Realms of Torment

[i]In the future we expect to see almost 70 MMORPG's launched on the market. Some of them are just expansions or part of an older series but all of them want to bring us better graphics and new ideas in terms of gameplay. From this point of view Realms of Torment will stand out from the crowd as it attempts to change the general perception of the playability of MMORPG titles.

Realms of Torment will not feature classes. Only races, skills and attributes (from which you can select strength, speed, endurance, mana, aim, dexterity, health, awareness, wisdom and stamina - this list being incomplete), trying in this way to offer full freedom in creating and developing the exact character that the player has in mind. In the end there will be six playable races: humans, orcs, elves, dwarves, avians and trolls with each having their own sub-races. It is our belief that this race based system is closer to reality than a class based one.

After choosing your race and configuring your character (first and last name, hair color, eye color, skin color and so on), the player is free to develop his favorite skills. In order to develop your chosen skills they must be used constantly.

Here indeed is the first new concept - not practicing this skill will (in time) degrade it's efficiency. The player is forced to use it if he/she wants to continue increasing that skill or they may simply choose to give up and develop another skill which they are free to do at any time.

The system of developing your character in Realms of Torment is not one based on the accumulation of points by killing other players, NPCs, or other game creatures or by successfully completing missions as you see in many MMORPGs out there. By killing different creatures the player will not receive money or items but will receive whatever that creature or player has in stash. A creature, like a wolf for example will leave it's fur behind, while other NPC's might leave a bit of money.

Another criticized part of any MMORPG is the repetition of the gameplay. In order for a character to progress, the player must play many hours killing more and more creatures and so, in time, he/she gets to know all the mechanics of the game, gets the best items corresponding to his class/race/skills. In this way his character reaches the highest level permitted by the game and.....that's all! Not wishing for this to happen, the Realms of Torment team gave up the level based system and adopted a political and economical system that allows alliances, expansions, territorial invasions, PvP (player versus player) fights or server events generated by Game Masters. On the other hand, battles larger than PvP will be allowed like RvR (realm versus realm), TvT (town versus town), VvV (village versus village) or GvG (guild versus guild) because this game will allow more forms of the social group. These fights will not necessitate a certain level from the characters that will attend them because there is no such thing as level progression of the characters in Realms of Torment. In this way the development team tries to encourage the communication between players and the support of the new ones with money, items or advice.

An interesting aspect is that the RvR fights will allow certain players with very high leadership skill to gain access to a tactical menu from where they will be able to issue orders or control partially or totally the other characters who will receive bonuses for respecting orders and maintaining a certain formation. This system should generate a more attractive and diversified gameplay than in any other MMORPG seen to date.

The second big innovation of the game is the player generated questing system. The events are not generated just by Game Masters but also by players. For example, a blacksmith can announce that he needs a certain ore, offering a sword as a reward or the announcement of rewards on the capture or kill of a player or a group of players.

The affiliation of a character to a certain community will be given by race, player's choice, and also by his birth because Realms of Torment implements a totally new concept named blood-line. All the characters have a life of their own that begins at the age of 15-16: they are born, get married and eventually die from natural causes. In this way a characters life will last almost 500 hours of actual gameplay. This value is not fixed yet and will most likely be modified in order to insure a balance in what concerns the time a player spends with a certain character. The child will inherit a higher speed in developing certain skills that his parents mastered, skills that will still depend on the race the child will belong to. All these limitations are here to hinder the evolution of certain characters that might break the games equilibrium.

The most important thing a child will inherit is the fame. A very important feature that helps in measuring all the player's actions in the game world. In Realms of Torment the child of a very well known hero will gain many advantages from the behavior of different NPC's or players. On the other hand, performing actions against the laws of the community will drop the fame level. Committing criminal actions will force the community to banish that character. Killing such a player or a player with bad fame will raise the fame of the winner and if the players belong to rival communities they will get experience and certain items.

For the players that choose a criminal way of life there will be villages or towns specially built for them. We will drastically sanction those who will harass other players over the limits generally accepted as fair gameplay. For example, an assassin will not be punished unless he kills the same players over and over again which in fact is not an exercise of his skill but true harassment. The drop of the fame level will not be so high if the winner was fighting in self defense but it will surely go down if the player kills unarmed NPCs or players like children or traders.


In response to this there will surely be organized duels where players can fight for fame or where more players can challenge one very experienced player in order to develop their skills. A dead player can be reborn in the body of his own child or will be revived by the gods depending on the religion embraced by the community of that character. By praying and making offerings a player can earn different bonuses like protection in the early stages of his life against player-killers. The rivalries between gods in the Realms of Torment universe will make them participate in wars together. The possibility of being called through magic or prayers also being an option.

Money and items dropped during gameplay will disappear after a while so storing those objects will be a must. The player will have to look for NPCs or different places that can help him accomplish this. They will than be able to form a new society. For example, in order to have weapons the town will need a blacksmith's shop and besides the actual building, the town will need a player specialized in this profession. His disappearance on the other hand will lead to a lack of weapons and the players will have to find the needed materials in other ways.

Each item has its own weight and each player has it's own capacity of carrying a certain amount of items, furthermore, the character will not be able to use a weapon due to it's weight even if he can carry it in stash and even if he has the right skill developed. The weapons can be worn in different ways. Weapons will degrade over time and will need to be repaired.. Each weapon will have certain characteristics like hacking, cutting or piercing and their efficiency is judged by the player's skills.

There will not be any supreme weapons, only rare and unique ones which will be given after successfully solving quests or which will be manufactured by blacksmiths. The truly rare weapons will be seen in the hands of heroes, kings or gods.

The KreL universe is a medieval fantasy one and will have different locations like swamps, desert, woods, caves and ice lands which will compose a huge map. There will not be any portals. The trip from one point to another will be done with the help of magic or simply by walking. Horses will be available also and we are currently thinking of introducing ships for overseas transport. Each community will have it's own laws and regulations and the player wanting to read about them can do so in certain places. Other ways are through the questioning of the more experienced players or through the listening of bards that will sing about heroes and their deeds or about different social, political or economical aspects of a certain community.

The communication between players will be done through a series of public and private chat channels with the possibility of implementing mouth synchronization with voice and also voice-over-net capability. There will also be different servers with limited vocabulary.

Although each location will have a specific impact upon the communities economy, all the economical transactions will be free, based on offer and demand. For example, the extra production of swords will mean a drastic drop of their price. To prevent inflation there will be a fixed sum of money throughout the game world. The professions will also be free to choose, from furriers, who will buy the furs obtained by killing monsters, to bounty hunters or blacksmiths which will manufacture weapons and armor. All these items will have a limited durability so the blacksmith profession is one of the most important.

Realms of Torment is powered by an engine called the Abyssal Engine v2.0 which supports DirectX 8.1, OpenGL 1.3 and the GeForce and Radeon series of video cards. It takes full advantage of recent technology such as per pixel shading, bump mapping, environmental mapping, vertex shading and shader systems. As for effects, the game will feature meteorological conditions, day/night cycle, eclipses, falling stars, lens flare, polygonal grass. To allow the game to run smoothly on many different systems the graphic engine will include a FPS manager that will dynamically adapt the level of detail of the whole world.

For the moment, Realms of Torment approaches the end of the alpha state and an internal beta-test is being created. Visit the site regularly for more news and updates!

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