Roma Victor
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| Roma Victor | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | RedBedlam www.redbedlam.com |
| Publisher(s) | RedBedlam |
| Designer(s) | Kerry Fraser-Robinson |
| Platform(s) | Windows |
| Release date | July 2006 |
| Genre(s) | Historical MMORPG |
| Mode(s) | Multiplayer |
| System requirements | Windows
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| Input methods | Keyboard, mouse |
Roma Victor is a historically authentic MMORPG based on the Roman Empire in the latter half of the second century AD. Roma Victor is being developed by RedBedlam Ltd. of Brighton and Hove, England.
Roma Victor was released by RedBedlam on July 14 2006, with pre-order customers being let in 2 weeks earlier (June 30 2006).
The in-game world is currently a 30 x 30 km representation of a section along Hadrian's Wall, including several small villages and Roman forts.
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[edit] Subscription Details
The game uses a variant of the Micropayment economic model, which consists of buying in-game currency (known as sesterces) with real money.
Unlike Entropia Universe and Second Life which both have similar revenue models, it is not possible to exchange virtual currency earned in-game into real world money.
[edit] Guilds
Guilds are player associations, or "clans" and form the basis of much of the social structure in Roma Victor.
Guilds in Roma Victor are exclusively made up of players - the numbers can be augmented by NPC members, which can be hired and assigned to various roles and tasks by the higher ranking guild members, perhaps protecting the guild's property, carrying out assignments or simply acting as a merchant on behalf of the guild.
Every player also has their own Household. Household is the collective term applied to all the buildings and NPCs owned, employed and/or run by an individual player.
There can be many buildings and NPCs within a household and using the planned built-in household management interface a player can set entry fees on their property, assign NPCs to act as merchants or guards, summon NPCs as an escort, hire and dismiss staff etc.
[edit] Playable Area and Factions
There are two factions in Roma Victor, the Romans and the barbarians.
Since November 2006, the playable area encompasses the southeastern portion of Caledonia which is termed in-game as a playfield. As discussed by RedBedlam, there are further plans to expand this playable area and to create other playfields in different regions of the ancient world, if the server population should ever increase enough to warrant such extensions. These may include playfields such as Germania, Hispania, Italy and Gaul.
The playfield is divided in boards, areas with the size of one square kilometer in a 1:1 scale to the real world. Some of these boards can be built upon by players, but most are composed of uninhabitable wilderness. However, with the new guildhalls system, it is possible to claim those areas. These boards represent the historical locations of Roman colonies and forts, although creative license was used to create fictitious places. The transition of travel between these boards is seamless, since all boards are currently located on the same server.
In the current state of the game, the Romans live begin in the ancient major regional town of Corstopitum over which modern Corbridge lies. There are also scattered player-made settlements close to the Hadrian's Wall including a settlement in the fictitious area named Villa Longinus. More and more player-made settlements are now being made with the guildhall system.
The Barbarians live mainly in areas north the Wall, spread out in various small settlements, including the realistic Cilurnum which is based on Chesters. Barbarians begin in the village of Erring, which is just north of Corstopitum.
Below is a list of the ethnicities that you can choose when creating your character. In the future, more may be implemented. There are no bonuses or differences between the ethnicities, they are there for purely roleplay purpose.
Arab (Greco-Aramaic) Arabia
Armenian Armenia
Assyrian Assyria
Carthaginian Carthage
Celtic Briton Britannia
Celtic Caledonian Caledonia
Celtic Gaul Gaul
Dacian Dacia
Egyptian Egypt
Germanic Germania
Germanic Latin Germania
Greek Roman Greece
Hispanic Latin Hispania
Italic Latin Italy
Jew Judea
Mesopotamian Mesopotamia
Nubian Nubia
Parthian Parthia
Pictish Caledonian Caledonia
Spartan Sparta
Syrian Syria
Thracian Thracia
[edit] Combat and PvP
Roma Victor features real-time combat, which is largely decided by character skills similar to the character 'levels' found in most MMOs. However, unlike some other games, there are several tricks that are harder to pull off than just pushing a button. Timing and tactics also play a big role in your character's survival.
Roma Victor has hitboxes for each bodypart on a player, so that clicking the attack button while aiming the mouse on a particular part of an opponent's body will attempt to hit exactly that part of the body. After the character's automatic chance to evade the attack based on skill numbers, the attack damage will be applied to the hit points in that bodypart if the calculations failed. In this way, a player can repeatedly click at the weak or unarmoured parts on an opponent.
The opponent's shield is another hitbox of this type. Some believe it to be better to avoid hitting the shield as it protects the person being attacked at all times, due to the fact that it blocks blows aimed at it. However, others believe it is a good tactic to attack someone's shield in attempt to break it - which would render the attacker's opponent vulnerable to their block side and more.
[edit] Death and the afterlife
When the hitpoints of a particular bodypart reach zero, the player will become incapacitated. When incapacitated (ie. knocked out) in combat, the player's character does not necessarily die straight away. He will be unconscious on the ground for a certain time (it varies), unless someone administers basic aid or a killing blow. If someone administers first aid, the player will be back on his feet and ready to fight in a few seconds. If a deathblow is administered, then the player is taken away from the combat to Elysium, a small area for dead players. In Elysium, the player must walk toward an NPC that will return him to a designated spawn-in spot on the main gameworld. If a player was deathblown and has high skills, they may suffer decay. Player kills deal more skill loss then other forms of death.
Being deathblown is not the only way to die in Roma Victor. The current other forms of dying include drowning in a river if you run out of vigour whilst still swimming, bleeding to death after receiving a fatal wound without proper medical treatment, and of course suicide. If a player wishes to suicide in the game, they can do so at any time. One attribute (Muscle, Vision, Agility, Dexterity, Intuition or Stamina) will be completely zeroed.
[edit] Roman Provincial Law
Certain areas are well-policed by NPC representatives of Roman law, such as legionaries, who will attempt to uphold the law and prevent violence. In Roman settlements, it is impossible to break the laws, while in others a player can attempt it at his own risk, since the NPC guards will, regardless of location, know of the act and respond later. The offending player will receive a "badge" upon his character which will be removed upon death, or after a set amount of time.
Barbarians north of Hadrian's Wall are beyond the reach of the law altogether, so the barbarian lands are effectively a full PvP environment. However, a player running through the barbarian villages killing everyone that he sees will likely end his run very quickly by being killed by a different, more experienced, player or group of players.
[edit] Crafting
Roma Victor features a complex crafting system, in which it is possible to find a huge amount of resources and components that can be put together using the hundreds of related skills. Currently many, although not all, of the skills are implemented and ready for use.
Every item in the Roma Victor universe has a current quality level (1-99) and a maximum quality level (2-99). The higher the maximum quality, the longer it will last. If one forgets to repair the item and it reaches 0/xx, it will break and be lost. A warning of breakage is issued randomly when quality reaches a low level.
[edit] Construction
Construction is largely the same as crafting, only with the greater need of materials and skills.
When building anything from simple devices through to complex buildings like roundhouses, it is important to have a ready supply of skilled labour and a good supply chain to finish the job. NPC labourers can be hired to speed up the entire process, however it is possible for individual players to also provide a helping hand. Labourers can also "bulk-add" handcart-loads full of easy-to-add items, such as firewood, or even bricks to lengthly projects.
Roma Victor features an open-ended 'sandbox'-style environment in which players can rent structures to live in, build their own, or let them out to other players. Any structure can be set as public or private.
The construction is basically divided between devices and structures.
Devices are necessary in order to craft items, such as tools and weapons. Furnaces, forges, and kilns are examples of currently implemented devices.
Structures are basically buildings that may serve as housing, storage areas and advanced crafting workshops. Presently the only buildable player-made structures are roundhouses, extremely labour-intensive albeit lasting huts built mostly out of large quantities of dung, clay and mud.
In the upcoming updates, RedBedlam has stated it will be possible to build more stone buildings than currently possible.
[edit] Skills & Abilities
There are no character levels in Roma Victor. However there is a 'skill' tree[1] which replaces this function.
Character development in Roma Victor is designed to simulate real life. That is, if a player wishes to improve his woodcutting skill, he has to go out in the woods and cut some trees down. From those trees, he can then extract sticks and turn them into handles to train his preparing skill. Those handles can then be used by a smith to make simple tools.
All skills are measured on a rating of 0 to 99 points. A player needs at least one point in the skill in order to improve it further. To get this first point he can buy a varying amount of points from an NPC, or ask another player to teach him up to 17 points.
Most items can be made and used by anyone, however there are certain items, like the platemail lorica segmentata [2] that can only be made and worn by legionaries. Several items, like the hideshirt [3] can only be made and worn by barbarians. There are no level or skill restrictions, but the resulting item quality suffers greatly when a person is not a master in the required skills to produce the item. A player wishing to make high quality items must train his skills by practising menial tasks requiring that skill. Roma Victor has its own wiki with more details on how best to engage in this training in the cheapest and easiet manner, however it is subject to player opinion.
Combat skills are structured in a similar manner, in that an untrained character is very unlikely to win in a fair fight against a highly-trained character, regardless of player skill and reflexes. A character automatically dodges and parries incoming strikes based on randomized calculations on the server, although blocking with a shield has both an automatic calculation and will happen if the opponent accidentally clicks on the player's shield. Roma Victor is not an FPS game heavily reliant on player skill, although some calm and dexterity at the mouse does help in combat, since players must carefully target their opponents as they move about. It is also possible to disarm an opponent's weapon during a fight, in which you knock their weapon out of their hand.
[edit] Historical Authenticity
In several areas the game world is based on real world archaeological data.
The RedBedlam team and the Roma Victor community have invested several years of research into bringing historical authenticity of this world. Some buildings follow the correct floor-plans; equipment and clothing is appropriate for the period and region; crafting activities are similar to the steps taken in ancient production - much of the world is based upon what is known and commonly believed about life in second century Europe.
A recent visit by the whole development team to the ruins of the Chesters fort[4] has shown that the ingame fort very much resembles to the one that stood there in 180AD.
Not everything is so authentic though. For gameplay purposes several adjustments have been made, like adding an iron mine to the area. Additionally some of the structures in the fort of Brocolitia, such as the Mithraeum and the Nymphaeum, do not represent the actual finds in those locations for the covered time period of the game, however this is all for the sake of gameplay.
[edit] The Natural Environment
Roma Victor features SpeedTreeRT. SpeedTree generates species of tree and other plant life that existed in 2nd century AD Caledonia. RedBedlam has stated that they are hoping to add some new features such as using authentic terrain topology in which the hills, rivers, flora and valleys of the 2nd century British landscape are brought back to life.
Wind effects are not fully implemented yet. However, rain and snow effects are implemented and working.
Dynamic lighting has slowly been implemented over time as torches and fires help the player to see when travelling at night.
[edit] Criticisms
Unfinished and Missing Features
Many customers and reviewers of Roma Victor have noted that the game was released to the public before many of its advertised pre-launch features could be added in. These included unfinished features in all areas from combat, to crafting, to social activities like playing musical instruments and being able to sit down on a chair. Below is a partial list of the advertised pre-launch features that continue to be missing as of January 2008.
- 30x60 km playing field with large city of Luguvalium
- Mounted combat
- Land conquest features (to an extent)
- Economy that functions correctly
- Social activities and services like hairstyling, musicians, jewelry, tattoos
- Less emphasis on grinding than other games.
- Unique and detailed afterlife called Elysium
All these features were advertised pre-launch in a Jan. 2005 status report and in other posts on the RV public forums, and continued to be advertised on the website.
Performance Issues
Some players play the game on systems far above requirements and have experienced poor performance. Roma Victor can demand a great deal of memory at times, however it has been much improved and will player's systems will only eat up a lot of memory if a large amount of excessive particle effects are created simultaneously.
Customer Service and Relations
RedBedlam has been accused of ignoring their customer base sometimes, however their service on the whole is quite good and they do stay in contact with their community as much as possible. There are often quiet times, but they are usually trying to work on something.
Large feature implementations, such as 'The Escalation' [5] [6] were delayed for a considerable amount of time. On the other hand, the lead developer is sometimes seen on the forum discussing ideas and there have also been several notable occasions where the developers have gone out of their way to help community members and implement community-suggested features almost immediately.[7] [8].
Occasionally, the developers have also appeared to knowingly misrepresent their product and its development status, often claiming a feature is almost ready to be put in, despite a year later the absence of that feature. Notably, the playerbase was informed a sudden 'data corruption' on the eve of release. This corruption allegedly destroyed the completely finished 30x60 km playing field that had been created for the full release version. The playerbase was presented with a poll whether they wanted to play the old 10x10 km² test playfield by the original deadline for release, or to wait two more weeks for the larger area to be remade and for the addition of a dozen types of animals. The playfield a year later remains under 30x60 km², however this is not a problem as the 30x30 km² playerbase has not even been completely utilised yet.
Since release, their forums are often host to complaints that they are slow in issuing refunds, and their system for buying accounts has quite often double-billed the customer.
Gameplay Issues
Combat has been described as being overly-reliant on the 'skill level' of the character, so that a low-level character finds it almost impossible to hit a character with a high 'Dodge' skill, for example. These skills are not easy to train up, and players have many different methods which can seem very tedious.
Because of this preparatory grinding, criticism of the lack of 'twitch'-based combat training has surfaced among PvPers. The crafting system also has a similar grind and level-based approach as the fighting system, but with less resistance since perhaps it does not draw any players used to fast-action games, such as FPS games. However, it does reflect a trial-and-error simulation of increasing your knowledge of that skill.
Critical Reception
The above and other criticisms led to an infamously low rating in the August 2006 issue of PCZone. Roma Victor scored only 8 out of a possible 100 points, securing the dubious distinction of the lowest rating that PCZone had ever given a game. One later reviewer disagreed slightly with PCZone's earlier appraisal. TenTonHammer[9] gave RV a score of 2.5 out of 5[10].
