...Will edit properly later,forums ate most of this post so I will have to rewrite it when I have time...

I realize that religion is an essential factor in trying to portray historical accuracy but I don't wish the development to be seen as either biased by how a religion is portrayed or to have included the religious aspect simply to get more media coverage of the game which what it has been accused of already. I still feel however, I just wonder how best to include it without falling victim to the above.

Sorry, to specify Scott, TVA was planned to have Gael Christianity(very different to modern) and Viking Age Norse Paganism, both of which are religions. In any sense it depends on the person who reads the term pagan and how much knowledge they have on the subject. Some people seem to see pagan and think that it means something similar to atheism which is totally inaccurate.

I'm not really sure why you don't believe Paganism constitutes a religion unless it is something to do with your own religious beliefs. I would use the term polytheism if it weren't for the fact it simply doesn't cover the full practices related to Norse mythology. Either way, Paganism is indeed a religion even if the term is somewhat vague.

Very true Johnwedd which is why the interface is very basic being more to to with intuitive controls than memorizing your entire keyboard. At present the controls are adaptive meaning that they reflect your current situation. I think I should point out they will be nothing like WoW if the mess of objects at the bottom of the screen is something you had though we had in mind?

As I said Philip we haven't released information on features we don't want people to know about just yet so you wouldn't be able to see them on any forums unless you are a member of the RC team. MMOs in general have one of the highest failure rates and there is a direct link between expanding technology and teams growing exponentially in size so that makes MMOs an even riskier venture considering the normal size of an MMO team anyway.

As I've said before its only some features of the game that wont be announced until we are more comfortable with the level of the production. Funnily enough I played Wurm for about a year or so and know all about its strong points and its flaws. It is its community itself that is one of the reason people stick with the game so long and so many vets who have sworn never to return are back in game in a matter of months. I was one of the most active in Wurm's S&I thread and had been closing up on pole position for post count, none of which was spam.

On the topic of Wurm it was on their forums that I was directed to a game that has far more similarities to TVA and if it ever comes to it would be a more direct competitor, the game being Roma Victor. I have already been in touch with one of their developers and I think we both share a mutual hope that the others product succeeds. So hopefully we will.

In The Viking Age religion had been one of the key elements of gameplay with Christianity and Paganism being the two options. Although not a religious war those who were followers of one religion generally couldn't benefit from 'buffs' of the other religion thus players would be tempted by others religions. However this system was removed from the GDD for fear that not only could this system appear biased for one religion which could cause some serious issues on release but that there were two opposing religions and people may end up taking this beyond the game itself.

So does everyone think that taking this element out of the game was the best idea and also any suggestions on how it might be able to remain in the game? My own thoughts were simply to do the obvious and rename the religions and alter them slightly but I have been accurate with everything else so far(even down to the flora which if you get to know the game you would know which herbs/plants/trees you can use to heal(or poison)people in real life). Any thoughts?

The funny thing is that that has been a major problem with other games. Take PotBS and VCO. There was a major issue between them with PotBS announcing cool new features and VCO, having already been released, simply taking them and adding them to their own game. Now take the fact that VCO is free to play and PotBS is aimed at retail and you'll see why the latter stopped announcing new features.

This wont be an issue once TVA is released but if a game is designed and its GDD released and some one releases an almost identical game before the original designer does well their studio can say goodbye to a large chunk of their player base. The above example also points out how a 'free' game implementing ideas taken from another game can hurt the latter, especially on release and especially as people will ask why should they pay for something when they can get almost the same thing free.

I don't think its wrong for games to borrow ideas from other games, especially if it will improve the quality of games out there. However studios behind 'original' games should know to keep something in reserve.

The GDD is currently over 14,000 words and much of the detail I would not wish discuss at the current stage of development for fear it would be simply stolen. I don't mind sharing ideas of course, I just don't want to give away all of the goodies. The same applies to the TDD. However, if you want to know anything about the development feel free to ask. :)

Team name:
Reality Check Team.

Project name
The Viking Age

Brief description:
The Viking Age is an SMORPG. The game is a realistic MMORPG set during the viking era some were between 700 to 1100 AD.Players will have access to such varied elements as crafting,combat,land and structure ownership,advanced pet system,ships and a whole range of resource collection from collecting milk from your cow(which will grow and get better)to felling trees,fishing from land or off your boat to hunting whales and setting traps.

As you can tell the game is heavily based on freedom.You might spend your days mining ores and then go fight only to find that the strength you got from mining lets you deal more damage in combat.You could take quests that will actually have an effect or you could simply wander out of were you start and never look back.Players can create everything in the game if they have trained their skills.There are no character classes,you get better at what you do,both in terms of those skills and attributes and those attributes can then affect other skills.

Remember always that the game is also based as much as possible on realism.There will be very little magic(mainly only in the Norse mythology and even then not in the way it is currently portrayed).Also a player will never be able to wander the lands slaying anything and everything.Partying will always be of great importance be it to hunt down the bear that attacked a farm,fighting off a viking raiding party or simply going whaling.

Target aim:
Retail (PC)

Compensation:
Compensation is based on profit sharing based on development input.

Target Platform:
PC

Technology:
Language: C++

APIs: DirectX & OpenGL

3D Engine: Ogre3D

Physics: ODE


Team structure:

Design Lead:
David

Project Manager:
Kazaa

Programming Lead:
Fevohib

3D Artists:
Manif(;)), Brian

Concept Lead:
Samuli

Music Lead:
Jaap

Community Forums:
http://thevikingage.proboards83.com/index.cgi

We currently have the following vacancies:
TECH TEAM(currently the most important)
Associate Programmers
Tools Programmer

ART TEAM
3D Environment Modeler
Texture Artist
Modelers and Animators

So if you're interested simply fill in an application forum here:
http://tva.kaystreet.net/forum/index.php

If you need to get in contact with me you can email me at whoateallthepie@hotmail.com which is where you can also get in contact with me on MSN. I look forward to your response. :)

By the way wasn't really too sure of the structure or where to post this thread so if theres any problems let me know so I can fix them as soon as possible,thanks.

Interestingly enough we only recently removed the religious element from our development fearing there might be some severe issues with a game containing elements of both Christianity and Paganism. Even the idea of balancing the abilities(no I'm not talking about spells here)of the different religions seemed something far too controversial. I assume there is a lead on the Concept Team already but I'm just interested in how the content is being reviewed to ensure people don't quote passages out of context or use inappropriate statements which may have deeper meaning?

I had spent a very long time designing a sophisticated semi twitch based combat system with a lot of intuitive controls for TVA. I then discovered Roma Victor and it appears that a lot of it has been done before which left me some what disappointed considering how long I had spent thinking it up. Still it was bound to happen in two quite similar productions. Well if you're still looking for an interesting combat system you should definitely check out how they handle it:
http://www.roma-victor.com/sotw/