Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles

Making NPCs come alive, actions and progs

2006-09-06T03:17:00.000-07:00

In previous posts we have mentioned the actions and progs that grant the NPCs of our world the ability to interact with the players (from the most complicated quests to just attacking them on sight) but we though it was worth a bit of explanation about them and how Baram implemented them for Ilyrias ( as they don't come with the default Rapture engine which just has the very very basics ).

Actions are just special attacks that NPCs can do, with some requirements (for example, the creature must be awake, or standing) , some visible messages for the target and anybody looking at the scene that describe what's going on and an effect (like, in the case of attacks, the player losing hit points and being stunned). They need a compiler to be usable by Ilyrias and are relatively fast to be introduce by the builders.

Progs are much more complicated and require a different compiler and interpreter to be able to use and execute them in game. They're scripts (with variables, variable scope, functions, methods, conditions, loops as any scripting language) that need to be coded and compiled by builders, and then executed on a virtual machine by Rapture. In exchange for all this complication, Ilyrias will be able to have quests, our system of fame/infamy, Mob feelings and would be a less complex and fun role playing game. They can be as complex as the builder needs them to be allowing for world wide quests or higher levels of artificial intelligence for the NPCs both singularly or as a group (for example, they can control that your actions in a village affect ALL the NPCs in said village, or even those in the opposing village).

Speaking of quests, Lyrian, our head builder, is now asking for ideas for small quests you'd like to see around the world of Ilyrias. So if you have any, read the quest ideas thread and submit it.

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

Ilyrias development

2006-09-01T05:11:00.000-07:00

September is around the corner and the Ilyrias blog is back from holidays! With development in such a crucial moment all our efforts have been directed to coding and building as much as possible in preparation for the Alpha testing phase, so blogging has been a bit out of our minds. But our efforts have been rewarded in the form of even more new features and a growing world with more rooms added each day.

We now have a crafting and commodity system, that will allow the trade skills, both common and professional to be coded. For those not familiar with this kind of MORPG, in Ilyrias everything you can wear, use, attack another player with, eat or drink will be made by other players or in the case of really indispensable items by NPC shops. So getting your character geared doesn't imply grinding endlessly for loot, but finding a willing merchant or purchasing from a shop, or even looking for the commodities that will allow you to craft your own items if you have the needed skills. This makes roleplaying a merchant a real possibility allowing players to make money thanks to their gathering and crafting skills and economic wisdom.

The fighting aspect has also been enhanced by the introduction of armours and weapons, that will respectively protect from and deal different kinds of physical damage (blunt, cutting or piercing). Ilyrias combat system (both physical combat and magical combat, but most usually players will use a mix of the two) is quite complex, but Baram gave us a bit of insight of it on previous articles on this blog about PvP Combat. Most skills that can be used against player characters will also be usable against NPCs. To even the ground for the NPCs and make a more challenging and fun combat system, sentient NPCs will also have more intelligence and a wider range of skills, according to their roles. Why only sentient NPCs? This is a roleplaying online game after all, and it isn't very realistic to see a sheep having a wide range of attacks including fireballs

To give the inhabitants of the world intelligence, builders need to add to them actions and progs that have been already coded and now lack just the web interface for the builders to start coding and adding them to the NPCs. Even if progs and actions could be coded in game, the complexity of Ilyrias quests and artificial intelligence system made some kind of web interface necessary to speed up the work and allow builders to work more comfortably.

On a side note, the Ilyrias Whatpulse Team has been created by Baram, so check the Ilyrias forums to discover how to join it.

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

Player builders program

2006-08-29T05:19:00.000-07:00

Due to the fact that we had to reject a lot of otherwise very good good builder applications due to things like age (minimum age to sign an NDA is 18) or not having a good work record in another game, Lyrian has opened a new player building system and is requesting applications to join it.

Anybody with good writing skills and minimum dedication can apply and will be in charge of building small mini areas (blocks of a few rooms with a vaguely described theme and a writing style to adapt to). Once a player builder is assigned to a mini project, he'll be given more information about it, but a good deal of effort will be made on not disclosing detailed information about the game to avoid the need for a NDA and allow players of all ages to build.

Once accepted by Lyrian, you'll gain access to a reserved area of the forums where mini projects will be posted so if a player builder is interested he can apply. Once Lyrian assigns the project to him, she'll send him more detailed information like an area map, sample texts to have an idea of the style needed, etc...

Lyrian will be in charge of assigning areas to player builders and approving them if they have the required writing quality for Ilyrias. Each approved mini project will give you angelstone (the higher amount and quality of your work, the higher the amount of angelstone earned) wich is the Ilyrias equivalent to IRE credits, the game pay-per-perks currency. Eventually you can be promoted to full time builder, if you want to be. It's a good way of earning some angelstone to start the game with, and prove yourself as a builder to the Ilyrias team, even if you don't have enough time to complete full areas of over 300 rooms as our full time builders are doing or cannot sign an NDA.

If you are interested or want more information, contact Lyrian via email (lyrian(at)ilyrias-dot-com) or register in the Ilyrias forums if you haven't already done so and send her a private message. For your application to be considered, please be sure to include a few room samples and an estimate of how much time you can put on working for this project, as well as your age and anything you think will help Lyrian choose you over everybody else. Lyrian will contact you with more information if your application is accepted, and you'll be given access to the player builders area of the forums.

Remember that with this system you won't gain access to any undisclosed knowledge about Ilyrias as full builders do, so you'll be able to earn angelstone without having to sign an NDA, so you can apply even if you're not 18 years old yet.

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

What is a good game? Part IX

2006-07-21T06:03:00.000-07:00

In our last few articles we have mainly discussed game mechanics and how they factor into the makings of a good game. In this article we will focus more on the storyline aspects, especially the creation of conflict.

Every game must have some form of conflict, be it actual fighting or intellectual. In Ilyrias we aim to have both, via an intensive PvP system as well as politics, religion vs. science, creation of new cities, etc. We have already discussed many aspects of our PK system, so let us look at the political situation.

The main type of organization is the city-state. In our world this will be completely run by the players. Everything from the over all leader, to the city council and low level ministers will be players. Depending on the government type, these positions may be elected or appointed.

Each city-state will be able to choose what government style they wish, but be warned the only way to change that would be a revolt. The most common ones we expect to see used will be Democracy and Dictatorship, though there will be many others to choose from such as Monarchy. If a leader is not doing a good job, or the citizens feel a different form of government would be better, they can start a revolt. A revolt requires a large majority of the population to join, otherwise it fails. If it does succeed, the leader of the revolt (which was hidden until this point) will become the new city leader and will be given the chance to change the government style.

In most government styles, player created political parties will be a key element of the city. These are an upgrade to clans, and must be approved by the city that they are pledged to. Every so often an election will be started; this will most likely be once every two to three real life months. In this council election, players will vote for the party that they wish to lead their city. Upon its closure, each party will be given a certain number of "seats" based on their percentage of the votes. The party leader will then choose which ranking party members will sit on the council. The larger the city, the more council seats they will have. The minimum is three seats. City leaders will still be directly elected, or in the case of a Dictatorship never changed.

The question is where do these cities come from? The first two, perhaps three, will be made by the administration. After a short while natural leaders will emerge, and they will be appointed as the first city leaders by the administration. After that, it is all up to the players. Besides being able to run, expand and change those starting cities, players will be able to create their own.

While no easy task, a group of players that manage to gain enough support can attempt to found their own city. Not only will this take an active group of players, but it will also require that other organizations pledge to them, such as guilds and political parties (which are also player run and creation). If all of the requirements are met, the leader may submit a charter for approval. Once approved their fifty room city will be built. After that it is up to the players to raise funds to expand their own creation.

While we have focused mainly on cities in this article, all organizations will be player made and run. That includes sects, guilds, political parties, leagues, clans and families. Of those all but clans and families will have to pledge to a city, and be approved, by the city leaders, before formation.

Stay tuned for our final article which will discuss the largest source of player driven conflict, science vs. religion and savages vs. civilized.

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

What's going on in Ilyrias?

2006-07-20T04:30:00.000-07:00

After several very busy days for Baram of installing, securing and fine tuning it, we're pleased to announce that Ilyrias is now running on a new server. For the technically oriented, it's a P4 3 GHz with 1G ram and a 100MPBS connection, running a Debian distribution. This will be the server on which Ilyrias will be running when it is released and were development will be done from now on.

Continuing with the good news for Ilyrias, Persistent Realms site is now showing up in the front page of the Top Mud Sites listings thanks to all of you who vote for Ilyrias. Remember that the Ilyrias forums has vote reminder feature that you can activate to remind you to vote when it will count again.

On a different subject, the Ilyrias website design and development is advancing at a good pace so maybe soon you'll be able to read more on Ilyrias storyline and features there. In the meanwhile, stay tuned to the forums and this blog for information about Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.

What is a good game? Part VIII

2006-06-22T05:26:00.000-07:00

Last time we started discussing how our PvE, or player vs. environment, system will work. Specifically we spoke about the AI system our NPCs, or mobs, will be using during combat. We also mentioned our “mob feelings” or fame/infamy system a little; we shall expand upon that more in this article.

Every NPC in Ilyrias will hold feelings towards you whether they like or dislike you. This will be determined by many different things, such as quests and combat. It will also affect many quests, as well as having a large effect on the AI system used for combat.

While fighting an NPC, they will start to dislike you more and more. Something that really upsets them is healing people that they are fighting, and rightly so. This aspect is fairly obvious, and there isn’t too much to it. For those of you that have played World of Warcraft, you should recognize this type of system.

Certain quests can also effect how an NPC feels towards you, obviously handing a man his dead son would not make him like you. Rescuing the princess would probably make most of the people in that kingdom have strong feelings for you. Depending on an NPCs feelings for you, quests could open up (or be cut off) and prices could raise/lower in certain areas. If the majority of a village or city dislike you, you might find yourself branded an enemy and thereby cut off from most activities. In the same light, by doing things to make the people feel better towards you, you could end up an ally and receive discounted prices in their stores.

We mentioned that this plays into PvE combat right? If an NPC REALLY likes you, they will basically ignore you in a room. That is of course unless you start beating on them. If they decide to change their main target, the more they dislike you, the more they will choose to target you. If you’ve made it on to their personal “kill on sight” list, not only will they ALWAYS target you, they will attack you on sight (even if they are not normally aggressive).

We feel these types of systems will help make a more immersive world, and therefore a more enjoyable game. By making your actions have a profound effect on how NPCs react to, and treat, you things should be far more dynamic and interesting. Now NPCs are not mere punching bags, but they are almost living beings. Of course, this fame and infamy system only affects sentient beings.

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

What is a good game? Part VII

2006-06-22T05:23:00.000-07:00

In our last few articles we have been discussing player vs. player combat in Ilyrias. In the next few articles we will be discussing PvE or bashing.

In Ilyrias NPCs, or mobs, will be far more intelligent than in other games. We have designed an AI system that allows them to smartly choose which attacks to use, instead of random as most games use. We have also design a “mob feelings” or fame/infamy system which will play a part of this, but that will be discussed in our next article.

In most games bashing, or leveling, is a fairly boring task. NPCs attack randomly and there is little strategy involved. You just keep attacking and healing yourself as needed. Since leveling is such an important aspect in most MMO games, we feel it should also be an interesting aspect of the game. Thus we have designed an AI system to help make our sentient creatures smarter. Non-sentient creatures, such as most animals, will not use this system, making them easier to slay.

The way it works is fairly simple, an NPC will look at its’ past five attacks and predetermine which type of attack is best. Attacks are categorized as multiple or single target, as well as damage or affliction based. Based on the last five attacks, the system will choose which would be the most likely next attack. After this, they will build a list of each attack that the NPC can use.

After having a list of all attacks possible, and a predetermination of attack style, the system will compile a list of people that are in the room. The more people in the room, the more likely they will be to use a multiple target attack. Right after this step, they will make a choice if they wish to choose a new “main target.” This choice is based of the NPCs feelings towards you, that fame/infamy system we will be discussing later. Obviously the more they hate you, the more they will target you.

After we have a list of attacks and a main target, the system will attempt (but not always accurately) to assess the main targets status. How many afflictions they have, how low their health/mental strength is and what race the main target is, are all taken into consideration. If the NPC correctly “remembers” that your race, or what race you appear to be, is weak against fire attacks that will make them be more likely to use a fire based attack.

After all of these considerations, and a couple more we won’t mention, the NPC looks at what attacks it has left to use. It then chooses one of those, based on a weight we gave to them at creation (bigger the attack, the lower its weight for fairness). This system, in testing, has increased a sentient NPCs difficulty by AT LEAST 50%. Thus we have made it so sentient creatures also give 50% more experience when killed.

As you can see, we have taken many steps to try and make one of the most basic MMO features a bit more interesting. In our next article we will explain how our mob feelings, or fame and infamy, system will make things even more dynamic.

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

What is a good game? Part VI

2006-06-20T07:15:00.000-07:00

Thus far we have discussed many aspects of how player versus player combat leads to a better game. In this article we will look at the last remaining part, afflictions and curing them.

For those that don’t know, afflictions are a main aspect of our system. Afflictions can slow your opponent down, increase your damage against them over time, or give a very short lived boost to any damaging attacks. Curing them normally involves the use of some herbs, potions, salves, or skills.

In other affliction based PvP combat systems, such as Achaea, you eat an herb and the affliction is instantly cured. You then wait a few seconds before you can eat another herb. In our attempts to add more depth and options to our world, we have decided to change this basic system slightly.

In Ilyrias there will be two types of herbs. One is like the above example, eat it and be healed instantly. The second type has a delay of one to two seconds before curing, but the recovery time is lowered. This means if you need to heal something right away, you can eat the first type of herbs. If that affliction isn’t too serious, or you are being hit with many afflictions, you can opt for the delayed cure. By using the delayed cure, you will be able to eat a second herb in a shorter time span.

We feel this small change to our combat system will have a fairly large effect on how people view player vs. player combat in Ilyrias. By giving you this choice, we are adding depth, without increasing the difficulty of getting into combat. You could always choose to ignore the second type of herb, and only pick the instant curing ones. We believe those that embrace this change, and really learn when to cure what; will gain an advantage of those that only use the instant cure style herbs.

This will be the end of our discussions on player vs. player combat. In our next addition we will begin to look at some of the ways we have made bashing, or leveling, more interesting. The major change is the AI system we have added, as well as the NPC feelings. Players will begin to gain fame and infamy, much like some of the larger graphical games, such as Oblivion, have done.

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

What is a good game, Part V

2006-06-14T22:55:00.000-07:00

We briefly mentioned follow-up attacks in our last article, but what are they? They are another element of PvP and PvE, or bashing, combat. Another addition, that we feel adds more depth to combat without making it too complex to learn the basics.

A follow-up attack is an attack that naturally does well after a previous one. For example, a back-fist after a roundhouse punch or a fire based attack after an ice based attack. How do we incorporate this into Ilyrias?

As an expansion off the minor balance that we discussed in our last article, follow-up attacks come with risks. Any attack made on minor balance will always have an increased balance time, and normally an increased chance to miss. Follow-up attacks are a bit different, but they still have the increased balance time. Let’s look at our back-fist and roundhouse punch example in more detail.

A normal punch might do 60 damage, with a balance time of 3 seconds. A normal back-fist might do 40 damage with a 2.5 second balance. As you can see, the punch is always better to use, more damage over time. A back-fist is designated as a follow-up attack for punch, but how do we use it and what does it change? If my last attack was punch, and I’m currently on minor balance (that last second of balance time), I can choose to wait one second or attack again. If I choose to attack with back-fist, the balance time increases to 3 seconds but the damage also increases to 80! Now by back-fist is BETTER than my punch.

Now, to add another level to our combat, we have anti follow-up attacks, things that just don’t work well together. To use our example with punches, back-fist is a poor follow-up for a back-fist. If I were to do a back-fist after a back-fist, and on minor balance, it would still increase the balance time to 3 seconds. The damage would be LOWERED to around 20, not a very effective attack.

You won’t know which attacks are good follow-ups for what, some we will tell you though. For the bulk of the attacks, you will need to discover it on your own. To give you a hint though, they will be logical and the attack messages for them will change if it was a good follow-up or a bad follow-up.

As you can see, this part of combat is something one could just completely ignore. The more advanced fighters will take the time needed to learn how to utilize this aspect to overpower their opponents. Another aspect of combat that we really hope will add depth and enjoyment over all.

Come back for Part VI where we will be discussing how curing of afflictions will work in the world of Ilyrias.

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

What is a good game, Part IV

2006-06-14T22:24:00.000-07:00

In our last article we started to get into how PvP, or PK, factors into a good game. Over the next few articles we will expand upon that aspect more. In this article we will be focusing on balance and equilibrium.

In any good PvP system, it should be relatively easy to get into, but difficult to master. We have tried to incorporate this into our world. One factor of that is how to handle players actually killing each other.

There are a few different ways that games handle combat, such as the D&D style turn based system. Here at Persistent Realms, we prefer the balance style combat system. In a balance based system each attack you make takes a few seconds of balance. When you regain balance you can attack again. Many systems break this balance into Left Arm, Right Arm and Leg balance with Equilibrium added in for magical or mental attacks. We have also decided to go with this system, but have expanded upon it a little more.

We have added in the concept of minor and major balance, which allows for more flexibility and choices in combat. Minor balance is actually part of your Major balance, the last one second to be exact. If you have used your Major balance, you cannot attack or move; you must wait to regain it. If you are on Minor balance (that last second of balance), you can attempt to move with a chance of tripping. You can also choose to attack again, with a high chance to miss and increased major balance time. The exception to this rule is follow-up attacks, special attacks that naturally come after another one (for example a back-fist nicely follows up after a roundhouse punch), but that is a discussion for another article.

What does this mean to PvP combat? For the novice, they can just ignore the minor balance. For the advanced fighter, they can embrace this new addition and learn how to best use it to their advantage. Perhaps you are close to death, but you know your opponent is close to death as well. Using that minor balance, you could either choose to run, or run the risk of missing in an attempt to slay them before they can hit you again.

Another addition is that of Power Balance, which is a special kind of balance and is not affected by any others. Certain powerful moves will utilize this balance, in addition to normal balance/equilibrium. The only effect this has is that you cannot use another power move until you regain your Power balance. We are hoping this will add another dynamic to combat, while again keeping it simple enough to learn the basics.

In our next article we will expand upon the follow-up attacks, and how they will affect PvP, or PK, combat. Our goal is to add depth, without making it too complex for a novice to learn. This is not an easy feat to do, but we feel things like this accomplish that goal for our combat system.

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

What is a good game, Part III

2006-06-13T02:02:00.000-07:00

Welcome to part three of our discussion on “what makes a good game.” Last time we discussed how an extensive skill system, can help foster role-playing and allow players to stay true to their characters, while still changing their individual skills. In this article we will be discussing our “dodge” system, and how it will help curb excessive player killing.

PvP can be a very good addition to generate more role-playing but it can also kill it. Then of course there is the issue with players "grieving" or repeatedly killing one person. Some places, such as Achaea, have gone to an almost lawyer like system to handle this... something no player enjoys, nor do we really want to deal with. Other games, such as Lusternia, have come up with a mechanical system, hard coded, to try and deal with excessive PK. It was good, in theory, but proved to be almost impossible to really control things as planned.

Keeping those two things in mind; we designed our "dodge" system. The way it works is fairly simple, and based off real combat. The more you fight someone, the more you learn the little "quirks" in their fighting. For example, your opponent might raise his elbow before striking with that arm. A good fighter will notice this, and use it to his advantage. All of our players are considered "good" fighters for this purpose.

As you fight against someone, you will gain "dodge points" against them, slowing increasing your chance of dodging their attacks. Over time these "dodge points" will decay, and if you kill that person you will instantly lose all of them. If someone kills you, you will gain a substantial amount of "dodge points" against them, in addition to anything you gained during the fight. We feel this type of system is more flexible than other more arbitrary systems. It does allow you to kill the same person more than once, but it will become increasingly harder. Not only does it serve to curb unneeded player killing, but it adds another dynamic to combat!

Stay tuned for the next article in this series, where we will be discussing more about how our combat system will help make Ilyrias the best game around.

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

What is a good game, Part II

2006-06-13T01:07:00.000-07:00

In our last post, we discussed some of the role playing aspects that make a game good. In this part we will start to take a look at what aspects of combat make for a good game, specifically role playing and combat.

Many games PvP combat, or PK, is either a side thought or the only thought. In Ilyrias it is a major aspect of the world, but not the only one. The problem with this kind of system lies in how does one produce a combat driven world, but still keep role playing as a major aspect? At first glance that seems simple, but when you actually look deeper it turns out to be not so easy. Players are competitive by nature, and many times will give up other aspects of a game just to "win" it. That means role playing often gets kicked to the side, just so one can become the best combatant.

There are a few ways that we have tried to correct this, all gleamed from our experiences in other games.

The first is how to fix what is known as "guild hopping." In many, if not most, games your skills are broken up based on what guild or class you are in. Doing this has many advantages, such as easier to keep combat balanced, but has some down sides. The major downside is that players will often switch to the guild they "think" is the most powerful. Not all players, but those that are highly into combat will often give up the role play of their character in order to achieve the most "combat power."

How to fix that? Well as we mentioned in our previous post, we don't have guilds and classes in the traditional sense. Every player will have 13 "skill slots." Ten will be for "general" skills, and three more for "professional" skills. Doing it in this way is obviously harder to balance, but allows players to keep within the character they have designed, and still switch their skills around as they wish. An extensive skill system, or classless system, like this should not only help keep people true to their characters, but also foster more role-playing opportunities by allowing you to make the character you always wanted.

Keep an eye out for our next article where we will be discussing our system to help curb excessive player killing, and help keep PvP within the realms of role-playing.

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

What is a good game?

2006-06-09T23:50:00.000-07:00

What makes a game a good one? There are many schools of thought on this, but only one thing really matters. What do the players think?

At Persistent Realms we're looking at many different things that factor into a good game. The problem is everyone has a different idea of what's fun and good. Some are really into the role-playing side of a game. Others just love combat, while others are all about the "bashing." How do you fit those all together, to make something that anyone can enjoy?

First we looked at other popular games, both in our genre and outside of it. What do they have that is good? What could be done better?

Let's look at role-playing first.

IRE games are very popular for text based Muds. What do they do to foster role-playing? In the old days, they had great events, with different outcomes based on player choices. These are great, but take a lot of work and slowly events there turned into more of a book that you just HAD to follow. We will stick to the old ways, as events with multiple outcomes and flexibility are just more fun.

Another thing they did well is the politics system, which only a few other games have had this. Ah, but there are flaws in that. A single player could easily abuse their position, making it almost impossible to remove them from office. There is also a lack of options; every government is basically the same. We decided that we too will have player run governments, but with more checks and balances like a real life government. So while you could have a city leader, there is also a city council that can "veto" that leader's actions. Then we looked at how hard it is for someone to be removed, if they get control over the council. In real life we have revolts, why can't a game have them too? So we put in place a revolt system that, while hard to pull off, would lead to a complete change of government. After a revolt the government style could be changed as well. Instead of every city using the same government style, we also implemented things such as dictatorships where the council just doesn't exist. Some cities may prefer this method, if the dictator is good, others would revolt against it choosing another style. All told we have around eight very different styles for governments.

Another issue, related to politics, that we sought to change is the fact that no new cities are born without the administration coding them in. To solve this, we implemented a system where players can actually build their own cities! The requirements to do so are extremely high, and it still has to go through the administration via a form of city charter. As long as the city has enough players backing, and has a role-playing reason to exist, it goes in. That brought up the issue of adding rooms to cities. The solution was simple; add in construction based trade skills for players to take. A city that wants to expand can contact these construction workers (which are fellow players) to build additions to their city. That construction worker would not only need the required in game materials, but also submit a work permit for approval. The reason for the permit is so the administration can change, and fix if needed, the descriptions for these new "rooms." Obviously keeping a high standard of writing is needed, we don't want new people to be seeing poorly written and misspelled descriptions.

So we've got some of those aspects covered, what about the individual player? Most players prefer to be as flexible in their choices as possible, yet most games force them to fit into "cookie cutter" molds of races and classes or guilds. This tends to lead to "guild hopping" where a player moves around to different guilds, just to play with different skills. That harms the over all role-playing of a game, as it isn't easy to explain why John the patron of all that is good and holy, suddenly joins the thieves guild, then a few months later is an elemental mage. Easy solution, give the players what they want!

While we will have set lists of races that fit our world, we've decided that statistics won't be set in stone. Each race will have a list of advantages and disadvantages, with those you get what you get. Other than that, the main mechanics for races would be their physical and mental statistics. Those are easily more flexible. What we decided to do is give each race a set base statistics and then give players an additional 10 points to divide as they wish. What's that? That will just lead to people giving themselves super high strength? You're right, they could do that, but they will have painfully low agility causing them to be hit more often. Then they will also have a painfully low constitution giving them a very weak body. Sure, they can hit hard, but they also fall down a lot faster. We also put the maximum starting for any statistic at 18, meaning that if Ogres have a base strength of 16, you can only put up to 2 more points into your strength.

That leaves us with skills, everyone loves skills right? Remember that we said most games seem to fit you into a "cookie cutter" mold, called class? That just doesn't seem to fit with what most players want; they want choices. Our skills are divided into two types, general and professional. Professional skills could be combat or trade related. We give you the ability to choose which general and which professional skills you want to take. Some skills may require that you have another skill already, or that you don't have a certain skill. Then to top it off, some skills will have branches. For example Spirituality can only be trained half way. After you reach that half way point, you must choose which branch you want to focus on. For Spirituality there will be a general branch that anyone can take, and then if you are in a religious sect there may be another branch based off that sect's beliefs and teachings. We feel that, while harder to balance, this level of customization will allow each player to design the character that THEY want to play. Oh yeah, there are 10 general skill slots and 3 professional skill slots.

To add even more customization to your character, we have designed and implemented a skill effectiveness system. This system is something we've never seen in another game, at least not in the way we have done it. Some games that do have an effectiveness system, meaning your abilities get stronger the more you use them, choose to use just that. We have chosen to use both skill sets, as described above, and effectiveness to add an extreme level of customization. So, how does it work? Pretty simple really, each ability in a skill set is given a type. Types could be things like "forging", "active offence" or "healing." The more you use one ability, the stronger that ability gets. At the same time, though much slower, other abilities of that type get weaker. This allows you to choose your "favorite" abilities of each type, and make them extremely strong at the cost of other abilities. It is possible to become extremely strong in almost every ability, but it's no easy task.

Those are just a few of the considerations and choices we have made, in an attempt to make a more dynamic game. We feel that by making things dynamic, and giving you more choices, our game will shine through as a "good" game.

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

NPC combat and more!

2006-06-04T03:46:00.000-07:00

This post is repeated from the most recent forums announcement. We feel that it is such a major improvement, that we will repeat it here for all to see.

This has been by far the most productive week we have had thus far. Let me outline for you how much as really been done.

The first major piece is what we call Racts. That is short for Replica Actions, or special attacks for mobs/NPCs. That isn't their only use, but their main use. I had estimated that this would take me about one month to completely code... and I completed it in two days! This is the foundation of our smart mob combat system.

Mobile combat AI has just been finished. I had expected to spend at least two weeks working on this system. This would be mainly the ability for sentient NPCs to decide which attack to use next. They base this attack off many factors, to include their last three attacks, their current status (broken arms, tied up, etc.) and their estimated status of the main target. I had expected this to take at least two weeks... but completed it all in a seven hour period!

Due to those major aspects being done, I have gone back and started adding in functionality for replica's(items and NPCs/mobs). I've made it so they correctly reset, and get deleted as they should.

Only a few pieces left before I can put all of mob combat together! Only major thing that is left, besides them actually using their attacks, is figuring out the experience curve we wish to use. I'll be playing around with numbers for the rest of the day to get there. Once that is done I can put the last pieces of combat together, and then make players actually die when they get below 1 health point!

This really has been a good week.

On another note, we've gotten some really good builder applications in the last few days, I hope to see some more come in before we close them off again.

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

Building

2006-06-02T01:36:00.000-07:00

Since we've gotten a couple applications over the last few days, I figured we might as well officially open applications again. As before, here is the information about applying.

Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles is set in a world unlike any other. Carlean scholars have recently unlocked the system of the world, giving them unprecedented control over the forces of nature. Though some denounce this new science as magic and heretical. Meanwhile the Alberen natives in the south fight to keep their homelands safe from the destruction wrought by the Carleans "progress" and unrelenting expansion. Utilizing the ancient techniques of spirit conjuring and runelore, they present a formidable foe for any enemy of the Ianai forest.

Interested parties should send an e-mail to applications@persistentrealms.com with the following information:

- Your name and age (You must be 18 or over to apply)
- Your experience with MUDs, including time spent as a player, builder, immortal, or admin
- A sample of your writing. This should be in the form of room descriptions (please no more than 10) plus a single item description of some kind of steam-punk gadget that might be appropriate for the Ilyrias theme.
- And anything else you think we should see

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

Players and NPC's

2006-06-02T00:37:00.000-07:00

Hunting, Bashing, Leveling, etc... how ever you want to call it has always been a boring aspect due to the simple structure most games give for NPC combat. Most games kind of just throw it in there, without giving much thought to how much time the average player will spend on it... well NOT us!

Over the last two days we've been working on coding a system to give our NPC's special attacks, not those boring "The orc slashes you." style ones from the old days. Every one of our NPC's will have their own unique attacks, with unique abilities. Some of you may be familiar with this, as most bigger games have this feature. Whats so special about ours? Our NPC's don't attack randomly!

Each one of our attacks will have requirements for the NPC to do it, such as needing 2 arms free, not being tied up, opponent being prone, etc... What, a tied up NPC? Yup, you will be able to afflict our NPC's with most things you can afflict a person with.

Once the NPC decides it's time to lay the smack down, the system will look at his list of available attacks, and from that build a list of attacks he can currently use with his status. After this, the system will determine what would be the best attack for him to use next, be it damage/afflictions/etc. From that much smaller list, it will almost randomly choose one(if there is more than one). Only sentient NPC's will be able to choose the best attack, your brain-dead and animal types will randomly choose one from the list of attacks he can use at the time.

Sound interesting? Well lets make it a bit better. Just like players, sentient NPC's will be able to cure those afflictions you can give them. Using basically the same methods that a player would, the NPC will choose what is the most important thing to cure first, and cure it. For those brain-dead types, they will be able to cure the simple things(like a net) with some effort, and some afflictions will slowly fade from them. Some afflictions may not effect the animals as they would a player or sentient NPC.

Just another way we are trying to make the world of Ilyrias a bit more interesting for you, as well as foster roleplay a bit more. By making our NPC's "smarter" it should help people view them as more than just walking punching bags.

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

Roleplaying in Ilyrias

2006-05-25T20:18:00.000-07:00

There have been many questions about what type of Roleplaying will be in Ilyrias, thus we have decided to give you a little information about it.

In Ilyrias there will be quite a few forms of conflict to help induce a more roleplaying friendly atmosphere. A few of them are listed below:

Science vs. Religion

One of the key conflict points of Ilyrias is science and religion. In Ilyrias the administration will not play god roles as you are familiar with. Instead they will be more hidden, as a large group of players may choose to roleplay as someone that does not believe in the gods. Science is mainly a new thing brought with the coming of the civilized people. To the savages this just looks more like magic, and not a magic they like.

The savages are more spiritual, following more natural methods of survival and communing with spirits. Many of the civilized view such things, and all forms of religion, as false beliefs. The only true "god" is that of science, which they have learned to use to change the physical realm around them. There are still highly religious people within the cities, whom still worship the gods of old. Many of these people wield great powers, that the scientific community just plays off as mere tricks, not real power.

It is our hope that this conflict will prove a new and interesting roleplay aspect for our players. Perhaps even some savages decide this "science" is a good thing, breeding a whole new type of roleplayer.

Savages vs. Civilized

This is not your normal cities vs forestals, but something deeper and more dynamic. The savages, as the civilized like to call them, are the original inhabitants of Ilyrias. They lived a good life, with occasional fights between groups, while worshiping the spirits. They only used what they needed to survive, and tried to keep the balance that always was.

Then the civilized came over in their ships, and they build the cities. These cities go against what the savages believe, wasting the resources that the spirits have given to them. This new science that the civilized used was dangerous and wasteful, not what the spirits have told them is good. The civilized even went so far as to say the spirits are not real, what blasphemy! Some savages may have changed their views, and started to follow one of the cities many religions or scientific orders, but most of them hated these new comers.

This is the other key aspect that we have, which should breed a nice atmosphere of conflict, and betrayal, by both sides.

Building of cities and other organizations

As the game progresses, more cities or savage villages, will be added. We will not be adding this, it will all be handled by the players! All other organizations, such as guilds and political parties, will also be formed in the same manner.

While not an easy task to accomplish, the ability to build a city also creates and interesting roleplaying opportunity. In order to accomplish this ultimate goal, you must get many organizations to leave the city they have pledged to support. Of course, the losing city is probably not going to like this very much... exactly the kind of thing that creates interesting stories. Think of the political intrigue and backstabbing that this type of thing could create. Not to mention the large amount of social effort and network building it will take for one group to actually accomplish the building of a new city.

These are just a few of the roleplaying aspects we have planned, perhaps later we will give you some more teasers.

Disclaimer: Any references to histories or relationships between organizations are subject to change as we develop the world more

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

New addition, the luck system

2006-05-22T18:45:00.000-07:00

As was mentioned in the IRC, we have completed work on our luck system. In short, this will mainly be a system used for punishment for those that can't stay IC, but also for a reward to those really good role-players.

Here is how it works, without administrative adjustment:

Everyone starts at 0 luck, which basically means nothing changes.

Every time the system would need a random roll, such as for to hit, it instead makes a luck roll. First the system makes a normal random roll, in the case of to hit that is a 1-100. Then it checks your luck, be it good luck or bad luck. If you pass the luck check then it will make a second random roll.

If you are in good luck, it will take the better of the two numbers. For to hit you want a low number so it will use the lower one. If you are in bad luck then it will take the worse of the two numbers, in this case the higher one.

How does luck go up you ask? Well that one is simple... by luck. If you roll the best possible, your luck will adjust for the better. In the case of to hit that would be a 1. If you roll the worst possible, again in this case that would be 100, then your luck goes down. Later we may also add in some quests and perhaps skills that can help adjust your luck.

Over time your luck will slowly decay back to the base of nothing.

Luck will show up in your status, as a general message. For example "You are extremely lucky." is the best thing you could have. You will also know when your luck increases or decreases.

We feel this is a little different from what most games use, and hope it will be an addition you all enjoy.

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

Skill Effectiveness System Revamp

2006-05-21T04:18:00.000-07:00

After some initial testing we decided to change the rate of decay, and do away with the SKILL FREEZE command.

Here is how we have changed it:

If you are over 100% effectiveness you will have a heavy drain to deal with. The equivalent of about 40-50 uses. For a balance time of 4 seconds, this would mean around 3 minutes of your time to combat the drain, per hour. While we know this is pretty bad, this should make it extremely hard to keep more than 2 abilities over 100%. That is the goal.

If you are above 75% but below 100% the hourly drain is around 7 uses per hour. This is about 28 seconds of time per hour, for abilities that have a 4 second balance time. It's fairly small, and should serve it's purpose of making sure you use your abilities to keep the 100%(which is what most people should want their skills to be at).

If you are below 75% effectiveness, there is no drain at all.

Once you reach the maximum effectiveness, there is a buffer zone you can train into, which is about 30k uses. It has NO effect on how strong your ability is, it merely serves as a sort of reserve uses that have to decay before you lose effects.

To add it all up, if you were at the max buffer it would take you about 25 days to use up that buffer. Then another 8-9 days to decay down to 100%, from there another 30 days to decay to 75% which is where it will stop. We feel this is more fair, and as balanced as we can make it until we are ready for true play testing.

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

Skill Effectiveness System

2006-05-18T07:01:00.000-07:00

So, we should finish coding this system by tonight, so we decided to give you a little more information about it.

All abilities, at least the active ones, will have an effectiveness level based on how much(and often) that you use it. It will range from 50%, the starting level, to a number we won't tell you. What your effectiveness is, will never be really known to a player.

How do I gain effectiveness?

Simple answer, use your skills.

How do I lose effectiveness?

There are two ways this can happen:

1. Time, effectiveness will SLOWLY decay over time. Before you scream bloody murder, hear us out. If you were at the maximum effectiveness then it would take you about 42 RL DAYS of inactivity(not logging in, or logging in and not using ANY skills) before it decays back to the base of 50%. To also help combat this, as we know some people need to be gone for a few weeks at a time, there will be a SKILL FREEZE command. This will stop all decay for you, but once you use a skill(and therefore no longer need the freeze) you will lose 50% of the "points" you had in all skills. In other words, if you were at say... 150% effectiveness and froze your decay for 200 days (which would normally put you at 50% effectiveness) you would end up at 75% effectiveness.

2. Use, the more you use one skill the worse the others get. This is a slow rate, of about 5:1, and only effects skills of the same "type." So if you use your KICK attack enough to gain 5% effectiveness, you will lose 1% in your PUNCH and BACKFIST attacks. This makes it hard to get max effectiveness in everything, but possible. There is also a "buffer" zone that you can get into by extreme use. There is a max cap on how much difference effectiveness can give you, but you can continue to gain "points" towards that ability, which will make it harder for you to decay below the max.

Ok, so what does it do for me?

It can effect your chance to hit, costs (such as mental power, endurance, willpower) and damage.

As you can see, this system will help each player be different from another player with the same skills. Just because you chose the same race and the exact same skills, doesn't mean your skills will be equally powerful. It also means that someone whom spends a lot of real life money to increase their skills, doesn't become god. Sure, he's got a lot of abilities, but all of them are weak. Where someone that has been playing for a while and building up his skills, will have far more effective abilities.

Coupled with minor balance, major balance, follow up attacks, and what we're discussing for affliction curing this should make for a far more dynamic combat system, and more enjoyable. We've gone to great lengths to make sure these system add more to a players enjoyment, without forcing them to learn more than in most other games. By this we mean, someone could play (and even be a fighter) without really understanding minor/major balance, follow-up attacks, or effectiveness. These systems will just serve to separate the good fighters from the best!

On a side note, this can effect things other than combat. For example mining will also use this system, in which it will effect the chances of getting and finding those valuable ores!

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

Updates on Ilyrias development

2006-05-17T17:55:00.000-07:00

Right now we are doing things in a seemingly disorganized manner, though there are reasons for why each part is being done like this.

The basics of Organizations are just about done, and now just things like creating ranks and politics are being worked on.

Doors/locks/keys are close to being done, due to special/elevational style exits they are more complex than one would think.

Balance has been created, as previously mentioned, which led to the need to make a special type of messaging routines. These routines are basically an easy way for us to send the right attack message to the right people(caster, target, witnesses). Those were finished yesterday, and once we write a few good ones for Kick/Punch/Backfist we will show you how they look now.

Due to having started a little of the basic combat stuff, we have decided to work on a sort of "can do ability" check. This is basically one large routine that we can quickly decide if someone meets all of the requirements(such as mental strength, endurance, balance, etc) without having to reproduce basically the same code everywhere. This just means that when we get to coding skills, they will be a lot faster and easier.

We have also started to design more of how we are going to handle the special attacks that NPC's will do. Unlike some other worlds, our NPC's will be prone to many afflictions which can effect their ability to use certain attacks.

Closely related to those special attacks, we have also started work on a scripting language that builders will use to make NPC's more dynamic, and for quests.

As you can see, many things are being done at basically the same time, but most of them are so closely related that they really have to be worked on simultaneously. Over all things are still moving at a good pace, in fact we appear to really be a week or two a head of schedule!

Thank you again to everyone that has given us comments and idea's, they have been a great help for us to make the game YOU want to see. Also thank you for your support on TMS, we are currently two votes away from 28th place, and our game isn't even in testing yet!

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

Organizations, Clans and News

2006-05-16T16:59:00.000-07:00

The basic structure for Organizations is just about done now. We started with the simplest one, Clans. We now have the ability to create clans, talk on them, quit them, see a nice pretty list of who is online, etc.

Our news system was integrated into this, making news 100% complete now. No more hacks to make it appear to be working!

On a random note, we've been doing EXTREMELY well on TMS. At the time of this writing we are in 31st place and only 2 votes from getting 30th. Amazing for a game still in development! Thank you all for your support, it really does help.

Balance and Follow-up Attacks

2006-05-16T04:35:00.000-07:00

We have finished coding the basics for damage, balance and follow-up attacks.

There's different types of Balance, for example Minor balance starts when you have 1 second left to regain balance. This minor Balance allows you to move and try to flee away, risking triping and falling to the ground, or use other skills. Certain skills will work as follow-ups to other, causing more damage if they're using during this Minor Balance frame following the first skill, but causing less damage if used after other skills. Using skills on minor Balance will increase the time until you have full balance again by 25%.

Follow-up moves don't have to always do extra damage. Perhaps it increases bleeding or limb damage more, or one could give an extra affliction, etc. The possibilities are endless.

For more detailed information and examples on how this will work, check the Announcement on the Ilyrias Forums.
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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

Player suggested skill ideas

2006-05-13T17:48:00.000-07:00

Another week is just about over, how time flies when you're having fun.

We spent some time the other day reading all of the player suggested skill idea's, in detail, and found eleven that we think will be good additions with some modification, and two more that will be good for reference.

The three that Baram liked the most were Mages, Arcanology and Street Fighting. He feels those need little modification to fit with what we have in mind.

Spirituality we think might work well if we split it into branches. Using the lower half of the skill set as a base skill for anyone, then splitting it off into one branch for each religious order. Then keep the original second half as a branch anyone can take. Obviously to take the religious branch you would need to be in an order following that god/religion. Later we need to design a similar skill for the Scientific orders.

Polearms and Mining were labeled as references. Mining we have already put a good deal of thought into, but haven't fully developed it yet. As for Polearms, we aren't yet sure how we want all the weapons things to work. When we do decide, we will keep that skill set in mind for more idea's.

Many others were chosen as good ones, that just need some more tweaking to fit into our vision for Ilyrias better.

The new builders seem to be learning quickly, and there are still a couple more we want to interview.

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

Builder recruitment and new coding work

2006-05-10T18:07:00.000-07:00

Finished up News last night, and it seems to work pretty well. Can post/read/etc, and once Organizations are completed we will tie them together.

We started another builder today, and hoping to get the other interviews done soon. Never easy to get times to match up, heh. Hopefully with this new addition of builders, we can get more of the world built and keep on schedule for Alpha testing!

Got a couple other minor things done recently, doors/locks/keys are finally getting done, they just haven't been a major priority. Also got some admin level things completed, such as IP banning for those really bad people. A couple other little things were done by our new coder, admin style things such as tracking online time and creation date, over all he's doing really well for having no experience with Rapture.

We've decided to do a time system next, should be a pretty quick project, that way we can add in things like time stamps at the bottom of news and other various little things that will need an In Game time.

Come check out the new Ilyrias IRC room, we've had some interesting discussions there since it opened a couple days ago. Castle.Deathwyrm.Net:6667 #Ilyrias

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

Some good news, and some sad news

2006-05-09T15:47:00.000-07:00

As some of you may know, Mhoram is leaving us. We have known about this for a couple weeks, and wish him well. His real life obligations are becoming such that he doesn't know if he can be around enough, so instead of becoming dead weight he felt it was best to take his leave now. Hopefully in the future he could return.

Now for the better news, Persistent Realms is pleased to welcome Daghda as a new coder. He comes with a lot of coding experience, and has been picking up Rapture quite quickly.

We have also started interviewing people for the builder positions, and have added one so far. Hopefully we will be able to interview the others quickly.

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

Mobile AI

2006-05-07T06:11:00.000-07:00

One of the major new designs for Ilyrias is regarding the artificial intelligence of our non-player characters in the game world, otherwise known as mobiles. Most of you who are familiar with other MUDs, and MMOGs in general, will know that the killing of mobiles for experience, items, money or for the purpose of completing quests is an important part of almost any of them.

However, the actual attention given to how fun this activity (whether you call it bashing, hunting, grinding or whatever else) is, is generally pretty minimal considering how much time players spend doing it. We at Persistent Realms want to try to spend far more energy making this activity enjoyable, because after all if you're spending a lot of your time in Ilyrias fighting mobs, and if you're having fun doing it, you're having fun during a lot of your time in Ilyrias.

For this reason, we are intending to include several new features in our mobile AI, including:

* Mobiles that heal themselves when injured, unless unable (see below).
* Afflictions for mobiles, ranging from mental maladies to physical wounds, affecting both how able the mob is to attack (no knights hitting you when you've just broken their arm) and how able it is to defend (if you've caused uncontrollable rage in your target, they may not even remember to heal or protect themselves).
* Combat styles - all mobiles will fall into a particular combat style, making them more aggressive, defensive, more willing to afflict you or simply trying to crush you with damage and others.
* Intelligent attack choices - no more random attacks that may not even be effective against your character. Our mobiles will choose what to attack you with based on their combat style, your current afflictions, health and mental strength, and their own afflictions - just because you've chopped off the black knight's arms and legs doesn't mean he can't still bite you to death!

That's all we're going to say for now, but look out in future for more on our mobiles and their AI!

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

Baram gone due to wedding

2006-05-07T05:26:00.000-07:00

Sorry for things being a little slow this last weekend, I(Joe) had my wedding Friday and then was gone for the weekend. All is good, I got some more work on the news system done while my wife and I were gone, and things are back into full swing now!

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

News and skill systems

2006-05-03T06:26:00.000-07:00

After some ground work on a news system, coding officially started yesterday. It's turning out to be a lot easier than originally expected, which is always nice. Another day or two and it should be done!

We had an interesting discussion yesterday about weapon skills, wondering what you all think about our idea. Basically there is a base weapons skill for one handed weapons, that will branch into specific weapons about half way through. It would look like this:

	Swords
	Maces
Base skill	Spears
	Axe
	Etc

All of this would be for using one weapon, not dual wield which would be a different skill set.

Then there would be a general(yes, general not professional) skill for shield usage. It would branch off about half way through into more specific weapon styles. Ie:

	Advanced Shields
	Sword and Shield
Shields	Mace and Shield
	Spear and Shield
	Axe and Shield
	Etc

This way if you wanted to do sword and shield style, you can learn your basic weapon abilities and then learn how to effectively use shields with it. Perhaps you are a magic user and only want to use magic, not physical weapons. Then you learn Advanced Shields which continues along the path of just shield use. Doing it this way gives more flexibility(obviously to take Sword and Shield style, you must know how to use a sword) than being told if you don't dual wield swords you will lose.

Thoughts?

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

Sneak preview?

2006-05-02T19:48:00.000-07:00

One thing that we have been discussing is the idea of a "sneak preview" day for Ilyrias. The way this would work is pretty simple.

1. We make a list of all active members of the forums. Active means you've been posting, participating in discussions, giving idea's, etc.

2. We then randomly pick 10 people off that list.

3. We create a character for each of those people, and email them user name and password.

4. For 24 hours they get to play, after completing the newbie intro(if it's done by then) they will automatically be advanced to say... level 50, and given a few hundred Angelstone to play with.

5. After 24 hours we delete all those characters.

Idea would be to give you all a reward for your dedication to us, and a REALLY BIG teaser before we start official testing. If we were to do this, it would be maybe a month before Alpha testing officially starts. So that means there will still be building going on around you, and many things wouldn't be finished.

What do you all think? Would this be something you'd like to have a chance at?

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

Online Text Editor and Organizations

2006-05-01T18:25:00.000-07:00

During the last week we have continued work on Organizations, which as I said is a huge project. Hopefully that will be finished some time this month.

The text editor is completely finished with a few nice features, such as:

1. Ability to move multiple lines of text without having to manually copy it, delete it, and insert it again.

2. Ability to insert up to 60 spaces instantly. This is a major improvement as Rapture will remove any spaces before the first letter/number, which makes ascii art hard to do. With this ability ascii art can be done with the in game editor.

3. Ascii art works, for those familiar with other in game editors you know that often the formatting gets lost. With our file to file style of editing(where other companies store it in a giant text field before putting it into a file) this formatting stays exactly as you made it.

4. Ability to add color to your news posts, books, etc. We haven't decided exactly how this will work, but most likely you will either need to have certain colors of ink in your inventory or a full writers set of ink to use the colors.

5. Everyone gets their own, persistent, clipboard for cut/copy/paste. As a built in feature you can cut/copy multiple lines of text and paste them back later. This clipboard only gets erased when you cut/copy something new. That means you could copy something, like a signature, and repeatedly paste it at the bottom of every post you make... forever.

6. Ability to insert/append text before/after any text on the current line. In many other systems you would have to copy the line you wanted to append to, delete it, then paste it back and add the text.

7. A search and replace function. This allows you to search your current line of text for any one word, and replace it with another. Makes fixing typo's quick and easy.

We've been looking over the applications we've received so far, and have found a few that may be contacted soon. There's still time to get yours in if you wish to apply, and we hope you do. The more builders we have, the faster we can count on things being opened to the public.

Our news system just began it's initial phase of development, and hopefully will be a fairly quick addition. Once Organizations are fully functional news will be integrated into it and be completely finished.

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

The why.

2006-04-28T22:54:00.000-07:00

A question that will always be asked is, WHY did we decide to create Persistent Realms LLC.

In short, we have all worked for Iron Realms Entertainment, as volunteers and Joseph was also a paid coder. We all agreed that IRE was skipping whole area's that could be developed into a good game, such as the concept of classless and customizable worlds.

Why not just propose a game to IRE if you worked for them?

Well, IRE only takes game idea's at certain times, and even if we were selected we would still be limited. We would have to use their base code, some of which that can't be modified, and still work within the limits set by IRE. We felt that by going off on our own, we could enjoy true flexibility to create what we wanted to see, and what YOU the players want to see.

Why licence Rapture? Isn't it expensive?

It sure is! If you look at any other base code we could use, they all require that they be run as hobby muds. We wanted to produce a commercial company that could compete, and beat, IRE. With a commercial backing, it allows us to work on Ilyrias full time. It also opens up the ability to advertise, as well as hire other people to help produce things like professional websites and later a java based client.

Another advantage to Rapture is the fact that it handles a lot of the back ground networking. That allows us to concentrate on the important things, like the world of Ilyrias.

What did you get with Rapture?

WHO, SAY, QUIT and that's about it. Everything has been coded from scratch, and most of what we got from them was rewritten as well.

How serious are you? Is this just some fly-by-night game?

NO WAY! We are extremely serious, and have already put a lot of time and money into the project. I have notebooks full of idea's and code snippets that I write while at my day job, and I then code as soon as I get home. I spend about 8-10 hours a day working on Ilyrias. Not all of it is coding, some is spent on the forums as well as answering emails. Some is spent with our web developer discussing ways to promote the site more, once we have the official site finished. More is spent researching idea's and concepts that we will later discuss. The majority of it is spent coding though. The same goes for Ryan, he spends a lot of his time working on writing and discussing different idea's for how to implement certain systems.

How can I help?

That depends on you.

Some people have made sites with information about us, such as Kahless's Ilyrias Wiki. Which he does need some help moving information that is spread all over the forums on to it.

Spending time on the forums, and giving us your comments and idea's is a HUGE help. Many of the idea's are great, and we plan to use them! Just seeing the activity helps the development team want to work harder and faster.

If you can write, and would like to be a builder you can apply by sending your application to: applications@persistentrealms.com

If you happen to have experience in coding, you can send an application to the CTO at: joe@persistentrealms.com

Can I help play test?

We are not yet at that stage, but will be before the year is out.

The Alpha testers will consist of the development team, and some that are recommended by them. We may also pick a few of the forum members that have contributed a lot to the project.

Closed Beta will be the Alpha team, plus more from the forums. When we get to that point, we will have a web based application system that is available to forums members. Again, the more you contribute the better your chances of being a Beta tester are.

After all of that testing, there will be an Open Beta where ANYONE can help with play testing. The transition from Open Beta to fully open will be seamless and nothing will be reset, the only difference will be us declaring that we are officially open and feel all major bugs and imbalances are worked out.

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

Applications for Builders and Coders

2006-04-28T20:11:00.000-07:00

Persistent Realms is once again seeking applications for building positions on Ilyrias!

Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles is set in a world unlike any other. Carlean scholars have recently unlocked the system of the world, giving them unprecedented control over the forces of nature. Though some denounce this new science as magic and heretickal. Meanwhile the Alberen natives in the south fight to keep their homelands safe from the destruction wrought by the Carleans "progress" and unrelenting expansion. Utilizing the ancient techniques of spirit conjuring and runelore, they present a formidable foe for any enemy of the Ianai forest.

Interested parties should send an e-mail to applications@persistentrealms.com with the following information:

- Your name and age (You must be 18 or over to apply)
- Your experience with MUDs, including time spent as a player, builder, immortal, or admin
- A sample of your writing. This should be in the form of room descriptions (please no more than 10) plus a single item description of some kind of steam-punk gadget that might be appropriate for the Ilyrias theme.
- And anything else you think we should see

We'll be reviewing the applications we receive for about a week before making our decision, so please be patient. If you are just stumbling across this post after the fact - try sending us an application anyway, we'll look it over.

We are also accepting applications for coders, with two positions currently available:

1. Experienced coder wishing to help with production of major projects.
2. Less Experienced coder wishing to help with minor additions and bug control.

Experience with Rapture is not required, but it is a plus.

Requirements for these positions are:

1. Experience with muds.
2. Four year degree related to programming for the first position and at least two years of college experience for the second.

The education requirement can be waived with equivalent work experience. One year of college education is equivalent to one and a half years of work experience. In other words six years of work experience for the first position, and three years experience for the second.

Inquires and applications for the coding positions should be directed to Joe@PersistentRealms.com

Thanks and good luck!

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

The real reason for this blog!

2006-04-26T18:00:00.000-07:00

Now to post about what really matters to you, Ilyrias development!

We have an artist working on artwork for the Ilyrias.com website, which we hope to have up by the end of May. One we have that up, we will be able to give you more information about the history of Ilyrias in a more formal way. We may also turn on the web based help files, giving you a glimpse of what there will be to play with in the future.

As for our current projects, Mhoram is still working on Organizations which is a majorly complex set of code. I'm just doing some polishing on the text editor, and will soon move into a news system.

Over the next few months we will add more functionality to NPC's, such as walking around and fighting. Then we'll be building our combat system, oacts(which are special attacks for NPC's) and progs(which is a simple scripting language for the builders to make NPC's seem alive). Also Erinwyn, who handles a lot of our web related things, will be working on help files and a java client! All of these projects should last until June/July, and will be the last major things we need to do before getting into skills. Personally, I prefer coding skills over anything else... so I can't wait to get to that point.

So there you have it, things are maybe half way done, and moving along nicely. We are currently looking for another coder, if you are interested send us an email. Be sure to include a resume or a listing of your qualifications. More information about Ilyrias can be found at the Persistent Realms forums.

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

An average day in development

2006-04-26T17:49:00.000-07:00

I thought I would give you all a glimpse into the daily life of development in Ilyrias.

For me, the CTO, my day starts off around 6am. After starting the coffee, I'll read through the forums as I wake up. The last few days the forums have been extremely busy, which really helps motivate us to work harder.

After voting I get to work on my current project. Right now I'm putting the finishing touches on our in game text editor. Today I'll add in some convenience features, such as copy and paste, to make it more like a real editor. I would LOVE to add in spell checking, but right now it's just not worth the effort. Something I've added to my list of things to do once Ilyrias is up and running.

Around noon I get ready to head out to my day job, which I'll be at until around 9pm. When I return home I spend a couple hours on the forums and look over what I plan to do in the morning. It's a fairly long day, but a routine that I've gotten used to doing. I personally can't wait to have the game up for players, and see if all the hard work was worth it... I'm sure it will be.

Well, that's a brief thing about me and what I'm doing every day. I probably won't make more "pointless" posts about myself in the future.

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

Ilyrias Alpha testing date released

2006-04-26T03:23:00.000-07:00

Persistent Realms announces a tentative Alpha testing data for November-December 2006. Also, player input is welcome in the design of new skills, dedicating an entire board just to submit skill set ideas. Ilyrias skill system is classless and organization independent, so balance will be one of the biggest challenges, but this will allow the players to customize even more their characters and allow for greater Roleplaying opportunities.

If you have ever wanted to have a say in which skills your characters have, don't hesitate to post your ideas. Those are the skill sets the game will start with, but there will be the option for player organizations to submit fully customizable skill sets in the future.

To see the official announcement check the Ilyrias forums.

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.

Welcome to Ilyrias

2006-04-26T01:56:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the first Persistent Realms LLC online roleplaying game, Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.

In this blog the development team will release important news about the game and other game design related subjects.

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Persistent Realms LLC Development Team for Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles.
Contact us via comments or visit our forums.