I have briefly played on heavy customized server, and the general feeling always becomes the same... "this is not the UO i used to play, and that I loved"
While we are in our early pre-alpha phase and slowly getting things done to be able to release Redacted to the wider audience, today , I would like to reveal what character creation process looks like on Redacted. Due to a strict
one character per IP rule, we decided to make player characters very unique in terms of their goals, stats, professions etc. Redacted chracter creation process consits of 4 choices with tarot cards, something inspired by Ultima games. Four choices will allow players to choose from 20 different cards, giving in total 81 variants.
Previously, our char creation system involved abstract professions that would establish their starting stat and skills build. Now, however, you do not select your starting profession, as players will choose their craft later in game, Instead, players create their characters by choosing their:
Path (the path of Hermit, for instance, will open arcane-like professions to players)
Character's trait
Temperament (out of 4 different temperaments)
and character's Disposition (including Order and Chaos alighnments)
These choices will influence characters starting build as well as some of his/her in-game features, such as relations with NPC's of similar disposition etc.
We have ordered unique tarot cards for our project, which will soon replace the above place holders. Tarot cards are 3 fingers worth, which shows how miniacally dedicated we are to create the most revolutionary online RPG experience in history.
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It's lack of player's understanding, rather than the negative outcome of 1 character per IP ruleset. There are too many reasons why one character per IP will be enforced and almost nothing defending this (unbalanced economy which our real, stock market-inspired economic system won't afford, "secret" griefing characters, which our
permadeath system won't afford, lack of proper RP, these are just few ideas why allowing several characters is something common yet completely detrimental to UO). If you worry that there won't be enough crafters or other professions to acquire certain services or goods from, then our economy will support NPC market. NPC's will be able to both produce and purchase but I will talk more about it in later posts.
Several characters per IP is like Trammel. It kind of solves one problem but adds thousands of other problems instead.
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On Redacted having absolute classes will be a disadvantage for the most part. Most warriors will have some smithing or mining skills, for instance. That's what we estimate. It is not another 700/225 server nor it is a full skillcap server. This is a different project which will have a wide economic system, where everyone will be a part of the economy. There won't be a classic PvM/PvP classification concept. Crafters will be vulnerable to pirates/caravan robbers, for instance, so warrior guilds will have to protect them for a fee, which will create PvP, but not the way PvP works in UO (i.e. mindless two one drop sport activity).
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The way tarot cards are implemented is just four choices that players make upon character creation. Given that our client bypasses server choice and character on login and gets straight to character creation/world will make char creation process even more quicker. We want the character creation process to look more like destiny, not a doll factory. Plus the characters on Redacted won't consist solely of hit points, alightment and temperaments (humorism) in combination with professions make characters more interesting in terms how they will interact with the world.