ClotH: A Closer Look at the Skills and, No Doubt, My Growing Madness

Okay, so, the skills. Each class has its own set of special skills in CloTH. There are five classes as I think I've not mentioned before. It's a nice round number that encompasses all the different archetypes and stereotypes for RPG classes that I want to include that doesn't clog up the page with a lot of useless detail. There's the Fighter who's, well, the big meatshield who stands around yelling at people to hit him a lot or, in other words, the melee tank. There's the Cleric who's the desperately needed box of bandaids, the required healer who keeps everyone else alive. The Sorcerer who's the glass cannon, the fragile spell caster who hurls around the big, costly damage dealing spells and nukes. The Hunter who's the guaranteed overpower class who's, in this case, the ranged, solo friendly class. And then there's the Mentalist who's the weird class that no one really understands because it's just so strange and completely, utterly different than all the other classes that have tried to get outside the healer/tank/damage dealer box in all the other games before and, seriously, is absolutely nothing like a Mesmer or an Enchanter or anything like that, the fictional developers have really, really shown off their creativity with this one, is what I'm saying. They're all classes that should, hopefully, look familiar to anyone who has any passing familiarity with the MMO genre. Maybe not every single detail or specific but enough that they have a basic idea of what they can and will do and the type of player who'd be drawn to that sort of character. Again, I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel here or to build, in so many words, a better mousetrap but using common tropes and elements to deal with the issues and themes of people who play these sorts of games. I hope I'm doing more than just cutting and pasting but, as I understand it, making these things familiar and comfortable is a plus because it makes it easier for the reader to swallow the rest of the story.

Anyhow, although the game is based heavily on Guild Wars the skills, the special abilities that every character uses to do, well, almost everything are one place where I've diverged from the model a bit, I think. Each of the five classes has 50 skills, in total that are, like GW purchases with skill points. But they can only use 10 of them at a time. Every character gets a primary and secondary class, too, so that's something like 100 skills each character can potentially use (In case you hadn't noticed, I like to keep the numbers nice and simple for the same reason I'm keeping the class roles nice and basic.). Not quite but we'll get to that in a bit. The skills are divided into lines. Groups of similar skills that a player can invest in with their stats that further separate and distinguish their character from every other one of the same type. But here's where we go off the rails because while it's not as simple as spending attribute points like in GW. Instead, each skill has five ranks and players spend their skill points in improving them which also happens to raise their associate attribute.

Let's say, for example, you're a Sorcerer who has five skill lines tied to each of the five elements (We're using the oriental model of Air, Earth, Fire, Metal, and Water here, instead of the western version of four elements. That way we have an element for each class and the number five becomes a thematic design motif with deep significance to the game's lore instead of just a random figure that I've pulled out of my ass because it works. I love it when things work out like that.) and is, therefore, the oddball because the other four classes have but four skill lines each. The Sorcerer gets five, though, and if you went to your non-existent page of statistics you'd see that you have an attribute to go along with each (Along with an attribute for each line from your secondary and five "general" attributes that every character gets - things like Strength, Dexterity, and the like - but never mind that now.). But there won't be any way to adjust them at all. Just a flat figure which, if you're a starting character would be 0. If you want to increase, say, your Pyromancy attribute - which you might want to do since the game tells you it would provide some resistance to fire damage and let you meet the requirements of the items you want your sweet wizard dude to be using, like that starting wand you've got in your pack - what you'll need to do is leave the stat page and head to the skills page.

There, you'll see that you have a skill point or two to spend and several tabs which correspond to the various elements. If that sounds familiar, yes, that's because I stole the idea from somewhere. Spend a skill point to "buy" a new skill from the Pyromancy tab - for example, the simple damage dealing skill Flame Whip which is, well, Flare, it'll do a little bit of damage, has a short cooldown, and doesn't cost a lot of mana so you can cast it over and over again if, you know you're dumb like that (Seriously, don't use Flame whip. It's awful. The Sorcerer, in general, is just a design trainwreck. But an intentional one. It's the class that's been nerfed into oblivion and I have so much fun putting it together and adding new and ever more cruel ways of destroying the class that I'm sure it's not healthy.) - , and you'll not only have a new ability to slot in your bar you'll also raise your Pyromancy attribute by 1. The more skill points you spend in that tab and the higher your Pyromancy will climb.

Now, as I said, each skill has five ranks, each one of which costs a skill point to buy and will improve the skill's variables. They're not tied to the associated attribute, in other words, but to the rank. So let's say your Flame Whip does 5 fire damage per rank. So, at level 1 it does 5 damage and, then, you can spend more skill points to improve it until it does 25. (I'm just making up numbers here. This is the sort of thing I haven't bother to figure out exactly because - I can stress this enough - I'm not that crazy. Close, but not that bad. Yet.). Durations, even cooldowns and casting costs can be affected, too. And each rank you improve Flame Whip also improves your Pyromancy stat. When you run out of ranks or decide that you can live with a Flame Whip that only deals 15 damage when you're out killing five sewer rats on newbie island, you can invest your skill points in another skill. Like, say, Salamander Skin which is sitting right next to Flame Whip on your Pyromancy tab and tempting you with its description of adding burning damage to your weapon hits (If you play Guild Wars think Conjure.). Every skill point you sink into that is added to your Pyromancy title, too.

Your skill attributes, in other words, are the total of all the skill points that you've spent on the related skill line. And where that's important is not just in the secondary effect that, in this case, lets you equip better flame wands and off-hand power items that increase your mana stores or other attributes. Or even the minor bonus that you've become more resilient to the type of damage you're dealing - namely, burnination - yourself (This, by the way, is one of those "This is an example of what your game shouldn't do" mechanics that are litered throughout.). But also to fill out the requirements for getting more and better tiers of skills.

That's right, in our Sorcerer example Flame Whip and Salamander Skin are beginner skills. Anyone who's a Sorcerer - primary or secondary - can spend a skill point to use them at any time. But there are more advanced skills that require you to have a certain level in Pyromancy (Or, potentially, a certain rank in a previous tier's skill or even a specific level in a general attribute. Again, this is the kind of specific detail I haven't really thought out because I'm not insane.). There are four tiers for each line and if you want to use skills from the second tier of Pyromancy, say, you need to spend, say, five skill points total. Any way, any combination you want whether you max out Flame Whip or Salamander Skin or spread your points between them and other skills I haven't mentioned yet, but once you've sunk enough points into them then, and only then, does the next tier of skills open up so you can pick up things like Fireball and Inner Flame for your character to use.

As I mentioned there are four tiers for most skill lines and, although it varies, in general the higher the tier the more skills you have to pick from. They go from an average of two at the beginning tier, to four at the intermediate and, then, six at the advanced. And on the fourth and final, expert tier you have the line's ultimate skills. Literally. They're a take-off on the elite skills of GW in that they're obscenely powerful and you can only use one at a time. These ultimate skills are supposed to be what you'll build your character around, the reason why you want to sink a majority of your skill points into a particular line and most skill lines have two to choose from.

The Sorcerer, again, is a bit of an oddball since it has five lines (And again, it's a wretched class so those lines have fewer skills than the ideal and a lot of them are simple replacement operations where fire damage gets swapped out for, say, cold or lightning attacks.) and each line only has but one Ultimate for a total of five. But take the Fighter, for example, who has a line of attack skills for martial weapons (Rather than follow the Guild Wars model of a skill line for each type of weapon, I just have one. That way I don't have to worry aout coming up with dozens of attack skills or having to redesign every time I decide to add or remove a weapon type.) called Arms which has the standard two to pick from. The first is a skill that delivers a big packet of damage. The other, less damage but more often. One's for +dmg, the other for damage compression so it's the difference between, say, Eviscerate and Cleave. Well, actually, it's more like the difference between Executioner's Strike and an unconditional Protector's Strike sicne there's nothing as crazy as a Deep Wound in this game so the big damage skill is all about the eye-popping numbers and the damage compression skill is more about the reduced swing time than it is about the bonus damage. You can imagine the fictional theorycrafters of the game's fans have filled imaginary message boards with rants about the superiority of one over the other and I'll leave it up to you to imagine which one's going to be more valuable (Here's a hint: I'd run Frenzy if it was elite.) but, the idea is that not only do you have several skill lines to play with you have multiple ways of using the skills within those lines so the ultimates are there to reinforce and guide players along those different paths. Doesn't always work out since the developers are trying to judge how the game's going to develop in that case and, again, it's a trainwreck not a good game. But that's the idea.

Case in point, getting Ultimates to use is a bit more involved than simply opening up your character menu and spending unused skill points once you meet a req. You have to do all that but, first, you have to unlock them those a quest or even a series of quests (And, you can imagine, not every Ultimate is as easy to get to as the next and this is the sort of thing that makes the PvPers of the game gnash their teeth and wail about imbalance.). Afterwards, you can buy and slot it normally. You unlock your other skills, too, the first time you buy them. While respeccing isn't as easy as it is in GW it is possible and the cost is reduced for switching back to skills you've already learned before rather than trying out something new (Trainwreck!!!). But players at least have a way of trying out different builds and forgetting about the skills they never used which is important since there's a finite supply of skill points each character can learn and the fall well short of letting them learn all the skills they have avaiable to pick from. Which, again, is about 100 from 50 from each of two classes.

Now, if you've been following along, you've probably realized something is off. I've said each skill line contains, on average, 12 regular skills and 2 super-special Ultimates for a total of 14. And that the classes have four skill lines except for the Sorcerer who has five. If you do the math that's 56 skills for each class so what gives? Well, each class gets a primary line. A group of skills and an associated attribute that only primary members of that class can use. For Sorcerers it's the one tied to Metal or the element of knowledge and intelligence and technology, it gives them bonus mana/energy. For Fighters it's Durability which gives them bonus hitpoints/health. And so on. The primary lines lack an Ultimate (Meaning that everyone gets six or so to pick from. Sorcerers, being weird and, also, lame, have only five one of which is tied to their primary. Build diversity not exactly a big concern with them, in other words.) and have, generally, fewer skills more of which are found on their lower tiers. They average 8 or so, which combined with the 42 from the other three lines adds up to 50 (Sorcerers have only 6 primary skills and 11 in each of their four main lines, by the way.).

Which means that, unless you're combining with a Sorcerer, each character has 92, not 100 skills, right? Well, no. Because there's also a limited selection of "general" skills. These, like the Resurrection Signet, can be used by any character and they're things like self-heals and rezes and simple attacks that every character needs to function. They're largely forgettable since each profession has some way of dealing with those things with their own skills but they're there and although I have quite bothered to care enough about them to sketch them out, there's enough to push the number to around 100 or so.

With a limited skill bar and Ultimate power and its restrictions, most characters concentrate on one or two lines plus their primary. Depending, of course, on what they're doing. But, in general, you have to sink a lot of points into a line to get to the good stuff and a ton to use the Ultimate you really want to and that generally means you have a significant number of skills you're either going to slot or leave behind uselessly. Say an Ultimate requires an attribute level of 25, that means you need to max out 5 skills (Or more, if you don't) just to use your big stick and that's half your bar already (Assuming everything below is useful which, trainwreck warning again, isn't always the case.). There's a case to be made for going "off-line" and spending a lot of points just to get one powerful skill but most players see skill points they don't slot as being wasted. What's left over is used to splash into a line here and there to pick up the rare low-tier skill that can be still good - Salamander Skin, for example, is much prized by Fighters and Hunters because it's a long duration buff that doesn't cost a lot and adds a decent amount of damage ot their already considerable abilities so it's not rare to see a Fighter/Sorcerer or Hunter/Sorcerer just because they want to use that one skill.

I realize I've just gone on for a horrifyingly long amount of words about the very system I'm trying not to get too detailed about. But I can't help it, it's all so clear in my head but it takes some space to let it all out. And I've definitely been working this sort of things out. Although I haven't gone so far as to work out every last detail I have, at least, the grand sweep of what's possible and what's not with the skills in mind. At the time of this writing, I've fairly well fleshed out the various lines for the Sorcerer, Hunter, and Fighter, and I have a pretty good idea of the others, too. Not, as I said, the costs and exact cooldowns and effects, but at least a general description of what they all do along with the number and kind of skills that you'd find where. Because, sadly, this kind of thing is incredibly fun to me. Next up, attributes. Or maybe a closer look at the classes. I'm sure you'll find out eventually.

ClotH: State of the Project

Okay, so I've been working on the novel or, really, the short story I'm hoping to tell in order to gear up for the novel and to explore a few stylistic tics first. A dry run, if you will, to see if how I'm planning to handle the game/player boundary actually works or if I need to come up with a better way of telling a story about a bunch of people sitting around making small muscle movements in front of their computers for hours on end. Writing about gaming is a logistical nightmare, let me tell you, and I want to make sure I'm not going to run halfway down a false path when it comes to the in-game action.

The short story is, itself, nothing particularly inspiring or, even, meaningful, which means I'm going ot have a hard time ending it. But it's set post-release as opposed to the novel which is set, largely, within the confines of the closed test before hand. And I'm hoping to focus on a group of players going about their normal routine. Or as normal as a routine gets in a world where people summon spectral monsters from thin air and grip bolts of lightning in their bare hands. Which is to say that, really, when you think about it, the things you do when you're playing an MMO day in and day out make absolutely no sense to the objective observer. They're only understood by those who you play alongside, aren't they? And it's that kind of disconnect that I want to grapple with and play around with in the main novel. Right now, I just want to make sure the world and its mechanics make sense and I can describe it well enough while still making it interesting.

Which is a lengthy way of saying, by introduction, that I've fallen into the trap of thinking about the crunchy elements of the outline. The real nitty gritty of how my fictional game works. I'm increasingly afraid it's a bit of a trap because, the truth is, not everything has to be entirely thought out of 100% consistent. The game isn't exactly the world I want to write about but it's almost another character. And the more fleshed out, the better realized it is, the stronger the story will be as a whole. But I need to remember that my fabricated game is, ultimately, a flawed one. I'm not trying to make an example of the kind of game I'd actually want to make or play but, instead, a collection of good ideas surrounded by horrid mistakes (Which is, after all, a lot easier to make and a whole bunch more fun.). So, I don't have to worry about balance and fun factor and everything else that goes into making a successful MMO. Instead, I have to establish enough elements that it passes the sniff test among those who know what about the subject without letting it get in the way of the story. The game I'm dreaming up has to, in so many words, help reinforce the story, not restrict it.

But, well, I played this one flash game which I was foolish enough not to bookmark and, now, can't remember exactly where it was or what it's called so I can't pass along the link. It probably comes as no surprise that I'm a big fan of the old school gold box games and things like Ultima and the like where you're given a bunch of nearly faceless characters and a wide sandbox to play around in with lots of tactical encounters strung together by a loose plot. And that's what this little flash game was. Basically, a dungeon crawler. You assembled a little group from a few different classes and picked up loot and advanced in levels and you could learn new special skills. And it's one of those flash games where you're surprised just how much they managed to cram into that small little file because it was huge. And it got me thinking that, you know, if someone(s) could make a game like that then, well, I could turn ClotH into a similar flash game. With enough time and enough work, of course, I could have a workable platform. A way of telling these stories interactively, something like Dot Hack where the lines between the games layers are blurred and played with. Of course, I'd have to learn how to use flash first and a ton of other things. So, put it on the pile of really cool ideas that I'd love to do but don't have the time or knowledge to pull off.

Thinking about it, though, is useful, because in the transition from a modern MMO to a simple turn based flash RPG, you'd have to strip out a lot of things and focus on the core mechanics. And to do that, you'd need to understand those mechanics. So, I think, at the very least, the flash game works as a useful mental model for thinking about things like combat and skills and how they'd actually work. Which is exactly what I want to be doing. So, although I'm not getting much done in the way of prose or character bios it's not exactly wasted effort either.

Fair Warning: Guild Wars / Gamer Humor Ahead

The other day I remembered an old bit from my aborted webcomic that, well, I'm going to share. To set the scene it was born out of the doldrums of waiting for Guild Wars to be released and the need for more content to shovel into the ever hungry maw of one sight or another. I called it “Guild Woes” and it was going to be about a bunch of testers who'd play the game and allow me to comment on it and the community and could, hopefully, last well past release on the strength of those characters and the game's ongoing issues. Those characters eventually became the basis for my NaNo novel Development Cycle. The rules for that little contest were that you weren't to write any prose beforehand but you could do any amount of prep work and I grabbed that abandoned project to get a headstart. Even recycled some of the bits into the story but as things went on the book became less about comedy with a dash of drama thrown in and took a much more serious turn as it explored communications and community in virtual spaces. The quirky things that made for good comedy beats went by the wayside as the players became more well-rounded people.

But, initially, I was looking to do the opposite and the characters were going to be pretty one-note stereotypes. So I studied webcomics and comics in general – looked at how they were done and so on. Did a lot of sketches. Tried to figure out how to draw the various armors and the like. Wasn't going to stick to just what was available in game all the time, mind, as some of those models are annoyingly detailed to draw quickly but I wanted things to feel authentic to people playing the game. In the end I just didn't have the time to devote to doing it right. And my inability to, you know, write and draw was a problem. But I've always had a soft spot for the project, obviously, because I thought it had potential.

I wanted make something a lot like Sluggy Freelance where there's both long-term, moving stories and daily humor to keep things from getting stale – mostly four panel dailies with the occasional longer weekend strip but I could play with the format whenever I needed room to breathe or get all artsy. I populated things with a diverse cast of characters and set up a lot of dynamics between them. You had your roleplayer, your forumite, your clueless scrub, your grizzled video game veteran, your token chick, and they'd be just cardboard to prop up the plot. I was even going to use the classes people would play as a quick shorthand – Elemenatlists, for example, would be the really geeky and stat obsessed who thought they knew everything about the game. While the Necromancers would be the real strat masters but constantly bitching and moaning because of how bad their class was. The guild the main characters were in (With, of course, the tag [WoE].) would have a Team Rocket like nemesis that would constantly thwart them despite their own incompetence. Man, I had plans but I just couldn't get it off the ground.

Now, when transitioning this idea from the realm of Guild Wars into my fictional game of Clans of the Highborn for the novel, I obviously had to make some changes. The classes, for one, got a bit scrambled. And not having any real world landmarks or sites to rely on meant I had to invent my own. So the profiles I linked to earlier are somewhat misleading. Roth was a Warrior and, of course, my grizzled vet of a thousand online games (What I didn't know was that he was going to turn into the story's heart and soul. I'd pegged Heidi for that in the comic.) and my exposition fairy but he was much more of a know-it-all jerk. Chris was a ele who's big shtick was that people mistook him for a girl because of the effeminate Elementalist models and his androgynous name. So he was much more frazzled and easily upset in the comic. Land Ho (I know, I know, the name sucks. But I wanted he and his girlfriend Heidi to have annoyingly cutesy names like those couples who wear the same clothing when they go out. And that was the best I could think of at the time and it, unfortunately, stuck.) was the overeager scrub who was wrong about everything. My big idea with him was that he'd be a Warrior who'd constantly switch his secondary based on whatever the flavor of the month was so he'd always be rerolling (At the time you couldn't switch secondaries.) and have different visual elements to his outfit based on whichever secondary he had at the moment – ankhs if he was a monk, little dangling skulls if he was a W/N, that sort of thing. Roth and Chris were old friend and the “cool” kids who'd always hang out together. Land was a hanger on who really rubbed Roth the wrong way although he was, of course, completely oblivious to how unwanted he was by the other two. All those elements show up in my manuscript to some degree or another but they were played for dramatic tension rather than laughs the way they would have been in the strip.

So, anyways, as setup for this gag I would have been building towards a PvP arc. At some point after introducing all the characters and having fun with the game's basics I'd introduce the team's big rival (I never really could settle on what I wanted them to be which is probably why they don't show up in the novel. Although the idea of a heated rivalry with another guild sure does.) a bunch of players with all black dyed high-end armor who tried to look as homogeneous as possible but were just only slightly more competent than my rag-tag bunch of misfits. And the comics leading up to their first GvG battle – probably during an all-call because this would be a big, major storyarc with a lot of room to talk about that scene as well – I'd have the guild talking about PvP and getting ready and so on. This scene would take place early on in that process. I could never get this joke right – just had it in my notes that it would be nice to do at this point so I hope you don't mind if I give it one last whirl.

SCENE: Roth and Chris are hanging around in town. They're waiting for Land to show up so they can head to the Arena to get some PvP practice in. Roth is getting impatient as usual.

PANEL ONE:

ROTH: What the hell's keeping him?

CHRIS: Hold on, I'm sending him a whisper. (Different colored text) Hey Land, where are you? We're waiting to do some PvP, you want to come or what?

PANEL TWO: (Close up on Chris looking exasperated.)

LAND: (Words appear as disembodied speech bubbles with the same color text as Chris's) PvP? whuts taht?

CHRIS: It stands for Player vs Player.

LAND: rly?

CHRIS: Yes, really. Now are you ready or what?

PANEL THREE:

LAND: b rite thar.

PANEL FOUR: (Back to a shot of Roth and Chris.)

ROTH: Is he ready yet?

CHRIS: He said he'll be... (Chris trails off as he looks off-panel.)

PANEL FIVE: (Scene shifts to elsewhere in town. An elegant cane strikes the pavement and there's a sound effect straight out of 70s blacksploitation films.)

PANEL SIX: (The random stander-bys turn their heads and gasp in wonder.)

PANEL SEVEN: (A shot of some fancy leather boots walking over the cobblestones. More onlookers in the background are stunned and shocked.)

PANEL EIGHT: (Land stands revealed. He's dressed in the finest of pimp accoutrement. Flashy purple suit with animal skin print on the lapels and cuffs. Large, over-sized fur coat hanging off his shoulders and clasped with a golden chain. A glittering pimp chalice held lazily in his hand, his pinky finger – with, of course, a gleaming pinky ring – extended. A cane with a sparkling diamond at the top in his other hand. He's wearing a big floppy hat with a long drooping feather. Jewlry and necklaces hang everywhere. Obscuring his face is a large pair of sunglasses.)

LAND: Oh...I'm ready.

PANEL NINE: (Land takes the sunglasses off and holds them in his cane hand.)

LAND: (Emphasized) Playa.

What?

Yeah, obvious joke.

I think it's funny, anyway. But I have this amazing sense of humor that makes things funny to me and no one else. You know, a bad one.

Really, I think this is just me gearing up for Script Frenzy, the NaNo spin-off (Did you know their corporation is called by the awesome name of the Office of Letters and Light? I didn't either until I got my sweet little recognition of the donation I had made in my name as a holiday present. Just a little nicely made card but it came in an envelope marked as originating from the Offices of Letters and Light and, let me tell you, that had me pretty puzzled until I opened it. But that really says it all doesn't it? Script Frenzy's this June, I'll be participating if I have the time and you should, too.). I'm not sure if comic strip scripts are going to be kosher but I've never really written anything like a movie script before. Still, I'm excited by the prospect.

And, anyway, the next time I'm doubled over with laughter when someone asks me to PvP, well, now you know why.

Novel Two : Design Test Two – The Foolhardy Brave

If you'll remember the introduction (and if not, here's a link) you'll recall that in installments I'm detailing an interconnected cycle of five quests from my fictitious game, Clans of the Highborn (or ClotH as the kids these days call it), which take place in a particular region of a particular island in my game known as the Land of Horses. The hub for these quests is a moving, nomadic city which transits through the zone known as the Grazing Lands on a regular schedule – players will find the NPCs to start this cycle and give out most of the rewards from the city of Warriror's Call. Before I continue further into the quests, though, I'd like to fill in more detail about the area itself – the sorts of things where if this were an actual game I'd be able to just write “This takes place in the Land of Horses” and my designer boss would go “Okay, so do you need any special monsters or anything?” and I'd go “Nope, not beyond that one NPC otherwise it's just the usual stuff that's in the production bible” or whatever it is they'd call the design document which details the various zones and their inhabitants. There'd be some resources to draw on and other people working at filling in the details is what I'm getting at. I, on the other hand, am doing this all from scratch because this is all being done as a writing exercise to help me gain insight into the workings of the imaginary game I'm developing as a background to at least two novels so far. As such I can gloss over a lot of things and focus on detailing what I think is important.

Take Warrior's Call, for example, I don't really know much about that place. I'm not the sort of person who'll just draw a highly detailed map of that sort of place without a lot of thought and effort so, at this point, it's not much more than a generic city not unlike many others in the game. I've drawn a distinction between a city and a town or other forms of settlments. Basically a city is the largest sort of settlement and features all the services that one could expect in such a place along with a wide variety of quests and some other things while others are smaller and more limited somehow. Warrior's Call is a big city and an important one but I don't want to get too bogged down in fixing it in place. Again, my motivation here is to be a bit vague on some details because when I'm writing I want the flexibility to change things as needed – I could draw up a map showing that Warrior's Call has three streets but what happens when I need my characters to duck into an alley on the fourth one? It doesn't seem likely to come up but in the course of writing stranger things have happened. Why then, you might ask, am I going to take the effort to detail these quests and things related to them in such detail? Well, the simple answer is that I'm insane. The more complicated answer is that I have no idea what I'm doing but these quests will help serve as templates for other quests I can come up with – by having a few really solid ones that I've worked out to the last letter I have a guide for when I need to come up with one on the fly, so to speak, that will help me make things consistent within the story. In so many words, once I know the general shape for the details I'll be able to fake it in the future. Warrior's Call, though, is not my template for cities (That would be Clanhaven, the large fortified city available after the newbie training tutorial area, the Scholar's Cove, on the starting Isle of the High. If I ever hook up my scanner, yes, you will see maps of it. Very shoddily drawn maps that I'll have to run through any number of programs to clean up but they do exist). Its mobility makes it a bit unusual but it's far from the most glamorous or awe-inspiring of cities.

That's because the people who built it are the Windrunner tribe a group of Amer-Indian like peoples who survive by hunting the plentiful herds that graze in the, well, Grazing Lands (A bit of a note on naming conventions here. I have the Purans, of which the Windrunners are but one tribe, name things in such a way that when translated they have the same meaning in any language. Except for their oldest ruins and things which have been around so long they've weathered some linguistic shifts. The effect is you get things like Grazing Lands or Chief Strong. Other areas and cultures do things differently so I get much more creative with names there. Just not here. Here I go for the blindingly obvious on purpose rather than by accident.) that Warrior's Call travels through. As such although I haven't gone to the lengths of detailing their architecture they're pretty basic about it. Not that what they make isn't sophisticated or well-crafted – it would be – but they prefer simple shapes and uncomplicated ornaments. So, I see Warrior's Call as a city on wagons or otherwised wheeled that can easily be taken apart quickly and it's rolling slowly but steadily along throughout the day, only when night falls do they set out some tents and campfires and stay in one spot for very long. There's a lot of wood, it's very rustic, and since this city literally springs to life overnight everything's pretty chaotic and thrown together without any attempt at planning where it goes. Since it's going to be shifting and changing over the course of the day I don't go into much more detail than that.

What I would like to go into more detail on, though, is the area where the questing will take place. If you'll remember the Land of Horses is laid out with one area encircling the next. There are three such areas the first which players will travel through to reach Warrior's Call – no doubt propelled by one quest or another, is called the Bad Lands. It's a scrub plain filled with tumbleweed and the sun-bleached bones of the fallen. The next sphere is the Grazing Lands where by quirk of fate and geography lush grass grows and herd animals like buffalo wander around. It's there that Warrior's Call will be found and from there that players will follow this cycle of quests and be launched into the innermost reaches of the Land of Horses – the Open Spaces. A mysterious place filled with arcane, reality bending energies centered around the Tornsky Mesa that's at the heart of the area and, indeed, at the heart of these quests. We'll get to the Open Spaces and how they're different eventually but for now I'm going to focus on the Grazing Lands because that's where the first four of these quests will be launched.

For the most part these quests are going to be using the monsters and features that will exist for players just wandering around in the Grazing Lands zone (Which, of course, I'm planning on allowing. People will be free to roam around and go wherever. It's just there's going to be numerous quests so they'll always have some place to go and something to do if they want to follow along in that particular story arc.). So these quests are going to be reusing the library of assets that my industrious little design team – which consists of me at this point and probably in the future as well – will be building up to make the zone into an actual place. First, of course, is the overall look and design of the place. Again, the details are a bit fuzzy because I can only hold so much in my head at any one time but the defining feature of the Grazing Lands would be that carpet of grass – growing wild but kept trimmed by the hoards of animals eating away at it – that stretches as far as the eye can see. It'll be a lush green but a washed out one – pale to emphasize the bright sun and clear skies in these places. The vegetation will contrast with the desolation of the Bad Lands and provide an easy way for players to mark the boundary between the two zones (I'm including seamless transition between zones the way you'll find them in WoW. Because, basically, I don't have to worry about any actual machine running this or writing any piece of code I get to design my “dream game” - even though for dramatic purposes I do completely the opposite of what I'd like at times – and include all the nifty features that I want. And I loathe loading screens with a passion. I have absolutely no idea how to make such things work between zones as borderless as the ones in the Land of Horses where players can't be funneled into a particular pass or tunnel but, then, I don't have to – I can just wave my hands and make all the problems go away. Probably not the best attitude to take if I were actually applying for a design job, though.). The boundary between the Grazing Lands and the Open Spaces will be much more subtle – the grass will start to wither and dry up to a nasty, sickly straw-like yellow as players get deeper so that realizing they've gone from one zone to another will be a slow process (I mean, they can check their maps and find out but in visual stuff like this I figure the more information I can encode to the player without screaming it at them the better – makes it much easier to play around with this sort of pacing and scene setting if I don't worry about the people who don't want to play that game with me. Again, I want to include a lot of things for a lot of different types of people who'll all play in their own way – that's what a good MMO should be doing, I feel.) to emphasize the creepy and weird sensation people would get traveling to a place where raw magic crackles in the air and reality itself gets a little arbitrary. I'll get to that when I detail the Open Spaces, though, the expansive covering of grass in the Grazing Lands, though, will also contrast with the sky.

Since we're out on the plains with very little in the way of trees or mountains to get between a person and the heavens, the sky is going to be shockingly, brilliantly blue with very few clouds drifting lazily through it (Unless I get wacky and throw an event where there's going to be a storm or something but I'm describing the concept artwork at the moment so I'll stick to the baseline appearance). It will hang in the air, pregnant almost, seeming to press down on the land underneath it and stretch everything horizontally. The Bad Lands and the Open Spaces will be more like Monument valley with large cliffs and rocky outgrowths but the Grazing lands will be more like Nebraska or Kansas – flat, wide, and almost mind-bendingly featureless. There won't be much in the way of landmarks beyond a rock here and a scraggly bush there maybe a shrine or other place of mystic power but not much to navigate by. The idea would be that it's a maze without walls made almost unnavigable by the lack of anything remarkable. This causes a lot of problems, not the least of which is that it's not going to look like much to the players but the visual variety and interest will come from the various monsters and patrols that are cycling through the area – which, along with the mobile Warrior's Call turn the whole place into one giant gear filled wheel rotating around the Open Spaces. My intent would be to make it so that this would be a very hard area for players to just head out and explore. Without the waypoints or landmarks that quests would create they'd be lost in a very short time because although there would be a pattern to the movements of things within the zone it'd be one that people would need to observe for a long while before it became apparent (Which should provide some fun to the people who like to puzzle out things like that. I foresee chapters and arguments in my book as players work desperately to crack the riddle for better drops or simply because they must know - “I'm telling you there's a pattern in the Land of Horses – look in about half an hour there's going to be a herd of buffalo that travel from east to west they'll reach about 100 yards past that tree and turn south.” “You are so high on crack. There's no pattern, it's all random. Look, they just went north.” “Well, okay, they do that every third time except on Tuesdays!” “Crack baby. It's all an emergent pattern from the random spawns. You're wasting your time.” “I swear I'm going to figure this out one day!”) because they'd be stuck looking at things from the perspective of the ground. If they could hover over things and see the way birds do they'd see an intricate dance being played out over and over again.

And I like that because of my elemental system which I haven't really bothered to take the time to detail in full just yet beyond the fact that it exists and a lot of things in my game revolve around my system of five elements – Air, Earth, Fire, Metal, and Water. There's a further two elements – chaos and order formed in the absence or presence of the base elements, respectively but that's more important in the endgame of the main storyline. For the most part things are based on those five. The Land of Horses, for example, is based on the element of Air. Which being connected with the religoins of the islands has acquired deep symbolism and meaning which I'll spare you from because that's delving deep into the lore. Simply put, though, Air is the element of change. Good change, bad change, it doesn't matter (another way of saying this is “luck” but that's highlighted more in the Open Spaces). It's constantly shifting and altering all while being invisible to the naked eye. The gentle breeze that sways the grass and the vast, eye opening reaches of the cloudless skies all speak to that but so does the constant pathing of things within the Grazing Lands. And I'll further emphasize that motif by using a lot of Air elemental enemies within the zone.

Now, in terms of my game that means that there will be a lot of people throwing around lightning so players with lightning resistant gear and skills will be at an advantage while players with lightning elemental damage will be at a disadvantage but, well, there's Warrior's Call where they can craft or trade for better things. Lightning skills, though, are about being faster and cheaper than other elemental magic and that'll also play into the fact that enemies here will be fast – several of them mounted – and agile rather than hulking brutes. The final aspect of the various monsters which will oppose the players that I want to play up will be the trickster aspect of the Air element (which flows from its identity of change and trade) and I'll do that through spell-casters that don't hurl lightning bolts but will corrupt and twist things through their debuffs and otherwise countering things. Among players these sort of characters would be Mentalists but I don't exactly want my monsters to follow the player's classes so much as highlight one facet of them or another. Other classes can use debuffs, too, it's the Mentalists that have the most and the most devastating and the most in-class synergy (There are five basic classes just like the five basic elements but each player can multiclass with another class – and switch their second class trivially easily – so that there's a lot more options than appear at first.). They're also the player class that's associated with the Air element but there's the Sundown Swamps on the Eternal Isle where Mentalists or their equivalent feature heavily – with the Void Witches that plague the Ghostwalker tribe. So I'm going to use this area to play up other aspects of my Air symbolism and avoid rehashing what makes that other area unique. What's really amazing is that I didn't plan any of this it just sort of developed as I was going along from the building blocks I'd left lying around.

Anyhow, I wanted to detail my monster template but as I'm running long again and I've yet to get to the quest at all I'll save that for next time. Instead, let me talk a bit about the weird – for me, anyway – design constraints that having a mobile launching point for my quests caused me. Simply put, I figure Warrior's Call is going to be covering a large area inside of the Grazing Lands and the Grazing Lands themselves have no large, discernible landmarks so that means I can't use many of the tricks I've seen in quests in the various video games I've used – the perils of getting too clever, I suppose. Now I could just handwave it away but since I'm challenging myself here I'm going to try and solve the problem. And the solution I keep coming back to is spawning. I can't put these quests in any given area of the zone because I can't be quite sure of where the players will be in relation to it. I plan that players will be given maps and radars and pathfinding waypoints and all the other modern conveniences but I still don't want them trudging across half the zone (Especially not when I have the Open Spaces sitting in the middle of it and I'd prefer players not to explore in there unless they're ready. It's going to be a tougher zone than the Grazing Lands and the Dreamtime Path dungeon in the middle of it is not for the faint of heart. I can't stand raiding myself so I don't really have much to compare it with but it is the sort of dungeon that max level players will be returning to over and over again for the challenge – and the sweet loot that comes with that, of course.) just to get to some quest. So, instead whenever someone accepts a quest they'll spawn the monsters and NPCs needed to complete it when and if they reach some trigger point. In some quests this is going to be pretty straight forward but in others it will let me change the goals of the entire quest in the middle of the action with ambushes and surprises and the like. This is another one of those things I have no idea how to actually build but I know what to ask for from the people who do but this plan does bring up the possibility that wandering around in a persistent zone that someone will come along and steal away the mission critical goals but I think by making it so that monsters only spawn in when someone with a quest gets within a certain distance (far enough that they can't see it but close enough that they're almost on top of things) and through liberal use of instancing (Basically the game will split each area into multiple instances whenever they get too crowded. This limit's going to be pretty low to prevent a lot of lag and people bothering each other. And it's going to go on invisibly in the background – except in towns where people will be able to select instances in order to group more easily – to create a seamless, shardless world. I did mention I was crazy, right?).

Also, since I want to include a method of instant and painless travel the shifting nature of Warrior's Call makes it rather unsuited to being a place people can click on and warp to. Basically, players will be able to click and travel to any place they've already visiting and those Sorcerer class will be able to teleport their groups to the places they've visited even if the other players haven't been their before (Letting those players have a way of earning money by shuttling lower level players all around the map for a fee. It's going to happen anyway so I might as well build it into the game, right?) but they'll need a map point to do so. Normal cities and other settlements will serve as these kinds of points but that's not really going to work in the Land of Horses. Instead, those shrines I mentioned earlier will serve as bind points – not only will players be able to teleport to them after visiting they'll also be able to resurrect their when killed. So, that network of map nodes masked by sacred Windrunner spots will also be circling the zone and provide for a few handy landmarks even if they won't be very distinctive in and of themselves.

Those problem solved lets get on to the quests. The first three quests will comprise the player's earning the trust of a specific Windrunner NPC – the lead mystic in the gathering army that is Warrior's Call who's called Mother Natasi Skytamer. And with that trust they'll earn a special magical item called the Silveroak Dreamcatcher which I'll detail more later on. Players won't know they're working on gaining that little item unless they've got some metatextual knowledge like reading a guide or some quest listing (Which, again, doesn't bother me. If they don't like searching through the game for hidden things then I don't think they should have to – some people turn to the backpage of any mystery and see who's done it before reading the rest, after all - but some players will so I want to build in quest cycles like this one which slowly reveal themselves over time.) but on completing the third of these quests they'll receive a shorter quest called “Gathering the Silveroak Dreamcatcher”. This is what I call a reward quest – there's nothing the player has to actually do except to travel to and talk with the NPC that will reward them. It's a good way to get players into new areas and new quests as well as give them feeling that they're accomplishing something. It's just not much of a quest – although I'll probably talk about it when we get to that point - so I'm not including it in the five quest total, it's just bridging between the first three quests and the next step. These first three quests can be undertaken in any order and, indeed, my design is for players to collect as many quests as they can in a settlement – here Warrior's Call – and then go out and complete as many as they can before turning them in. Which, of course, unlocks more quests and more adventures and players can skip whatever they want whenever they want but it would just be a way of giving players a constant goal so they can structure their play sessions around a trip to town and a whirlwind tour of filling out quest requirements (With, of course, the occasional dungeon crawl serving as a roadblock for advancing the main story.). But we have to start somewhere so I'll choose the simplest – for me – quest to begin with and present “The Foolhardy Brave”

Clans of the Highborn – Sample Quest: The Foolhardy Brave

Found: Warrior's Call

Given: Holly Bladegrass (She'll also reward the characters. And, yes, I know the name sucks.)

Level: Medium-High (Characters have a maximum level of 100 in ClotH which is high but each level is easily obtained and not much of an advancement over the previous one – just a few more hit points, and a few points to spend on attributes and improving skills. So, while there's a definite difference between a starting lv1 character and a maxed out lv100 character the degree of difference between, say, a lv60 and a lv67 is negligible. The 60~70 range is about where I'd put the Land of Horses and the majority of quests in Warrior's Call. It's not an easy are to get to, Twilight Isle itself is pretty far along in the game, and around lv75 is about when I'd expect players to be reasonable able to finish off the storyline. They'll miss out on a lot that way and lower level players with a good group to play with can probably do it earlier but it leaves a lot of time for them to get into the “elder game” that exists beyond beating the big bad – of this particular storyline anyway. Still, I have a potential solution for what to do when the game's over but I'll talk about that when I get to the Dreamtime.)

Reward: Minor (I don't want to get too tied down with specifics but this isn't going to be a massively difficult quest so the rewards going to be something like 20% of the XP required to level up – which to speed up leveling I'm going to keep consistent for all levels and just scale the XP rewards from monsters of varying levels, possibly quests and dungeons too but at the moment I think keeping the quest rewards consistent is the way to go – and a handful of gold pieces. As well as a slight increase in the reputation of the player with the Windrunner tribe – but this will be a hidden statistic they won't be able to see. No fancy items or anything.)

Requirements: Befriending the Windrunners (This is a quest that will need to be completed before Holly Bladegrass will talk to the player – basically all that one is is getting a high enough reputation with the Windrunners by completing other quests. Completing it will give the player the logical title of “Friend of the Windrunners” which will be one of the titles they can earn on their way to becoming completely trusted by the warchiefs in Warrior's Call. It'll unlock a few quest of which the Silveroak Dreamcatcher Trilogy won't appear much different from any of the others. And it can be lost if the player happens to ally with the Windrunner's enemies meaning that all the quests the title unlocks will be locked back up tight if they try and rep up with another faction.)

Completed: Grazing Lands (This is where the majority of the quest will take place, letting me/anyone else know what sort of monsters and things can be expected along the way.)

Goals:

1. Find Aurochs Bladegrass in the Grazing Lands
2. Help Aurochs survive his ordeal.
   
3. Return to Holly Bladegrass for your reward.

In-game text:

(quest information) Holly Bladegrass: “Please, outlander you must help me. My husband is determined to become a Brave and fight alongside his brothers when the war clouds roll. But first he must prove his worth to his war leader, Chief Strongarm of the Stormcloud Ravens. I fear for his safety and pray to the five gods for his return. A tale, no doubt, you've heard from other maidens in this camp. But their husband don't follow a man enthralled by the weird ones of the empty spaces in the deep lands. Those crones have poisoned his mind and he requires all his followers to pass through their rites. These rites are dangerous, far too dangerous for the man I married – one who's never held a blade in anger before. All of my brothers and my husband's brothers will not believe me because the strange magics they practice have bewitched them all. Not one of my kinsmen will lift a hand to aid my poor beloved bull because they, too, are under the sway. But you, outsider, I know I can trust. Please, travel to the nearest shrine where my husband Aurochs is to be tested. Save his life and his soul before they're both lost to me forever.” (Rewards. Acceptance dialog. This will also appear in the quest journal for players to refer to.)

(When players encounter Aurochs) Aurochs Bladegrass: “My friend what are you doing here? I'm afraid I have no time to talk, I must concentrate on gathering my power before my ordeal begins.”

Priestess Creeping Weed: “Who are you to interfere with our ways, outlander? Heed my words, the war chiefs will hear of your trespass if you prevent our sacred rites from being performed. Great enchantments and powers have been woven here, they cannot be easily untangled. The ritual must go forward. We will call upon the wolfpacks which have served our tribe when our blades clashed with those from your isle. And Aurochs will face them all and defeat them before he can number himself among those who would defend our tribe. ”

Aurochs: “I see you have been talking with my wife. I'm sorry to cause her such distress but I'm afraid my mind is made up. This is something I must do. I must be as brave as my brothers. Now, either stand aside or stand against me.”

Creeping Weed and other mystics: “Oh great wolf spirit we call to you and invoke you. Test our child to see if his strength can be measured by yours. Send your children and let both our tribes be made stronger.”

(random quotes during fight): “My friends this is too dangerous for you.”
“Pull back, there's too many!”
“I can handle this alone.”
“Windrunners show no fear!”
“Argh! No, don't worry, it's only a flesh wound.”

(after fight) Aurochs: “My friend, I thank you for your help. Without your aid I...I...I don't know what would have happened. But with it I have shown my bravery. Now, I must finish the cleansing rituals and report to the war leaders for my training. If you could, please tell my wife the good news. She's much less likely to thump your head than she is mine.”

(Quest reward) Holly: “Even if you couldn't end this madness, you've saved my husband's life for another day. That's more than I'd hoped and all I can ask for. Please, accept this small token of my gratitude. Still, these mystics are up to no good, I'm sure of it. No sooner did I speak with you than their leader, the Skytamer herself came to visit me. To ask of you! Keep an eye out for their treachery.” (Rewards. Acceptance dialog.)

Notes: Alright, the basic structure of this quest is players get it from the wife, Holly, in town, they rush out towards the nearest binding point shrine where the husband, Aurochs, will spawn with a large group of Windrunner priest types – I'm going to call them Windrunner Mystics although if I could think of a better term I would. The only one of these that will be really detailed is Priestess Creeping Weed who'll be their leader and guide them through Auroch's rite of passage. They'll stay away from Aurochs and near the shrine where they'll perform the ritual and chants needed. Once the players set that in motion by talking to Aurochs and then Creeping Weed the mystics will summon a large group of Elder Wolves who'll focus on attacking Aurochs in waves. The players can either sit back and watch him try and tank them all – which will work until the Diseased Elder Wolves who will poison Aurochs and drain his health away appear – or they can join in and help him fight the things off. After they kill 100 (or some other number, I don't really care 100 just sounds impressive when players are trading warstories in my books) of the creatures, the rest will run off. Players will then be able to turn in the quest for a reward back in town.

The Bladegrass brothers are a group of NPCs hoping to become warriors for the Windrunners that the players will be able to help out through quests – the ones that will rep them up with the Windrunners, of course – so they'll have encountered Aurochs before, most likely. He and his wife, Holly, are typical representatives of the Windrunner tribe – there's nothing too special about their appearance beyond the fact they're a little on the young side. Aurochs himself is big and strong with a blacksmith's build – that's what he and his brothers did before heading to Warrior's Call – he just has no idea how to fight. As such he's the perfect tank and that's what he'll try to do with the various monsters that spawn. He'll be armed with a simple, non-magical melee weapon – an axe probably as that's what the Windrunner's prefer - and he uses defensive skills that are available to any Fighter. The effect of those and Auroch's armor though will be cranked all the way up to the point where most of the monsters pose no threat to him (They'll do something like 1 damage a hit and he'll have a heal) but left to his own devices it will take him a long time to kill off even one wolf. He'll also have a taunt skill (If I have such things in game, I'm not sure at this point) to keep all the monsters attacking him. He'll be standing by himself a ways away from the shrine and the mystics when the players encounter him.

The mystics are non-combatants who'll be mostly out of range but if the players get close enough to them they'll throw heals at them. And maybe a buff or two.

The wolves I'll detail more when I get around to filling in the various monsters but they'll spawn some distance away and stream towards Auroch's starting position in waves. At first they'll be nothing but the melee-based typical Elder Wolves but as the waves go on damage over time causing Strong Elder Wolves and Diseased Elder Wolves will be sprinkled into the groups. It's the Diseased Wolves and their poison effect that will cause Aurochs the most problems as he'll be able to shrug off the damage from the others fairly easily. In any event they'll concentrate on attacking Aurochs and ignore the players – either because their AI will be tweaked for the quest or because Aurochs will be spamming a taunt of otherwise drawing all of their agro.

My idea here is basically to have a little bit of fun with the kind of overconfident tanks who think they can handle any number of enemies (I'd have to punch up the dialog a bit before it was actually, you know, funny but I'm going for something a little more subtle than straight out laughs at the moment. Missing wildly no doubt but, then, I'm not really slaving too hard over these quests). Aurochs actually can – at least until creatures that cause DOT start to show up – but only because he's going to be ridiculously overpowered. He's basically invulnerable thanks to his extra armor and completely imbalanced skills. But he's also going to be a pitiful attacker who can hardly cause damage and will gleefully sit there and chip the wolves to death if the players let him (I hope I've structured the quest and the mobs such that they'll have an incentive to try and help). But the idea would be that he's so overpowered and such a perfect tank that the players don't have to worry about being attacked just about mowing down wave after wave of enemies. With just a little bit of lore thrown in to draw them deeper into the mystery of the Windrunner's religious beliefs and the hermits from the Open Spaces those revolve around.

I'll get to those in another installment, though.

Novel Two: Design Test One - Introduction

Although I don’t do it myself I know a few people involved in designing video games. One of the things they’ve told me about is a “design test” where when you apply for a job making these games they test your ability to come up with things for a game. Say, a few quests or items or whatever and the more detail you can come up with the better. That’s a fantastic idea for me because it helps me think about the design of my fictional game (well, one of them) – Clans of the Highborn. I wrote my NaNo novel about a group who played that game and I’m currently trying to write another book using that same setting. This time, though, I’m concentrating not on the PvP side of things but the PvE side. It’s an important distinction because in PvP players compete against other players so developing those foes is a matter of characterization. But in PvE – in my game at least – it’s a matter of going on quests or raids against computer controlled monsters. If I want to be describing what the players are going through doing so, well, I need to have some idea of what those quests are like. To a writer it’s a matter of setting, then. But to a game maker it’s a matter of design. So, since I’m going to be focusing on the PvE side of things I’m doing much more planning of just how things on that side of the game work – I’m designing a lot quests and dungeons and NPCs and the like. And the “design test” is a good way for me to focus on coming up with what’s important for each quest. So, because five is an important number in my game here are five quests that might or might not make it into either novel but have definitely made it into the game I’m making in my head:

Clans of the Highborn - Sample Quests (Background)

Since I've decided arbitrarily on five as the number of quests I'll be designing, that seems like a good number for a cycle or a series of interconnected quests – one of which leads into the other. This is the sort of thing that will happen a lot in ClotH. Absent any sort of mission structure, players are driven through the story line by ongoing quests. Small quests seem like a good way of rewarding players for following those paths. Especially since the other design goal I have with the quests in regards to the storyline is that throughout the game players are going to be given the choice about what to do or where to go next – the storyline will be a branching structure filled with several forks along the way (Better yet each path is not mutually exclusive to the other paths – players are free to explore one branch and then go back to do another). So small, optional quests that open up further questing opportunities seems particularly well suited to creating that effect.

These quests, then, will lead a player from one city – a safe place where there is no nonconsentual combat to a nearby dungeon – an instance zone where powerful monsters and valuable loot can be found and the larger storyline can be advanced. But, first, a little background on the general area these quests will take place in (Something, I presume, in a design test would already be understood. fortunately, I've got about 60,000 words worth of a design document not to mention my novels in this game to call upon in establishing the world. History, characters, mechanics, maps, you name it and I've probably got at least the rudiments of it sitting on one harddrive or another. All so I could write a book about people playing such a game and wanted to get the details right. I'm sick, I know.). The game is divided into islands (which are further subdivided into zones) of which there are five (The fifth is hidden at the onset of the game but by following these quests the player will gain access to it. These islands are large and not very well charted allowing me a modular design into which I can plug new islands – perhaps smaller perhaps over the horizon – for any possible expansion). These quests take place on the third or fourth island (depending on which path the player's follow) in sequences known as the Twilight Isle because it's the closest to where the sun sets. It's a harsh place being constantly wracked by storms from the larger Trackless Ocean beyond the island chain and one filled with lush jungles and sharp mountain peaks (It's a BIG island, remember) but also a vast plain in the northwest where these quests will be given and completed (Other quests, obviously, will lead players to the area) which is known as the Land of Horses. Traditionally, this is held as the first area where the Kaltans – the nation/race of all player characters in my game (There are other kingdoms to which they can pledge themselves during the course of the game's story – if they want to, of course - and the possibility of playing as other races is another thing that can be added in future expansions but limiting them to one kingdom means they'll all start in one area on one of the islands – creating an in-game rationalization for the tutorial-filled newbielands.) - first encountered horses which were unknown on the Isle of the High from which they came (This gives me an in-game rationalization for deny players mounts at least at first – riding animals are found only in this small place and aren't really suited to being raised in other areas. If they want a horse to ride they'll have to get to the Land of Horses and jump through some other hoops which isn't easy. If I even implement mounts at all which is something I tend to go back and forth on.).

The aboriginal natives of the Twilight Isle and, indeed, the the whole island chain – which is called Iona - are known as Purans. These are a diverse people with several cultures based on Ameri-Indian civilizations while the Kaltans are much more European/Celtic. As the backstory of my game goes, several hundred of years prior to the game's start the Kaltans learned how to construct seaworthy vessels capable of hauling lots of cargo – or troops – and set sail from the Isle of the High to eventually conquer all the various Puran tribes on the other islands. They set up a loose confederation and basically allowed the much more populous Purans to govern themselves as long as they acknowledged the Kaltan throne as their rightful overlord. Eventually the Kaltans began to decline (And, yes, I know exactly how that happened I'll just save you the boredom of retelling it.) and could no longer control their empire. Tribe after tribe of Purans starting at the edges of the empire began to rebel and create their own independent kingdoms. After a few disastrous attempts to hold onto their crumbling empire the Kaltans admitted defeat and granted independence to all of the Puran tribes they'd formally ruled. Although it was a bloody and terrible fight at the time it didn't leave very much in the way of hard feelings. The Kaltans were never harsh overlords and had treated the Purans with respect during their rule by pulling back their depleted forces to their home island they were able to ensure their security. While the Puran tribes were content solely to gain sovereignty over their respective homelands and lacked the unity or cohesion for anyone group to establish anything like the Kaltan's previous hegemony. The two races came to live side by side – if perhaps a bit uneasily at times – leaving that conflict in the past.

Now, traditionally, the first group to rebel against the Kaltan Kingdom were the Windrunners. A tribe of Kaltans who live within the Land of Horses and are said to be the group that taught the Kaltans themselves how to ride and gave them the secret of the saddle and the stirrups. They're a nomadic people who live by hunting the various herds of animals that roam through the Land of Horses. It's a wide, vast, open plain underneath a hanging piercing blue sky that resembles nothing so much as the “Old West” that can be seen in various Westerns. It's divided into three areas which encircle one another. The outermost, the Bad Lands, which borders on other areas is a sea of red and orange tones dotted with the occasional green of sparse vegetation. It's a rocky almost desert where little has a chance to survive. Once passing through that, though, players encounter the Grazing Lands which feature a lush carpet of grass and much more animal life. The other area is called the Wide Spaces and its grass has dried out and become yellow and brittle thanks to the heat and constant drought. In the Grazing Lands players will find the city known as Warrior's Call. This is a town of tents and wagons which moves in a wide, circular patrol throughout the Grazing Lands so that it's never in any one place for very long (I have no idea just if this is an idea which would actually be possible in any sort of video game. But since this is imaginary I don't have to worry about processing power and memory utilization and all the rest so I can have a mobile city which traces a set route day in and day out just because I think it sounds cool.). Warrior's Call, as the name might suggest is a place where the warriors of the Windrunner Tribe gather but one that only happens in times of trouble when the massive herds of the plains themselves are threatened. And the plains are threatened by the advancement of the third race to be found on the Twilight Isle (And in larger Iona) – the recently arrived Mimnon.

Now, the Mimnon are from across the Trackless Ocean and just as the Kaltans in days past were a technological step or two past the rest of the islands so are the Mimnon. They're much closer to the traditional RPG “Midevil European” that features in many games – albeit one with, I hope, their own little wrinkles. But they're the ones you'll find clanking around in heavy armor and the like. Anyway, they've colonized the Twilight Isle (and the nearby Ivory Isle) as an outpost of a much larger Mimnon nation on the mainland on the other side of the Trackless Ocean (And since they're finding the Ionan islands much larger and harder to colonize and travel back to the mainland much more difficult than they first expected when the landed on the Twilight Isles some seventy-five years ago there's more than a little debate amongst the Mimnon about whether they are, in fact, part of the nation or their own separate kingdom. I'm pretty sure it's the old wannabe DM in me that makes me dangle plot hooks like this all over the place but, yeah, they're everywhere and not all of them are developed. This one, though, is a major point in the greater storyline. So, spoiler warnings for a tale that's only told in my head at the moment, I guess.) using their technological advantage to cultivate areas the Kaltans and the Purans had previously held to be uninhabitable. They live mostly in the south of the Twilight Isle but, recently, in search of more farmland they've been encroaching on the Windrunner's traditional homelands. The Windrunners themselves are far from blameless as their raiders have been attacking and pillaging the Mimnon farmers along the coastline south of the Land of Horses for a generation now and clashing with the Mimnon troops who are supposed to protect them.

All out warfare hasn't been declared yet (The islands have been more or less at peace since the collapse of the Kaltan Kingdoms some three hundred years prior to this. Not very likely, I know, but, hey, it's my game so I can bend the rules of logic if I want to – it's a major part of the lore I've developed so I'm rather stuck with it by this point. I rationalize it by figuring that no tribe/nation's declared war on another but there have been sporadic instances of hostilities just none that have required out and out warfare which, at this point in the historiography, are basically of the “slaughter your enemies, raze their cities, and salt their ground” type so people tend to be a bit nervous about starting them.) but with frequent raids and clashes on both sides of the nebulous border it's definitely on the horizon. The Windrunner chiefs have sounded the ancient horns and called all their warriors from the plains to plan their war council. Along with merchants, cooks, and everything else that a large group of soldiers – because although there's no official and professional military amongst the Windrunners that's basically what calling upon the various militias that protect their wagon trains as they hunt comprise – attract those young men and women (Again, it's my game so I get to bend things a bit. Historically speaking, these would probably only be men but at some point I have to bend to modern tastes so everything in my game is more or less tolerant of either gender having a role in it.) who've yet to prove themselves and earn their warrior's feathers (It's a Windrunner thing) have also made their way to Warrior's Call. There they can undergo the tests needed to prove their worth and stand in the coming fight.

That's where the players come in. Not only do I plan to make it so they can pick one side or the other (or play both against the other) in the brewing war – a decision which will alter the landscape of the Twilight Isle considerably (I like the idea of instancing and plan to make plenty of use of it to customize the playing experience for my players while still allowing them to adventure with anyone who's made a different choice. I'll get into exactly how I'm going to let them walk back such things in a little bit) as the players will help one side drive the other out of the Land of the Horses, basically (The Mimnon would fall back to their strongholds in the mountains and valleys in the south. The Windrunners would head east to the jungles another tribe of Purans, the Stargazers and their Aztec-esque pyramids, call home.). But since many Kaltans earn their living throughout the islands as mercenaries (Another in-game rationalization for why the players get to go out and adventure – they're Kaltan mercenaries trying to earn their fame and riches. At first, anyway, but I'd have to get deep into the lore to explain just what the “Highborn” really means.) and the Windrunners respect anyone with the strength and bravery to complete the tests, the players can also prove their worth and become warriors fighting for the Windrunner tribe. And that's what the first of these quests is about. They're part of the trials that Windrunner youths go through to earn their feathers (I imagine that there'll be a few quests along those lines. Not too many because I'd want players to get on with things quickly enough. But I figure there'd be a few quests from each of the various Windrunner warchiefs in Warrior's Call and they'd have to complete either all the quests from a specific chief or a certain number of all the quests available before they could become hired by the Windrunners as mercenaries and continue along the path that leads to the War of the Horses – a path where they'd be able to switch sides at a few opportune moments, of course, but would if followed from the things available in Warrior's Call result in a crushing defeat of the Mimnon army and the players being very unwelcome in what I call “Lesser Mimnos”.).

But, as players earn a higher reputation with the Windrunners they'll began to hear rumors and stories about the strange happenings in the Open Spaces. So, this cycle isn't necessarily about earning their Windrunner feathers (Each Puran tribe has their own feather to earn, in case it's not clear by now, that lets the players have special access within that tribe. These get collected on a “key ring” like object in the player's inventory – a headdress they can wear which becomes more powerful the more feathers they add to it. There'll be other helmets that are just as powerful, of course, and many easier to obtain but the difficulty of getting a full headdress should make it a prestige item that players will strive for – causing them to explore each of the many Puran tribes I'll design. Earning the feathers also lets them use a special title such as “Windrunner Champion” which they'll be able to display to anyone looking at them in any sort of social setting. I plan to make use of such titles as a way of giving players special access and individuality – just give them a little something to brag about, so to speak.) it's about If they choose to follow this cycle they'll be drawn into the secretive beliefs of the hermits, the Puran spiritualists and mystics living in and around the Open Spaces. Unraveling the clues and mysteries (In the religious sense, not the Agatha Christie sense) will lead them to the dungeon known as Tornsky Mesa and introduce them to the Dreamtime – the fifth and final island (Again, there are a few ways of getting there – one on every island but the starting one, really – but this is going to be the most challenging one because of the insanely difficult dungeon crawl standing in the player's way. But, well, that dungeon is also going to prove a popular one for raiding because it will have some choice drops from the difficult enemies.). Warrior's Call is the starting point for most of these quests but they'll lead the players deeper and deeper into the Open Spaces.

So, there's going to be a religious spiritual slant to these quests because it will also be the introduction of the players to the deep waters of the particularly Windrunner-esque slant on the larger Puran mystic tradition (And, oh boy, I've developed the religious tradition of the islands, too, because it forms a large part of the lore and history and such. It's incredibly complicated but, basically, what's known as Puran mysticism is the remnants of the religious beliefs of the proto-Puran civilizations that were conquered by Kaltos and managed to survive when the Purans en masse began to adopt the more sophisticated Katlan religious tradition – which is centered around worship of gods tied to each of the elements that's also proving very popular amongst the Mimnon. So it's a mix of those beliefs – Kaltan and proto-Puran - filtered through the lens of each particular Puran tribe so it gets complex very fast, as you can imagine. The Windrunner's tradition holds that those who live as hermits in the Open Spaces are somehow sacred, being exposed to and guarding knowledge that normal mortals aren't really meant to know. As with every religious belief, there's a grain of truth in there because thanks to its connection to the Dreamtime the Open Spaces are a little unhinged from normal reality especially around Tornsky Mesa, the most holy of holies to the Windrunner tribe. These hermits, then, function as the witches and shamans that other tribes have – mysterious magic users who wield powers the average, superstitious Puran can't hope to understand. The other races have their own magical traditions, of course, and approach things differently but the Windrunners only speak of such things in whispers among the trusted.) so they're deeply connected to the lore and Windrunner culture (for those players who like such things).

But, also, I personally would have to slit my wrists if I was going to design quests in such detail and make them nothing more than the “kill 5 sewer rats” variety so I'm going to try and play around with the quests and include some things that other types of players will enjoy (Lack of ambition has never been my problem, it's been focusing it that I have difficulty with. Nothing against that type of quest, mind, because there's definitely a need for them – they'll be in my imaginary game, have no doubt. It's just they're not particularly challenging for me to come up with – the dilemma there is in what kind of monsters and rewards and I'm playing fast and loose with the numbers and specifics because I don't want to get too tied down to any one statistic in my writings – it's the concept I'm after not the concrete and I'll flex that concept depending on what my story needs so it's better to be flexible at the start. And since I'd rather take a risk and having a spectacular failure than be cautious and make a boring success, I've stretched myself here. Perhaps past the breaking point, perhaps beyond what any game designer would ever consider in real life, but those are things that I can't really judge for myself. I'd need some feedback on that and, since this is all in my head with a little bit on paper, so to speak, that's a bit difficult to come by. I've no doubt there are holes and inadequacies here but those are the things that would and could be fixed by the rest of the development team as these things were implemented in game. All I care about is that they make enough sense to me, personally, that I can mention them in the setting for my game world – and I'm happy enough with them in that regard to post them here.) As the quests will go on they'll become more serious and, of course, challenging, but to start out with they'll seem light and “in-jokey”.

You see, on the starting island – the Isle of the High – I'll be using quests to help train players in exactly how this game will be played. And by that I mean not just how to open chests or attack and such but more complicated lessons that players will be applying throughout their game play. I want them learning the basics about how to pull and tank and target and such from the very start so that when they get into a party with other players or even to the end-game and the various raiding opportunities there they won't be completely lost – they'll have been training in such things all along. I, of course, have very little idea of exactly how to craft such a well-made tutorial (Although, you know, I've put some thought into it while developing the Isle of the High. I'm just not sure if it works or exactly what lessons I'll need to be teaching – just that I want them to be taught early and often through the quest system.) but since Twilight Isle is an area for higher level players and the Land of Horses is a hard-to-get-to zone within that island for those rapidly approaching the storyline's end in the fifth island, well, that's not much of a problem. I intend to use some of these quests to poke fun at the tutorial aspects that players will no doubt be familiar with by this point – as well as to point out some of the crazy things that other players will (and no doubt have) do when grouped with them. In-jokes, basically, about the over-confident tank or the hapless pull. I mean, I'm doing this because I'm writing a book about people playing a made-up game you think I'm afraid of getting all kinds of meta? That's going to require a bit of fiddling with the mechanics of my imaginary game as some of the monsters and NPCs will break some of the rules (Like having skills and powers that normal players will never be able to use and at power levels I'd never allow a player to touch.) I've established but, well, they'll be breaking them for effect and I don't have a problem with that.

Anyhow, I rambled on much more than I meant to in setting the scene for these quests (4k+. Oh well, at least I can consider all of this writing as going towards my daily goal of writing a few thousand or so for the novel.) – I haven't even gotten into where the quests will be, the terrain, or the types of monsters that will be encountered wandering in this zone let alone the actual details of the quests themselves all things I'd want to at least hint at in detailing these things – so I'm going to detail each quest in a post of its own (hopefully). When they go live I'll try and include a link to those quests below here so there's some central place where they'll all be collected for easy reading (Experimenting with such things on my blog as well as I'm exploring the aspects of my fictional game, I do so love to tinker with formats) as well as show the general flow between each segment of the quest cycle :

Gathering the Silveroak Dreamcatcher: (The initial cycle, these quests can be performed in any order and, indeed, obtained and done all at the same time before being turned in. They lead to a reward quest – just a “go and talk to this person for your prize” thing – which will be given out when the last one is turned in and one of the leading mystics in Warrior's Call will give the players a special magical item – the Oaken Dreamcatcher – which is critical for reaching the Dreamtime (But can be found through several different quests on the various islands, this is just one way of getting it on Twilight) and that powerful mystic will direct them to even more powerful hermits within the Open Spaces.)

The Foolhardy Brave

Vengeance for the Fallen Crone

A Temporary Fellowship

Reaching the Exiles and Onwards to Tornsky Mesa: (The mystic in Warrior's Call will direct the players to seek out a small gathering of mystics exiled or shunned from normal Windrunner society – they're the true masters of the arcane for the Windrunners – but reaching them takes the following quest the second half of which will direct them to the ancient not-quite human mystics who guard Tornsky Mesa.)

Hunting Visions

Through the Gap between Worlds: (Once they've reached Tornsky Mesa players will have one last quest to undertake before they can access the portal that leads them to the dungeon's instance – Tornsky is the spot where the dungeon's accessed, the actual dungeon is called the Dreamtime Path – from the demi-god like guardians of the place where the barrier between this world and the outside is weakened.).

Tasked by the Sightless Ones

Novel Two - Excerpt One

Okay, so here's an excerpt from the novel I'm currently working on (tentatively entitled "Clans of the Highborn - Raiding Group" which I know, I know needs a lot of work). The idea here is that I'm going to take the "shared world" concept that a few other authors I know of have made use of in the past and save myself a bunch of time and effort by reusing the game I psuedo-designed for my NaNo novel as the setting for this one as well. This novel, though, concentrates more on the PvE and out-of-game side of things so it almost completely ignores everything in the first (called "Clans of the Highborn - Development Cycle" at the moment, in my head if no where else) beyond all that development work that went into creating a world for my character's to inhabit. Anyhow, the book features a group of players who have a more or less informal raiding group/clan - they quest and adventure together through the high-end stuff, basically, and then things happen to them. The following excerpt is basically the first time they all get together and go on an adventure together (To one of the later dungeons in the game known as Tornsky Mesa - place where the boundary lines between reality and unreality are said to get a little hazy.). Some of them know each other previously, some of them are meeting the others for the first time but it's the founding of their particular community. I wrote this basically to get a feeling for how the characters would interact together so I'm not sure if it's going to make it into the book or not.

B: Lise?

L: Ready.

M: Oooh, what pet is that?

L: It’s a raven.

B: Frank?

M: Where’d you get it? I could use a pet. I’d have to respec to Call of the Wild first but I’ve heard they can really help out when you tank.

F: Ready. They do a lot, Meadow. My bear’s saved many a party by sucking up the agro.

L: From the Tree Walker Crone’s quest on Eternal Isle. It only shows up once every 100 times that quest is run so it’s really rare.

M: Wow, that’s super lucky then.

H: What bonuses does it have?

F: Yeah, it’s one of the five rarest pets. Those things can go for a mint. Koala’s sell for the most, though.

L: I’m keeping this one, thanks. I just like the look of it.

F: Oh yeah, I’m just saying.

L: It gives me +1 to Int.

H: That’s not much. Owl’s are a +3 aren’t they?

F: Eldrich Owls from the Yuda, yeah.

L: Well, it also gives me a Night Vision spell that lets me see when it’s dark out. It saves me a lot on torches.

H: I guess that’s nice. Rather have the stat bonus myself.

M: You can’t even have a pet, silly!

R: So where is this place we’re headed?

B: Here, you form up group Hiro Phant.

R: Me?

F: Yeah, that’s the whole reason you’re here, dude. The Spirit Totem at the end of the path depends on the class of the party’s leader. They’re designed to mess up people of that class so the sorc’s is pure melee. Get close to you and snares you and pounds on you until your dead, basically, so it’s the easiest of the five. All we’ll have to do is keep it rooted and we can plink it to death. So we need you in the lead.

R: Gotcha. Does the order matter at all?

H: Sorcerer’s suck. This dungeon’s the only reason people ever play them.

M: You’re playing a secondary sorc!

B: Just put Awesome Heals For You at the bottom.

H: I just use Sorcerer for the mana orbing.

F: Sorcerer’s have got the best management and Monks have the most need for mana. A lot of Monkeys use sorc as their seconds.

H: Sores can get a lot of mana but they don’t have anything to use it on because all their skills are so bad.

R: Heh, yeah, I just use Adept stuff most of the time.

H: Oh? You should have said.

R: I can change if you want. Most of the time a party can use a second healer, though, right?

B: Are you heals or what?

F: Eh, for Dreamtime Path the best way to go is a single healer. There’s really not all that much damage if you can pull right. And don’t worry, I’ve got that completely covered.

M: Pull wrong and you’ll be swarmed though. We never *have* made it past the second trial.

F: What, that’s my fault?

M: No, I’m just saying that maybe some more healing isn’t such a bad idea. What else is the sorc going to do?

R: I’m speced for Defense. The big costs don’t bother me with all my mana and they don’t depend on the bonus heals to actually do things.

B: That can work.

H: Yeah, I’m built hybrid right now but if you can handle the buffing…

R: Sure, I do it all the time. It really helps out a lot more than some of the other lame stuff I can do.

F: And you’ve got plenty of mana management for it, too, that makes a lot of sense actually.

R: Thanks. Wish I could take credit for it but I just saw it on some post somewhere and thought it sounded good.

H: I’ll go for straight power healing then. Give me a few here.

M: Big green numbers make me incredibly happy.

B: Anyone else want to make any changes?

L: No, I’m good.

M: I’m set.

F: No, sir!

R: Group’s all set I’m just waiting on Heals and Justice to accept my invitations.

H: Soon as I respec, can’t do that when you’re in a group.

L: Julia must be afk again.

NaNoWriMo Blogging Nine

Okay, I’m going to cheat again. But, c’mon, there’s a novel to write and I’m edging towards the finish line. Because I’m under more than a few guns at the moment I’m going to post something I’ve basically written just for my story and I’m gong to pass it off as a description of my main characters. There are eight of them (I know, I’m insane) and seven are included below along with one minor character and two footnotes. It’s basically a profile of the clan or guild of which my main characters are all members. They all playtest an MMO in development called Clans of the Highborn – abbreviated amongst its non-existent fans as ClotH - and the game design company making the game periodically spotlights such groups and gives them a write-up on their official website. So, my fictional clan, called the Wanderers of Eternity - or WoE for short – got their turn and a little spotlight amongst the game’s following. But it’s one that’s several months out of date as my story kicks off (Don’t ask, I’m all kinds of loopy about things in my text.). The only one excluded from the profile is Heidi, who joins the test as my novel begins. I already detailed her in an earlier post. Also beneath each text are my comments on the character which I’ve included in my notes but I’ll excise from the text eventually.

Clan Roll #9: The Wanderers of Eternity [WoE]

Gather, my children as we unravel the scrolls of the clanmaster once more. Within these tomes are the records of all the valiant clans which have ever pledged to defend noble Kaltos from her many enemies. Trapped in these parchments are the heroes of yesteryear and the legends of old. But alongside them are the names of those who’s destiny has not yet been writ. They, too, might one day find their place amongst the stars in the endless sea of the sky. Hark you well, then, and heed my words for these may well be the ones whom our people will speak of in a thousand years time. ~(?) the Crone, Kaltan Academy

A small and closely knit clan, the Wanderers of Eternity has long been involved in the testing phase of Clans of the Highborn. Officially, the fifth clan to ever register with the Kaltan clanmaster the Wanderers are composed of an eclectic mix of many long-standing testers and those who’ve been active in the fan community. Many of their members staff or otherwise frequent our Honored fansite, the Panopticron. Their leader, known in-game as Opticron Prime, is also the admin at Panoptics, known as Guildmaster Joe. And many are also from the area of Coolidge State, just down the road from EuroSoft’s Washington branch office where ClotH is being produced. The group is dedicated to testing all phases of the game. Some members prefer to PvE, some prefer to PvP, but all share a desire to explore the game in all its myriad combinations. And, of course, to sharing that knowledge with others through their website. They believe that information should be free. And that it should be shared with anyone who seeks it. Although not the biggest or the most successful at raids or in battle, WoE has earned a reputation for its thoughtful, intelligent, and dedicated members and for their enthusiasm for the game. So, here are the members who’ve made this clan what it is:

Opticron Prime
Real name: Jospeh Przybylo
Panoptics ID: Guildmaster Joe
Favorite class: Monk
Background: I’m an assistant teacher of mathematics at Coolidge State. Currently I’m working on my dissertation for my master’s degree. I work a lot with discrete mathematics which branches into the information and computer sciences.
How did you get involved with ClotH?: I first heard about it through a mutual friend and fellow graduate who was hired by the company as a designer. Soon after, I started Panoptics to get involved with the game myself. Someone out there noticed my meager efforts and I was soon invited into the early alpha testing phase. Our clan started out as an informal group of three or four testers who often found ourselves grouping up or hashing things out on the development boards. As soon as we could create clans in game it was just natural for us to go ahead and do so. When our fansite was allowed to send out invites we sent them to some of the people who’ve been helping us out at that place.
Why do you like to play Monk?: You might think that I just sit there and cast heal after heal but playing as a Monk is as exciting and tense as it gets because of how the skill system works. I love it. It’s very taxing but very rewarding at the same time.

(Joe – and yes, the typo is intentional - is the declared leader of the clan. He’s really the glue that holds everyone together as he runs the guild, the website, and everything else. He’s the oldest member of the clan and he’s extremely dedicated and selfless when it comes to helping his fellow testers and the larger fan community out. The Panopticron, the site which he founded, is not the largest fansite for ClotH – that’d be the Mead Hall – but it’s developed a loyal and dedicated following among the fanbase. It’s known as a place for more serious discussion and debate over the real crunchy issues of the game. As well as being a place where things can be a bit heated and feathers ruffled. It’s the “cool” place for the community to hang out, basically. And Joe’s the person behind making it that way even though he’s a mediocre and infrequent player at best. But, in my story he’s the calm, steady presence in the background that helps everyone else to do their thing.)

Sirus Lightbringer
Real name: Chris Jordan
Panoptics ID: Sirus
Favorite class: Sorcerer
Background: I’m a student in the mathematics department at Coolidge State and I’ve been playing RTS like Stellar Empires and StarCraft for ages.
How did you get involved with ClotH?: Joe’s one of my GA’s at CSU and we’re pretty close. When he found out about the game, so did I. When he got into the test I wasn’t far behind. I’ve been helping out with Panoptics and the clan ever since.
Why do you like to play Sorcerer?: Sorcerers are, hands down, the best offensive class in the game. They’re incredibly powerful and flexible in the ways they can causes damage along with some other neat little special abilities. I’m a fan of the PvP side of things and a well-made Sorcerer is very dangerous in a battle. Lately, I’ve been focusing on lightning based skills as they’re very well suited to the various playstyles available for PvP. When compared to the Fire skills I was using before it’s almost like I’m playing an entirely different character. And there’s three other elemental lines that I haven’t even tried out yet. It’s great that I don’t have to reroll every time I want to remake my character into something different. And, of all the classes, the Sorcerer has the most options.

(Chris is, to put it bluntly, my favorite asshole. He’s always ready with a cutting remark or a sarcastic putdown. And he has a put-upon, weary attitude that makes me, if no one else, love the little bastard. He’s a real number cruncher. Along with Sage, he’s been picking apart at the game and its mechanics developing the tools to better understand things like how DPS and armor really affect the gameplay. He does it because he’s looking for a competitive edge because he’s one of my harder cored PvPers. PvP combat is the only reason he’s stuck with the game. During such battles he’s the clan’s field leader or target caller, to use a GW term. He’s the one who makes decisions about tactics during a match from who to target to whether the team should retreat and everything else. It’s a role he takes very seriously and one he excels at. Otherwise, he mostly slinks out of the spotlight to the back of the room to take potshots at everyone. But when a game’s on he’s front and center and ready to kick ass.)

Endless Roth
Real name: Ross Klein
Panoptics ID: Endless Roth (I am original like that!)
Favorite class: Fighter!
Background: Like my fellow Chris and Dirk, I’m attending CSU at present. I’m an English major and aspiring author-to-be although I’m a ways away from graduation. As for my gaming background, I’m an old time player of MMOs. And single player RPGs before them. I’ve tested such games in the past but none of them have compared to ClotH.
How did you get involved with ClotH?: Same as everybody in the guild, through Joe. Dirk, Chris, and I were roommates our freshmen year and we’ve stuck together since then. So, when they got involved I couldn’t helped but be dragged into this particular little funhouse. I forget if I signed up for the test or as a mod at Panoptics first but, well, I’ve been in the test a long, long time now. And I’m planning to stick around long past release because it’s been a blast so far.
Why do you like to play Fighter?: A soft spot for the meatshieldry, really. In every game I gravitate towards the biggest, meanest, melee class. The one that stands in there and takes a beating while pummeling the nasty things with big pointy sticks and the like. Whether it’s a raid or a free-for-all or whatever else I like to tank, in so many words. In ClotH, that’s the job of the Fighter. It’s a very solid class that appeals to the way I like to play already. But there’s also the promise of what’s going to happen to it in the future as the game gets further refined. ClotH does things differently than a lot of other games so this particular Fighter class is turning into something a bit more than your standard lump of flesh in heavy metal armor.

(Ross is my exposition fairy. He’ll go off at the drop of a hat about any and every subject and just pour out every detail or fact I want to get across to the reader. Other characters do so at times, too, but when I absolutely need it done, Ross is there. In order to disguise this fact and make him a bit less dry I’ve given him a creative and whimsical manner of speaking. Hopefully even though I have him throwing information at the reader the way he does it will be interesting enough that they won’t mind. Ross is just a know-it-all as he’s a veteran of dozens of video games and RPGs. He’s that guy you run into in games who always has an answer to a question about how the game works. Or a story about an older game he liked.)

Dirk Falchion
Real name: Derrick Falcone
Panoptics ID: Dirk
Favorite class: Sorcerer
Background: I’m one of those people who are going to Coolidge although my major’s a bit up in the air at the moment. My favored genre in games is the hack n’ slash, like Endless Quest and the criminally overlooked Devil Quest.
How did you get involved with ClotH?: I knew that the maker of my favorite Devil Quest, the lovely and talented Ms. Cynthia Jones, was starting a new game. Something that was going to be like a sequel but in an online, persistent world. When my friends Chris and Ross told me that they were going to be testers for it they couldn’t keep me from signing up, too, if they’d tried. In the test, we would group together with Joe all the time and when they implemented clans we founded WoE.
Why do you like to play Sorcerer?: I started out playing a sorc, as they’re known, because that was the best thing to play in Devil Quest. Plus, with Ross to tank, and Joe to heal, another Sorcerer like Chris was the best group we could come up with. I’m pretty happy with my choice as the Sorcerer in ClotH is a lot more versatile than the ones in DQ. And it’s the highest damage class which is great for raiding the harder dungeons.

(Dirk is an interesting character that developed out of nowhere for me. You see, by the time my novel opens, he’s left the guild in order to form another – ostensibly because he wanted a group with a greater focus on high-end PvE raiding. This created a bit of hard feelings and some tension between WoE and Dirk’s new guild as you can well imagine. I wanted to create a “villain”, so to speak, or at least a rival who could spoil things for my group at the appropriate moments – someone who’d been a member of the clan but had left them under shady circumstances. What I wasn’t planning on was that I would turn Dirk into some sort of cross between Ross and Joe. Smart, knowledgeable, generous, and, to me at least, likeable. Which works great because he’s a hard guy to hate leaving my main characters feeling ambivalent about him. They don’t like the fact that he ditched their clan but they can’t help but respect him because he’s such a stand-up guy. I was planning on going the absolute opposite route and making him a selfish, self-centered, opportunistic bastard looking out for himself and no one else but when I started writing him, well, something unexpected.)

S A G E
Real name: Albert D’carto
Panoptics ID: Sage
Favorite class: Sorcerer
Background: I’m originally from Turin although I’ve lived in America for most of my life. Just got accepted to Coolidge State which I’ll be attending in the fall. I play RTS mostly.
How did you get involved with ClotH?: I’ve followed Snowstorm Games for a while and was disappointed with Stellar Empires Online. When I heard Sandy Dunkirk had left the company to work for EuroSoft on their new MMO, I knew it was going to be a great game. Contributed some things on Panoptics – Sirus and I go way back in SC - including a few essays and statistical analysis. When Joe had invites to give out, he gave me one.
Why do you like to play Sorcerer?: Sorcerer’s provide the best damage output in terms of time and mana spent. When compared to other classes they’re the clear-cut winners. I want to play a class that’s the most optimal in any situation and, at the moment, that’s the Sorcerer.

(Along with Chris, Sage is responsible for most of the strategy that WoE employs. He’s an amazingly detailed number cruncher who wants to reverse engineer the game engine for no other reason than to prove he can. Unlike Chris who wants to know how, say, armor affects damage to get a leg up on the competition, Sage sees that competition as a means to the end of discovering how the complex game system really works on a deep, deep level. He’s more than a bit of a geek. And probably as close as my book comes to the mythical ur-nerd. So, he’s shy and socially awkward. Prone to long dissertations on arcane points of mechanics and strategy as well as being the character everyone else turns to for advice about what sort of skills or equipment they should be using. Unfortunately, he has a stuttering problem which keeps him from really opening up. He doesn’t really like talking to other people, even in posts or chats, so he tends to open up in fits and starts. Only speaking when he has something to say. Originally he was going to be much older, by far the oldest player in the clan but I decided that he was better as a young and tireless fanboy rather than some elder scholar. I shifted the older and experienced part to other characters like Joe and Lady.)

Xeno Onex
Real name: Raphael Villalobos
Panoptics ID: Xeno’s Fool
Favorite Class: Sorcerer
Background: I’m from south of the border and am about to graduate from CSU. If anyone’s interested in hiring a recently graduated engineer let me know.
How did you get involved with ClotH?: Joe hired me to do some technical stuff for Panopticron that only us computer geeks really care about. But it means I’m on the staff there and it’s apparently a tradition that everyone who works on that site becomes a tester. Seriously, I hadn’t heard of ClotH except in passing until I started ripping out the guts at Panopticron but I got very interested by what I read there. And I’m thrilled to be in the test even though getting things finished off at school means I haven’t been able to participate as much as I’d like to.
Why do you like to play Sorcerer?: Everyone else does and I wanted to hang out with the cool kids and their designer robes. We have a lot of sorcs in our clan but that’s because they’re very good. You don’t need too many of other classes to group up for most things but once you get a healer and a tank you can’t go wrong with having more spell-casters.

(Xeno is a character I created just to write out of the book. So not too much to say about him. By the time the novel opens he’s graduated from school and gotten a job – possibly out of the country where his internet connection would be poor. So he either no longer has the time or the capacity to play. Either way, he’s pulled out of the guild which, along with Dirk and another character leaving, puts the clan in a tough position as they don’t’ have enough regular players to fully compete.)

Wraith Shadow
Real name: I’d rather not to give that out
Panoptics ID: Wraith Shadow
Favorite Class: Rangers
Background: Mostly FPS, some MMO
How did you get involved with ClotH?: Through Panoptics.
Why do you like to play Ranger?: I prefer to solo. There’s better loot that way. And the Ranger is the best class to play alone.

(Wraith is my strong, silent type. Doesn’t say much. Shows up out of nowhere jus tin the nick of time. Has an aura of mystery about him. He’s the best player in the clan – one of the best Rangers in the test and Rangers are regarded as the hardest class to play to its full potential. Other, more PvP focused clans would love to have him as a member but he’s incredibly loyal to the clan. It’s probably not going to make it into the text until I get much further along in the story but the story of how he became a tester goes something like his winning a spot through a contest at one of the larger fansites. He’d never heard of Panoptics until the first day he logged in and Joe happened to be hanging around and gave him a lot of help starting out when he was a rank newbie. Wraith went on to join the clan and through constant powerleveling and practice become a really good player – but he still remembers when he was struggling and how Joe was the only one who bothered to care. You see, Wraith comes off to everyone else as a cool, together person but he’s really shy and emotional. He just doesn’t show it easily as he’s just a kid. But he’s the clan’s bedrock. He’s always there when they need him.)

Giorgi Utmost
Real name: Helmut Rickenbach
Panoptics ID: Utmost
Favorite Class: Monk
Background: I hail from Vienna where I work in an internet café and I’m mostly a player of tabletop games as well as a veteran of several MMOs.
How did you get involved with ClotH?: I got involved with the game through Panoptics, like most everyone in the clan. I’m one of the mods on their forum and when they were passing out invites I was lucky enough to get one. I guess I’m here because WoE needed a token European.
Why do you like to play Monk?: I usually play a healer or other support character in games. ClotH is no different. The healer is often the most critical role in any group and I like the fact that people know they can rely on me time in and time out.

(Utmost is just like Xeno. Created to be discarded. He, too, leaves the clan before the book starts leaving them in the lurch. His loss is potentially the most damaging to the health of the clan because he’s a Monk and most teams need two Monks to compete or raid by that time. With Utmost gone Joe’s the group’s only healer. The humble, dependable air I tried to give him here is what I’d like to call irony. Because in my mind at least he just didn’t quit the clan and the test he abandoned the game and Panoptics altogether to move on to some other, better game.)

Land Ho
Real name: Alan Hoshihiro Ngyuen but everyone calls me ‘Lan Ho
Panoptics ID: Lan
Favorite Class: Fighter
Background: I play everything from console games to RPGs. I love videogames.
How did you get involved with ClotH?: My uncle is on the development team and he helped me apply for the test. When I got in game I wanted to find a cool clan to hang around with. And WoE is just full of awesome people. I mean, I’m a member what more do you need to know?
Why do you like to play Fighter?: Fighters are the greatest! They’ve got the best armor, the coolest weapons, and they can put a hurting on anyone. It’s great getting up in someone’s face and just demolishing them with my trusty battleaxe.

(Land is the clan’s whipping boy. Eternally optimistic, boundlessly enthusiastic, and completely and utterly misguided on just about everything. He’s young, stupid, and full of energy. The other characters rag on him mercilessly especially my two “frat bros” Ross and Chris. Land doesn’t mind, though, as he thinks he gives as good as he gets. It’s all some weird male bonding thing anyway. Land is the youngest member of the clan – at least until his girlfriend Heidi joins, I’m not sure which one’s older there – and he barely squeaked by the age requirement for signing the NDA and only then thanks to his uncle who works for the game – and is the friend Joe mentioned in his piece. Originally I was going to have Land and Joe be related but for whatever reason I decided against it.)

Elisabeth Evermoon
Real name: Gertrude Morgans
Panoptics ID: Lady Elisabeth
Favorite Class: Mentalist
Background: I’m a graduate from Coolidge State and now work in the area for a software development company (No, not that one). My gaming experience is mostly in pen and paper games and LARPing although I do play a mean game of FreeCell.
How did you get involved with ClotH?: Well, I’ve been casting about looking for a game to play for some time as I like the possibilities offered for roleplaying in an online, persistent world. ClotH fits that bill perfectly for me. Joseph, whom I call Sir Opticron, and I know each other through college and when he told me about his website I signed up straight away. I’ve been posting and following the game at Panoptics ever since. And I’m proud to be the latest recruit to the Wanderers of Eternity.
Why do you like to play Mentalist?: Not many people prefer my chosen class but I’ve found it to be very rewarding. Originally I had my heart set on playing a Ranger. However, when the Mentalist was introduced and I saw the rich and vibrant lore that had already been developed for the class as well as the elegant and refined beauty of their appearance, I switched over with no delay.

(Lady, as I like to call her, is an odd duck alongside the rest of the clan. She’s a roleplayer and the rest of the group really isn’t. She’s also more than a little unsure about her little gaming hobby and goes out of her way to conceal it from her offline friends. But she’s the group’s token girl and sticks around because she’s a much better player – the first really competitive Mentalist to play the game – than her friends with tastes closer to her own. She and Joe also have a history as they dated once upon a time when they were both in school.)