Info Release #2

Here’s an assortment of a bunch of the new rules and assets that have gone into Battle recently. There’s a lot more than just this, but we want to preserve most of the surprises for you when you start playing. These are just to give you a feel for what we’re doing.

Monsters

Here is a sampling of some of the critters you’ll find in the Zen Garden area outside of Barton Town

• Kokeshi Doll: Seemingly small and
  innocent, these toy dolls have become
  twisted. Watch what they carry. They
  are NOT your fans.

• Ghost Lantern: Each evening after sunset, these disembodied flames hover in the night air. Why? That would be telling. (And this is just the floating flame right now... not the actual monster.)

There are other opponents in this area, of course, but we’re not revealing everything yet so that there are still some surprises when you play the game.

NPCs

Of course, this area also has its own unique NPCs, as well.

• Katsumi : This lonely and slightly detached girl tends the shrine in the area. Solitary for many reasons, she is reserved and quiet, speaking rarely and only to those she has come to trust.

• Ninjas : There is a Ninja Enclave deep within the forests to the west. These ninjas have been known to help the Barton Town council with issues from time to time, in return for the sufferance of the Town’s guards. They have had many conflicts with the Pirates of the Shallow Sea and have run afoul of G-Corp and its plans on several occasions.

Area Concepts

No actual screenshots this time, but the actual game reality is very close to the painting shown below. The Zen Garden area is to the west of Barton Town and is home to the Wish Tree, the Shrine, and the entrance to the Ninja Enclave.

Click on thumbnail for a larger view.

Zen shrine

The World Alive!

Monsters and NPCs are all good, but the world would feel static with nothing else moving in it. So each area has lots of “environmental” critters in it to help breathe life into it.

Here are a few examples:

Crafted Items!

As you journey through the world, dispatching monsters and resolving quests, you’ll pick up various strange items in your inventory. These items can be exchanged into other (more useful) clothing or house items.

As an example, here’s an illustration of a girl wearing the ninja-to (straight sword), ninja-yoroi top and bottom, and the ninja hood…all of which can be crafted from monster loot items.



(We’ll be releasing info about HOW to craft these items later on. For now, we just wanted to show you that there will be lots of opportunity to make things that you’ll find cool and useful.)

Battle Rings

The movie shown below shows each of the four Rage Ranks of the Mantis Ring. We’ve released this information so you gain a more visual understanding of how Rage XP translates into cooler, more powerful effects as you gain Rage Ranks. (This really is the tip of the iceberg. Even cooler examples will be released in the future.)

Rules Elaborations

There are lots of things still to explain about the Gaia Battle MMO. We’ll introduce those topics a bit at a time as we get closer to Launch, but for now, here are a few of the topics that have been most asked about on the forums.

The Agony of Defeat
So... what happens when you are defeated in combat?

Well, to explain that fully, you first have to realize that each game zone is divided up into rooms. Each room is one full screen. If you get to the edge of a room, you transition to the next room. Now that this is (hopefully) clear, we can explain the rest.

Every character has a health meter. When the health meter goes to zero, you are knocked out (or “Dazed” as we say in-game). When you are Dazed, you can’t use any Ring skills, but you can move around (slowly). You only stay Dazed for a finite number of seconds, but long enough that it’s a real inconvenience, especially if you’re standing there watching your friends get destroyed while you are Dazed.

Of course, there are Rings that can Awaken you from a Dazed state, so your friends can help, if they are available.

And, if you’re stuck in a situation that’s just not going to get better (for instance, you got Dazed by a group of monsters that are still standing next to you, waiting for you to become un-Dazed so they can knock you out again), you can always choose to teleport back to the nearest Moonfield instead of staying Dazed.

Are there any other penalties for being Dazed? Yes. There will be at least one more penalty that reduces the rings you have available to use for a time after you Awake, but we’re preserving the details on that until after we get more time to test the concept in-game.

And lastly, if you teleport to a Moonfield (instead of waiting to become un-Dazed), you do not suffer any additional penalties.

Gaining XP with Rings
Simply put, you gain experience with an active Ring by using that Ring.

You healed another player that was hurt? Then you got XP with that Ring. You damaged a monster? Then you got XP with that Ring also. You created an area of flaming doom? Then you get XP with it every time that area causes damage to a critter.

Non-active rings (like stat bonuses or other passive effects) are never Ranked, which isn’t a problem because you wouldn’t be able to “use them” at different Rage Ranks anyway (no way to trigger them). However, you can still upgrade the Quality of those Rings through upgrades.

(NOTE: We were going to discuss Quality upgrades in this info release, but we’d like to do a bit more playtesting before we release those details, so we’re holding off on that for now and releasing other information instead.)

Using Rings
So you’re wearing four different Battle Rings, and you want to know how to use them?

It’s easy. Click on a monster and it’s now selected. Click on a Ring icon in your action bar, and that ring’s effect will be triggered. It’s that simple.

We also have hotkeys, of course. For instance, you can hit F1-F8 to trigger the matching Ring on your action bar, or you can hit TAB to select the next monster in sequence.

There are also some advanced combat options that you can try out to make the process of monster selection and ring triggering even easier, but we’ll leave the details of that for another day.

Additionally, every time you use a Ring, you acquire a small bit of Exhaustion. If your Exhaustion bar ever fills completely, you won’t be able to use other Rings until you’ve rested for a bit. You can rest (slowly) by simply not doing anything, or you can Kneel and reduce Exhaustion more quickly. Of course, you’re completely exposed while Kneeling, so if you’re hit, you’ll suffer a lot of damage... so be careful.