Isles of Arthanos - Multiplayer Elder Scrolls + D&D

Hello everyone! I've been a lurker on these forums for years, I can't begin to explain how excited I am to show you guys what my friend and I have been working on. If you think our game is interesting I encourage you to join our forums and become part of the community.

Website : www.islesofarthanos.com
Twitter : http://twitter.com/peakwaysoftware

LATEST MEDIA

Isles Of Arthanos is a first-person medieval multiplayer fantasy game where players can design their own worlds and share them with the community. This is an indie game being developed with Unity5 by Peakway Software, a small independent company that currently consists of two people.

The goal of this game is to provide a fun RPG experience with optional cooperative gameplay and a massive amount of replay value. Isles Of Arthanos has two levels of "mod support." The first level is the world editor that comes as part of the game itself and not additional software. These are the same tools we use to build the game, so players will be able to design their own wolds without knowing game development techniques by using the tools and assets we provide them. The second level is more traditional mod support where players can add their own custom art and gameplay functionality via scripting.

We believe in the power of creative players and understand the importance of a multiplayer community. Because of this, we are going to be very open with our community about the development of Isles Of Arthanos and very active with our fanbase. Every week we will be streaming the game's development on twitch and you can get in touch with us through our forums and social media pages. Please feel free to join our forums and community, we want to hear your feedback!


These are just a few of the screenshots, there are many more on the website. (www.islesofarthanos.com)



Features

World Editor


The world editor is a robust toolset that allows players to design their own worlds and game experiences. These worlds can be shared and downloaded among the community. Players don't need to download any additional software in order to create levels, the world editor is part of the game itself. Seamlessly drop in and play a level while you are building it at the push of a button.



Mod Support



With mod support players can create their own unique art assets and gameplay with third-party tools and scripting.



Cooperative Multiplayer



Isles Of Arthanos allows for many different cooperative experiences that depend on how the level is designed. Some levels can resemble an open world coop experience with many quests, a smaller horde style coop experience with side-quests, or even large raid style content. The scale of the coop experience depends on the level design.



Skill Based Gameplay



Gear and stats are not the sole determining factor of success in Isles Of Arthanos. Players will have to use strategy and skill based battle tactics in order to defeat enemies. A simple example of this would be blocking just before an enemy strikes to negate the damage.



No Insane Grinding



We don't believe in forcing players to do tedious tasks in order to progress their character. Characters will level up and reach their maximum stats fast, the main form of progression comes from learning new skills and abilities in the world and combining them into unique strategies that may or may not prove to be effective.



Enhanced Skill Progression



When a player learns a new skill or ability they will not automatically be an expert in that skill. Each skill will have its own skill tree that can be leveled up with skill points and used in different ways. For example, a fire spell may have 5 different categories to pour skill points into. Common categories for a fireball spell would be projectile range, area of effect damage, burn damage over time, regular damage, and reduced mana costs. You could spend a lot of skill points on a fireball spell and cast the ultimate fireball, or you could spend less and cast a very specific type of fireball useful for a specific type of situation. Players do not have an infinite amount of skill points, this prevents a character from being an expert in all skills. Players will be able to forget skills they do not want anymore and will then have to earn more skill points to invest in something else. Skill points are independent from a characters level and can be earned after a player reaches max level. They can no longer be earned once a character has reached the maximum amount of points allowed. Everyone has their limits.

 

While I haven't read through the entire post because, in all honesty, it's just not the type of game I think I'd play, I do have to say that the game looks fantastic.

Edit: To expound upon this, I didn't mean anything against the game's description or anything. I have a full-time job, a 7 month old at home, and am working on my own projects in my minimal free time, so I'm disinclined to get involved in any multiplayer games, really.

This does seem like a game that a ton of people would enjoy.

 

The game looks beautiful.
Oddly - there seems to be some kind of camera distortion in the images you provided. The two images with the character in them - the character has a noticeable camera distortion - his head is oblong instead of rounded. What is causing this distortion?

 

I don't think it's the camera itself causing any distortion since the rest of the environment doesn't appear to be distorted to me. Maybe a little bit with the bridge image because the character is close to the edge of the screen. More than likely my proportions for his head are just a little off. But thanks for the input!

 

Really like the direction the game is going in. It would be nice to see some character artwork as well. Is there a narrative to the game that is tied into main zones which you'll create? Or is it more pure exploration of user created zones?

 

For the next two weeks I'm going to be working on interior building stuff and a bit more environment work, after that I will be working on the customizable characters/NPCs and their clothing and armor sets.

So we will definitely provide a base game that will tell its own narratives. They won't be linking together though. So no global conflicts or "chosen one" type of stories. Basically each island will have its own problems and conflicts that stay within itself. You can chain islands and levels together for bigger scale questlines but there won't be any sort of issues that involve all the islands or levels. We are doing it this way so that players can't mess up our continuity with their quests but at the same time they can make quests that fit in with the rest of the game so that it doesn't feel weird for the other players.

 

Hey everyone! I wanted to inform you all that my Twitch channel is up and I'm going to be streaming the game's development 30+ hours a week. So please feel free to drop in, hangout, and ask any questions you may have.

Twitch Channel : http://www.twitch.tv/paperbagcrusher

 

Hello everyone, we've been doing a lot of work on interiors and even re worked a lot of the building system. Here's some screenshots from the environment I made in game on our twitch stream.

 

Hey man,

Nice looking game.
Cool to see many Village Interiors Kit prop elements and a few Village Exteriors Kit building elements making it into this good looking title.

Keep up the good work

Cheers
Cobus

 

Uploaded a video showing some of the terrain and biome features, going to probably upload one showing buildings and object placement tomorrow or Friday.

@S4G4N Yeah we used Village Exteriors for prototyping our building system and then replaced it all with our own art, there's a few props (mostly food, books, and fabrics) from Village Interiors but eventually it will all be replaced with original art. It is saving us some time right now though

 

Really nice looking game. I'll be keeping an eye on it!

 

very good looking stuff

 

So here's the kickstarter backer only armor set, definitely my favorite so far

 

Just a few of the things I did this week.

 

New weapons rigged on the character

 

Wanted to share the shirt design we are going to be handing out at ECGC

 

Took me about 5 minutes to make this in game We've overhauled the random terrain generation tools and keep adding more things to enhance environments quickly.

 

We are on kickstarter now guys! Please help us out if you can and help spread the word. There's also a free demo of the level editor that you can download and check out on the kickstarter page. We have youtube tutorials on how to use the demo that you can check out as well.

Kickstarter Link : http://kck.st/20TdnjO

 

Hey there,

Some nice stuff you have there with the rendering and level editor. Nice job on that but I can't help but be left wondering about some of your design decisions as you launched this kickstarter. I have a few questions and feedback that I'd like to share for what its worth.

You advertise your self as a Coop FPS RPG but as I looked through your footage and site, you have no story, plot, character information or working mechanics anywhere that leads me to believe this is anything more than a "Tech tool at this state.. I didn't even see a working player controller or FPS functionality at all not to mention anything demonstrable relating to coop. Just a custom character dropped onto a map with an Idle animation without showing any type of RPG mechanics at all. I'm confused by this.

Secondly, and I mean this with no offense at all but its literally the take away I had from your kickstarter summary pitch: If I was to sum up your pitch in my own words it seems like you're basically saying "Give us a ton of money so that you can make our game for us because we can't but we'll give you the tools to make your own". The vibe I get is a shell of a game and not a game its self at all. The pitch seems to admit you can't do what you're asking for money to do so you're placing all your bets that if you can just make good tools, people will make the game for you. That's just mind blowing...

You need at least a core working demonstration for what the heart of the game and the what the story its self is going to be like. I don't know how people would have the confidence to invest money into a level editor tool, hoping that it translates into your ability to craft a complicated set of mechanical systems and fun lore/story to play that within. A level editor is great! But without a solid game experience and demonstration showing your capacity to performance this what good is a level editor? So what if people can build their own content if the game is not professionally made.

Do you actually have things working like Character controller, combat, quest demonstrations, conversation system, example character skill trees and progression or anything? People like modding on skyrim because its an amazing game, lore and set of mechanical systems that's fun to use to build upon their own content.

So I hope that this feedback is at least helpful to consider from an outside source. Keep your head up and if you have actual game related content I'd be interested in seeing your ability to perform those features.

 

Hey man I understand part of where your coming from, some other people have expressed similar concerns. I'm going to end up making a dev vlog Sunday where I address a lot of this stuff to the best of my ability and also talk about the conference we've been at all week. That video will end up being the first kickstarter update but I'll post it on here as well so you can check it out. But I appreciate the feedback!

 

Cool man. I'm glad you're receiving the feedback. It's all about your ability to make the proper adjustments and improve. I wish you guys the best in it. =) I hope to see some actual content demonstrated soon too.

 

As promised our first devlog is up now.

 

Game is looking really good i think, but dont forget to put your focus on what the players think are the main thing of your game, not what you think are the main thing. To be honest, probably more than 90% of gamers dont care about your level designer, they just want to play, sounds harsh maybe but it is how it is. So by omitting game play you also have a large risk of cutting those 90% of your kickstarter. Just my 5 cents.
I dont dislike editors at all, actually im doing a very similar game my self with a big focus on player created content : )

 

Unfortunately we started with the editor and don't have the other stuff developed yet. We might need to take another 6 - 8 months of dev time and then try again if our kickstarter fails this time.

 

Would it really take 6 month to just throw something together to show?
Does not have to be finished in any way, a char controller and some free animation could go a long way : )
1 - 2 weeks should be enough to at least make something that looks ok on a video : p

 

Well I wouldn't really want to be faking gameplay in any way especially since we have a demo available for download. But if we were going to do another kickstarter I'd want to have multiplayer, combat, character customization, inventory, quests, and NPC dialogue functional just to not take any chances

 

So we've revised the Kickstarter video and made it 3 minutes long instead of 9. Hopefully this one gets the point across much better.

 

Hey Misciagno,

Thanks for the update and clarification. I think its a better overall video now and you responded well to the feedback! Good job on this! =)

However I think you still made a fatal flaw in the design of your promotion and development by focusing on a level editor rather than a game. In the end you don't have a game but a tool. Some people can get away with pitches like this but they are seasoned vets who have a track record of successfully launched titles in the same genre they are attempting to re-vist.

One big missing thing from the kickstarter and pitch video was your qualifications? Why should people trust you with their money? Whats your track record? how long have you both been in the games industry and how many titles have you successfully shipped to date? What games have you worked on? Without this you appear almost entirely amateur which is fine if you have a solid working set of mechanical systems and accurate demonstration to show your ability where your experience falls short. However here you have neither and I think its a fatal flaw.

I do not think you'll get anywhere near your goal because of this development/promotional flaw. I would suggest you actually develop a game and working mechanics to demonstrate your raw abilities and perhaps you might as well gain more trust from people. At this point it seems mainly like a money grab rather than a project of passion. Please don't let the feedback get you down but I just wanted to be truthful with you here. I hope you can go back and make a great game prototype, come back and have great results. =)

Also another piece of advice I would have for you is this. Build an audience before ever trying a kickstarter. It appears you had almost little to no community prior to this run and you expected to pick up an audience on kickstarter but thats not how it typically works. Your pre-existing community funds you and slowly you gain traction from others on kickstarter as they help promote you. If you were to build a community and develop the game mechanics/story maybe eight months from now you might do really well.

Hope that helps!

Cheers,

 

Backed quite similar unity game sometime ago
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/appleton/greed-monger-a-crafting-focused-sandbox-mmorpg
it never came out..had early demo of making buildings and walking around, but had nothing to do in the game though.. probably ran it just once - because of that.

Also usually not good idea to post huge stretch goals, before nearing actual funding..

But otherwise your game looks visually good, maybe couple animated gifs would work also, to show how/if the building system is easy to use..

 

We did talk a little bit about qualifications we just don't have the most impressive record. I pretty much have no professional industry experience (recently graduated with my degree) and Kevin has over 10 years of experience but he took a break from the industry about 7 years ago to take on more typical programming jobs.

You're definitely right about the community thing but hey live and learn right? The lack of trust in new developers does stink but at the same time I understand. We are probably going to do another 10 months of development and come back. Originally I was thinking 6 - 8 months but we don't want to do a Kickstarter around the holidays. By then we should have almost all the features in so people can have a better idea of the final product.

I've never heard of that game but that's definitely interesting. Did they offer a demo or did they just show off a barely working prototype? I never really thought about stretch goals that way, I'll keep that in mind next time.

 

That's fine man. We're all gaining experience all the time. I think if you build a community over the next ten months and develop the core systems for your game I think you'll fair much better on KS.

We're all living and learning. I've tried to study a TON of KS stuff over the last year to understand the basics of the do's and don'ts so its been a process. I think with these adjustments you'll be great. You responded really well to feedback and I look forward to seeing what cool stuff you guys can develop over the coming months.

Keep your head up. You guys have some nice stuff. =)

 

I'm so sorry you wasted your money on that! It was clear to me that guy knew nothing about what he was talking about in the pitch video. I still to this day remember when he says "the physics of the situation" lol what? He ended up being a marketer and promoter but no real experience in game development. He had an idea without any evidence he'd be able to pull it off. Those type of projects would never get funded today but years ago people assumed you were qualified if you ran a kickstarter for a game in the early days.

 

Vote for us on Steam Greenlight! We are only doing a concept page right now so votes will just help other people see the game.

Greenlight Link : http://goo.gl/rYvZ0w

 

Hello, My name is Kevin Nelson, I am the programmer on the Isles of Arthanos project working with James. Thanks for the feedback. I think your feedback is definitely helpful and although it is a bit painful to acknowledge, it is pretty accurate. We aren't trying to do a money grab but it does look that way so we really need to prove we can do what we say. We are definitely going to focus on gameplay elements and coop multiplayer and update the demo. The kickstarter has definitely been a reality check.

Kevin

 

Hey Kevin! Nice to meet you. Thanks for your humble and kind reply. I fully understand the feeling. Everyone stumbles and fails in areas of their own development (I have a ton and will more) but not everyone humbles themselves and actually learns from it. Only a small percentage do that. I'm glad my years of studying kickstarter stuff and issues has been of some assistance to you. You guys have some good stuff and ideas. Just keep pressing forward and I think you'll be in good shape six months from now.

Here's a really helpful set of links that help people to improve their kickstarters. Its a ton of content but I think you might find it really helpful.

http://stonemaiergames.com/kickstarter/lessons/

Keep your head up and feel free to hit up me or some other people you trust as you progress for a sanity check. I'm always looking for talented people to show my stuff to see theirs to check my crazy brain as well lol

 

I have been checking out that link you sent. That is a TON of content. What I have read so far is really good.

I checked out the game you are working on, Rise of the King, and joined the website. Looks really good. I really like the art style. You look like you are farther along then we are.

Kevin

 

Thanks Kevin! Yea' you'll have to read over articles on that site for several days to start to get your head wrapped around all the in's and outs lol. =) It should be a really big help for your next run.

Thanks for the nice words on my game. We've actually changed art styles to a more realistic style the last 6 months. We're working on putting together the last bells and whistles and art work to finally re-launch it in Full Unity 5 Specs. It's been a beating but I enjoy the more realistic styles so it for the best.

Feel free to reach out any time you want to converse about this stuff. I always enjoying working together with others to learn and grow. Keep up the great work =)

 

We've got a pretty large update to share. There's a devlog on our youtube channel to sum it up. But basically we have like 100 new architectural building pieces that allow for a ton of building variation now. We've also started working on inventory, a food system, 1st and 3rd person character views, and setting up actions in the game which is what we will use to design quests eventually.

 

We are back with another devlog! It's been about 4 months since our last one so we've got plenty of new features to talk about.

DEMO LINK : http://www.islesofarthanos.com/

NEW FEATURES

- Basic Combat
- Fully Featured Inventory
- Equipping Weapons and Armor
- Setting Up and Looting Containers
- Nature Visual Enhancements
- New Environmental Objects
- Building Prefabs
- Various Optimizations
- NPC Conversation Trees
- In Game AI Logic Setup
- Trading
- AI Facial Customization
- Ability To Setup Quests In Game
- Enhanced Level Generation Via Biome Distribution
- More Terrain Stamps
- New Website
- New Demo
- Discord Server (link on website)

 

We've got an update video showing off our new in game dungeon building!