Our over-promising in roadmaps is a little infamous at this point. So we'd just like to talk through the 3 big things that we have locked-in to be released this year.
2023 is going to be an exciting year for Phobos. Our over-promising in roadmaps is a little infamous at this point. So I won't dwell on the small features that we're hoping to get done in 2023, except to say that you can expect the (already teased) quest log, new hotkeys, better ability descriptions, and an overhaul of equipment stats and availability.
Instead, what I'd like to do here is take a few minutes to talk about 3 big things that we have locked in to be released this year.
1. NORTHERN DAWN
It's been a long, LONG time since the last content update. Northern Dawn will provide that much needed new content: a huge new area, new monsters, items, quests; all that good stuff. A few older areas of the map will also be getting changes (some minor, some major), but we'll let you discover those on your own.
We now have more people working on content (more than one, that is!). Thor is focused mostly on Tâgileim city, whilst Lans and me (Rob) are spending most of our time on the other surrounding areas. Here is a sneak peek at some of what is to come:
The entrance to the great dwarven city of Tâgileim
The ancient temple of Tâgileim
The Waker's Rift in the mines of Tâgileim
Misty Tor, home to frost wyverns and golems
2. MULTIPLE SERVERS
No online RPG can be successful when more than half its playerbase is connecting to a server over 5000 km away. Adding a server in North America was on the roadmap way back when we released Phobos on Steam. We're delighted to announce that in the last few months we have finally made real progress here.
Phobos wouldn't be much without a community. So, for the betterment of the game, our priority must be to avoid splitting up our small community as much as possible. This means that those players who have been holding out for a fresh start will be disappointed here. We understand that there have been concerns in the past about exploited/cheated player wealth. We do have tools to help us find suspicious accounts, and these have been used to delete almost 30 accounts in the last year. But we know the work isn't done here, and we'll continue to keep one eye on this. And of course, if future player numbers are ever enough to support a third server, then we will be happy to seriously consider making it isolated.
So, what will it actually be like? Well, the system we're building will rely on partly synchronising the new and old servers with one another. The most obvious place this will be done is in towns. So when you visit a town, you will be able to meet with players on the other server, as well as your own. But as soon as you leave the town, the world will collapse back into your single region 'instance' of the server. Noble account users will be able to transfer between servers at temples, and some other special locations. But other users will be effectively locked to the region they chose on avatar creation. Some chat channels will also be synchronised between servers, again to limit how much we split the community.
3. CLASS SHAKEUP & EARLY/MID-GAME RESTRUCTURING
When our class system was first introduced, the primary goals were to provide players with early-game progression, and a mechanically-simple introduction to Phobos gameplay. These are essential goals. And whilst this was partly successful, the system has also caused issues. And has ultimately resulted in an early-game experience that—by modern standards—is slow, boring, and confusing for many new players.
Regretably, this isn't a trivial thing to fix with our existing class progression system; abilities are shared, which makes it difficult to adjust the citizen, page, apprentice classes without side effects for the final classes. Overall we have decided that the problems outweigh the benefits. So, we have decided to remove the tier 1 and tier 2 classes: citizen, page, apprentice.
Instead, class will be chosen at avatar creation, with new UI and a small training area where players may try out the different classes before making this important first decision. This will also allow us to provide new players with a more targeted introduction to basic game mechanics.
Citizen, page, and apprentice class abilities will be removed; every class will get new class-specific abilities to replace the old ones. We will also tweak many remaining abilities so that classes feel more distinct, and to improve class synergy. Altogether, this will allow us to front-load new avatars with a few abilities that are specific to their class, and that are relevant to those classes early on.
These changes will require us to restructure the whole early-game experience. At the same time, we will be looking to solve one of the biggest issues with progression in the game: life after leaving Timar. The exit from Timar will be entirely remapped to better transition players into the rest of the world. And Hilafo and the area around Empo Sar will be given updates too, to help solve the lack of direction and the huge amount of empty space.
Finally, we will be taking a critical look at equipment; both the stats and how easily it's found. The biggest priority here being the need for more armor 6 leggings. We know this is something that players wanted us to look at last year, but as usual, you'll have to be patient with us. Rest assured: we know there are issues, and we are going to fix them.
Yours
