Eulora - Game Mechanics etc.

I. Next release is scheduled for sometime in October.ⁱ It should be barebones playable. This doesn’t mean any content, storyline or even much sense, but it does mean that you should be able to whack the only monster, skin it and make yourself a nice invisible helmet (or perhaps a kettle shaped cod piece) to proudly wear while promenading around the only tree.

II. Game mechanics.

The calendar will work on week long game years, divided into day long game months, further divided into hour long game days, further divided into three minute long game hours. The game currency will be divided into five tiers, with the lowest coin worth 100 satoshi and the highest 100 BTC. All consumables craftables, skills etc will be divided into five tiers as well.

Character death is permanent, and to a large extent unavoidable. With the exception of a few transformed characters such as the Lichⁱⁱ, the Vampireⁱⁱⁱ, transcended characters having reached demigod status^iv and so on, and with the further exception of some very limited instances of revival, player characters are unavoidably going to die^v.

When a character dies his remains are taken to the Cemetery/Crypt^vi. All his experience, skills, atributes and such are lost. If the player died in a lawless zone all items equipped will also be lost^vii, but otherwise they will be returned to the rightful heir. Eulora is not so much a game of characters as it is a game of family lines. Pretty much all characters are expected to marry and father offspring, which in due time will inherit the assets of their progenitors and continue the family business.

The outcome of all player actions is calculated on the basis of their attributes^viii and their skills, modified by weapons, various magical effects of all sources (spells, foods etc) and the effects of the zodiac^ix.

Player skills are divided into seven broad ranges : Fighting, Gathering, Crafting, Magic, Faith, Leadership and Utility. Each of these has a controlling skill, and an unknown^x number of sub skills. All players start with all the controlling skills, and they may find books teaching them various subskills. As players practice any given field, they gain experience in the controlling skill (which allows them to eventually train it to a higher level) as well as experience points which allow them to train any subskill of their choice, provided they already have it. In order to train any skill a player will need either a book^xi or some other training resource^xii. Players will be able to write such training books based on their experience, as a crafting profession. Players will also be able to directly extract their experience into pill form, as a magical application. Both of these avenues will carry some cost, but will also make passing one’s experience down the family line a lot more straightforward.

Player health will be described by the player’s hit points, blood points, mana points and spirit points. HPs are most sensitive to crushing attacks, BPs are usually lost to piercing attacks (with slashing attacks doing roughly equal damage both ways), MPs are usually lost casting spells while SPs are lost through the nefarious agency of the undead and other malevolent spirits. Having any of these pools reach zero will render the character unconscious, and perhaps dead in short order.

Players may also be cursed, poisoned or diseased, with various effects on their attributes and overal performance. While most poisons and diseases are curable, there is no guarantee that any one player will be able to find a cure in time, and therefore plenty of adventures have ended six feet under on account of such pestilence. While most curses fade over time, there’s no guarantee that time comes before the character’s natural end of days, or Judgement Day for that matter.

In general Euloria is going to find itself at the other end of the spectrum as compared to most modern games, having the player strive to avoid any damage, much like things work irl, rather than having the player cavalierly undertake 10`000 hitpoints worth of direct missile fire only to suddenly explode like a rotten egg the moment someone pats him on the back for that one last hitpoint that was somehow keeping all the dakka together and in good firing order.

The entire game is player driven, which means that the value and grandeur of available spells, buildings and anything else will be a direct function of the diligence of players cutting down trees, hunting for pearl shells, enchanting armor and so on. Towns will be built by players or not exist, roads will be built and maintained by players or not exist, inns, mines, farms and so on will be either player made and player operated or not there at all. The environment will react to player activity, which means on one hand that players may cut down whole forests and exterminate critter species and on the other hand that player activity will cause NPC reactivity.^xiii

Players will be able to set up offline activities for their characters, so people playing 24/7 don’t put others at a significant disadvantage and vacation does not equate falling behind, provided ofcourse competent management of offline time.

Among the player constructed buildings there will be

• guild halls, allowing the emplacement of tools needed in various crafting and magic operations as well as the research of various subskill books ;
• inns, which may over time be developed into actual towns, fortresses etc ;
• roads, which will include guard towers (manned with melee and ranged NPCs, who will expect a salary!), and which will ensure safe passage for travellers from place to place, at a cost to those travellers ;
• teleportals, allowing instant movement of goods and persons across large distances, at a mana cost and for a fee ;
• farms, once a fertile patch of land is found ;
• mines, once a vein large enough to support a mine is found - these may be open to the general public for a fee or not.

That’s a good start on the discussion I think, feel free to ask any questions below.

III. We're looking for model artists, as a good chunk of our expenditure will be going towards creating buildings, monsters and items. If you think you've got what it takes and would like to join the effort, please create one of the following :

III.a A tower, three levels, quadratic base profile.

III.b. An animal or tree. As it's our strategy to include no actual Earth flora or fauna in the game, these should be fantastic but nevertheless credibly functional.

III.c. A battleaxe. Make it cool.

Feel free to add a link to your delivery of either III.a, b or c below^xiv. If your creation is acceptable we will cut a deal giving you more work and adequate compensation. Both BTC and S.MG stock warrants are available as appropriate.

1. Maybe late September if I find some good supplier of amphetamines and get everyone involved to use that instead of sugar. [↩]
2. The Lich is the crowning achievement of a particular character development path, requiring tremendous investment of skill and resources on the part of the player. In exchange the Lich acquires very expensive but also devastating long range area of effect and global effect spells, and is capable of sucking the spiritual essences out of the very ground to refill itself (which will modify the landscape around the Lich’s tower over time, and also reduce the output of farming and other productive activities as a function of proximity and time). The Lich is also one of the very few characters that may not cash out its account (because a Lich can’t leave its tower and survive, whereas cashing out will require a character to take a trip on a Homebound boat).

   In a meta-gaming sense the Lich will be a very useful asset for large and powerful player groups, as a sort of glass cannon of epic proportions. Outside of the direct spell-using avenue a Lich may also be used to indirectly weaken enemies by damaging the land they depend on for food. Finally, a Lich is actually productive, a pure “harvesting” Lich being able to cover the cost of becoming a Lich in the first place over about six months if left undisrupted. However, because of the tactical inconvenience of being pinned in place, and because of the significant profits to be realised by players killing it and looting its tower, Lichdom is a risky proposition. [↩]

3. The Vampire requires the blood of other playable characters to survive. Obviously those other characters normally object, but some don’t, giving rise to a quite lucrative market in blood products. Then again some Vampires don’t see the fun in paying for their meal. [↩]
4. Nifty, huh. [↩]
5. Characters will die of old age if nothing else, starting around the sixty game year mark (about thirteen rl months). [↩]
6. The Cemetery is a public building, and it will contain tombstones for all players. By interacting with a tombstone, any player will be able to read the names of the tombstone’s owner’s characters, their lifespan and a limited selection of their deeds. Crypts are personal, more expensive, and offer some expansion over the Tombstone. Statues are an exceptional measure taken by a city to honor an extremely important character, and offer further expansion over a crypt. A player can have either a single tombstone in the public cemetery or his own single, private crypt, but there is no limit as to the number of statues, other than their intrinsic rarity and expense. [↩]
7. Their value goes to the loot pool. [↩]
8. Four sets of three, as follows : Force (STRength, ENDurance, CONstitution) ; Mind (INTelligence, WISdom, INSight) ; Change (AGIlity, DEXterity, COOrdination) and Control (ATTention, FOCus, PATience). They are fixed at birth for each character, as a result of the interaction of planets and constellations in the zodiac as well as the attributes of their parents. In spite of the game engine using these numbers in numerous calculations, no numeric values will be displayed in the character sheet. There will be in-game means for the player to scry, guess and infer the various attributes of his own character, of his children and of potential spouses, but these will be neither easy nor cheap nor terribly precise. And for that matter, it’s not even certain there’s just twelve of them. Pretty much the only thing certain is that they’re integers. [↩]
9. Time does not flow uniformly in Euloria. Some times are more propitious for some activities than others, for some characters than others. NPCs as well as PCs skilled in the art of reading planets and stars are a valuable asset to any group, big or small. [↩]
10. The only way to know that a subskill exists is for some player to find a book teaching it. There’s consequently no way to know that any particular subskill doesn’t exist. [↩]
11. These skill books work up to a specified level, for instance a Novice Fighter’s Manual may allow training of Fighting up to level 20. Each time the player trains a level one such book would be consumed. [↩]
12. Players as well as NPCs with sufficient levels in the Teaching subskill of the Utility range and having the skill in question may teach it to other players, presumably at a cost. [↩]
13. This quite literally means that a city is to expect goblin, ogre or even dragon raids strictly because it exists. Environment aggression towards player activity builds over time and manifests suddenly, so it’s very imprudent to construct large settlements with meagre defenses - they will be wiped out. In general a city that is slowly growing should be able to take care of any such environmental challenges with reasonable effort, but should it enter a stage of decline its demise may be simply unavoidable by the current inhabitants. For this reason if no other players are well advised to treat each other well, because the invading drow surely aren’t going to. [↩]
14. Blender 2.68a works perfectly, make sure you use the CrystalSpace export built in. [↩]