Hello Champions!
Following what we said with the Spring 2022 Update and the latest post with a big summary of all the info available so far for Alaloth, we are here today to talk a bit about how the map and the calendar work in our game.
We are going to give you a taste of Plamen’s topography along a bit of gameplay-related info! As you know, there are four huge areas in Plamen [the kingdoms] with the end-game area in the middle [The Fifth Kingdom, the area where Alaloth is trapped, by lore]. It is really important to keep in mind that you can move wherever you want since the very beginning and different terrains mean different travel speed: don’t expect to cross a dwarven mountain chain as swiftly as you would with a small elven forest, and the more you get away from roads, the more trouble you shall find on your way. Monsters, wandering merchants, wandering units from other clans and houses and other champions are constantly moving on the map, so always plan your route to your destination to prevent dangerous encounters. Defeating brigands is surely a way to get some loot and some juicy bounty, yes, but without resting in some bed your wounds won’t certainly recover. You have the chance to set your camp on the way. You are constantly being notified by events happening anyway and you can access a log tracking all the key moments you should be aware of. You'll be able to use mounts and mounts will be crucial in many different ways: you can increase the size of your inventory and of course take advantages of riding many different beasts! We'll have horses of course but each race will have its own racial mount to use and specials will be unlocked with reputations and quests. Bears, wolves, battle goats but even a griffin could be an option for the best warriors! We'll go in details very soon wheh talking about vendors in one of the next updates!
The passing of time and the calendar are key elements of the gameplay too. We've built the world of Plamen with the idea of creating an ever-changing world and basically we've created different phases that are going to change things during the playthrough in many different ways. Alaloth becames stronger and stronger in each phase, mobs spawning on the map will be way more deadly and new dangers will pop-up from The Fifth Kingdom, making things very difficult. Night and day cycle is a thing: we'll have different spawns on map but even different layouts for each place you are going to visit. If you enter a city during the day, you'll have access to shops, you can enter the royal palace or meet NPC that are going to be somewhere else by night. Shops will be closed, few locations not accessible and so on. Even quests avaialble will be different of course. So don’t forget to visit cities and points of interest in different moments as there are many things happening only when the sun rises-up or goes down: you can find exotic merchants coming from other kingdoms sellinq unique items or weapons and remember that rogues and thieves feel better doing their stuff covered by the darkness...
Entering Westwall during the day...
...and by night
We have 10 months, 30 days each and while you can imagine every race has its own holidays and festivities [which will bring unique NPC appearing as the aboive mentioned merchants for example], crossing the sky is one thing that everyone shares. Moon phases are indeed important and someone says that the biggest secrets will be unveiled only at full moon [Moonstone anyone?]. A few recently asked if the time passing should have an impact on the quality of runs, because thought about being forced of playing with a timer on top of his head, withouth a way to go at his pace and enyoy so let's clarify this one more time: the phases of the world are strictly connected to Alaloth and nothing more. So, simply, the world became more dangerous in each phase. There is a difference between the single player campaign and the competitive one but it's not related to these phases but to the presence of other champions competing for the same objectives. This makes each run unique, because when you play competitive, the other champions are randomically rolled at the beginning, they are 40 and they have different behaviors. So, someone could be more aggressive, some other could be more passive and this is the way the player will be affected in terms of gameplay. To enter the end-game artifacts have to be collected. If another champion has one of the artifact, at some point you'll have to hunt him/her in order to complete the game. If you have artifacts, any of them can decide to hunt you for the same reason. The world will go on on its own in the back so it's really about the strategy adopted, the other champions and the combination of both things while playing. But again: this is only when competitive mode is selected. Even these aspects will be detailed with the next updates!
We are going to speed-up things dropping some lore related content by Friday the latest, we still have to introcude the companions, the coop, items, crafting, enchanting, skills and other cool stuff!
If you have questions about the topic, post it in the comments!
Stay tuned!
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https://store.steampowered.com/app/919360/Alaloth_Champions_of_The_Four_Kingdoms/