Hi, everyone. Welcome to another week's developer's diary.
The development of the faith system continues this week. The majority of the programming part is done. More content shall follow. Our current main story is progressing to Egypt, which is why we have this system in place. Egypt is a fascinating nation that had all kinds of cults in ancient times while also featuring different religions in this area. Modern-day Egypt has a dominating Muslim population while also having a large Christianity population, especially Coptic Orthodox Christians because of neighboring Ethiopia. It also has one of the oldest Jewish communities as that's where Moses performed his miracle to open the sea. In addition to all the normal religions, maybe you can find much more exotic beliefs, some may even be supernatural. Thus, I think it's a good time for me to implement all those crazy ideas.
You can make your own customized faith as I believe everyone shall be allowed to believe in whatever they want to believe. You can name your faith whatever you want. From "Church of Flying Spaghetti Monster" to "Believers of Flat Earth", as long as you have fun.
From there, each faith in the game has a Center-of-Belief. It can be the eternal, supreme being you worship in a Monotheism religion, a large polytheism pantheon of many divines, or it may not even be a religion, but just something you want to believe in, thus Atheism is also an option.
Many very common Center-of-Beliefs of the world are available at the very beginning of the game. However, those most alien ones will need to be unlocked first.
So, just chose what you believe in. No matter how bizarre your Center-of-Belief may be.
Now we get a Center-of-Belief in our faith. However, we know from history books and real life, each faith can have its difference even when they may be worshiping the same supreme being. Just as we know Roman Catholicism, Protestantism and Orthodoxy have their difference in Christianity while Sunnis and Shias are both Muslims, they do not agree on who shall be the successor of the last prophet, so we shall implement something to extinguish each faith. That's where tenets come in. In each faith, underneath the Center-of-Belief, there are tenets you can add to further make your faith unique.
Here are some examples:
If you want a Roman Catholicism-like Christianity, you certainly want to respect the authority of the Papacy so that he may call for some crusade or excommunicate some people. (OK, I'm just kidding. You are not going to take Jerusalem right now.)
Many religions in the world tell people if they do good deeds, they will be judged worthy in their afterlife to enter heaven or paradise, Well, to many of us who don't feel quite happy living on this earth from time to time, this is indeed a powerful tenet. It brings hope and a promise. The pain we are suffering is nothing as the meat bag we reside in right now in this world is just temporary. We will live happily in all enteral afterward as our soul ascendent to heaven. I sincerely want to believe this is true as that means someone is likely waiting for me on the other side. I can keep developing this game and die one day with no regret. (We also get a not-so-well-hidden easter egg here.)
But, the world is not all nice and beautiful. For centuries, humanity committed all kinds of sins and atrocities. Even at this very moment, war is still going on. I will not avoid such tenets in some beliefs that can be seen as quite evil. After all, that's how this world is.
I do not judge. After reading a lot of documents, I think it may be quite possible that I may become a Nazi myself if I live in 1930s Germany long enough. After all, it's quite horrifying that all those otherwise decent people turned into Hitler's followers back them. What would history books be written if the outcome of WW2 was different? Would we be following a different belief, a different ideology right now? Faith is not always necessarily good. It can bring the world into something grim and dark as well. (Totally almost unrelated fun fact: NASA took a strange photo of the sun last week after the Aten Cultists' activities intensified in the game recently. :D)
That's for this week.
And through my faith...
The kingdom comes...
It's a shame that SCP Foundation removed a certain SCP related to this sentence from their database not so long ago. But, here we are, still, remembering.
Today's changelog:
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[Procedurally Generated Missions]All those types of missions shall now reward you at least 1 reputation point if successfully completed.
[Faith]Religious Book template can now allow overwriting their names and descriptions.
[Faith]Religious Book templates can have the function to unlock tenets.
[Faith]New Tenet: Seek for Heaven (It requires: Not Atheism. )
[Faith]New Tenet: Obey Your Superior (It's unlocked by talking to the One-Eyed Officer in Liu's PSB)
[One-Eyed Officer]He got a new dialog option, talking about his view on his actions.
[Faith]Faith can now set up mutually-exclusive lists and get requirement tooltips automatically displayed.
[Skill]New skill: Pray. (If the user of the skill is not an atheist or does not decide on their faith, this skill will provide a small amount of devotion. It can also be used as an instant action in battles. More functions will add to this skill later.)
##########DEBUG#############
[Faith]Fixed an English localization typo in the description of Atheism Center-of-Belief.
