Tag: map

Trains: The Transport System

Trains: The Transport System

by Ginny O. ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Now that we’ve talked about the map (3D with Fog of War/Standard Road Map), let’s talk about the other standard to MMORPGs, map transportation systems. Or the ability to jump from one side of the map to the other in a short amount of time. Guild Wars had the ability to jump anywhere in the map to the nearest city or town. Star Stable Online uses a network of horse transports, ferries, and boats (and one hot air balloon). World of Warcraft had flying mount stations. In Mystic Riders, we have trains.

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Yes. Trains!

The continent of Argentum is cut off from most of the world by a complex system of storms that no one is quite sure of their origin. (They think they may be magical in nature.) And it takes a lot of engineering know-how for planes and boats to make it to the continent. So, the natural resources of petroleum are very limited, while horses are much easier and much more renewable (along with wind, sunlight, and water). All horses require are things that the farmers can grow! (And pets, lots of pets.) So, there aren’t a lot of cars in Argentum or tractors for that matter.

In Argentum, backed up traffic isn’t cars, it’s horses and carts.

So it is much more cost effective for the people of Argentum to put their fuel resources for hauling cargo and people across the continent into trains.

Of course, they don’t have just any old types of trains. They have Victorian style trains that have been updated to be top of the line and comfortable for today’s travelers. Smaller trains with a few cars behind them have been converted into electric trains, while larger trains that haul cargo from one side of the continent to the other have been converted to diesel.

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Scattered across the map in every district there are train platforms that are guarded and proctored by the adorable station master kitties! All the player has to do is “discover” the train station. (They’re marked on the map, the player simply has to go there and find the platform.) The more train platforms they find, the more train stops the player can use. The player can then make friends with the station master kitty by casting a calm animal spell. (That is if the kitty doesn’t come to them first.)

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There are two ways that the player can use the train stations. They can open their map, click on a discovered train station and ‘jump’ to that train station. Or, they can go to the train station, talk to the station master kitty, and ride the train to their desired destination from there.

They also have the option to pet, play, or feed the station master cat as well. (Some riders carry kitty treats in their saddle bags just to feed the station master kitties they befriend.)

Riding the trains in Argentum is free. That’s right. There is no charge to ride around the map quickly in Mystic Riders.

Once the player has found all the train stations in their district, they’ll be granted an achievement. And they’ll get another achievement for finding all the stations in every district. There may also be achievements for feeding all the station master cats or playing with them. One can’t be sure.

All in all, getting from one side of the district to another is easy on an Astranar train… as long as they’ve discovered the platform!

The Map!

The Map!

by Ginny O. ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Let’s face it, MMOs by the very nature of being considered “massive” tend to have huge areas of ‘game land’ for players to walk/run/ride around in. It’s easy to get lost! Especially if the player has never been in the game before. And well, today we have technology that fits in the palms of our hands that can carry maps, our phones. So, why can’t the player of an MMO have a map on their phone too?

And that is exactly what Mystic Riders wants to have, a map, in an in-game phone user interface. (Yes, part of our proposed in game user interface looks like a modern cellphone.)

The thing that I hate the most about many MMO maps is that they are impossible to read. They’re things that are made of pixels that seemingly have been created by the game designers zooming out from the game area and taking a picture. Then, if you’re lucky, they might draw some road squiggles on it.

In Mystic Riders, what we want is a map that is legible and interactive so the player can see how much of it they have left to explore. The closest I’ve seen to this is the interactive 3D map provided by Black Desert Online.

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With the BDO map, the player can view the map from above it looks like a Google earth type map and as they zoom in, they can see actual 3D representations of the trees, landscape, and buildings. There’s fog over areas of the map that the player hasn’t explored yet.

Now, another option or ‘layer’ for the map that I’d like to implement into Mystic Riders is a standard cartographer’s road map. The player would be able to see the entire road map that is marked with roads, towns, hiking trails, and train tracks of the entire district that they’re in. Important places would be labelled including castles, stables, shops, overlooks, and forests and so on.

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A third option would be being able to take the road section of the road map and overlay it onto the 3D realistic map, much like you can in Google Earth. That way the player can see where the road goes off into the fog of war area that they haven’t explored yet.

The more the player zooms into the map, the more of a specific area and the more labels of shops and lakes and so on they can see. The player should be able to move the map around by clicking on the screen and dragging it to see other areas if they’re too far zoomed in. (Or they can zoom out and click and zoom back in on another area, their choice.)

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The player should be able to set waypoints on the map if they like and have either a marker on the ground or a marker in the sky to show where the way point is. The BDO map also has markers for important NPCs. (If it can be done, I don’t see why not.)

The map’s purpose is ultimately to help the player get around and find the fast way between point A and point B that won’t lead them over a cliff!

Because we want the map to have the fog over it, the map could have a completion achievement for players. This would encourage the explorers and not-so explorers to check out every cranny of the map that they can get to. (Possibly only 100% achievable of the entire country if you take the archeologist profession, more on this next week.)

The players would get new sections of the map to explore as they unlock the new districts. They’d only start out with the first district they are in, and then get Diamond District, and from there they can choose any district they want to unlock in whatever order they want to unlock and play the story.

Maps are an important part to me of the MMO game experience and as such, they should be as complete and legible as possible. Especially if your game involves any sort of orienteering whatsoever. Down with pixel maps. Up with road maps and 3D maps!

Can You Hear Me Now? (Main UI)

Can You Hear Me Now? (Main UI)

by Ginny O. ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Astranar is a rather magical place, so much so that cellphones from out of the country don’t work! When the player arrives at camp, they’re given a cellphone that is connected to Argentum’s cellphone network and works in the magical area. This cellphone is the main user interface for Mystic Riders.

The cellphone looks like your typical smart phone. And it has different icon apps that open up different functions in the game. In short, the cellphone is the game’s main menu. So, what features are in our main menu? A lot.

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(Rough Idea of Menu design)

One of the biggest functions of the cellphone is that it contains the game map. The player is going to need this map to be able to orient themselves around Astranar. The map will be a 3D style map they can zoom in and out of, and hopefully, will have a road map overlay. There should be marked locations where there are important NPCs, train stations, and shops and restaurants, etc. As the player explores more of the map, fog will lift on the 3D map for them.

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(The Map While Riding Around; Not Full Screen)

The menu also has the Quest Log Book. Here the player can bring up the quests available to them, select which ones they want to do (markers will appear on the map) and the gold calculator will tell them how many coins they’ll earn from doing those quests. (Always helpful if you need to buy something.)

The player can also access their inventory. The player has two saddlebags on their horse. One saddlebag is for their pet, and the other saddlebag is for their inventory. They can keep everything from feed, to different crafting kits, to their brush, pick, and foldable shovel.

There will be the character menu and the horse menu. These open up interfaces that show the character or horse and what they are wearing. These menus also keep track of the player’s level, care status, currency, and statistics. The player can look at their skill menu, track their achievements in the achievement sticker book, and see how each group in the game feels about them with the reputation tab.

They also will have a friends menu to invite and manage their friends. There will be a club management section if they are part of or run a riding club. They can keep track of their competition results in another menu. They can take pictures with the in-game camera, open the chat function, or send private messages in the in-game email. Lastly, they can access their game settings or get their questions answered in the game help with a report function to message customer support.

If there is an in game radio, the player should be able to access and control what channel they want to listen to through the phone. Channels might include things like orchestral epic soundtrack music, Rose Neptuna’s channel, or channels dedicated to her rivals like Hi-Fidelity (or even an Astranar’s Top 40 that’s a mix of them all? Future thought to chew on).

The player would have the options of being able to customize the phone wallpaper background with game art pictures or pictures from they’ve taken on their in-game camera and to be able to customize the phone case with in-game patterns and colors.

We hope that this style of user interface will be easy to understand and flexible enough that things can be added to it with little trouble if needed. (Maybe we need a game news function for updates, or a section for the game credits.) There are a lot of things going on in an MMO and the in-game phone is the hub for a great deal of it without cluttering the player’s view of the game itself!

Mystic Riders: The Proposed MMORPG

Mystic Riders: The Proposed MMORPG

by Ginny O. ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

There are certain features in MMORPGs that are considered standard and no longer optional (unlike back in 2006). If you want your MMO to be a full AAA type product, you can’t skip on these features. It’s more than having a full story (and in a combat MMO it’s having a good combat and PvP system). So, here in brief are some of the features we want Mystic Riders to have.

A Mount System.

Mystic Riders is a horse themed MMO focused on story. We have to have mounts for our players. These will be horses based upon real world horses, and horses that are completely magical! We want the horses to come in three types: ponies, regular warmbloods, and draft horses. The horses would come in different coat colors and each breed would have their own set of basic statistics based upon what their breed is well known for doing because we have skill system.

The Skill System.

The Skill System as it pertains to horses is the type of rider your player character can be. There are four horse based skills that correspond with different racing type minigames. Your player can be a dressage rider, a western rider, a showjumper, or a jockey type. Or, they can balance their stats to be an all around rider. As they player gains levels they will get points to put towards skills and be able to customize their character and story.

There are also different skills that go with a crafting and farming system.

Crafting and Farming System

We want the players to have the ability to make and customize their own items in the game. Different items would have different stats and would be available for different seasons. (You don’t want to wear a summer blouse in the winter!) The player could use these items to decorate their house and some items would only be available to different factions or professions.

Housing System

In a housing system, or as we call it in Mystic Riders, My Farm/My Stable, the player has control over customizing and growing their own little farm area. They have a house, rooms inside the house dedicated to different types of crafts, and a stable to house their horses. The more they learn, the bigger their stable and house will be, the more animals and gardens they’ll have, and thus the more horses they can own.

Factions System

The players have to make a choice in the game, what type of magic are they using. Are they Light Riders or are they Shadow Riders? There are exclusive items, horses, and pets to each faction. And they can only learn the magic of light or shadow depending on which faction they choose.

Magic System

There are two types of magic in Astranar, Light Magic, the magic of the elements and thought itself, and Shadow Magic, the magic of decay, disease, and depression. (Death keeps out of this.) Once the player advances beyond basic magic in the tutorial, they can learn spells associated with their faction and depending on what area of Astranar they are in.

Professions System

Once the players reach the capital zone of the Diamond District, they can choose a job. These jobs come with extra quests and more items that they can buy, craft, or grow.

Reputation System

As the player goes through the story they will be given options on how to respond to the different quests. How they respond will affect the NPCs and their groups view of the player, thus earning them reputation. If they don’t earn enough reputation with a certain group to advance that story, they will be given ‘catch up’ type story quests to get enough to proceed.

Pets

In Mystic Riders, we want the players to be able to own one or more several cuddly pets. They can keep their extra pets at the My Farm.

Map

We have several plans for the map. We want our map to be a 3D style Google earth map with the options of having a Randy McNally style roadmap to go over it. That way the player can zoom in and zoom out of the map and be able to find directions to where they are going if it is hidden by ‘fog of war’ because they haven’t explored the area yet.

We also want to have free map travel from train junction points that once the player discovers them, they can travel between them instantly and for no in game money. These train stations are manned by the Station Master Cats. You may feed the kitty, pet the kitty, or take the train.

Riding Clubs

In the game, the players will be able to form their own riding clubs. In their riding clubs, they can have club gear and equipment, their own club house, and do club events as well as participating in club vs. club racing and eventing PvP.

Player Versus Player

PvP in Mystic Riders is completely optional. All group races and championship style events are up to the discretion of the player whether or not they want to participate. PvP can include races against your friends in groups. Or racing in large championships that you can only enter once you’ve beaten the racing story line of your area and are a “champion.”

Chat System

In the game there will be a chat system for players to be able to talk to each other. The Chat system will be locked for players under the age of thirteen. We hope to have a system in place where if you try to use a word that would be censored, it will turn red and you won’t be able to send the chat without changing the word. This will help with compliance with acts such as COPPA.

There is one system that we won’t be implementing into the game and that is an in game player economy. Players will be able to sell items to NPCs but they won’t be able to sell them to each other. As this is one of the  most tricky systems to work into a huge game, and is one of the most easily abused, we don’t want to get into it.

These are a good many of the different systems that we have hopes to implement in Mystic Riders MMO, along with our mini-games, in order to make it an enjoyable and fully realized gaming experience.