Time for some more ramblings. Today I will introduce you a bit to that claimgame and the idea behind what it is supposed to become.
My bother with traditional MMORPGs always was, that nothing really matters, you are just as much of an NPC as the, well, NPCs, because you do things, they play out, but it rarely affects the game world. The town is under siege, you kill all the enemies 10 times over. Is the siege lifted? Probably not, since everyone else still has to go through it. Maybe there is some phasing where you move into another phase of the world, essentially disconnecting players from each other. Even player deaths are rendered meaningless, you just respawn again and again suffering some minor inconveniences. The economy is usually just an endless grind for currency and you can unload any old crap you find to some NPC traders who will happily conjure up gold to pay for thousands of wolf livers.
I aim to do things different, make the game more consequential. Areas can be lost to the enemy, death is a thing and if you have something nobody wants to buy its value is zero. But to illustrate how this will work, I first give you a bit of lore to set the scene as they say.
The story takes place on a world that is not too much unlike ours. It could be medieval times or just post apocalyptic, we just don't know. What we do know is, that the void, the nothing, has been eating away at this world for a long time. When the void claims lands, they just disappear from reality including everything on them, plants, animals, people. By the time of the game starting the whole world is gone except for a small enclave where a bright citadel appeared which seems to hold back the void, for now. The citadel cares for the last remnants of humanity sheltering around it, but they ask something in return. For an hour a day the people have to visit the claiming halls within the citadel.
And this is where the player comes in. You are an "astral being", not from this reality. For one reason or another you would like to partake though, but you need a vessel, which are the humans, waiting in the claiming halls. When you, a claimant, start playing you need to claim a character, who will essentially become your player character you can use to interact with the world. This "claimed one" is really just a vessel for you, but it is mortal after all, so if you die in the game, he is dead. Yes, permadeath, like hardcore mode. Of course you, the astral claimant, survives this and can claim another, but you get to keep all the assets you amassed, you will unlock things that help your next claimed one, in and outside of the game. I will talk about player death and the details another time, for now, imagine the game as rogue-lite MMO experience.
But what can you do with your claimed one. Well, most of the things you would do in a traditional MMORPG. You explore the world, fight enemies, level up and unlock skills, solve quests, gather resources, craft and work. I will go into detail about these in the future, but basically you play the game as you like it. You can play it safe, you can risk it all, you can focus on exploration and combat or on the economic side of things, it is up to. Player death is a setback, not restart.
One more thing I will talk about today is the concept of the dynamic world. And no, I don't talk about phasing, the world will be the same for everyone. Quests are not designed to send player after player to kill a specific enemy. They are designed as repeatable activities, even if they are not repeatable by the same player. For example, you might be issued a quest to kill enemies, but when the total killcount required is reached the quest will not be issued anymore. Mainly individual quests will be used to teach players or nudge them into directions.
Instead world-wide quests called campaigns will drive the story and progression of the world. I will go into detail another time, but to give you an overview, campaigns are world-wide quests in scale that would require a single player a very, very long time to complete. These campaigns are encouraging every player to contribute with rewards and create a common goal which will often result in new options. For example, a campaign quest could be to establish an outpost. To do that, the surrounding enemies must be pushed back --> kill X enemies of type Y, materials need to be provided --> donate A,B,C resource D times and/or help build --> donate your work cooldown Z times. When the campaign is finished prizes are given out based on contribution and the outpost is actually established, changing the world and offering new possibilities. A later campaign may be to defend said outpost against a void invasion, requiring to kill X enemies within Y time to prevent the outpost from being destroyed. This essentially means that the size of the game world will breathe with the player base or specifically player activity. If there are enough contribution the campaign will succeed and the game world will expand. Fail to contribute and the void will take back the lands and the game world will shrink.
I will explain the details of the struggle between reality/creation and void/nothing at a later stage, but the main idea is that the world will not just expand endlessly, just as characters will not progress endlessly. This goes as far as player owned buildings being at risk of destruction, yes these will exist, teaser.
Anyway, enough rambling for today. I think next time I will talk more about exploration, we will see.
BR
thatclaimgamedev