Mythruna

I hesitate to use the word "story" because I will steer away from hard-coded long story lines whenever possible.  After all, I want to be able to play the game myself... so any strict story that would be ruined by knowing the ending makes it less fun for me.  My hope is that the interacting systems and complex AI will create its own adventures.  That being said, I do have a theme and concept that I work from when deciding what will go in the standard game and what won't (community mods not included).

To that end, I have even fully story boarded a game trailer that I will produce after alpha.

From the very earliest thinkings of Mythruna, before I ever created the first start menu, this is the back story...

We, the players, come from a race or world that detected a distant shattering of a world.  That world became projected across multiple dimensions creating the infinite number of worlds of Mythruna.  Through science and magic, we learned to project ourselves into these worlds to live out lives there.  There may have originally been a purpose to these visits but over time our society has forgotten exactly why we do it.  It's basically up to us to figure out what we want to accomplish.

Being from another world/dimension, we possess a magic aura that is unique to the world and allows us to understand and power magic devices in ways that the normal inhabitants can't.  We even have the ability to plug certain types of magic devices right into our bodies to alter our abilities.

With this magic aura comes a down side...

For thousands of years, the dragons of Mythruna have been asleep underground.  To normal inhabitants they would resemble giant stone statues if they find them at all.  Rock will grow around them to cover them back up if one is found my a normal Mythruna denizen.  The magic aura that gives us players our power will also wake these dragons up if we come in close proximity.

In the design, these dragons are fairly large.  A single eye is a bout a meter wide... which means the dragons would stand somewhere around 40 meters tall (40 blocks high) if I can make that work. 

Once awakened they will become a hugely destructive force on the surrounding area.  Within a square kilometer, villages and towns will be under constant thread of destruction, crops will be burned, and animal populations will be decimated.  For the normal inhabitants, it's pretty much a move or die situation.  And those inhabitants won't be very happy with you for having released such a plague upon them.

Obviously, killing a dragon will require huge amounts of magic and/or teamwork.  The drops will be incredible, though.  Realistically you could buy kingdoms for what you'd get in dragon scales and dragon's blood alone.  Then there will the magic gem and crystal drops, etc..  Consequently, killing a dragon should be nearly impossible.

At any rate, dragons have played an important part in my conceptualizing the game almost from the very beginning when I had a dream of a miner digging his way deep... suddenly finding what looked like a giant eye staring back at him through the hole he just made.  Only moments to decide what to do before dying.

Wow, thats a pretty good concept, Dragons. I love to fight Dragons, and especially when they are nearly impossible to kill. Hehe.

I like the concept of waking up dragons too  :o

Great job! Lets all eagerly wait for this to get implemented.  8)

Also, hmmm, what if we go deep under, steal a dragon's egg , bring him up ourselves as a pet? And the pet will grow and be human friendly. We can then make them guards for our village, to protect from evil dragons. ?? :D

Just some crazy idea lol. What do you think?

I've always like the idea of riding on a dragon's back, but the real dragons would be too big for that.  I hope to have some kind of lesser dragons like wyrmlings or something... big enough to ride if you tame them but not smart and magical like dragons.

It may turn out to be impossible but we'll see.  After horses I will have a better idea what it takes to put a rideable creature together.

Yes finally! :D Ridalble dragons  :o . Yea seems pretty hard to accomplish tough.

We can ride horses, they seem less awakward.  ::)

I like the story, however, I feel it's a bit... poor? I know you said you don't wan't to make a storuy you already know the end, but I think it would be great to have really history. I mean, give the world of Mythruna a mean. Like important happenings, and stuff that changed the history of Mythruna. After that I think it would be easier to create a story-line that would derivate from the consequences of such far far away happenings.

What you think? :D
I would be pleased to help writing the story of Mythruna. ;)

I don't want to do too much until I figure out how much of the story writes itself.  There is a whole generated world and even though the computer popped it instantly into existence, there are towns and cities that needed to have some sort of history.  The more I can generate that, the better.

with a given storyline the players wount be able to have their own stories.
So its more like a setting.
Mythruna is not like a 'normal' RPG, you have a story, a final goal, reach it after couple of hours and sidequests, watch the credits and are done. Mythruna will have a setting and some towns with their histories, but whats next is up to the player.

Well thats my point of view hopefully I'm not that wrong :D

I think you got it just right.

If I can, I will even try to keep a running log of the major things that the player did in case they want to weave it into a story to post somewhere. :)  Someday.

So is the land the players are in... called mythruna or...? what

Yeah, that was the idea.

There was a single world called Mythruna once a long time ago and it exploded/shattered somehow that projects it into different forms in multiple universes.  Which is how I explain why you can visit an effectively infinite number of unique worlds that are all similarly setup.

Worlds being "servers" right?

Yep, or single player games where you dial in a coordinate into the nexus portal machine... which essentially equates to the random seed for that world.

So, wait a minute. Are we like, from the future? Like with PEW PEW lazors, and space ships etc???

No.  Even if you were, you brought none of that with you.  You are given a new body when you arrive and otherwise only have the material from the destination.  There may be an exception for things like notes and books (ie: paper) but I haven't decided.

http://mythruna.com/about-mythruna/origin/

Well, maybe you could add a few like notes or paper. Maybe even a few books that tell you more of that history! That would be awesome to find in a library... Its not a "Story" but you could always read about what happened and find out the truth in books.. :D

Yeah, and the loading screen will have random scraps of paper in among the photos I will add.  When I redo the menus and UI.

Ooh! That's awesome to hear! Well, I just hope this dosn't go to badly. I love it when you can make your own story, but if theres not enough stuff... Then that will be kind of hard. I have no worries that this won't have "Enough stuff" though! Just can't wait till we can fight, and craft those Customizable weapons!!

I'll just give my two cents. :)

The thing I loke the most in games is for sure their story: perhaps this is because I love books, movies? Doesn't matter. It may be a question of opinion, but I believe that in games like Mythruna, story is a very important part of the game. Maybe it's not the story the character follows, the "campaign", but more the global story of the world where the game's set.

I'll just take the example of Assassin's Creed and Mass Effect. One of the things that keep players waiting for the next installment of the series is to know what's happening next (at least that's what happens with me and I believe with a lot more people). The fact is that the stories are intriguing and are unveiled as the player progresses through the game.

That's what I think that should happen in Mythruna. The game should have a heavy worked background story, and a mystery, something that the players will want to find out. Instead of being just a game, with gameplay (like He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named... ok, like Minecraft), but also with a good story. Make it be supported by string facts, I mean, where everything has an explanation, or at least, everything makes sense, so that in the end, the player may say: "Oh, it makes sense. I've never thought this was the reason!".

Sorry about this huge maybe-not-that-big text. :)

Modders can add whatever stories they want.  The main game will have a "setting" (racial interplay, common bad guys, other triggered bad things) but that's about it.  I can't randomly generate a story and anything other than your explanation for being there and the setting would seem tacked on.

Stories tend to get pretty specific pretty fast... "The kingdom of Whosit has been at war with the..."  The kingdom of what?  Which one?  Was that randomly generated in this world or not?  I picked this randomly generated one automatically and then it was destroyed by a dragon within the first 20 minutes of the game...

So many things can go wrong.

Please trust me that stuff like this is important to me too but just may not be feasible in this kind of game.

That being said, I will carry "setting" as far as I'm able... enough that it may feel like "story" to some people even if I know better.

Alright, I'm OK with having no story, but the way you've put it....

That seems even more intresting xD You could simply make it, so if a town is destroyed by a.... Chicken.... The "Story" changes a little.I'm still saying, there will be NO WAY to make a main FOLLOW THOUGH story to the game.

Just saying if a Town is destroyed by a Chicken jumping up and knocking a torch down and starting a fire, Other towns nearby should gasp if you mention the towns name, and say how it was such a freak accident.

I really want the NPCs to be aware of world events and I will do everything in my power to make it so... drawing on experience with knowledge-based systems, etc.

It may still be impossible. :)

Ooh its plenty possible. But to what extent... I'd really like them to have to witness, or hear it from someone else though. So if like a dwarven house blew up underground and there was one person nearby it, no one would know it blew up, except him. Then he would run to a town and let gossip tell the tale... Now stuff like that........ That's more likely to be impossible :)

"Remember that, when it comes to games, it's not about the story, or the gameplay... it's about the story of the gameplay."

But that's exactly what I was talking about... because "all knowing NPCs" are no fun. :)  Not to mention that it would be strange if an NPC didn't know about the town 3 km away today (because you haven't been there and it hasn't been generated yet) but suddenly after you've visited that town, that same NPC suddenly knows all about it.  Lame.

I like that.

Here is a concrete example on where "story" can go wrong in a random world.

The races are an aspect of "setting" and they have their in-built conflicts and default relationships... but the game may generate in such a way that two natural enemies never find each other... or even worse, are somehow generated close enough in such a way that they get wiped out right away.  It would suck if a hard-coded story somehow relied on one of those things.

But more specifically, there is a secret 8th race that will be nothing but legend until a certain event or events happens.  In some worlds, this could happen right away and the 8th race then greatly impacts the "story" that the player creates through their actions.  In another world, those events may never happen and the 8th race remains nothing but some teasing scrawlings and the NPCs of the world pay little attention to the idea.

My goal is to provide a setting for the player to create their own story through their actions (and I will do my best to track that in a way that they can look back on).  The specifics of the setting may be different in each new world... and the challenges will be different.

I also want to provide a setting for modders to import their favorite D&D story or custom run an adventure with their friend by acting as a DM on their own private server (like in Neverwinter Nights... this was super fun and pretty much killed pen-and-paper role-playing for my group of friends).

Because of that, I may include small story-based adventures here and there just as a test of the system... and just as likely to be separate downloads.  But I don't plan an over-arching story except the origin, player, dragon, 8th race, etc. setup.  If I do my job right, the stories will find themselves.

Alright, that's exactly what I had in mind! Its glad to know that the dwavern home under the tree that no one knew about got destroyed then suddenly everyone knows about it.
The way your going, sounds exactly how I want the game to play out! So I'm glad to hear all the things I heard!

Also when you said "But I don't plan an over-arching story except the origin, player, dragon, 8th race, etc. setup." I think I now know the 8th race. You need to be more carefull how you say things :). And if its possible for me to play the 8th race, I WOULD SO LOVE IT! I'm not going to say to the public what I think it is, becuase if I'm right, your scrap him and make a new one D:!

I think you are reading too much into it.  I can guarantee you that you cannot guess the 8th race by that sentence.  And you will never be able to choose to play the 8th race.

And also for me to jump in: You said "your scrap him". HIM? You just gave your idea out to the public. Even tough that's not the 8th race, try to be less of an open book. xDDD

I mean he would get rid of the 8th race and make a different one if  guessed correctly. I don't know if I know it it just seems like I do. Because by process of elimination, I  THINK I got it right :3. Okay... I HOPE I got it right :) okay I REALLY REALLY WANT IT TO BE RIGHT.....

Also, awww I can't play the 8th race :(. Well, what if after you meet them, and do like a sorta guest, guess or somthing, you can play as him in another world? Or in SMP if the server allows it? IDK...

They are not "dragon people" if that's what you are thinking.  My guess is that you really wouldn't want to play the 8th race.

Darn it :P thats exactly what I had in mind xD Well, ooh well. I only other guess will be demi-gods lol. But ooh well :P. That would of been cool. Can't wait to play the full game and find out what they are :3 (Also probably some evil EVIL race...)

I could splurt out what paul might of hinted to me a few weeks ago xD but i think ill let you guys find out for your self whenn paul finishes this amazing game that will take over the world.

Okay :) And world? Really? More like Galaxy... Multiverse anyone?

Ok, so this mysterious "8th race"... Anything you're willing to say on the matter?

It wouldn't be that mysterious if he did.

I think I have said what I'm willing to say... either in this thread or others, I don't remember for sure.

They are supposed to be mysterious and kind of legendary. :)

It is possible that you will never encounter them but they will be a part of the world culture and every race will have some kind of reference to them in their mythology... even if it's just to tell the kids "Go to sleep or the whispers will come for you." or whatever.

"The Whispers"?

Shhh there are no whispers

Don't question the whispers.

There are no "whispers" and definitely don't search the forum for them. :)

But... you totally said whispers.....
Can we refer to them as The Whispers until we discover what they are?

Yeah, I was being "mysterious".  If you search the forum you can find other mentions of the whispers, I think.

thats a good name for them actually. Since when have you heard someone else use The Whispers as a name for something? never, thats when. its original!

Thanks.  There are other things about them that are kind of cool, too.  It takes all of my strength not to reveal more. :)  I really want to leave a little mystery in the world.

You just want someone to share your secrets to. Haha.

Whats reality without rumors?

I've told my wife about them... but she just kind of looks at me funny sometimes. :)

Now you need a nearby geeky neighbor.

I try and explain to my wife what im doing in programming, her first question.....is this more of the black box stuff....then I shut up

who needs a neighbor when you have an online forum?
thats hilarious.

Question: Would we be able to seek out The Whispers or would we only discover them if we accidentally triggered their arrival?

I cannot really answer this in a way that is satisfactory.  Technically the answer is "yes" to both questions but it would require a great deal of inference on the players' part... or someone to have posted spoilers to the forums down the road. :)

I knew it. They're like Bogeymen.

IMHO, i think that keeping this race shadowy and mysterious is a great way to give an awesome, fantastical-yet-realistic history to the game. make a couple books about them but reference them in many books, maybe make ruins of their temples or ruins as a place to go adventuring? who needs a cemetary run when you can explore the ancient and bewildering wonders the Whispers?

I cannot really respond exactly to why this won't work without giving too much away.  There is a reason they are only legend now, though.

References to them will be scattered in books.  I think they even probably pop-up in standard sayings, like: "May the Whispers take them." as a kind of curse or something.  Or "The thieves were in and out like the Whispers."

if people can make sayings about them then they obviously know at least *of* them. so from what your saying its almost like a voldemort approach... oh well, no more prodding  :) continue with your physics and whatnot

I got dibs!

As an example, nearly everyone on earth knows about dragons even though there is no credible evidence that they ever existed.  We cannot go see dragon ruins, etc..  The Mythrunians are considerably more primitive... and if such legends happen to be based on real history (now passed down for 1000 years or whatever) then they might be pretty pervasive despite any evidence of their existence.

Kind of like the bogeyman.

Actually, dragons are an interesting example because they hold a similar place in Mythrunian legend.  The last time one was seen was long enough ago that they are now legend.  You cannot find actual evidence of their existence... only the stories, pictures, carvings, etc..  Some will believe they are just a story or superstition, but like most widely held superstitions, in the back of their mind they will still believe a little bit.

Up until "our people" started visiting the worlds, Magic was in a similar state, too.  Beyond the stuff that seems like some form of alchemy/chemistry, many magic devices don't/didn't work for the natives.  Kind of like if you found the actual Excalibur but it didn't do magic things for you then it was "just another pretty sword".  It might have cultural significance but is otherwise just an artifact.

with all the talk of physics, AI, skills and more i had completely forgot that dragons are supposed to be central to the game. they are still pretty central right?

Yep.

I think I just found out about the dragons...

o_0

the dragons for mythruna? we had a conversation about them awhile back. it makes the green dragon logo more than just for looks  ;)

i think the confusion is because dragons are not secrets... not once has paul hidden there existence so unnaturallife only just realizing there will be dragons must mean he either has a terrible memory or is just silly for not listening earlier

lol a lot has happened in these months :)

Mythruna should be a fantasy world similar to that of Narnia or Middle Earth.

It's more of a D&D fantasy. A.k.a fantasy of everything. + steam punk-ish

Well, D'n'D IS inspired by Tolkien's works... But I agree, Mythruna's world DOES seem more inspired by D'n'D or Warhammer... Actually, on that point, Paul: did you mention somewhere that some Reptilians will be more civilized... Does that mean city building civilized.?

In ancient times, they were.  We'll have to wait and see if those cities materialize... and/or if any are still inhabited.  They would be underwater.

Mythruna could simply be an alternative universe that the occasional Earthling is teleported into by means of a ring, a wardrobe, a storybook, or a dream.  These people could be from whatever time period you could think of, from Ancient Mesopotamia to the Modern USA.  Humans would not be native inhabitants of Mythruna, but other species, including dwarves, elves, catpeople, etc., will be native.  Because so many different cultures intermingle in Mythruna, there will be vast varieties of architecture, transportation, and culture in general.  Time will not be consistent with Earth time in Mythruna.  Maybe even inversely proportional.  So in the distant future in Earth Time, Mythruna will be forming.  But at the time of the Earth's formation will be Mythruna's destruction.  Maybe Mythruna, as an alternate universe to that of ours, is almost like a mirror; everything backwards on the time spectrum.  But idk.

Oh yeah, and organisms live a lot longer there; our life expectancy on Earth is approximately 80 years.  But on Mythruna, because it is a more suitable environment for harboring life than Earth, maybe the perfect amount of Solar Radiation, our life expectancy would be 2000 years.

I think I've explained the "back story" pretty well at this point.  I've left a lot of the particulars vague on purpose so as not to impose motivation onto the players.

Someone~ is a fan of Clive Staples Lewis.

...

And are you hypothesising that the only reason we don't live to be multi-millenial beings is an imperfect quantity of solar radiation..? As opposed to Neural decay and occasional errors in our genetic makeup?

Obvious troll is obvious. :P

An author? PM me if you'd like to show me some of your work.

I have to wake up reltivly early so sorry if i'm not typing well  ;)

To Paul Speed: Are you doing procedurly generated worlds? This could help alot with your generated story. Certain races could spawn by certain spawn biome 'climates'. This dosen't mean you need seperate biomes, let's say you make a snowy forest and a regular forest spawns by it. You could add some numbers on the biome depending on what it is near. Example: Let's say the code for a snowy forest is 1500 and a code for a regular forest is 2000; they would average to create 1750 for the near by regular forest. That being said; certain races could spawn in certain biomes. With the number code, the species won't be far apart. Maybe reptilians could spawn in hot biomes and warm regular biomes, and Dwarves could spawn in cold biomes and cool regular biomes. Since reular biomes are proceduraly generated close together, and not on top of each other, races could still fight withought completeley destroying each other.

          Now, we can spawn villages like this. Let's say something happens to a village in chunk 1, biome 1. Let's say there are 5 chunks in biome 1. If a house mysteriolsy burnt down in a village in chunk 1, (they say the *whispers* did it) and you ask village 2 in chunk 2 about it, they wouldn't know. But if you added some kind of pre-game script for the villages to follow, they could know about it. If there is a 7% chance this could happen, every other village you see wouldn't be having a burning house propblem. And if another village spawns by the original one, it will know about the incident due to the procedural generation. A certain code should be given to accidents(The dragon! The fire), and it should be very vague. The game should look at the village and say;

 'The fire!' happened where. Plot 3, 123,79,456. Plot 3, 123,79,456 blocks regested: blah, blah, blah, dark brown wood. Villagers recognize: the old brown house. 5 villages in proximity. Sending message.....'

          That's my idea, anyway. I think there is more I can add on to it. What do you think?

The world is procedurally generated.  There will be generated towns and cities.  It perhaps does not work exactly the way you imagine, though.

There are no distinct biomes for example...at least not as far as the engine will be concerned.  There will be climates, terrains, etc. that will all vary independently (but not in blocks, in continuous functions) and will combine to create different "biomes" in the earth sense (not in the Minecraft sense).  Hot dry flat large (like sq km or more large) areas will be sandy.  We flat areas will be swampy.  Temperate flat areas will be rolling forest and grassland.  Different plants will grow relative to soil type, temperature, rainfall, and so on.

Anyway, the game world is in balance until players come along.  It's the only realistic way to model an infinite world.  Once the player comes they will potentially set rippling effects into motion but in general the world will try to self-balance again.  If you destroy the town that supplies iron ore to the next town over then that town will eventually start getting its iron ore from the other direction.  I have to limit the "over the horizon effects" or the problem quickly reaches combinatorial explosion.  Somewhere I have experiments posted that I did with how towns interact internally and externally.  They might be in the donator's section... I don't remember.