Hero's Journey E3 Preview

by Byron Mudry and Thurston Hillman

Today Thurston “Ratboy” Hillman and I headed down to the Simutronics booth to check out their upcoming MMORPG Hero’s Journey.  We had already heard many great things about it, especially about their character creation process.  We arrived to find them waiting for us and offering much appreciated drinks and a seat on their super comfy recliners.  At the end of a busy E3 there is no surer way to make us happy!  Who says we can’t be bought! 

With the two of us settled nicely in our reclining seats, the Simutronics team set an ambush for us and almost immediately we were attacked by Eric Latham Producer for DragonRealms and on the lead design team for Hero's Journey and Mike Paddock another Lead Designer with Simutronics.   Both of them picked one of us and sat down on the floor beside us, whispering the gospel of their game into our ears as we sat on the big comfy couch.

Hero's Journey Character Creation

Character Creation

As mentioned above, the thing that really brought our attention to Hero’s Journey was the buzz around the convention regarding their character creation process.  Everywhere we turned we heard about this amazing, in depth character creation process that allowed what seemed like thousands of options.  We had to check it out.

When we sat down and were walked through the system, we were both amazed.  I had been to the Vanguard interview with Awen a day earlier and thought that that system was amazing, but this one was even better.  From what I have seen, there is no game currently available that can compete with the level of customization allowed in Hero’s Journey.

There were literally hundreds of options.  On the nose alone you could select angle, size, length, nostril size, straightness, width and more!  This continues with almost every single feature of your character, with the exception of body type.  For body type the whole body scales from thin to large, but no individual size adjustment is available for waist, hips, legs, etc.  Apparently, allowing different waist and shoulder settings caused issues with wrapping textures around the models.  To prevent this it is not customizable.  Even without this, it is possible to create eerily realistic impressions of anyone you choose.

The character process also includes clothing in the process.  This was done so that you can wear clothing that suits your taste rather than what is appropriate at your level.  In this way every character can be unique, rather than the situation in most games where everyone class wears the exact same armor in the end game. 

Since there is very little effect that equipment will have on a character, the people at Simutronics decided to give characters a wide variety of clothing options.  Since clothing will be much more deceptive in Hero’s Journey due to the fact that someone in robes may be as effective as someone in full plate, it will be a tossup to see player reaction.  Unlike most MMORPGs there is no way to tell what class someone is based off looking at them, so you will need to be wary before attacking the frail old man in the wimpy looking robes.

Messiah's plays with character creation

Wyr System

Not to be confused with the hotly discussed Nintendo “Wii”, the Wyr system of Hero’s Journey is one of the most promising systems to be seen in an online RPG to date.  Based around a similar style of Diablo II’s socketing system, weapons, equipment, spells, and character attributes can have all have Wyrs added to them.  The addition of Wyrs gives the player benefits based on that specific Wyr and where it is placed, and if there are other Wyrs already added.

The first example of Wyr use shown to us was when a fire based Wyr was added onto a sword.  Immediately after being added to the sword, the weapon burst into flames and gained a new life as a fiery beatstick of death.  As the fire Wyr added a fire damage bonus to the sword, it also had a drawback of lowering the character’s resistance to cold spells.

To followup the fire Wyr example, another Wyr was added onto the weapon, this time granting another bonus and stacking up to give the character a new ability.  In the example, the two Wyr’s gave the character the ability to execute a “super jump” that would give the player bonuses in standard content, as well as allowing him the ability to reach new content by virtue of his powerful jump.