Guides:Game Concepts

Disclaimer

This is for illustrative purposes only.

I am not trying to dictate or in any way say that my perspectives are right

Game Concept Definitions

The idea here is to show how elements of the game might be loosely defined in a way that might provide both devs and player community with a sense of focus and direction, thus channeling the huge amount of creativity in the community.

I will write as though I am providing a definition but I do not expect anyone to agree with anything in particular.

That is, this is just an example.

Pvp

Player versus player competition is intended to promote a sense of thrill and excitement, via victory and loss, in a way that players will enjoy.

Kingdoms

Kingdoms are intended to give the players a team to fight for so that they will feel that sense of thrill when they win and the determination to get their own back for their own side when they lose.

Kingdoms should each have a rallying point of morale for the players. In real life, real people support this or that team because they have an affiliation there already. "Obviously, I will support my own country at the olympic games!"

Kingdoms should have quite a stark delineation so that players feel either certainty or, for players who are less decided, a sense of tension about whether they have picked 'the right side'.

HoTs

We are evil. We are bad. We will do whatever it takes to conquer. Libila is our guiding darkness.

Jenn Kellon

We are the forces of organisation and construction. Rebels and destroyers must be removed so that we can build. Vynora is the queen of our armies.

Mol Rehan

We will not be suppressed. We will not tolerate slaughter. Magrannon is the volcanic source of our exuberance.

Tritons

Yeah I know but I couldnt resist it ;)

We love the earth and the sea and the sky. Those others have no concern for our living world, slaying and slaughtering as they do. Fo is the root of our faith and the shield that protects us.

Tentative Kingdom Overview

• JK hate Hots and vice versa. Selfish chaos versus suppressive order.
• JK hates MR because MR are rebelliously outwith their idea of 'order' and yet so humiliatingly and humanly the same.
• JK cant stand TR because TR cant abide construction and the preservation of human life with high walls and directed development.
• MR cant abide TR cos they are so similar but have such different ideas about how 'freedom' should be achieved. They both love the natural world but MR like the uncontrolled, challenging Magranon while TR like the benificient, nurturing Fo.
• MR detests Hots because they are as suffocating as JK. Its not so much that they are selfish and greedy, its that they want everything their way.
• MR cannot understand TR. Why would you waste time on trees when people are Dying?
• Hots hates everyone really, but TR are disgusting. They grow trees and light instead of comforting, humid darkness and fungi. They are not just antipathetic like the JK, they are scum! They grow things that counter Libila's comforting and silent death.
• Hots love to kill MR. Ha they wont even stand with their JK bedmates. And anyway, they attack us when they are not attacking the JK scum!
• Hots loathe JK. They have no sense of respect for our desire for freedom, to do as we wish. To use their vacant corpses as pillows!
• TR detests the JK disruption of the 'natural' order. Maybe they are human, but probably they are a distorted form of insect.
• TR think that MR are a perversion of Fo's kindness, his angry side if he ever had one (that they would acknowledge).
• TR reject HoTs, outright loathesome dwellers in the darkness who distort and pervert the natural order of the 'Creator'

These are just ideas remember its the wording that people latch onto that provides a creative drive for the real people behind the characters. FRP? More psychology! These are not definitions so much as a sketch for people to aim toward

Religions

Fo

As a priest of Fo my purpose is to guard and consort with the world that Fo created. To preserve both animal and human, crop and unruly hillside. You know nought of me that consort with gold or man or wife and yet fail to revere the land on which you walk. I preserve the world as it was made and detest your inadequacy that cannot feel the land as it is and live with it.

Libila

Think thee that I choke and strangle, ye foul being that hath no compassion for the dweller in the dark? I do not choke, it is you that choke that fail to live with the reality of death and decay. Fo is not so strong! Without me his 'love' would persih and wilt as a flower!

Magranon

Hear the roar of the Wurm untamed. You are but a shadow burned upon a wall. Let the compassion of the fires of wrath sear your soul and come to me clean and penitent. I am not unkind. I am merely harsh.

Vynora

Oh woe! Woe! Woe unto thee that fail to see my light. You are but Fo's creature, though to me you belong! Haste not to thy death along the weary roads of entanglement and destruction, But travel my path in speed and with will and create as I have tought you.

Gods

The gods must be distinct. Priests should have a calling and a sense of purpose. Followers should have some reason to follow. Stratify the world so that players have to choose, if they choose to choose. Followers of Fo must have benefits and penalties. Likewise followers of other religions. Priests must adhere to the path of their god.

There has to be a sense of choice here. To follow or not. To be priest or not. There must be consequences so that the player is engaged by their own choice.

Humans are not good or bad, they are prejudiced or not. The extent of their prejudice is the degree of their limitation.

Gods and religion are important concepts in the mind of humanity but they are only ideas. But our choices ae not just ideas. We have to live with our mistakes or our success

Carpentry

This should be a basic skill 'easily' gained. Note the immediate difference here. One skill is not an entire game concept. It is a small part of a big jigsaw.

Generally involving the basic tools of survival, carpentry should be a default skill that all players gain as they play the game. Carpentry is a game mechanic, its not part of background atmosphere so .. a bit more specific definition about general limits ...

Carpentry should not be a skilled profession but the ability to make some products to a high degree of effectiveness should make a big difference. Effortless survival is not the same as effortful survival. But the the basic ability to survive is importatnt.

Carpenters, like masons, should be the base level supoprting personnel in Wurm. --- In a game where you live or die by skill, basic skills have to be considered vital at both low and high level.

In Wurm this is already an accepted ethos. That is, that the most primitive skills still have value at greater degrees of accomplishment.