Game Play

[Detomah]

Is this another “hack and slash” game?
While a complete and robust combat system will be part of the game, you will find that it is just that, a part of the game. The crafting skills, trading system and magic system will all be sufficiently robust such that a player will be able to spend their entire lives working towards goals in these non-combat professions if they choose to. We are aiming to make every aspect of our game fun while trying to avoid making every aspect of our game combat-centric.

How do I win the game?
There is no way to “win” the game. Most players will focus on advancing their characters. The actions you do on one particular day may affect your character for the rest of his/her life.

What races can I choose from?
Athiria will feature many more player races than you have ever seen in any other Massively Multiplayer game before. Each will have their own history, culture and politics. Many will have their own cities. When more details become available they will be released in our newsletter and on this web site.

Will there be deities/gods in Athiria?
Yes! Deities in Athiria are called Caluvians, and they will have a major impact on your daily life. Each race has their own patron Caluvian, but you can choose to follow almost any other Caluvian that fits into your persona. Remaining in good standing with your patron is important, both for the advancement of your character, and to prevent having mysterious bad luck.

How many characters can I have in Athiria?
Although you will only be able to be online with one character per account, you will most likely be able to create and store several characters on your account.

Will players be able to have journals?
Players will be able to have journals. Journals are in-game items that, if not insured can be looted. Characters subjected to permadeath will leave behind their journals for all to see and read. By making a player’s journal an actual in-game item, we hope to facilitate the fact that players can leave a lasting and permanent impression in the game’s persistent history. Being able to read another character’s journal adds color to an otherwise static world. Will player’s actually record things if the journal can be taken from them? This remains to be seen. It’s an experiment that we’re not quite sure what the outcome will be.

Will my character have to eat and drink to survive.
Character maintenance is important to maintaining a viable economy in any of MMO game. In AoA much of this will be automated for you but it will exist. Better quality food will confer small bonuses for short periods of time to the player that chooses to be more selective about the foods they eat. Our goal is to build in some of the realism of food consumption while not inflicting tedious gameplay on our players as a result.

What is the user interface like?
While the UI is currently under development, here are some of the highlights of our UI that we've completed to date.

XML based Skinning: From day one our GUI is completely skinable allowing those with a creative flair to customize dialogs, create new dialogs and organize the interface they way they like it. This will allow guilds and player run cities the ability to create their own GUI interface if they choose.
Flexible Macro System: The macro system allows the user to bind commands together and assign them to keys or buttons. Buttons can be placed in the hotbar, on the screen or both for easy accessibility.
Context Sensitive Help: Help on every aspect of the GUI is available by right clicking on the element to expose a context menu and selecting help.
Context Menus: The GUI is intelligent enough to understand what is being clicked and provides a context menu with all of the actions that can be performed using the control. The logic was actually developed for in-game objects and was later extended to the actual GUI controls to make context sensitive help possible.

What is the camera perspective of the game?
The game will support a first person, third person, and customizable camera perspective.