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[Interview] Trials of Ascension: The Unique World of TerVarus
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Trials of Ascension is a game that is waiting to happen. The dev team is ready to go and simply awaits a successful KickStarter to get started. We caught up with CEO Don Danielson to talk about what makes Trials of Ascension truly different on the market. Check it out and then leave your thoughts in the comments.
MMORPG: Trials of Ascension has a very strong grass roots history. Can you give us some background on the game?
Don Danielson: The roots of Trials of Ascension's design are ancient in game years. In fact they go back to the heyday of Ultima Online. As other MMOs such as Everquest, Asheron's Call, and Dark Age of Camelot came onto the scene and even as UO matured, we started noticing a trend where it seemed designs were being changed so as to remove any challenges and losses for the player. It somehow became ok to let everyone win. Also, they removed consequences for negative actions and replaced them with artificial barriers in the way of consensual PvP toggles and the like. As a result, the games started to feel less immersive to us. We felt the MMO genre, a genre we fell in love with, was headed in the wrong direction and we took it upon ourselves to do something about it.
Read more of Bill Murphy's Trials of Ascension: The Unique World of TerVarus.
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Comments
More challenged developers who think that they need perma death in a MMO to create a challenge. Earth to developers, it does not work that way!
Game sounded great until they had to throw in the PD. Won't fund it, nor touch it. Waste of my and everyone else's time.
Great concept though, would fund it if they dropped the perma death feature.
great Infos again, thx
hope to see your Kickstarter soon
Secrets of Dragon?s Spine Trailer.. !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwT9cFVQCMw
Best MMOs ever played: Ultima, EvE, SW Galaxies, Age of Conan, The Secret World
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2X_SbZCHpc&t=21s
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The Return of ELITE !
You know what one of the biggest complaints about sandbox games is the fact the you get some players that are of course maxed out becuse they have been playing a lot longer than anyone else.. so new characters have no chance in a pvp sandbox world.. now if its possible to totally loose your character then your going to think twice before maybe attacking that person in the starter town, hell you cant even con them to see how hard they are so you really have no idea.. do you take the risk that you can easily kill him for his loot? my guess would be no..
What they are suggesting sounds like a pretty good idea even vets who have played for a long time could possibly perma die leaving a hole for other newer players to fill.
Sounds good to me.. also the fact that its gonig to be a full on sandbox, with open pvp means the game will not be for everyone and im happy with that.
Over the next few years it looks like us sandbox/pvp lovers are going to ahve a lot of games to choose from.. will they have millions of people playing them like WOW? hell no and im happy with that..
Perma-Death?
No, thanks!
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"As other MMOs such as Everquest, Asheron's Call, and Dark Age of Camelot came onto the scene and even as UO matured, we started noticing a trend where it seemed designs were being changed so as to remove any challenges and losses for the player."
I think he is blaming the wrong generation of MMORPGs in all honesty... at least as to how something like EQ was at launch, where it had item loot PvP with no toggle, murderous XP debt, and a world full of very real challenge with real consequences for failing. It certainly in no way or form 'let everyone win'.
Makes me wonder at how else he sees things. I will keep an eye on this, though yet another sandbox PvP game will doubtless attract the same toxic crowd.
Perma-death is definitely something people need to grow into. I think the immediate thought about perma-death is a "1 death and you're done' kind of thing. Sorry but this is 99 deaths and 1 more before you're done for good so when you die, don't freak out too bad. People are also SO sucked into the 'no consequences' mindset that they sometimes find it hard to see the benefits of perma-death and I am not going to lie, I had a little tough time grasping it too. What helped me was not just trying to understand its benefits but learning about ALL of the other features of the game too.
I don't think this game is going to be 100% for everyone but my piece of advice is, take a moment and read about the various features. I really think if you give it a chance, you'll fall in love with the game.
http://trialsofascension.com
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
I don't think the developers are employing Perma-Death to make the game more challenging. It's main purpose is to change the mental calculus players employ in decision making and to prevent character bloat. If you like the other features, I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand. It's worth seeing how this one plays out.
"urns out we were designing what people would call a sandbox MMO today, but we were just focused on making the most fun game we could imagine. "
that means they didn't know what a sandbox is when they started to develop? lucky us they took that way then. pure coincidence obviously tho *G*
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
I played UO, SWG FFXI and about a dozen other MMOs. Having harsh consequences upon death back in those days were kewl and something I had no problem with. In todays world at almost 33 years old and having a family I will tell the developer to shove it. I dont live in my parents basement anymore to the point I can play a game from 5pm Friday night until 9pm Sunday night non stop. I am lucky to get 5 to 10 hours a week to play and if I am going to get a perma death and loose hundreds of hours worth of work I am not going to play that game. [mod edit] Just like Salem Online it's going to be for a very small niche type of player and the game will only become marginally profitable.
Mixed feelings here.
The philosophy Don talked about is pretty nice at all.
Playerchoices that matter, unification, specialization, sound pretty cool, yes we want our own stories done by ourselfs and i have no idea, why today's games go always for the win. Karma can only work when it is served in both directions.
On the other hand, swords and horses again ?
I see knightlike wow characters on horses raiding on muddy roads and passing campfires.
Suddenly there is some Wolfes on the way that treaten the nearby farmers sheep.
By killing them, you get, what you also get in every other phantasy mmorpg nowadays, something to eat, some bucks, some respect, but never a lazor pistol.
Noticeable that most phantasy mmorpg's seem powerless phantasies ... in terms of electrical power, radio, tv, handy, pda ... you know ? The noticeable part is, that phantasies can go back in time very easy, but only a few are able to go ahead.
Im just deadly bored of swords and horses midevil themed games.
this post is for you http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/5585064#5585064
You dont know how they are gonig to use this feature in game.. it could end up being somthing along the lnies of you loose your main character but a child survives and has inherited all the main characters items/houses and cash and also some of thats characters stats or whatever..
You the character development path might be really quick so your not spending days of your life just playing games.
I am 32 myself, where as i dont have kids, still i have a full time job as well as many other things to do in my spare time.. so yeah i dont get as much time to play these days but i still like the idea of perma death and always have.. but it has to be done right..
Having perma death similar to say DayZ in an MMORPG like wow would be totally stupid... but perma death does not have to be like that.
100% agree with this statement lol.
Like I said earlier, the game looks very promising until you get to the permadeath decision.
Let's look at permadeath with their so called 99 lives. The fun of a MMO is developing your character. Eventually you will lose that character if you like the game it will be just a matter of time. So what happens then? You start over? No one knows you, of course that could be good if you were a bit of a nasty player. When you get down to it, 100 deaths is nothing when you play a game you like. Makes playing the game as risk adverse and that does not sound like much fun to me.
The basic fact of the matter, the internet is not all that stable. Disconnect and there goes one of your lives...run into a cheater, there goes another one. The problem with small companies like this one, cheaters take great advantage of them because they know that they do not have the resources to control them. Just take as an example WARZ, the game is a cheatfest and the developers seem clueless to fix the problem, granted that is an extreme situation, but still, it is pertinent.
It is a shame that cheating is so rampant. Perhaps this developer has solutions to control them, but experience says that it really takes a large support staff to handle them, which this game won't have.
So while the idea of permadeath might not sound that bad, in reality it is.
A game like this just separates the cheaters from the rest of the population, little to do with how skilled you are.
Agreed and in the same boat. This game will be harsh for the working man/woman.
Perma-death is not a good idea, imagine playing a year or more and losing all of your hard work and progression. Quite frankly, this game will be a griefers wet dream. To believe somehow that this game won't be a griefer's paradise is to not understand the history of these types of games.
Think Darkfall was bad? Heh.
I love every feature mentioned except perma-death. I won't pony up my cash and a year's play just to lose everything to an a**-hat griefer group.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
+1
"Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day!"
Open world, free for for all, non-consentual PvP = many, many deaths. 100 seems like a small number when you can be killed not only by monsters, but by other players at any time, for any reason at any location.