Shartak
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shartak is a web-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game set on an mysterious island based on Hispaniola where natives and outsiders hunt and explore.
From the game's main page:
For several hundred years the island of Shartak has been populated by three native tribes from the villages Dalpok, Raktam and Wiksik. More frequently in recent weeks, strangers known to the natives as "outsiders" are appearing on their island wearing odd looking clothes and carrying flashing boxes and loud sticks. Initially the strangers kept to the coastline and out of the jungle, but now they're getting adventurous and heading inland towards the villages. It won't be long before they stumble across the villages and learn of the treasures of the tribal ancestors.
In addition to players, Shartak contains non-player characters in the form of animals. Tigers, wild boars, parrots, monkeys, and many other creatures roam the island's jungles and savannahs. Besides the animals, each village contains a shaman who can revive player characters after death. The outsider villages each have a native shaman; within the context of the game world, this is explained as the result of earlier raids on native villages wherein these shamans were taken captive by the colonists.
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[edit] Character classes
Players may choose to play as a Shartak native or an "outsider", seemingly modeled on European colonists and pirates of the 1600 and 1700s. Natives come from one of the three villages mentioned above, and native characters may choose from one of four occupations: Scout, Warrior, Villager, and Shaman. Outsiders may be one of four types of settlers (Explorer, Soldier, Settler, and Scientist, roughly corresponding to the native classes) from one of three settlements: Durham, York, and Derby. An additional fifth class was added in March 2006: the Pirate. Pirates come from a shipwreck on the northern rim of the island.
[edit] Gameplay
Characters receive a steady trickle of "Action Points" (APs), which are used up any time they move, fight, or undertake any other sort of activity. They receive one AP every twenty minutes, up to a maximum of seventy-five points. When a character's AP total drops to or below zero, that character is unable to do anything until their total AP is positive again. The use of Action Points as a realtime limit on character actions is similar to the systems of several other browser-based MMORPGs, including Kingdom of Loathing and Urban Dead.
As players damage their opponents, kill animals, or perform certain other actions, they gain experience points (XP), which can be exchanged to acquire new skills. A character's first skill costs 100 XP, its next 125 XP, its third 150 XP, and so on. The number of skills attained is equivalent to a player's level.
Shartak has a limited form of economy - commerce takes place at trading posts (operated by NPCs) which exist in all outposts and villages, or with wandering traders, and players can exchange gold coins with each other, although cannot directly exchange items.
[edit] Comparison to Urban Dead
Many of the similarities between Urban Dead and Shartak have been noted above; both similarities and differences are summarized here for easy reference.
[edit] Similarities
- Free to play, browser-based, top-down tiled game
- Characters limited to a certain number of actions per day
- Additionally, IP addresses are limited to a certain number of hits per day, partly to prevent zerging
- Logged-out characters remain on the map and can be targeted by attacks, heals, etc.
[edit] Differences
- Urban Dead map is 100x100 tiles; Shartak map is vastly larger (see below for Shartak UBER MAP Project)
- Shartak characters do not switch sides after death
- Shartak contains NPCs in the form of animals, traders, and shamans
- Shartak skills cost increasingly more XP; Urban Dead skills have a fixed cost (which may vary depending on character class)
