WIP: Life of Rome MMORPG - Now on Steam Early Access

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We have a new MMORPG in development set in 320AD Rome. Powered by the Unity engine. It's still in the early Alpha stages, but would love your thoughts & support.

Life of Rome is a third and first-person massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) set in 320AD Rome. The game is played from the point of view of both Roman and Rebel; designed to emphasise roleplay and community using a family system and player-driven politics.

Players can choose whether they give their allegiance to Rome or reject the rule of the Empire and live life as a Rebel. Romans gain prestige from engaging in trade with other Romans, practicing devotion to Roman gods, obeying the laws of Rome and slaughtering those who resist Roman rule.Rebels, on the other hand, live in rebel camps outside the walls of Rome. They pay no taxes, and gain prestige from murdering Roman citizens, and destroying or looting their belongings, and from looting other rebels.

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Many Thanks,
Breakout Studio

 

Wow, I'm really liking this. Can we get more details on what people will be doing? Will they be able to do tons of different things? Several jobs? Houses? Ranking in Faction? Jobs(Military, Barbarian, Mercenary ect). I'd really love some more details. But so far it's looking great.

 

I read the title and rolled my eyes, thinking here we go again.. but I opened it up and it looks gorgeous, I've got to say. As Khelton said, it would be nice to hear some more about what a player can do, and just more information in general. I'll definitely be following this though. I really like the idea of powerful players affecting the story/gameplay, could lead to a lot of unique events.

Only thing I would mention, and you look like an über professional group so I'm sure you have this sorted, but about the ® symbol you have in your logo; in the UK we can only use this if we have paid and officially registered the name legally, otherwise we can get into some serious trouble. Without registering, all you can use is the TM symbol. As I've said, you look like a larger group that would have this sorted, (and if you do, apologies for having to answer this), but I don't want to see anyone with a game looking this nice to get into trouble, so thought I'd check.

And rich, you'll either find yourself banned or a lot of people disliking you, give the threads some respect.

 

Hi! Good luck.

In 30 days I would expect it to see it earn a few hundred $, tens of thousands short of the target.

 

Greetings All! We've had a lot of questions posted public and via emails so just wanted to post a update to hopefully explain our position on Historical Accuracy Versus Gamplay, and allow for further discussion and player input on the subject.

Of course historical accuracy is high on our agenda when planning game mechanics, and we hope to include mechanics which simulate how it must have been to live in ancient times. It is hugely important though that there is balance, and that there is a game to play at the end which is fun, I am sure you appreciate it is tricky to get these factors to marry up perfectly.

As far as possible we would like the game to be historically accurate, however at this point it is not possible to model the entire roman empire and beyond, so some artistic license and suspension of disbelief will be required to create a dual faction, multi cultural environment suitable for an immersive sandbox world.

We can choose a starting point, based upon a point in time in ancient history as we know it, but after that players will have to write their own history for this world.

Firstly let me clarify the main difference between Race and Faction, as currently intended.

We would like players to be able to choose a heritage/race/ethnicity for their character - not all romans were born in rome, and it is perfectly possible to choose a 'Barbarian' race and pledge allegiance to Rome, or vow to resist Roman oppression, it is also possible to choose a Roman heritage, but prefer to live free from the confines of Roman rule.

In other words, race and faction are intended to be entirely different choices and not necessarily indicative or exclusive of each other. In the Roman world, you were either simply with Rome, or against it.

I am sure many of you are aware that the term Barbarian' originates from the Greek word βάρβαρος (barbaros). Hence the Greek idiom "πᾶς μὴ Ἕλλην βάρβαρος" (pas mē Hellēn barbaros) which literally means "whoever is not Greek is a barbarian".
The Romans, as huge Hellenophiles took a similar meaning from the term, and it is in this sense we shall use it.

You are free to roleplay your ethnicity however you like, and there will be race specific buildings, craftables and religion to support your roleplay. You may also choose to either accept Roman rule, and be a roman citizen or resist if you prefer and be a 'Barbarian' rebel. It is technically possible to remain neutral, or try to, although this is somewhat dependant on whether that is tolerated by other players, again, you are either with or against Rome, there is little middle ground.

Hopefully with this approach we can allow for the natural development of politics, including inter-faction friction rather than just red versus blue. When you consider that both factions have to be well balanced, in order for the project to function as a game, (can you imagine the moaning if the Romans have a huge advantage over less technologically advanced Barbarian factions, even if this is historically accurate, it doesn't make for great gameplay) it will be very difficult to fully explore every tribe/culture that the romans were up against and in doing so, you would have to create in effect a limitless number of different games within one game, depending on the race someone chose. Especially with regard to politics, there needs to be a lot of scope for players to shape this rather than have it forced on them, and we hope that an open approach to this can be adopted.

We hope to find a believable and practical way to counter this in our game world, one such way would be to begin our storyline with a barbarian uprising against Rome, in which all tribes/races on the opposing side can band together against 'Rome' and operate out of their equivalent encampment town.

We hope over the coming weeks to share some of our gameplay ideas and mechanics in greater detail with you all, which will hopefully help to put this in perspective, and allow players to get involved in fine tuning those.

In the meantime, we have to bear in mind, that although we would like the game to be as historically accurate as far as is possible, in particular with regard to crafting processes, equipment available, lifestyle choices and what mattered in the life of ancient people - it really does have to be a game 'based on' Ancient Life, rather than actually be an ancient life simulator.

Its worth bearing in mind too, that scholarly opinion is divided on many aspects of ancient life, especially with regard to the fall of the empire and it is sometimes difficult to pin down precisely, so we will have to do a certain amount of interpretation of the facts to see how concepts will fit within workable game mechanics.

I am sure you all appreciate that this is a massive endeavor for an indie development team, so we have to be realistic in what we set out to achieve initially.

I hope this helps answer some of the questions that have been asked on our facebook page and forums, and I look forward to hearing other peoples opinions and suggestions on this matter.

 

I love this period, so I am really looking forward to see what this game will become!

 

Why not?
In all seriousness though, this does look good.

 

Looks good

 

Games based in this time period always get my blood pumping!

It looks like a long road ahead of you but I wish you all the best!

 

I want to see how this end , but right now it looks cool , waiting to see more (maybie an alpha )

See you.

 

Now this one looks great! I would love to play this. Have you fixed a date when you will release a demo/alpha?

 

Yeah, Phil rocks!

 

Here's a look at our first round of concept images. More coming in the following weeks.

In a change to our original Development Schedule - we're now server side - complete with registration and login form, mechanim animation/position sync, in-game chat and collision. We also held our first 'stress test' with our team internally, which gave us a great result!

 

WOW! WOW! WOW!

 

MMORPG in Rome Time period? Definitely not something you see everyday! I don't know how many MMORPG Projects I have seen that have never been finished by their development teams, whether it be for the lack of resouces/funds or the project being abit too much for what they bargained for, its reached a point that now its just a pretty bad Joke lol.... Amazing Screens, Models and Idea! I'm definitely interested to see how this Project ends!

 

it would be much better if u add greeks!! like sparta and athens & olympian gods

 

Good Morning! We have finally launched our new website!

Our regular visitors may have noticed that our website went offline 3 weeks ago for a much needed refresh. In it’s place we unveiled our updated new logo, along with new promotional concept art.

The website is now live and includes an 'About' section that we've split into different categories such as Combat, Religion, Factions etc. which we hope will answer some of the questions you've had. We'll be constantly updating the pages with new information, as well as posting frequently on the Development Blog. We've also updated our media page with over 15 new screenshots and videos!

www.lifeofrome.com

 

This is amazing!

 

That walk-thru of Rome is breath-taking. It really is AAA. Very well done.

 

You guys Rock!!!

 

A quick update video to show the new weather system in action.

 

This project looks awesome! Any chance it inspired by an old MUD called "The Eternal City"?

 

Looks fantastic! What are you guys using to model the built environment? Will players be able to build there own insular and rent out apartments? We made a game set in ancient Rome called S.P.Q.R. back in the 1900's LOL. The original web version from 1994 is still online. The modeling was all done in Softimage (R.I.P.). We have been rebuilding in Unity if nothing else to test out Archimatix modeling in the Unity editor (WIP). Maybe some of this can help you guys out?

 

Greetings all! Thanks for following our project and showing your support. It’s great to hear that other people are as excited about the possibilities of Life of Rome as we are. Before I bring you all up to speed with LoR, I want to start off with an apology. Following our successful Steam Greenlight and Indiegogo campaigns, interest in the game has sky-rocketed beyond our expectations and I’ve been overwhelmed with questions, ideas and messages of encouragement. We have now hired a Community Manager who will be active on our Forums and Facebook page to responded to questions more efficiently.

The biggest news I have to share is that we now have a Steam Store page and a Steam Community Hub. In addition to these, was also have a new Concepts page on the website which explains are new Allegiance, Prestige and Rebel mechanics.

You can read our recent announcements from this week here:
http://forums.lifeofrome.com/forum/main-forum/announcements/302-04-07-2015-hello-development-update
http://forums.lifeofrome.com/forum/main-forum/important-information/317-allegiance-and-race

 

18th of December??? I want to play it now!

congratulations to you all, really nice looking game. It is how Roma Victor was promised to be back in the day

 

Salve!

We've been quiet for a reason and we can't wait to reveal why soon. We've updated our artwork (as you'll see on our Steam Store) and we're currently working on a new website and launch trailer. As we start getting nearer to Early Access, you'll begin to see more frequent updates from us!

Once again, thank you all so much for your support. We now have over 2,500 members on our Official Group - which is unbelievable! We also have our forums where new members are joining every day and are already recruiting for their families and discussing tactics.

Rob
Breakout Studio

 

Amazing stuff. Inspirational. Love it. Well done.

 

The Colosseum, also known as the Flavian Amphitheatre, is situated east of the Roman Forum and can hold between 50,000 and 80,000 spectators. Although this is a still a work in progress, I'm pleased to share with you how it's coming along - we cant wait to see you all walking through the corridors and taking your seats for an evening of entertainment!

 

Saw this on early access - Looks interesting

 

Looks great. Don't forget all the trapdoors in the arena's floor.

 

Today we want to show you how a few of our models are shaping up. Here we have The Pantheon,The Temple of Jupiter (at the top of Capitoline Hill) and the Septizodium. As ever, they are not final but the foundations are now complete and running in-game.

 

Stunning stuff. You are a very talented team.

 

Here's a mid-week update for you all. This time it's the Roman Forum, or Forum Romanum in Latin, and the Theatre of Pompey - specifically the gardens attached to it. As you'll see, we still have a few placeholder statues in, as well as some empty ground, but we think it's coming along quite nicely. What do you think?

Have a great rest of week everyone!

 

Jaw dropping. When can we try it?