Project Cruoris

Project Cruoris is currently a newly conceptualized MMORP game being developed by Swarm Studios. Its being independently developed, which means there is no publisher involved. It is of the high fantasy genre, and it is our goal to create an exceptionally enjoyable experience for people who thrive on such games.

The website is at www.Cruoris.net, and the developer-user community can be found at http://community.Cruoris.net. Anyone is encouraged to create an account there and provide feedback on art and ideas. The whole basis for development is the relationship with the user, we're trying full out to create a fun game. Here is a section of the public prepped design document for you to get a better idea about our game (its a bit dated, bear with me):


Introductory Concepts:
Cruoris Online is a member of the new generation of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games. In the recent past, they have namely been (and can only have been) created by large commercial companies, and maintained the same. But, today, as with quite a few developers around me, we have decided that this time's end is nigh. If you were old enough to remember, the same was true with MUDs and the old text based RPGs of the time, then how did it develop? It developed by becoming commonplace- independent programmers around the world became capable of such feats. The same is coming true with MMOS- independent game developers and hobbyists developing MMO games without the constraints of publishers. Cruoris Online is now a part of this movement for games built by gamers, for gamers, on all fronts. The problem with modern MMOs is balance- companies cannot accomodate the diversity of players in their game... Some people are casual players, others are just in it for the virtual society, and of course there's your hardcore gamer. In the construction of a game, more prominent in a MMORPG, is the restrictions these classes of players can create. For example, a nice feature a lot of people would have fun with is their actions or Quests had a direct consequence on the game world. Wouldn't it be cool, if the stuff you did actually had a markable difference? Yeah, I think so, and so do most people I talk to. Well, that bit of fun is awesome for a guy (or gal, of course) who gets to experience that- but theres a hardcore group who would probably grind for that change or changes like he has no life- robbing the average player of the entertainment. The only reasonable way of going around this is ejecting features that would disrupt the balance of the game. This is sad, but nessecary, with cold logic. This discrepency and the pure love for games is what will drive this next generation of MMO and freestyle independent game development. If you're reading this, I can already that you for the support you've provided by simply being present.

Primary Features:
People will probably find this one of the most exciting parts . Well, I'll list some features that I plan to and hope will be integrated into Cruoris Online. Most of will be covered sometime and somewhere within this document. A lot of features might have to be removed, as you can probably deduce from my above statements in the previous clause. Without further ado, I'll name some funky primary features and a short description on what it will mean.

Easy Accounts - Account creation is simple, fast, and easy with support for 8 game characters per account. You don't even need to be inconvenienced by an account activation email, you are good to go on the first run.
Dynamic Character Creation - We plan to input a vast database of character customization traits.
Old Fashioned Stats - You pick where your attributes go. Complete control over Character Development.
Tradeskills - Lots of things to make, and lots of rare things to find. Did I forget to mention that some blueprints are Unique (very rare ), and there is only one of them that exists within the game. You very well may be the only one able to craft a certain item.
Talents - Finally something you DON'T have control over. Talents are automatically (randomly ^_-) learned according to how you develop your character. They may have numerous benefits of any kind and denomination.
Power Tree - This is very controversial to the development team, but as of now we have decided there will be no level cap on any ability, skill, attribute, or general level. However, it becomes significantly harder to level with each one you gain.
Abilities - Your online entity has the potential for numerous physical abilities, teach them to others, learn from a trainer, or work to discover one on your own. Either way, possibilities are endless.
Spells - Vast tomes of knowledge litter libraries and hidden parts of the world. Who but the wisest can crack the mystery surrounding these objects of insurmountable power? NOTE: A number of spells are also considered controversial by the development team include weather changing and reforming land. These dramatic spells are not guaranteed to exist upon realease.
Death System - Death is not the end of the world. You had better prepare for the next one.
Property Ownership - Whether it be a slum, a cabin in the middle of nowhere, or that grand Fortress City, you can own property. And lots of it. Don't get too excited, it costs- a lot.
Environmental Effects - Trees sway in the wind, and time progresses (365 day Calendar, with seasons). Also, meteorology algorithms determine weather patterns in each zone.
NPC - NPCs are different in Cruoris. Depending on various factors (including your actions, weather, and recent PvP/warfare) they may react differently. You may even be ignored.. insulted... challenged.. Either way, either of you could end up dead, just take it behind the Guard's back... Unless they were conveniently dead, or of course you own the city anyways... Cruoris may be the only times where you can order executions. That does include malcontent players. Oh, and NPCs move too. They get tired. They move away. They get murdered. They fight. Every society has its problems, this place won't seem much better.
Monsters - This may be annoying to you grinding PvEers, but monsters don't spawn and walk around the same place for the duration of their life, before they are killed and spawned again. Details about this system are not available at this time, but I will say that it will make exploring that much more enjoyable.
Trading - Anyone might trade with you. But, don't expect any sane person to buy that Spider Leg or Bird Feather you found, as they will only purchase things they need. Also, why not hire an NPC to sell your wares while you are offline? Auctioning always works well, too.

Well, those are a few features and not even the primary features as I have previously claimed. A lot of things are going unmentioned but will likely appear in the document sometime in the future. In fact, you may want to stop reading or things might be spoiled for you. Most things ingame will be documented within this design document, but I don't now exactly how much of it I'm actually going to distribute it. Censorship anyone? I know a few are fed up with that- but its for your own entertainment... relax.

Architecture:
Architecture in Cruoris Online will be relatively uniform - with a medieval fantasy gradient. We'll do our best to match whats on the market today. Testers and critics are needed in this area, opinion is a strong motivation for improvement.

Terrain Matrix Development:
Terrains in Cruoris will be well thought out, and detailed with high resolution textures. The ground always seems to be the most neglected item graphically in MMORPGS- we're here to fix that. Other then the various features competently generated terrain can accomplish, the Cruoris developers have a strong sense of ligthing and will insure a wondrous environment to explore. Common land will also be populated by three dimensional grases, trees, and various lifeforms whether they be kind or naught. Observe the change in ambience as we the gameworld shifts from day to night. Apart from all this, we hope to garner a very large world with nooks and crevices for you to discover the secrets of. All things have reasons. Just don't give that noob mage the power to create Earthquakes, it would suck to have a capital city molested into ruins- unless thats your intent- in which case, prepare to be hunted.

Realist Conclusions:
Oh, we have millions of ideas for Cruoris. But- are they logistically plausible in a largely populated environment? Time will tell. We plan to add quite a number of features that would be heavily enjoyed by players... But they could be ruined on the reasons other MMORPG developers have simply excluded them. We're putting theory to test and will allow the playerbase to show how they will handle such influence. Anyways, we'll be able to keep up with our update system if things go wrong.


Sector Two - Network Architecture:
MMORPG Engine - Server - Server Costs - Update Algorithm - Client - Client Costs - Client Distribution - Zone/Multiserver

MMORPG Engine:
All our tools are stated above. Realm Crafter supports automatic web updates and easy server/client/patch builds. Compliments to Solstar Games ^_-

Server:
The server is effecient, and will be run on a Windows platform in a high performance environment. During the time leading to the first Minor Release, we will only support a small number of players within the server (10-20), but if/as the game grows in popularity we'll upgrade to commercial dedicated servers that can support hundreds of players in a single instance of Cruoris. It is projected that we will need a multicore server with 1000 gigabytes or more of bandwidth, and fully loaded with memory (4096mb+). As you can see, the costs would be massive, so we will be depending on the money garnered from ads and donations to fund the project past the first few dozen players.

Server Costs:
As I revealed above, the server costs would be fairly high. Cruoris Online has two options- renting a commercial server in a datacenter, and paying a monthly fee... Or building our own server and renting a (very) high bandwidth connection. The plausiblity of each choice is directly relative to how long Cruoris will be in operation. If we were to rent a commercial dedicated server, it would not be economically feasible for two or more years, and a personally maintained server would be the benign. This is of course taking only into consideration the cost, the the level of professional maintenance and commercial solution would provide. I can guess that is what we will most likely pursue.

Update Methods:
Game updates will be quite simple. When you start up a copy of the Client it will automatically check the offical website for an updated patch file, if one exists, the download would proceed, the update would be installed, and you can once again play the game. If you are ingame when an update is uploaded, your position will be saved and the game will be paused while the download occurs. During the alpha and beta testing period, we expect to be churning an update out every other day. After the first real release, we expect the launch content patches every three weeks- but critical bug patches will be availalbe as soon as possible.

Client:
The game client will be fairly large, 600mb at current- but this is expected to rise dramatically the closer we get to a release. However, when downloaded, it will be compressed within a RAR archive file that will reduce the space constraints considerably. It is estimated that to provide te quality we aim to achieve, we will exceed 4 gigabytes. Depending on the success of the project, we may even surpass 5 and perhaps even 6 gigabytes. Our video requirements may also be raised.

Client Costs:
The client's cost to produce will rise as we progress, since the growing file size requires more bandwidth to distribute. During the testing phase, each tester will be given a single opportunity to download Cruoris Online. All updates will be downloaded automatically by smaller patch files.

Client Distribution:
The client will be distributed via a direct HTTP download from the offical website. You will need RARLab's WinRAR to unzip and install Cruoris Online. It is a very large download, so a broadband connection is nessecary for the download and quality of play ingame.

Zone/Multiserver:
Due to technological limitations, Cruoris Online will not be a seamless environment. A very short load time will exist between zones, but they will all appear to be seamless.


_______________________________________________________________________
The above document is incomplete and has not been edited for grammar and spelling.
Copyright 2007 Swarm Studios


Appended notes:
There will not be a strict guild system. Cruoris will employ several 'classes' of social tiered structure. The following is a list with some minor details of what these entities will encapsulate.
Guild - Merchant organizations. Organized trade, monopolizing, et cetera. Incl professional organizations.
Faction - Large scale social template that contains the elements of each other tier - guilds, batallions, et cetera.
Batallion - A combat group of players for largescale PvE and PvP enterprises. These are generically employed by other tiers- military rankings. A batallion encapsulates parties.
Party - A combat group of players for smallscale PvE and PvP enterpriests. Maximum 10 members per party.
Group - Temporal ajoinment of players for accomplish common goals (quests et cetera).
Raid - Temporal adjoinment of a large amount of players to accomplish goals (epic PvE/P)
Each seperate group will have their own chat channels- /g, /f, /b, /p, /g, /r- each corresponding to the other's role.

Elemental effects:
Holy Effects: If hit by a holy spell, the amount of healing done and taken is increased by 15% (If good).
Shadow Effects: If hit by a shadow spell, your current cast is cancelled. Or based on reputation (If evil).
Fire Effects:: If hit by a fire spell, your movement speed is increased by 50% for 6 seconds, additionally, you take damage equal to 10% of your maximum health over this time.
Ice Effects: If hit by a ice spell, your movement speed is decreased by 50% for 6 seconds, additionally, your attack speed is reduced by 50% for 6 seconds.
Earth Effects: If hit by an Earth spell, your armor percentage is increased by 10% for the next minute.
Wind Effects: If hit by a Wind spell, your agility and attack speed increase by 8% for the next minute. Your movement speed is also increased by 30% if your armor rating is less then 30%.
Demonic Influence: If injured with demonic afflictions, your attack speed and movement speed are reduced by 5%, your damage taken is increased by 8%, and you cannot be healed for 25 seconds.

Physical Effects:
If critically hit your casting is cancelled.

Dynamic RTS elements: money laundering, raiding, and resource management and creation.

 

Lol ,, if i have to read all of that .. xD

I don't really like the game .. sorry

 

It heartens me to know you made your opinion based on this shoddy post. You may think otherwise in three years.