The concept sounds like the future of MMOs, where characters are not grinding the same quests for the same equipment. We all want to play the game to be special. We want to be the heroes or villains or some ambiguous in-between. I would love to play an MMO where the experience was my own and my actions had lasting consequences upon the world.

All that being said, I have serious doubts about COS. All those game mechanics sound awesome, but do you guys know how you're going to pull it off? Do you have this awesome quest generating engine developed or is this all a fantastic pipe dream on paper? Are you as far as alpha tests? Do you even have a program to test at this point?

Will the game world be large enough that all players, casual and hardcore gamers alike, will have access to unique events? What happens if the player base completes all the objectives and establish relationships with all the NPCs before your dev. team can develop new content?

Will there be "instanced" content? If not, how will you control multiple players attempting to accomplish the same goal? If two people arrive at a town in conflict, how do you decide which one is the "hero" of the day in the eyes of the townsfolk? If content is "instanced," how will you account for the myriad of different experiences players have at the same locations?

Unless you're in alpha testing and have actually created all the functionality you promised, I'd say you're blowing smoke and building hype for a game that will under deliver. I foresee a lot of things getting stripped from the game as you hit the hard realities and limitations of your technology and resources.

Please, please, please, please... prove me wrong.

The art is rather bland. As you said, it's early though, so you have time. There are no transitions, the models are incredibly... wrong. Nothing fits where it's put. The art is too all over the place. I hope you can fix that.

Other than that, the game sounds like a great idea. But we all have heard hundreds of games that sounded amazing, and never came to life. Never made it anywhere. Never delivered.

There are many promising games out there, promising much like yourselves, that have never made it to a formal test. Too much vision, and not enough implementation will kill you.

Good luck though, lets hope you don't fall into the void like 99% of companies who have 'great ideas'.

How exciting!  GO FOR IT !

I hope for them they have enough cash and time to realise all those made promisses.

Many MMO dev's before you had lots of vision and idea's and never realised them.

4 examples:

Matrix Online

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

Auto Assault

Tabula Rasa

Just to name a few ;)

They either ran out of money or just stripped their promisses into oblivion and delivered the same cookie cutter MMO as we have plenty of today already.

I get the feeling these folks played a lot of Second Life, that or they're big fans of the Myst series.

This sounds pretty cool.  I'll be interested in seeing how the game develops.

With five years of development, maybe this is possible. Maybe. There are a lot of things that I kinda doubt you can do at this point in our technological history.

The thing that bothers me, though, is that this sounds a lot like a good single player experience. If this is an MMO, what's the point to having all this stuff if friends, parties, guilds and the such are not included? Yeah, that's great that you can take control of a town and command it's forces, but why you? Why couldn't someone else do the same thing? Would you still be able to take control? You shouldn't, but it takes away from the fun if you can't at the same time. That's a problem. If every event is instanced just for you, that takes away from the fun of the multiplayer experience.

I'm interested to see where this turns up, though. Even if it doesn't succeed (and you guys honestly mean it when you say your engine can do all this stuff) then at the very least other companies can use the engine and improve on what you guys have. That's if you don't succeed, though. I'm saying you won't.

I'm interested to see where this game is going.

Originally posted by Vexe

With five years of development, maybe this is possible. Maybe. There are a lot of things that I kinda doubt you can do at this point in our technological history.

The thing that bothers me, though, is that this sounds a lot like a good single player experience. If this is an MMO, what's the point to having all this stuff if friends, parties, guilds and the such are not included? Yeah, that's great that you can take control of a town and command it's forces, but why you? Why couldn't someone else do the same thing? Would you still be able to take control? You shouldn't, but it takes away from the fun if you can't at the same time. That's a problem. If every event is instanced just for you, that takes away from the fun of the multiplayer experience.

I'm interested to see where this turns up, though. Even if it doesn't succeed (and you guys honestly mean it when you say your engine can do all this stuff) then at the very least other companies can use the engine and improve on what you guys have. That's if you don't succeed, though. I'm saying you won't.

I'm interested to see where this game is going.

i dont think things are going to be instanced. from the sounds of it every players decision could impact another player in someway or another which would make it a true mmo.

sounds awesome not geting my hopes up tho

Yeah, finally someone who dares to make a sandbox MMO with a dynamic world (again). Not a year to early.

They have a great semi-crafting system where you get your basic weapon and go around the world modifying it to your liking.

from their site:

"Basically, you start out with items that we call Mundane. These items have some kind of potential value, but are as yet not magical. You can then add things to these items to improve them the direction you want, you craft them to make them Magical. Often this is done through adventuring. You might want to dip the blade in Dragon's blood to add durability, or put it in the hands of a the snow fairy idol to add freeze damage.

Additionally, you can have the item worked on by a Blacksmith or other artisan. Here you would find a particular, Gem, Charm or Talisman that you wanted worked into the item. Take the item and additions to an Artisan and pick out what pattern and colors you want added to your item. There is a fee, of course, and you must present them with all the materials which you purchased or gained through adventuring."

Seems like it'll be fun.

Originally posted by eduty

The concept sounds like the future of MMOs, where characters are not grinding the same quests for the same equipment. We all want to play the game to be special. We want to be the heroes or villains or some ambiguous in-between. I would love to play an MMO where the experience was my own and my actions had lasting consequences upon the world.

All that being said, I have serious doubts about COS. All those game mechanics sound awesome, but do you guys know how you're going to pull it off? Do you have this awesome quest generating engine developed or is this all a fantastic pipe dream on paper? Are you as far as alpha tests? Do you even have a program to test at this point?

Will the game world be large enough that all players, casual and hardcore gamers alike, will have access to unique events? What happens if the player base completes all the objectives and establish relationships with all the NPCs before your dev. team can develop new content?

Will there be "instanced" content? If not, how will you control multiple players attempting to accomplish the same goal? If two people arrive at a town in conflict, how do you decide which one is the "hero" of the day in the eyes of the townsfolk? If content is "instanced," how will you account for the myriad of different experiences players have at the same locations?

Unless you're in alpha testing and have actually created all the functionality you promised, I'd say you're blowing smoke and building hype for a game that will under deliver. I foresee a lot of things getting stripped from the game as you hit the hard realities and limitations of your technology and resources.

Please, please, please, please... prove me wrong.

First of all, thanks for your comments, we appreciate everyone's opinion, positive or negative.  I will address a few or your questions.

    "Do you guys know how you're going to pull it off?"

Well, yes, we do.  But I bet you want a better answer.  Our staff is not new to making games.  Our lead designer has designed multiple titles for major publishers, everyone of which has been released.  He has over eighteen years experience in the industry.  This is important because he knows what can be done, and does not design game play that is impossible to program.  As for the engine that will run this game, we have spent a huge amount of time developing this technology.  Our programmers are extremely experienced in game engine creation, having built several.   We're far enough along with the game engine now that we decided to reveal Citadel of Sorcery to the game community.  Why now?  Because at this point we are still  in the position of being able to listen to the players and could make changes.  There comes a point in  time when you must lock down major changes to any project, we decided to let players know a little about the game  before we reached that point, even though we would take some 'heat' for areas that are still in earlier development (art). 

    "Do you have this awesome quest generating engine developed?"

The QG (as we call it)  is currently in development and testing.  Portions are complete, other areas still in progress.  This is the current area that the programming staff is working on night and day.  Do we have enough to know it will work, yes, but there is also still work to be done.  Part of that ongoing work is the development of our game building tool.  In order to get enough content for the QG to use we had to have a large design staff, and put the power of this engine into their hands (rather than a few programmers).  This required an extensive game building tool, which we have been developing.  

    "Do you have a program to test at this point?"

Yes, the game test server (as mentioned) has been running online for two years now.  Are we allowing players to test yet? No, and not for some time to come yet.  We, as developers, don't mind running around in unfinshed art  areas in order to test concepts, but we won't allow players into the world until we are further along in that area.  Sorry.  When the time is right we'll open up some player testing as well.

    "Will the game world be large enough that all players... will have access to unique events?"

Our game world is.... huge.  I know, everyone claims that in games.   OK, I'll just tell you the exact size and you decide.  It's 900 million square kilometers.  (That's roughly the surface area of earth, oceans included).

    "What happens if the player base completes all the objectives and establish relationships with all the         NPCs before your dev. team can develop new content?"

A very good question.   The answer is that our QG builds content on the fly.  I'm really not going to go into how this works as that's technology we need to keep secret, but the game won't 'run out'.   As for NPCs, the QG can create new NPCs as needed, though once created they are persistant (until killed of course).  

    "Will there be "instanced" content?"

We have big time instanced content.  You (and your party) go into vast instanced adventure areas.  There are also MMO areas as well, but we felt that in order to give you this kind of in depth quest system, we had to give you and your party your own world for a big involved quest.  As we said earlier, we designed the game so that it was possible to create that design, not just talk about it.  This means there are systems that must be used in order to offer this special kind of game play.

    "Unless you're in alpha testing and have actually created all the functionality you promised, I'd say you're     blowing smoke and building hype for a game that will under deliver. I foresee a lot of things getting             stripped from the game as you hit the hard realities and limitations of your technology and resources."

We can't put an arbitrary label like 'Alpha' to tell you our current progress.  This is due to the fact that we have built this game differently than any other game project I have been on in the past.  We have spent inordinate amounts of time on game design and the creation of technology prior to building art and adding content (other than test content).  This means that these portions are at Alpha, or beyond, while other areas are not.  But you are asking about functionality in order to decide if we are 'blowing smoke', in that area, we are very far along,   I do not anticipate anything being stripped out at this point due to technological limitations.  If we play test and decide to change something to make the game more enjoyable, that is different.  We refuse to hold to a concept that doesn't pan out into great game play, and some of that can only be tested over time with a great number of players pounding the system.  That time is yet to come.

I hope this answers some of your questions.  I don't expect players to believe everything we claim yet, after all, too many other games have cried wolf.  You'll just have to wait and see, but we can assure you that we are doing our best to bring this game out as described.

Jatar

Dev Team Member: Citadel of Sorcery

Cool

Well I say kudos to you guys for bringing something refreshing to the stale MMO world!  It's far, far overdue and I will definitely be keeping my eye on this title.

I have to say I am impressed by your willingness to address concerns so thoroughly in the post above.

I like the sound of this game. The part of the article that caught my eye was this line: "Some of these NPCs become your friends and enemies… not everyone’s… just yours."

The reason is that so many MMOs are group-requiring and therefore casual-unfriendly, in my opinion. Guild Wars really bucked this trend by allowing players a real choice between soloing the content (by using AI/NPC assistance) or forming full groups or combinations of AI and players in order to complete instanced content.

I enjoy group content and activity OCCASIONALLY, but any MMO that *requires* collective effort in order to move forward in the game (rather than having it be optional) gets an immediate thumbs-down from me.

I can't help wondering how this game stacks up on the "solo-versus-group content-o-meter".

Thank you MMO God--finally a development that is willing to take this huge step....

I always wonder why can't we play a living game.... NPCs do sleep, eat, fight and will interact with you!!!

I have my doubts about it but let's hope they will make it true

This game is on my radar.  :)

Sometimes I read them and I feel like they went on a rant about something which never bother me, and put a lot of efforts in it (kinda like the seemless world folks who want no zoning whatsoever).  See, kinda like a programmer-geek challenge, rather than actually thinking about making it FUN (no zoning is bad if you lag).  Do I NEED to change the world around me?  Well, if other players ruin my experience with that, no. 

Sometimes I find them very intelligent and well spoken.

ATM, my worst concern about this game is, that I am still unable to say, if I will experience a gameplay, loves it, and then, be forced into something else I don't like (Raiding/PvP/RvR for example, but let's try not thinking about other games, it may be just as horrible as raiding and I just don't know it, never think of raiding evilness before I actually have to raid once), in which case it would be horrible just as most MMOs out there, kinda teasing you with grouping/solo content and then trying to make you do something unholy.

Very good news...the game has a huge chance of being a success, and I for one will be playing it.

I love the idea of affecting the world around you.  Whatever you do has an action on the world, don't do that?  Now that happens, and in the end, it effects more than just yourself.  It is a huge risk what they are doing, but I think it will attract different players from all different games.

Originally posted by mike470

Very good news...the game has a huge chance of being a success, and I for one will be playing it.

I love the idea of affecting the world around you.  Whatever you do has an action on the world, don't do that?  Now that happens, and in the end, it effects more than just yourself.  It is a huge risk what they are doing, but I think it will attract different players from all different games.

Depends, if your actions are affecting me negatively, in the long run, they will lose a player.

I would take a hit for my sister, my mom, my dad.  But for a stranger, he can sinks alone.  For a friend?  Maybe, maybe not.

Now, determining what I mean by "negatively" would take many pages.  Having to walk 1 more street to find what I want isn't really affecting me negatively.  Been unable to find a bathroom because some donkey blows them all, this is getting me camping the mayor office in RL, or for a game, to play another game. :P

Been out of monsters/hunting area because of your actions would indeed burn them.  Been in a wasteland because of your actions with no commodities whatsoever would also burn them.

This system seems to be VERY dependent on interactivity between players and the game world -- more than any MMO  ever has.

My concern is about how you will deal with shifts in player population.  Overcrowding and ghost-towns are some very important issues that could impact playability of this system in terrible ways.

If you are hoping to rely too heavily on instancing, I'm going to have to pass.

900 million km²?

How is it all going to be populated? I mean, sure npcs can be generated, but what about players? I fear it might end feeling like a giant ghost town. The explorer in me is very interested though.

How about all the possible negative actions for other players? If I command a raid to raze to the ground a village... wouldn't a player looking for that village be screwed? Then maybe he could try to hunt me down since I burned it... nevertheless, doesn't sound exactly friendly to casuals and whatnot.

How are the death penalties defined? With such a system I would be even glad to have some form of permadeath + full looting, seems rather fitting when everything is so... permanent. (Kinda like a pen'n'paper, allowing creation of new characters that are about the 'level' of the one who died, so he can keep doing adventures... alas, I ramble).

If this all works out, this may be the MMORPG of my dreams. I always thought MMORPGS felt undynamic, in the sense that your actions have little consequence to the game world. That is why I could never stay with an mmorpg for very long, since it feels as if my every action is insignificant.

That's why I love single player rpgs, like Oblivion.

If this game can do what it says it can, then I have high hopes for it.

With all due respect for CoS developer, this is the kind of project that should be developed by Bioware or Bethesda.
I really hope that one of the 2 mentioned can take inspiration by this game concept.

But kudos to CoS, I hope you do well

PS: The graphic is really bad, hope you can sort this out, i think that will be your biggest challenge.
I mean at this moment is really, really, really unattractive, and I am kinda tolerant with bad graphics usually.

Sounds really nice ..... if the game succeeds it has really good chances to become the best .....and the first of a  totally new type of games .

But as BlindShooter asked previously what happens when u die (does ur character go to heaven or hell) I mean does it get deleted (because if so this will be a major disadvantage) .

And  what is the estimated  size of the game ..........for the world sizes and characteristics u promissed i doubt it'll be anywhere under 20 GB

Btw Won't all this mean that the min requirements for the game to run smoothly will be huge ...... but still it will still be at least 5 more years from now on until the game is finished so maby these requirements won't seem that big than.

Good luck in developing the game ... I'll be looking forward to it

This game has potential you've oppened my apetite.

Originally posted by BlindShooter

900 million km²?

How is it all going to be populated? I mean, sure npcs can be generated, but what about players? I fear it might end feeling like a giant ghost town. The explorer in me is very interested though.

You have to understand a little about how we are going about world history and progression to understand why we won't have giant ghost town problems.  We did not approach the project by creating a game play area and filling it with content.  Instead, we are creating a planet... an unpopulated planet.  That entire planet exists when you start the game, but this does not mean that all areas are developed at release, or that you have access to go everywhere (immediately).  We wanted a place large enough to handle anything we wanted to add to the game as history unfolds.  Your progression out into the world will flow naturally through various territories and kingdoms.  Because our world is an ever changing place, so are the areas in which you adventure. 

A simple example of this is how the world is divided.  These divisions do not remain constant, there is a war going on after all for control of the entire world.  However, at almost any given time Morphael holds certain lands, and these areas are EXTREMELY dangerous for you to enter.  At best you might be on a quick strike raid into his lands, or you may try to enter in disguise for a spy mission.  Either way your odds of survival would be low at best.  This means that a large portion of the world may be somewhat inaccessible to you for more than brief visits (and more likely at higher character levels).. 

Between Citadel lands and Morphael's lands you will find No Man's Land.  Here there is constant battle and yes, danger.  There are no surviving towns and villages in this area, it is a war ground.  Don't enter this area if you don't want to fight. 

There are three other types of areas in the world, the first being Citadel lands.  Here you will still find battle, but also much in the way of quests and adventures.  These lands are also vast, but divided into territories for game flow.   There are also other Kingdoms, where they have neither sworn fealty to the Sorceress of the Citadel, nor fallen to Morphael's army of creatures.  Finally there is wilderness.  These are untamed  lands where terrible creatures wander, but civilazation has net yet penetrated.  As time moves on some of the wilderness will begin to be claimed and developed by the Citadel, Morphael or another Kingdom.   New territores will be opened, lost civilizations discovered, forts and castles built, etc.

The point here is that players will not be dispersing out over the entire planet instantly.  The game has progression and change that will create the areas of community and flow for players.  There is a lot more to this, but it will have to wait.  I'm really only allowed to talk about general elements at this point, but this issue is well thought out in the design.  We'll release more information on the game world in follow up articles; this is, after all, an Introduction article.

 Jatar

Dev Team Member: Citadel of Sorcery

not sure if this has been answered any where ,

can you attack the players that are defending a town?

some big guilds like to plan raids on towns / dungeons / instances  in advance , how will this be possible

if the world is always changing?

and if the content is mostly all instances , then why have a world so huge?

anyway game looks like it can be something but i need to know more on the features.

Ok we all know promise and execution are two different things. But this sounds like a really cool concept. Something I'd surely would like to see come true. A changing world... wow. Lets hope they can live up to their concept.

I too am excited about someone finnally taking this concept and running with it. There are aspects that I dont like as much (instanced quest content) but understand that at this time technologically speaking it is necessary to have the game do what you want it to do.

An example of what I would like to see is having the town crier come through announcing a bounty on say one of Morpheal's generals attacking a province. Multiple groups/raids could take up this quest in a non instanced world and the team that actually kills the general gets the accolades. If multiple seperate groups are involved everyone could get some credit based on thier overall input to the effort. That is something more along the lines of what I would like to see where we compete against other players as much as the envrionment to change the world one way or another. Especially if you had players playing both sides - Morpheal vrs. Citadel and questing could include pvp actions against players of the opposing sides.  With a dynamic quest generating tool that could push the content that the player shows interest in that could be the ideal solution to the casual vrs hardcore vrs pvp vrs pve player types. Players who always choose the short term casual quest types will end up getting more of that etc. I can see so many possibilities with this game :) .

As the dev said if the world is big enough there should be enough of all types of content to satisfy all tastes. A raid oriented player could easily be satisfied by having to attack a general in a middle of an army or a noble in a castle. The quest giver could simpy be a rival or ruler/governer of a province or town. Once the noble is killed the quest dissapears and new politics take its place. For instance the nobles son who happened to survive now has an ax to grind, against the players and the other noble that put them up to it.

Even if this game doesnt make it the knowledge for developing the game will be out there and if its good it will find its way into future games, so this gives me great hope either way.

Something to consider for those complaining about art at this point. I think they are finnaly developing the game correctly. Most game publishersend up redoing 80% of all art during the last stages of beta due to the fact the game and game engine changes significantly through testing and development. Also by the end of development the art/content producers finnaly get all the tools they need to actually create this stuff  en mass. It only seems logical then to simply wait untill this stage has been reached in programing to actually sink a lot of resources into that part of the game rather than spending millions of dollars on content that will only get replaced right before release. Instead spend those same Millions on making the underlying game mechanics work first.

Then again I am the type of person where the art in the game is always secondary to me. So long as its good enough I am content. It does not have to be the best/new/groundbreaking for me to enjoy the game. I would rather have a completely average set of art in a game with a superb set of game mechanics than have superb art and average or below average game mechanics.

 Is there anything else you can tell us about this in house engine?  As I recall you/someone said it was an engine that one of the devs had created in the past and used for something not related to gaming.  Trident3D engine I believe.....Is this the same trident 3d engine used in some military apps?

~Hairysun~

  Oh....and some of us do understand the concept of place holders.  A good programmer isn't necessarily a good artist or modeler.  In due time.........

This sounds like fun.

Can I be evil?

Hmmm, sounds to me like there could be issues with a new type of "world" griefing. If indeed a group can destroy a town then what is to stop a large group of people (I don't know if clans or alliances will be possible in this game) decide that they want to destroy everything?

They proceed to invade and destroy all of it. Now, in a perfect game you then get a new type of world... sort of like a world that has undergone an apocalypse. However, I could also see many players adopting a "this sucks" sort of attitude and going elsewhere.

Originally posted by Hairysun

 Is there anything else you can tell us about this in house engine?  As I recall you/someone said it was an engine that one of the devs had created in the past and used for something not related to gaming.  Trident3D engine I believe.....Is this the same trident 3d engine used in some military apps?

~Hairysun~

  Oh....and some of us do understand the concept of place holders.  A good programmer isn't necessarily a good artist or modeler.  In due time.........

This... is a whole discussion for another day (or thread some time).  I don't want to get into a long technical discussion about our game engine features right now.  So I'll keep this answer brief. 

We worked hand in hand with another technology devleoper to take their existing engine and build a new version that could create the game we designed.  We have unique issues with a changing world, and those had to be addressed.  And though this engine will have all the bells and whistles that anyone could ask for, the fact of the matter is our only concern was that the engine we used was capable of making our game design.   Now that a good portion of the technology  is completed and tested, we believe we have the engine we need to create this new kind of MMO game.

Jatar

Citadel of Sorcery dev team member

Originally posted by Jatar

 

Originally posted by Hairysun

 Is there anything else you can tell us about this in house engine?  As I recall you/someone said it was an engine that one of the devs had created in the past and used for something not related to gaming.  Trident3D engine I believe.....Is this the same trident 3d engine used in some military apps?

~Hairysun~

  Oh....and some of us do understand the concept of place holders.  A good programmer isn't necessarily a good artist or modeler.  In due time.........

 

This... is a whole discussion for another day (or thread some time).  I don't want to get into a long technical discussion about our game engine features right now.  So I'll keep this answer brief. 

We worked hand in hand with another technology devleoper to take their existing engine and build a new version that could create the game we designed.  We have unique issues with a changing world, and those had to be addressed.  And though this engine will have all the bells and whistles that anyone could ask for, the fact of the matter is our only concern was that the engine we used was capable of making our game design.   Now that a good portion of the technology  is completed and tested, we believe we have the engine we need to create this new kind of MMO game.

 

Jatar

Citadel of Sorcery dev team member

 

  Hmmm......gonna need another notebook(s).   : )

~Hairysun~

This game has also peeked my interest.

A few questions I have as well, if they can be answered, I do believe you said you can only answer  a few now but the rest will have to wait.  So lets see

First a comment, another MMO game I'm anticipating is called "The Day" its about Time Traveling, I believe Reloaded Studios is working on it.  Remember the movie "Back to the Future" yea well you can take a quest and journey in the past and what you do in the past will affect the present future (make sense LOL)

So it reminds me of this a little bit.  You destroy a village in Citadel of Sorcery and the next day it will still be ruins (possibly) or in the processes of rebuilding.

This MMO also reminds me of the current RPG game called "Two Worlds" I really havent played much of that game but they did say that what you do in the game will affect the outcome of the rest.

Ok so heres some questions. (which may not be answered)

1.  "Or… you could wander into a town about to be taken by bandits… and take over leadership of the town"...........Heres a thought, say youre in the MMO game and youre about to commence this, something happens and you need to log out of the game immediately; like your house is on fire LOL or someone is at your door and its Ed McMan with a 5billion dollar check lol  Whichever you were about to be taken by bandits and you logged out of the game.  What happens to these NPCs; what happens with your character?  Is it like any other Single Player game that it has a built in save feature that when you log back in the game you can start where you left off or now do you have to do stuff to make this happen again (start the quest over or what not?)

2.  Does our characters when we enter the game start us out at level 1; or are we filled with tons of unique abilities and we can choose where to go from there?

3. Size? Planet? World? Makes me think that I can start at such and such city but my other friend starts way over here in this city (hopefully traveling will be easy lol)

I realize that these questions can or cannot be answered which is fine.  Again you have peeked my interest. Please make sure that any new news will be posted here as I check MMORPG.com (news) daily (except for weekends hehe)

4.) One final question.  I understand you just barely announced this game; do you have any ETA on when it will go live?  "The Day" (MMO I mentioned earlier) has its ETA for 2010; are you shooting for 2010 as well or past it

Thanks :)

PS I went to your main website http://www.citadelofsorcery.com/about.php so I'm reading some of it now.  If an answer is off one of my questions you can say  "refer to main website" hehe

Your ideas for CoS sounds pretty dynamic. I remember a huge world like you are talking about in a game called Dark and Light(shudder). I didn't  see any mention of PvP content however.

If so will it be just in certain areas, or will it be consensual only  such as only in certain areas/arenas? Or will you have different servers for PvP and non PvP?

If so, will the PvP have any consequence, such as losing inventory, loot ,death penalty etc? I will be keeping my eyes on the forums for any news on CoS. Good luck to you sirs.

All developers have promised very dynamic content but I have yet to see one hold up to those promises. I am not going to start now. Prove me wrong.

The Game introduction and idea is very amazing. I really like to see this game fully developed. It's always nice to experience new things and this might just be the next MMO generation style.

Tho, the idea is nice, the real challenge would be to make that system work for huge mass of players. Either by limiting number of player per server, faction, race and land. The possibilities do not become endless with we are talking about server full of people looking for things to do. In the end, some players will have end up doing similar things to other players.

Not sure how it will all work out but it's hard work. I really hope that the game gets finished in decent time frame with decent quality and become a huge success. Good Luck.

Originally posted by ste2000

With all due respect for CoS developer, this is the kind of project that should be developed by Bioware or Bethesda.
I really hope that one of the 2 mentioned can take inspiration by this game concept.

But kudos to CoS, I hope you do well

PS: The graphic is really bad, hope you can sort this out, i think that will be your biggest challenge.
I mean at this moment is really, really, really unattractive, and I am kinda tolerant with bad graphics usually.

I am skeptical but I also really hope they deliver!

Sounds like you have a monster of a project going on here. I wish you guys the best of luck. I love seeing people trying to innovate the industry.

I will refrain from saying anything negative at this point. People trying to achieve these kinds of goals should be applauded and supported, not criticized out the gate with peoples doubts.

Good luck.

D.

Wow, sounds amazing, definately keeping my eye on this monster of a project.

All I can say is, good luck. Many a company has attempted to do similar things and failed horribly. I've yet to see a small company make a truely sucessful game (save for Flying Labs and their PotBS). I'm interested in seeing where they go with it, but at the same time I refuse to let myself get overly excited, in the past I have been disapointed far to many times *cough* Dark and Light/Vanguard *cough*

I hope this comes true it sounds really awesome. Sorta like Oblvion, but better.

This sounds very interesting, and I'll definitely keep m y eye on CoS.

I wish you guys well, and hope that you find the development time, money, and staff that you require.

I have no negative comments at this early stage -- it would only make me sound like an "armchair quarterback". I'm not doing the work here, you are, so any criticism by me now would be pompous and meaningless

My only suggestion would be, don't release until you're ready. The MMORPG graveyard is littered with the bones of ambitious games which released before they got their key concepts working properly.

A good game that releases late is forgiven as soon as players start having fun; a bad game that releases on time gets no mercy for being punctual.

Again, best of luck ...

I love when developers think out of the box.  I am in the programming line of work and just hearing about your ideas inspire me.  I do have my reservations though, but if you pull it off, I am going to want to sit down with you guys and buy you lunch / rounds of drinks and discuss evolution.

Originally posted by tysonj25

 

Originally posted by ste2000

With all due respect for CoS developer, this is the kind of project that should be developed by Bioware or Bethesda.
I really hope that one of the 2 mentioned can take inspiration by this game concept.

But kudos to CoS, I hope you do well

PS: The graphic is really bad, hope you can sort this out, i think that will be your biggest challenge.
I mean at this moment is really, really, really unattractive, and I am kinda tolerant with bad graphics usually.

Why? So they Can make the same game everybody else makes or so they can bow down to their existing customer base and water down whats SOUNDS like a nice concept.

 

I am skeptical but I also really hope they deliver!

Because Bioware e Bethesda are the 2 developers that relaunched the RPG concept to the masses, by making beautiful and immersive games, without compromising too much on the quality.
The description of this game looks like something those 2 developers might do, no grind but lot of RPG..........

Of course there is the risk they could do a watered down game due to the fact theat they are big companies and they want to make lots of money out of it, but the risk with small companies is that they might never finish the game.........Darkfall for all

How exciting!  GO FOR IT

Engine-generated content in the past has been generic, random and bland when compared to content handcrafted by a capable designer.

So I am extremely sceptical when reading about content generated on the fly. Random dungeons turned me off in City of Heroes and Dungeon Runners, random quests sucked big time in early SWG.

What makes the CoS content generator better than any of those?

This sounds extremely promising. I wish you the best of luck and I hope to play this soon.

I'd need some more details about how they intend to pull this off before I pass judgement.   

Right now it sounds suspiciously like their game engine is designed to react to players.   And this could really lead to a disaster.   MMORPG players are completely anonymous and do not suffer any consequences for their actions save banning of their accounts (which they can renew easily, look at gold farmers)  So you have could have living, breathing, virtual world occupied by anti-social jerks who are never held responsible for their actions in any real-life manner.    

Unless they've put in strict controls to limit behavior deliberately intended to exploit their reactive world, there will always be those who will get their entertainment out of ruining it. 

Maybe they haven't forgotten this, as I said, I'd need to hear more details.   But after we've seen spectacular failures of small companies that tried to develop MMORPGs, the community should confront any annoucements of "revolutionary" new games with MUCH more cynicism or else we're not learning anything from the past. 

I think I will watch this game's developement. If they can deliver on what they indicate is being done, this game will be  a refreshing change to MMO concepts currently. I am realy curious as to how the quest generation will work. I dont even recall if any single player games pulled it off successfully to date.

I read an earlier comment on here about "well what if a large group of players decide to destroy every city" and I cant help but think, the games logic will be set in this to rebuild at least some of those cities or starting areas.

Graphics arnt bad at this point. And the game play may be quite fun. even with instancing which in some cases most games need it. EQ taught many people that after waiting days for a spawn etc. I like the somewhat non class system, I would rather build a class my own way then have a predefined method. Kind of like the game Fate. I pick and choose what skills to develope and which ones that may not suit my favorite play styles.

I will definately keep an eye out on this game.

I read this preview with great interest and agreement.

If I could make one comment at this stage, it would be: Have a good understanding and awareness of risk versus reward. 

Games get boring fast, especially for the seasoned player, if they lack any sense of risk. 

Its something that unfortunately is lacking in many of the MMOGs that are on offer today, where rewards, instead, have a direct relationship with time invested. As you guys seem sensitive to the grind-factor, I have confidence you wont fall into the same trap.

Btw, if you need early stage testers for Citadel of Sorcery, and want someone with experience but that also has a very open mind to new MMO concepts, then PM me 

Dynamic, personalized quest content is a feature of Hero's Journey.  The Hero Engine has been licensed by Bioware for their MMO.  Perhaps CoS is using HE?

Dynamic world content sounds good, but seems to be difficult in practice.  For example, the ramifications of destroying a quest destination must be handled effectively.  Just the killing or distraction of a quest NPC can be a nuisance or time drain.

Another commenter cited risk as a motivation, but that is only one of several for players. 

I'm an explorer at heart, so I want a big world in which to journey.  If you can succeed at making it a changing world then that will be very interesting indeed, so I wish you luck.  In any case, the adventurer in me wants something new in MMO's, beyond grinding for equipment.

Sounds great. Unfortunately, as a matter of habit, I will compare all games to something else I have played. As far as open-ended games go, I always compare things that claim to be open-ended to Shadowbane. Shadowbane let you create and run empires, act as a diplomat, a general, a spy, an artisan, or an explorer. What you did was up to you and your own ability.

Horizons also had that example, of cities being attacked, destroyed, rebuilt, the only difference is it was entirely up to players whether they chose to defend or rebuild the cities, NPCs didn't play a role as buildings were handcrafted by individuals.

People can say their game is like nothing else, but I've got news for developers: Chances are whatever you can think of has already been done in a video game.

That being the truth, don't try to claim something new that already exists. Let people have some comparisons with games and titles they already love.

The ideas sound great. Let's hope they turn out to be more than ideas and are implemented well.

Loving the vision of this game, this genre needs thinking like this.

I can't help thinking this is just another potentiol Darkfall though...

Look here, I'll be honest, i was rolling my eyes as i read all that text but at the end the part where it said you guys have been working on this for 5+ years plus is a good sign so who knows maybe your engine is capable of doing all these things, still not going to wait on this one though, ive seen this happen too many times before, but either way good luck.