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Dev Blog: Excelsior
Dear Settlers,
A "Dev Blog" provides a glimpse behind the scenes of "The Settlers Online". It's written by our Game Design Team and it's not translated to avoid information loss or unintentionally changing important facts. This time, our very own BB_Alex provides answers to some of the most pressing and frequently asked questions from the Community.
The Excelsior & What's next?
Hello my dear Settlers,
It's done, The Excelsior arrived on our live servers. I bet Sonya is very excited to show you all the additional and interesting stories in The Settlers Online universe, and I hope you're having fun with this new feature. Let's check out some of the ideas and decisions behind this content feature and take a small peek into its future.
The Basic Idea
The idea for The Excelsior is quite old. The first page for the design document was created in 2014. It was named "Adventure Generator" and contained a rough design with a simple vision: providing new adventures to you. Then we had the update in which the level cap was raised and most of 2015 revolved around this big feature.
Ventures
After the Level Cap Raise went live last year, one of our designers started to work on a pool of adventures which could be used for content updates. Creating an adventure is time-consuming; it starts with its conception, through to the design documentation and finally to its implementation. This was the reason we aimed for a pool of adventures to drain from, whenever we needed new ones. During this conception process, one specific idea appeared: combining combat with the buff mechanic of scenarios. The mechanic known as the "Ventures" were born and had a lot of potential for interesting concepts e.g. increasing the diversity of content. The designer had the task to create stand-alone ventures but also a new fairy tale venture chain. He decided to go with Grimm fairy-tales and combine five of them into one chain.
One day he approached me and asked if I had a specific vision for the stand-alone ventures. We sat together and came up with the idea of focusing on different cultures even more. This idea is not new for The Settlers Online. There are Nords, the Mayas and Arabian Nights fairy-tales - all in different settings. Our goal was to take those existing units and settings and give them interesting deep narratives; there are plenty of captivating stories which make a culture unique. One of the best examples is the legend of "El Chupacabra", which became one of the ventures. While focusing on those cultures we created the new tropical setting as a combination of normal and desert assets. To keep the difference between fairy tales and those new cultural legends we also created a new theme: Myths. If I have to describe this approach with one short sentence, it would be "Around the World of Settlers Online".
The Vision
The pool of ventures was growing, the new mechanic created opportunities and it was time to decide about the next big thing for 2016. We had so much feedback regarding the level cap raise: missing content starting from level 63, the mechanic of buffs starting quest chains, the elite barracks as a bottleneck, slow progress etc. But the level cap raise alone wasn't the only important topic. There was feedback to other parts of the game: the daily quests, the daily log in bonus, missing content and diversion and the wish for a second bookbinder, just to mention a few. All this feedback from like-minded people who care about the game - it's extremely valuable.
We took the vision from 2014 and started to refine it, to cover the topics mentioned in the feedback. The new ventures and the fairy-tale venture chain were perfect to bring more diversity into the game and to break up the daily routine, while being used as content for the next big thing. The next step was to give it a workable structure, a clear focus and achievable goals. We diced on the following approach:
Letters
Covered by quest buffs as content, letters would run beside the routine and provide additional opportunities to gain experience points. The tasks used in this category of content should build upon the routine and support it. The gem reward should provide additional opportunities to speed up progress or gain additional content. Letters are all about the experience of short, cool stories, which boost your progress. To accomplish this, you should also receive resources, so we put a bunch in the letters category loot tables inside the Excelsior. Those resources should be raw materials fueling your economy, and exclude final resources, like weapons. Since all types of ores were covered by another category, we excluded them here.
Travel Guides
Travel Guides evolved from ventures and it was the first category we designed. We decided to focus on industrial mines as a core reward, which had the benefit of providing "industrial" versions for all mines and not only the iron and gold mine. With this established focus everything else evolved around it. Refillers should support your industrial mines, while you were on the way to complete the next travel guide.
Books
The new fairy-tale venture chain became a campaign and was chosen as content for the third category. During the search for a core reward for books, the mechanic of Epic Workyards popped into my head. We already had a similar idea with the Epic Woodyard, but it was never completed. The unlock mechanic of those epic production chains fit the progression of the book category too. So we continued the work on the farmyard and established the blueprint mechanic to be able to use items to unlock those production chains. Unique resources like star coins and magic beans should be covered by this category, too, and would match existing rules as "magic beans are mostly available in fairy-tale adventures."
Zone Wide Buffs & Recipes
We achieved a structure with categories in that they each had unique rewards, reinforcing every decision you made in the game. However it was still not enough - something was missing. Some of you might remember the Dev Blog in February where we spoke about zone wide buffs; that they served as a foundation for more interesting effects in the future. This was already the first step in many that would be required to make ventures and the Excelsior possible. Zone wide buffs allowed us to create unique effects for several ventures, making them more interesting and challenging, and we decided to create new zone wide buffs to boost your economy. One buff for each category - which succeeded in making those categories even more unique, while also increasing the value of your decisions. On top of that, we also introduced recipes for the manuscript, tome, and codex, to provide a faster way of producing those resources on higher levels.
The Airship & The Captain
During this initial conception progress, several specific themes emerged. The feature should boost the opportunities and possibilities for you. It should provide more diversity while also exploring different cultures, allowing you to travel into unique and exotic environments with interesting stories. All those themes and topics evolved out of the content we used, influencing the design of the ship and the captain leading it.
Sonya Graham was envisioned as a British noble with an insatiable urge to meet different cultures and to explore the truth behind their stories. We even developed an inside gag, the "Forge of Truth". Sonya became our personal "Captain Nemo" on her "Nautilus", representing a unique industrial achievement, which again matched the industrial mines. A vehicle powered by some mystical power, which could not be explained easily. Sonya provides you the opportunity to travel around the world and explore those exotic places and the stories they have to offer. The ship and the captain are prominent figureheads - noble and outstanding. They're to be something special whose goal is to "excel".
Within these ideas, "The Excelsior" was born and the design of the airship would support this vision. To name one influence: Before and during the middle age the color purple was very rare and expensive. It was deemed only fit for royalty and nobility to show off their class, so we picked this color for the airship and Sonya's clothes to subtly hint at her noble origins.
Level of Detail
One additional decision surfaced during the development process: the level of detail of the ship is deliberately different compared to other buildings in the game. The game does not have a system handling the same object with different LoD models (level of detail). All those additional models would dramatically increase loading time, because our models are basically 2D pictures and all of them have to be loaded. There's a system that decreases the details dynamically based on an algorithm. This helps the game maintain a steady performance, but you'll still notice a small performance hit if you zoom out. A high level of detail on objects without proper LoD models becomes an issue, especially when you zoom out - the model and its features become almost indistinguishable from its surroundings. Reducing the level of detail of the initial object maintains its signature silhouette while increasing its visibility on most zoom levels.
Skins
Since the feature was finished and deployed for you to play with, we now also have your valuable opinions about it. One of the most important topics was the airship's design. Some of you disliked it, but sadly we didn't have a chance to change its design before releasing the feature. We decided that the content was more important than the design, ensuring that everything works smoothly and fixing bugs while adjusting the balance.
We didn't overlook your feedback, as it's vitally important to us. The original base design of the Excelsior won't change, as it is too ingrained in the theme that transcends the airship itself. There are also some of you who do like this design and so we won't be removing it. We want to introduce additional skins for the Excelsior in the future. One of the skins takes into account the feedback from those who didn't like the original design and it will be available without investing gems. You can decide which skin to use, the original or the "rustic" one - a name we're internally using at the moment.
Crystals
A different topic emerged out of your feedback - the amount of crystals. The exact number is very important because of several reasons, but most importantly is that the value of crystals has to stay high. Besides that, letters do contain gem rewards. To keep things in check we have to maintain a delicate balance of crystals, which means we will avoid introducing sources for crystals that can be "grinded" out to the extreme; this includes adventure loot for example.
The amount of crystals won't stay the same and instead will be increased. To give you a specific example: we are working on new daily quests which should cover the endgame tier starting from level 66. These quests demand high-level resources like platinum ore and mahogany wood in exchange for a higher amount of crystal rewards.
Achievements & Events
Additional sources for crystals are from community events like the "Tell Excelsior's Tale". As we progress into the future, the achievements system is another good candidate as a source of crystals. We still miss achievements related to the feature itself and providing crystals as rewards for achievements will definitely keep the balance. There are so many other good opportunities and we haven't even started talking about a possible connection between the big annual events like Easter, Halloween or Christmas and the Excelsior. We don't know how it would look like in detail. We just have to stick to the rule of keeping control over the amount of crystals.
There are so many other interesting thoughts which appeared during the whole development process, and even after that. Mentioning all of them here would make this Dev Blogworthy of a huge book in length. We had a blast developing this feature, talking to you on the test server to get your feedback and better yet to implement some of it. It was fun to use existing mechanics as a foundation and to build on top of it, while also trying new exciting ideas. It's always a pleasure to see the game evolving; more content, opportunities and possibilities and an increasing diversity. The Settlers Online is still alive after 6 years and I'm eagerly looking forward to the next one.
Thank you for all the feedback. You help us in making a better game. Read you later and have fun!
BB_Alex
