Shards Online - Battle of the Backers Recap

Today was the Battle of the Backers event for Shards Online, an Ultima Online inspired, moddable sandbox game which shows great potential for years to come!

A God's View of the Event

This event was hosted by Citadel Studios and streamed on their Twitch.tv channel. It was a FIRST of its kind on Kickstarter... the ability to actually PLAY the (Pre-Alpha) client BEFORE the Kickstarter has even finished! It's unheard of... it's inconceivable!! It's something to REALLY consider, especially with the news of the infamous Brad McQuaid and the (kindly put) failure of Pantheon. The folks at Citadel Studios have a solid platform (right now) that can be built upon by the players (right now) so you should pledge (right now)!

I have to reiterate something from my last post... you can create your own world(s)! Whatever you want! However you want! And if that's not your forte, then you can still play on the Official Clusters (for a small subscription fee) or on Player Clusters (completely free).  These can be anything such as a Free For All Open PvP Hardcore shard, or a true to D&D shard, or a Crafter's Paradise (more on this later) and so on and so forth. It's been said by Derek aka Supreem of CS "If you can set up a MineCraft or DayZ server, you can run your own shard." It's that simple.

Anyways, back to the Battle of the Backers!

I wanted to touch up on how the game "felt" in a Pre-Alpha stage. I'll be completely honest and say that it felt very familiar. Why? Probably because of the countless hours in Ultima Online. The inventory system was very UOish with the ability to move objects around in your backpack, organizing them however you'd like. To move your character, you hold down the right mouse button, aim and run. Special abilities and spell casting were done using QWER and 12345 (respectively).

I'd like to note that casting spells in Shards Online is done by "Pre-Casting", which means you would "load" a spell and then select a target. This was made relatively easy with the a gump/window (and key bindings) that allows the ability to use Last Target, Target Self, and Target Nearest Combatant. If I wanted to cast a fireball at someone, I would use my Fireball spell, a casting animation would play, then I would be engulfed by a circling fireball and decide who to launch it at. This is a GREAT visual cue of what an enemy (or friend) is preparing to cast. But how do you learn these spells?

You can find various spell scrolls in crates or as loot and then "Memorize" them. After a scroll is memorized, it will appear in your action bar. I did notice some scrolls had different properties such as decreased damage but higher critical chance so I wonder if memorizing those would change how effective your spells are? Hmmmm.... interesting!

I really enjoyed the BotB ruleset because it allowed several minutes for players to explore, raise some skills and find equipment then go into a full scale PvP battle and then end with a Sudden Death where all participants were placed into a confined area to duke it out. I accidentally went out of bounds and vanquished myself! *laughs*

As the game is still in Pre-Alpha stage, the graphics aren't an issue for me though I actually enjoy them for their nostalgic feel although the animations were well done. Deer fled from players (and bears) while bears protected their cubs and territory with quite a bit of ferocity. This really makes me excited for their "everything is in motion" statement as the possibilities are quite endless since creative admins will develop some amazing behaviors for not only animals but also the world.

Did you catch the Battle of the Backers? You can watch it and all of the other Shards Online streams here. If not, do you have any questions? You can ask me or hit up the CS staff at their IRC channel. I must say that I am still amazed that I was able to participate in this event and experience a piece of what Shards Online can provide. There's MUCH more than PvP so stay tuned to their Kickstarter page for more updates and make sure to pledge!

Let's make this a reality.