Zoria: Age of Shattering - Devlog Update: Progress so Far

Silver

Silver

Spaceman
Staff Member
Supporter
Joined
February 13, 2014
Messages
9,314
Location
New Zealand
A new devlog update for Zoria: Age of Shattering shares progress so far.

Devlog: Updates for 2021 so far

Greetings adventurers of Zoria,

It's been a long time since our last Devlog, but there are also many changes that happened to the game in that time. The main reason we've been silent is that we've been busy making the game.
Because of this, today's Devlog is a short and introductory one, with a brief description of all the things that happened to the game since.

Alchemy and Cooking:

our last Devlog was about Crafting, but in the meantime we also implemented the Cooking and Alchemy systems. We will be making a separate Devlog detailing how the systems work in the following days.



Quest System Update:

this update is not something immediately obvious to the players, but it's nonetheless a very important update, as it allows us far more control in crafting the quests and interactions in the game. With this update we now have far more freedom in making dialogue choices as well as quest choices that have real impact and consequences in the game.



NPC behavior system:

we wanted the world of Zoria to feel alive and inhabited by all kinds of characters, each with their lives. We achieved this by creating a behavior system for all the humanoid NPCs in the game, friendly or hostile. Each NPC in the game has one or more points of interests and behaviors, triggered by different events in the game.

b0de7dfd37bfea4f58f518480528acb147b32d52.gif


Classes and Abilities update:

this is a big one. We are in the process of updating the skill trees for all the classes in the game, with new abilities and a completely revamped tree. The update is intended to give more agency to the player in customizing all the followers, as well as making the combat more interesting with all kinds of new abilities.
We will return in the following weeks with detailed presentations for each class, the skill tree and all the abilities available.



Content:

Together with all these updates we have been working on the content, with the first big area in the game, Rithvale, almost complete at this point, in terms of main area, dungeons and encounters. There is still work being done on the main quest, side quests and all the small details that make a game good. As with all the other elements described in this post, we will return with a more detailed post about Rithvale.

We also completely reworked some of the scenes from the Prologue (Thallamar for example) and increased the visual quality overall.



Until further details, I leave you with the new Main Screen background:

Click to expand...
More information.
 
Joined
Feb 13, 2014
Messages
9,314
Location
New Zealand
Its tbc with free movement (no grid or hexes)
 
Joined
Nov 7, 2006
Messages
350
Thanks.

I think I will give it a try. I love the good old concept of demo. Reminds me of when I was purchasing pcgamer / joystick magazine and getting with it that so nice cd full of game demos.
 
Joined
Nov 4, 2007
Messages
1,274
Location
Quebec city
Looks pretty good. I see it includes "base management", which I could live without, but otherwise I'll be interested to keep an eye on it.

There's some folks who put up some gameplay footage.

 
Joined
Nov 8, 2014
Messages
12,085
Yeah, I'm not sure why every developer seems to think base management is necessary in RPG's all of a sudden. I could skip all that forever. I don't mind crafting weapons and armor and a little alchemy. What I don't need is to take actions that happen every day in the real world. I prefer more fantastical actions.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
8,836
Yeah, I don't mind the idea of a stronghold or a home you can acquire, which can perhaps become a source of new quests and interesting situations. But when it becomes another layer of gameplay that requires regular management, that's a drag for me.

I also don't mind games about managing your city or your farm, or whatever. But in the context of an RPG, I find it's like a stressful brake on the escapism.
 
Joined
Nov 8, 2014
Messages
12,085
I guess it depends of how the city management is done. If it's light, I don't mind it... I just hope it doesn't get anywhere as heavy as in Pathfinder Kingmaker.
 
Joined
Nov 4, 2007
Messages
1,274
Location
Quebec city
I see The Zorias perfected the Art of Microscopic Fonts, as opposed to this MOD of mine, I'm playing:
Battle-Brothers-2021-04-28-18-38-15-47.jpg

Battle-Brothers-2021-04-28-16-34-11-34.png
 
Joined
Mar 21, 2013
Messages
3,456
I'm another of those that has fallen out of joy with having a base, village, or city to maintain. Seems like a lot of bother, perhaps I'm just a lazy bloke, I'd rather be off exploring some scenic landscape or romping through a dangerous dungeon or five.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2011
Messages
18,947
Location
Holly Hill, FL.
crpgnut said:
Yeah, I'm not sure why every developer seems to think base management is necessary in RPG's all of a sudden. I could skip all that forever. I don't mind crafting weapons and armor and a little alchemy. What I don't need is to take actions that happen every day in the real world. I prefer more fantastical actions.
Click to expand...

Bethesda started it with FO4. At least that's the first RPG where I can remember wondering why I had to build stuff when I wanted to be adventuring.
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,299
Location
Florida, US
Yeah, or Hearthstone DLC for Skyrim maybe. Either way, blame Bethesda. Also, the crazy popularity of building stuff in Minecraft perhaps.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
8,836
JDR13 said:
I just noticed that there's a playable demo on Steam if anyone is interested in trying this.
Click to expand...

Looks like the demo build is over a year old, so I kinda wonder if it is even still relevant. There is a prologue build too, so maybe I'll look at that.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
8,836
I like base/town building when it is integral to the design, for example HoMM games. Building your town drives much of what you're able to do/achieve in the over world in a game like that. Unfortunately, when it comes to adding it into more traditional, narrative RPG experiences, it doesn't seem to work (at least for me).

Although, maybe there are exceptions to this... Spellforce comes to mind. I know it is not strictly an RPG but there's a game that seems to have bridged this gap by integrating RTS gameplay and the base building that typically goes with RTS experiences.
 
Joined
Sep 3, 2016
Messages
1,351
Location
A Misty Island
Hello everybody. My name is Fane and I am one of the developers of Zoria Age of Shattering. My main responsibilities for the game are game design, level design, gameplay content, UI/UX, a bit of story and side quests texts, animations, effects, and basically anything that does not involve programming :)

So thank you all for the comments, we are very much alive and kicking and I would like to invite you all to our discord channel - https://discord.gg/k3fPxX8 - we have a good community already and as always feedback is appreciated.

Now, regarding the base building part of the game - we are very much aware we cannot please everyone but we want to make a system light enough to not become a chore but interesting enough to actually invest some time in it. For the most part, we are considering upgrades that will give useful rewards/new quests/resources, and so on. In my view, the most unique selling point for our game are the classes and their respective environment traits - for example, the Lancer has the ability to clear out caved ceilings and carve a path forward for the party or the Wizard can conjure up a bridge to help the party get from one location to another. This mechanic will open the possibility to have different party compositions that will allow you to take one route or another.

In the current live Demo/Prologue, this is not too obvious, thus, we are making a new demo that will better illustrate this aspect and of course, a whole lot of improvements that we did over the year.

If this peaked a bit your interest, join us on Discord, we are almost always online and our #Dev-Showcase features some quirky clips or screenshots from production.

If you have any questions I will keep an eye on the post and try to answer them

I wish you all a very cool day.
Fane
TTG
 
Joined
Apr 29, 2021
Messages
3
SSIGuy said:
Although, maybe there are exceptions to this… Spellforce comes to mind. I know it is not strictly an RPG but there's a game that seems to have bridged this gap by integrating RTS gameplay and the base building that typically goes with RTS experiences.
Click to expand...

Ahh. Spellforce.. this reminds me to restart the 3rd Spellforce after all those patches and DLCs.. Hopefully its more stable now. But the RTS part was a bit messy iirc.
 
Joined
Nov 7, 2006
Messages
350
vidder said:
Ahh. Spellforce.. this reminds me to restart the 3rd Spellforce after all those patches and DLCs.. Hopefully its more stable now. But the RTS part was a bit messy iirc.
Click to expand...

Downloaded and played Spellforce 1 when it was on sale a couple of weeks ago. I'm a fan of the Warlord Battlecry serie so my hope was pretty high... but I got quickly disappointed. It felt like playing Age of Empire with an extra rpg layer. AoE is a rts I never liked / enjoyed. Too much micro-managing I believe.

Also, for some reasons, on my brand new machine with a RTX card, performances were abysmal.
 
Joined
Nov 4, 2007
Messages
1,274
Location
Quebec city
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom