Conquests!

[Nate]

Greetings Pit Masters!

Just wanted to let you know after putting the finishing touches on Seasons I'll be focusing on the long awaited Conquests. I have plans for mini-adventures in the beginning and eventually a single player story line. 2013 will be an awesome year for the Great Realm!

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[Gameavision]

Holy crap, can't wait!

[riggen]

I like where this is going

[Sotc]

Exciting stuff! Deffo something to look forward to

[crow]

Wow, you have been busy. Who has been locking you in a room and making you write code? Whoever it is we thank them

I know you have said that alot of artwork and preliminary tasks have already been taken care of for the conquests. How much do you have left?

[Nate]

Greetings Pit Masters!

Thought I'd give you all an little progress report on Conquests. There are three main components to Conquests:

1) The UI - this is mainly all the maps and effects and things of that nature. My current plan is to actually handle this last as it is really the cherry on the top and needs everything else in place. But the general idea is there will be a world map with 3 Realms of which only one is active (The Great Realm). The next Realm to open up will be The Eastern Empire which is where the Shadow & Myst gladiatorial school and its three specialties will come from. Each Realm is comprised of 10 territories, and each territory will have numerous dungeons (a dungeon can be anything from a traditional subterranean dungeon to a seaside village). The UI will deal with transitioning from each map layer and eventually moving room to room in the conquests.

2) The Backend - this is where all the heavy lifting takes place and tracks and records what is happening and talks to the DB. I'm currently working on this right now and am about 80% done. Once done I will be looking to introduce mini-quests or something like treasure maps or special contracts where gladiators get to experience a glimpse of what conquests will be like but without all the frilly extras of the map art and story lines, etc.

What we have thus far is the ability to have a "dungeon" with rooms and doors and each room can have an encounter and encounters can have loot and be comprised of one 1 or more fights, and each fight can be comprised of one or more enemies and zero or more friends (team based conquests, grouping with other managers, etc. will come later).

So for example your gladiator might get a special contract that sends him to track down a nasty villain. Upon entering the dungeon you'll be presented with some info and possible exits. If there is an encounter in the room your gladiator is trying to go into there will be a fight. If there are multiple fights in that room then your gladiator will progress to the next battle upon each win until the room is cleared at which point your gladiator will advance forward and be rewarded with any loot if it exists.

3) The Admin Tool - a UI that allows conquests to be created and modified. At first I'll be making these by hand and randomly generated. The plan is to eventually allow players to make their own dungeons and offer them up to the community to enjoy. There will have to be some quality control so perhaps until a manager has proven themselves to make quality dungeons their creations won't be live until a mod looks them over and gives them the ok. Perhaps we'll have a system where they can be up and down voted, etc. Players will be able to make dungeons, NPCs, room descriptions, etc. Things like equipment, fight Strategies for NPCs and loot will most likely be done internally to prevent mischief (i.e. offering the Sword of a 1000 truths as a prize for fighting a gimp with a terrible strategy). Possibly we'll include chained dungeons so players can build out mini-campaigns.

As always, these things will be introduced piece by piece as they become ready.

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[Pit Lord]

Sounds good .

[crow]

I'll be happy to mod and build a few dungeons for everyone to enjoy

[Sotc]

Oh baby! Can't wait :P

[Dainoji]

Looks awesome Nate! I used to love making dungeons. Will we get to be able to get detailed with the NPC builds and what kind of gear we want them to have? Maybe not to the level of choosing an actual weapon, but maybe a class of weapon like Axe, or 2H.

Can you expand more on what you have in mind for co-op?