Razors Edge Online (Urath Online saga)

razoreqx

http://razors-edge.org

Just some background. Razors Edge is a spin off from a Mud started in the late 90's called Urath Online. It was a heavily modified circleMUD which two of us maintained and hosted for six years. We ended up with about 600+ active players at the end of our run. We had pvp but it was event driven. Griefing was avoided by criminal flags making players unable to access the main capital cities. The flag could be remove by paying your own bounty or it was claimed by a bounty hunter with your blood
Where the mud succeed was an abundance of land or back then called "Rooms" having over 40,000 rooms it was pretty large to travel, and had plenty of dungeons and bosses. What it didn't have was a good storyline.

When NeverWinter Nights came out I parted ways with the partner coder in crime and with the help of some other script coders we converted the NWN module engine into a working MMO. This ran 4 years or what we like to refer as "Ages". Each age had NPC deities that at the end of a year one of these deities would wreak mayhem and destruction on the server causing a climatic ending of the Age and ruins of the cities or map area the battle took place. The story's are long and many were detail in text in forum posts and in game books. After about the third generation or Age we found new players coming along that learned of the rich history of the earlier periods through posts, NPC dialog, or other players and we actually had player historians which would often in character, post on the forums. It was really nice for the RP type player, and we had quite a large community. After the end of the fourth age we decided the NWN 2 version was just not stable enough to support our community so we developed our own game using the Torque engine. Garage Games had just made it a free engine for development. Unfortunately in those days there were no kick starter or Steam green light programs so we had to "part-time" the work in the evenings. Two years into development our lead coder passed away and the project fell on its face. There are still some YouTube video's of some of the work we did "Urath Online".

This bring us to LIF. Though I appreciate the work they've done it never appealed to me as a PVP system I was interested in. The Hour of Judgement they've brought recently is a prime example of what I think PVP should not be. A free for all killing of players without consequence with no real meaning behind it, other than the tic of a clock an the hour begins. Wheres the story behind that?

So if you played Dark Ages of Camelot you may remember the Frontiers. This is something we'd like to introduce to the game. In Urath Online this was called the Dreadlands. This will be a RVR, leadership, territorial control system driven by the players. PVE players who don't care to be destroyed in the chaos will be able to avoid these areas but still support the war effort. Supplies by ships. But with NPC pirate patrols will make this no easy task and will come with some risk to them as well.

Combat in the PVE mainlands will also exist using the designed system of war declaration in the LIF engine once its completed as well.

What we have so far is:
Working vendors (Kingdom and personal) No global trade system. You have to travel.
Henchman you can hire and provide upkeep by feeding them and equipment needs and a small amount of coin.
Working ship models with damage and debris. Sails damage, hull damage. etc.
Cannons both hull and deck fittings. Each have various shot types.
Ships are not mounted like a horse, more like a house.. They allow the players to move freely. You can walk about any of the assessable areas of each deck. There are five ship types, Hulk class, Merchant or Cog, Sloop (common for pirates for speed and they could strip them for additional cannons & sails), and a small sailboat and canoe.

Much more animal types, trees, seasons will change appearance of trees and land (snow) Autumn leaves.

Weather system: Storms, lightning, wind gusts and squawk storms. This will effect movement of ships and land. A rolling wave system.

Books that can be edited copied and distributed. Scrolls and books. Libraries.

New UI

New skills including Priests and Harbor Masters, and a complete new rework of the current skill system.

And most importantly global Events and Storyline. Much will be created by the players through years of events as an evolving storyline.

Much of this was already done during the development of Urath Online on the Torque engine.. its just retro fitting it into MODS.

razoreqx

Currently, we are running a modified version of Wurm Unlimited. (Soon to be a heavily modified version). This is the first step in creating a game that Razor and various friends have been working toward for over 10 years. Although the game is based on WU, at some point it will no longer be Wurm as many know it, but will become Ages of Urath.

This will be an ongoing migration, and will not happen all at once. There will not be a server wipe to create Ages of Urath.

Ages of Urath will include political, economic, religious, warfare and lore systems that don't exist in Wurm, or really in any other game today. It is intended to be the richest online gaming experience possible.

Ages of Urath is about people and the stories that they make. The game design will support this by providing mechanics that bring people together, to get them interested in some common goals, to scare them, delight them, piss them off, get them riled up, make them laugh, and watch some of them overcome all obstacles and succeed in ways they never expected.