Factions and Guilds

In most MMORPGs, the concept of “factions” refers to NPC organizations that a player can gain or lose reputation points with. Once enough points are gained, certain rewards are unlocked.

Starborn Universe takes a slightly different approach. NPC and PC factions both exist in the world, and both reward loyalty. Not all are mutually exclusive – gaining reputation with one faction won’t necessarily reduce reputation with another. NPC factions never change which other NPC factions they like or dislike. However, PC factions can alter their standing with NPC factions depending on the behavior of their members.

Let’s say there’s a PC faction called the Deepwell Alliance. It’s comprised primarily of players who, up to this point, have slaughtered a lot of Alarian Imperial troops. However, a new resource has been discovered deep in Alarian territory where a large number of high-level Alarian NPCs roam. The Deepwell Alliance as a whole begins focusing on killing members of an NPC faction opposed to the Alarian Empire and avoiding any interaction with Alarian NPCs. As a result, the Deepwell Alliance’s reputation with the Alarians increases to the point where they can begin normal interactions again and won’t be attacked on sight.

A player’s PC faction is determined by the guild that she has chosen to join. If she has no guild, she has no PC faction, and can remain neutral in conflicts on that scale. Guilds, also, can choose to remain neutral and not join a PC faction. Any two or more guilds can band together to create a PC faction. From that point forward, reputation gains of each player in the faction are aggregated into a whole. Reputation is no longer a solo activity.

PC factions are the source of the largest and most powerful player-crafted buildings. Only factions are allowed to own and operate player kingdoms, for example. A special kind of player city, a Capital, can be designated by a faction. This grants a boost to all other traits of said city while it remains a Capital. There can only be one Capital per player kingdom, and only those factions that own at least four cities can create one. Player kingdoms can also create siege weapons, a vital component of faction warfare.

Guilds, on the other hand, are a much more intimate construct. Any two players can form a guild together. Guilds can own and operate a single player city, and operate much like guilds from any other modern MMORPG – including players gaining reputation with their own guild and unlocking benefits that way.

Design Philosophy and the Skill System

Sid Meier, father of Civilization, once said that a “game is a series of interesting choices.” This idea guides most of the design decisions behind Starborn Universe’s various game systems, with one exception that I’ll discuss in a moment. Every time I am presented with the opportunity give players an interesting choice, I do so. However, significant choices are separated out by periods of gameplay to prevent overwhelming players with choice paralysis. For example, after creating your character, you are presented with the choice of whether to pursue a melee role in the game, a ranged role, a healer’s role, or a crafter’s role. You are not set in this decision and can change your mind at any time, but the game presents new players with an optional tutorial tailored towards which of those options they choose.

The skill system rewards careful planning of your character, since there are several different types of experience that can only be spent on appropriate skills. For example, in the Apprentice tree of Ranged Combat, there are three branches devoted to specific weapons – pistols, rifles, and carbines – but they all draw from one pool of experience (“Ranged Weapons”). The Journeyman trees for Ranged Combat use Ranged Weapons experience, but can be developed faster using specific weapon experience (e.g., “Pistols”). The final two trees for Ranged Combat, Master and Adept, each only have a single branch that uses Ranged Weapons experience, with the other two branches in each only using a specific weapon’s experience.

In addition, each skill requires a certain amount of Skill Points to unlock, and your character can only spend a maximum of 200 points on skills. This means that generalists who unlock all four Apprentice trees will likely never have a Master-level tree, since each Apprentice tree costs 20 Skill Points just to unlock progression in it. Note: these numbers are in development and subject to change in the future.

Going back to the idea of interesting choices, each skill tree is divided into three branches, and each branch has three tiers of skills. Each tier has two possible choices, and once you choose one, you can’t choose the other without dropping the first one.

Work in progress - the Apprentice-level Ranged Combat Tree

In addition to the ability (or passive trait, in the case of Tier 2 skills) granted by a skill, every skill a player chooses increases their basic stats by a small amount. Ultimately, a crafter who has spent all of his skill points will be much tougher than a beginning character, but still nowhere near as effective as a combat specialist.

Genesis!

This is the very first, inaugural, marker-of-existence post for the Starborn Universe developer log.

Let me introduce you to myself and Starborn Universe.

I’m Ben Overmyer, the sole developer of the project. I was known as HJ-Karetyr in the old days of Simutronics’ Hero’s Journey. I’m known as Karetyr, now, on the Hero Engine forums.

I’m an artist, a coder, a musician, and above all, a gamer. You can find me on a wide variety of online services, all of which are linked to in the sidebar. I have a soft spot in my heart for sandbox games, and particularly for those sandboxes that allow players to build their own cities. The dearth of such titles out there right now is what lead me to design Starborn Universe.

The design process for Starborn Universe has been ongoing for the last three years, though very little in the way of asset creation has been done. The stability of the Herocloud platform finally made it possible to begin this project. Since I’m alone in my efforts, Herocloud is the only thing currently available that makes Starborn Universe possible.

A little about the game, then.

As you may have guessed, Starborn Universe is a sandbox MMORPG. In particular, it focuses very heavily on player content. There are no quests, though there are “dungeons” that provide players with PvE challenges beyond roaming mobs. Crafting is a major underlying subsystem of the game – all mobs are a source of something useful, whether it’s hard currency, resources, or crafting blueprints. All equippable items decay, and while they may be repaired using player-crafted kits, each repair reduces the item’s overall effectiveness.

Crafting is appearance-agnostic; the first major component you craft for each item is an appearance component that determines what the final object will look like. The item’s stats are determined by Crystals, player-craftable components that are built up from resources harvested in the wild.

Players will have the option of deploying mechanized harvesters to gather resources for them. Harvesters require power and maintenance, but will run even when the player is offline. They can be remotely managed.

Player houses can be built in a variety of styles anywhere that has a viable placement lot available.

PvP combat is designed into the game from the beginning, focusing almost entirely on open-world encounters and city sieges. Player-created buildings, with the exception of houses, can be destroyed through siege warfare. Player cities can be protected by NPCs, and the strength of the NPC guards depends on the quality of the (player-crafted) guard buildings.

I’m also planning on including mechanics that encourage (or at least support) role-playing, but those are likely a later addition rather than an initial-release feature.

So, as you can see, the entire game revolves around the players. More info will be coming on a regular basis in the future.