Gameplay

What are our gameplay and system focuses?

  • An emphasis on grouping with one or more other players

  • Slower player progression with an emphasis on the leveling journey

  • Open world design with varied levels ranges in each zone, rather than a linear theme park progression

  • “Camping” and pulling in shared zones, rather than running instanced dungeons

  • Combat emphasizing preparedness, tactics, and decision making over actions per minute and optimal rotations

  • An emphasis on discovering, engaging with, and betraying NPC factions

  • A similar fluid approach to player engagement with religion and the gods

  • A large variety of trade skills that tie into factions, player guilds, and player housing

  • Spawns, foraging, harvesting, and other discoveries that consider time of day, day of the week, lunar cycle, seasons, and similar variables

  • Text-based interaction with the world using dozens of verbs

What are our design tenets?

Nostalgia, Familiarity, Timelessness

  • Highly referential of classic fantasy themes, tropes, stories, media, and 70s-80s rock album covers

  • An art style that leverages the modern engine, but allows the imagination to fill in the blanks

  • A world filled with places, races, and classes that feels familiar, yet unpredictable

Simple, Deliberate Gameplay

  • Simple, streamlined, strategic combat; reminiscent of classic era MMOs

  • Slower gameplay and progression pacing

  • Persistence and ongoing involvement with the world and other players that pays off over time

Community, Identity, and Reliance

  • Adventuring & community are the heart of the game, with a focus on single group activities and social experiences

  • Classes & skills are designed to feel familiar, with distinct identities and interdependence

  • Even solo play ties into a greater/communal purpose

  • World & starting city designs focus on longevity and long-term utility in order to maintain social friction and mitigate generational stratification

World is Living, Layered, and Mysterious

  • A focus on scheduled and ever-changing content and NPC behaviors

  • Using time, seasonality, factions, and relationships to maintain a ongoing sense of mystery and discovery

  • Many systems are stripped of hand-holding and overt explanation

  • A focus on providing discoverable and unique ways to interact with the world and other players over time