Nexus War
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Nexus War | |
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| Developer(s) | Brandon "jorm" Harris |
| Designer(s) | Brandon "jorm" Harris |
| Latest version | Beta 1.3.1: December 6, 2006 |
| Release date(s) | Beta 1.0.0: May 22, 2006 |
| Genre(s) | MMORPG |
| Mode(s) | Multiplayer |
| Platform(s) | Web browser |
Nexus War is a free browser-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game created by Californian game designer Brandon Harris, also known as Jorm. The game was released into open beta on May 22, 2006, and is currently at version 1.3.1. As of November 22, 2006 there were 27,981 unique accounts making up the player base.
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[edit] Story
Player characters are souls plucked from across the universe and placed on the fictional island archipelago of St. Germaine, in the Bermuda Triangle. The archipelago was completely destroyed by Hurricane Melissa, a category five, on September 17th, 2007; the islands were swept off to Valhalla, one of several alternate planes of existence, which include Paradise, Purgatorio, and Stygia. It is at this point where players create their characters; they are souls in Valhalla, fighting for whatever cause with which they align themselves.
The warfare is overseen by nine elder powers, referred to as Those who Sit in Judgement, in an effort to determine the dominant morality of the next universe. The wars are not isolated, but rather proceed in cycles; when one is exhausted, another begins with the dominant morality and power ascendant.
Further backstory along with information on St. Germaine and the various planes of the Nexus is detailed in the game's Wiki. [1]
[edit] Gameplay
Nexus War was inspired by an earlier game called Urban Dead, and uses similar gameplay mechanics. Characters in the game receive action points which are used to perform nearly all actions in the game, those unfamiliar with such, would be advised to look at the adventure system on the well known Kingdom of Loathing or Attack turns on games like outwar or Urban Dead.
The action point economy is tick based, with a player able to take a maximum of 96 actions every day - action points regenerate at the rate of 1 per 15 minutes. With a maximum for low level characters of 50, this allows a player to play twice in a day.
Gameplay features include a variety of weaponry from pump-action shotguns to chainsaws to tire irons; abilities, including casting spells, summoning creatures, and repairing worn armour and weapons; bonuses for exploration and certain achievements; skill trees that branch and encourage factional play; and a point system affecting a character's morality.
As characters in the game progress, every action they perform is weighed against the grand scale of Good and Evil, and even unaligned characters will find that they lean towards one side or the other. Eventually, they will be forced to make a choice as to which side they support and fight for it. Angelic, Demonic and Neutral characters can choose from a range of morality-based classes, each of which has class specific skills, bonuses and abilities. For example, the Advocate class, on the side of good, can manifest the Song of the Word, which can prove fatal to all evil characters who hear it. Void Walkers, an evil class, can walk through walls and float across other obstacles. The Wizard, a neutral class, specialises in powerful magics.
The game is heavily faction-based; players start out as mortal characters, with the later possibility of playing Angelic, Demonic, or unaligned characters. Factional warfare is a large part of gameplay, with factions and factional alliances sometimes consisting of hundreds of players conducting organised raids on each other for honour and ingame bonuses.
The game's world consists of several large areas populated entirely with Player characters called planes, aligned to various moralities. The main area of the game, St. Germaine, is also known as Valhalla. It is unaligned, and most of the game's action takes place on this plane's island archipelago. Other planes are the good-aligned Paradise, the evil-aligned Stygia and the neutral Purgatorio.
[edit] Further Development
Since the game is still in beta, new aspects of gameplay continue to be added, and present ones extended. The most prevalent example of this is the addition of new skills to the game's skill trees. Other recent additions include the mob Dragon Ukkhur-Makkhai, that roams the plane of Stygia and is virtually indestructible. Another recent addition allowed factions to spend accumulated honor to upgrade their strongholds. Plans for further mobs include a troll that will roam the plane of Purgatorio, and an Iron Juggernaut that will roam the plane of Paradise. A fifth plane, the Deadlands, is also planned, as well as extensions to both Stygia and Paradise. Aspects such as the game's honor and karma systems occasionally come up for review for balance tweaking, as (more rarely) do details of spells and skills.
