Thank you for all of your support of BSC Days 07/14/14-07/17/14


The BSC (stands for Bat-Shit Crazy) Days were an event with a set of video and text presentations, updates, and reveals held by City State Entertainment on 7/14/-7/17/2014. For Camelot Unchained, BSC is often used by City State Entertainment to refer to the slightly off-the-wall, maybe a little "crazy" ideas of Mark Jacobs and the City State Entertainment team about our own game mechanics. The BSC Days event was a major early content and gameplay reveal for Camelot Unchained.

Crafting Presentation

The Guiding Principles

  • We must support both “popcorn” crafting (simple crafting/repairing available to all players) as well as a full-time “pure” crafter class
  • We MUST create a vibrant economy that ensures a key role for the crafter class in the game’s economy
  • Economic support systems must be robust enough to replace an Auction House
  • Crafting is magic! Embrace magic at the core of all crafting
  • Use a consistent interface for all crafting, but customize it for each Realm
    • Use of this interface cuts development time and resources overall, but allows us to “go to town” on the main interface
  • System must be designed with a long-term view
    • Crafters must be able to make a profit throughout their lifetime
    • Need to prevent or at least slow down “MudFlation” through use of time and money sinks

What does “Crafting is Magic” really mean?

  • All pure crafters use magic
  • Crafters can be treated as combatants for progression purposes
    • With downtime, recovery time, etc. they will not be able to craft 24 hours straight. This will slow progression, and prevent flood of items from well-funded crafters
  • Players will use a “Vox magus” in a similar manner that mages use their spellbooks
    • Crafting becomes more challenging, interesting, and visually enjoyable as crafting can become a “performance piece” that people can watch and enjoy

Popcorn Crafting

  • Basic crafting system available to all players
  • Based on simpler actions that require little magic and a small time commitment
    • Can engage in low-level mining, harvesting, gathering, etc.
    • Can repair their low-power weapons and most armor
    • Can create basic arrows, repair kits, and other such items
    • Can create potions (Stretch Goal)
  • Allows a greater sense of self-sufficiency for the non-crafter, so that they don’t have to run back to town every 30 minutes to find a crafter
  • Frees up pure crafters to focus on their own special skills

Popcorn Crafting – Repairing

  • Minor damage to armor and weapons can be repaired, but heavy damage requires the help of a pure crafter
  • Combatants can carry around whetstones, repair kits that allow them to do some basic work themselves
    • Sitting down after a battle or two with your mates to sharpen your own weapon or repair armor adds to immersion
  • Archers can fletch their own simple arrows if they have the components

Popcorn Crafting – Gathering/Harvesting

  • Wandering around and picking up stuff scattered throughout the world is the perfect example of Popcorn Crafting
  • Players can gather or harvest from any field or plot that is either:
    • Unowned
    • Owned by yourself
    • Owned by an enemy Realm
    • Owned by another person or entity which has granted you permission
  • Combatants can have their own fields, but they are limited in size

Popcorn Crafting — Mining

  • Unlike fields, many mines are owned by the Realm, which then allows all members of the Realm to mine there
    • Realm-owned mines also come with a limit on what can be taken out per day
  • Access to mines works in a similar manner to fields
  • Combatants mine slower than crafters, due to crafters’ skills and access to higher-level equipment
  • Combatants can mine most minerals, but lack higher-level equipment for some minerals

Crafting for Crafters—Design Goals

  • Treat the “pure” crafter as a mage: A crafter has stats, crafting points, and downtime
    • Crafters are split into three sub-classes, though each can access all three
    • Takers (they take from the land), Shapers (they shape the raw materials) and Makers (they make the finished item)
  • Ensure that the system does not require macro-ing to succeed!
    • Crafters should not have to create 10,000 arrows to see their skill tick up one tiny bit
    • Use downtime + crafting time to remove the need to make 10K arrows
      • Reward the player for crafting without the penalty of inducing carpal tunnel!
  • Crafters should have stat progression similar to combatants
    • Open issue: Should there be special “crafting stats” or should we just reuse current stats?
  • Crafting an item is not automatic; each item takes time and drains resources
    • This helps to prevent rapid-fire crafting of items by guilds
    • Helps slow down the supply of any crafted item

Crafting for Crafters – Continued

  • The Vox Magus (crafting station) is a magic focus object with lots of customization and power options that the crafters use to make their items
  • Allow the Crafter to control almost every aspect of the final item
  • Integrate the blueprint system from building with crafting
    • If crafters can be treated more like the architect than the laborer, crafting will be less drudgery and more fun
  • Allow the Realm to buy items from players
    • Sets a floor for the item, and guarantees that low-level crafters can still make money
    • Encourages Realm pride, as crafters’ contributions are apparent and rewarded

The Vox Magus

  • Based on our world’s pipe organ
    • Pipe organ is a widely known and instantly recognizable item
    • Replace keys, stops, etc. with gems, runes, and other fun stuff
  • Players sit at the VM and use both sound and magic to interact with the materials that are placed within the VM
    • You don’t have to read music or understand music theory to play as a crafter. Sounds come from the Vox based on your actions as the crafter
  • Each Realm has its own version of the VM, but they work in an identical manner
    • This reduces the amount of time and resources we have to spend on the interface and effects, leaving more time to work on the system’s items
  • VMs scale in power and appearance. It is a fully customizable device, which will grow with the player over time

Vox Magus – Part II

  • Crafting now becomes a very visual and visceral process, which can be shared with others
  • Easy to learn, difficult to master, as the combinations are nearly limitless
  • Ways to shape and make an item will vary both inter-realm but possibly intra-realm as well
  • Guilds can have their own Vox that can be customized for multi-crafter use
    • Money sinks (cost, upkeep) will prevent guilds from dominating the crafting system. Small VM’s are more cost-effective to use for small items, and require a cooldown time
  • Lots of potential for Easter Egg moments when certain music is played

Souls and Crafters

  • Crafters can use bits of their own (or captured) souls in crafting an item
    • Like combatants’ soul shards that are captured in battle, soul shards are limited in duration and number
    • Crafters can only use a certain number of shards at any one time
      • This limits the amount of powerful items one crafter can create
  • Souls can grant additional power to items, and can also make those items more resistant to wear, breaking, etc.
    • Captured souls can act as a beacon to the soul’s owner in RvR
    • Souls can be used to power spells that are engraved in very select items
      • The cliché “Fireball Wand” would be considered a very powerful item, rare and expensive

Summary

  • The crafting system of Camelot Unchained will cater to both hard-core and casual crafters
  • The Vox Magus takes the familiar MMORPG concept of a forge to an entirely different level
  • The use of souls in crafted items, while not a unique twist, is being done in an original manner that will allow master craftsmen to make very rare and powerful items
    • This will allow crafters to charge premium prices for these items, and rarely will two of these items be the same