Zed Dev Post: Potential Monsters Ideas - Atmosphere

Just posted another Zed dev post over at Pawngame.com. This one is about atmospheric zombies, a zombie designed to add horror atmosphere to the game.

Zed Dev Blog: http://www.pawngame.com/beta/zed/
Original Post: http://www.pawngame.com/forum/showthread.php?t=161340

Zed Dev Post: Potential Monsters Ideas - The Shrieker

Just posted another Zed dev post over at Pawngame.com. This one is about the shrieker, a zombie capable of drawing in other zombies with its voice.


Zed Dev Blog: http://www.pawngame.com/beta/zed/
Original Post: http://www.pawngame.com/forum/showthread.php?t=160535

Lord of the Rings Online, First Impressions

Lord of the Rings Online is a free to play MMORPG. While it is free to play it does offer you the choice to pay for unlocking certain classes and objects, but you do seem to slowly accumulate store currency as you play so it should be possible to buy these things without paying for them in real cash. It is very similar to World of Warcraft, with the same production values and similar gameplay structure; But I believe that it has many improvements, over and above the price. For example while I have only played one or two classes in both games, but the skills I have been playing with in LotRO are far more enjoyable and strategic then anything I ever played with in WoW. For example the Ranger in Lord of the Rings Online gets (right away, or very quickly) traps and some interesting bow skills in addition to their focus system. The focus system works by increasing your focus as you stand still and deal damage to foes using your bow skills, and allows you to launch very powerful attacks onto your foes when the gauge gets high enough.

Positives:
Its free to play and still features a huge world with tones of stuff to do in it.
Negatives:
Some of the content is only available to paying customers.
Summery:
A great alternative to the subscription based WoW.
Rating:
4/5
Developer:
Turbine
Publisher:
Turbine
Midway Games
Codemasters
Release Date:
April 24, 2007
System Requirements:
OS: Windows XP of newer
CPU: 1.8 GHz
RAM: 512 MB
Video Card: 64 MB
DirectX: 9.0c
Hard Drive: 7 GB
Official Game Web Site:
http://www.lotro.com/

Zed Dev Post: Potential Monsters Ideas - The Queen

It has been quite a long time since my last post, and me, Blank, and JPillz have all been busy doing different things. Blank and JPillz, of course, have been working on Zed. I am no longer working with them, but have been keeping busy, mostly writing about gaming on my blog. I am not technically back to working with them, but have decided to use my new found writing skills to write a few things for them, and likely come up with some new Zed ideas, or flesh out some existing ones, along the way.

Today I would like to introduce a topic I plan of doing a series of posts on; A open discussion on some monster type ideas that we have had. And by open discussion I mean, I am not just here to show you what we are currently thinking about but to also ask you your opinion, so feel free to share it. Nothing has been decided yet about what monsters will be included and we have not even looked at the requirements or adverse effects of any of them.

Queen/Spawner: The basic idea, a zombie that creates swarms of small weak monsters, if given enough time. Additionally, this creature could have an ability to buff the stats of other monsters. When drawing inspiration for this monster type I think of the queen in the Alien series.

Random Thoughts:

• As a weakness the creature could only spawn new monsters while immobile, and would need a little time to setup and start producing spawn-lings and a little time to get back into a mobile stance. The idea being she creates a big egg sack to create spawn-lings and needs time to either grow it or detach from it.
• One of its buff type abilities could be to enrage, and raise the stats of, all monsters in vicinity when damaged. This in effect would give you a lose/lose situation, if you focus on the spawn-lings then they keep coming, if you try to stop the production of spawn-lings then you could add a powerful new monster into the fray, the Queen, and also enrage the existing monsters into a far more powerful frenzy.
• The Queen should be large, slow, heavily armored, and very powerful with a mid ranged melee attack.
• Also she could incite her spawn-lings into suicidal defense of her, literally throwing themselves between her and the intruders in an attempt to take the damage instead of her. This could allow her to keep producing monsters and/or since she it likely to have heavy skin and her spawn-lings to have light skin, have you waste your powerful ammo against a weak foe.
• The spawn-lings, in addition to being small, quick, and lightly armored, should be designed to work will with the queen. For example I would suggest that their main “attack” should be a grapple, where they would jump onto a foe and hold them down preventing them from attacking or moving (allowing the queen to get close and deal the big damage).
• Additionally their “in defense of the queen at all costs” mentality should be stressed. I am thinking that when they have you in a grapple even after they are dead they continue to hold on in a tight death grip. They could no longer dish out damage to you (not that they would necessarily while alive) but would need significantly more damage dealt to them to dislodge them.

Zed Dev Blog: http://www.pawngame.com/beta/zed/
Original Post: http://www.pawngame.com/forum/showthread.php?t=160195

Zed

Zed is the working title of a game currently in development by a few long time friends of mine. It is going to be a free to play browser MMORPG zombie survival game. A while ago I was officially part of team and was contributing game concepts, but it eat up to much of my time and even though it was very fun to work on a game, I decided to stopped contributing. But while I was their we discussed quite a few interesting and unique gameplay features we could use, and I believe for the most part a many of them are still slated for implementation. Recently, I approached them and offered to do a few development blog posts for Zed and they agreed, so if you see any short posts in the future that mention Zed and include links to Pawngame.com then you now will have an idea of what is going on

Risen

Risen is a very fun open world action RPG with elements of a MMORPG and an enjoyable hard core twist. It was developed by Piranha Bytes, the creator of the Gothic series and is available for the PC and Xbox 360.

Unlike most RPGs, Risen rightly labels magic as a rare and unique ability; And the ability to use it is guarded by a strict upper class of magicians. Fortunately, everyone is still able to use magic scrolls (they play a big part in the puzzle solving). Because of this it is hard to become a magic user, and even if you follow the strict path of a mage you will only become powerful late in the story line.

Their are three different paths you can follow through the story line. These are not strict nor do you have to pick one from the beginning, or even stay with one that you pick (up to a certain point). Every class has their advantages and disadvantages and even their unique plot and missions.
Classes, in order of difficulty to acquire:

1. Criminal - Swords and Axes
2. Warrior of the Order (Paladin) - Staff and Basic Magic
3. Mage - Advanced Magic and Basic Magic

Note: All classes are able to use the normal weapons: swords, axes, and staffs, to varying degrees of proficiency.

One big difference between normal RPGs and this one is the levelling up system. When you level up you do not get any skill/stat increases but points that allow you to pay trainers to increase your stats/skills. This was quite an annoyance to begin with, but after I got used to the system I started to appreciate the realism this added to the game. Along with the normal magic/weapon skills in the game are some MMORPG like skills including forging and skinning. They do not go into the same depth as real MMORPGs but are useful none the less.

The battle system is pretty much the same as what you would expect, but the PC version does not include a manual lock-on. This adversely effects almost every battle that includes more then one person, as you are constantly being auto-locked onto an enemy behind the one you are currently fighting.