Roma Victor
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| Roma Victor | |
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| File:Rb logo.gif | |
| Developer(s) | RedBedlam |
| Publisher(s) | RedBedlam |
| Designer(s) | Kerry Fraser-Robinson |
| Platform(s) | Windows |
| Release | 2006 |
| Genre(s) | Historical MMORPG |
| Mode(s) | Multiplayer |
Roma Victor is a historically authentic MMORPG or virtual world based on the Roman Empire in the latter half of the second century AD. Roma Victor is being developed by RedBedlam Ltd. of Brighton and Hove, England.
Roma Victor was released by RedBedlam on July 14 2006, with special pre-order customers being let in 2 weeks earlier (June 30 2006), as per terms of the contract. Currently the world is a half scale exact 30 x 30 km representation of a section along Hadrian's Wall. The playable area is limited to one playfield, which is Southern Caledonia. The Southern Caledonia playfield actually consists of a pretty substantial area, which includes a fair section of Northern Britannia. As well as containing a selection of minor Roman and Celtic Briton settlements it also features two fully Romanised towns - Luguvalium and Corstopitum - and of course Hadrian's Wall. North of the Wall are regions of the playfield that are well beyond the reaches of Rome.
Subscription Details
RedBedlam has a unique payment system involving buying an account key and downloading its free client. In contrast to most other MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game's) there is no monthly subscription. The developers instead have decided to use a new revenue model which consists of buying in-game currency (ie sesterces with real money. 1 British Pound will purchase 500 virtual sesterces which is automatically deposited into your account and can be used in game from then on. Unlike Second Life which has a similar revenue model, it is not possible to exchange virtual currency earned in-game into real world money. Red Bedlam has claimed it is possible to play the game without purchasing sesterces but ackowledges your life in world will be much easier if you do decide to go down that road.
Guilds & Guildhalls
Guilds are player associations, or "clans" and form the basis of all society in Roma Victor. There are several different classes of guild and each one has a unique rank structure. Depending on wether your character class is Roman or Barbarian you can establish or belong to tribes, warbands, houses, patrician houses, imperial cults, cults, legions, praetorian/imperial households. The term 'guilds' can be applied to all of the player associations in Roma Victor ranging from small exclusive cults, through whole barbarian tribes and right up to the awesome 6000-strong Legions of Rome itself. Guilds in Roma Victor are not exclusively made up of players - the numbers can be augmented by NPC members, which can be hired and assigned to various roles and tasks by the higher ranking guild members, perhaps protecting the guild's property, carrying out assignments or simply acting as a merchant on behalf of the guild. The guild management interface also provides tools for communicating with and managing guildmembers, assigning individual sponsors to look after new members as well as adjusting contributions and fees. Every player also has their own Household - it's a bit like a 'personal' guild. Household is the collective term applied to all the buildings and NPC's owned, employed and/or run by the player. There can be many buildings and NPC's within a household and using the built-in household management interface a player can set entry fees on their property, assign NPC's to act as merchants or guards, summon NPC's as an escort, hire and dismiss staff etc.
Guildhalls are buildings that can only be constructed by registered player guilds. They are large buildings that require time and resources to construct, but certain guild powers and benefits can only be used once a guildhall has been completed. Each class of guild is able to construct a corresponding guildhall. Each guildhall has different construction costs, advantages and powers associated with it that reflect the owning guild:
Barbarians are able to build either a Tribal Hall or a Warband Hall which can be constructed by a Tribe/Warband guild respectively.
The Romans have a much wider variety of guidhalls available to them including an Auxilia Camp can be constructed by a player Auxilia guild, Legionary Principia (headquarters) and even Patrician Villa's.
Guildhalls can be used to colonise areas of the game world that are not currently open to player buildings. After a deed has been purchased, a guildhall can be constructed on 'Wilderness' and 'Ruin' boards. On completion of the guildhall, the board changes from Wilderness/Ruins to a type reflecting the new guild presence. The guild leader will become the Guildmaster with the guild effectively in command of that territory.
If the guildhall is constructed on a board that already contains one, this may lead to a Leadership challenge (voting) for the board depending on its type. The separate areas known as boards in Roma Victor can each have one of eleven different sets of laws. Badges and reputations on one board could have different means of acquiring and effects on another. The board type is determined by the first guild type to build a guildhall in the area.
Guildhalls are vulnerable to other players. Each guildhall comes with two guards free of charge. Additional guards can be purchased by the guild, but once they have all been killed or removed, any player can enter the guildhall and will have access to the Warchest even the ability to destroy the guildhall itself.
The destruction of a guildhall can have serious consequences for the board that it founded, where it could revert to a less advanced state and fewer options are available to the players who remain. Guilds can only own one guildhall at a time.
Table of Board Types
| Roman | Barbarian | Neutral (ie. Religious Cults) |
|---|---|---|
| A Vicus is controlled by a House Guild | A Tribus is controlled by a Tribe | A Temple is controlled by a Cult |
| A Fort is controlled by an Auxilia Guild | A Hall is controlled by a Warband | |
| A Campus is controlled by a Legion | An Oppida is controlled by a Legendary Freeman | |
| A Villa is controlled by a Patrician House | ||
| A City is controlled by a Legendary Roman |
Some boards have their own set of laws. Some badges may have an effect in one board, but not another depending on the boards legal authority. The various types of legal authroity include: Tribal Law, Temple Law, Roman Martial Law and Roman Provincial Law. Each board, aside from Ruins and Wilderness, will have a Power Structure. This basically is who is in control of that board.
It can range from the first to build a guildhall, who owns the oldest guildhall, to Elections. Whomever is in control of a board will have new options to control the population. Some boards may have more control than others. The top tier boards will have all of the following commands: Announce, Banish, Deattend, Exile, Pardon, Permit, Pax (Peace) and Warn. Each board will also have options to attract NPCs to their area including, NPC Master's/Elders, Traders, Agents and Trainers.
The Romans
During character creation you have a range of options to select from ethnicity to physical attributes like strength or stamina. However the most important aspect of character creation is deciding which race to belong to either Roman or Barbarian. Romans enjoy the protection of provincial law and generally enjoy a softer and more peaceful life.
The Barbarians
Barbarians dwell north of the wall and are lawless thus makig their life alot more hazardous. Resources for the barbarians are also limited due to the fact that the Iron Mine at Cirsium is on the Roman side of the wall, a dilema that has caused a few invasions to capture the critical resource.
Combat and PvP
Roma Victor features Real-time 'twitch' combat balanced with character skills which can be put to use in open PvP areas and in the roman gladiatorial arena. Combat is real time so the pace is often fast and frenetic. When incapacitated (ie. knocked out) in combat your character doesn't necessarily die straight away. You will be down unconscious on the ground for a short while unless someone administers some basic aid or administers a killing blow (ie. Death Blowing), which can only be done when your character is incapacitated. A deathblow sends you straight to Elysium and you'll have to negotiate your way back to the 'real' world. Certain areas are well policed by representatives of Roman law, be they Prefects, Auxiliaries, Legionaries or even Praetorians. In some places it's impossible to break the laws while in others you can attempt it but it's extremely difficult to get away with. Barbarians north of Hadrian's Wall are beyond the reach of the law altogether. This allows for a seamless blend of PvP and non-PvP environments with no real faction restrictions. Romans have a hard time getting away with crimes committed against fellow Romans - but it is possible in some circumstances.
Crafting
Roma Victor also features comprehensive crafting in which it is possible to find a huge amount of resources and components that can be put together using the hundreds of related skills. Almost everything in the world can be crafted. For example, having picked up a small wooden stick a player can use their knife to carve a notch in it, thereby crafting a simple handle. This handle could be combined with a sharpened blade to make another knife perhaps. The sharpened blade might come from some raw iron ore that has been smelted into a lump of iron in a furnace, cast into a flat strip in a forge, hammered into blade form at the anvil and then sharpened at a grindstone. Flax can be grown, carefully harvested, left in a muddy retting pit to rot, taken out and dried, heckled into tow fibres with a comb, spun into twine at the distaff and then woven into a linen sheet at a loom. Grain can be milled into flour, which can be mixed with saltwater to form a basic dough, whLink titleich when left out will go sour. Mix the sour dough with some fresh dough and bake it in an oven to make some bread. The indivual skill of the crafter has a substantial effect on the quality of the components or products that they craft and this has a direct bearing on the economic viability of crafting as a whole.
Construction
Construction is much the same as crafting however the builder requires a wide variety of resources and components, a stationary device (eg. forge, anvil, workbench) and at least one tool of some kind. In addition, Construction usually involves bringing large amounts of resources and components to the construction site which can be assisted by using handcarts to haul large quantities of materials around the world. When building anything from simple devices through to complex buildings like roundhouses or temples it is important to have a ready supply of skilled labour and a good supply chain to finish the job. NPC labourers can be hired to speed up the entire process, however it is possible for individual players to also provide a helping hand. Roma Victor features an open-ended 'sandbox'-style environment in which players can hire structures to live in, build their own or rent them out to other players. Any structure can be set as public, private or even in some cases have an entry fee.
Skills & Abilities
There are no character levels in Roma Victor. However there is a diverse skill tree of which there are no level-based restrictions by design or consequence like you'll find in most MMORPG's. You won't be forced to find people of a similar level in order to play in a group and you won't be restricted to certain types of encounter. Of course this also means that you won't be trying to catch up with friends that have played more than you (and therefore 'levelled' faster), or indeed trying to slow your own development and/or 'level up' your friends so that they can come and hunt with you again. Character development in Roma Victor is much more like real life. In Roma Victor, as in real life, your skills and personal statistics decay. This means that without practice your character's ability in a given skill will worsen. If, for example, as a newcomer you spent a lot of time developing your combat skills but then moved on to focus on your farming you'd find that your combat abilities decreased over time. You can easily counter this by regular combat training but it makes the prospect of juggling several careers quite daunting. Anyone trying to be a gladiator/cook/farmer/smith/potter/priest/carpenter all at the same time will find it near impossible to become highly adept at all of the involved skills. If you do manage to master a skill it does not suffer any long term decay. Crafting skill levels, like all skills and abilities affects the quality of crafted objects and constructed buildings. A low construction skill will result in a building that will most likely collapse not long after it was erected.
No Camping
Here we're referring of course to the MMORPG term 'camping' and not sleeping out in the wilderness although it is possible to do the later. There are however no fixed regular spawns, no uber loot drops and no reasons to find yourself having to sit at a certain location waiting for hours on end for your group's turn to kill something and loot it. The world is dynamic and varied and NPC's have their own 'lives'. If you run into some bandits on the road between Corstopitum and Luguvallium then that's because those bandits are 'working the road' and they'll be doing so until killed, captured (and usually sold) or chased off.
Historical Authenticity
In the most important areas the maps are based on real world archaeological data (modified to disallow anything later than the second century of course). The RedBedlam team and the Roma Victor community have invested several years of research into bringing unprecedented levels of detail to the historical authenticity of this world. Buildings follow the correct floor-plans; equipment and clothing is appropriate for the period and region; crafting activities, trading practices, combat styles - every aspect of the world that you can think of are all based upon what is known, expected and believed about life in second century Europe.
Your Character
Social interaction including Roman military salutes, laughing, crying, yawning, taunting, cheering and clapping as well as around 200 unique character animations help maintain the atmosphere and bring your character to life. Using Reputations, Friends and Foes, Badges etc. NPC's can get a pretty good idea of who you are and what your character is about. So long as they have no reason to dislike you, your interaction with most NPC's should be fairly pleasant. They'll converse with you and may even trade depending on whether they actually have any money, goods or services to trade. Alternatively they may be more inclined to come running at you with axe swinging. Throughout your travels in Roma Victor - particularly off the beaten track - you are likely to encounter NPC's that have an irrational desire for your belongings. Alternatively you may simply come across a bear or a pack of wolves, equally keen to attack yet less interested in your goods. In either scenario fight or flight becomes a decision that should be taken pretty quickly. Players can also define their overall opinion of another player as a friend, a foe or ambivalent. Such systems of 'social moderation' are already used to great effect elsewhere on the 'Net and have demonstrated their ability to both help form social networks and identify trouble-makers. This system is combined with a 'badge' and dynamic reputation systems to give both players and NPC's alike a pretty good idea of how (in)famous, (un)popular and/or accomplished another player character may be. There are around a hundred different character appearances and well over a dozen different ethnicities ranging from Syrian to Italic Latin. A character's body shape will be a direct result of their diet and activities. Combining the increasing range of character appearances with all the different types of dyed cloth, fur and hide clothing and armours of bronze and iron players have considerable freedoms in choosing their appearance.
The Environment
Roma Victor features SpeedTreeRT™ which has made it possible for the community to not only enjoy realistic and visually stunning tree and plant-life but also to maintain the authenticity which the development team strove for. However wind and rain effects are not fully implemented which has resulted in a long drought. SpeedTree generates species of tree and othe rplant life that existed in 2nd Century AD Caledonia, yielding an excellent mix of fibres, barks and wood types for the players to put to good use in their crafting activities
Dymnaic lighting has slowly been implemented over time as torches and fires help the player to see when travelling at night. RedBedlam has stated that they are hoping to add some new features such as using authentic terrain topology in which the hills, rivers, flora and valleys of the 2nd Century British landscape are brought back to life. From the wild untamed north, past the mighty fortifications of Hadrian's wall and all the way to the south coast, including many towns and settlements such as Luguvalium, Corstopitum, Eboracum, Londinum, Aquae Sulis and Neomagus.