Worlds/Atlantis/News

News

23 January 2011

Naithaniel of the Global News Team caught up with the developing duo of the coder, Crow and graphic artist Nitron from Atlantis for a Q&A session about the servers strides forward in regaining it's former glory.

Concept

Naithaniel: Why don't we start with the concept? best to get the ball rolling with the basic things first

*Crow (Coder): The short answer to this question is: quests, events and other awesome stuff!

*Crow (Coder): To add more detail to this: we want to bring Atlantis back to it's old glory, featuring awesome, Zelda-esque quests and fun-packed events, both team-based and regular ones.

Nitron (Graphics Artist): not only it's old glory btw.. we are making the best we can,it might be better than any atlantis before :)

*Crow (Coder): it WILL be better :D

*Crow (Coder): An old and cool feature of Atlantis events are regular "statue events", where the winner will get a statue of himself for a week.

Naithaniel: hehe sounds amazing

*Crow (Coder): But more information on quests. Nitron, your turn :)

Nitron (Graphics Artist): okay bout the quests they will be full of puzzles, traps, enemies, etc. it will be fun to play even if you're the only person on the server, sotospeak :D

Nitron (Graphics Artist): the first dungeon is almost finished which is the newb dungeon where you get your sword and shield and lern the basics

*Crow (Coder): Oh, and there will be party quests, of course! :)

Naithaniel: Good to hear, as a player of graal and fan of Zelda (especially the quests) it'll be nice to find something that really captures the essence of it and being able to do it as team would surely add the exicitment

Nitron (Graphics Artist): oh yea :D quests WILL contain treasures btw: items, money, keys, etc, the items are of course shovel, boomerang, hookshot, bombs, arrows, etc

Naithaniel: I wouldn't want it any other way xD

*Crow (Coder): classic stuff; but we intend to mix in some new stuff, too

Nitron (Graphics Artist): we're even planning to make it so you cannot swim unless you got the swimming gear ;)

Equipment and Upgrading

Nitron (Graphics Artist): about the items: alot of items will be upgradeable through forging like : you get your hookshot, which can reach 4 tiles distance

Naithaniel: alright :)

Nitron (Graphics Artist): and you can make chain pieces in the forge and upgrade it to a maximum of e.g. 8 tiles or you can get your "level 1" boomerang, and forge it to a better one (at least better looking or so..)

*Crow (Coder): Atlantis used to have a forging system in the past, but at first, it was utterly useless, and at a later time, it evolved into it's former grave, the RPG theme. Ugh.

Naithaniel: Nice addition, I always find games easier to enjoy and keep playing if there are elements in inloved that allow me to improve my character or equipement in order to gain and edge

Nitron (Graphics Artist): the forging system is connected to the mining system

*Crow (Coder): Want to tell him everything, Nitron? About the mining system.

Nitron (Graphics Artist): okay i'll keep my mouth shut for now :D all i wanna say, is that we have a really nice concept about the mining system

*Crow (Coder): We do! It's pretty cool so far.

Naithaniel: Well I look forward to seeing how awesome on release :)

Naithaniel: before we move, can I ask one thing about upgrading equipment?

*Crow (Coder): sure, go on

Naithaniel: Would be it be made manditory to have equipment of certain level for certain quests. Like you might need a hookshot can reach further than he basic in order to pass a puzzle.

*Crow (Coder): Yep. Perfect example indeed.

Motivation

*Crow (Coder): We've also discussed plenty of ways to keep players motivated over long periods of time.

*Crow (Coder): I don't wanna go into detail about everything but this one thing. We do want to add achievements. Now, this generally sounds boring, because which game doesn't have achievements these days?

*Crow (Coder): We are aware of that, and we want to design them in a way that is much cooler than the typical achievement system.

Nitron (Graphics Artist): we gonna have a trophy system

*Crow (Coder): Including a way to show off your trophies. Like, carry them around.

Naithaniel: Oh.. I see.

Nitron (Graphics Artist): so you get a prize in a somewhat physical way, not just a rank or something

Naithaniel: Yes I can see how that you would give you more of sense or worth and acomplishment, and for someone who likes to boast -like myself- it would be perfect xD

*Crow (Coder): Exactly. This adds to the typical Atlantis pile that consists of fun items. There will be more fun stuff, too :) There used to be some cool items in the past, and we will have some as well.

Past into Present

Naithaniel: Are we likely to see anything return from the old Atlantis or are you trying to start a fresh?

*Crow (Coder): There will be returns of old outlines, basically. The cave you are sitting in now is the "colagruft". It is, of course, redesigned. So we will freshen old things up, too. Players will definitely encounter old events, also spicened up.

Nitron (Graphics Artist): we adapt the old content to our new style, we only make things better ;)

*Crow (Coder): That sounds dull. We do not only make old things better, we also create new content ;p More so than spicing up old content.

Nitron (Graphics Artist): i was just referring to the content we are overtaking from the old atlantis :P

Naithaniel: Good to hear :) a feel of familar surroundings but at the same time something new to explore

*Crow (Coder): Ah, and while we are talking about inheriting old stuff. A thing we will not stick to is the German-only aspect of Atlantis.

Nitron (Graphics Artist): o yea, atlantis is multilingual now

*Crow (Coder): It WILL be bilingual, maybe even multilingual. I already got a couple offers for languages besides German and English :)

Nitron (Graphics Artist): we start on designing every text in english but we are going to translate it to german and maybe other languages

Naithaniel: That is certianly a postive a move forward :)

Day, Night & Weather

Nitron (Graphics Artist): so as you can already see, we have day and night (and sunset/sunrise) what we will have in the future, is additional weather effects.. e.g. rain, thunderstorm,.. and we will have some nice effects like butterflies flying around on day, and fireflies flying around on night

Naithaniel: wow I can see that working well with the tileset, this server is going to look beautiful

Nitron (Graphics Artist): oh and we will have nice backgroundmusic on the map and in inside levels, dungeons,..

Naithaniel: Great, I can tell already this game will have a really emersive atmosphere

*Crow (Coder): We got a piece already, but we agreed on taking it off again, since it's not quite perfect yet. Niton will work on it again later.

Nitron (Graphics Artist): but, we dont know how long it will take us.. we are working day by day

Sword and Shields

Nitron (Graphics Artist): we wont have a different weapon system BUT we are going to make swords and shields as items, so you can collect them and equip them

*Crow (Coder): Well, like a subcategory of items, basically.

Nitron (Graphics Artist): yea

*Crow (Coder): There will be a special tab in the inventory to select them.

Naithaniel: Would they be aesthetic only or provide advantages?

*Crow (Coder): No advantages.

Nitron (Graphics Artist): its just for the looks and it will make them valuable since you cant just say setsword ..

*Crow (Coder): This system will also provide a cool use for the minerals gained in the mines.

Naithaniel: And the collection of the weapons, would that be done through questing? bought in a store or be forged?

*Crow (Coder): Shields and swords can be found and forged. Sold in stores, maybe. I don't think so, though. Nitron, thoughts on that?

Nitron (Graphics Artist): you cant buy them in stores tho, maybe a sticksword, we'll see

*Crow (Coder): Some things remain undecided yet.

Nitron (Graphics Artist): but the purpose is to keep players busy and create a value for each shield/sword

Naithaniel: So the sword and shields can be traded?

*Crow (Coder): That's something I'm not even sure about, haha. I think so. We discussed that, but I can't remember what was the conclusion. It'd make a lot of sense, so I'll just say we'll implement that. Nitron? :D

Nitron (Graphics Artist): yea maybe, maybe some can be traded and some cant

*Crow (Coder): Obviously the ones you can find in quests can't be traded.

Naithaniel: I see :)

And that wraps up the Q&A session with the Atlantis developers. The server is sure looking to be a promising prospect in the future of Graal online. I would like to thank Crow and Nitron for taking their time to show me around and fill me in on some of the information they've been keeping under wraps.