I am formally announcing the Requiem UO shard. This is an update post from our forums on the current status and launch date of the shard.
http://www.13thrones.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=243
Primer: Requiem Act V
I wish to take a moment to re-iterate what our goals for the project are, how we intend to achieve them, and what you, the player, can expect from this shard.
Requiem is an enforced role-playing shard, steeped in nearly ten years of lore, and is focused upon providing a unique gaming atmosphere and experience. We had dedicated a lot of time, effort and resources into creating what is now known as Requiem, Act V, and we hope that this will be apparent once you log in and begin playing.
The core of our build, known as Requiem 2.0, has seen a substantial amount of time put into it. Before Act V was planned and conceived, 2.0 had nearly a year and a half of development time put into it. From assets, to mechanics, to everything in-between, the 2.0 build was created to be a highly customizable game experience, one that was focused on character development through a hybrid skill and perk system, and complimented with a plethora of custom mechanics to encourage role-playing, adventuring and good old fashioned fun.
2.0 saw brief release in the end of 2013 to the beginning of 2014, but was later taken down due to unfortunate circumstances in [the main administrators'] own private life.
Act V began official development around the end of November, 2014. With Act V, we had intended on finishing the bulk of the work in the 2.0 script release and further refine and expand upon the existing systems. Since then, we have successfully added a good deal of content, refined many of the systems from 2.0 to work a lot better, and have been able to create a brand new map filled with fun and exciting places to explore and conquer.
The release of Act V will include an estimated 60% of our intended game mechanics, with approximately 50% of those mechanics having been run through the gambit of production-level testing. We have overhauled, tweaked, expanded upon and refined a good deal of things in the Act V release, and due to the small size of our staff for Act V, we have decided that the most prudent action we can take with the project at the current moment is to launch the shard in it's current state in full production status, as to allow us to be able to monitor, tweak, refine and tinker with the current build in so that we can continue to add additional mechanics and features in the near future.
While Requiem, Act V is a fully-featured game experience, it is important to note that, with a project of this size and scope, quality and assurance of the current build cannot be fully guaranteed until we can get a full compliment of players into the game and collect pertinent feedback and data. Requiem is a hobbyist endeavor, and while copious amounts of time have been put into it's development, we must stress that the shard will be in a continual state of improvement, expansion and alteration. There will invariably be things that are broken, exploitable, in-balanced and nonsensical. There will be features or skills that you may come to expect to be included in the launch of the shard that simply do not exist at this point in time. There will invariably be sub-systems and lack of support for certain mechanics and game systems that will be missing in the first week of play. Furthermore, we have purposefully limited our available map area and environmental PvE content for launch.
All of these things are to be expected, unfortunately. The staff has spent countless hours into developing and extremely customized experience that, at this point, truly represents a different gaming experience from other shards you may have played upon before. The development of these systems has required us to spend a good deal of time with our heads buried in lines of code, and we will no doubt have missed things here and there. We are truly creating a brand new experience from the ground up, from mechanics to monsters, and doing so requires us to have a steady hand, a good deal of patience, and a whole heap of luck.
This project has been conceived and developed as a labor of love to the role-playing community, and exists solely as a non-commercial, non-for-profit entity that is here to provide a service to it's players and staff. We are not here to gouge the players with micro-transactions and donation shops. We are not here to half-ass a stab into the UO community and see how many other shards we can leech players from. We are here to provide a stable, fun, unique and above all else challenging gaming experience that is committed to providing to it's players a place to truly realize and play out the characters of their dreams, all within a mature and strict role-playing environment. We have created Requiem and have tailored it's mechanics as to serve as a bastion for truly committed role-players to be able to create the character they have always wanted to play, all within a world that is equally unpredictable as it is deadly.
It is necessary to point out that our shard is not for everyone. It is extremely important to keep in mind that Requiem supports a fully realized perma-death system. Your character can very well find their demise at the hands of PvE elements, game mechanics such as sicknesses and the Torment, or even other players. We feel that by implementing these sorts of mechanics, role-playing within the world of Requiem ends up being a more visceral and entertaining experience. Secondly, it is important to keep in mind that our shard's community is built around an ideology that leads to players invest a lot of time and effort into developing their characters through means other than in-game. We promote, encourage and even reward this type of behavior, as it is the reason as to why Requiem exists in the first place; we strive to provide to the players a game and community in which a character can be truly realized down to the very last detail. If this is something that doesn't interest you, then Requiem may not be your cup of tea. Finally, as we have the luxury of not having to rely on donations or crowdfunding to further development and sustain the shard, we are able to, with prejudice, police our community with a certain zeal to assure that trolls and troublemakers are not welcome here. If you lack the maturity and ability to treat other players with respect, you will not last long.
With that said, we, the staff of Requiem hope that you can find your new home here within our community, and we look forward to seeing you in-game in the coming days.
The Requiem Skill Compendium
http://www.13thrones.com/wordpress/?page_id=302
The Hall of Wisdom [Lore]
http://www.13thrones.com/wordpress/?page_id=330
Trello [Update center]
https://trello.com/b/txP1tOLe/general-development
Direct IRC link via Darkmyst
http://widget01.mibbit.com/?setting...uiemuo&nick=anon_from_servuo&autoConnect=true
http://www.13thrones.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=243
Primer: Requiem Act V
I wish to take a moment to re-iterate what our goals for the project are, how we intend to achieve them, and what you, the player, can expect from this shard.
Requiem is an enforced role-playing shard, steeped in nearly ten years of lore, and is focused upon providing a unique gaming atmosphere and experience. We had dedicated a lot of time, effort and resources into creating what is now known as Requiem, Act V, and we hope that this will be apparent once you log in and begin playing.
The core of our build, known as Requiem 2.0, has seen a substantial amount of time put into it. Before Act V was planned and conceived, 2.0 had nearly a year and a half of development time put into it. From assets, to mechanics, to everything in-between, the 2.0 build was created to be a highly customizable game experience, one that was focused on character development through a hybrid skill and perk system, and complimented with a plethora of custom mechanics to encourage role-playing, adventuring and good old fashioned fun.
2.0 saw brief release in the end of 2013 to the beginning of 2014, but was later taken down due to unfortunate circumstances in [the main administrators'] own private life.
Act V began official development around the end of November, 2014. With Act V, we had intended on finishing the bulk of the work in the 2.0 script release and further refine and expand upon the existing systems. Since then, we have successfully added a good deal of content, refined many of the systems from 2.0 to work a lot better, and have been able to create a brand new map filled with fun and exciting places to explore and conquer.
The release of Act V will include an estimated 60% of our intended game mechanics, with approximately 50% of those mechanics having been run through the gambit of production-level testing. We have overhauled, tweaked, expanded upon and refined a good deal of things in the Act V release, and due to the small size of our staff for Act V, we have decided that the most prudent action we can take with the project at the current moment is to launch the shard in it's current state in full production status, as to allow us to be able to monitor, tweak, refine and tinker with the current build in so that we can continue to add additional mechanics and features in the near future.
While Requiem, Act V is a fully-featured game experience, it is important to note that, with a project of this size and scope, quality and assurance of the current build cannot be fully guaranteed until we can get a full compliment of players into the game and collect pertinent feedback and data. Requiem is a hobbyist endeavor, and while copious amounts of time have been put into it's development, we must stress that the shard will be in a continual state of improvement, expansion and alteration. There will invariably be things that are broken, exploitable, in-balanced and nonsensical. There will be features or skills that you may come to expect to be included in the launch of the shard that simply do not exist at this point in time. There will invariably be sub-systems and lack of support for certain mechanics and game systems that will be missing in the first week of play. Furthermore, we have purposefully limited our available map area and environmental PvE content for launch.
All of these things are to be expected, unfortunately. The staff has spent countless hours into developing and extremely customized experience that, at this point, truly represents a different gaming experience from other shards you may have played upon before. The development of these systems has required us to spend a good deal of time with our heads buried in lines of code, and we will no doubt have missed things here and there. We are truly creating a brand new experience from the ground up, from mechanics to monsters, and doing so requires us to have a steady hand, a good deal of patience, and a whole heap of luck.
This project has been conceived and developed as a labor of love to the role-playing community, and exists solely as a non-commercial, non-for-profit entity that is here to provide a service to it's players and staff. We are not here to gouge the players with micro-transactions and donation shops. We are not here to half-ass a stab into the UO community and see how many other shards we can leech players from. We are here to provide a stable, fun, unique and above all else challenging gaming experience that is committed to providing to it's players a place to truly realize and play out the characters of their dreams, all within a mature and strict role-playing environment. We have created Requiem and have tailored it's mechanics as to serve as a bastion for truly committed role-players to be able to create the character they have always wanted to play, all within a world that is equally unpredictable as it is deadly.
It is necessary to point out that our shard is not for everyone. It is extremely important to keep in mind that Requiem supports a fully realized perma-death system. Your character can very well find their demise at the hands of PvE elements, game mechanics such as sicknesses and the Torment, or even other players. We feel that by implementing these sorts of mechanics, role-playing within the world of Requiem ends up being a more visceral and entertaining experience. Secondly, it is important to keep in mind that our shard's community is built around an ideology that leads to players invest a lot of time and effort into developing their characters through means other than in-game. We promote, encourage and even reward this type of behavior, as it is the reason as to why Requiem exists in the first place; we strive to provide to the players a game and community in which a character can be truly realized down to the very last detail. If this is something that doesn't interest you, then Requiem may not be your cup of tea. Finally, as we have the luxury of not having to rely on donations or crowdfunding to further development and sustain the shard, we are able to, with prejudice, police our community with a certain zeal to assure that trolls and troublemakers are not welcome here. If you lack the maturity and ability to treat other players with respect, you will not last long.
With that said, we, the staff of Requiem hope that you can find your new home here within our community, and we look forward to seeing you in-game in the coming days.
The Requiem Skill Compendium
http://www.13thrones.com/wordpress/?page_id=302
The Hall of Wisdom [Lore]
http://www.13thrones.com/wordpress/?page_id=330
Trello [Update center]
https://trello.com/b/txP1tOLe/general-development
Direct IRC link via Darkmyst
http://widget01.mibbit.com/?setting...uiemuo&nick=anon_from_servuo&autoConnect=true