Things Are Going Forward

Not many posts here because I've been busy programming! I am on my last week of summer vacation so it is a bit sad, but boy, I have done a lot during those weeks. Now I am done with the arena battle engine (clan vs clan), I am done with a system that let players put their heroes in a duel-queue and then schedule games in one vs one and the duel-engine is done as well. I have fixed the system that allows me to save the games and watch them later and sort them depending on clan.

Yesterday I started working on an adventure engine and it is finished to 95%. This is one of the things players can do between turns and duels. Every clan gets 50 actions points at the beginning and it costs 10 to let one of your heroes go on an adventure, 20 to travel between two villages. I'll add more things to do for those points, at the moment that is all.

Adventures is working like this. You select a hero, hit a button, the game-engine looks at what is happening which could be anything from fighting an easy goblin to fight a very tough opponent in one vs one. You can also end up finding treasures without fighting. For all this your hero gets experience and if you're lucky money and loot. The fights are pretty detailed, just like in the duels and some of the NPCs have skills and so on.

Next big thing I'll do is to work on the war-engine which is a somewhat just like arena just that you have a lot more on both sides and not neccesary even numbers.

A Lot Faster...

...that went a lot faster than expected. I re-coded the whole battle-engine and it works surprisingly well now. I found some bugs when I re-coded and it takes perhaps a second, even less, to sim a clan vs clan battle now. Before it took a lot longer. I am a bit worried how I should store all the data from the battles between turns or if I should just give them highlights from the battles with stats. I would prefer both myself as a player.

Some battles are really long and although they are epic to follow round by round, line by line, then it takes a lot of resources I guess.

I'll see what I come up with. I'll continue to bug-test this battle-engine now before I make some minor changes to it so that it works in both duels and in huge wars.

Good and Bad News

I've finished the arena-engine and I am able to simulate a whole fight between two clans now in a 5 on 5 battle. That is the good news. The bad news, is that I need to rework a lot of the code because it simply works too slow. I took a chance doing it the way I have it now, but I noticed that it won't work in the long run, so I rather redo it now. I have all the functions finished, so it won't be that much work, but still...

Here's is another output from the first round of an arena game between two clans.

Bredulf [Longshanks] prepares to aim the next attack.
Berit [Longshanks] prepares to aim the next attack.
Throm [Bloodlust] shouts out a battle cry helping the whole group to avoid attacks.
Caramyr [Bloodlust] casts prayer of protection on Throm.
Urkk [Bloodlust] uses the ability dodge.
Maliya [Bloodlust] shapeshifts into a wolf.
Bodil [Longshanks] plays healing song healing the whole group.
Stanley [Longshanks] casts scorched earth trying to damage all around him. Throm takes 3 points of damage. Urkk takes 3 points of damage. Maliya takes 3 points of damage. Faragan takes 3 points of damage. Caramyr resists the spell.
Benny [Longshanks] casts groupheal.
Faragan [Bloodlust] casts resistance aura on whole group.


Bredulf [Longshanks] hits Maliya for 14 points of damage with Recruit's Shadow Dagger. Maliya is out of the fight!
Benny [Longshanks] attacks Caramyr with Lightning Bolt. Benny [Longshanks] hits Caramyr for 2 points of damage.
Urkk [Bloodlust] hits Stanley for 16 points of damage with Recruit's Tribal Twohanded Axe. Stanley is out of the fight!
Faragan [Bloodlust] misses with the melee attack when trying to hit Bodil.
Throm parried the attack from Berit [Longshanks].
Throm [Bloodlust] hits Bredulf for 3 points of damage with Recruit's Defenders Sword.
Bodil [Longshanks] hits Faragan for 1 points of damage with Recruit's Melodius Shortsword.
Caramyr [Bloodlust] attacks Bredulf with Smite. The spell misses Bredulf.

Arena Programming

Lately I've been working on the arena programming. The arena is where two clans faces off to the last man standing. I've finished all skill functions and all functions that fills the arena DB and prepares the game. Now I can sim the top of the first round without any problems. The top is where the heroes are placed in order after an initiative roll and then chooses a skill/spell depending on what their user has set for percentages. The skill gets executed and then I move on to the next in line.

Next up is to finish where they attack eachother with their normal attacks. I have had some problems doing all this, but it all turned out well in the end. Here is a basic output from the top of a round and that is when they have used their skills, not their basic attacks. Remember, the text is not how it suppose to be. I'll work more on this later of course.

Varawen [Shadow Watch] casts scorched earth trying to damage all around him. Faragan takes 3 points of damage. Throm resists the spell. Urkk takes 3 points of damage. Maliya takes 3 points of damage. Caramyr resists the spell.

Aramir [Shadow Watch] casts prayer of protection on Dhrom.

Throm [Bloodlust] uses taunt and tries to take over agro. Akkmar , Izha now attacks Throm [Bloodlust].

Urkk [Bloodlust] goes berserk!

Maliya [Bloodlust] casts groupheal. Faragan gets healed for 1. Urkk gets healed for 1. Maliya gets healed for 1.

Izha [Shadow Watch] casts groupheal.

Dhrom [Shadow Watch] uses taunt and tries to take over agro. Throm , Maliya now attacks Dhrom [Shadow Watch].´

Akkmar [Shadow Watch] uses the ability dodge.

Caramyr [Bloodlust] casts touch of divine to heal the whole group. Faragan gets healed for 2. Urkk gets healed for 2. Maliya gets healed for 2.

Faragan [Bloodlust] casts divine aura on whole group.

Skill/Spell Programming

One of the things I feared the most when I started this project was the programming of skills and spells since I had so many with such different outcome. I once did an arena game back in the days in Visual Basic and it has been the base of this much larger project, but I didn't have skills in that game. To be honest, I quite frankly thought that I wouldn't be able to do it, but the last couple of days I have been working on it and with 90% finished without any problems, I am no longer in doubt. :)

So that is what I have been doing together with a lot of DB handling again. I have filled the item DB with all the starter-gear as an example. I have also finished a bunch of read in and show info on the site kind of programming.

I can for an example now set tactic, train, queue up for duels, select for a turn, check stats, check items on every hero in a clan. And in the Clan department I have finished so that I can see info about how many houses, resource gatherers and soldiers a clan have or on another page see what they have in their vault or in their resource/ingredient warehouses.

A lot of work done the last couple of days in other words and it is still a lot fun!

So What Am I Working On Right Now?

At the moment I am mostly doing DB-handling. Setting them up and bringing data from them into the game. I am not wasting any time at the moment to make the game look good, just coding and then I'll spice it up when all that is done. I have finished so that people can create an account, log in, create their clan and their heroes and then watch info about all this on different pages. Still a long way to go, but it is a lot more motivating when you see results like this and that is needed when it is such a nice weather outside. I must have looked like the ultimate geek when I had my PHP book with me on the beach the other day and my notes. :)

I am glad I have a friend, Daniel, that helps me. I think he has solved like ten coding problems already.

Although I have finished off most rules, charts and formulars for the game on paper first, then I still trying to figure out atleast one or two more things that people can do when they log in between turns. At the moment I have a quite a detailed craftingsystem that will keep some people occupied between rounds and for the players that are not into that I have duels in the pit, check the local market or go to the inn for mini games. And there will be a lot of stats of course to check between turns. But still I need a thing or two more I think.

I am thinking some sort of PvE where you lead your clan into a dungeon or something and manually decide what skills/spells they use every round. I am sure some people would find that fun and it is a nice way to check out spells and skills. But at the same time I don't want this to turn into a grind game where people think they need to go to that boring dungeon to level. I want the majority of experience and money to come from the big turns.

Well, I guess I'll sit down and see what I come up with.

N00b Friendly

I have played a lot of browsergames lately and I find one thin red line going through almost all of them. They're often very hard to understand early on even though browser games often are quite simple when it comes to mechanics. I have seen games that say that their goal is to make their game n00b friendly, but 5-10 minutes in I still have no idea what to do. This is one of my biggest goals with this game, I MUST make it understandable for new users because I really think many games lose their users in the first 5-10 minutes. If you don't know what to do, you log out and never log in again. I know I do.

So the hardest thing with this is to have a system where old users won't get tired to see the same old help text over and over again when they try to do something, but still you need something there for the new users. The easiest way is to have some sort of step by step help but I am not sure that people actually take time to look for that or read through that sort of help. One way could be to have help text appearing if the user is new, lets say 2 days? And on day 3 the help text is gone. Maybe a combination of both?

Either way, it is important for me and something I am going to work hard on.

Last class : Druid

The Druid is a very hard enemy to fight because you never know from round to round how they will fight. They're very unpredictable with their shape shift abilities. They are great group members thanks to their all-round abilities. The group-heal is one of the best in the game but they also have a single target heal and a bark skin buff that helps the whole group to absorb damage. They can shape shift into a wolf and fight more like a rogue or into a bear and become a lot harder to kill almost like a warrior. Some druids prefer to fight with a club and a small shield though and they wear studded armor.

Basic Abilities

Group Heal (1-4 to all in the group),
Heal (1-6 to the friend )
Shape shift: Wolf (+15 weapon skill, +4 damage, +10 initiative, no block, +10 dodge, no range attacks, -1 AF),
Shape shift: Bear (strength +2, AF +3, no block, +5 dodge, +5 parry, no range attacks),
Bark skin (+1 AF to all the members in the group. )

The druid is the 10th and last of my classes in this game. I might add more classes in the future but not now in development because it takes quite a job with programming skills/spells and everything.

Classes: Ranger

The Ranger is deadly both from range and in melee. They do prefer to weaken or sometimes even kill their enemies with their bows before they use their short swords to finish them off. The ranger can call for a loyal pet companion to come fight for them and they have some of natures buffs like thorns that put some nasty extra damage on their arrows or swords.

They know how to fire a rain of arrows to a spot and hit several enemies and they even have a self-heal making them a very tough opponent in one versus one. The ranger is equipped with a longbow, a pair of short swords and studded armor.

The ranger is a good damage dealer for any group and still they can take a few hits. They can take care of themselves thanks to their selfheal and that is always a nice feature for a group. That way, the healers can concentrate on the other groupmembers while the ranger does good damage and keeps himself alive.

Basic Abilities

Self-heal (1-3 wounds to the ranger only),
Snipe (+15 range skill to the ranger only. )
Call for pet (a pet attacks your target for 2 points of damage undefended),
Thorns (+3 damage for rest of round to the ranger only. )
Rain of Arrows (2 wounds damage to all enemies unless they make a successful dodge roll.)

Classes: Shaman

The Shaman is a healer and a caster and uses the magic in fungus to overpower his enemies. He is not the best healer and not the best caster, but a good mix making him a very dangerous opponent on the battlefield. He is using a life drain spell to hurt his enemies from distance and that gives him back health so if the enemies do not close the distance, then they'll find themselves versus an opponent running around with pretty much full health.

The shaman also has some nice area of effect debuffs and damage spells and an absorb shield to a group mate. They can specialize into either being a better support player getting better heals, buffs, debuffs and even a chance to resurrect fallen teammates in battle or into a more damage-dealing shaman with a chance of using their life-drain spells even while attacked.

Basic Skills

Heal (1-5 to the hero with fewest wounds left in the group),
Group-Heal (1-3 to all in the group),
Poison-Cloud (Damages all enemies for 1 wound if they fail resist-roll.),
Absorb Shield (+2 AF and -4 magical damage to a randomly selected friend.)
Poison-Wind (-15 weapon skill and range skill to all enemies in the area. )

Classes: Assassin

The assassins sneak around in the battles looking for the best opportunity to put their deadly daggers in the back of an enemy. They are hard to target thanks to their stealth and quickness and they do extremely high damage combined with poison on their blades. They select one target and does everything they can to take it out in just seconds. The assassin wears leather armor and a pair of daggers.

They can spec down the suffering patch where they focus mostly on poisons, debuffs and crowdcontrol or down in the assassination path where they focus on taking down their targets fast.

Basic Abilities

Aim (+15 on weapon skill that round. )
Soft Spot (+3 damage on next attack that round.),
Crippling Poison (-10 dodge, block & parry for enemy.),
Vanish (+20 detaunt.)
Stun (20% chance to stun opponent for rest of that round)

Classes: Wizard

The Wizard destroys everything with their insane fire magic. They can pump out area of effect damage to whole groups or focus on one enemy and blast them down before they even know what was hitting them. Besides all the damage they have some crowd control and debuffs, but dealing damage is their number one role. No one is deadlier on a battlefield than a wizard, but they're also very fragile and need to keep the enemies away.

When they specialize into the area of effect path they concentrate on taking down more than one enemy at the time and they also get better area of effect debuffs. The area of effect kind of wizard dish out a lot of damage and helps his team to push pressure on the enemy healers. You'll see them in the top of damage in any of the arena scoreboards for sure.

The Wizard is also able to specialize into the single target path and this makes the caster very deadly. He can debuff the enemies resists and then blast them down with hard hitting fireballs. He is also a lot faster to get off his fireballs and with a higher hit chance.

Enemies need to bring down the wizards fast or they'll die. It is as easy as that! But once again, the Wizard is fragile.

I made the wizard just like they are in many games. High damage output, low health and only cloth armor. If a warrior can protect them and a healer keep them up, then a wizard will be the deadliest hero on the battlefield. Magic damage is resistable, but if they fail, then the damage is not absorbed by armor or anything. That is why the wizard is a good class to have on your team.

Basic Abilities

Scorched Earth (damages all enemies for 3 wounds if they fail resist-roll.)
Burn will away(-20 to offensive targets resists.)
Smoke-screen (-20 to range skill to the enemies. )
Fire-cage (30 % of putting offensive target in a fire cage for rest of round so he cannot do anything),
Elemental Buff (+3 damage with spells in that round.)

Classes: Bard

The bard is the perfect group mate. They can heal with their fine songs, crowd control your enemies, slow them down and a buff your whole group. They are support players but know how to hold their own in melee-fights as well. They wear studded armor, a short sword and a small shield while rushing into battle. They enter the battle with a song but often leaves it with their sword bloodied.
If they choose to specialize into the minstrel path they become much better group players and most of their songs become very powerful. The strength and health they gain from the ballads of a music specialized Bard is a lot better and so is the mesmerize song and the initiative debuff song. They can really make a difference on the battlefield.

If they choose to specialize into the Skald path then they become more like fighters with more accurate strikes that does more damage and they can also take damage better and control their targets. Still they have pretty powerful songs to help them achieve their goals.

Basic Abilities

Healing-song (+2 wounds back for the whole clan),
Mesmerize-song (20 % of putting one target to sleep for one round),
War-song (+1 strength to the whole group.),
War-shriek (damages all enemies for 1 wound if they fail resist-roll. )
Slow Down-song (-20 to initiative to all the enemies. ).

Classes: Barbarian

Barbarians are born to kill! They rush into the battle with no fear and if they're angry enough they go into a berserk that often cleaves their enemies into half. They're not resistant to magic and swing their big two-handed axe fast to kill anything that might use magic on them. Barbarians are low on defense, but can shrug off a lot of damage unless it is magic. They wear leather armor so that they can easily leap from victim to victim.

They can spec in two ways. Either they are in the anti magic path were they are schooled to resist magic and to take down magic users or they're more offensive powerhouses ready to take down everything and fall while doing it. They even get AoE attacks when at high levels if specced right.

Basic Abilities:

Berserk (+3 strength, - 20 resistance)
Dodge (+20 to dodge. )
Lightning reflexes (+20 Initiative.)
Deadly Clutch (-50% healing on target.)
Knockdown (20 % chance to make target out of combat for rest of the round)

Humans, Dwarves, Orcs, Minotaurs and Trolls are the races that can become barbarians.

Classes: Warrior

The Warrior is the perfect leader for any group. He is yelling out his orders motivating his friends and demoralizes his opponents while charging into battle. He is the perfect tank ready to protect his friends with his excellent defense. He wears plate armor and a large tower shield and he fights with a long sword. Don't be surprised if he is the last man standing in most of your battles even though he has done everything he can to help his comrades to stay alive.

If specced into the defensive path(protection) he becomes even more powerful defensively and even better at protecting his friends. When he is deep enough down in the path he will get back health every time he defends an attack. If specced offensively (gladiator path) he combines his good defense with good offense and is very skilled with his weapons. When specced deep enough into this path he will reflect back damage when he defends an attack.


Battle-cry(+5 block, +5 dodge & +5 parry for all in clan. )
Intimidating-Cry (-20 weapon skill for all the opponents. )
Taunt (+20 in detaunt for whole group but himself and 40% chance of stealing the agro of all the enemies in the area except from other warriors.),
Guard (the warrior has a chance to parry or block an attack for a friend that he has guarded. He is however not able to parry range attacks, only block. And he takes half of the damage from magical attacks)
Charge-cry(+20 initiative for the whole group. Does not stack with other initiative buffs).

I tried to make the warrior useful and good even in PvP. In many games I have played they often turn into bad PvPers because they have no burst and the enemies rather target the weak opponents first. With the taunt and detaunt system, the warrior probably becomes the most important class in a clan.

Battle System

The battle-system is divided into two segments. Before that you roll for initiative and this is a 100 sided dice that is rolled and then you add initiative. Now you know what all fighters have for initiative and it is time to begin the combat process. In the first segment you go through what basic skills/spells a hero use when it is his time in the round. This is decided by the player before the game were they select three skills and then put a percentage after each of these skills to decide how big chance there is to use a special skill/spell every round.

An example: Daniel has decided that his human cleric should use group heal 60% of the time, single heal 30% of the time and strenght buff 10% of the time. When it is Caramyrs turn in a combat, the sim will roll a dice and if it rolls 1-60 Caramyr will cast group heal, if he rolls 61-90, he will cast single target heal and if he rolls 91-100 he will cast a strenght buff on a random clan member.

It is of course possible to set 100% in one skill/spell and that will make them cast/use the same skill everytime it is their turn. Here is an example of the first segment of a PVE fight versus a boss in one of the first dungeons.

Zyka the human rogue applies crippling poison on the zombie king lowering its defenses.

Edirach the elven ranger casts thorns to make his weapons do more damage this round.

Caramyr casts heal but no one is hurt.

Varawen casts scorched earth and hits Zombie King for 3 points of damage.

Throm uses taunt, fails to get aggro, but raises the detaunt of all in his group with 20.

Zombie King casts toxic cloud and hits Caramyr, Throm and Edirach for 4 points of damage.

This is the first segment of the fight. As you see the heroes in this round uses debuffs, selfbuffs, heals, AoE(scorched earth) and taunt, while the zombie king has an AoE attack. In the second segment of the fight it is just their basic attacks and here is an example of that from the same round.

Zyka attacks the zombie king with her daggers but misses.

Edirach attacks the zombie king with his longbow and hits for 9 points of damage. He fails the detaunt so he now has aggro.

Caramyr attacks the zombie king with smite but misses.

Varawen attacks the zombie king with fireball but misses.

Throm attacks the zombie king with his axe and hits for 9 points of damage.

Zombie King attacks Edirach with his sword and hits for 14 points of damage. Edirach is defeated.

As you can see from the first segment then Throm the dwarven Warrior fails his taunt so the Zombie King has no target. When Edirach the elven ranger hits with his longbow he has a chance of getting the agro because of the damage done. He has +20 on his detaunt rating because of Throm's taunt, but fails his roll and that is why he is targetted and will be until he is dead or Throm in the next round is successful with his taunt. In this case, the zombie king kills him at the very end of the first round.

Every class has skills that will make them useful in battles both in PvE and PvP. A tank is in there to take agro and try to suck up as much damage as he can to help his healers and damage dealers to do their job and with the system with detaunts and taunts, he really can do his job. He failed in round one and since this is a boss-fight and the boss got lucky with the dices, the clan lost a member directly.

Every hero is rated in weapon skill (how big chance he has to hit with melee-attacks), range skill (how big chance he has to hit with range attacks that could be bows or magic depending on class), armor factor (by how much he reduces incoming damage), wounds (how much damage he can take before he is defeated at 0), strength (how much damage he adds to his successful bow or melee attacks), melee damage (the damage he does in melee), range damage (the damage he does from range) , block, dodge, parry, initiative (how fast he is and the higher number the bigger chance of doing his things early in the round) , resists (his percentage to resist incoming magic) and detaunt (his chance of avoiding getting targetted when an enemy is looking for a new target).

Classes: Paladin

Next class out is the Paladin. The Paladin is a warrior build to wear down his foes with his excellent holy auras and defense that his god provides him with. He is a support class ready to tank when that is needed and he is using his auras to buff his comrades in battle. He is wearing plate-armor and wields a sword and a shield. Only humans and dwarves are able to become paladins.

When specced into the defensive path the paladin becomes better at block and parry but his auras also helps the team to stay alive. The healing aura heals better and the resistance aura helps the group mates to stay alive versus deadly wizards when he has specced deep enough into the holy protection path.

When specced into the offensive path Retribution then both the paladin and his clan-mates become more deadly because of his improved war auras. When going deep enough into that path the Paladin becomes a bit of a wizard killer specialist because when he resists a spell he will damage the caster.

It's hard to imagine a better clan member than a paladin. He protects his team mates by taking over agro, he uses his auras both offensively and defensively and still he is a threat for the enemies.

Basic spells/skills for the paladin:

Divine-Aura(+1 wounds back to the clan members),
Protection-Aura (+1 Armor Factor and -2 reduction on incoming magical damage for the whole clan. )
War-Aura (+20 weapon skill and range skill for the whole clan.)
Resistance-Aura (+20 in resistance for the whole clan.)
Lesser Taunt (+10 detaunt for the whole group but himself and 20% chance of stealing the agro of all the enemies in the area except from warriors or other paladins).

Next class up is the warrior in a day or two.

Villages

The rules for villages are quite advanced although still easy to learn and master. Your clan will randomly end up in one of five villages in the land of your choice unless you have got an game-invite from a friend, then you'll end up in the same village as him. Every village will have a leader and this leader is selected by the other players in an election every month.

The leader can upgrade the village in many ways. He can buy more soldiers or knights so that your village is prepared for war. He can build houses to get more people to the village and for each house you will get money from taxes. He can buy more resource-gatherers so that the village can continue to upgrade and build. Half of those resources are given to the clans of the village. The leader also have more votes when the village have their votes. Those votes are often about if a village should go to war or not. Or if you should kick out a clan or fight a war. A leader has five votes in those votes, while other clans only have one.

As a clan in a village you have to build a clan-house first before you can begin to upgrade you clan. Then you can buy soldiers and knights if you have houses for them. You can buy resource gatherers for yourself. You can also choose to raid another village, but this is a huge risk. When you do the other village might demand that you get kicked out of your village and that the village you live in pays back what you got from the raid or else you have a war. So if your village decided that they rather kick you out than have a war, then you have lost what you have built up in that village. You get to keep your resources, but besides that everything else is gone.

Every village has an auction house so there is no global AH. It might be a good idea for a clan that is more into trading to travel to other villages to check prices because every village will probably have different prices. You will also find different village NPC merchants that have a monthly budget to buy things from you. When they are out of money you cannot sell anything more to them unless they get money from other players that buys the stuff they have bought from other players. In the merchant city of Akkala you can always sell your stuff but to go there is always a risk because of pirate clans.

So what are the good things about living in a village instead of living in the capitals? You get resources from the village every turn. You can have your own villagers that will pay taxes to you. You can get your own resource-gatherers that will get resources for you. There are a lot of advantages for people that decides to belong to a village. But there are also things that might make you frustrated. If you live in a village with people loving to raid other villages or just love to declare war, then you're forced to go to war in a turn instead of doing things you might have planned otherwise.

In the land of Namur the villages are Westvale, Hornpeak, Winterdale, Stonegrove and Eastcastle. In Andor the five villages are Oldbury, Hammerton, Berryton, Morrhall and Whitesands.

Classes: Cleric

Lets take a look at one of the classes in the game, the Cleric. Only humans and dwarves can play clerics and they are the best healers in the game with some nice buffs as well. The cleric wears chain armor and fights with a spell called smite from distance and with a mace and small shield while in melee-range. They have two paths to choose from and that is to either be great group players with even better heals and buffs or if they decide to go the melee healer way making them doing more damage in melee. The cleric is without doubt a class most clans will use.

Their basic abilites are

Healing hand (single target heal for 1-8)

Touch of Divine (group heal for 1-4)

Prayer of Protection (+4 Armor Factor and -4 magic damage on a clan-mate or self.)

God's Judgement (+30 weaponskill on a clan-mate or self)

God's Gift (+4 in strenght on a clan-mate or self)

When they have specced enough in the salvation path(support) then they have a chance to heal their group for half the damage they do with any attacks. When they have specced enough in the Wrath Path(melee healer) then they have a chance to heal themselves for half of the damage done with melee attacks.

I will present more classes every now and then.

So what are the features of Heroes of the clan?

This game takes place in the world of Qarix. The cities of Andor and Namur are in war with eachother and the players of this game will end up in one of them. Every player is a clan leader and when the game begins he will create five heroes from nine races and ten classes. He will then watch them develope into legendary heroes as the time passes on. Every clan will end up in one of the five villages in each land.

This game is both turn based and you can do things when you log in. Two times a week the clan leader will decide what his heroes will do the next turn. It can be anything from going to the frontier and help his land in the war to just travel to another city and village to trade. Here are the options right now that a clan can do each turn :

- Send away the heroes to the neutral city of Arazh and let them partipicate in an arena match which is a fight clan versus clan with five heroes on each side.

- Send away your heroes to steamy djungles, ancient ruins, misty mountains or hot deserts to search for crafting ingredients. If they're lucky they will come home with some really rares ones that your crafter can use in his making of better armor or weapon for your clan. There are 20 so called ingredient zones that you can send them away to and if an enemy clan is in the same area that turn you will fight them to get the ingredients.

- Send away your heroes to the frontier to fight for their lands with clans of your own country versus clans of the enemy country. There are five zones between the capital cities of Namur and Andor and the country with more zones will get bonuses to experience, renown, loot and ingredient drop chance and so on. If one land holds all five zones, then they will get access to the city dungeons and in there they might find some really good loot and money.

- Travel to the merchant city of Akkala and sell your stuff in the local auction house there for a lot more than in the local villages. Take a caravan to get there or go by sea if you have a ship. But beware, enemy guilds might intercept your caravan or your ship and try to rob you.

- Take on the pirate role and either travel to the wasteland to intercept enemy caravans or if you have a ship go to the sea and hope for some incoming enemy ships. Fight with cannons and board the ships to get what they have in their cargo.

- Send away your heroes on adventures and fight monsters in three stages. Every step gets harder. You'll get very good loot if you manage to kill the boss in the third stage.

- Raid another village to get their resources, but this might lead to war or even that the village you live in will kick you out to avoid the war.

That is what you can do each turn. Between turns there is even more things to do.

- You can duel people for renown and money every 12th hour or just duel people for bragging rights with no time limits at all. Put your heroes in queue for duels for money even when you're not online and they will fight every 12th hour. There is a point system for both dueling for money and for bragging rights so you can see the top fighters in the world in different leaderboards.

- Play mini games for money on the local inns.

- Build out your clan in the villages buying resource finders that will bring home different types of resources for you each turn. Buy soldiers or knights to help your village if they ever end up in a war with another village. Build houses to get more people to the city and for every house you will get a sum every turn as a part of the taxes. Build your own guildhouse.

- Vote for village leader every month and if it turns out you're the one, then you can build up the village getting more soldiers, building more houses, getting more people to collect resources and so on. You also have more much bigger impact on village votes as a leader getting five votes instead of one. Those votes can be when you want to kick someone out to avoid war when they have raided another village or if you vote if you should go to war.

- Sell stuff in the Auction Houses of the villages and in the cities. Every village and city have their own Auction house so it might be worth to use a turn and travel to another city to find cheaper goods or being able to sell for more money.

- Craft armor, shields and weapons with a very fun crafting system. Build a ship.

- Manage your heroes when they have gained levels. You want your cleric to be more offensive, then you can choose that. You place points for each level in one of two paths and that decides what type of fighter your hero will become.

- Select three skills that your hero should use every fight and put percentage on each of these skills/spells. If you want a cleric to heal every round you can for an example set: Heal = 50%, Group Heal = 50%, Strenght buff = 0%. This way he have a 50% chance to single target heal in every round and 50% to group heal. These choices can turn the tide of a battle for sure.

This is some of things you'll be able to do in this game. I want the players to look forward to the turns as much as they have fun when they log in. I want them to have a chance to just do the action parts with arena and war if they like that or to be more into crafting and trading if they like that. Even people loving politics might find the village leading fun. So far I have rules and tables for most of the stuff I have presented in this post. I'll go into much more detail in future posts.

Some info about the blog

Well, this is a project I have been working on for a month or so and when it is finished I hope it will be one of the better browser games out there. I have tried out a lot of browser games and I must say although I am excited about the idea to just play something fast in a browser while at work or home, then I can't say I have found anything that I have liked so far. I have seen some browser games with potential, but I always find stuff that I don't like in them.

Before I start to present what plans I have and what I have worked on so far, then I want to say that this is a project far from finished. I am doing everything on paper first and to be honest, I am not even sure I'll be able to finish it off when it comes to programming. But the idea behind this project was to make something that made me motivated enough to pick up my interest for programming again and hopefully learn what I need to learn. I have two very competent friends that are amazing programmers and one of them have promised to help me if I get stuck, so I'll hope I can make it.

But the more ideas I put in and the more I look forward to the game, I just wish I could hand the programming part over to a much more competent programmer and act more as a tester, tweaker and game architect. I have noticed in the past that I learn coding much faster that way for some reason.

But my dream is that some day this game will be out there for you to play.