Over the past few weeks many of you have been on our Experimental Server, testing our latest features and providing much welcomed feedback on our upcoming systems. Crucially we put the Ruleset changes to you the community and this has been available on Experimental for the last week.

In our last blog, we detailed the first batch of features that you can expect to see when Point Release 8 arrives in November. In this blog we’d like to discuss the upcoming features for Point Release 8, the return of the Wilderness, and other changes facilitating this.

The Wilderness Returns

From the outset of building Legends of Aria, we have been committed to our pledge to build a game which allows players of all playstyles to take part whilst embracing a risk versus reward. In this post we outlined our thoughts and feelings on recent changes made, our displeasure with this direction, and we believe that we have come to the joint decision between both Citadel Studios and our community to push ahead with returning to the true realisation of our dream. We put these changes to our Experimental Server for feedback from the community and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.

These changes will come into effect with Point Release 8 and will be paired with a host of content balancing and tweaks to restore Celador to the risk versus reward environment we need.

These changes are extensive so forgive the wall of text:

Ruleset Changes

We are returning to our classic ruleset and picking up the torch where we left off in rolling out some much needed penalties and rewards with respect to PK and anti PKs. Central to this are the following changes:

• Guard Protected areas are limited exclusively to Towns and Cities.
• The Karma system has been removed and Murder Counts have returned.
• A Criminal flag will now come into effect when negative actions are undertaken against positive players.
• Permanent Skill Loss has is being implemented for Criminals and Murderers and those who die whilst possessing Murder Counts. 

• Engaging in a negative action will result in a player being issued with the criminal flag, represented by a grey name.
• Players who murder or assist in the murder of an innocent player are issued a murder count.
• Players with murder counts of 5 or more will become Murderers, represented by a red name.
• Individual murder counts require 24 hours of game time in order to decay.

Risk

Central to this ruleset is the concept of risk. Previously we had made many motions towards artificially inhibiting red players, restricting their movement and taking increasing steps to making their life a misery. We have put those days behind us and will be moving forward with simple and powerful risks for criminals and murderers in the form of permanent skill loss in the event of death. The details of which are as follows:

• Upon death, players with a positive number of murder counts or are flagged as criminals or murderers will experienced permanent skill loss.
• Criminals and innocents with a positive murder count will experience skill loss of between 0.1 to 0.5 skill points from a single skill.
• Murderers experience skill loss of between 2.5 to 5.0 skill points from a number of skills determined by their murder counts:
  • 0 to 9 = 1 Skill
  • 10 to 19 = 2 Skills
  • 20 to 29 = 3 Skills
  • 30 to 39 = 4 Skills
  • 40+ = 5 Skills
• Skill loss does not affect the skill’s Maximum Level Attained, this means that retrained skills will gain from the Retrain Skill Bonus (Multiplier of 3)
• Skill loss is reverted when the afflicted players corpse is resurrected or upon returning to their own corpse

An interesting aspect going forward is that of the relationship between a Criminal/Murderer and his or her head. The heads of the deceased ‘bad’ players may be severed and in doing so, removing the players ability to become capable of reuniting themselves with their lost skill points:

• The corpses of murderers and criminals can have their heads removed by other players, forcing the deceased player to release into a ghost.
• When a head is removed, the afflicted player can no longer revert their skill loss via their corpse.
• Severed heads may be returned and consumed by their original owner, returning all associated skills lost.
• When a Murderer is killed by (or their death was assisted by) another player they are given the Capital Punishment debuff, reducing all stats are reduced by 60% and the player is immune from skill loss for a duration of 20 minutes.

Our goal with these simple but direct changes is to truly put the inherent risk of operating an evil character in the hands of those players. And that’s not all…

Reward

In Point Release 8 we will be releasing a further incentive to separate the aforementioned evil player from his or head. That incentive is Skill Scrolls.

• Upon handing in a severed head to a Bountyhunter NPC, a skill is chosen from the selection of Skill Loss skills contained within that head and will be rewarded as a Skill Scroll.
• The scroll awarded will have it’s applicancy capped within the range of the chosen skill:
  • Apprentice 30 – 50
  • Journeyman 50 – 80
  • Master 80 – 90
  • Grandmaster 90 – GM
• Example:  If the owner of a given head suffered a single skill loss to the Evocation skill between the ranges of 80 and 90 skill points, a Master Skill Scroll of Evocation will be awarded and may not be applied above 90 Evocation. 
• Skill scrolls offer 0.1, 0.2 or 0.3 bonus to a given skill, chosen randomly when the skill scroll is awarded.

Skill Scrolls are freely tradeable and offer a marginal but powerful reward for hunting criminal and murderous players and bringing them to justice.

Townships

With the launch of PR8 we are launching an entirely new system called Townships. Townships allow players to pledge their allegiance to participating towns to become a Citizen and gain access to that Township’s Trade Board.

The Trade Board for a given Township operates as a local bazaar, accepting a wide range of items in return for local currency which can then be spent on other items from that Township’s supply. Items which can be accepted stem from staples such as ore, wood and cloth to world drops and rare materials and ingredients. Prices are determined by supply and demand so players are offered strong incentives to keep the town supplied with materials. This also offers players an opportunity to exchange acquired goods for other items they may require.

In addition to buying and selling in local currency, there are also new items available to purchase from the board, such as weapons and armors. These items are balanced to be inferior to that crafted by independent crafters, but readily available for those that need them.

Militias

In addition to Townships, we are launching the Town Militia system. Militias serve as a complete overhaul to the Allegiance system so existing players should be aware that there are many differences.

To enroll in a Town Militia, you must first be a Citizen of the relevant Township. Members of opposing Militias may take part in a range of Militia events within which opposing Militias will be freely attackable to one another. Militia events consist of two different objectives types:

Wilderness Events: Town Militias may compete and capture key points in the world which will bestow global advantages in the form of Buffs upon their fellow towns folk. Similar to previous Allegiance events at Fremen’s Quarry, the Lumberjack Outpost and Valus Cemetary, the rules for this event are points based King of the Hill type events and are ongoing.

Banner Capture: Each Township has within its walls a Banner displaying the town crest. Based upon scheduled timers, these Banners will become vulnerable for capture by opposing Militias. Once an enemy holds an opposing towns banner, he cannot fast travel or mount and must return the flag to their base.

Militia members will earn currency with their chosen Township and will have exclusive access to items and equipment from their Township’s Trade Board. We have applied a degree of separation between Militia Ranks and Militia Rewards to allow players of all abilities to gain access to some exciting gear and Militia specific artifacts, but some ranked rewards will still remain to reward those of talent with prestige.

Stealing & Snooping

With the launch of Point Release 8, Stealing & Snooping will have finally arrived allowing players to steal belongings from one another within the Wilderness area.

Snooping is as simple as inspecting a fellow player and attempting to open his inventory; Stealing a matter of dragging and dropping items from their inventory to yours. However, stealing is no walk in the park and the punishments for being caught can be severe.

We’ve taken some steps to make these actions less griefer friendly versus more classical implementations so players can expect the following changes:

• Snooping must be done from a hidden character.
• Snooping is deemed as a criminal regardless of success.
• You may only attempt a single steal attempt from a single target per conflict.
• Stealing success is determined by your Stealing skill and the weight of the item(s) being stolen.
• Stealing from players is not possible within the guard zone.

Resource Missions

Missions are now available for the extraction of metals, wood, cotton and fishing and will be available from their respective mission dispatchers! Functioning similarly to existing missions, players will be given a destination to run missions and intercept global resource spawns in the wilderness. Missions will scale with respect to their required harvesting difficulty and chance to spawn highly sought after resources.

These missions are important in offering players accessibility to the resources they desire whilst ensuring that gatherers have the opportunity to gather in unpredictable locations to make them more difficult to pray for those who would see them as an easy target.

Next Blog

Next week we’ll be outlining our last remaining features coming in Point Release 8, primarily content for our Profession System, our new dynamic and episodic content called The Leagues of Celador, World Bosses, and any final remaining details ahead of this big update.

Discover a world forged by players, where your choices write the story. What role will you play?

Key Features:

• • A Living, Breathing MMORPG: Explore a true open world without limitation. Build, explore and adventure with thousands of players in a living breathing world defined by you.
  • Skill-Based World: Legends of Aria returns to a true skill based system. Build your character your way, be you a crafter, adventurer, merchant or humble fisherman. Hone your skills through use and play your way with a choice of over 32 unique skills.
  • Return to a True Sandbox: Legends of Aria is inspired by the original sandbox MMORPGs. Experience a world that does not hold your hand. A world that is driven by you and shaped by our community. A world of dangers, where friendships, enemies made and your actions written into legend.
  • Community Servers and Modding: The first MMORPG to fully support player run servers. Legends of Aria is designed to be modded from top to bottom including custom gameplay rules, custom content and even entirely custom created worlds.