Just found out about this game last night, looks like it'll be an awesome game. Been waiting for a game like this. Everything will be player created, even NPCs and quests. It uses scripting to run things like shops and spells, mob behaviour, etc., that you can write yourself or download from their Script Marketplace. It'll have a main world but players will be able to start their own worlds as well. These worlds also have to be maintained, if all the Obelisks fade out, the world is no longer inhabitable and the world will reset. So a player could act as the Evil Overlord trying to end the world and unless someone can stop him, Game Over. Gives purpose to the ultimate griefers and a way to stop them so it satifies many types of players. All characters also stay in the world even when you log out, so your guy could get killed in his sleep if he's not somewhere safe. There are over 16 different creatures you can control, Humans are just the first of them. Humans are the basic laborers, Wolves travel in packs, Undead can infect other creatures, etc. Think I've said enough, could go on for a long time, just so excited about this game, check it out and pledge so it can be even better. When it does finally come out I'll make myself a pack of wolves.
Here's a quote about the game:
We are developing an online HTML5 tile-based MMORPG called 'Topia Online'. It features many things that our company has always wished an online game would contain. Here is the feature list: - A fully player-run world, where every creature is controlled by players. - A powerful crafting system that allow players to create homes or dungeons. - Dynamic procedurally generated sandbox world with no 'safe zones'. - Every character is always 'logged in', resulting in a true persistent world. - Play as any creature in the game, including wolves, vampires, or dragons. - Built-in scripting system allows players to create artificial intelligence. - Support for thousands of scripted characters on a single game server. - Fully customizable game interface allows players to play the way they want.
We just launched our Kickstarter, so if this sounds cool, check us out:
There's always a group of MMO players who say they want these kinds of things, but I wonder if they'll actually like it once they get it. The whole thing sounds like a playground for griefers. "No safe zones", "always logged in", stiff penalties for death (whether your fault or due to the aforementioned griefers). I hope it's as great as you anticipate, but it sounds like a nightmare to me. :)
It reminds me a little of back when I would play MUDS... there where computer controlled oponents but mostly you faced off against other players. More importantly players made all the institutions, so if you joined a clan it was because somebody said YES and you had completed quests that the leader made up for you. It was fun... it was also like 1999.
Hopefully most griefers will probably be hunted down and killed, with the bounty sytem and the ability to track them down. If they keep at it they'll keep losing all their points. Once they don't have any influence or monster points left, all they will have is a basic human with no skills and they'll have to earn enough points to do much of anything again. Griefers can't afford to keep dying in this game, unlike most games where you still keep your skills, and only some make you lose all your loot. And the death penalty is only for your main guy or any race that uses skill and influence, he could have hirelings to protect him and monsters are supposed to be killed but have respawn areas, unless you destroy the respawn area.
Once cities are established it will provide relatively safe areas for players, possibly will have guards that attack anyone who attacks someone within the city walls, possibly taking them to a jail cell, where that character will stay unless something is done with them, but there is always the suicide option but with the same death penalty. And as players get stronger, it will be harder for griefers to kill them unless they want to risk losing everything they have. They could capture the griefers and throw them into an arena where they will then have to fight for their survival. This isn't WoW where you can grief all day and not worry about the consequences.
I've also read that some creatures reproduce by killing other people, spiders will drag you back to their lair, if you get killed by an undead, your character now becomes one of thier undead minions, so a plague of zombies cause happen. But I think the death penalty isn't as harsh for monster deaths. So if a player playing a monster kills you, you may not lose so much, though your character will still probably have to start over, you just won't lose as much influence, to soften the blow of dying to NPC type characters, even if they are player controlled. So even if your human hirelings die, all you need to do is make more even though that will probably cost influence, just not as much as dying will, it's only if your main characters die that you lose influence.
If you imagine that the people playing the game will be like real-life people, in that they basically want to do the right thing, then what you describe may come to pass. But my experience online has been that games like this attract people who enjoy operating in a rules-free environment, precisely because in other games the rules prevent them from doing whatever they want to their annonymous virtual victims. People who want to be nice to each other are off playing games that have rules.
I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm dumping on something you're excited about. I hope you're right and the game turns out to be super fun.
I just wanted to say... I play DAYZ or played DAYZ since I have not jumped in for a while.
That game has a reputation for being a magnet for awful people, because it is a world without rules open for near infinite griefing. Yes, you get bandits and worse still.. hackers. But the human element makes it amazing. Not only do you see displays of human cruelty, but also human ingenuity, human error and human compassion.
Here is an example of mine that involves all of the above: I heard two people chatting in voice chat so I figured I would rob them. From the top of a school I took pot shots at two guys in a supermarket and listened to them yell and freak out and fire in random directions trying to find me. Eventually I went around and was able to sneak in... at this point my choices where to fight 2 (or more?) guys... or try to make friends. I yelled out "friendly" and they responded so we started talking. The first thing they warned me about after some extensive trading and me healing a gall who had a zombie break her leg? "Whatch out, there is a creep out there trying to get us". Yeah, I played both roles in the span of 5 minutes.
Hopefully a richer game like Topia can provide moments like that which only happen when you put humans in a world together and let them do whatever they want.
There will be a new video soon that should answer a lot of questions about the game, I've also heard the new video will have better graphics than the previous ones as it's made from more recent updates. They're also releasing the Combat sandbox scenario soon. The video should be out tomorrow or so, not sure the timeframe on the combat scenario though.
I've also heard it will take a while to get the combat and murder skills, think I heard like 3 days for the murder skill so you can't just go around killing people right off the bat. But possibly sooner if influence is pooled to the character from others. Josh has said there will be about 900 skills/traits, though only about 300-500 at first (not sure if that's the beta number or launch number), each costing 100 influence each. You start at one point in the grid and can only unlock the skills/traits adjacent to you, then continue out like that, only able to get things adjacent, so could take a while for the more advanced skills/traits.
I've also heard there is no HP or real stats in this game, it's based off your skills/traits. But there is injury and bleeding, you can also make poisons with the right skill. Heard they haven't quite figure how to implement poisons without HP though. Combat in this game should be interesting.
Things as they are currently are subject to change though so we won't truely know how the game will be until it's released.
Here's the most recent video. The graphics in this one are still in an alpha stage, Josh was working with filters, shaders, and other things and posted the video before the Lead Artist even got a look at the changes, this change is to improve the ability for the animations, which I guess would have been hard with just the pixels. We also get a look at a small portion of the skill grid, it seems to have skills for pretty much everything and it's not even the full grid. They are planning on posting a skill planner with the entire skill grid so people can plan ahead on the skills they want to get.