Clan lord is a massively multiplayer cooperative online fantasy RPG that takes place in a persistent world.
Massively multiplayer- The current lingo for games that let you have more then about 30 people playing the game at once.
Cooperative- This is a game where, in general, the players work together to play the game. By cooperating in the game, players can work to overcome much tougher obstacles and advance faster within the game world.
Online- You play this game using TCP/IP and logging into a central server.
Fantasy RPG- This stands for fantasy role-playing game. That means it's a game set in a fantasy (read: medieval technology with magic) world where each person creates a character to play in that world. The way that character interacts with other players in the fantasy world is called "role-playing."
Persistent world- This means that the world you play in isn't reset when everyone logs off. The world sticks around and your character is saved. Of course, during the alpha and beta testing period the world may be reset quite frequently.
The version number tells you how many weeks we've been running. Clan Lord first went online in October 1997, and started taking money in March, 1999.
Bigger and faster is better. Open Transport 1.1.1 or later is required. We recommend a 100 MHz or better PowerPC Mac with a 28.8 modem, though there are currently people playing with 68K Macs and 14.4 modems. These people may have difficulty with later features (like darkness and weather) or complicated areas. The minimum requirements will increase gradually.
Each character has his or her own goals. There is no way to "win" Clan Lord, but it is possible to participate and steer a great story as it unfolds.
We believe that "player killing" (PK) has turned most attempts at online communities into unfriendly bloodbaths, so PK is restricted to designated areas, such as the Arena and the Badlands.
We use an overhead view because it's better for seeing who is in your adventuring party. Smaller graphics mean that you can see farther and more people, and Clan Lord tends to have lots of people playing together. (Why else be online?) And tiny graphics look better hand-drawn than 3D.
There are many, many features to be added to Clan Lord, and we decline to answer "when" questions about them. We'll tell you after they're finished.
Before we went commercial, character resets -- where everybody was made a beginner again -- were common. We have no plans to ever do them again. Of course, players can reset themselves to take advantage of new abilities, and sometimes old abilities will change behavior.
We will decrease their level to compensate for any exploitation of bugs. Of course, there will be rewards for those who help us track down bugs.
Big. The starting island that Puddleby is on is one of 12 in the island chain -- and the entire chain is barely a speck on the map of the entire world.
Eventually, but they will interact to provide the appearance of a single large world. For example, one island might be run by one server, while the next island over was a different server. When you travel from one to the next, you might notice a longer than usual delay between areas, but it will otherwise feel like the same world.
Our current server is an 85 MHz Sparc 5, and it handles about 200 simultaneous players, which means about 2000 total accounts. When we get more than this, we will replace the server, possibly with a hefty OSX Server. When that capacity is exceeded, we will add more servers. We're prepared to build support for Clan Lord over a long period of time. At night, in secret, we dream of a million members.
To some people, yes. To others, the community interaction is a much larger portion of the game than the hack-and-slash part.
Class count has little meaning in Clan Lord, since characters can train in widely varying ways, leading to great diversity. There are three main "classes," Fighters, Healers, and Mystics. Eventually there are plans for six more sub-classes that will not be available to starting characters.
Sort of. Some classes combine characteristics of several others, and it may be possible to change classes, but in general characters will stay in one class.
Earn it in the game.
Start a new character, or visit Resetus in the fairgrounds.
We aren't telling. Figure it out yourself.
If someone heals you, nothing bad happens. However, if you are forced to depart your body, you will lose approximately 1 rank of built-up experience. This doesn't affect your training, but it will make it harder to earn future training. Death may have other consequences that are currently unknown.
Level has little meaning in Clan Lord. A skilled player with low stats can be more powerful and effective than a novice player with high stats. You decide for yourself how powerful you are based on what you can do.
Lag is a delay, usually consistent, between when you act and when your character appears to act. For example, every time you say something, the balloon always appears next to your mouth two seconds later. It is generally caused by a poor internet connection somewhere between your computer and the Clan Lord server.
Screen-lock is when your view of the world freezes momentarily (sometimes for minutes at a time), but you can generally see text messages and hear sounds. It happens when an area becomes so crowded and complicated that the visual information won't fit into a single Clan Lord packet.
Clan Lord is for grown-ups, and we do not prohibit adult language. Cursing when appropriate may aid in role-playing and embellish character growth. If a character's language bothers you, it is perfectly appropriate to /curse him or ignore him.
Language that is excessively abusive or derogatory toward others is not appropriate or permitted, and may result in jailing a character or permanent removal from the game. In general, though, we don't want to be thought police. Try not to offend others too much and you'll be OK.
By Puddleby rules, if you /give money to a person, it is theirs. Watch your purse.
Because we made it that way.
Not yet, except by being a well-rounded character within it.
English.
Oh. C. Monsters, NPCs, and so on are written in Socks, a custom language developed by Timmer.
Run Clan Lord and choose "Character Manager" from the File menu.
You could, but why would you want to role-play yourself? Your name represents who you are in real-life. This is a role-playing game where you take on the role of character living in a fantasy world. You might want to read the section of the FAQ on the background of the characters. Pick a neat fantasy name like "Tethlatori" or "Braveheart."
When you come into the game, you don't have to choose your race right away. Your character will be represented by a cloaked, non-descript form. This gives you a chance to explore the game before shedding the cloak and "revealing" your race. To choose your race, just bump into one of the "picture changers." They are in the Town Hall.
In Clan lord, the general principle is that all characters start off nearly the same and as they gain experience they become more defined. This is the opposite of most other online RPG's where characters start off very different, but everyone ends up the same at high levels. We think specialization is cool, and want people of high levels to be very different from each other. As you go up in levels, you'll find more and more decisions to make. There is one VERY important decision to make, though it might not be obvious.
The most important decision you make when making a new character is figuring out who the character IS in this fantasy world. Your character didn't grow up in a world of computers and automobiles and shouldn't wander around the world talking about such things. Pick a simple personality trait for your character and play the character accordingly. Some sample traits are: honest, conniving, slow-witted, immature, innocent, joker, etc. When people talk to your character, try to get your characters personality across to them without actually having to tell them. That's role-playing at it's simplest.
You have probably been exiled from the Western Continent, Shan Deral, by the Mad Emperor Mobius, and eventually found your way to Puddleby, a village of exiles in the Lok Groton island chain..
You invent your own history -- it's roleplaying. Make a reason you were exiled. The history of your character and your motivations are totally yours. If you do a good job, people will have much respect for you and you'll stand out in the game world. If your background is silly or nonsensical then people will tend to not take you seriously.
Yes, two ways. One is the same way you'd relate your history in real life. You tell it to your friends. Two is you can make up a web page about your character and whisper the URL to people in the game.
When you are playing the game, you are playing a fictional character who lacks your experiences. When deciding how your character reacts to another person in the game, or deals with a situation you have to put yourself in the position of your character. If your character gets killed to a tough monster, you shouldn't say "This game has tough monsters!" What game would your character be talking about?
As far as your character knows, he is in the world he grew up in although probably a bit more dangerous then his home. Your character shouldn't talk about the world as a game
Playing in character is learning to look at things through the limited experience of your character's eyes. Wandering around telling people your homepage URL or asking how much RAM their computer has is called Out Of Character, or OOC. The exception to this is whispering. If you simply must "break character" then use the whisper command to whisper an OOC comment to someone.
In Clan Lord, we want a cooperative atmosphere to pervade in the world. In general, you'll find life very difficult as an "evil" character. Not impossible, but difficult.
There are "arenas" around in which duels may be fought, as well as areas of the world known as the "badlands" where entire clans may wage war on each other. If someone enters an arena with you or you get them to come to the badlands, you can fight them.
Yes, it's going to be very tough. Go play Quake or Myth. You can kill all the people you want in those. After you get it out of your system, come back and play Clan Lord.
This is a role-playing game -- role-play an evil character! If you think about it, you can come up with something. Often people love role-playing with an evil character. Try whispering to them before hand and set up a "scene" to be played out. This scene could end with a duel or battle in the badlands. Not all evil characters have to kill people, of course. You could play a healer that likes to watch people die and comment on their observed pain, or a cleric that claims to get their powers from a dark deity.
Right now, you can't steal anything.
You can come up with something. Remember that misinformation can be very effective.
It's a numerical measure of the good and ill will you've accumulated from other players in the world of Clan Lord.
Other players give it to you. If you're nice to them, they'll probably give you good karma, and if you're rude, you'll probably receive bad karma.
No.
It has almost no effect on the mechanics of the game. However, the reactions of others may be based largely on your karma. Some clans, areas, and stores might be limited to people with good net karma. It might also affect what happens to you when you are killed.
Right now you type \thank <name> to give good karma, and \curse <name> to give bad karma.
You can give a point of karma roughly every 10 minutes. You can't save up karma for later, so use it when the whim strikes.
You don't. Even if you die, your karma stays with you when you return.
Whenever somebody's nice to you, and you'd like to give them a little reward. Say you ask how to kill a T'rool, or where the temple is. When somebody answers, give them good karma. It'll make them more likely to answer in the future.
When somebody bugs you, and you feel they should be punished. Using foul language is always a good excuse, as is harassing someone. Some might even give bad karma to someone who refuses to answer a simple question.
You don't. Karma is anonymous. But a lot of times you can guess.
Nope.
Some people might only help others with good karma. Some clans or guilds might require good karma to join. Or maybe you just want to feel good about yourself.
For many people, that might be true. If someone kills a monster that you were fighting, you might consider cursing them. Many people, however, tend to use their karma to reward people who are courteous and friendly in ways besides combat.
Karma decreases gradually, or "decays," over time. If you never get karma (good or bad) it will gradually return to zero. After one plays for a long time, their karma will approach a number that indicates how much karma they get per hour playing.
Sure, some people might say, "I'll give you good karma if you give me good karma." This is kind of missing the point, however, and there are others who curse anyone engaging in this practice to discourage it.
Clans have karma ratings, just like members -- it's the sum of the karma of all its members. Of course, this just lets people know whether it's a "good" clan or an "evil" one, and has no mechanical effect on the game -- though it could certainly affect recruiting.
Once you create your account and ask for automatic billing, yes.
Yes, see the Demo page for more information.
Forever. We plan to continue growing the world of Clan Lord for years. We have enough major changes scheduled to keep us busy for a long time. And we're bound to think of more.
There are hourly costs associated with running a network. In addition, we're going to continue to spend lots of money upgrading the game and world for years.
If we only charged a one-time fee, it would be in our best interests to make a flashy game with little depth, hype it for months before releasing it, then sell as many as we could as fast as we could. Then when people reached the limits of the game, they'd quit and stop costing us network money. We could save even more money by having overloaded servers, so the game lagged and ran slowly.
We want to grow the game slowly and build a rich and varied world that's fun to play in for years.
StarCraft and Myth are excellent games, but they aren't the same as Clan Lord. The main difference is that the bungie.net servers don't have to actually run a complicated world -- they just pass the game off to another local machine to serve.
In addition, we plan to continue adding to the Clan Lord world for years to come -- this isn't a one-shot deal.
We understand that some people won't be able to afford to play Clan Lord. The annual subscription is much less expensive.
You can't, even if you have your own fast unix box with a T3. We want to continue growing and developing the world for years, and we want everybody to participate in the one great world, not in a bunch of tiny ones.
When you purchase the game, you get a serial number that will let you create an account and give you two free months. During that time, you'll probably want to give us your credit card number, so you don't get booted from the game when your free time runs out.
If? Heck, we can guarantee that there will be bugs in Clan Lord. So no. We try to fix the nasty ones quickly.
In theory, Clan Lord is 24/7. In practice, however, there are rare times when the game goes down because of a crash or other mishap. In addition, we bring the game down periodically for a few minutes at a time to implement new features and improve the world.
The world has a past, present, and future that we've developed. Only the broadest of changes to the world will be felt by the casual players, but for those that wish to get more involved they'll have the opportunity to affect the story of the world as it unravels.
Clan Lord is set in a fantasy world with evil monsters, sword wielding heroes and life-giving magical healers. There are no guns, computers, cars, or telephones.
The known world consists of a continent known as "The Western Continent" and many islands. A particular chain of volcanic islands 2 weeks east by ship of the Western continent is called the "Lok'Groton Islands" and is where new characters start off. Historians believe there to be another continent far to the east of the islands. A great exodus was said to have happened where all the people of the Eastern Continent fled away from it, perhaps landing on the Western continent and the island chain.
The nations of the Western continent are all ruled by one incredibly powerful individual, the Emperor Mobius. Mobius rules what he calls "The Ascendancy.Many nations chafe over his rule but are loathe to see their armies destroyed by the Emperor's Dark Sentinels.
Several hundred years ago when the Emperor formed the Ascendancy, he established the Compact of the Ascendancy. The Emperor stated in this Compact that all nations will cease behavior that would jeopardize the Ascendancy's stability and well-being. To this end he created a group named "The Defenders of the Compact" who would seek out people or things that in his opinion could destabilize the Ascendancy. The highest ranking members of this group are the Inquisitors, trained in both magical and scholarly arts they travel the continent enacting the Emperors will and making sure the Compact is upheld.
When this was put in to place long ago, some nations benefited from his policies and many thought the Utopia the Emperor described as being possible. As time continued, however, the Emperor became more and more withdrawn and self-absorbed. His word and the Compact were Law and there were no exceptions. The Inquisitors ruthlessly enacted the letter of the law and never made exceptions for circumstance.
One of the more interesting parts of the Compact made killing another member of the Ascendancy the highest crime, even for the Inquisitors. This fact created a problem in that it limited the Inquisitors in their options in dealing with those they saw as a threat to the Compact. The policy they decided upon was to exile all of those deemed destabilizing to the Emperor's vision of Utopia.
It became clear that the Emperor's vision of Utopia was much different then any sane being's vision of perfection. The Emperor's Utopia was one of stagnation, where no new ideas were sought and where the status quo was mandatory. Many of the people that the Emperor exiled in addition to thieves and scoundrels were brilliant scholars and mages.
The Lok'Groton island chain is significant because that is where the Emperor and his Inquisitors send the dissidents to.
Much of are story is tied to our development of the technology the runs the Clan Lord world. As the technology grows, the world will grow. The island chain that people start out on will be tiny compared to what will be discovered later on.
Many nations have been trying to do that for quite some, with no success. Many think that the Emperor's current state of apathy will make him more vulnerable. He participates very little currently in the decision making of the Ascendancy. To overcome the Emperor though, you must first deal with his Inquisitors and his army of Dark Sentinels. Who knows? In the far future of Clan Lord maybe someone will figure out a way to do this.
In our outline for the future, it's possible that information may be uncovered in a new area that might allow someone to set about the downfall of the Emperor.
We have a set of principles we follow when deciding if and how to add new features to the game of Clan Lord. These aren't hard-and-fast rules, but guidelines to be applied with some judgement.
Ask people online. joe@deltatao.com never answers e-mail.