As promised here is a screen shot of the main game UI, click on the image for a full size version. The top left is the current player's avatar and details. The map in the top right corner shows you the current zone, in relation to your z-index. The icons scattered around open other windows that allow you to view your character sheet, skills, spells, backpack, etc. The interface is built in Silverlight 2 Beta 2.

Skills are the fundamental system in Perenthia, they govern all actions you can take from slaying a mighty beast to casting a healing spell to piloting a ship on the open ocean. What this means for players is that you can train up any skills and create a unique game play experience. For instance, one of the Professions in the game is a Mage; if I want my Mage Character to be able to wear plate armor while raining down destruction on my foes. Since I chose the Mage profession I will get bonus skill points in magical related skills at level one with additional skill bonus points added to new skills at various levels. However, since I want to be a plate armor wearing Mage I will spend some of my initial bonus Skill Points in the Plate Armor skill. Now, I can wear some of the low level plate armor and continue to train that skill as I advance or earn additional Skill Points. Likewise, if I am a Knight and want to gain the ability to shape shift like a Ranger I can spend points in the Shape Shifting skill.

Of course, you just won't have enough Skill Points through out the game to spread them around too thin, probably only about 4 or 5 additional skills could really be trained to usefulness so players will need to choose carefully. I am still thinking about the ability to buy Skill Points back after they have been used so you can re-train, in case you didn't really understand the skill system when you started playing. Still not sure about this, I will see how the players do in the Alpha and Beta stages and see what the feedback is for it.

And while I don't currently have crafting complete, nor will I for the Alpha, I think the skills system will provide a fun and challenging environment.

For those unfamiliar with the fantasy role playing genre; quests are simple to complex tasks that players complete in order to advance, get sweet gear, etc. They usually involved raiding a dungeon, slaying some terrible beast and wondering about the countryside trying to find the entrance to the hidden caverns.

What I hope to accomplish with quests is to provide a goal beyond just slaying monsters. Quests will actually move your Character through the game, while training and advancing them along the way.

One of my primary goals with Perenthia is to provide a different game play experience as players mature within the game. The first phases of the game will include some of the normal grind, killing monsters to get better gear, to level up, to kill monsters, etc. This gives the players immediate satisfaction while getting them used to moving around, using commands, spells, equipping items, buying and selling and everything else that goes along with eradication of the demon beasts of the underworld. The second phase of the game will follow a bit of a storyline, requiring players to venture into dungeons and caverns to retrieve special items they will need in order to move into the next phase of the game. While this involves a lot of the same type of situation, you have a reason to go into the dungeon and complete it, rather than just killing 10 rats because some dude is freaking out. The third phase will require the player to use the items created from the previous phase to solve puzzles, riddles and the like, which will take them into the next phase. The fourth phase will require the player to purchase some form of transportation in order to visit very far off places and located individuals who can further their progress with quests of their own. This will continue in this manner for the remainder of the game. I currently have 4 phases planned and ideas for 3 more that I hope to get written down and planned out before too long, although I will probably wait until after the alpha an beta test phases.

I want to try and provide a fun game and I feel that doing this phased game progress could provide an enjoyable gaming experience. I know when playing other games of the genre I usually burn out in the high levels because I worked so hard to get there and it is just more of the same. I would also like the world to progress forward around the players so that new challenges are introduced to both high and low level characters that are in keeping with the overall storyline. I want players to have as much fun playing the game as I am having making it. :)

I hope to provide a robust questing system that can handle these phases and still maintain a clean and easy way for players to know what to do next. For the alpha I have planned out some quests that take you around the alpha starting area and should advance the alpha players enough so that the next area will introduce another phase in the game experience.

I will do another development update after this weekend.

I am not quite ready to post the screen shots of the actual game UI, still need to do some cleanup. So, since I promised I would post some screen shots here are a few of my world builder tool. This is a windows application that just reads and writes to the database.

This first screen is the map builder and as you can see I can draw the actual places/rooms in which players will adventure. The map that is displayed will be the Alpha starting map, it consists of a small town, a forest and a small sewer system. The sewer nodes are not displayed because they are one level down.

This is the creature manager window that allows me to create creature "templates", from which actual creature instances can be created and placed onto the map from above. (Using the Add Mobile button).

This is just a shot of the item manager window, displaying some of the items I've added so far, got a long way to go on these. The items also follow the same "template" pattern that the creatures do. I still need to add in support for placing the drop items on Mobiles.

I hope to have the game UI screen shots ready soon.

I have opened up the Pre-Alpha Registration on Perenthia. The Alpha should be starting at the beginning of September and will only be open to Alpha players. The Perenthia web site has also received a new design.

For those who don't know; Perenthia is a persistent browser based game set in a fantasy world utilizing Microsoft Silverlight 2 on the "client" and using C#/ASP.NET on the "server".

I am going to try and get out regular updates on the development process leading up to Alpha, time permitting. As such this post will also server as the first of those updates. I will also post some screen shots of the UI soon, just want to finish and few more things and remove some debug windows and labels.

Perenthia Development - 88%

User Interface (UI) - 89%

• Main Chat Window - 92%
  • Colored Text - 100%
  • Clickable Text - 85%
• Mini-Map - 100%
• Who's Online - 87%
  • Display Online Users - 95%
  • Clickable Users - 80%
• Character Creation - 80%

Server (Includes Authentication, World State and Object Model) - 81%

• Authentication - 100%
• Character Creation - 95%
• Content (Rooms, NPCs, Monsters, Quests) - 60%
• Combat System - 75%
• Magic/Ability System - 75%

Database - 95%

I have made so many changes to Perenthia since the alpha/beta release I did last year that I am actually going to take the game back to Alpha and go through the whole process again. Most of the data elements remain the same, the story is the same, the goals, etc. but the server and client pieces have been modified so much its not really the same code base.

Anyway, I am hoping to get a pre-alpha signup form on the site this weekend and get the closed Alpha live by the end of summer.