Crafting is usually an after-thought for many MMOs. For Epic Frontiers, it’s a large part of the gameplay experience.
Epic Frontiers has two tiers of crafting: Recipe-based crafting, and Generic crafting. Recipe-based crafting is exactly what the name says it is. Using recipes like many MMOs, you drag and drop your materials into the slots in the Crafting Panel and click the Create button and viola! You now have a new item.
It’s a simple system: A player obtains a recipe either from an NPC, as loot, or in other ways, and then obtains the items and/or materials needed. When all of the parts needed are in place, the player opens the Crafting Panel and drags and drops the materials into their appropriate slots, and then creates the items.
One feature not shown in the video is that of being able to also disassemble items. This allows for players to break down and modify certain items that allow it, repairing, upgrading and replacing parts from vehicles and weapons.
And as an equal partner in gameplay with combat and “soft skills”, crafting has its own set of skills which level upon successful use, like any other skill in the game. This allows for players to advance in skill level in the same way as a player who participates in combat to advance, and no combat is required in order to enjoy the game. We feel that this is something that many players have been waiting for, since most MMOs feel the need to relegate crafting to the back-seat of gameplay as a “secondary” profession or class and providing only combat archetypes for players to enjoy.
Epic Frontiers will supply players with the ability to make their own unique types of characters, whether that be a specialized blacksmith who never sees combat, a hybridized crafter/warrior, or a pure warrior who relies on the services of other players for the creation of gear.
And beyond the recipe-based crafting is another level that we call (uncreatively) “generic recipe” crafting. Generic recipes allow for parts made of various materials to be created. We all know that a sword consists of a hilt and a blade, and maybe a guard. But those components can be made of copper, iron, bronze, steel, wood, or even styrofoam (that bear you hit with it will just laugh at you though- before eating you). A generic recipe for a blade will allow you to provide virtually any material and make a blade from that. A generic recipe for a sword will then allow you to create a sword with a blade made from that material, and the crafting algorithm will compile stats for the item based on the materials and components.
There’s much more to the generic crafting than just that, but it requires a Part II of this article. Stay tuned…
Even with technology prevalent in a world like ours, many of us believe in magic. It gives us something mysterious to play with- something that can never be completely controlled or understood. And as with the real world, magic adds much to the depth of Epic Frontiers.
As with the rest of our Action System, all magic schools are created equal, so to speak. The reason for this is the lore which serves as the basis of the magic system. Magic, in the Epic Frontiers universe, is a single source of power with differing aspects. One aspect of magic involves the element of Fire, allowing one to manipulate it in various ways. Another aspect of magic is Death, which allow for even darker deeds to be done…
Magic is much more a mental talent than a physical one, and so when you use the magical abilities that you’ve learned, you’ll drain your Focus. Focus can be thought of as “mental endurance” in the same way as you have physical endurance. As you use melee skills in a fight, you slowly become exhausted. The same is true with magic. And just like physical skills, there is some overlap in the drain that it causes: Some magic requires draining some of your physical endurance, and some rare magic may require you to give up some health (and you want to use those spells sparingly- or else you’ll magic yourself right out of a fight).
We’re trying to keep things interesting, so we’ve also brought in several concepts familiar to those who have read anything about the realm of magic:
Rituals: Some magic is just too big for a single person, and through Skill Linking, players can create magic that is otherwise too powerful for a single person to wield. These kinds of things take time to cast, are usually easily stopped (you don’t want to do this in the middle of a melee), and drain large amounts of energy.
Amulets: What’s magic without amulets? Protective objects usually worn, though sometimes embedded in armor or weapons, amulets serve to ward off certain types of magic. Some amulets go beyond the realm of magic itself and protect against certain types of harm that the world itself may deliver, though these are rare and expensive.
Enchantments/Blessings/Curses: These terms all encompass the same basic act of casting a spell to modify the ability of a person or object to avoid or achieve certain states. Enchant an object to ward off magic or increase its magical damage or protection. Bless or Curse individuals or groups to protect or inflict suffering on them, or to remove a blessing or curse.
Artifacts: Artifacts are objects of heightened magical power, which can be tapped by the individual who possesses it. Mind you, not all artifacts are created equal- the most powerful ones can have very negative consequences for use! So don’t go waving around that blood-red crystal skull you just found until you find out more about what it does.
Libraries: I’ve cited this in previous blogs and I have to cite it again. That blood-red skull you found may need to have you utter something to it using the conversation system in order for it to work, and sometimes, libraries hold very valuable information. Knowledge is power- sometimes literally.
Schools: All of the above is nice, but where do you learn it? Well, in the various schools and cabals, of course. Some of these groups are altruistic and teach anyone, while other require allegiances and/or money to learn what they have to teach. Over the years, these groups have come to focus on a single “aspect” of magic, specializing and expanding their knowledge and expertise in that field. As a player, you can also specialize in a particular aspect if you like, or you can learn magic from several schools and build out a very special character.
I hope that whets your appetite. This isn’t the longest blog I’ve done here, but check out the Codex over the next week or two for an expanding look at magic from the perspective of the game world, including some of the magical “Aspects” that will be available in the game!
So, I was sitting in a somewhat small room in Vegas attending the IMGDC conference when a developer for a AAA MMO stood up and talked a bit to his fellow audience members about the challenges facing Independent developers looking to create MMOs. The problem, he said, is that content is expensive, and an MMO needs lots of content. Also, he added, “don’t fight us [AAA companies] on content, because you’ll lose”.
I disagree.
To clarify, content is really the hardest part of all this development. We’ve had features in for months, and the conversation system works, and has been getting revisions and improvements for a while now. At the risk of invoking Murphy’s Law here, I’ll state for the record that features are not the hard part in making an MMO! They just aren’t. In game development circles, the project is considered daunting due to the scale of the game once completed, but honestly, the features aren’t too much different from what you could find in a single-player RPG (ahem, the network code and architecture can be a bit rough though).
But take a walk through a city in your favorite MMO and take a good, hard, look around: Buildings, plants, NPCs, signs, tables, chairs, props of all kinds and the textures that love them- they’re all around in abundance. And then if you walk out into the woods- rocks, trees, plants, animals, streams, lakes, etc. That’s a lot of stuff, and it all had to get created by hand. Now, if you have any experience with Photoshop or even MS Paint and have created bitmaps from scratch before and know how much time it can take to create something of quality, take that experience and apply it to the gameworld. That’s a lot of work.
In terms of lightening the content load for a team, there’s just not a whole lot that can be done with that. The bigger your art budget, the more details you can cram in there. The smaller it is, the more you want to lean towards a stylistic approach (as we have with Epic Frontiers). We’ve skipped some polygons and gone with a style that we feel conveys the attitude of the game while also allowing us a realistic chance of creating content for it. But still, there’s a lot more that goes into the game than artwork.
Consider dialog, for example: Quests in any game require reams of paper worth of text. Our game wouldn’t be any different- actually, it is worse, with our NPC conversation system, we’re putting in dialog to cover fairly broad-ranging conversations by NPCs (in the beginning, we considered using canned dialog for the players too, but that was just way to unruly to be feasible, much less fun). In order to keep this under control, we’ve implemented some “generic dialog” which is similar to the generic dialog in real life. Sometimes, things just don’t need to be typed into the system twenty times by us. It gets tedious.
Some of the stuff I do on the other side of the DigitalFlux Entertainment house is tools creation. Specifically, I create a lot of tools that deal with generating procedural content. It’s a fancy name, but basically it means semi-random content. You set parameters and rules for the tool, and then it goes about either producing something that is random within the range of options given, or churning out every possible combination of those settings.
So, say you need swords: You know- “rusty copper sword”, “shiny copper sword”, “gleaming copper sword”, etc. But in addition to the varying names, you also need to vary the stats on the swords, which means that you can easily be entering a thousand variations of the sword into the database. Who the hell wants that job?? Not me- and I usually get stuck with it, being lead developer and all, so instead of spending days on that, I spend hours on tools to address the issue.
I can go into a lot of it technically, but that’s boring, so here’s the meat of the blog:
Missions: I have to say that I admire Anarchy Online for pulling off mission generation like they did. What we’ve done is taken that two levels higher and not only generate different missions that don’t all have to do with combat, but we also generate the dialog for the NPCs involved in that mission. We also generate those NPCs, as a point of fact- and everything it needs. It’s personality-based AI settings, it’s conversational, combat, and skill abilities, its inventory, its name (we can generate 24,000,000 unique Charkritian names for this purpose), and even its backstory. Then we drop it into the gameworld for you to do what you will with it (probably kill it, but do us a favor and chat him up first- makes us feel better about the work done on backstory generation).
Conversation: With the need to generate missions dynamically, we sort of had a problem- our NPCs talked. So we solved the issue by generating dialog for missions as well, and you’ll be able to tell when you talk to NPCs about the mission that they want to give you- it’s generated on the fly so that mission assignment is done by talking to NPCs and answering Yes when they ask you if you want to do something for them. Other “procedural” dialog includes dialog where the NPC informs the player about certain AI states (“I hate you, <player>” is probably a good example of what that looks like), and “templates” of dialog that relate to missions. It’s like giving an actor their lines while they’re on stage, right through their brain…
AI: One of the good things about the AI system we’ve developed is that it lends itself very well to procedural generation of NPCs. What we’re doing is developing modifiers to the attitudes of the people of a locale, region, or even a faction, but nudging various traits just slightly. The same thing happens when we account for gender, age, profession, and even backstory (you didn’t think Johnny Orc grew up the same way your paladin did, did you?). The result should be a varied and deep representation of the game world through NPCs who all see the world just slightly differently.
Instances: You’re going to have fun with these. While we’re on the content generation bandwagon, why not use it to supply the player with endless raid content? Generated and instanced “dungeons” (they’re not dungeons, but that’s neither here nor there) keep those who enjoy the grind of combat thrilled with areas created solely for them, and keep them challenged. And not all instances have to take place underground or indoors- but that’s something for a later blog…
Points of Interest: Another method for providing content are Dynamic Points of Interest (POIs). POIs are areas in the game world that call out to the gamer (or maybe scream to the gamer in a blood curdling way) to resolve a particular issue. The POI is not always there, like running into a strange traveler on a lonely road who sends you careening on an epic quest that you had no expectation of going on (the best kind!). Of course, that stranger isn’t always going to be on that road, or be that stranger, or send you on that quest. And sometimes, the event you witness is something strange, rare, and worthy of some story telling of your own…
As development continues, we’ll be exploring all of these kinds of dynamic content in more depth, so keep a sharp eye out!
For our design meetings, we come up with scenarios that we want the player to play out, and then we talk about how the NPCs can also play out their parts. This is probably the hardest part about the game to get right- AI is a tricky thing, even in single-player games, but toss a few hundred AI in with a few hundred players, and there’s no telling what will happen!
In particular, we developed a system which allowed player conversations with NPCs, which opens up a large field of possibilities in gameplay, such as espionage and “intrigue” missions. In order for those missions to work, the player must be able to get close to certain NPCs, gain their trust, make them believe certain facts, or wait for the right moment to betray them. The easy way would have involved a series of “fed-ex” quests which were pre-scripted where the player would be directed to the NPC they need to gain the trust of, who would then tell the player “well, I’ll trust you with my life if you can go gather 10 rusty bolts from those wandering mechanical things”. Once the player returned the bolts, they get sent back to another NPC who says “ah, the bolts- great idea, he trusts you. Go bring this letter to him”. And after dropping off the letter, the deed is done. The player almost feels accomplished. Almost…
The problem is that in that example, the player didn’t do any real convincing other than to bring things to the NPC. There’s no chance for failure or setback outside of simply choosing not to drop off the loot to the NPC (maybe you wanted those bolts for yourself- I’m not judging). It’s such a clichéd way of doing things that the term “fed-ex quest” is widely used for it. So we came up with another way of doing that scenario:
The player is assigned the mission of gaining the trust of a diplomat in order to convince them of a certain fact that they currently do not believe. The fact is given to the player as a piece of dialog that the player can “give” to the diplomat NPC, much like the above mission with the letter. However, when the player approaches the diplomat, the player uses the Interrogative system to begin talking with the NPC. The conversation goes well until the player throws the fact in their face right after saying hello, prompting the diplomat to state disbelief and walk away. Nice job, Bond! Obviously, the NPC will need a bit more persuading than saying “Hi!”. The player goes back and talks to the NPC further, and about different subjects like the diplomat’s homeland. The diplomat asks the player about whether he agrees with certain opinions, which the player reassuringly says Yes. After building a rapport with the NPC, the player then uses the dialog given to him, and the diplomat accepts the fact and viola! Mission Accomplished!
So what? That can just be scripted, can’t it? Sure, if every diplomat had the same personality. But to keep the game interesting, maybe the next time you get the mission, the diplomat isn’t keen on talking to people and as you have conversations, they grow weary and walk away. In that case you’d need to have multiple conversations to build up trust before you can unload your sentence on them and win the day. Another scenario is a player who crafts goes out and mines some ore to bring to an NPC vendor. The vendor is usually sour with other players, but this particular player has engaged the NPC in smalltalk conversations so many times that the NPC likes the player, and gives him a discount.
Scripted reactions only get you so far, and so we came up with an AI system based on the following personality traits:
Altruism: The extremes of this trait range from Predatory (don’t turn your back on him) to Sacrificial, it helps determine how likely an NPC is to work with you or against you.
Openness: Ranging from the Hermit (Git off ma’ land!) to the Exhibitionist (no, it’s not that kind of game), it plays a role in things like how willing to talk or share information an NPC is.
Discipline: Uncontrolled on one extreme, and Obsessive on the other, discipline helps the NPC stay focused (or not) on tasks.
Dominance: Some NPCs can be Inferior, while others are downright oppressive, and this trait plays a part in aggressiveness both in word and deed.
Sensitivity: At one end of the spectrum, the NPC is Unfeeling, while at the other Unstable, this trait helps determine how “reactive” the NPC is.
Trust: Ranging from the need to Discredit other opinions to absolute Reliance on opinions, the Trust trait plays a role in how much an NPC sticks to his guns when confronted with someone who believes differently.
Using those six traits, we can get a pretty good spectrum of personalities, but there’s something missing. When an NPC experiences something, sometimes their personalities change- sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Emotion plays a part in the progression of an NPCs trait from one part of the “spectrum” to another:
Anger: From Blissful to Raging, this shows how, well…angry… an NPC is.
Fear: On one end, the NPC is Daring, and on the other, a Phobic, quivering mass of digital jelly.
Disgust: Revering someone or something at one extreme, and Revolted by it at the other.
Of course, Epic Frontiers won’t have those variables visible- it would take away the cool factor of having a joke backfire on an NPC and having them end the conversation with you. But here’s some of the benefits of the AI:
Each NPC will have a “memory” of what you talked about with them and how it made them “feel”.
NPCs will have a persistent “emotional” memory of players they encounter. Be consistently bad to that NPC merchant, and you may find yourself without a vendor.
Espionage and Intrigue missions where gaining trust is essential to infiltrating areas and groups. For this, we’re developing a range of “Soft Skills” to aid the player.
Video of this in action will be coming up in a few weeks when we start showing off the conversation system. There are also a number of features of the AI that are too early on to talk about, so stay tuned for more information!
Our last blog talked about fixing the MMO genre from the ground up, and skimmed over several points which we think can help bring about a more in-depth experience. There’s a term for the level of interactivity that a game has:
Interactive Fidelity (iFi)
Interactive Fidelity means the same thing to game interaction as High Fidelity means to sound: It’s all about quality. The more iFi your game has, the more you are able to do in the game. Super Mario Bros? Not much Interactive Fidelity (all you can do is run, jump, and throw fireballs to interact with the world). Grand Theft Auto? Significantly more Interactive Fidelity available there.
Some MMOs provide for books that can be read within the game. At least one provides lore within the books found laying open on tables in castles, and others provide the books only by purchasing them through a vendor. These are good ways to improve Interactive Fidelity. In Epic Frontiers, information plays a crucial role in some missions, and to that end, while books and scraps of readable information can be found throughout the world, there are some specific structures we’ve created specifically to hold information that players may need. We call it a library…
It's the small building back there. Squint for it!
Libraries will play critical roles in missions where information needs to be found and delivered to NPCs (or even to other characters). This follows what we wrote about in our last blog about the Action System- even information is an object, and why let an opportunity pass where you can play with information in the game! And that leads us to not only being able to read the information in the books, but to be able to “log” that information, and pass it along to, say, an NPC who is waiting for that information in order to make a decision about something.
Let’s say that NPC is a Charkritian Magistrate who is considering whether to imprison or free someone accused of theft. The Magistrate knows that his information is limited, and needs a specific piece of information from another NPC in order to make a decision. That NPC, however, if afraid to talk, for some reason. Using the conversation system, you engage the NPC in small-talk and gain his trust, at which point you then ask about the theft. To your surprise (or not), the NPC tells you that it was someone else that committed the crime. Being the good Charkritian citizen that you are, you log that information from the conversation and bring it to the Magristrate, who promptly releases the innocent man and sends the law after the true thief. Yay! Information has saved the day!
Another way that we’ve tried to push the level of iFi to new heights is with Skill Linking. While going over scenarios we wanted to represent, we came upon several that vexed us- most MMOs don’t have a good mechanism for teamwork. In a scenario where five party members come upon a boulder blocking an entrance which requires a strength level of 150 to move it, and where the party members’ skill levels for strength are 30, 20, 50, 40, and 35, the situation becomes one of typing “LFG STR LVL 150!” into the zone channel window instead of surmounting the problem. Within the context of the gameworld, the characters should be able to move that boulder if they just pooled their strength and all pushed on it at once.
And that is how Skill Linking was born. The first player approaches the boulder and tries to move it, getting a failure notification. Undeterred, the player then clicks on the Link Skills button, and selects the skill that they want help with. An icon appears to nearby players stating “<Character Name> asks for help using <Skill Name>!”. Once players approach the one needing help, they get presented with a dialog asking if they want to link their skills and help. For this scenario, it means that the five characters pool their strength and move the boulder- and they each have their skill levels for strength automatically incremented, just like any other skill they use.
It’s a simple game mechanic that is allowing Epic Frontiers to bring teamwork to a number of otherwise solo-style skills. Some magic skills will require Skill Linking in order to work, and sometimes, your crafting skills aren’t up to snuff and you need someone to help you craft them special brownies that help you recover your endurance faster (we’re making no judgments about what you’ve put in those things- as a matter of fact, we simply don’t want to know). And going further down the road is using Skill Linking for combat- and while I would tip our hand here, I’ll have to digress by saying that we have some interesting ideas for that as well.
Interactive Fidelity is a mouthful as a term- even in it’s “iFi” form, but the gameplay mechanics that it represents promises a much better experience for you gamers out there!
Next week’s blog will feature the AI that we’re putting into the NPCs- and the gameworld itself. Stay tuned!
