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Therian Saga: Beta An AMMOMRPG [PC/MAC/Web]
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Registered User admin
in Indie Games
AMMOMRPG = (AsynchronousMMOManagementRPG)
Hi everyone, i’m François Desrosiers, designer at Virtys, and I am here to invite you to the open beta of our game. Hope you like it.
First things first, check out our video trailer
About the team and the project
The project started with two guys at the end of 2008, at a time when there were still unintelligent phones and tablets were pills to most people. We were looking for an MMO project that would be feasible for a small team, so we decided to merge management and asynchronous game concepts. We also decided to use a web platform to distribute the game, since at that time this market was almost unexploited. Time went against us, but we liked where the game was heading, so we strove to release it no matter what. And here we stand, five years later, finally asking people to play our game. The result is far beyond anything we had in mind at the time; we now have a core of five (ok...five is -not- impressive) creators, who are surrounded by many friends, players and artists who help us push the game forward.
Keep it simple, why should I test your game?
Stop talking! Show us some screenshots!
Yeah, we can do that, but you must understand one thing: to us words are the most powerful medium of all when it comes to creating and immersing yourself in a fantasy world so you feel you are part of it. The game relies heavily on texts, and on a universal skill-based mechanic, to give the player a sense of our world that you will not see in screenshots.
But hey, we also have cool stuff like a giant hand-drawn map, cute companions, epic armor and so on:
To go beyond crowdfunding
We knew from the start that looking for distributor for this kind of project was a hopeless quest. We also wanted to make sure our vision was not impaired by too many monetary constraints, that would push us into making a “standardized game”. So we set out to finance our project the hard way, with our own money.
When crowdfunding started to be popular, we had a game that was already playable. So we looked at the possibility of using crowdsourcing as a final lever to get the project out in the wild - but we decided not to. Why? Well, we had no way to convince you that we were going to deliver on our promises. So basically we thought at that time: “Hey, too bad about kickstarting, we’ll just get the first part of the game to them the hard way - and then, if they like it, we'll make it evolve with them.”
That was a hell of a good idea. We are not here to convince you with cool videos and blogs that we can do something with your money any more. No, we are here today building the game with you, while you play the first part of it.
Even better, you can give us feedback in real time, so you have an impact on how we make the rest of the game!
The name of the project has changed several times in the last five years. You can find traces of what we have done on the internet under the name “Fatecraft : The Therian Saga”.
Why asynchronous?
To break the prejudice that asynchronous game had to be simple games. That was really important to us. We wanted a game that people could spend less time on than live MMO, but that could offer more for each second online. Your characters work while you are offline, but you will be also thinking about what you are going to make them do next time you log in.
There are lots of games out there that are time-consuming for nothing. Building an asynchronous game that goes deeper into RPG gameplay: that was a battle worth fighting.
A typical day in Therian Saga
You can play the game the way you want. There is never a situation in the game where you have to stay at the computer. You can quit in the middle of a dungeon, even in the middle of a fight, and come back the next day and pick up where you left off. If you quit in the middle of a fight with another player, your characters will continue to fight as well as they can while you are offline.
What about the typical day? Well, just as an example, suppose you can manage two very short playing sessions, one in the morning and one at midday. You might schedule tasks for your hero in the morning, then just check if everything is ok at lunch time and maybe indulge in some trading and social activities. In the evening, when you have a bit more time, you'll have lots of “live gameplay” options: quests, adventures, dungeon-raiding, fights with other players in the arena, maybe even a boss run. At the end of your play session, you might ask your hero to sleep, or carry on working during the night. If you miss one of your normal play sessions, your heroes usually have enough tasks left that they can continue to evolve anyway.
Now that gives you a lot of flexibility and, as you can see, the game goes beyond asynchronicity and offer lots of live gameplay possibilities.
Screenshots time!
What about the future of the game?
Ok, that was the part that looks like a crowdfunding sale speech, but hey, you have to know where we are heading.
Conclusion (And another video!)
So that’s it. Don’t take my word for it! Come play the beta for a few days, then tell us what you really think of the game.
Hi everyone, i’m François Desrosiers, designer at Virtys, and I am here to invite you to the open beta of our game. Hope you like it.
First things first, check out our video trailer
http://youtu.be/vzdpyHNsFhkAbout the team and the project
The project started with two guys at the end of 2008, at a time when there were still unintelligent phones and tablets were pills to most people. We were looking for an MMO project that would be feasible for a small team, so we decided to merge management and asynchronous game concepts. We also decided to use a web platform to distribute the game, since at that time this market was almost unexploited. Time went against us, but we liked where the game was heading, so we strove to release it no matter what. And here we stand, five years later, finally asking people to play our game. The result is far beyond anything we had in mind at the time; we now have a core of five (ok...five is -not- impressive) creators, who are surrounded by many friends, players and artists who help us push the game forward.
Keep it simple, why should I test your game?
- Skill Based: We use a system based on your hero, your tool, your companion and where you do a task.
- Sandbox: It’s up to you to understand how to progress in the game.
- Storytelling: Old school style with text as the main medium for storytelling.
- Crafting: Complex, with a skills distribution mechanic from material to final product.
- Asynchronous: You can play this game at the same time as a more time-consuming game.
- Indies: The game is rough on players; you have to work hard to reach your goals.
- Beta: There will be no server wipe!
- Community: The community is still small and very cool.
- Devs: We are close to the players and you can discuss the future of the game with us.
(You could also play just to prove me wrong and tell me about that on this forum.)
Stop talking! Show us some screenshots!
Yeah, we can do that, but you must understand one thing: to us words are the most powerful medium of all when it comes to creating and immersing yourself in a fantasy world so you feel you are part of it. The game relies heavily on texts, and on a universal skill-based mechanic, to give the player a sense of our world that you will not see in screenshots.
But hey, we also have cool stuff like a giant hand-drawn map, cute companions, epic armor and so on:
To go beyond crowdfunding
We knew from the start that looking for distributor for this kind of project was a hopeless quest. We also wanted to make sure our vision was not impaired by too many monetary constraints, that would push us into making a “standardized game”. So we set out to finance our project the hard way, with our own money.
When crowdfunding started to be popular, we had a game that was already playable. So we looked at the possibility of using crowdsourcing as a final lever to get the project out in the wild - but we decided not to. Why? Well, we had no way to convince you that we were going to deliver on our promises. So basically we thought at that time: “Hey, too bad about kickstarting, we’ll just get the first part of the game to them the hard way - and then, if they like it, we'll make it evolve with them.”
That was a hell of a good idea. We are not here to convince you with cool videos and blogs that we can do something with your money any more. No, we are here today building the game with you, while you play the first part of it.
Even better, you can give us feedback in real time, so you have an impact on how we make the rest of the game!
The name of the project has changed several times in the last five years. You can find traces of what we have done on the internet under the name “Fatecraft : The Therian Saga”.
Why asynchronous?
To break the prejudice that asynchronous game had to be simple games. That was really important to us. We wanted a game that people could spend less time on than live MMO, but that could offer more for each second online. Your characters work while you are offline, but you will be also thinking about what you are going to make them do next time you log in.
There are lots of games out there that are time-consuming for nothing. Building an asynchronous game that goes deeper into RPG gameplay: that was a battle worth fighting.
A typical day in Therian Saga
You can play the game the way you want. There is never a situation in the game where you have to stay at the computer. You can quit in the middle of a dungeon, even in the middle of a fight, and come back the next day and pick up where you left off. If you quit in the middle of a fight with another player, your characters will continue to fight as well as they can while you are offline.
What about the typical day? Well, just as an example, suppose you can manage two very short playing sessions, one in the morning and one at midday. You might schedule tasks for your hero in the morning, then just check if everything is ok at lunch time and maybe indulge in some trading and social activities. In the evening, when you have a bit more time, you'll have lots of “live gameplay” options: quests, adventures, dungeon-raiding, fights with other players in the arena, maybe even a boss run. At the end of your play session, you might ask your hero to sleep, or carry on working during the night. If you miss one of your normal play sessions, your heroes usually have enough tasks left that they can continue to evolve anyway.
Now that gives you a lot of flexibility and, as you can see, the game goes beyond asynchronicity and offer lots of live gameplay possibilities.
Screenshots time!
What about the future of the game?
“We have a map and a character, what else does a true RPG fan need?”
There is more than a year's worth of gameplay in the current version of the game. Yet, to us, it's just the beginning of the game. We have a lot of cool concepts and features that will give even more life to our fantasy world. And we are not talking about copy-pasting regions of the map with harder to kill mobs. We want to explore new gameplay, give you control over some parts of the land, allow your heroes to be questgivers so you will be the one making the “newbs” quest for resources. You will discover new crafts, skills and magical powers that will eventually lead your character to the mystery hidden behind the word “Therian”. Your guild will eventually become a faction, and at that point you will not only control a guild hall, but a whole village, city or region! Not to mention that you'll have to conquer the seas, the underground and even the air. The world will get even more alive when global events, both competitive and cooperative, appear in the game, together with a weather system that will affect how these events will take place. We are also heading to add more PVP action, with the vision that this part of the game should not be mandatory, but regions of the game could be reserved for it. We have laid the foundations of a game that can be expanded forever, and that's something we are really proud of.Ok, that was the part that looks like a crowdfunding sale speech, but hey, you have to know where we are heading.
Conclusion (And another video!)
http://youtu.be/oIoFqbO_gkISo that’s it. Don’t take my word for it! Come play the beta for a few days, then tell us what you really think of the game.
+2
Posts
I'll be around if you have any question about the game.
Dev team makes a great job to add new contents regulary, listening players about their expectations.
This asynchronous game alows an activ possibility during full time periods, and a quiet but activ gameplay when few time for it, attracting various players.
Most players seems to be a bit older than at usual online games, probably due to complex mechanical - a nice community and more advanced players helps about this detail at beginning.
From short solo action till long group action, you'll have fun to reach goal at your level for a long time. Crafters as warriors will have fun to work together to discover this wide medieval fantastic world.
Sorry if my english hearts, and don't hesitate to try it some days
I just wanted to post a comment on Therian Saga.
As an old RPG player (started RPG in 80 th), i really support this game.
Therian is not a simple RPG like we all have seen. Its a real community : mature, helpfull, skilled and fun.
Dev heard what you need, they are present in the game and are really aware of our progress.
I play this Saga since the beta and i am still surprise of the progression of the game.
Its rich, fun and very well playable.
I just suggest you only that : try it and you will be caught
Cheer
VC
Beau Hindman, from Massively:
A newbie's look at the fantastic Therian Saga
Pherephassa, from Lorehound:
The Therian Saga Open Beta Preview: Part 1
Therian Saga Open Beta Preview: Part 2
We were very happy with these reviews. For us, it's some kind of confirmation that we did not work all those years for nothing. I hope I can get comments from the Penny Arcade community too.
I know Therian Saga since one year and now I'm continue to discover some things to cry when I want to up my skill and enjoy when I goal.
I don't know other RPG because this only one caught me so hard. When you try juste 10minutes you understand the game is very large and you could have many hours(month) just for view all you could make. And few more to could make it...
As other had said before community is mature and very helpfull for new players. Each realm got a real economy based on exchange craft or loot and never you are forced to take your mastercard.
As a player said once "I've never think I could looking for fluctuation of steel ingot price".
If you like crash your brain
If you like enjoy with other player with Rp or not
If you like to have an infinity of possibility and no interdiction
If you like exchange all you make for all you want
If you like have a goal and follow it even if you have it
If you're just curious
So come and try it, sure you'll be caught by concept of Therian Saga.
Have fun
The Beta is going well so far. We opened a new territory to the English players and activited an "enthusiasm boost" that help a new player discovers the game faster for their first character.
Our metrics show that lots of players that come from Dwarf Fortress and Eve Online like the game (or at least play the game ;-) ). That does not surprise me, we have elements of both games.
I'll continue to give you updates on the Beta, we are still working on new features for the game.
The english release
We were prepared for a massive invasion of players at the opening of the beta, but it was actually a progressive (but steady) influx of players. For the size of our team, it may have been good news after all, even if we were expecting many more players to join the first week. We had to review our strategies based on those numbers, which is why we had to wait before telling you what was coming next.
Short term
We will have a small update to apply in the next few weeks to fix and improve what we couldn’t the last time, like the new lamden infusion. We’re keeping an eye out for majors issues and strive to offer you the most comfortable gaming experience possible.
And Then?
Find more players
A the moment, we are working on a strategy to improve the acquisition of new players. This is a battle on many fronts that has since become an international one. We are negotiating with some of the industry’s major players to see how they can help us position our game in this battlefield. Our strategy is almost ready, and we will soon execute on it.
Improve the connectivity
A good part of the work we do is about performance, stability and scalability. The big news we can share with you today is that we are looking to abandon the use of ports, which will facilitate connectivity to the game on secure networks (at the office, schools and public place for example). This is not ready yet, but we wanted you to know that we’re working on it.
This improvement to the game has another long-term goal: to ease the porting of the game to other (mobile) platforms.
Real-time group gameplay and combats
We are pleased to announce that we will be offering the possibility to do group actions in real-time. We are working on new game mechanics that will introduce this type of fight. It will be linked to a complex system of craft, guilds and special sites that will add a whole new dimension to the game and will take you even closer to the therianic powers.
We will also improve the combat system to offer new attributes to your weapons and armors.
Opening new territories
We are now ready to look forward, and more precisely to the north. We are preparing a new territory, Norstria, that will have you discover a little more of the new continent’s politics and will offer you new gameplay mechanics. We will also introduce with this territory two missing trades (breeding and horticulture) and two new fields of secret and security. These two will be essential to the future release of Vallero, another territory to the south.
This new land will include new resources, quests, adventures and craft recipes. In short, this will represent weeks of gameplay.
Conclusion
We hope this news update will give you a grasp of what is to come in Myriaden during the next few months and we would like to thank all of you for your contribution to the game.
Thanks!
http://indiemegabooth.com/project/therian-saga/
By the way, we had a release last Friday with some new stuff, most of it was request of the community:
Release Notes 1.12: