, but no restrictions. In this way a player can get a tracking Ability from the Shadow League, a two-handed attack Ability from the Hero's League, a bow Ability from the Marksman League and whatever else they wish to create their own unique character.

    There are no classes, just abilities to learn. However, the game does offer the University. There, if you don't feel like figuring out a plan to build your own custom character class, you can seek out a University Cadre, and they will give you a plan on how to become that Cadre.

    So is a Cadre just another name for a Class? Ah... no. Cadres are a list of Abilities that would make your character similar to a certain 'Class' in another game, the difference is that you don't have to follow that curriculum. You an use some or all of it. You could get 80% of the recommended Abilities for that Cadre, but choose to vary the other 20% to whatever you choose. Because you are not locked into any set of Abilities in a Cadre, they are not like the 'Classes' of other games, and so we don't call them that, we call them 'Cadres'. Example: A Cadre might be Battlemage. You could follow their recommendations and become a Battlemage... or you could follow most, but alter some of the choices. Or you can just figure out what you want to be on your own and go get those Abilities. It's all up to you. Cadres just help you move toward a goal in a general way.
  • We make the ultimate use of instancing. When you go on a quest by yourself or with a group of up to eight players, the entire world you enter is an instance. There are areas you spend time in that are massive multi player, but all questing is done in an instance.

    There is a simple but compelling reason we chose to make the game this way, our goal was to create the best quest system possible. In order to make the quest personal to your character or group, we had to instance the quest world. This will be populated by your NPC friends and enemies. It will have the organizations that you befriended or alienated. It will have in depth quests of extraordinary detail that would be impossible if some other players wandered through.

    However, it is easy to go in and out of the instance, and bring in or remove players from your group. Truth be told, while on an adventure in most MMOs, the other people are more of a hindrance than a help. They kill the guy you are after, take the thing you need, wipe out the monsters so you have to wait for them to 'pop' back into existence (there are no popping monsters in CoS). The maximum number of players on an Adventure, Group Mission or Personal Quest is eight. On the flip side, you may have to face large numbers of monsters opponent groups. We can offer this because we know we won't have to handle too many players in one location.

    We are also exploring the idea of allowing Raids for special war campaigns. This would allow some number of player groups to all go into a Reflected World together to fight in larger war campaigns. Guilds could form a Raid and go together, or players could join a Citadel run Campaign (if they don't belong to a Guild). When you want human interaction in even greater numbers you can portal to the MMO area and there you can interact, gamble with, battle in the arena, socialize, group up, and do a host of other activities. But when it's time for that big quest grab your group and head into your own Reflected World, a world built just for your fun.

    This way, CoS offers the social interactions of an MMO, without the annoying parts, and the best part of an RPG game, great stories and quests, all together in one fun package.
  • The game environment is fully capable of handling flying mounts. Our engine is so robust that you can go virtually anywhere and look at anything. Many game engines have to hide the rest of a city by keeping you down inside the streets so you 'don't see to much at once'. In our game, you can climb on the roofs if you want, look out across the entire city, see thousands of light sources during night time, etc.

    I mention all this to show you that flying would not be an issue to the mechanics of our game. We ARE going to have flying mounts, but not necessarily in the way of other MMO games. Our stories are so much more interesting than 'quests' in typical MMOs that we don't want to ruin them by having flying mounts (where players can easily just fly over every obstacle). We also don't want the cheesy flying mounts of some games (where you just hover barely off the ground). Therefore, flying will be something you do at appropriate times, and will be under your control... at those times. But there are also times when the quest needs you to slog your way through the ambushes, clues, attacks and other elements. At those times you won't be flying.
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