#03 – MAP & QUESTS

ːsummer_magicː OTHER ISSUES OF THIS BLOG
ːQuestionsː CONSOLIDATED Q&A THREAD

Welcome to this week's dev blog of Spire of Sorcery! We've discussed ːsummer_magicː the concept of the game and how it's connected to our previous releases, as well as ːsummer_magicː the main character of the game and how you can shape him (or her). Today, we'll talk about the world around the Spire, and the different kinds of quests that you can set up for your disciples.



When you start a new campaign in Spire of Sorcery, the map is each time generated from scratch. During the game, you will see a specific name that's given to this world (in the in-game settings menu), and if you enter that name when you start another new campaign, then you will be able to access the same world again (this option is not available in Ironman or Artefact Hunter modes, of course).

What exactly changes from one campaign's map to another?

• ːnotebookː the whole geography (for example, how many major rivers there are, and where they flow into the sea);
  
  
• ːnotebookː the spread of dwellings, and dweller types, across the map (in one campaign you may start next to a war-hungry lord; in another, you may start next to the peaceful village of mushroom-eaters);
  
  
• ːnotebookː the location of the artefacts and other points of interests (certain old books may be stashed away or in possession of different tribes);
  
  
• ːnotebookː the exact location of your Spire in relevance to the Empire and the Distorted Lands.
  

Some things will remain constant, though:

• ːsummer_magicː all the way to the West, there is the big sea, and the capital of Empire, the largest seaport on the coast;
  
  
• ːsummer_magicː all the way to the East, there are the Distorted Lands – the unmapped region that is a highly dangerous place to explore;
  
  
• ːsummer_magicː all the way to the North, there are huge mountains that are not really mapped either, as the passes are snowed in and hard to come through;
  
  
• ːsummer_magicː all the way to the South, there's the same big sea, as it's going around the continent from north-west to south-east.
  
  
• ːsummer_magicː your Spire is roughly mid-way between where the Distorted Lands begin in the East, and where the border of the Empire lays in the West.
  

While your Spire is always located between the Empire and the Distorted Lands, the actual placement may vary depending on the text quest that you will complete during the character generation phase early on.

ːMapOfEdenEmoticonː How long will it take for a party sent off from the Spire to reach the borders of the Empire?

About a week or two, one way. As to the capital of the Empire... it is going to take much, much longer. You ran away from the Guild of Mages in one of the satellite cities. If you were practicing in the capital itself, it's highly doubtful that (a) you would be able to arrange such escape; and (b) you would remain uncaught by the Inquisition on your trek to the Distorted Lands.

Generally, you are likely to start the campaign with a sequence of simple exploration and resource-gathering quests around your Spire. Such quests will mostly be safe and quick, and will not require any preparation beforehand.

ːMapOfEdenEmoticonː Should you expect to uncover the complete map of the world late in the campaign?

That would be quite unlikely, because certain regions are just too hard to explore (for example, old swamps that take weeks to cross) while other regions are simply too dangerous to venture into (for example, the territory of the Empire has decent roads that allow fast travel, but it is also extremely dangerous for your disciples as they might run into the Inquisition and fail to mask their true identities).

Whenever you're about to set a new quest for a party of your disciples, there are two indicators that will help you to gauge its possible results even before you dispatch that party on the quest:

ːfireappleː How likely the party is to complete the intended goal?
ːcursedskullː How dangerous is this quest expected to be?

For example, if you're sending a couple of blind disciples to gather mushrooms in the nearby forest, then they are very unlikely to succeed in its goal (gathering mushrooms) – even though they have a 99% chance of getting back without any risk to their lives.

On the other hand, if you're sending another couple of disciples into one of Empire's border towns to sell rare minerals, they might be expected to have one hundred percent chance of success – since the minerals are rare, and in demand everywhere – while their lives will be in grave danger, because of their exposure (they are still young and cannot hide their magic talents well enough).






In terms of exploration, the map carries several informational layers:

• ːMapOfEdenEmoticonː geographical layer: rivers, roads, lakes, mountains, forests... once any of your parties walk through these regions, the geographical data is added to the global map that always remains at your fingertips.
  
  
• ːMapOfEdenEmoticonː points of interest layer: known dwellings, possible quest markers, special places like altars of death, catacombs, ruins of the ancients, and such. This layer has some depth to it, for example you may already know the location of certain caves – but you will need a party to get there and explore them, in order to utilise the full exploration potential of the spot.
  
  
• ːMapOfEdenEmoticonː observation layer, i.e. the area that you can observe in real-time: firstly, around your own Spire – this is the zone where you see other parties coming and going as they move over the map (for example, adventurers or regular armies); this zone can be expanded with certain spells and/or upgrades to the Spire; and then, once you learn the corresponding far-seeing spells, you are also able to open such 'observation zones' in other places on the map by performing certain rituals (see below).
  

We currently intend to allow players to toggle these layers on and off as they see fit, and the general idea is to create such a default view of the global map that will provide all the important information for the decision-making without overly cluttering its space with tons and tons of symbols.






And now, about the quests. Think of Spire of Sorcery as a "reverse RPG": rather than following the preset quests, you are the person that sets the quests for your disciples, and you succeed – or fail – through the balance of their skills and traits, and the sort of goals that you set for them.

ːsummer_magicː What kind of quests are possible?

There's a lot of different options, some of which start with a specific Quest Marker (as a part of the game, you learned from someone or somewhere that in this specific place, there's something to do/explore/gain); and some of which start just with your own decision and pre-existing knowledge (for example, you already know of a certain dwelling, and you send a party to this specific dwelling to enslave its population).

Some of the quest types that are already a part of the game:



ːsunnyemoː EXPLORE – a core quest where your party travels to a certain place on the map, to confirm if there are any points of interest along the route / in the destination area.

ːsunnyemoː GATHER RESOURCES – collect minerals; or berries; or mushrooms; hunt for specific animals – or capture and bring back live animals.




ːsunnyemoː ATTACK – travel to a certain destination and fight with a specific opponent.

ːsunnyemoː DEFEND – provide military assistance to an ally or a neutral dwelling/being against specified or unspecified opponents.

ːsunnyemoː RESCUE – free (and possibly bring back) a captive character / being.

ːsunnyemoː EXTRACT – extract (by force) a certain item currently in possession of an opponent / neutral party.




ːsunnyemoː PERFORM RITUAL – carry out an active magic action, for example – perform a possession ritual on a Source of Power so that the Spire owns it, and grows its mana; or perform a raise dead ritual on a cemetery of an aggressive town, so that its citizens get busy solving that new problem instead of creating problems for the Spire.




ːsunnyemoː TRADE | NEGOTIATE A DEAL | ESTABLISH RELATIONS – there's a wide variety of diplomatic actions available, for different strategies.






ːsunnyemoː RECON – observe everyday life of the dwelling, to gain further insight into its dwellers (same can be applied to animals or monsters).

ːsunnyemoː ENSLAVE – attempt to forcefully place the dwelling under the control of the Spire; sometimes this results in fighting. Once enslaved, the dwelling starts paying the Spire a tribute in resources.

ːsunnyemoː CREATE A NEW CULT – establish a following of the mage / the Spire, as a religious cult of the dwelling.

ːsunnyemoː PERFORM RELIGIOUS AGITATION – if a Cult of the Spire already exists in this dwelling, then this action comes possible and may motivate the majority of the dwellers to join the Cult, which results in the dwelling starting to take your orders and sending you voluntary gifts.

ːsunnyemoː GIVE ORDERS – if the dwelling is already enslaved or is a follower of the Cult of Spire, you can order its dwellers to attack or defend certain points, or to mine specific resources, or to send troops as bodyguards to the Spire.




ːsunnyemoː GROW – grow crops or herbs, or even crystals.

ːsunnyemoː ANIMAL / MONSTER CARE – take care of captive animals or monsters, for breeding or harvesting purposes.

ːsunnyemoː CRAFT – create new items using skills, spells and resources of the Spire and specific disciples who perform this task.

ːsunnyemoː PERFORM ALCHEMY – attempt one of the transmutations that are known to the specific group of disciples.

ːsunnyemoː STUDY – study books, or attend classes of more senior mages (you or other disciples), to advance disciple's theoretical knowledge.




Finally, a whole other type of quests are born out of events, where you have a choice to react with this or that action. These happen based on how the world revolves, and vary from laughable (a fight in the class) to life-threatening (an invasion of undead brought to the Spire by careless disciple from a trip to the burial grounds).

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As far as game features are concerned, that's pretty much it for today! But there's one more thing that we'd like to share: we recently produced a limited number of patches that carry the Spire's sign (you can see these on the photos below), as well as a bunch of stickers.

In the coming week, we'll be running a giveaway on the game's official Discord server, with the bot drawing a number of random winners among everyone who is registered in the community. These will then have the patches, and stickers, mailed to them from our studio in Vilnius. The game may not be available yet, but the Spire is already here, reaching out to the mages hiding out there in the world... ːsummer_magicː



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