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 verall, 2003 has been a good year for the development of Ages of Athiria.
We experienced some personnel turnover, which is never a good thing, but also made some significant positive additions.
So the future still looks bright.
We continue making investment contacts, although this process has gone slower than we would have liked.
But, this is the way business sometimes works, and since we don't have the gold we can't make the rules. *chuckle*
Between now and the 2004 Game Developer Conference we should be able to pitch our project at least a couple of times, and it is our hope that the new year brings good tidings.
Considering the recent upswing in the stock market and generally brighter outlook for the future, we're naturally hoping some of that optimism falls our way.
In any event, as soon as we have something significant to report, you, our loyal fans, will be the first to be informed.
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 he launch of my.AgesOfAthiria.com went very smoothly.
We now have 4500+ registered fans and the number grows everyday.
While that may not seem like a ton of registrations, consider that we've been openly honest about our funding situation and haven't pushed hard into advertising because of this.
There are days where I wish we had the Star Wars license so that we could show investors 150,000 registered players waiting in the wings to play the game.
Regardless, the grassroots, word-of-mouth following that the game has built to date is significant. Thank you!
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 n an effort to continue to provide more in-depth information into the world of Athiria, this newsletter contains an article on our Knowledge and Skill system, a continuation of the Outpost Truskar story from the previous newsletter, and the announcement of a couple of additional playable races.
After the New Year, myAoA will get some enhancements and additional content.
There will be more descriptive information about Knowledge, Subjects, Topics, Foci, and Skills appearing in the Reference section of myAoA.
The future still looks bright for the game and the coming months should be exciting.
As always, stay abreast of the latest developments in the world of Athiria by registering a free account.
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- Kressilac |
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Knowledge and Skills |
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Knowl*edge - n. : Familiarity or understanding gained through experience or study. |
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Skill - n. : Proficiency that is acquired or developed through training or experience. |
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 hen discussing skill systems in game design, I think it is important to understand the difference between the two nouns above. Many designers will see the word experience and derive that skill and knowledge are very closely related. So much so, that they are well enough served when represented as a single number. I'd like to make the case that this shouldn't be and explore how Ages of Athiria implements its knowledge and skill system.
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 s I look at the words above, what strikes me as significant is not the end of the definitions, but the first word in each sentence. Familiarity is different from proficiency. Familiarity implies understanding and comprehension. Proficiency implies the ability to do something. These are different concepts as far as I am concerned and I think Ages of Athiria can put this difference to good use.
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Knowledge |
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f knowledge is what we learn through study and experience then lets label it as such. For instance, let's look a bit closer at becoming familiar with brawling. In Ages of Athiria we group knowledge into a set of categories with three levels. At the highest level we have a Subject. A Subject is a very broad grouping of more specialized knowledge. "Melee Combat" is a subject area. Within the subject area of Melee Combat we have many more focused Topics. One of those Topics might be "Hand to Hand". Topics are more narrow categories of a broad Subject Area and they help to further categorize knowledge. Finally we have a third level of the knowledge tree called a Focus. This would create a tree such as the following:
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| Melee Combat | - (SUBJECT) Close ranged combat involving weapons or brawling techniques. |
| Hand-to-Hand | - (TOPIC) Close range combat without the aid of weapons. |
| Punching | - (FOCUS) Using the hands or upper body apendages to inflict damage upon an enemy. |
| Kicking | - (FOCUS) Using the legs and feet to inflict damage upon an enemy. |
| Tactics | - (FOCUS) Combining the use of the other foci into a consolidated attack on an enemy or defense of an enemy attack. |
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n Ages of Athiria, each of these knowledge levels can have a rating of 0 (no understanding) to 100+ (a masterful level of understanding). Knowledge is learned in three ways and a character has no limit on the total knowledge ratings one can attain. Thinking to today we have some very bright individuals that seem to have no end to their capacity to understand the world around them. Looking at the example above, as one gains general knowledge of Melee Combat they become capable of understanding Hand to Hand Combat techniques when a specific threshold of Melee Combat is reached. Many of these knowledge trees will be available from the outset and not require any prerequisite knowledge to begin to learn. However, more advanced subjects, topics, and foci might have more stringent requirements. The sample above is obviously a simple example in that anyone can throw a punch or learn to throw a punch. More detailed specifics will be released to the web site under the Skill System reference page.
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 haracters gain ranks in the various knowledge levels by reading books, and training with other players. Books can be found all over Athiria, can be NPC created or PC created. Each book is rated at one level of the Knowledge Tree. This rating is what governs the amount of knowledge rating gained by reading the book. Like our skill gain formula, the amount of knowledge gain from reading a book will be determined by the relative rating of the book versus your current knowledge rating. A new character picking up a book of Advanced Siege Tactics is not going to get the same Siege Tactics knowledge gain as a seasoned soldier would that is looking to expand his understanding of military combat. The same soldier will not gain Siege Tactics knowledge by repeatedly reading his Siege Tactics handbook given to him in boot camp. Advanced levels of knowledge must be sought out from ancient tomes or other players. Players can teach each other knowledge of Subjects, Topics and Foci. The teacher cannot teach the student more than he or she knows but there is a small chance that in the teaching of the knowledge, the teacher gains a small portion of knowledge as well.
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 astly, every so often a character's knowledge will get to be so advanced that they stand a chance of breaking through a technology barrier. When a character gains more than 100 rating points of knowledge in a given Focus, they stand a chance of unlocking a technological improvement. This improvement may unlock other areas of knowledge and/or unlock skills to be used to create new items. Think of this as being akin to the discovery of maritime navigation, alloy creation for metalworking, or advanced farming techniques. That knowledge may not be immediately useful to that character. However, that character will be sought after by cities in an effort to gain an advantage over other cities. Be aware though, knowledge is like water. It will find a way out of even the most restrictive container over time. This means that while a citizen of your city might have discovered maritime navigation, he/she will not be the only one to discover it. The citizen might be the first but it is extremely difficult to keep such advantageous knowledge to ones self.
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Skill |
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hrough skills a character can interact with the world of Athiria. Skills define what a character can do with the knowledge their character possesses. Just because a journeyman thief knows why locks can be picked, does not mean that the same person could actually perform the action of picking a lock. By practicing skills, characters increase their ability to successfully perform actions.
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 kills are grouped into the lowest level of the knowledge tree. When a character gains enough specific knowledge in a given Focus, skills become available for training. Skills are what govern the characters actions in the world. Using the example knowledge tree above, the Melee Combat->Hand-to-Hand Techniques->Punching branch might contain the following skills.
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| Punching | |
| Jab | - A quick punch that does minimal damage. (Min Punching: 0) |
| Roundhouse | - A strong but inaccurate punch that intends to do large amounts of damage. (Min Punching: 0) |
| Elbow Punch | - A punch using the shoulder and the elbow to inflict moderate amounts of damage. This attack can also stun the target for a short duration. (Min Punching: 20) |
| Uppercut | - A skilled punch to the head. This attack is difficult to land and results in a heavy damage attack with additional stun damage. This attack is only effective for higher skilled characters. (Min Punching: 50, Requires Jab: 10) |
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ince our definitions at the beginning of the article indicate that knowledge is gained through experience it makes sense that gaining proficiency with a skill might further our understanding of Melee Combat, Hand-to-Hand or Punching. Every skill, will therefore feedback to knowledge as skill ranks increase. There is a balance issue here that will be resolved in beta but one can expect to see some minimal knowledge tree gains as skills increase that fall under a given branch.
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haracters can gain ranks in skills to increase their ability with that skill. Skill ranks range from 0 to 25+. Remembering the skill testing system described in Newsletter Volume 10 one can see that with each rating of skill a character has, they receive an additional chance for a success during an activity. Skill gain is governed by the relative difficulty of the task being performed versus the current skill rating that the character has resulting in a bell-curved approach to gaining skill. As with knowledge, beating on unskilled opponents will not raise your swordplay very high and will eventually result in no gain at all. Likewise, facing a dragon with a rank 1 sword skill and winning will not make someone anything more than a lucky newbie.
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 nowledge and skill are two separate designs that are linked together to create our skill system. Feel free to discuss the system on our boards at my.AgesofAthiria.com
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 annar chuckled as he thought to himself, "Can't let the Captain get it all!" Winking at Raugin, he ladled out a small serving from the ale barrel. Raugin laughed out loud, "A quick hit for the road, eh lad? Good idea, pour me some too!" Draining their cups, they make a pass through the pantry on the way out to refill their small travel packs with some cheese and dried meat.
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 ast season he was too inexperienced to join an outpost, and there was nothing exciting patrolling close to Rol Wegir. So Hannar was anxious to get out and be an important part of the Hunter's Guild. He felt suffocated living around the capital due to the expectations that followed him as a nephew of King Daerros and son of Orvar, leader of the Hunter's Guild. Wanting none of that attention, he gladly accepted one of the few outpost positions that came available, especially since it meant training under Raugin.
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To view the rest of this story and the other Athirian history, click here.
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here are a multitude of creatures inhabiting the world of Athiria.
Some are big. Others are small. Some have gone extinct. Others have yet to be (re-)discovered. We'll introduce many of these prior to release through story, while others will only be found after the game is released.
As they become known, they will be added to a beastiary Reference section on myAoA.
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nly a few can become playable races.
There's always a practical limit on how many races can be made available to players, so it's extremely hard to predict a final count for Ages of Athiria at release, especially with our funding situation still unresolved.
However, our goal is to provide both something familiar as well as something truly unique.
You've already been introduced to some of the familiar playable races in the Leamen, Silar, Subadi, and Querca.
Some, but not all, of the unique is related to our ability to adapt standard gameplay situations to both underwater and aerial environments.
Only after that work progresses can we get more specific, but at least you now know where we're eventually headed.
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dding to the list of familiar playable races are the Siladra and Ilesar.
You can read about them here.
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