Luna Online: The Date MMO Dev Journal
The folks over at Luna Online have provided us with this developer journal discussing the game's unique dating system
Now that we’re getting closer to the Public Closed Beta, now’s a good time to go over exactly what Luna Online is all about.
Luna Online is a Free to Play 3D-MMO-Date-RPG. That means that Luna focuses more on the social interaction side of MMOs that just about any other game available today. Essentially it has a dating website built right into the game. You go to a Family manager (NPC), register your character, select your likes and dislikes, and put in a brief introduction about yourself. This opens up the whole game population to you. You can find someone with similar tastes, along with level, quests and even allied guilds.
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Now most MMOs have some sort of party finding. The difference between Luna and those other MMOs is the fact the dating is the only way to get many exclusive items. Things like item upgrades, farming seeds, and even crafting components are only available in a very special “Date Instance” -- A special zone that’s only available to a couple that matches beyond a certain level of compatibility.
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This level of compatibility is shown to the players via a heart alarm. A heart alarm works the same as emote animations. It’s visible to all players and only activates when 2 characters are over 90% compatible. This Alarm lets both characters know that they have the possibility to date. To go on a date, the characters go to an NPC and after having a conversation with the NPC, they are teleported to the “Date Instance.”
Dates in Luna are much faster and, debatably, more fun than real life dates. And just like actual dates, dates in Luna can go wonderfully, or horribly, horribly wrong. That’s the rate-a-date system is built into the dating system. This allows players to basically avoid former bad date partners, or remember the good ones. This is something that the entire population can take advantage of, avoiding people that think party and raid wipes are just the funniest thing.
Also, for the Lady Killers and Man Eaters in Luna, we have to put a cap on the number of dates per day. That’s a number that hasn’t been officially decided yet for our release.
The Luna Online Closed Beta Test is coming soon, be sure to check out the official site at http://luna.gpotato.com for the most up to date information and say hello on the forums at http://luna-forum.gpotato.com
