Will Revival revolutionise fantasy MMORPG genre?

[Mirilan]

I stopped reading at this silliness, quote: 'Well, yes, you will see players having sex with each other before they decide to explore a cave...'
Sounds a bit like Second Life with killing orcs, gets a miss from me.

[Nightalas]

I stopped reading at this silliness, quote: 'Well, yes, you will see players having sex with each other before they decide to explore a cave...'
Sounds a bit like Second Life with killing orcs, gets a miss from me.

If you think about theater plays and movies, having sex before entering a cave could be easily turned either into very silly comedy or serious epic drama depending on the use of other features and elements like mood, atmosphere, music, underlying plot, the feel of the characters. Sex before cave can easily work well in some scene of a single player game, movie or TV series but I agree that it can turn out extremely silly in the setting of a multiplayer online game. We'll have to see the overall design, mood and atmosphere of the game before we can tell if it turns out to be an epic fail idea or actually something that is not completely ridiculous.

In further discussion on the topic on Revival forums the developers mentioned that missing out on sex might work in the same way as not watching sex scenes in Game of Thrones. A player might miss out on some other features or story elements if he or she completely avoids sex features because for player characters and NPCs the game will function to a great extent on acquiring and loosing tags. The tags are going to be a major core system in Revival that will set it apart from other MMORPGs. Whenever a player character or NPC does something or something happens to him/her, there is a chance that he or she will loose or acquire a tag, or that some of his/her existing tags will be transformed or altered. Tags will affect things like character's skills and abilities, knowledge of the world and different things, how (other) NPCs react to him or her, character's physical and psychological traits.

Sex would certainly define and label the whole game if it was 1 feature out of 10 but if it is 1 feature out of 100, it shouldn't feel so prominent.
However, there is danger that some players will make it a number one prominent feature of the game. The developers will most likely do something about it like maybe limit sex to once per week per game account, restrict it to confinements of inns, brothels or private houses, or something else to make sex a less visible feature if players start breaking immersion by using it. Developers of Revival have mentioned on many occasions that they will actively monitor the game every day and tweak things to keep immersion high and prevent silly or ridiculous things that players do in some MMORPGs. For example, right now they are mainly preoccupied with housing. They are going to make sure that players will not be able to break immersion for others by placing houses in absurd locations or decorating fields or gardens with silly placement of items. They are going to leave house placement and design to graphic and level designers and players will be limited to decorate or upgrade their houses only inside the house.

[Mirilan]

Sex would certainly define and label the whole game if it was 1 feature out of 10 but if it is 1 feature out of 100, it shouldn't feel so prominent.
However, there is danger that some players will make it a number one prominent feature of the game. The developers will most likely do something about it like maybe limit sex to once per week per game account, restrict it to confinements of inns, brothels or private houses, or something else to make sex a less visible feature if players start breaking immersion by using it. Developers of Revival have mentioned on many occasions that they will actively monitor the game every day and tweak things to keep immersion high and prevent silly or ridiculous things that players do in some MMORPGs.

I think that Games of Thrones (in so far as the T.V series) would be just as watchable with less sex, most of the time it feels unnecessary and I suspect a lot of it included for titillation purposes. Players will do this throughout if it's not restricted in some way I can guarantee you that. The other quote I felt was out place was I don't know where I read it but it was something like 'Maybe two characters become involved through the course of play and decide to get married. Is there a way to spice up the marriage ceremony? Yes, why not summon Great Cthulhu!' No, just no. As a fan of Lovecraft this kind of thing would put me off straight away, I always thought if done right a Cthulhu Mythos fantasy setting has potential to be very immersive, having Cthulhu arrive at a wedding ceremony is not the kind of thing I'd expect to see in this type of setting. In fact I'd more be in favor of something in a MMO that imitates Lovecraft or closer to the CoC RPG wherein the characters don't follow a rail roady story line but actively investigate the plot using acquired skills they have developed in order progress, the level of skill acquired determines what plot strands are uncovered.

Btw, what is the approximate real world historical period this game is equatable to? Also can I go mad reading the Necronomicon? ;-)

[Nightalas]

The other quote I felt was out place was I don't know where I read it but it was something like 'Maybe two characters become involved through the course of play and decide to get married. Is there a way to spice up the marriage ceremony? Yes, why not summon Great Cthulhu!' No, just no. As a fan of Lovecraft this kind of thing would put me off straight away, I always thought if done right a Cthulhu Mythos fantasy setting has potential to be very immersive, having Cthulhu arrive at a wedding ceremony is not the kind of thing I'd expect to see in this type of setting.

Btw, what is the approximate real world historical period this game is equatable to?

The game will be set in a fictional world of Theleston (not on Earth) in a period that approximates the Medieval or Renaissance era in our real world. The game will begin during a period when the humankind is recovering from a Dark Age. There will be two major continents and an archipelago with different climates and cultures when the game is finished. The game might include some influence from Robert E. Howard's work (known for Conan the Barbarian) for the dark fantasy elements.


I seriously doubt that Great Cthulhu would be summoned "just for fun" to someone's marriage ceremony. There are too many serious Lovecraft fans in the game's community and lead developers themselves are serious fans of Lovecraft's work, plus it would go against their main principle of creating an immersive world.


I found this interesting text about gods and their agendas posted by one of the lead designers two weeks ago on the forums:

The gods absolutely have their own agendas that they move to forward every day, and in fact, many times when players interface with the gods, these agendas will dictate their motivations and actions. If one could know the plans of the gods, one would be in possession of valuable information that could be used to their advantage, I think. That's one of the advantages to understanding astrology in Revival, in fact. As you surmised, the alignments and movement of stars, the appearance and disappearance of objects in the sky and other astronomical phenomena have metaphysical importance in the game. Knowing the stars won't tell you everything, of course, but it will give you some insight in what is happen and what is to come, as it relates to the actions of the gods and their plans.

That said, even more so on gold servers, our gods are also reactive to the events that occur around them. One god might see that another is weak and alter their own plans to take advantage of it, or capitalize on some momentous player action to accomplish their own ends in an unexpected manner and time.

In the fiction of the world, in many ways the gods are the reason the world is in the state it is in. Well, OK, the story is way more complicated than that, but the great old ones and the outer gods have influenced the cultural development of humanity across the globe to make the world the sort of "post-apocalyptic fantasy" that set up the dark fantasy world it is today. For us, that meant we had to have their influence continue. It wouldn't just stop. Without spilling any story details @ombwah would hurt me for, it's hard to explain what I mean because things are oddly quiet in the moment of the game's official "clock start", but suffice it to say: The gods influencing the world directly as entities was a "must have" element for us.

As for what they do every day? Depends on the god. Azathoth has a pretty active schedule of screaming and eating laid out for him every day, for example. On the other hand, Cthulhu mostly sleeps. I hope.
https://www.revivalgame.com/forum#/d...n/comment/8661

In fact I'd more be in favor of something in a MMO that imitates Lovecraft or closer to the CoC RPG wherein the characters don't follow a rail roady story line but actively investigate the plot using acquired skills they have developed in order progress, the level of skill acquired determines what plot strands are uncovered.

Also can I go mad reading the Necronomicon? ;-)

I think you should definitely read their weekly blog #8 (Great Minds of Theleston section). It provides answers to what you want to see and the question about Necronomicon.
https://www.revivalgame.com/blog/8

[Mirilan]

I'll certainly watch developments with interest it seems like an ambitious project which I wish you all the best with. It's definitely true about Cthulhu gate crashing a wedding btw, I read it here: https://www.revivalgame.com/philosophy/monetization

Quote: 'Players can spend real money to commission content. Imagine that you and your partner have decided to tie the knot, what better way to celebrate that than with an appearance of dread Cthulhu at the in-game event?'

[Thrudh]

Sex before exploring a cave?

And then this?

I'll certainly watch developments with interest it seems like an ambitious project which I wish you all the best with. It's definitely true about Cthulhu gate crashing a wedding btw, I read it here: https://www.revivalgame.com/philosophy/monetization

Quote: 'Players can spend real money to commission content. Imagine that you and your partner have decided to tie the knot, what better way to celebrate that than with an appearance of dread Cthulhu at the in-game event?'

These devs don't seem to have a clue about immersion.

[Uska]

I remember when the buzz was Darkfall would change everything it didn't did it in fact many probablly haven't even heard of it

[Nightalas]

I'll certainly watch developments with interest it seems like an ambitious project which I wish you all the best with. It's definitely true about Cthulhu gate crashing a wedding btw, I read it here: https://www.revivalgame.com/philosophy/monetization

Quote: 'Players can spend real money to commission content. Imagine that you and your partner have decided to tie the knot, what better way to celebrate that than with an appearance of dread Cthulhu at the in-game event?'

It looks like they mention it in a text about commissioned content. The only way I can see it work without influencing immersion for other people is creating a map or an instance which is not connected to the game world, so that a few players could have Cthulhu at their wedding ceremony as an exclusive event which is detached from the game world. In some persistent worlds of Neverwinter Nights dungeon masters teleported certain players to maps not connected in any way to a game world and arranged something for them there.

Then again, I don't think I've ever played a 100% serious multiplayer online game. Every developer has used some temporary fun stuff. For example, in DDO they had the Kobold Union in the Crystal Cove.

Oh well, every game has its flaws. I just hope that the good features will outweigh the bad features.

[Nightalas]

I remember when the buzz was Darkfall would change everything it didn't did it in fact many probablly haven't even heard of it

Darkfall is quite a famous game. I've never played it myself but I've heard from players in other games how Darkfall combined sandbox and PvP elements.

[Hafeal]

I play games to escape the 'real' world and act in Heroic fantasy.

I do not need to play a game where every minutiae of 'real' life is being represented - be it sex, taking a dump, or any other physical delight.

I think this game misses the mark in understanding entertainment - or perhaps, is simply using the guise of fantasy to peddle a new kind of pixel porn.

*shrug* If idiots want to shovel out real money for this ****, to a dev team that won't have a working game for another 2 years, well Barnum was right.

[Nightalas]

This week another MMORPG game called Chronicles of Elyria was announced to the public. It is developed by a completely different company but will have many similar goals and features as Revival. It looks like indie developers have started a new trend to bring some innovative sandbox MMORPGs to the market. Soulbound Studios plan to showcase a prototype of Chronicles of Elyria at Pax East in 2016, and Illfonic will release an early version of stage 1 Revival game client this month.

http://chroniclesofelyria.com/

[Vellrad]

I've heard devs of new games saying that their game will revolutionize the genre, and it never happens.

[Uska]

Darkfall is quite a famous game. I've never played it myself but I've heard from players in other games how Darkfall combined sandbox and PvP elements.

It's a terrible game with a small following and yes I tried it

[Nightalas]

The game development is progressing baby steps. Right now they are integrating a house decorate tool into the game client. A game client version that includes the tool will be released in November. Players will be able to decorate their homes with furniture and objects when it is released.

They included a screenshot showing the tool in action in a weekly blog yesterday.



This week they also finished their work on Star Citizen and announced two new games. One of the games will be a team multiplayer zombie game and the other one a horror game made in co-operation with people from the movie industry who made Friday the 13th and some other slasher horror movies in 1980s.

[Axeyu]

Revolutions are generall not advertised as such beforehand.

[Nightalas]

The company making the game seems to have quite an impressive project portfolio by indie standards.

http://www.illfonic.com/#!projects/d5xk5

[Krelar]

The company making the game seems to have quite an impressive project portfolio by indie standards.

http://www.illfonic.com/#!projects/d5xk5

It looks like only 3 of those projects have actually been released.

One was a tech demo.

One was a remake of someone else's game. (They are claiming the original release date (2005) rather than their own (2012), probably because the original game had good reviews while their remake did not)

The final one they only did the co-op portion of the game (this game also had bad reviews.)

That page just makes me think they are taking on way more than they can handle.

[Nightalas]

One week ago a video appeared on Youtube showing an orchestra playing and recording the main theme of Revival. The main theme was created by the same composer who made music for Star Citizen.

[Nightalas]

There is finally some video shootage from the game showing a bit more than just empty houses.

[Vellrad]

Dude, are you paid to make those posts?