Dracalypse: Legends of the Dragon Apocalypse.

Announcing a new project:

Dracalypse: Legends of the Dragon Apocalypse.

A persistent world Mod for Dungeon Siege.

Incorporating the best content from DS1 and 2, this project will feature a number of radical game designs, fantastic music, great stories and a MASSIVE multiplayer RPG/PvP world to adventure in.

At the moment I am just finishing off the starting map: A huge winter world for creation of character, and for starting out on the epic quest that will bind this world into an epic fantasy. New maps and quests will be added as the content is finished, and hopefully at the end we will have something extrordinary.

I am pretty new to the DS scene, but am slogging away and finding it a joy to work with this stuff. Anybody who wishes to help is more than welcome: Mappers, Programmers, Designers, Cheerleaders, Tea-makers: All welcome.
I've been an active rpg'er for years and have a global game theme worked out. Think the depth of an Epic RPG with the action of Dungeon Siege, with the world size of a MMORPG.
Theres loads to do, and I'm open to any ideas to make this mod as great as possible.

Also looking for: Game masters to take on roles within the game. Fancy playing as a king or demon lord? Join in and consign your soul to the pit.
Interested in RPG and DS but don't have modding skills? Write yourself quests and characters, and we will include your NPC into the game, all credit to you!

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Storyline:

The Golden Age of men has passed. The once noble throne of Ciberia has become the seat of power to a cruel despot.
The worst winter in living history has fallen on the lands of Rhime, and some wonder if it shall ever pass.
There are those that suggest that something foul lurks within the heart of the storm, sending its blight into the heart of winter. Something that has itself been summoned...

This is the Broken Age. Where reason flees from the storm, where justice cowers from its might.
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Features:

As big as possible. I will release maps one by one, as standalone siegelets and hope that enough interest is generated to expand the concept into a persistent world. Eventually the world will run on one or more permanent servers. Hopefully we will expand the multiplayer limits beyond what is currently possible.

Loads of content: I have already imported a lot of the DS1/LOA content into DS2. think DS2 with the DS1 expansion pack!
Loads of player races: dwarves, elves, halflings, orcs to name but a few.

Music: Kickass themes and ambient melodies. No shortage of it.

Unique Balanced classes system. No two players will be the same, and any one player can expand limitlessly. Even better: All classes can compete or cooperate against each other in a way similar to warcraft, but without annoying level differentiation. Instead of "experience" and "levelling" we will use a unique balancing system.

Persistent. Eventually the servers will run by themseleves, with the result of a continual world, ever moving, ever changing. Scheduled events in the "world year" will ensure replayability.
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Why join:

I am starting this mod for 2 primary reasons:

1. To create fantastic atmospheric music, to test and demonstrate my l33t skillz as a game music writer. I am a professional musician and tour 6 months of the year with the Norwegian prog rock band Retroheads. Right now is my winter break.
To fulfill my personal ambitions, my personal projects are under the Stabbing Pixies psuedonym (www.stabbingpixies.com). More info about the Dracalypse project will eventually be found there.

2. To test a unique game engine that I have worked out on paper: where the trade system ITSELF actually decides the fate of the world. I have been playing RPG for about 15 years, and have over the course of time worked out a REALLY cool way to involve players in the dynamics of a large world in a far more intimate way than your average RPG.
The big danger of large MMOPRGs (for example) is the reduction of "the player hero" to "the ordinary guy", which can destroy the epic fantasy setting of otherwise highly fantastic worlds. I want to work this out and test a theory that I have.

Other reason to do this will be:

Great fun. This will be a community project with a rewarding creation at the end of it.
Great experience. An excellent way to get into game design.
Great adventure: This is the polygon world you always wanted.

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Technical:

A lot of the design ideas I have will only really work well with a lot of players.
As a result Ive been looking at several ways to expand the multiplayer limit as much as possible.

One way (which Im counting on would be to modify a standard server to allow a larger maximum of players, by modifying the dsldll.
The graphics client on the host machine can take up a lot of overhead, but I have been assured there are ways to overcome this. Saving the playerstates and world state will require some programming skill, but I'm hoping to recruit someone talented.

Several hugely talented ppl in the community are also working on dedicated server mods. and we can only hope that these will become available also, although tbh I think the level of expertise required to run/support something of this size/complexity is beyond my skill level at least

This mod will be made publicly available and free for download under the Dungeon Siege and Dungeon Siege 2 EULA's.

More later!