P.O.D and other various articles!

A wee bit about the P.O.D just to show how it works roughly.

When a subject enters the P.O.D, he selects from a stockpile of memories.the memories and histories of the selected character as well are loaded into a custom default map which is redesigned to resemble the players choice in era and location.

for instance -

If the player was to choose the Templar class, the history of that Templar would be loaded in.

The architecture of the Templar's era will replace the default mapping to give a more authentic and realistic feel.
sound from a large data-bank will also be loaded in and matched up with the Templar's memories in order to maintain the realism in place. The sense of touch and smell will also be loaded in from a data-bank but will tap into the neuro-centers of the players brain in order to simulate the sensation of touch and smell.

As a side effect of the new technologies of the P.O.D, there is a certain small bug that may present its self, not only do the memories of the selected character get loaded in, Certain notable figures such as enemies and allies may be loaded in as well.These memories aren't supposed to be loaded in, they might never present them selves within the Somnium but be wary if they do they almost always serve to divert the player from his true goal.

The lay of the land!


The area will consist of One city, five towns and various villages, this will not change no matter what era you enter, the only difference will be in architecture

It may be noted however that the villages are dynamic in the sense that they can be burned down by a group of roaming bandits and rebuilt somewhere else over time. they are the most affected by change.


Enemies


So this is just a general base for enemies more will be added.

Humans -  this is a generic base for all humans in somnium. be they from the witches era or from the mercs era.
           Bandits
           Rogue guards
           Priest Cult Members

Animals-
           Wolves
           Bears
           Vultures
           Snakes
           Hyena

Mythical Creatures -
          Trolls
          Goblins
          Gryphons
          Drekavac
          Bahamut

Malleus Malificarum

I apologize for the lateness of my post, work has been piling up.


Anyways lets get right in about this.


I don't know if we have been clear on this, but when you enter the pod you are taking on the world and back story of the character you select but not the actions, you are free to define your role and what you do after you enter their memory..the character back stories are in place so you can have a feel as to what happened previous to you entering Somnium.


This week we had to think of story for our game, So two of us set about the task of creating a  back story which we believed would help the game, but it was not to be and after doing that work it was 2 for the story and 1 against it so a compromise had to be met, it was decided as we are doing a multiplayer rpg type game that there would be no back story for the future.

 it is simply you in the future entering somnium.

there is a woman guiding you down the corridor explaining how to enter somnium. 

This is because we want the player to feel like it is infact them in the future going into the pod and we can't very well do this by putting a fictional characters story in there ...and following in the footsteps of all the mmo's out there, your character at time of creation does not have a personal back story but at the time of game completion he has an immense back story. this is what we are aiming for.

the overall story while in the pod has not been formally laid out for all to see, the general idea is Total free reign to do what ever the hell you want. but those choices could hurt them or help them later on, there will be a main story to ad hear to and it must be completed in order to get out the pod.

the main story we are still chucking about ideas for but it seems we are all in general agreement that each era will have a few different key events that act as main story way points, the theory here is to make these key events interlink through the distortion caused by the pod malfunction so for instance...

...we are in the templar realm ready to take on some mercenaries from the order of the black hand. we rush into battle and *BOOM*  all of a sudden you are in the merc realm defending your self from gun shots and taking out the leader of a rival army that has nothing to do with the templars and is radically further on in the time stream...this works the opposite way too, the key events are seemingly random and can be from that era or from a different era.

this is to maintain excitement and wonder, "i wonder what will happen next, will i be fighting off demon spawn in the witches era and suddenly be plunged into another era as part of this event", we have thought about the effect this will have on a player, players don't like random change without any warning, especially when they think they are in the middle of an epic fight and then are shifted to another place so to counter this we are going to add in a warning feature to let the player know this event is prone to era shifts.

could promote this as a morality thing in real life, as if your decisions in game gave you a real life morality chart.

Anyway onto the main event

The world story of Malleus Mallificarum.

Malleus Malificarum

This is a briefly detailed description of the era the witch comes from. It allows the Player to get more of an in-depth feel for the place they are entering and may provide some useful ideas that may help the player on their way.

The era of Malleus Malificarum is a strange one, it is not unlike “The Blight” of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, in where it is primarily a nightmarish land where corruption is spread far and wide, you would be hard pushed to find an uncorrupted soul.

In this era the church has imposed a ban on all forms of black magic, witchcraft is punishable by a fate worse than a simple death, the church is ruthless in the hunt for all practitioners of the dark arts and in its pursuit have lost sight of their ideals and have become just as bad, or worse, than those they hunt. Witches hide their identity in fear of the church, even though their power vastly exceeds the churches. The witches tried to declare their selves before; a witch by the name of “The Unseen” made a stand and issued a call to arms for all witches. Unfortunately she was swiftly taken care of by the arch-bishop.

The land is for the most part dead or rotting only small havens of greenery still exist here, the towns are a source of much entertainment, people fear to stray too far from these towns…dangerous things lurk outside in the wilderness. The church aren’t these peoples only worry

The last page of her diary remains an inspiration to all who are afraid, a light in the darkness.

“

Day 47 since declaring myself.

It has been forty seven days since the beginning of a new era for Malleus, it is as I feared, the church has too strong a hold on this nation, not enough are joining the cause, I have spoken to many of my followers and found that the people aren’t joining because of the fear the church is to great.

To these people I say, I dream of a day we can walk the streets freely, being able to use our craft for good, there are those of us out there that wish this to be the case, yes we do not all conform to that stereotype of evil.

I ask those of the church, are you any better than us? You bully your way around the nation claiming you are doing the work of the divine! Your healing is based on faith, faith that everything in the divines power will come alright, YES , become part of the church and be saved. No, you will go to a worse place for what you have done to these innocent people, I have witnessed the church do nothing but kill, torture and kidnap in the name of the divine, while our people are widely hunted for what? Healing the blind, helping those who seek aid, yes there are those of us that would rather use a hex there and a fireball here, but the blame is squarely placed upon the church, we have been forced to take extreme measures to ensure our ongoing existence and potential safety.

No more of this hunt, I say, time to meet these oppressors head on! I may not achieve it today or tomorrow, I may even get killed while trying to achieve it, but that niggling thought will be there in all the witches throughout malleus , “We can change this”, if I die , there are a number of others waiting to take up the mantle, this is not just a baby throwing his toys out of his cot in a tantrum, we will succeed….    …..you are the key to this….Rise up…you have always had the power.      “

As you can see this is not a place for a witch to go gallivanting about flaunting her powers, but one witch has done so, she will bring the church crumbling down with the aid of her allies.

…the church will fall.

Character Design...maybe some level design

So first of all, you know those sketches I done last week, I have more, basic concept art not rendered at all but you will be able to get a understanding of the physical representation of the characters...only The Templar and The Witch I'm afraid.

The Witch

There she is holding a fireball in one hand and her staff in the other, and The Templar...

The Templar

If you wanna see these in better detail head on over to my Deviant art page for this game design, it will have future sketches and such like so check it out http://t-beattie.deviantart.com/gallery/33019182

So onto the main agenda...today after much debate....AND I MEAN MUCH DEBATE, it was unanimously

decided that I would take The Witch and write up a back story for her.

The Witch is able to have two architypes, The first being the hero, if you choose her as your character in the singleplayer she will take on the hero architype, also you play multiplayer she will also be regarded in the usual fashion of a hero.If the player decides on a different character in singleplayer The Witch then becomes an ally.

Being like any witch, she has a nasty streak in her, chaotic, but the myths about witches are exaggerated, well for the general population of witches, witches don't go about hexing people and throwing fireballs for no reason, except that small percentage of the population, Our witch is Chaotic good, she will have the groups best interests at heart but she will go out of her way to hide it even to the point of utter rudeness. As I said before she will have a nasty streak in her, hey what fun is playing a witch if you cant occasionally break the rules? she will be able to have access to dialogue that will allow her to act evil or good depending on the situation.

So now I've talked about the personality of this character(baring in mind that the personality shines through the most if she is an ally in single player and that the dialogue will only be accessible if she is a player controlled character),  I would like to show you a key part in her history.

This is subject to change.

"It is the dead of night, the local tavern has just shut, the drunks are making their way home, among them a young barmaid, who heads to her house down the winding road, she is oblivious to her fate and what lays ahead, she walks on, silently remarking on the nights events, the bar brawls, the comedy...what a laugh..

...Suddenly she is grabbed from behind by a man, the only discernible feature she is able to pick out on the man is a cross, a thought rushes into her head, "Shit, A priest, I've been found out", followed by a throbbing sensation then darkness.

Back at the barmaids house, an even younger woman sits by the fire, engrossed in a book, no , it appears to be an ancient text, the excitement is visible on her face, she finally finishes reading and notes that her sister should have been back by now.

She heads on over to the tavern and is greeted by the owner who tells her that her sister headed home quite a while ago, with that knowledge the young woman sets out around the village to find her sister, thinking she is probably face down in a bush,drunk. A thought flashes across her mind "oh not again".

After a while of searching she is about to give up when she notes muffled noise coming from a near by barn, she enters stealthily. Her attention is immediately drawn to a lifeless body being set ablaze by what appears to be a priest wearing unusual garments with the insignia of a rogue priesthood, the body seems strikingly familiar to her, if only she could get closer...."Oh no!" and with that she launches into an attack, putting her faith in all that she had learned from reading the Grimoire, she lauches fireballs one after the other, scorching the unawares priest, she then finishes him off with a hex, he chokes then suffocates.

She walks up to the body of her sister, kneels down, chants a few verses of an unknown script, it is visible in her eyes, the reinforced eyes of a person with vengeance on the mind...

...and so she would walk a path that would lead her to face all kinds of perils, she would hunt down this rogue priesthood and all those that would seek to destroy the ways of The Witch."

I plan to write more on The Witches homeland throughout the week  and some rough sketches of the environment.

The creative juices are still flowing!

So we are in our second week of designing this game and its fair to say we have made significant progress .

although I doubt we are ready to comment on our unique selling point , that will obviously make this theoretical game a success and gain significant financial backing, we are ready to divulge a brief overview of what we are expecting the game to turn out like.

so where do I begin, we sat down to decide on what is going to be in our game ...such as areas and who are the characters going to be...this is all in very loose detail...we haven't fine tuned any of this yet but here goes....

The game will initially start in the waking world....where the rich are rich and the poor are poor and a revolutionary new invention called Somnium has allowed anyone with the right money to enter Somnium via a piece of machinery called a P.O.D (Pro-memory Output Display), this tech was originally marketed at anyone with a dream, although with the onset of social decay it is now only the wealthy that can partake in this unique experience.

we have for different eras in which our game is set;

The first era has heavy influences from the Napoleonic Wars from the 1800's although these areas will not be factual they will be based on factual things such like the uniforms the NPC's wear will be similar to the actual ones, the structures will have that Napoleonic feel to them... you get what we are trying to bring across here. This era will be called Pax Britanica.

The second era is called Sigillum Militum, which pertains to the time of the Templar crusades and the Illuminati, I'm thinking particularly within this era there will be allot of conspiracies the heroes must unravel in order to help them, as above it will have obvious references to that particular time but with a unique somnium twist.

The third, Maleius Malificarum, is referenced to the salem witch trials, sorcery and paganism...in this i think the church will be vigilant on the burning of witches and all those who harbour them, which could present a problem.

The fourth will be called Somnium,..if it can be thought of, its in this world, you are most definitely not safe in this world!

these are just brief outlines what could be our levels but for now they stay as is, it allows the player several different stories in one game that wouldn't bore them because it is ever changing

head shot concepts for the Witch and the Templar

I also have some sketches and preliminary art for character design.

all these and more can be accessed at:
http://t-beattie.deviantart.com/gallery/33019182

Templar sketch