I would like to take this opportunity to thank each of you for signing up for the Ages of Athiria newsletter. It is through this medium that the Ages of Athiria development team will be releasing updates and features about the game. Each version of the newsletter will contain different types of information and other goodies such as:

• new game design features

• interviews with development team members

• featured artwork and music

• and much more...

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See something you like (or dislike) in this newsletter? Let your voice be heard on our new message boards located here: Ages of Athiria Discussion Forums. Your comments, questions, and input are greatly appreciated, and thanks again for your interest in Ages of Athiria!

Yours in Athiria,

Tom DeSanctis
a.k.a. Noonway
Ages of Athiria Development Team
http://www.agesofathiria.com

n Athiria, the players are the main characters of the world, and will have levels of control over their environment that are unique in the massively multi-player segment. You will have a visible impact on the world around you. When a group of players get together they have an option to form a guild. Once many guilds are established, a whole new level of game-play opens up that eventually can lead to player-run cities.

uilds are world recognized and will be registered as a "faction" in the game.  Based on your actions and the actions of your guildmates, NPCs will begin to react to guild members in an appropriate manner.  NPC cities will take notice of prospering guilds and adjust their  dispositions accordingly.  Player killers will lose faction with your guild when they murder a fellow member of your guild.  But, guilds don't stop there.  Leaders of the guild will be able to assign positions, offices and ranks to its guild members.  Every guild will have a vault that can be used to store goods, food, and items for its members.  In this regard an unprecedented level of organizational tools will exist in the game for guilds to use when managing its membership.  Guilds will be able to hire guards, trainers, merchants, and various other NPCs to provide services to its members.  Of course this means that it all needs to be paid for, which gives rise to voluntary and involuntary methods of collecting dues from its members that can be configured as the guild sees fit.  All of this organization will be completely customizable by the guild's leaders.  Commands, privileges, price breaks, dues levels, and much more will be able to be set for each rank of a guild member and/or on a guild-wide basis.  Leaders and officers will have access to in-game reports indicating things like tradeskill breakdown, combat readiness, finance costs, required maintenance, and much more.  Did we mention that guild leaders will be able to design and populate their own quests that will appear in a current or prospective member's quest journal as a system generated quest?  All in all guilds will be so much more than what they represent in most games today increasing the depth of community tremendously.

o you're thinking "That's all fine and dandy but what makes Athiria totally different? This just sounds evolutionary."  Player-run cities are what make Athiria revolutionary.  At some point a guild is going to want to setup residence somewhere.  To do this all you have to do is purchase a guildhouse, find a place to build it and start construction.  As multiple guilds are created in a relatively close area, it will attract merchants from the already established major cities to expand and offer their services abroad.  Do not be surprised to log on one day and find a merchant that has setup shop next door to your newly built guild house.  As more merchants come to town and additional guilds establish residency in the area, your collection of guildhouses and merchants will look more and more like an actual town.  When a certain number of guild houses are completed in an area, the leaders of those guilds will have the option to declare themselves as a village.  Villages will be world recognized and will also be registered as a "faction" with the world.  Now a player killer that murders someone will not only get a faction hit with that guild, but also with that village as well.  When the village is formed, its leaders will have the ability to issue quests, organize a hierarchy to run the village, and assign functions to officers to manage the village's citizens.  It will be possible to establish numerous types of government.  The current design contains Democracy, Republic, Socialist, and Monarchy as its primary government forms. Variations from these base types will be possible giving a wealth of city management options available to the players. As villages grow they become towns, and then they become cities or castles, and eventually they can grow to be sprawling kingdoms.  New gameplay is introduced with the formation of cities in the form of public works.  Cities have the ability to build roads, build government buildings, construct walls, finance siege weapon creation, and hire a military.  As with guilds, reporting and other management tools will be provided to the leaders of these cities to help them effectively manage the city.  Player-run cities are what make Athiria a revolutionary game versus just an evolutionary one.  Player-run cities are what gives purpose to many players lives in the virtual world of Athiria.  The possibilities are virtually boundless.

ith all of these exciting additions to the gameplay of Ages of Athiria, it is easy to see that the world is completely in the hands of its players.  The war between King so-and-so and Tyrant Queen such-in-such may in fact be a war between two of your close friends and the cities they established.  Will you join the struggle, remain neutral to both parties, or will you try to find solace in a more peaceful section of the world?  That is up to you my friend, and only you, for your destiny is in your own hands while you are in Athiria.

This screenshot shows a general idea of what the world of Athiria may look like when players begin to build a village. Would you like to see more artwork?

ressilac (a.k.a. Derek Licciardi, President of Elysian Productions and Producer of Ages of Athiria) recently sat down with me to have a conversation about one of the most unique aspects of "Ages of Athiria", its player versus player game rules.  Much of the system that has been designed centers around player-run cities, player ownership and protecting the gaming experience of players from so-called "grief-players".

Noonway:    Will players be able to combat other players in Athiria?
Kressilac:    As is indicated on our About and FAQ pages, yes, players will be able to attack other players. Doing so, however, will have some potentially severe consequences. Nobody should expect an easy life after murdering another player.

Noonway:    What do you mean murder?
Kressilac:    Athiria has a form of non-lethal combat that is the default action for every character in the game. A player has the ability to turn this action to lethal combat whenever they want. In doing so, they will be able to attempt to kill (and loot if successful), another player’s character. This is allowed only with tremendous consequences that players will be made aware of in documentation and when they start the game. So, to answer your question now, a murder is the nonconsensual killing of another player. In order to murder, a player must turn on their intent to kill while engaged in combat or prior to engaging in combat with another player.

Read the rest of the interview: "Player vs Player in Athiria"