Yesterday, the folks from MMO Magic presented the basics behind their upcoming MMORPG, Citadel of Sorcery. Today, they go into more detail about their plans for: PvP, Combat, Rces, Classes and more.

You play one of the Fallen Heroes, a soul of renown, brought back from the dead from a time in the past when true good fought true evil. In those days the Reflected Worlds were in a Golden Age of prosperity, only threatened by the sudden attack of demons. But that time is gone… and you are awakened to a world where evil holds sway. The Reflected Worlds are on the brink of destruction as two powerful forces of evil battle for supremacy, with all free folk in the middle. Into this time of terror, this war between the evil sorcerers of the Citadel and Morphael’s twisted creatures, a Hero is reborn.

You are that hero, and your soul is rescued and placed into a new body. In exchange, you are sworn to a nearly impossible task… bring down both the evils that threaten the Reflected Worlds. You must destroy the evil sorcerers that rule the Citadel, and defeat Morphael and his hordes of evil creatures. To do this you and the other Fallen Heroes must join the evil forces of the Citadel of Sorcery and attack Morphael and his hordes, yet secretly you must also work from within to bring down the rule of the evil Sorcerers and liberate the Citadel of Sorcery.

Read it all here.

Well, that answers my question from part 1 about "solo-ability". Many thanks. :)

This game sounds very interesting, and I wish you developers much luck and future success with it. I suppose it's too early to talk about your beta/game completion time frame? Oh well... I'll definitely be watching this one.

If you need a writer/editor, let me know. ("Intriguing", not "Intriguiing"...)

And, yes, this game IS definitely intriguing. :)

While I applaud their efforts to make a game that stands out from the other MMORPGs out there, this sounds more like a single player RPG than a MMORPG to me. Heavy instancing, little to none PvP, only sporadic need for other players..? Leaving out the other players in a supposedly interactive world makes little sense to me. But I might be wrong about how the game will turn out, we'll see.

We choose to reveal the game to this extent and this early simply because we wanted to get input from the players. We knew we would take a lot of flack from a few people who feel it is necessary to tear down any developer who attempts to do something new. Since the art of the game is only at prototype level, we knew this would also take a lot of heat. However, there are also those who understand that we are doing our best to fight a system where new game design is discouraged as ‘too risky’ to fund. We’re doing this by investing our own time and funds to the project, and have for three years so far. However, the team members are committed to the ideals of this game, and are willing to work to make it a reality for those who would like to try something different in their MMO game. Please be patient and kind, and help us with constructive criticism rather than angry attacks. And remember the words of the Enchantress…

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Flaming a game that is still in early development is lame and stupid. You always have those people.

But there is also something called constructive critisism ;)

Problem is that many of us have seen so many statements from developers before about their new MMO being revolutionary and something new, who would stand out of the rest of the competition. And in the end only ending up in one big dissapointment, because they couldn't deliver on their promisses.

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is a prime example of that! How many players got shafted by Sigil and ripped off $50,- is just unforgivable. And that still stings on many!

One thing that always plays a key role is "budget". Money investment is what desides what you can or cannot do. When you run out of money and thus time you will have to make choices as company. And usually it ends up in either scrapping a lot of promissed features or rush out a terrible bugged / flawed game.

All I hope for you guys is that you have enough money to support your claims and promisses and that you can deliver on all your claims.

Then I say: GO FOR IT!

Cheers

While I am not a big fan of instancing this game does sound diferent. To be honest different will get my money every time over same old same old. They seem to be trying a huge amount of different things, but ofcourse everything comes down to implementation. I have seen some of the same claims prove to be somewhat hollow in the end still hope springs eternal. I wish you the best with your continued development.

After reading both parts of the game intro, the concepts sound great. I would give this game a try even though I too have seen these ideas stated before and over the coarse of development 'short change' the public. The last game that had a similar style of gaming, Horizons. I was so looking forward to that game just to be disappointed at launch. With this said I do wish the developing team luck in an attempt to 'break the mold' of current MMOs.

Wow, it sounds like a MMO dream come true for me. I wish them the best of luck realizing their ideas.

Lately I have to wonder what is it about the 2nd "M" in MMORPG that developers don't get?  Mutliplayer does not mean that complete solo play!

You know when you put in mostly solo play you satisfy the kids and turn off everyone else.  Problem with kids is they have a very short attention span, hence most subscriptions last only a short time.  

Without significant multiplayer features, games like this die on the vine very fast.  I am suprised the people funding this have not pointed out that error to the developement team, seems to me you should always examine the problems encounted by previous games and attempt to alleviate them....not compound them.

A MMO that doesn't force one to group.  My biggest problem with WoW is that it forces one to group.  I don't play WoW anymore because of that.  Outside of the dailies all that is left is raiding, for which I don't have the time . 

This game sounds like it will fit my play style and schedule.  I hope you can pull it off and not be forced by one of the game distribution companies to be more "WoW like".  If I wanted "WoW like I'd still be playing WoW.   I think that might of happened with Vanguard.

This is perfect, as it asnswers many of my questions.  This is a big risk, but I think they can succeed.

I did read about this game. It did seem like a perfect game, but then I did read about the instance. Then it will be a group/single player game, not a mmorgp game. Have seen this in a couple of game and always they claim it has to be that way, I dont think so. instancing should only be used when it has to be.

If it is a dynamic game, than instancing is not a part of that. So what will be left of the dynamic mmorpg game?

I hope they change there mind and drop almost all instancing. Then they would have a very good game.

I know I would be testing it then, but with instancing I would not spend my time on it.

Greetz

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Originally posted by Ozmodan
Lately I have to wonder what is it about the 2nd "M" in MMORPG that developers don't get?  Mutliplayer does not mean that complete solo play!
You know when you put in mostly solo play you satisfy the kids and turn off everyone else.  Problem with kids is they have a very short attention span, hence most subscriptions last only a short time.  
Without significant multiplayer features, games like this die on the vine very fast.  I am suprised the people funding this have not pointed out that error to the developement team, seems to me you should always examine the problems encounted by previous games and attempt to alleviate them....not compound them.
 

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I think you're generalizing too much here. For one thing, just because a game can be soloed doesn't mean it won't have "significant multiplayer features." I suspect it will. But the smart money would be in designing a game that can be soloed for the core content but that also has significant *optional* multiplayer and/or PvP content/regions. If CoS does that, then I think they could be quite successful.

Guild Wars is a good game that is playable either multiplayer or solo or a mix of both and has proven to be quite popular. If CoS can be either soloed or played in player groups from beginning to end, then I'd say that's a really good feature. There's nothing I hate so much as getting totally stuck in an MMO trying to pull a player group together to complete some instanced dungeon or other. Yuk. It's why I canceled my WoW subscription and never went back.

If CoS *required* grouping for instance content (the way WoW et al. do), then I wouldn't be interested in it. Apparently (?), CoS does not--though I'm not quite sure how they intend to do this. There are plenty of other MMOs out there that REQUIRE grouping for people who prefer that style of play. I am not one of them.

I also like the idea that CoS appears to be story-driven, rather than grind-driven, like so many MMOs. It (evidently) has a beginning, middle, and end ... leading to a new beginning, and so on. If lots of instancing is required in order to personalize the story, I think that's also a really good thing.

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Originally posted by Ozmodan

Lately I have to wonder what is it about the 2nd "M" in MMORPG that developers don't get? Mutliplayer does not mean that complete solo play!
You know when you put in mostly solo play you satisfy the kids and turn off everyone else. Problem with kids is they have a very short attention span, hence most subscriptions last only a short time.
Without significant multiplayer features, games like this die on the vine very fast. I am suprised the people funding this have not pointed out that error to the developement team, seems to me you should always examine the problems encounted by previous games and attempt to alleviate them....not compound them.

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Respectfully, I have to disagree. I am 38 years old and play a lot of MMO's. My gaming friends are also in their 30's. We play a considerable amount together, but we also all have individual lives and commitments that prevent us from grouping. So we play grouped or solo depending upon the day.

DDO is a game that really focused heavily on grouping. If your argument held true, then DDO would be a phenomenally successful game. Yet despite having great graphics and compelling dungeon adventures, it's only a mediocre success at best. My friends and I stopped playing it because grouping was the only choice that we had, and when we couldn't group up we had no choice but to play something else. There just wasn't any solo content available in DDO with which to occupy our time until our friends came on.

If you have one game that focuses exclusively on group content and another that offers both options, where will you spend your monthly subscription fee? You'll naturally spend it where you can play whenever you want to. DDO learned this the hard way, and has slowly been introducing more solo content to the game.

As a mature player, I want BOTH kinds of play. I want compelling content that I can enjoy with friends, as well as equally compelling content that I can experience when those friends aren't available. The "join a big guild" argument just doesn't hold water, in part because of the fact that we're mature players. We have developed a core group of solid friends that we work well together with. We don't like all the politics and cliques that form with big guilds. So we -- and many other mature players just like us -- will naturally gravitate toward games that cater to both solo and group playstyles.

That being said, I'm not too sure about the use of instancing as it's described here. If the game world has as much space as the real world, yet that space is heavily instanced, it seems to me that the result would be a very dead world. It will be necessary to learn more about this aspect of the game as the devs make that info available. For now, I'm withholding my verdict.

Sounds good I can't wait to see more.

It does sound a little like Guild Wars, I am hoping it really is something different and they don't go with Sony  

From what i get from how they described the game so far, people seem to be misunderstanding the concept. As a few have said already you can do it by yourself or go with others, Free to choose which you like. You get both players happy with that. 

Also other companies have said these things before and i do agree we have been disappointed. I just hope these guys keep what they are saying. If they do come through with what they are saying and i must agree mmo's need a change. The grind fest is just getting to tiresome. People will always argue against what they are doing because of past experinces, good or bad. I will be keeping my eye on this game closely. You have my interest.

The concepts sound fantastic. As a programmer / geek myself I can't wait to hear more about the working of the engine, especially the quest generator. If that piece delivers this game will be great. And for those moaning about instancing / solo-ability ... think about your favorite books, esp fantasy sci-fi. Do the hero(s) roam together in a band at all times? Nope.

Originally posted by aurick

 

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Originally posted by Ozmodan

 

Lately I have to wonder what is it about the 2nd "M" in MMORPG that developers don't get? Mutliplayer does not mean that complete solo play!
You know when you put in mostly solo play you satisfy the kids and turn off everyone else. Problem with kids is they have a very short attention span, hence most subscriptions last only a short time.
Without significant multiplayer features, games like this die on the vine very fast. I am suprised the people funding this have not pointed out that error to the developement team, seems to me you should always examine the problems encounted by previous games and attempt to alleviate them....not compound them.

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Respectfully, I have to disagree. I am 38 years old and play a lot of MMO's. My gaming friends are also in their 30's. We play a considerable amount together, but we also all have individual lives and commitments that prevent us from grouping. So we play grouped or solo depending upon the day.

DDO is a game that really focused heavily on grouping. If your argument held true, then DDO would be a phenomenally successful game. Yet despite having great graphics and compelling dungeon adventures, it's only a mediocre success at best. My friends and I stopped playing it because grouping was the only choice that we had, and when we couldn't group up we had no choice but to play something else. There just wasn't any solo content available in DDO with which to occupy our time until our friends came on.

If you have one game that focuses exclusively on group content and another that offers both options, where will you spend your monthly subscription fee? You'll naturally spend it where you can play whenever you want to. DDO learned this the hard way, and has slowly been introducing more solo content to the game.

As a mature player, I want BOTH kinds of play. I want compelling content that I can enjoy with friends, as well as equally compelling content that I can experience when those friends aren't available. The "join a big guild" argument just doesn't hold water, in part because of the fact that we're mature players. We have developed a core group of solid friends that we work well together with. We don't like all the politics and cliques that form with big guilds. So we -- and many other mature players just like us -- will naturally gravitate toward games that cater to both solo and group playstyles.

That being said, I'm not too sure about the use of instancing as it's described here. If the game world has as much space as the real world, yet that space is heavily instanced, it seems to me that the result would be a very dead world. It will be necessary to learn more about this aspect of the game as the devs make that info available. For now, I'm withholding my verdict.

Excuse me, but your statements seem contradictory.  On the one hand you advocate letting the player choose between Solo and Group play, and how having the choice is always better than being forced to only one or the other  (and I couldn't agree more with you on this issue).

However, on the other hand you state that you think having the choice of entering a fully instanced world, complete with all adventures, towns, NPCs, enemies... everything... or going into the world where there are other MMO players... is bad.   So you want to limit the game play choice to one of these, instead of having the game allow you to choose what type of game play you want at that time?

Personally, there are times when other players are just annoying me.  I'm on my adventure with my group of friends and some other group of players 'takes' what I'm looking for or need.  I have to wait... I hate to wait.   What good are these other players to me when I'm already in a group on my adventure?  I'd rather have a world where my group was able to adventure without other groups getting in my way.

That being said, there are also times when I might want to wander and maybe join another group of people.  If that were the case, I'd like an MMO area for grouping up and interacting.  I've read all the posts on this game, and read their Q & A section on their web site... they are offering both choices to me, much like offering Solo or Group play.  I want the choice, always, for both these things.

Originally posted by TheCougar

While I applaud their efforts to make a game that stands out from the other MMORPGs out there, this sounds more like a single player RPG than a MMORPG to me. Heavy instancing, little to none PvP, only sporadic need for other players..? Leaving out the other players in a supposedly interactive world makes little sense to me. But I might be wrong about how the game will turn out, we'll see.

the heavy instancing cant be as bad as AOC

Instancing does not make a MMORPG, it functions to allow for more variety but at the same time taking away the best part about a MMORPG, PEOPLE!

This game has some good ideas, I really like the sound of the dynamic monsters attacking towns, but at the same time I see alot a fail for the masses. PvP lots of instant content even at this early stage.

Take WoW add in DAoCs RvR, your mosters and towns AND MOST importantly in without border's ie: ONE game world, when the world becomes too crowded add another server cluster and expand the area and you will have the best game on the planet.

So im guessing its too late for something above?

Originally posted by downtoearth

Originally posted by TheCougar

While I applaud their efforts to make a game that stands out from the other MMORPGs out there, this sounds more like a single player RPG than a MMORPG to me. Heavy instancing, little to none PvP, only sporadic need for other players..? Leaving out the other players in a supposedly interactive world makes little sense to me. But I might be wrong about how the game will turn out, we'll see.

the heavy instancing cant be as bad as AOC

That's probably true. AoC is in the "other MMORPGs out there" bracket either way.

It read to me as if it's going to play a lot like Guild Wars. 

It left me wondering how open the world will be.  Is the world itself instanced based upon my actions the quests I'm given so that every time I enter the instance of that part of the world my actions will be reflected in what's going on there?  Or will each part of the world reflect the overall actions of the server. 

Exactly how much impact will I have on the world as it relates to all the other  players.  

Will I be on a solo adventure that is seperate from any I take as a group?  Will players be able to "help" in a solo quests and will taking part in somone elses adventure have an impact on the way that your story unfolds in solo play?

It sounds more like a co-op game then an MMO one.  I see it being more like an adventure driven Guild Wars. 

well no ffa pvp for this game so as well as it sounds about the other stuff seems just another carebear mmo for everyone to hold hands

wont waste my time or money following it or playing it

Originally posted by convict1

well no ffa pvp for this game so as well as it sounds about the other stuff seems just another carebear mmo for everyone to hold hands

 

wont waste my time or money following it or playing it

  I need a hug......

 convict1 perhaps before you exit I could coax one out of you......or at least just hold my hand for a little while....

~Hairysun~

Originally posted by Urdig

It read to me as if it's going to play a lot like Guild Wars. 

It left me wondering how open the world will be.  Is the world itself instanced based upon my actions the quests I'm given so that every time I enter the instance of that part of the world my actions will be reflected in what's going on there?  Or will each part of the world reflect the overall actions of the server. 

Exactly how much impact will I have on the world as it relates to all the other  players.  

Will I be on a solo adventure that is seperate from any I take as a group?  Will players be able to "help" in a solo quests and will taking part in somone elses adventure have an impact on the way that your story unfolds in solo play?

It sounds more like a co-op game then an MMO one.  I see it being more like an adventure driven Guild Wars. 

You need to read about the game before trying tp compare it to another game.  Cos is nothing like Guild Wars, nor is it like LOTRO, or EQ, or WoW... that's the whole point that many seem to be missing.  This game is something new to MMOs.  People... this is not a static world, nor is it 'job' type quests of 'fetch me nine bananas'.  The devs are clear on this, just read.

They are also clear from their posts that solo questing is optional.  You can play any adventure... any, as a group.   There is no separate 'solo' quest line, but you CAN solo quests if you choose.  Players can come and go into groups as they please, help when they want to join, leave when they want to split off.  I know... because I just went ahead and asked the devs.  They replied almost immediately.

I don't know why people feel the need to try to make CoS like some other game, when it has clearly been their intention NOT to be like other games.  Have some imagination, everything doesn't have to be a clone.  CoS is something new.  Some won't like it because it isn't what they have played in other games, others, like myself, are looking forward to playing something different. 

Question:  If they have multiple servers, and a gameworld that is completely dynamic, how are they going to handle coding the updates, bug fixes, events, etc.  If each server has a different world on it, won't they have tailor each update to the coding of each world?