WWWest-Online Development Blog

In our last post, Ashahell suggested a nice little twist on the ascension question – ascension through progeny. We think it’s a pretty cool concept – gives a bit more of a “logical” feel to the whole ascension thing (which, let’s face it, has never made much sense). So every character will have its own skillset to expand and work on, and starting from a certain age (read: rank) they will be able to find a mate and have a baby, which will be the “ascended” character. The offspring will have a starting skillset based in some manner on its parents’ skillsets (though, since we haven’t even brought up the topic of traits, skills and skillsets, that’s not saying much…).

Some points to ponder:

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Another thing about character advancement is what the character does when it hits the level cap. What I’m talking about here is ascension. Once again, a little info for the uninitiated: Some games have an “extra” feature beyond leveling, and that’s ascension. What it means is that once a character reaches a certain level it has the option to ascend. This doesn’t have to apply only to level-based games with level caps – the character doesn’t have to ascend – the player could keep playing it to hunt for loot (if there’s a cap) or keep leveling it (if there is no cap), but the option to ascend will be given. Ascension usually means that the character goes back to level 1, but with certain bonuses. It could be slightly higher stats, or faster xp gains, or retaining a certain skill. It could basically be anything.

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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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