What is the Point To Playing Archmage Rises?
In 1995 I was 17 and snuck into my first R rated movie. My 18 year old friend bought me a ticket so we could see Braveheart. From that day until now, I am awestruck by the amazing line “Every man dies, not every man really lives.”
I love sandbox games. But I also want to feel clear progress towards a goal. The whole premise of this game is: You have one life to live? What will you do with it?
The features in this update were planned on our roadmap to come closer to 1.0. Yet, in playing the game, reading reviews and forums, I decided we need to pull some of it forward. First, to prepare for some of the other things we are building, and second to provide a better experience NOW.
Monday, September 25 11am EST
Christmas is coming early boys and girls! You will be able to enjoy this content Sep 25.
Legacy: One New Stat to Rule Them All!
“All that matters are the things that remain.”
The simulator tracks a lot of things about the player and the world. We're distilling all this data into one stat easily compared against rivals and historical mages in the world.
The core design of the game is along three core paths: Renown, Wealth, and Power. We are now displaying these as stats. Your Legacy stat is derived from how well you perform in the three paths. Each is weighted differently and we will likely change the weighting as we go along. The design allows you to pursue all three, or just focus on one. It's your choice how you spend your life.
You can directly increase your Legacy with new items and actions. These are in addition to the 3 new stats. Things like:
- Purchasing property for a Mage Tower
- Displaying rare items like Art or Books in your mage tower
- Clearing out a Monster Lair
- Eradicating a Monster Race
New Stat: Renown
Renown represents your popularity and respect in the world.
Renown is based on a new Town stat Esteem, which shows what the general sentiment of the citizens is towards you. It takes a lot more deeds to get noticed in a city than in a hamlet.
Esteem can and will gate certain features in a town. What people think of you matters.
New Stat: Wealth
Wealth is made up of two stats:
Prestige - Prestige is financial stature in the world. In our world the super sports cars, mega-yacht, priceless paintings, and jewlery. Prestige is wealth people can see. It's the reason rich people have cars where the doors swing upwards (Russ Hanneman, Silicon Valley) ːlaughing_yetiː
Net Worth - the more you invest in the world, the higher your net worth and so your Wealth stat will grow. Grow your legacy by hording and investing every gold coin like Scrooge McDuck!
New Stat: Power
Power is how learned you are at life, magic, and manipulating the forces of the universe.
Every point of Spell School XP earned contributes to your Power stat.
Every point in skills (like Athletics, Persuasion, Scholarship) contributes to your power.
XP spent learning new spells and upgrades still counts, don't save em!
Rivals
These are NPCs competing with you in the world in Renown, Wealth, and Power.
You meet three NPCs in school during character creation and they are set loose in the world along with you at the same time, becoming your Rivals.
We are starting with the basics with them for now, they are not fully featured yet, but we will build from here.
We simulate rivals in the background. Every 3 months you will get an updated notification of how your rivals are doing.
If you don't care for this, there is an option to turn off the notification. Happily ignore them.
You can also view the last information you got about rivals on the new character sheet tab:
Eventually we’ll add a way to get more frequent updates by talking to NPCs or having spies watch them, etc.
You can find and meet your Rivals in game, just like any other NPC.
Greatest of All Time (GOAT)
The world of Vaelun has many historically significant mages spread across different eras. We've assembled a list of the top 20 famous (or infamous) mages from which to compare yourself. Each one of these mages has a back story and in future updates you will be able to hunt down their unique artifacts.
A new tab on the character sheet shows the rank of the mages and where you stand:
New Major Quest: Mabren's Tower
Nolan and team have been hard at work adding new features to our quest tech and tools. We're very proud to announce the culmination of all this work a new major quest: Mabren's Tower.
The quest is a race against a rival to make a major discovery. We think it will show off some of the power of our tech and we hope you enjoy it!
Backwards Compatibility
Now that I've wrapped my head around the fact we are making a 50hr per run rogue game, you should see how important preserving your play progress is in this update.
The new features will just start working on an old save file. It's a little better from a new fresh start, but you are not forced to do so.
- For any items already accumulated they won't have bonuses to prestige or legacy. But new ones that are supposed to, will.
- An old save won't have rivals from school, but we will generate you 3 new ones and the system will start from there.
- The new major quest will be findable in a preexisting world. It's just a little easier and more natural in a new life.
Finally, we will be utilizing the beta branch to test out the new update before it goes live Sep 25. More on that when we approach the release date.
I hope you enjoy playing as much as we have enjoyed making this for you. Thank you for spending your time in Vaelun with us!