WWWest-Online Development Blog

When one decides to create a game, one of the first things that come to mind is character advancement. At least it was for us. What do I mean by character advancement? Well, looking at several existing games, there seem to be three prevalent choices:

1. Level-based advancement, with level cap. A good example of this approach could be WoW. The basic process in this option is the following: The player’s character gains xp. Every so and so xp, the character advances a level. This is usually accompanied by certain advancements to the character, such as more hitpoints, stat increases, etc, though these advancement may or may not occur every level. In this option, there is a limit to the levels the character can gain (e.g., level 70 in The Burning Crusade) – after hitting that level cap, the character itself ceases to advance, and the player seeks to advance his character by getting better equipment and items for him/her. In addition, each level may unlock new content (e.g., quests, vendors).
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As most of you have probably guessed from the project name, we’re looking to create a western-themed game. Why, you ask? Because 1. Westerns are cool (or at least were when I was a wee little kid) and 2. There doesn’t seem to be a western-themed web-based game out there (though there exists a plethora of middle-east, mafia, pirate, roman and fantasy themed games). So, we have a western-themed game. What else can we tell you about it? Not much . This is one of the reasons we put up the devblog: To see what’s wanted.

We’ve got a general concept in mind, of what we would like to see in these games, but since this project is aimed at giving everyone else another game to play, we figured it’d be better to ask, lest we end up making a game that is either too complicated or too simple, too easy or too hard, etc. So once this here blog has a few subscribers (or at least readers) we’ll be asking you things. Things like “What’s your favorite color?”. Well, no, not really things like that. But we will be asking you things relevant to the game – things about the combat system, character advancement system, etc.

But not yet

Krazny

If you’ve been playing web-based RPG’s for any length of time, you’ve probably noticed that except for a select few, they are all the same. A couple of shops with generic weapons, a couple of items, a couple of secondary things you can click on, but mostly what they all boil down to is a single button which you click until you run out of turns, and hope you get lucky. Because there’s no thought involved.
Just mind-numbing repetition.

We’ve noticed the same, and we’ve decided to try and give another alternative. Our goal is to put another web-based RPG out there, but one that doesn’t begin and end with clicking the same thing 100 times a day. One that isn’t entirely based on luck. We want to field an interesting game, one that has some content, and quests; a game that will provide the player with some amusement, instead of just a mindless grind.

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