Medieval MMORPG

    Tags:
  • MMORPG
  • Medieval
  • Spigot
  • QuestManager
  • Minecraft

Iron Tale is a Medieval MMORPG made using QuestManager. It is a combination of mechanics made using QuestMaker, a hand-created map, a unique story, and a Medieval texture pack. The game focuses on player progression, and is geared towards experienced players who want a challenge.

Iron Tale starts off by letting the player choose what to do. After a small tutorial space, the player is brought into the wilderness and left to do what they want. This usually involves finding one of the 4 starting cities that surround the starting location, as the first obstacle the player will face is their hunger level. In Iron Tale, food is one of the most present dangers throughout the entire game. In order to get food, players must complete quests (either for food or money to purchase food) or take up crafting. After this, however, the player is free to play the game in whichever fashion they choose. It's entirely possible to stay in the cities and train in crafting. Crafters can provide themselves with goods, or trade their crafts to other players.

Should a player choose instead to pursue combat, they again face a large number of choices. Minecraft defaulty has a small variety of weapons. Iron Tale takes these and helps diversify them by creating it's own material scale. Instead of Minecraft's 4-stage material progression -- wood, stone, iron, diamond -- Iron Tale introduces a 6-stage progression. In addition, there are a large number of unique weapons and armors that fall between the material grades. In addition, armor and weapons can possess additional characteristics that break apart the linear progression even further. For example, a Wolf Helmet might have less armor than a copper chainmail helm, but it provides a 10% bonus to damage.

Additionally, players can choose to specialize in a combat area. These range from two-handed to using a bow to wielding magic and a weapon at the same time. Each combat specialization offers unique bonuses that distinguish each fighting style further. For example, sword-and-shield provides a defense bonus while wielding magic and a weapon at the same time yields a bonus in mana recovery rate. On top of the style of fighting, each type of weapon (axe, sword, box, etc) has their own skill that makes it beneficial to pick a weapon and stick with it. Auxillary skills like Tactics and Focus are also present, which apply to several different combat styles and help provide further separation between experienced players using a new skill and players who have no skillbase.

Special attention is provided to crafting in Iron Tale. There are 3 major crafting skills, and each are incredibly powerful. Armor and Weapons made using Smithing are on par or better than what you can get from the equivalent level'ed quests. Cooking provides food items with much more impact than what you can buy. Fashioning items are essential for either of the other two crafting professions and for archers. Because crafting is so important, gathering professions are too. Lumberjacks, Fishermen, Trappers, and Miners all play very important roles in providing the materials needed for the craftsmen to be able to work.

The Quests in Iron Tale fall into two categories: main story quests and side quests. The main story quests start out exactly like side quests, but eventually lead the player around the world. Side quests usually revolve around a city's needs, or in the personal affairs of a citizen. All four of the starting cities have unique main-story quests, but they all eventually lead to the same line of quests. In this way, however, the player gains a different starting to their adventure, and may have different feelings about the story itself. Additionally, players will be armed differently.

Locations throughout Iron Tale differe greatly. There are lightly wooded areas. There are plains. There are mountain passes, deep caves, and expansive deserts. Players may find themselves on the frozen island Yozden, or deep in the Everwoods. Each location has different enemies, from zombies and drowened corposes to stone golems. Naturally, areas the player visits later in the main story have higher levels and are more difficult.

Iron Tale has been developed along side QuestManager. As a result, Iron Tale is in version 1.4 (or expansion 4). It has been deployed on the New Mexico Tech's Minecraft Club Server as well as a local server I run. The server files are available upon request.


Screenshots

Iron Tale

Dark DungeonLarge-Scale Towns and CitiesHorra Dungeon's Skids