Ok, so we've prodded the hornet's nest with the last blog or two... People are needing a thorough explanation of just what Malevolence is, and what it will mean... So here are your answers!
The standard explanation we've given in the past is this:
Malevolence wrote: Malevolence: The Sword of Ahkranox is an indie game with the intent to recreate the amazing turn-based, first person RPGs from the golden age of PC gaming using modern game engine technology. Rich classics such as the Might & Magic series, Eye of the Beholder and the like have inspired this new title which, when finished will put its players into a literally infinite fantasy world filled with procedurally generated content. The Sword of Ahkranox isn't trying to compete with the larger, professionally developed RPG titles out there, but instead our aim is to fill a large gap that we believe has existed in game technology since the mid-nineties. It is definitely a must-have for all enthusiasts of the quintessential RPG. The game's procedural engine can generate an infinite number of weapons, items, spells, monsters, dungeons, cities, countryside and even dialogue, allowing the player to explore the game with no end and no reason to stop.
But a lot of people don't quite understand what we mean by that, or the implications of what we're achieving here...
As explained in the last blog entry, Malevolence is infinite. However, at the same time, Malevolence is NOT randomly generated. The entire, infinite world is persistent. What do we mean by that? We mean that when you start a new game, if you're standing next to a castle and you walk north for fifty million miles, then east for 50 million miles, then re-trace your steps back to where you started, that same castle will still be there. The world doesn't shift and change or have any cheats like that to make it work. It is as persistent as the in-game worlds of your other favourite RPGs such as Skyrim or Dragon Age. The only difference is that there are ZERO world borders. You can keep going forever.
Yep... There are no limits to that horizon...
We've had a few complaints from people saying "but we'd prefer a randomly generated world so that everyone can have their own gameplay experience!" but the fact is, you can! We know that it's a little odd because it's a new gaming concept, but if you want to have a different game world to your friends, you can just go to a new part of the world (it's infinite) and explore to your heart's content! There is literally NO END to the world.
Now, another thing we need to point out is that everyone who plays Malevolence will experience the SAME infinite game world. Do we mean it's an MMORPG? No, we most certainly do not. What we mean is that the in-game world is the same for everyone who plays it. Just like everyone who plays Skyrim gets the same game world. Malevolence's game world is infinite, but everyone will still experience the same world. If you find something really cool - an underwater ruin for example - you can give the co-ordinates to a friend of yours who has the game and they can go and find it! Getting tired of the world map? You can jump through one of the underground chaos portals and be flung to a new place in the world (but be careful, as it could be dangerous!)
How does the game deal with an infinite world? I mean... A planet only has a limited surface area, right? Well actually, the in-game world is a construct of the imagination of the magical Sword of Ahkranox, and so is not actually a planet :-) the game has a very intricate mythos that our writing team has been working VERY hard on, and we're sure you'll love it.
Bae-Aern is a central character in the game's history...
But how does an infinite game handle something like a story or quests? Surely you'd run out of things to do eventually?
Not so! The story is a very open, fluid part of the game that the player generates as they go, but there is a rich, deep and long history that they can discover as they play by finding old tomes around the place. As your fame increases, people who live in the world start hearing tales about you and it is reflected in the way they deal with you.
Every single quest in the game is generated by the procedural engine, which can generate an infinite number of them. Some quests are very short, e.g. "I lost my uncle's dagger in that dungeon, but it's too dangerous to go and get it! Please help me!" whereas others are quite convoluted, multi-tiered and long, for example having to trace the footsteps of a murderer across multiple towns, quiz people for information and find clues. Some will involve the town you're in, or places nearby to it, others will require traveling great distances to achieve your goal.
But in an infinite world, that's a hell of a lot of walking... We've thought of that, too! There are various ways to fast-travel in the game, though you're quite welcome to walk if you prefer (you never know what you'll find!)
The main source of travel in the game is via the Mages Guild. Every guild has their own portal, and they regulate travel via portal magic quite heavily. Each Mages Guild's portal is linked to various other towns' Mages Guild portal. Think of them like the Waygates in Freelancer (maaaan that was an awesome game. If Malevolence ends up being half as good a game as that, we'll be happy)
Earlier we mentioned Chaos Gates. These are illegally created magical portals run by the underground. Because of the tight grasp the Mages Guild has on portal travel, the illegal ones are rudimentary at best, and will fling you to a random place in the world. It might be a billion miles away, it might be right next door, you never know, but it'll cost you gold to use them. However, that being said, you can VERY occasionally find them in dungeons. Very handy if you're being chased by an ogre and need to get away, but you'll never know WHERE you'll end up!
If you're not traveling too far, you can also travel by gryphon, and while you're outdoors you'll occasionally see one flying by in the sky. They are cheap to buy travel on, and they are far less discriminatory with locations they'll go to (as opposed to the Guild Portals which limit your destinations) but not every town has them, as the gryphon riders fly from town to town on their own whim. We're also thinking of adding in airships, but it's early days on that one and might not happen.
Sometimes in Malevolence you'll find a massive ocean that you have to cross...
Your boots might get wet...
These can be crossed by portals or gryphons, as you'd expect, but coastal towns have ports where you can take a ship from coast to coast. It's extremely cheap to travel this way, as the ships are making trade deliveries anyway, so they don't mind earning a few extra gold to transfer tourists. (You can see a VERY quick sneak peek of one of the ships in the trailer. It wasn't just there for show!)
So having an infinite world with infinite quests is all well and good, but surely the loot would get repetitive, right? WRONG! We're also procedurally generating that. Games such as Diablo and Torchlight have done this in the past to an extent, which is cool and has always appealed to us. But wanted to take it a step further. We don't just want the STATS and NAMES of the items to be procedurally generated, we want them to LOOK different, too. So we've been coming up with a system for that as well:
The video above is just an early prototype of course, but you get the idea. Just a little something to make things more interesting while you're looking for loot. While this part isn't totally infinite, there are something like 600,000,000 combinations for each weapon type alone... So that should do you all for now ;-)
We have plans to try and incorporate Facebook/Twitter interaction with the game, too, so if you find a really cool place or item, you can let others know about it, or just plain brag about your character. Not 100% sure we'll get that done in time for the final release, but we're gonna have a go!
One of our biggest aims with the game is to try and establish online communities where people can share things and places they find, since everyone else will get a chance to find them as well, and people can compare character stats, etc.
Speaking of character stats... Since the game is infinite, the character stats couldn't be just straight numbers like in other games. So instead of numbers, you have percentages. For example, rather than having a strength of 40, you'll have a strength of 24%.
All of your stats, when added together, will always equal 100%. If you spend too much time training up your strength stat, certain other stats, like magic, will begin to drop. It's a bit of a balancing act to try and keep your character the way you want (though if you want to be a straight fighter or mage, it's pretty easy. It only gets tricky for multi-class types). As such, there are no "classes" in the game, just different ways of balancing your stats.
Keep your stats balanced well, or things may get messy!
Having it done this way means that you will always encounter difficult challenges along the way, as the monsters in the game also follow this stat system, and it is procedurally generated in them. You could be a straight fighter, but come across an Orcish mage that incinerates you with fireballs before you can reach him with your sword! So you have to be careful.
So yeah, that pretty much sums up the basics of the game, though I'm sure you'll still have more questions... If you do, just post a comment with your question and we'll respond as soon as humanly possible! We just want you guys to know how groundbreaking this game really is!
Also, a couple of notes. Firstly, we're a really small indie group and have very little means of promotion, so please, if you like the game, do what you can to let people know about it! We've got a Reddit article you can bump up, or you can jump on our Facebook page or join our Twitter... Popularity of indie games is usually based on user communication (or the game reaching the ears of someone like Notch lol) so please, get the word out where you can!
In addition, since we're based in Australia, we can't start a Kickstarter page for the project, so we opened up a donation service through Paypal which you can buy us a beer through! (Well... We don't drink... But you get the picture) if you like our work, you can show your appreciation that way (if you have the means) just visit our FAQ page and scroll to the bottom to find out how!
Otherwise, keep up the lovely comments and emails that all you awesome people have been sending, because we get so much out of hearing it! Gives us a real rush and makes us feel like we're really doing something special here! You're all awesome!
So we have some new icons to bug you with at the end of every post now. Enjoy!
Both your standard explanation and this blog-style explanation are way too long. Let me suggest a correction: "But what IS Malevolence?
power(Awesome, Infinity);"
hahaha we'd love to be able to just say that and be done with it lol we certainly think that way!
Excellent post! Summed up the answers I have bugged you for since yesterday quite nicely, and then some. ;)
However it raised a few questions about the travel system.
Now mage portals is straight forward, the engine collects the randomly generated names of nearby towns with mage guilds and let's you teleport there, but my question is about gryphons mainly.
You say they are much more lenient in where they will go but how exactly will it work. If we for arguments sake say they will fly 10 miles in either direction, that would likely be dozens of towns and villages so how to do filter that?
Do you give people a huge list of possible destinations, or let them type in a city name if they have a specific place they need to go?
Also with ships, how far will they travel, and will there be an actual distance involved or will you just poof and you're there?
I mean, will you see the ship sailing, or the gryphon flying, or will it basically be a teleport?
I'm nitpicking, I know, but I am -infinitely- *wink wink nudge nudge say no more* excited about this game. ;)
Thanks for the feedback! :D
To answer your questions, gryphons will only fly between towns of a certain size and up, and they'll basically let you fly to the closest 5 towns with a gryphon stable. The reason they're less discriminatory than the Guild Portals is that guild portals only go between settlements with a Mages Guild :)
Ships will work similarly to gryphons, but they'll only take you to the nearest couple of coastal towns.
The travel for gryphons and ships will be a matter of a loading screen, rather than actually seeing it. We had thought of putting it in, but sometimes the journeys are REALLY long! We CAN promise you some pretty sexy looking loading screen artwork though!
I hope that answers your questions! :D
That sounds excellent.
This is Darkbynight from TGC forums by the way, in case I confused you. ;)
I don't know if you can say anything about the lore as such, but in case you can divulge a little information; why do the mage guilds so strictly regulate magical travel, but they do not regulate spell-casting as a whole?
I mean, it could be because it's dangerous but that doesn't stop the thieves guild or those that would use their services.
Which made me think about something else, why would people use chaos portals if they can purchase a teleport from the mages guild? (Unless they're running from the law of course!)
Right, that was my inner role-player that wanted out. ;)
Thanks a bunch for answering my endless questions!
The Mages Guild DO regulate magic, actually :) The player can use magic because they are one of the Chosen Ones (which you'll learn about when you play the game) but they are sort of like demi-gods. Have a read through of this behind-the-scenes on the story (http://ahkranox.wikia.com/wiki/The_Chosen_One) the wiki for the game is still very much a work in progress, which is why we don't link to it, but have a look around it :) Normal folk can't use magic very easily. Only the chosen ones and their apprentices can do it well enough to do anything useful. It's an art that has to be passed down and thoroughly taught, but the chosen ones have it naturally :)
The Mages Guild are thus able to easily keep tabs on things, and like to use their magic to keep a bit of a stranglehold on the economy. Basically that old rule of "if you're good at something, never do it for free".
For the long journeys, couldn't you add things for the players to do? For example, be able to walk around on the ship, make some extra money and/or experience points helping out on the ship, or just experience a narrative by a story-teller or guide - which could very well be about you, the player, depending on your actions!
Very, very nice work on this game so far! In fact, at the rate you're going, I sincerely think you'll end up making a modern, infinite version of Ultima VII mixed with classic RPG sensibilities and gameplay - which would be one of the greatest accomplishments of the decade, if not the century.
Could be possible for the ships... Might be able to give players the option to be on the deck or just quick-travel... Could be quite fun!
Like I said the last time, huge user of TGC stuff myself, I'm very impressed with what you guys doing and how you have this great community interaction.
The last blogpost about the world generation was awesome and hope to see more of those articles. I know I know, you have to be a little bit secretive about your work, but a little more technical would be awesome!
Keep it up!
haha we're as open as we're comfortable being, but we like to keep the blog posts pretty regular! Hopefully it whets your appetites enough until the game comes out! And hopefully it gets people spreading the word!
Another brain fart just came to me. :P
It occurred to me that the player is actually extremely insignificant, I mean, if he or she is just the figment of a sentient sword's imagination, how does this whole thing come into play in game, does your character know he's a fantasy and strive to become real, or does he uphold the balance of the fantasy or whatever?
Sorry for these questions but once my creative organs are tickled my mind goes at a thousand miles per hour. :D
Oh, the player is real. Not sure if you read the link that I sent to you, but the Sword is floating in a void of nothingness, collecting the wandering lost souls of mankind and allowing them to live within the infinite world of its imagination. However, not all the souls it collects are good. To help defend its' world against the evil souls of monsters and other creatures, the Sword uses its magic to actually CREATE a soul of its own to wander the land and destroy the evil. But it only has enough magic to create one soul at a time. When that soul dies, it creates a new one. So the player is actually VERY significant, and the 'normal' people in the world revere them as the 'chosen one'
Wow that is absolutely awesome, getting more and more excited for the end of the year. ;)
Keep up the great work!
Thank you! :D
How are you going to handle maps, with a world this massive? How does the player keep track of his location and will it really matter?
You will have access to a location map, local map, a local world map, but will never be able to see the entire world map. Fog of war will also be in place on areas that you haven't yet explored :)
That seems to be the only way to do it, yes. But it's a bit...hmm, limiting. One of the few cons of an infinite world.
Not really THAT limiting though. The map will show about 500 square miles at a time...
But yeah, it's a downside (but totally worth it to have an infinite world!)